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When autocrats take office, winning the election is just the beginning. The real goal isn’t to govern within the rules — it’s to bend those rules until they break. Issue by issue, they push the boundaries of executive authority, testing how much they can get away with and daring the system to stop them. Sometimes it starts small, with a decree here or an “emergency measure” there. But the pattern is clear: if nobody stops them, the line moves. What was once unthinkable becomes routine.
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a case study. After entering office under a parliamentary system, he slowly reshaped it into a presidency with sweeping, unchecked powers. In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez promised to give power back to the people, but he used decrees and referenda to gut the constitution and concentrate authority in his own hands. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán did the same, rewriting election laws and stacking the courts to strip away any meaningful oversight. Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil threatened judges, hinted at military backing, and chipped away at institutional checks whenever he could. Brazil’s democracy has held — but only because its institutions, courts, and citizens have resisted the pressure he tried to exert.
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Donald Trump has followed this same script in the United States. Long before his 2024 victory, he was already testing the limits: pressuring [ [link removed] ] state officials to “find votes,” leaning on the Justice Department to protect him from lawful investigations, and using executive orders as shortcuts around Congress. By the time he returned to the White House this year, the warnings couldn’t be ignored — the goal is to expand the bounds of what our system will accept, and steadily increase executive power until there’s no system left to check him. But do not be confused, Trump is the test subject, not the scientist.
The true technicians of this slow-motion overthrow are the authors, supporters and acolytes of Project 2025 [ [link removed] ]. The 900+ page blueprint generated by the Heritage Foundation and its cohorts is being put into action as permanent policy. Over the past nine months, Republicans have aggressively implemented its agenda: restricting bodily autonomy, targeting immigrants, erasing history and DEI programs, and gutting essential government services for everyone, from veterans to the disabled. At its core, Project 2025 is about expanding executive power and concentrating it in the hands of one party and one leader. In a recent episode of our podcast Assembly Required [ [link removed] ], we sat down with Atlantic staff writer David A. Graham, author of The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America [ [link removed] ]. We unpacked the ideology driving this plan and talked about ways to fight back against Step 2 of the 10 Steps to Autocracy and Authoritarianism [ [link removed] ].You can watch the full episode here:
What makes this step especially dangerous is its gradual yet relentless pace. People are told not to worry — that each new executive action is just politics as usual, or a temporary response to a crisis. Declarations of emergency that begin with immigration morph into screeds about declaring war on American cities [ [link removed] ]. By the time the people realize how much ground has been lost, the system is already weaker, the courts more complacent, and the legislature actively supporting the overthrow. Autocrats rely on this incrementalism because it keeps citizens off balance. It’s nearly impossible to sustain righteous indignation across, well, everything.
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However, the truth is, executive power doesn’t expand on its own. It grows when others fail to resist. Lawmakers give in for short-term political gains. Judges “defer to the states” or carve out exceptions for the executive via shadow proclamations. Citizens tune out, overwhelmed by the constant churn of news. Every silence, every shrug, every compromise makes the next grab easier.
That’s why this step demands action. Courts and legislatures need to enforce boundaries. Journalists must expose power grabs for what they are, not dismiss them as political games. Most importantly, ordinary people can’t afford to tune out, because public pressure is often the only force strong enough to make leaders think twice. The lesson is simple: don’t wait until executive power has already swallowed the rest of democracy. We must push back early, loudly, and together. We can share what we know from credible sources and from our own experiences. We can post to social media, but we can also talk about it at local events like city council meetings and Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs). Silence and acceptance are their most effective tools. Learn how you can build your own toolkit at 10stepscampaign.org [ [link removed] ].

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