Democratic institutions are being systematically hollowed out, replaced with performance and propaganda while actual power consolidates behind closed doors.
🏛️ Senate Theater While China Wins
The Senate passed three resolutions this week opposing Trump’s tariffs—51-47 against global tariffs, 50-46 on Canada, 52-48 on Brazil. Four Republicans crossed party lines in each vote: Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. The headlines wrote themselves about bipartisan pushback and cracks in Republican unity.
But the House enacted rules blocking these resolutions from ever reaching the floor. Trump’s tariffs remain fully in force. The votes were theater—carefully staged resistance that changes nothing.
While senators performed their constitutional duties for the cameras, analysts assessed Trump’s Beijing summit with Xi Jinping. The verdict was unanimous: China won decisively. Beijing secured immediate tariff rollbacks and suspended rare earth export controls without making a single structural concession on intellectual property, forced technology transfer, or Taiwan. Trump received publicity around soybean purchases and fentanyl cooperation—talking points for farm country ahead of 2026. Both leaders declared victory, but only one side extracted concrete gains.
The juxtaposition reveals how power actually works now. Congress stages symbolic votes while Trump hands authoritarian allies what they want. American consumers pay 47 percent more for Chinese goods nearly a year into these tariffs, and the Supreme Court hasn’t even ruled on whether Trump had legal authority to impose them. If the Court strikes down the tariffs, the trillions collected become an accounting nightmare—how do you rebate tariffs incorrectly charged to every American?
⚔️ DOGE Seizes Military Control
But the tariff theater obscures something more dangerous. Trump’s DOGE unit, which came top life under Elon Musk, is executing a military takeover in plain sight. DOGE now controls the Pentagon’s drone overhaul, bypassing traditional procurement to acquire 30,000 drones. Separately, Rear Admiral Kurt Rothenhaus—a decorated officer who oversaw billions in naval research funding—was removed and replaced by Rachel Riley, a 33-year-old former DOGE employee and McKinsey partner with no naval experience. Riley previously pushed for mass layoffs of 8,000 HHS employees before being moved to control naval research.
Senator Mark Kelly, a former naval aviator, called the appointment “highly unorthodox.” That understates what’s happening. The Office of Naval Research, created by Congress in 1946, has historically been led by senior military officers with extensive experience in technology, science, and engineering. Now a civilian political operative controls billions in military research funding and weapons procurement. This isn’t efficiency—it’s the systematic replacement of military expertise with personal loyalty.
🔒 Democrats Locked Out of War Briefings
The military purge extends to information control. The Trump administration held a Republicans-only briefing on U.S. strikes near Venezuela that killed nearly 60 people. Democrats were systematically excluded from discussions about military operations that have resulted in at least 61 deaths across 14 known strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific over two months. Senator Mark Warner warned this politicizes military decision-making and eliminates congressional oversight of escalating Caribbean operations.
When the opposition party loses access to information about ongoing military strikes, oversight becomes impossible. The bipartisan briefing system that survived previous administrations—including genuine national security crises—has been discarded. Congress can’t check what it can’t see.
📝 Erasing January 6 From History
The Justice Department, now under Jeanine Pirro’s control, is erasing January 6 from official records. Two federal prosecutors were placed on administrative leave after describing the January 6 crowd as a “mob of rioters” in a sentencing memo for Taylor Taranto, a Trump-pardoned insurrectionist later arrested near Barack Obama’s home with weapons. The DOJ replaced their memo with one that omits any reference to the Capitol attack or Trump’s role in inciting it. Prosecutors are being punished for stating facts in court documents. The written record is being rewritten in real time.
📱 Facial Recognition Deployed on Citizens
And the surveillance state is expanding onto American streets. Videos show ICE and Border Patrol agents using facial recognition technology called Mobile Fortify on people in public spaces, including minors, to “verify citizenship.” An agent in Chicago pointed a phone at a teenager’s face after the teen said he had no ID, then asked him to confirm his name. Technology once justified for border security now scans citizens without warrants, legislative authorization, or public debate.
🔴 The Pattern Is Clear
Day 283 connects: symbolic congressional votes that change nothing, military functions controlled by political operatives, opposition lawmakers locked out of war briefings, prosecutors punished for documenting violence, and facial recognition deployed on citizens. The pattern isn’t complicated. Democratic guardrails aren’t bending—they’re being systematically dismantled and replaced with mechanisms of authoritarian control.
The Senate can vote all it wants. But while they’re voting, actual power is being transferred to unelected loyalists, opposition oversight is being eliminated, history is being erased, and surveillance is expanding. Theater can’t stop what’s happening when the stage itself is burning.
Trump Tyranny Tracker airs Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7PM ET with Zev Shalev and Olga Lautman. Follow Olga’s essential daily tracking at Trump Tyranny Tracker on Substack. For more investigative reporting, visit Narativ.org.
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