Rachel Maddow Calls Out Trump's Authoritarian Moves
🔥 Full coverage and conversation on Politics
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow says Americans no longer have to fear potential authoritarianism in their own country, because 'we are there' already — and cited President Donald Trump 's widespread immigration raids, detainments without probable cause, and use of military force.
'We have crossed a line,' she said on The Rachel Maddow Show, Monday. 'We are in a place we did not want to be, but we are there. The thing we were all warning about for the last few years is not coming, it is here. We are in it. This is what [it's] like, it turns out.'
Maddow argued that large swaths of the country might easily overlook this downward slide, as movies are still being produced, sports continue to be played, and families are still discussing the same old issues they always have around their kitchen table each night.
'But also, at the same time, life in the United States is profoundly changing,' Maddow added Monday. 'It's profoundly different than it was even six months ago, because we do now live in a country that has an authoritarian leader in charge.'
She then put it even more bluntly: 'We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country.'
While the MSNBC host went on to acknowledge that this might sound 'melodramatic,' Maddow noted the US now seems to have its own 'secret police,' which is commonplace across dictatorships, in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under Trump.
'A massive, anonymous, unbadged — literally masked — totally unaccountable internal police force that apparently has infinite funding but no identifiable leadership,' said Maddow. 'And they act in ways designed to instill maximum fear and use maximum force.'
Maddow continued: 'I mean, when you imagine an authoritarian country, what you imagine is masked secret police breaking people's car windows and snatching people off the streets and out of church parking lots and courtroom hallways and taking them away with no charges, no notice, no paperwork, no explanation, not letting them see lawyers and then moving them secretly to what are effectively black site prisons where they won't tell you who's there and where no one's allowed in to see what's going on.'
Experts have already warned that one such prison, Florida's immigrant detention camp that Republicans have dubbed ' Alligator Alcatraz,' is 'a human rights disaster waiting to happen.' Democratic lawmakers initially blocked from visiting were finally granted access last month and confirmed its horrid conditions.
The president has justified nationwide crackdowns on undocumented workers, as well as the detainment, arrest, and deportation of college students and professors across the US, as necessary protection against supposedly violent and anti-American immigrants.
Maddow argued it won't stop there, however, and that the US military in multiple states has already 'extended the legal boundaries of nearby military bases' by hundreds of miles 'so they can give active duty US troops the power to arrest and search people on US soil.'
'We are not heading toward something like this,' Maddow said Monday. 'We are there. It is here. It is the environment in which we are now living. And so, given that you now live in a country with an authoritarian leader, the question is: What can you do for your country?'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
18 minutes ago
- The Hill
Kamala Harris stumbles right out of the gate
It might be the only thing Team Biden got right politically — the slow-motion trainwreck that is Kamala Harris and her political operation. The Harris disaster is history in the making. Never before has a putative presidential campaign failed so badly in getting anything right. Harris should be dominant in the Democratic Party. She entered the post-Biden world with strong approval among Democrats, sky-high name recognition and the benefit of 95 percent of Democrats having voted for her in 2024. Plus, she had a built-in excuse for losing — the colossal unpopularity of Joe Biden was clearly a drag for her and rocket fuel for President Trump. But Harris and her team have squandered these advantages in record time. They have demonstrated no coherent plan and no political sense. They don't appear to have any allies in the media or the punditry. Her brief flirtation with running for governor of California is emblematic of her incoherence. Running for major office is not like buying a used car. You either want it or you don't. If Harris truly wanted to plant herself in California and be governor, her pause to 'consider' running would have been a delaying tactic to plan her announcement and her campaign. Instead, it appears that dropping out of sight was her way of preparing to announce basically nothing. She isn't going to run for governor and she is going to release a book about her campaign — not now, but later. On top of that, her 'media tour' has consisted of going on the soon-to-be-out-of-work Stephen Colbert, where she was at her word salad worst. Not only did she have no message, but she whiffed on a series of softball questions so badly that it can only encourage every other Democratic hopeful. The very fact that Colbert had to ask her who is leading the Democrats was insulting — as the immediate previous nominee, it's supposed to be her. But her non-answer made things worse. Any decent politician would have found a way to maneuver Colbert to declare Harris the leader. Compounding matters, she expressed her disappointment that there has not been enough opposition to Trump. Does Harris realize she just called herself out for being weak and absent? Trump's disapproval rating among Democrats is 93 percent. Yet Harris just declared herself AWOL. The big problem for Harris is the same problem Joe Biden faced after his disastrous debate in June 2024: It's not so much the current moment that is the problem — it's the future. With Biden, there was no chance he could have made it through the campaign — debates, public appearances, speeches. With Harris it is the same thing. She has shown no improvement despite ample experience. She remains unprepared, terrible off-the-cuff, and utterly without original ideas. What could possibly change? And clearly, the people who saw Harris up close when she was Vice President figured this out. In my view, one of the great unreported stories from the Biden Administration is the tryout Team Biden gave Pete Buttigieg during the 2022 midterms to replace Kamala Harris — not necessarily as Vice President, but as the heir-apparent to lead the Democratic Party. Never before had a Secretary of Transportation been so visible and a vice president so invisible during the midterms. Too bad for Buttigieg that he mostly flopped or at least failed to catch fire. But what really showed that Harris is not ready for prime time was her presidential campaign. With the nomination dropped in her lap, she completely choked on the two most critical decisions. First, she chose as her running mate perhaps the only Democratic politician more inept than herself. Tim Walz brought nothing to the ticket — not even Minnesota, which was closer in 2024 than it had been in 2020. Harris could have picked Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a much better vote-getter than Walz, but the howls from the most leftist parts of the party were too loud. Second, she failed to break with Biden. All the polling in the summer was terrible for the president. His favorables were way underwater and his rating on inflation (the top issue) was disastrous. In an environment very hostile to the incumbent, Harris needed to make a break and present herself as something new. But again, she choked. And this is what will sink any chance she ever had of becoming the nominee for a second time. Harris is just not a risk-taker. She is petrified of angering any part of the squabbling Democratic Party, even the much-discredited Biden and his hangers-on. She crumbles in the face of any loud faction and tries to please everyone while saying nothing. Harris has missed the moment. By not breaking with Biden, she threw away her chance to win in 2024. As she stumbles around trying to figure out what to do, other Democrats are charging forward, making their own plans. Nobody is intimidated by her. Even the Biden inner circle — who should be cast out of Democratic politics permanently — have threatened to sink her if she dares criticize them. The nerve of Team Biden is pretty incredible. Even after an avalanche of books ripping Biden's White House staff to shreds, they have no qualms about threatening Harris. And, of course, Harris dutifully defended Biden in her Colbert interview. Pathetic. The true test for any politician is to work without a net. Kamala Harris has proven not only that she cannot work without a net, but also that she can barely crawl forward.
Axios
18 minutes ago
- Axios
Building bipartisan policies in Austin
A nonprofit that helped pass a gun safety education law in Tennessee is headed to Texas with the goal of bridging political divides. Why it matters: Republicans have a tight grip on the state House and Senate, and Texas is not known for bipartisan policymaking. How it works: Builders, the nonpartisan nonprofit, is bringing its Citizen Solutions initiative this fall. The nonprofit was co-founded by Daniel Lubetzky, who also founded KIND Snacks. It will assemble residents from across the state and political spectrum to discuss health care policy. The aim is to come up with practical policy proposals for the Texas Legislature. What they're saying:"A lot of the issues that our country is dealing with, Texas is dealing with," Lubetzky tells Axios. The latest: Builders last week released polling that highlighted areas in which Democratic, Republican and independent Texans agree, including allowing pharmacists to test and treat common illnesses and requiring employers to contribute to their employees' child care costs. Zoom in: The nonprofit also released polling of Travis County residents. 87% of Travis County residents polled support spending money on modernizing and maintaining the local electric grid to make it more weather-resilient, even if it slightly increases utility rates in the short term. 74% support the Austin Police Department prioritizing the creation and implementation of a recruiting plan to fill police officer vacancies. 61% support the use of automated license plate recognition cameras to allow police to detect stolen vehicles and other criminal activity. Reality check: Polling is one thing; politics is another. In June, the city of Austin shut down a license plate camera program over fears the surveillance technology could be used to track immigrants or Texans seeking abortions. The intrigue: Last year, Lubetzky contributed $160,000 to the campaign of Jeremy Sylestine, who framed himself as a moderate in his unsuccessful Democratic primary bid to unseat Travis County district attorney José Garza.
Axios
18 minutes ago
- Axios
Blackburn reshapes 2026 race for Tennessee governor
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn stomped into the Tennessee governor's race Wednesday and quickly assembled an army of support featuring many of the state's top Republicans. Why it matters: Blackburn is a titan of Tennessee politics and she instantly became the front-runner in the Republican primary field, which also includes U.S. Rep. John Rose. Flashback: Scuttlebutt surrounding Blackburn's run began late last year when she placed a statewide television ad. Some insiders guessed it would be the announcement that she was running for governor. The ad turned out to be Blackburn wishing everyone a merry Christmas. The intrigue: Even after Axios first reported in January that Blackburn was pondering a run, some insiders were skeptical. They viewed a U.S. Senate seat as such a desirable and hard-to-earn job that Blackburn would keep it until the end of her political career. Others factored in her loyalty to President Trump, and surmised she would want to help advance his MAGA agenda in the Senate. In her Trump-heavy announcement video, Blackburn framed her run for governor as an effort to support the MAGA movement at the state level. Between the lines: The aftermath of Blackburn's announcement underscored her clout in GOP circles. U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, state Sen. Jack Johnson and state Rep. William Lamberth were among the many Republicans who rushed to endorse her. Zoom in: Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs also reiterated his support for Blackburn. Jacobs is viewed as a likely candidate for statewide office, and in an alternate reality he might be entering the race himself instead of backing Blackburn. "[Blackburn] has a proven record of defending Tennessee conservative values, and exactly one year from today, I will proudly cast my vote for her to be our 51st Governor," Jacobs posted on X. Zoom out: Blackburn, 73, has been a familiar face in the Nashville area for years. She's from Brentwood and served as the head of the state film and entertainment commission. Blackburn's public persona was forged by the success of the early 2000s fight to bar a state income tax. She served in the state Senate before running for the District 7 U.S. House seat, which she held for 16 years. She won her Senate race in 2018 by defeating the popular former Gov. Phil Bredesen in the general. She cruised to reelection last year against one of Tennessee's top Democrats, state Rep. Gloria Johnson. What we're watching: A viable Democratic candidate has yet to enter the race. With the primary election one year away, now's the time when contenders would pursue a campaign.
