In the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, we witnessed a sweeping escalation of authoritarian attacks and consolidation of power in the executive branch to expand the President’s authority. DOGE focused on gutting the public sector and slashing social programs—while ICE and others targeted immigrants and political dissidents, and LGBTQ rights and access to gender-affirming healthcare were attacked at every level. The gravity of this moment is undeniable. Many of us in movement spaces had anticipated some of these moves—signaled clearly in plans like Project 2025, The America First Agenda, and Project Esther—but that hasn’t made the impact any less painful.

In their analyses of the First 100 Days, PRA researchers offer their clearest assessment of the authoritarian practices now taking hold in a few key areas, tracing today’s threats back to decades of strategic organizing by right-wing movements and institutions, while recognizing that their power comes from their ability to exploit shifting political and economic conditions.

Read PRA’s analyses of the First 100 Days, in which PRA researchers touch on the expansion of Christian Zionist influence, and the administration’s enthusiastic backing of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza strip; the enforced disappearances of Palestinian activists in the U.S. like Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, and ongoing state repression; immigration enforcement from process-free deportations to the expansion of the deportation machine using 287(g) agreements; and the administration’s attacks on reproductive and LGBTQ rights domestically and internationally.

In a moment when the Far Right holds substantial government power, how can we sharpen our strategies, defend communities under attack, and build a path forward? We invite you to reflect with us, to challenge us, and to let us know how PRA’s research can better serve our shared struggle for a truly multiracial, feminist, religiously plural, and democratic future.

The First 100 Days

In this wide-ranging piece covering the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, PRA researchers recap the state's authoritarian gains and sweeping repressive policies, from LGBTQ rights to immigration and Christian Zionism.

PRA hosted a two part webinar series on the first 100 days. Part 1 looked at the escalating authoritarian regime and the foundational threats it poses to our communities and social movements, and took a close look at anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim scapegoating and policy, as well as attacks on civil liberties and the right to protest on college campuses and beyond. 

Part 2, inspired by the Winter/Spring issue of the Public Eye, focused on reproductive and LGBTQ rights. Experts discussed how the MAGA movement is weaponizing gender to entrench authoritarianism in the U.S, and the rise of the anti-gender movement.

Stay tuned to our podcast, Inform Your Resistance, to hear both of these webinars in the coming months. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Stay Tuned!

Inform Your Resistance, PRA’s podcast, has launched its 4th season. This season, we bring you conversations with experts: journalists, movement partners, and researchers on the ramping up of authoritarianism. Subscribe to hear about the neoreactionary movement and its influence on the current administration, the weaponizing of gender to further authoritarianism, and creative nonviolent strategies to make political violence backfire. Listen now.

Our upcoming summer issue of The Public eye dissects Trump 2.0 and the antidemocratic reaction. Contributors’ analyses offer strategic insights by surfacing Trump 2.0’s tensions and contradictions to inform broad-based resistance and pro-democracy organizing.

Subscribe by Tuesday to get your print issue.

Rising Majority: No War on Iran. No Genocide in Palestine. No Exceptions.

In the wake of the Trump administration bombing Iran, PRA signs on to a letter from Rising Majority:

“In the aftermath of Trump’s bombing of Iran, we say what we’ve always said: we will not be silent while the U.S. empire trades in death to consolidate power.”

The Latest from PRA and Religion Dispatches

The Libertarian History of the LGBTQ Movement: Author Q&A with Neil J. Young on Coming Out Republican by J. Gieseking

PRA sat down with author Neil J. Young to discuss the gay Right’s political history. The conversation offers vital context for understanding the stakes of the second Trump regime’s attacks on LGBTQ+ rights.

Digital Authoritarianism: Lessons from Duterte's Philippines for the United States by Scot Nakagawa

How did President Duterte use social media to further his authoritarian agenda in the Philippines, what are the parallels to the US authoritarian regime, and what lessons can we learn?

Pro-Family Politics: The Political Convergence of Conservative Catholics and Protestants in the 1980s American Right by Chelsea Ebin

An excerpt from The Radical Mind: The Origins of Right-Wing Catholic and Protestant Coalition Building that explores how The Family Policy Advisory Board moved forward Christian organizing for “traditional” families in the 80s.

We Should Not Be Shocked That the Alleged Minnesota Shooter’s Christian School Is Connected to Political Violence by Keri Ladner

Christ for the Nations Institute is endorsed by prolific writers, would-be politicians, and all-around movers and shakers of what’s become a violent Christian nationalism. Its teachings on spiritual warfare culminated in the Capitol Riot and appear to have been influential in the Minnesota assassinations.

Musk v Trump: No matter who wins, the American people lose by Mary Rambaran-Olm

Regular folks are choosing between rent and insulin while two billionaires slap-fight over who’s more ethically compromised. While Musk builds spaceships to try and flee Earth and Trump builds golf courses where crimes go to relax, neither pays (enough?) taxes. Neither trusts the other.

‘Remigration’ is American for ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ by Steven Gardiner

Most closely associated with the European far-right, and linked to the venomous conspiracy narrative of the Great Replacement, remigration refers to proposals to expel immigrants and their descendants. To be blunt, it refers to ethnic cleansing, and in the United States it’s an unabashedly White nationalist idea.

Leo XIV: The (Great) Migrations Pope? by Matthew J. Cressler

Leo XIV’s story invites US Americans, and US Catholics in particular, to see their own pasts from new angles. His story and family’s stories speak to an American Catholic history most people don’t know—stories erased, obscured, and ignored for far too long.

For more analysis and resources, browse PRA's most recent articles and 40-year archive on our website.

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