This Week in American Autocracy
📅 May 26–June 1, 2025 | As Trump deploys Palantir, reshapes federal hiring, and empowers extremists, the foundations of democracy are being replaced with loyalty tests and mass data tracking.
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📰 Top Stories You May Have Missed This Week
Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans
Trump expanded Palantir’s contracts across federal agencies to build a centralized system merging Americans’ personal data—from bank accounts to immigration status. The effort, led by Musk, embeds Palantir’s Foundry software at DHS, IRS, and more, with ties to Peter Thiel and former Palantir operatives embedded in all federal agencies.
This is how authoritarian regimes begin—by turning data into a weapon against the people
Source: New York Times
I have been warning about this and wrote about it last month…
The Authoritarian Playbook: DOGE, Surveillance, and the Collapse of Democracy
It has been a long 86 days— and feels like a decade—since Trump returned to power. In that time, I’ve been documenting, day by day, the systematic capture of American institutions and the collapse of democracy in my Trump Tyranny Tracker. Not just the headlines, but patterns. While most of the media remain trapped in…
And followed up yesterday…
Did Musk Really "Leave"? NO
This week, while much of the media was busy running a full-scale PR rehabilitation tour for Elon Musk—casting him as a bold disruptor who stepped away from government and claiming that his unauthorized DOGE project had merely failed to “cut waste,”—the real story slipped past the headlines. Musk may no longer be the vi…
ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network, Data Shows
ICE is quietly using Flock Safety’s nationwide license plate camera network by leaning on local police “favors” and joint probes—despite having no official contract. Internal logs show thousands of post-inauguration lookups tied to “ICE WARRANT” and “illegal immigration.”
What starts with tracking immigrants won’t end there—this is the quiet construction of a nationwide surveillance state.
Source: 404 Media
Trump Wants to Create an ‘Office of Remigration’
Trump is establishing an Office of Remigration, part of a radical reorganization of the State Department aimed at facilitating mass deportations. The office adopts the white nationalist concept of “remigration,” long pushed by European extremists, which seeks the removal of migrants, including naturalized citizens deemed “non-assimilated.”
This is yet another sign that Trump is embedding white nationalist ideology into official policy.
Source: WIRED
AFRICOM asks for help deterring terrorism, after Trump pulls aid to allied countries
AFRICOM Commander Gen. Michael Langley warned that Trump’s aid cuts are crippling U.S. counterterrorism operations in Africa, allowing al-Shabaab and ISIS to grow stronger—with the potential to strike the U.S. China is filling the vacuum, training and arming African militaries as American influence recedes.
The Sahel is now the “epicenter of terrorism,” and without U.S. support, extremists are gaining ground. Trump’s policy shift risks global security and cedes strategic influence in Africa to China and Russia.
Source: Defense One
Federal Job Seekers Will Be Quizzed on Trump’s Executive Orders
Trump added four required essay questions to federal job applications—asking about applicants’ favorite Trump executive orders, personal loyalty to constitutional principles, and how they would implement Trump’s policies. The changes also apply to lower-level positions, such as park rangers and VA dental hygienists.
Trump continues turning federal hiring into an ideological loyalty test—screening applicants based on political alignment, not merit. It’s another step toward authoritarian control of the civil service, replacing expertise with allegiance.
Source: Bloomberg
Trump Picks Former Far-Right Podcaster to Lead Federal Ethics Office
Trump nominated Paul Ingrassia, a 30-year-old ex-podcaster who once called for martial law, to lead the Office of Special Counsel, the federal agency that investigates public corruption and protects whistleblowers.
His nomination to oversee ethics enforcement and whistleblower protections would put those very protections in danger.
Source: New York Times
Hegseth Slashes Pentagon Testing Office Critical to Weapon Oversight
Pete Hegseth ordered deep cuts to the Pentagon’s independent weapons testing office, purging its staff by half to “save” $300 million annually. The office reviews military equipment for safety and effectiveness before deployment.
The cuts endanger troops and national security by gutting oversight of flawed weapons. It’s part of Trump’s wider push to kill transparency, silence dissent, and rush risky programs like “Golden Dome” without oversight.
Source: Bloomberg
Trump’s border czar earned consulting fees from immigrant detention firm
Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” received consulting payments from the Geo Group—one of the private prison giants profiting from immigrant detention—just before reentering government. Homan is now leading the charge to expand detention capacity and contracts benefiting Geo Group massively.
This is textbook corruption. A top official shaping U.S. immigration policy was on the payroll of the very company set to rake in hundreds of millions from his policies.
Source: Washington Post
👊🏼 Resistance Spotlight
Check out the link for other local events…
Source: 50501
Valor Media Network: Veterans Unite
Operation Spiderweb: Massive Ukrainian Drone Attack on Russian Bombers
Full video C-Span
Sen. Joni Ernst defends Medicaid cuts, says 'well, we all are going to die'
Another week, another town hall…
🎙️ Substack Live Events
Don’t forget to tune into Trump Tyranny Tracker LIVE with Zev Shalev—Monday through Friday at 2:00 PM EST.
Don’t miss Julie Roginsky and my new episode of Pax Americana this Thursday at 11 AM EST on Substack Live. We dive into the dangerous intersections between Trump and Russia—and what it means for Ukraine, NATO, and the future of American democracy.
In the meantime, catch up on last week’s episode..
Pax Americana: Episode 10 Recap
Thank you 💛 to everyone who tuned in to our latest episode of Pax Americana!
Just a reminder, none of this is a novelty or innovation-
'IBM and the Holocaust' Edwin Black/ February 18, 2021
https://besacenter.org/ibm-holocaust/
"IBM knowingly organized all six phases of the Holocaust: identification, exclusion, confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and even extermination. All of this occurred under the micromanagement of IBM’s celebrated CEO, Thomas Watson, Sr., operating from his New York office on Madison Avenue, and later through European subsidiaries. In view of what IBM was able to accomplish on behalf of the Nazis prior to the era of the computer, the thought of what big tech can now do to surveil, censor, and control human lives is sobering indeed...
Custom IBM programs controlled the census and registration processes, organized the pauperization of the Jews, and ensured that the trains ran on time. There was an IBM customer site—the Hollerith Abteilung—in almost every concentration camp, some with tabulating machines and some with card organizers. IBM even engineered Germany’s odious extermination- by-labor campaign, where skills were matched to slave labor needs and Jews were called up to be worked to death. IBM’s code for a Jewish inmate was “6” and its code for gas chamber was “8.” The evidence indelibly proves that IBM was an indispensable and pivotal partner in the greatest crime in history. But to IBM, the Holocaust was just another business project...
It was the IBM punch card’s use in Nazi Germany that gave birth to “information technology.” Invented by a German American named Herman Hollerith, this card, about the size of a dollar bill, could store for retrieval detailed information about a person, place, or process depending upon the arrangement of holes on the card, which were punched into rows and columns. The card would be fed into a high-speed reader, and out would come personal information...
The Information Age—meaning the era of the individualization of statistics, or the identifying and quantifying of a specific person within an anonymous count—was born not in Silicon Valley, but in Berlin in 1933.
The IBM alliance with the Third Reich was no rogue corporate operation run out of a basement. Day in and day out, it was Watson who personally micromanaged all aspects of the 12-year Nazi relationship...
Today, fear of what big tech can do to surveil, censor, and control our lives—from China to California—has heightened interest in the book and its revelations. The connection is clear. To get a glimpse into our perilous future, we need only look back at what IBM helped Hitler do during the Holocaust, in the era before computers existed. What could a Hitler-type regime do today, and how quickly could it do it with today’s high-speed, hand-held technology?"
As Senator Booker said - “…we are not going to see change in Washington unless more of us have said enough.” So demand it. Call. Write. Email. Over and over!
Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to your own reps, as well as those in other states on a specific committee important to a topic you’re sharing. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit?usp=drivesdk