This Is What Power Without Oversight Looks Like

Last week, Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, was accused of ordering the extrajudicial killings of two survivors of a U.S. missile strike on a fishing boat suspected of carrying drugs. They are among more than 80 people killed during an undeclared war in the Caribbean: a war claiming to protect Americans from illicit drugs while operating with virtually no oversight.

This is Step 5 in the 10 Steps to Autocracy and Authoritarianism: loyalists granted unchecked power. Both parties are scrambling to understand what happened, with many agreeing the killings may constitute war crimes: acts committed in the name of “protection.”

That pretense collapsed when the president announced plans to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández — convicted in 2024 for taking millions in bribes and working with cartels to traffic cocaine into the United States. Men floating off the Venezuelan coast received no trial or due process, yet a proven trafficker serving a 45-year sentence is now walking free. Autocrats look out for their own.

Hernández was accused of manipulating courts to run for a second term despite constitutional limits, crushed protests, oversaw a fraudulent election, and jailed over 800 demonstrators. This is who Trump has pardoned.

Abroad, in Hong Kong, a deadly apartment fire prompted an outpouring of community support — food, water, clothing, shelter. The government responded by patrolling the area, fearful that mutual aid and independent organizing might spark accountability.

Meanwhile: Apps warning of secret police raids are being blocked. Palantir and other tech companies are getting cozy with the federal government, potentially exposing millions of Americans to surveillance. Pro-democracy nonprofits are facing federal investigation. Protestors are being watched. Breaking civil society is Step 4. Criminalizing dissent is Step 8.

Our job is to recognize what we’re facing and respond. Democracy isn’t abstract — it’s affordable food, accessible healthcare, power belonging to people rather than those who hoard it. Voting rights are the deed to our democracy. That’s why I’ve been talking so much about the 10 Steps Campaign, and the Just Fix It initiative: they are ways to confront authoritarianism and fight for affordability, access, and justice.

A lot is going on right now. But we know how to do difficult things— and win.

Want to hear more?

I hope you’ll check out my conversation with Alex Wagner on this week’s episode of Assembly Required.

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