80 Days to Save the World

100 Days In, There Is No Mystery About Where America Is Heading

There is nothing unique about what is happening to America. You can read the same tale over and over again throughout history. Almost always with the same tragic outcome.

The march of autocracy has a rhythm, an unmistakable drumbeat. Here we are, witnesses to another rewrite of the same tired plot, recycled with a new troop of carnival hucksters and small-time crooks leading us toward an abyss we seem powerless to stop.

But the truth is we have all the power in the world to stop it. It's not even our right – it's our constitutional duty. And we still have time.

Today marks 100 days of the Trump regime. When we normally grade a Presidential honeymoon period, this year there is nothing but a failing grade. Instead, the mood is funereal – democracy's demise unfolding in slow motion before our transfixed eyes.

By understanding how the same story repeats itself over and over again, we can predict its outcome. That's why we can make this alarming statement with certainty: We have less than 80 days to save the republic.

This isn't hyperbole. It's the story history tells us over and over again. From Hitler to Mussolini, Pinochet to Stalin, every successful authoritarian takeover follows a predictable timeline, and we are witnessing it unfold with terrifying precision.

Hitler secured emergency powers within 60 days of becoming Chancellor. By month six, German democracy was dead – opposition parties banned, press freedom eliminated, concentration camps established. The window to stop him had closed.

Mussolini's first six months saw fascist militias empowered, emergency powers enacted, and one-party rule secured. The democracy that existed before was unrecoverable.

The Trump regime is executing this playbook with precision. Each day brings another checked box on the authoritarian checklist: nationalizing police forces, weaponizing the DOJ against political opponents, deportations without due process, press suppression, judicial threats, normalized violence. And while autocracy marches on, the window for preserving democracy is closing.

Yet wherever I go, people ask the same question: "Who will stop this corrupt regime?"

There is only one factual answer: You.

The person in the mirror. The American whose dream is being methodically dismantled. The heir to Madison and Washington, Hamilton and Lincoln. You are democracy's last defense, and history has sought you out for this very moment. The same fountain that filled our forefathers' spirit, that sprang from the well of freedom, is the well you drink from today. Will you answer history’s call?

You don't have the luxury of saying, as Germans once did, "We didn't know what was happening." You see it. You witness the erosion of our democracy with every passing post on any social media feed in real time.

Hundreds of thousands of protestors flooded the streets of Istanbul this week.

Democracy doesn't collapse from dictatorial strength. It dies through defender inaction when the threat is clearest. Look at Turkey, Romania, and Georgia – where citizens are marching in their thousands to depose brutal dictatorships that could have been stopped earlier. We do not have to pay that price.

Trump is testing the limits of his power, and every time he finds success, he pushes further and further. The only answer is to push back against it all.

The next 80 days will determine whether America lives up to its true exceptionalism, or folds like other nations that surrendered their freedom, for the lure of money and lust.

When future generations ask what you did in this critical moment, what will your answer be? When your children study this era, will you tell them about your private outrage? They'll ask one question: "What did you actually do when democracy had 80 days left?"

Authoritarians count on your inaction, your resignation, your belief that someone else will solve this problem. They are counting on your silence.

But what tyrants fear most is a populace that understands what's at stake and won’t back down.

Generations of Americans are waiting for you to answer the call of history. Drink from the font of freedom before they sap the last drop.

Time is ticking. What side of history will you be on?

80 days.