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Trump Working Systematically to Unravel Democracy and ‘Destroy Institutions’: Columnists
Several New York Times opinion columnists gathered to share their thoughts on President Donald Trump, warning of what they see as his efforts to unravel America’s democratic order and institutions.
E.J. Dionne warned of what he called “regime change” inside the U.S. by President Trump.
Dionne said that “we have to face up to” Americans “overlooking” how much Trump is “actually trying to fundamentally change and destroy, really, the traditional American system.”
He cited the shootings of Minnesota’s Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as an example: “There have been police killings, and there have been mishaps, but the country has never seen an entity like ICE operate completely outside the law in this way.”
Dionne cited a plethora of other examples, including the “corrupt” pardons Trump has granted, in addition to the “extraordinary” pardons he gave to those involved in the events surrounding January 6. He also cited the Justice Department as “really being destroyed and used for investigations of political enemies,” including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. And he pointed to “tariffs, by fiat, on our allies,” and Trump’s “weirdness over Greenland.”
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Further defining “regime change,” Dionne pointed to what Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “has written about radical constitutionalism,” which Dionne called “a real desire to fundamentally alter the regime.”
Trump, Dionne added, is “throwing away all of the constituencies, the swing constituencies, who came to him in the last election.”
“I think he has become more and more aggressive at it and we need to face that this is not just some guy doing one random thing after another,” he warned. “This is somebody who is setting about — in a systematic way — to destroy institutions.”
David Brooks shared his thoughts on what he called Trump’s “four unravelings.”
“First, the unraveling of the Western alliance, the post-Cold War alliance,” he said. “Second, the unraveling that E.J. just described, our democratic order.”
“Third, the unraveling of our domestic security, the sense that we live in a relatively free — at least free of state violence, and we can no longer be sure of that,” he warned. “And then the fourth — and to me, the most important and the primary one — is the unraveling of Trump’s mind, if you want to put it that way.”
Brooks warned of “mental degradation.”
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“If you look through history at the minds of people who are driven by a lust for power and who have tyrannical tendencies, the arc of history bends toward degradation,” he said. “There’s just not many cases where somebody was becoming more and more power hungry, more and more tyrannical, and they said, ‘Oh, I better put on the brakes here and become more moderate.’ That just doesn’t happen. You get this process of mental deterioration that’s, in part, caused by the way the lust for power makes you drunk on power and is insatiable.”
He noted that those who are “driven by the lust for power” create environments that become “more sycophantic.”
Robert Siegel asked Brooks and Dionne if they believe America will have elections in November.
“At the very least, that’s not clear,” Dionne replied, “and I think it’s something that people began to worry about even more over the last several weeks when the F.B.I. raided the Board of Elections down in Georgia, in Fulton County.”
He pointed to the presence of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and said, “I think a lot of people saw this as an attempt to affect the election. Then Trump himself spoke of nationalizing the rules of the election — he then said in 15 places, which sounded like Democratic states. The beginning of that statement he made was: Republicans should take over the elections.”
Brooks had a different opinion.
“I have every confidence that we’ll have an election,” he said, noting that he thinks that Trump has “internalized that we are a democracy and that he needs to step down in 2028.”
He pointed to historical references, then said, “I just have tremendous faith in the power of the people manning our institutions, in the military, in the election officials on the state level and Republicans on the state level. So I think we’ll hold.”
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Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
