Afrasianet - American tech entrepreneur Christopher Posey has warned that the United States has effectively entered the fascist phase under President Donald Trump, while the Democratic Party leadership is powerless and reluctant to face what he called a "self-inflicted coup against the Constitution."
In an op-ed published by Newsweek , Posey asserted that what is happening is not a potential threat but a reality, noting that the Justice Department has become a tool to suppress dissent, and that Washington, D.C., where almost half of the population is black, has been stripped of its autonomy, while what he described as a "concentration camp" has been set up in Florida.
Elected officials who dare to raise their voices in opposition are targeted, law firms are blackmailed, and television networks are forced to comply.
Trump has used federal institutions as a weapon to freeze billions of dollars in grants, attack academic freedom, and silence dissenting voices, while Democrats are content with strong statements on paper.
Democrats retreat
Fascism is no longer a threat to America, he said, but already exists, with little resistance from those who have sworn to protect the Constitution.
The writer criticized the paralysis of the Democratic Party leadership in Congress, pointing out that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has publicly admitted that he does not know what tools are available to confront Trump.
The tech entrepreneur noted that the Democratic grassroots are feeling overwhelming anger, citing a CNN News poll in March that showed that 73 percent of Democrats and independents leaning toward them believe that party representatives are not doing enough to counter Trump.
Suggested Solutions
According to the article, betting on the judiciary or the 2026 election to save democracy is a "naïve bet," as Trump accelerates the appointment of judges and dismantles election systems.
Posey made some suggestions to Democrats calling for:
First, the current democratic leaders should step down if they are unable to confront.
• Second, the dismissal of Ken Martin as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, arguing that the party needs "a leadership that understands that when fascists knock on the door, it doesn't politely ask them to leave, but closes the door, raises the alarm, and fights with everything it has."
• Third, he assigned leadership to politician and lawyer Stacey Abrams, who he described as having first-hand experience in combating voter suppression and mobilizing marginalized communities, and who knows how to mobilize communities that have been neglected by Democrats.
Posey warned that the world is watching America fall, while its allies are making plans for a "post-democracy" era, and as authoritarian regimes make observations about how quickly democracy collapses when its supporters refuse to defend it.
"The house is burning, and the Democratic leadership is still debating the color of paint," he concluded, calling for urgent action "because complacency means losing democracy entirely."
Christopher Bosey is the founder of BotSentinel and Spotble, a platform that uses artificial intelligence technology to help businesses grow and expand through social media.
US newspapers: Trump's control of Washington is based on wrong statistics and could turn America into a police state
In this context, American newspapers analyzed the consequences of President Donald Trump's decision to place the National Guard forces instead of the Washington DC police, in a worrying move that some considered the beginning of the country's transformation into a police state.
Trump said he would bring the police department in Washington, D.C., under federal control and order the National Guard to deploy there to "establish law, order and public safety in Washington," he told reporters at the White House.
"Our city has been taken over by violent gangs, groups of unruly youth, addicts and homeless people, and we will not allow that to happen again."
"Urban hell"
According to the New York Times report, Trump relied on old statistics on crime levels to denounce the high homicide rates in the capital, ignoring the dramatic drop in violent crime rates in the city recently.
Local police noted that the violent crime rate decreased by 35% from 2023 to 2024, after crimes rose significantly in 2023.
In his speech, which the newspaper described as inflammatory, Trump described the capital as an "urban hell" teeming with criminal gangs and outlaw youths, and blamed Democrats for the alleged chaos because of what he described as their laxity in the face of crime.
The report highlighted that Trump deliberately ignored the history of his previous intervention in Washington, where he had previously issued a blanket pardon to hundreds of participants in the storming of the Capitol in 2021, and a year earlier, he deployed more than 5,000 National Guards to suppress peaceful protesters in the capital, which many considered a fiasco failure.
The Trump administration relies on the DC Home Rule Act, passed by Congress in 1973, which gives the president the power to temporarily take control of the Metropolitan Police for 30 days, but the report points out that the practical details of implementing this order are vague, especially regarding the deployment of police and National Guard troops throughout the city.
Statistics
In its report on the decision, the Washington Post reviewed statistics that contradict Trump's claims, based on data from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Metropolitan Police.
According to the newspaper, homicide rates in the United States in 2024 fell to the lowest level in decades, falling by more than 30%, according to data from more than 100 police departments in major cities.
The rate of arrests of minors also decreased to about 439 arrests per 100,000, an estimated decrease of 7% compared to 2023, reaching a rate that is 5 times lower than in 1997.
The Washington Post, like the New York Times, asserted that Trump relied on old statistics that do not reflect the reality of now, as well as some stories of violent and bloody crimes — such as the murder of a young employee — in order to arouse the emotions of listeners and maximize the danger in their eyes.
Arrests of minors in Washington in 2025 amounted to nearly 900 cases, down nearly 20% from the same period last year, while arrests rose in Baltimore (47%), New York (11%) and Chicago, although overall violent crime rates there are also declining.
According to the newspaper's analysis, Trump combined crime indicators from different cities and times to give a more bleak overall picture of Washington than the current data reflects.
In its editorial, the Washington Post added that Trump's deployment of the National Guard is a temporary show of force and does not offer a radical solution to the crime problem, which requires serious commitment from the federal administration, Congress, the local council, prosecutors and judges.
She added that solving the problem of crime in the city requires a permanent increase in the number of police officers, especially after their number dropped in 2023 to the lowest level in half a century (about 3,350 officers).
Washington has made progress in holding young offenders accountable after the passage of the Secure DC Act last year, which made it easier to prosecute certain crimes and allowed minors for serious crimes to be detained, a significant policy shift in a state that was previously lenient with them.
Trump Police Chief
The Wall Street Journal editorial praised Trump's move to impose federal control over the Washington police, saying that "cleansing" D.C. of crime and chaos is a top priority.
She added that the failure of local control justifies the federal government's intervention in the capital, especially in light of "escalating rates of violence and the inability of local authorities to effectively address security challenges."
She stressed the need for the president's move, especially as Washington adopts laws that allow noncitizens to vote and supports "safe harbor" policies that impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The newspaper expressed admiration that Trump, who promotes himself as a businessman, is now the top police chief in the capital, and stressed that "cleaning the city of slum homeless camps and improving the security of public spaces for residents and tourists" would be an achievement to be thanked for.
The Rise of the Police State
In a separate report, Wall Street Journal reporters sharply criticized the military's interference in police missions inside the United States, considering the move to deploy the National Guard in Washington as a controversial escalation and an expansion of the military's role.
The U.S. law, known as the Comitats Act, typically prohibits the use of the military to enforce law within the country except in specific and rare legal cases, but in his second term, Trump has used the National Guard and the Army on several occasions, including sending Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles to confront protests denouncing immigration arrests and using military planes to transport detained migrants out of the country.
In an article in The Intercept, Radley Balko, a journalist and criminal justice writer, said that President Trump's move is a test of his ability to expand his powers, which poses a direct threat to American democracy and threatens to build a police state within the United States.
In Palco's view, these moves are not a real response to high crime rates, but rather an attempt to intimidate dissidents, suppress protests, and impose strong central control over cities ruled by democratic leaders.
The police state that Balko warns against is a system in which the police and armed forces are used to suppress civil liberties, and to impose control over the population by force of arms and intimidation, threatening fundamental freedoms and democracy.
An uncertain future
A number of Democratic politicians and civil rights groups have expressed deep concern about Trump's decision, calling it a political show of force aimed at using the military against civilians, signaling authoritarian tendencies and abuses of power.
The website questioned whether Trump would actually withdraw after 30 days or not, and also pointed to the ambiguity of Trump's concept of success, who said in a social media post that crime and "brutality, filth and barbarism" would disappear from the capital altogether, without elaborating a benchmark for that.
How did fear infiltrate the various facilities of life in America?
Former U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has warned that fear is quietly creeping into key state institutions under President Donald Trump.
He said he has seen this fear over the past months "seeping into our military, our civil service, universities, law firms, and leadership positions in corporations and nonprofits."
In an article in the New York Times, Kendall, who served as a secretary in former President Joe Biden's administration, compared the current political climate in the United States to those of previous administrations.
For example, opposition to government policies — especially President George W. Bush's torture program — did not provoke the fear of reprisals as it does now.
Kendall is referring specifically to the "enhanced interrogation" program used by the CIA against terrorism suspects after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C .
He noted that he was an opponent of the torture program, as it was possible to oppose the government's policies without fear of its reaction and without worrying about arbitrary arrest or interrogation, cutting off any government funding or being subjected to brutal personal attacks on social media and in the press.
Today, as he put it, army officers are being fired from military service without justification, state employees are fired, and professionals are blacklisted, including himself, simply for criticizing the administration of President Trump, who "does not accept dissent and uses fear to suppress it."
In his article, Kendall touched on what is currently happening in the main state institutions separately, starting with the military and the civil service, as he has a long experience with them and maintains close contact with them.
He said that the fear in the Pentagon today is clear and palpable, as the dismissals of senior officers in the armed forces for no reason were a "terrifying" message to everyone in uniform.
He described the dismissal of senior military officers and mass expulsions of federal government employees and civilians at the Pentagon as unprecedented measures aimed at eliminating dissent, replacing professionals with political loyalists, and creating a climate of fear.
Kendall noted the fear among lawyers and said the Trump administration was seeking to force big law firms to refuse to represent clients it did not like, which has sown fear in many professionals and led some to make "deals" with the current administration to protect their interests.
The former U.S. official observed anxiety and fear among graduate students and professors at Harvard University about the impact of the Trump administration's attacks on academic freedom and freedom of speech on campus.
He also noted that the current U.S. administration has vowed to prosecute former government officials and private citizens, and has threatened companies with the loss of government contracts, and nonprofits across the U.S. to cut off funding.
This climate of intimidation and intimidation has extended to companies that want to hire people who are critical of Trump and his administration, he said, revealing that he was one of them, as several organizations that applied to work for told him after he left his position in government last January that they could not hire him.
But the clearest example of Trump's weapon of intimidation was targeting irregular immigrants and immigrant communities more broadly.
Although he acknowledges that Americans support deporting irregular migrants who commit violent crimes, the former secretary of the Air Force says the Trump administration has been terrorizing immigrants of all categories, including those who are legally residing in the United States.
Kendall sees this widespread fear as a feature of authoritarian regimes, and it portends a profound threat to American democracy.