Trump kept his promise: dictator on Day One

Democrats who said they would "wait and see" or "work with Trump" on this or that issue look like fools. Hopefully, the past 24 hours will wake them up.

For weeks we had some Democrats claiming they wanted to see what Trump planned to do before making judgments, a few of them even vowing to “work with” Trump on various issues. It’s hard to believe that they thought anything positive could come from a man who was impeached twice, incited a violent insurrection, and tried to overturn an election.

In fairness, it’s by far not all Democrats. House members like Reps. Robert Garcia, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, and others have been hitting Trump and MAGA hard. Senators Chris Murphy, Brian Schatz, Sheldon Whitehouse and others in the Senate have been sounding the alarm since the election, and many Democratic senators, from Tammy Duckworth to Elizabeth Warren, forcefully took on his nominees for the Cabinet in hearings.

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But too many have caved to Trump, allowing for the advancement of the odious Laken Riley Act before he even took office—something that many of Democrats now realize they bungled:

Those Democratic lawmakers have likened the handling of the bill to a disorganized retreat and warn it has sparked deep frustration in a caucus still stung from the loss of their majority in November.

“There is huge frustration that the bill didn’t go to committee on something so consequential,” fumed one Democratic senator who requested anonymity to discuss the intense debate that rocked the caucus.

And now, within hours of being sworn in yesterday, Trump is keeping the promise he made that he would be a dictator on Day One.

He granted clemency to all of the nearly 1600 January 6th insurrectionists, pardoning most of them while commuting the sentences of 14 members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Violent white supremacist thugs who bludgeoned police officers were released, free to now engage in more crimes on behalf of Trump, who’s federal law enforcement agencies surely won’t be tracking them or bringing charges again.

This shows that in the MAGA civil war, Steve Bannon and the hardcore MAGA are getting what they want—at least on this issue—even as Bannon was nowhere to be seen at the elite billionaire’s club in the Rotunda for the inauguration, which some saw as a sign that Elon Musk was getting the last laugh.

I wrote just last week in covering the MAGA civil war that JD Vance told Fox News that those January 6th prisoners who engaged in violence “obviously” would not be pardoned, and it caused an avalanche of attacks against him on social media from MAGA. He had to respond, but even his response came under heated assault as insufficient when he clarified that only those who had a “garbage trial” would be pardoned. Of course, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of all of them, bowing to those who told Vance that every one of them got a “garbage trial.”

This tells us that JD Vance is clearly not in the loop, sidelined already by Trump, and that the MAGA insurrectionists were a priority for Trump. So is prosecuting his perceived enemies: Trump, in another speech to elite donors following his inaugural speech, attacked President Biden for preemptively pardoning Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former Joint Chiefs chairman, Mark Miley; the entire January 6th Committee and their staffs; and the police officers who testified before the January 6th Committee.

Trump whined on about how Milley and Cheney committed crimes—complete lies—and you just know he was planning prosecutions. Dictator on Day One.

The January 6th insurrectionists’ pardons were just the tip of the iceberg. Trump, in the Capitol One Arena, putting on a show for the television cameras, signed dozens of executive orders into the night.

He pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords again, signed orders barring immigrants from applying for asylum under humanitarian parole, and declared an emergency at the southern border. He froze hiring of federal workers and said there would be 25% tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada, with more tariffs coming for imports from all countries.

Trump also signed orders attempting to end birthright citizenship, killing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the government, and declaring there are only two genders and they are “unchangeable.”

There are many more he signed, and surely dozens more coming. Many of these may not hold up in court—like ending birthright citizenship or declaring gender “unchangable”—but the show of force is his point. He wants to convey that he can and will do anything, and you just try to stop him.

That’s where Democrats need to say we will stop you, and drop this bipartisan bullshit that Senator Chuck Schumer got roasted for on Bluesky last night. I’m not saying this just because it’s the right thing to do. This ridiculous notion that some have had—that trying to “work with” Trump will get them some mythical voters they lost—is terribly foolish. They have much more to lose in depressing their loyal and organized base—everywhere in the country—who they will need next year for the 2026 midterms.

The good news is that, yes, the midterms are next year. Republicans have a tiny majority in the House. The Senate may be tougher, but Democrats in 2018, 2020 and 2022 showed that opposition to Trump’s radical agenda and the fight for abortion rights galvanized Democrats. And particularly when Trump is not on the ballot, bringing out the low-propensity and low-information voters, Republicans lose in a big way running on Trump’s extremist agenda.

But Democrats have got to move fast, because there’s so much despair among the base, which can often lead to complacency. Democrats have got to show America that they will be the defenders of freedom and that people have a stake in getting out to vote against this tyrannical new administration.