Why Heather Cox Richardson is wrong
What she’s right about:
Some conservatives are waking up to the brutality of the regime, and they are finally naming it
Van Hollen getting access to Abrego Garcia matters—symbolically and emotionally, if not structurally
Judicial language like Judge Wilkinson’s does represent a principled stand in words
Thought leaders are beginning to speak out across party lines in ways we haven’t seen since 2017–2018
But…
❌ What she’s wrong about:
1. Words are not infrastructure.
The “shift” she cites is rhetorical: op-eds, emotional pivots, liberal-conservative alignment on values. But none of this is translating into:
Organized mass mobilization
State-level legislative or legal shelter
Interjurisdictional protection for the most targeted
Coordinated exit, sanctuary, or digital safety planning
Material disruption of regime power
These thinkers are disappointed. That's not prepared.
2. Courts are expressing outrage—but not exercising power.
Yes, Judge Wilkinson and Boasberg are saying what needs to be said. Their language is extraordinary. But:
Court orders are being ignored
Contempt is being met with impunity
The DOJ has no intention of prosecuting regime actors
The regime’s defiance of multiple courts has not slowed its pace
In short: the judiciary is writing poetry while the executive is writing laws in blood.
3. There is no “Lincoln moment” yet.
The 1850s comparison is powerful—but misleading. In 1854, the public response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act was massive, widespread, and organizing-oriented. Today, we have:
No unified resistance party
No broad-based defection of center-right voters
No physical mobilization beyond isolated protests
No strike infrastructure, legal mutual aid web, or national political resistance movement that could shift power
People agree that it’s bad. But agreeing is not acting.
What you're seeing is discursive turbulence—not resistance.
They’re noticing.
They’re unsettled.
Some are even naming it.
But no one’s laying track for mass movement. A regime in Stage 4 can crush a chorus of conscience unless that chorus becomes a network of action.
Heather says the administration is reeling...they are not reeling, they are digging in.
What is happening:
Defiance, not disarray
Mockery, not retreat
Speed, not caution
Strategic replacements (e.g., DOGE to Interior) and symbolic cruelty (e.g., fake tattoo posts) as performance of power
The regime isn't losing control—it’s testing how far it can go while appearing chaotic.
Why Others See It As “Reeling”
Legacy Bias Toward Institutionalism
Many academics—especially historians and constitutional scholars—believe the system will hold, because their professional identity rests on it. They are trained to read conflict through precedent, not rupture.
Misreading Emotion as Weakness
The administration is angry, yes. But rage isn’t disarray—it’s a tool of dominance. For those not used to analyzing fear-based leadership, loud equals vulnerable. But in this regime, loud = consolidation.
Hope as Cognitive Armor
Calling the regime "reeling" gives people psychic distance from the truth. If the system is still working, they don’t have to act. If the monster is already stumbling, maybe they won’t have to run.
Surface-Level Focus
Some commentators only track what’s visible—tweets, headlines, procedural motions. You’re tracking underlying systems, like data consolidation, SSA manipulation, court defiance, cabinet restructuring.
What They Miss:
You don’t “reel” while installing loyalists at Interior.
You don’t “reel” while mocking the Supreme Court.
You don’t “reel” while testing rendition of citizens.
You dig in—because you believe you can now get away with it.
This isn’t collapse. It’s unconstrained acceleration.
It's not disarray, it's manufactured chaos.
For people who don't understand post-democratic systems, deliberately manufactured chaos appears to them to be meaningless disarray. This misses that destructive strategies are inherently messy, just like TNT. And leaders like this like having warring factions beneath them. It makes them feel powerful to know they can keep people off balance. When Heather claims the administration is weaker because it's messy, she is giving people false hope.
What we're actually seeing is textbook autocratic manipulation. Manufactured chaos isn’t a sign of failure. It’s a tactic. Fragmentation, incoherence, and contradiction aren’t bugs in the system—they’re the features that make control easier. It’s the “strongman as sole interpreter” playbook: if no one else can make sense of reality, people cling to the only voice that claims to have answers.
But most people, even seasoned experts, don’t want to believe this. Especially not in places like the U.S. They’re still using democratic-era heuristics to read a post-democratic landscape. They measure stability by coherence, and they mistake volatility for incompetence. But destruction is the policy. Sabotage is the system.