An authoritarian president consolidates executive power by weakening democratic checks and balances, often suppressing opposition, attacking independent media, and using state institutions for personal or political agendas. Such leaders prioritize centralized control, frequently challenging constitutional norms and, in competitive systems, eroding democratic processes from within.
Editor’s Note: These videos are from last year, but explain how the Trump administration has set about creating a database with centralized detailed information on all Americans so they can control it. The history of the idea of total control by some proponents, including some Congressional members, goes back to Trump’s first presidency, and even further, as Greenwald discusses.
Databases regarding immigration already exist and are being used. They don’t even hide their attempts to centralize data anymore by hiding behind slippery words. In Minnesota they have said they will remove all the ICE Gestapo in Minnesota if Gov. Walz and state officials turn over the whole state’s voter rolls, Trump might be calling it “making a deal” but I call it extortion.* Gov. Walz refused of course. So although as a panacea they have removed 700 ICE enforcers from Minnesota, we still have a minimum of 2000 in the state.
It’s similar to extortion of the colleges and universities by threatening to withdraw federal funds unless their administrations ordered attacks on and punished students who were protesting the genocide in Palestine.
Most recently:
President Donald Trump’s reported effort to hold a giant infrastructure project hostage unless he gets to rename Washington-Dulles International Airport and New York’s Penn Station after himself has halted construction effected the jobs of thousands of construction workers.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unblock the funding while the various lawsuits over the project continue.
*Extortion. Definition:
Using threats, intimidation, or coercion (including violence, property damage, or business harm) to force someone to give money, property, or perform an act. (Google AI)
Palantir EXPOSED: The New Deep State
The TRUTH About Palantir CEO Alex Karp
RELATED
Palantir C.E.O. Alex Karp Defends Aiding Trump’s
Immigration Policies
Wings of Change is entirely reader supported.
Wings invites you to subscribe.
Join us on Wings of Change
In this critical time hearing voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media.
Join us on Wings of Change. We still have much work to continue to do as many activists and organizations address current threats to our democracy and unjust actions against people of color and activists and make plans for the upcoming years. Wings of Change is pleased and excited to be a part of that work through education, information, and inspiration. Here in Minnesota we are particularly targeted by the Trump regime with ICE immigrant law enforcement illegally arresting and deporting our neighbors who are people of color.
Access is always free, but if you would like to help:
A donation of $25 or whatever you can donate will bring you articles and opinions from independent websites, writers, and journalists as well as a blog with the opinions and creative contributions by myself and others.
Sue Ann Martinson, Editor 
“We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions
to participate in the process of change.
Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,
can transform the world.”
— Howard Zinn