This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 22 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
For 22 hours and 37 minutes, Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon stood on the Senate floor, without sleep, without sitting down, without bathroom breaks — all to focus the attention of the American people on the crisis facing this country.
Merkley, who turns 69 on Friday, delivered a clear message. He did not argue that we are “at risk” of sliding into authoritarianism. He did not say that Donald Trump has authoritarian “tendencies.” Or that we’re on the “verge” of authoritarianism. His message was that we are already there: Authoritarianism is here — and it is here now.
Trump has been blowing through the constitutional checks on his power more rapidly with each passing day.
“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells. We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War. President Trump is shredding our Constitution,” he said. “The authoritarian takeover is not down the street. It is not around the corner. We are in the middle of it, right now.”
For anyone who thinks that might sound alarmist or hyperbolic, it’s worth noting that Trump has been blowing through constitutional checks on his power more rapidly with each passing day.
In just the past week, we learned that Trump is reportedly demanding that the Justice Department pay him almost a quarter of a billion dollars at the expense of American taxpayers. We saw him illegally fire yet another independent government watchdog without notifying Congress. We’re seeing him allow the Pentagon to restrict the way its staff and personnel engage with Congress.
On Wednesday, we learned that Trump carried out his eighth extrajudicial strike on a boat that he claimed, without evidence, was smuggling drugs. No trial, no investigation, no attempt by the Coast Guard to intervene — just summarily executing people, guilty or not, because Trump said so.
If any of that was too subtle, this week the president began literally tearing apart the physical foundations of the executive branch — demolishing the entirety of the historic East Wing of the White House without consultation with any review agency, without consultation with the American people and against even his own promise not to do exactly this.
To me personally, this is an absolute gut-punch. Not just because of the history of the building and the hundreds of thousands of guests who have visited the People’s House and walked down the long hallway looking at the photos of former presidents and their families, but because Trump is only doing this because he is an insecure man-baby who wants a gaudy new ballroom that looks like a gilded event space from his club in Palm Beach, Fla., to boost his own fragile ego.
To paraphrase the president himself, nobody in our country has ever seen anything like this before. The kind of authoritarian power grab we’re seeing from Trump right now is an entirely new challenge. That means it will require an entirely new response.
Business as usual is not going to work. Strongly worded letters are not going to work. This moment is going to take new and creative forms of resistance from a broad swath of people to push back on it.
That is what elected officials like Merkley have tried to do. Luckily, he is not alone.
On Wednesday, we saw California Gov. Gavin Newsom send a clear message about what the National Guard is supposed to be used for, announcing that he is deploying his state’s forces, not to crack down on peaceful dissent like Trump, but to support local food banks that are seeing a spike in demand after the government shutdown cut access to critical food assistance.
On Tuesday, we saw Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sue Congress to stop Trump and his allies from preventing a duly elected Democratic representative from being sworn in to do the job she was elected to do. It’s a case that could be precedent-setting and could prevent House Speaker Mike Johnson from delaying swearing in future members of Congress just over a year from now, after the midterm elections.
Also on Wednesday, we saw two former deputies to special counsel Jack Smith announce that they are not joining law firms that made deals with Trump. Instead, they’ve started their own, where they aim to assist “state and local law enforcers who want to be more aggressive in investigating public officials suspected of abusing their positions for personal gain.” Now, each of these acts of defiance is small on its own, and it’s unlikely that any single one will be a game-changer overnight, but taken together, the acts start to add up and become real pushback. And not every action has to be a sweeping, headline-grabbing spectacle or come from an elected official. In Chicago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have started arresting tamale vendors whom they suspect of being undocumented. In response, a brigade of cyclists started riding around to the vendors across the city and buying up their entire supply of tamales so that they could avoid getting snatched by ICE and still make a living. Another group in Chicago has been passing out whistles to community members so that they can alert their neighbors whenever ICE shows up. In a moment when it’s hard to know exactly what to do, the only answer is to do something — to try anything and everything. In Portland — the city that Trump has tried to claim is overrun with violent and dangerous protesters — a couple decided to hold their wedding outside an ICE facility, with the bride, the groom and all the guests dressed in wacky inflatable costumes to demonstrate the joy and whimsy of that city’s peaceful demonstrations. On Tuesday in North Carolina, people showed up in droves to protest the Trump-backed plan to redraw that state’s congressional maps. Protests and activism in Indiana and Missouri have been making it harder for Republicans to go through with their redistricting plans in those states, as well. In New York’s Chinatown, local citizens surrounded ICE officials in an impromptu protest, as agents conducted a surprise raid on the neighborhood’s street vendors. And of course, this past weekend we saw, according to estimates from organizers, 7 million people across the country turn out to protest this administration — not just in big cities, but in tons of smaller communities. The lesson here is that, in a moment when it’s hard to know exactly what to do, the only answer is to do something — to try anything and everything. That is the lesson that compelled Merkley to hold the floor of the U.S. Senate for 22 hours and 37 minutes.
Jen Psaki is the host of "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" airing Tuesdays through Fridays at 9 p.m. EST. She is the former White House press secretary for President Joe Biden.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
Latest Post
Recommended
