this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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One thing to consider: They’ve had control of the DOJ for over a year and still haven’t successfully prosecuted any of Trump’s political enemies. And not for lack of trying. For lack of spine and/or competence. Compare to Putin’s Russia, where he can have your plane blown out of the sky if he doesn’t like you.
Yes, that’s true: the methods of oppression in the U.S. are still relatively subtle at the moment. However, that doesn’t change the fact that in the U.S., too, a tiny elite exploits the country while standing above the law - a point proven by the very fact that the current president is, in fact, president rather than serving a life sentence in prison.
What I’m getting at is this: It would be easier for this elite to switch to the Russian model. I consider it likely that they intend to do so, since the current regime demonstrates on a daily basis that the most serious crimes in the US always go unpunished - so why even maintain the facade when it’s already abundantly clear that the law simply doesn’t apply to the powerful elite?
It may be that the Trump administration could get away with just about any crime at this point. But to get away with something, you still have to do it first. Stealing elections is complicated, and surely takes some level of skill, organization, and work ethic to pull off. I just don’t think they have what it takes, and time is not on their side.
Presumably, Trump would be spearheading this effort. Look at how much time he spends thinking about the ballroom. Does he seem focused on the project of seizing the reigns of power permanently?
We’ll see. One thing, however, should be quite clear: it is very unlikely that the living conditions of U.S. citizens will improve significantly, even if the status quo is maintained. The system has already been infiltrated far too deeply for that to happen. The US will therefore remain an oligarchy one way or another - living conditions will continue to deteriorate until US citizens dismantle the system, which I consider virtually impossible. The only question, then, is whether the democracy charade will continue or not, because there is truly no democracy in the U.S. where the system serves the people. The current administration merely makes this clearer than its predecessors.
Manipulating an election while making it look proper free and fair is hard, yes. However, it does not require that much skill if you just want to overthrow it and don't care about the looks, it only needs the low, local levels of bureaucracy being controlled by loyal people willing to pervert the law for the leader and the top judicuary as well and the army to stay out of it. The administration has been working on that since the start. This alone might have been the only reason why Trump's coup against Biden failed. Back then he did not have that.
I think something people aren't quite realizing with the whole "weaponization fund" is that it's subtlety removing the jury from the criminal justice equation, which has so far been one of the primary reasons Trump has not been able to get any convictions against his enemies. It's subtle because it's doing it in the other direction first, but it send a very clear message that juries might no longer have the final say in determining guilt or innocence moving forward.
The president’s power to pardon federal crimes is already more akin to removing the jury from the criminal justice equation. He’s always had the ability to declare someone innocent. I don’t see how the weaponization fund advances him toward having the power to declare guilt.
That fund is just a way for Trump to give federal funds to anyone he wants. Knowing him, he’ll probably give most of it to himself, possibly indirectly; “You buy $750,000 of Trump Coin, I give you a million dollars.”
Because in this case he is specifically calling by the books jury trials "weaponization" and "lawfare." It's way beyond simple corruption, which he can do just fine with his various crypto and real estate scams, and the language is being chosen intentionally.
The pardon power is a constitutional one, but to disparage the entire criminal justice system like this is ripping the blindfold off Lady Justice in a plainly partisan and autocratic way. It's priming people for conditions which will ultimately undermine the process in both directions - letting him protect his allies and justify erosion of due process as somehow flawed or optional. He's already doing it with his deportation framework, in which people who have never been charged with any crime are being labeled "criminals" and denied due process.