We’ve talked a lot about what the Trump White House can and will do to subvert the 2026 midterms. The big picture is that with elections being run by states, based on the clear, black-letter law of the U.S. Constitution, what they can do is quite limited. And, as we’ve also noted, you build autocracies when you’re popular (often by goosing the economy in a smart and concerted way), not when you’re swirling the bowl with approval ratings in the mid-30s and falling. The point of returning to these facts is twofold. First is that a key aim of would-be autocrats is to demoralize the opposition, get people to lose hope and think there’s no point in fighting back. It’s important for democracy-defenders not to, with the best intentions, feed into that kind of psyop campaign. It is also to get people looking for the right things and not thinking in overly binary terms — elections vs. no elections, etc. This week we have news that focuses on the abuses of power we’re actually likely to see.

MS NOW broke the story that yesterday FBI agents fanned out across Ohio in pursuing some kind of investigation against a voting rights and voter registration group called Ohio Organizing Collaborative.

I was thinking last night about the denouement of the Broadview Six case, a collapse which I’m told by some legal observers stands a non-trivial chance of seeing some of the prosecutors disbarred. And I contrasted it with the series of TPM Reader emails about the “fancy lawyers.” A number of these emails start out with some version of, I’m not part of the legal elite, I’m just working here in the trenches as a lawyer in [this or that mid-sized city in the United States]. Or maybe, my background is in elite law but I’m down here in the trenches, etc.

In just the first month of this year, President Trump’s forces have abducted a foreign leader and fatally shot two U.S. citizens protesting the administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Laws are being bent, twisted and broken so frequently and so egregiously that it’s hard to keep up. 

We’re just days out from our first Morning Memo Live event on the weaponization and politicization of the Justice Department under Trump II. To preview the kinds of topics we’ll be digging into, Josh Marshall joined David Kurtz on Substack Live to talk about the aftermath of the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

“There’s no longer any independence between the White House and the Justice Department,” David told Josh. “And it’s been made abundantly clear that what the White House says is what goes.”

Join us on Jan. 29 at the National Union Building in Washington, D.C. to talk about what’s going on at Main Justice, Pam Bondi, Trump’s retribution campaign against his political enemies, and where things go from here.

All TPM members should have a special discount code in their inboxes. And 2 for 1 tickets available now at checkout (even for those who already purchased a ticket!).

We’ll see you there.