Be Prepared
Fair Warning
Many years ago I was a Boy Scout for a short while until I discovered things beyond earning merit badges and, instead, became caught up in the excitement of our changing world in the late ‘60s. Despite my brief and undistinguished Scout career, I have always followed the Scouts’ guiding principle. “Be Prepared.” Its founder, Lieut. Gen. Baden Powell C.B., described what it means to “Be Prepared” in Scouting for Boys (1908):
“Be Prepared in Mind by having disciplined yourself to be obedient to every order, and also by having thought out beforehand any accident or situation that might occur, so that you know the right thing to do at the right moment, and are willing to do it.
Be Prepared in Body by making yourself strong and active and able to do the right thing at the right moment, and do it.”
Boy Scout or not, this simple directive is not so easy to follow as you don’t always know what to prepare for at the “right moment.” There are unknowable situations, acts of God, freakish accidents that you can’t prepare for to meet the moment. Sadly, the Camp Mystic tragedy in Kerr County, Texas was one of those unknowable events to at least 30 young 8 and 9 year old girls, and their counselors, as well as 100 more who perished when Guadalupe River water levels rapidly rose 26 feet in less than a hour flooding the Hill Country. There, the victims could not prepare because they didn’t have fair warning before being swept away in a flood of biblical intensity. The victims were unprepared because there was no one to warn them due to the deadly storm of Trump which fatally degraded federal agencies by his administration’s workforce reductions leaving no one to send out the alarms. And people died.
I offer this as a parable for the oncoming disaster which we are not truly prepared for, although we have received ample warnings. The midterms.
As I and others have previously written, America is in a post-constitutional and post-democracy world. All the structural guardrails that were built into the Constitution have been smashed and the wreckage has been normalized by nearly half the country. Millions can march and protest. And they have. Current poll numbers show a net disapproval rating for Trump in 38 states, with his overall net approval at -15% and 55% who disapprove.1 This includes red state stalwarts like Utah, Mississippi, South Dakota and Missouri. While the Epstein scandal dominating the news cycles contributed to these awful poll numbers, Trump is underwater on every issue he campaigned and won on, including his handling of immigration. On inflation, The Economist reports Trump’s handling is at almost -30%.2
All this and more should be good news for Democrats. But a new poll shows Democrats in Congress are getting scorched at a 27% approval rating, their lowest since 2011.3 The Congressional polls are head scratching numbers, especially considering the passage of the One Big Beautiful Tax bill which squeaked by with the vote of the Very Creepy Veepy and polls at a net disapproval of -18%.
In the meantime, for a while the lower courts seemed like the last meaningful bulwark against Trump’s lawlessness. Since Trump’s inauguration, he has issued 170 Executive Orders, many of which have led to law suits and court orders enjoining the EOs. Trump’s government lawyers selectively filed 15 emergency applications to the Supreme Court challenging lower court orders. According to Stephen Vladeck, Georgetown University Law Center professor and author of the Shadow Docket, the Court granted all 15 applications, and in seven rulings did not provide any explanation whatsoever for its decisions, including the downsizing of the Department of Education and the removal of migrants, most who have no criminal history, to third-countries. In normal Court times the Supreme Court “would only get maybe a handful of these kinds of rulings every term,” Vladeck said. But now, according to Vladeck, “We’ve seen a remarkable and unprecedented uptick in the volume since President Trump came to office in January and since many of his actions ran into trouble in the lower courts.” And worse, the Court is blocking the orders “Trump is asking it to block, and it's not telling us why,” Vladeck said. He explained not telling us why leaves everyone completely in the dark and without any guidance as to “whether what's happening is legal and lower courts are left not knowing whether they should proceed and whether they should block similar actions by the Trump administration.”4 It is a deliberate obfuscation by the Supreme Court that effectively disables the legal system which requires that everyone know what the rules are and enables Trump to keep up his lawless attack on our democracy. Remember, this is the Supreme Court that gave Trump complete immunity from prosecution, a ridiculous proposition anywhere except a monarchy or autocracy.
So to summarize, we have a President who is lawless, historically unpopular, still facing legal peril despite the immunity ruling, rules by lies, unlawful threats of prosecution and persecution, while disappearing thousands from the streets, and is reportedly enraged and terrified at his current predicament. There are even stories now percolating that the Very Creepy Veepy is conspiring with Rupert Murdoch using the 25th Amendment to stage a coup and remove Trump.
Even without engaging in a coup fantasy, the news for Trump and his GOP enablers is simply not good. And putting aside the shit show from the Democratic party and its leadership, voter anger is a powerful motivator, and there is plenty of anger among voters, including from voters who supported Trump in 2024. On the canary in the coal mine question of the direction of the country, wrong direction wins with 53.7% of voters, and has a net disapproval of -12.4%.5
All of us should be giddy with joy and rubbing our hands at the opportunity to sweep away all the baddies in a Blue Tsunami in November 2026. And I’m one of them, though cautiously optimistic this far out.
Section 1 to the 20th Amendment of the Constitution provides that the terms of Senators and Representatives shall end at noon on the 3d day of January, and the terms of their successors shall begin at the same time. For the 120th Congress coming up, mark your calendars for noon on January 3, 2027 to start your celebratory drinking and old fashioned huzzahs. Or maybe, not so fast.
Let me pose this scenario as a question. At noon on January 3, 2027, does anyone think Mike Johnson will hand over the Speaker’s gavel to Hakeem Jeffries? Does anyone think Trump will not have ordered his obedient lap dog Johnson to refuse to hand over the gavel after he has declared the midterm election results a product of fraud? As I write this, Trump’s Department of Justice has sent letters to all 50 states about their compliance with federal voting laws, a concerning move to Justin Levitt, a constitutional law scholar and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Civil Rights division, told Democracy Docket because,“Most of the letters are very vague about why the DOJ is asking for this data.”6
Should we be alarmed? Hell, yes. This is not some fevered nightmare of mine. We have been warned. If the GOP loses enough seats in the Senate and/or House to shift power back to the Democrats there will be a created constitutional crisis on January 3, 2027 where the elected Senators and Representatives will not be sworn in and seated. Instead, if they try, Trump might have them arrested. But before then, if it looks like a Blue Tsunami, Trump may even take a page from Hitler’s playbook and, while he still has a compliant Congress, pass a law like Adolph’s Enabling Act in 19337 that allows the Trump to make and enforce laws without the consent and involvement of Congress. Under Johnson’s leadership the House has already ceded the power of the purse to Trump, and with the aid of the Supreme Court has allowed Trump to expand the powers of the president to previously unthinkable edges. Trump always plays the long game to delay any consequences, in this case a Congress that will investigate his administration’s criminal and unconstitutional conduct and maybe this time impeach and convict him. But are we prepared?
It is well accepted in recent years autocracies have been on the rise, while the number of people living with democratic rights have declined. Bastian Herre, writing in Our World in Data, wrote about this decline, supported by lots of data, metrics and charts. It’s worth a look. About his basic conclusion, he wrote:
“Democracy is in decline, whether we look at big changes in the number of democracies and the people living in them; at small changes in the extent of democratic rights; or at medium-sized changes in the number of, and people living in, countries that are autocratizing.”8
There are fewer democratic countries than there were a short time ago. More people, billions more, are living with less rights in that time. Herre writes, the number of liberal democracies has fallen from 45 countries in 2009 to 29 in 2024. As for the United States, in 2022 Freedom House published a study that, among other findings, found the United States had fallen behind its traditional peers in key democratic indicators by calling into question the legitimacy of its elections, corrupt political influences, and the mistreatment of minorities.9 And, this was all before Trump’s restoration in 2025 and the dismantling of our democratic guardrails.
Looking for a silver lining Herre reminded us that the extent of autocracies throughout history has ebbed and flowed. But most of his support for suggesting this might happen again is a bit optimistic, especially given the rise and power of social media that creates false narratives reaching millions of people without filters. That and the global interconnectedness of powerful elites with vast wealth never before seen who are part of and control the autocratic state.
So, what can we do in America? Are we different than illiberal countries in other parts of the world? I think we are, and we can still effect positive change. But we are at a breaking point if the most unpopular president in our history and his henchmen can solidify the unconstitutional and autocratic changes that are occurring right this moment. We are at that moment the Boy Scouts taught us to be prepared for. We have been warned of the deadly flood. In fact, we are in its midst, being dragged farther away from safety and dry land by the strength of its currents. We must act now and not wait for the midterms to save us. By then it might be too late.
https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker.
https://thehill.com/homenews/5379402-gop-congress-approval-poll/
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/15/nx-s1-5467736/the-supreme-courts-majority-has-been-issuing-some-rulings-with-no-written-opinion.
https://realclearpolling.com.
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/doj-is-said-to-plan-to-contact-all-50-states-on-voting-systems/.
https://ourworldindata.org/less-democratic#article-citation.
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2022/global-expansion-authoritarian-rule.