You can think Democrats are a corrupt party that tried relentlessly to imprison and destroy Trump with every dirty political trick in the book and still criticize Trump’s actions as president. You can believe Trump is the greatest president we’ve ever had — a once-in-a-generation, norm-breaking, peace-brokering voice of the common man who just pulled us back from the brink of our own destruction by simply winning in 2024 — and still believe he is drunk on power and going too far. You can believe he has the right stance on literally all of our biggest issues, desperately want to see him succeed on his policy prescriptions, and still question the precedents he is leaving for the next president — the one who doesn’t see the world how he does — and consider how dangerous this all might be. All throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to get revenge on his political enemies — arrests, prison time, charges of treason. At the same time, he assured us of a new Golden Age under his leadership. So far, I’ve seen far more focus on revenge than ushering in that Golden Age, and I’ve left feeling more convinced than ever that presidents — past, current, and future — have far too much power and far too few constraints for a country that was built on a desire to democratize power towards the many and away from the few. Love or loathe him, the public should feel compelled to draw lines in the sand on what we’ll tolerate from our increasingly powerful presidents — and we should be able to see and state clearly that Trump is crossing those lines. There is no reason to play dumb. He didn't run some corruption dragnet through the Fed and find a crime worth prosecuting — he's exerting power and trying to capture one of the most independent institutions left in the country. And it's a pattern: arresting and deporting noncitizens for speech, deploying or threatening to deploy active-duty military in major U.S. cities to quell crime, promising to arrest and prosecute some of his top political foes, threatening lawsuits against the free press, forcing universities and law firms to settle lawsuits to retain federal funding, massively escalating the gerrymandering race that will further reduce our ability to pick our own representatives, and (perhaps most worryingly) threatening to take greater federal control over elections. Last week, when Trump announced he will attempt to end mail-in voting, he described states’ constitutionally mandated electoral control this way: “Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them.” This stuff isn't small and it isn't Trump Derangement Syndrome or liberal hysteria. He's doing the things and he deserves the criticism.

My message to readers (and all of you) today:

I only sent this out a couple hours ago, but it's quickly becoming one of the most responded to and most-read newsletters I've ever written. I've now unlocked the paywall for everyone. Please share: readtangle.com/p/china-uyghu…