The Democracy Index

It still feels too soon to go back to our Friday night “Five Questions With” interviews. I have a great guest in the works for next week, who I know you’ll be ready to hear from. But I’m not quite there yet, and besides, there’s something important I want to write to you about tonight.

I’ve been thinking about things I want to do better this time. Not in a beat-yourself-up kind of way, because I don’t think that’s productive. But I’ve been taking time to think about lessons learned and what I can personally do to make sure the truth about what Trump is doing gets in circulation and is understood. None of the excuses his people always circulate for him can be permitted to stand this time.

It was immediately apparent that Trump’s first presidency was not going to be normal. Remember when he lied about inauguration crowd size, and Kellyanne Conway coined the term “alternative facts?” We started with the Muslim ban, progressed to the firing of FBI Director Jim Comey (who declined to pledge his loyalty to Trump), and lived through Trump’s desperate attempt to prevent any investigation into whether he colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign. By the middle of his first year in office, there was a fresh outrage to absorb every week, sometimes every day, and on occasion, more than one a day. There were cabinet secretaries engaged in corruption, violations of the Hatch Act, private meetings with Putin where Trump ordered the notes destroyed, babies ripped from their mothers’ arms at the border, White House meetings with the Russian ambassador where classified intelligence was disclosed, and on and on and on, up until January 6. It even went beyond Trump’s time in office—we learned in June of 2023 that Trump kept top secret information when he left the White House and refused to return it. His most recent campaign has been one outrage after another.

That’s the point I want to focus on tonight. It’s hard to keep track of all of it in your head; there is too much of it. And yet, we have to, because Trump has been able to outrun consequences for what he does, in part because there is so much going on that no one can focus on all of it, and outrage fatigue sets in after awhile. People give up.

Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion who has become a democracy advocate, calls it the superpower of demagogues and autocrats. He says that their ability to create a new scandal every day means that the prior day’s issues get pushed aside and forgotten. We know this is coming again. We need to be prepared. Knowing what’s coming, my plan is to keep a record of it this time, a democracy index, so to speak. Trump will engage in all sorts of outrages, big and small. I’m going to try and stay focused on the ones that threaten the future of democracy.

Keeping focus is difficult. Keeping the public focused and building awareness is an entirely different challenge. It’s that disinformation game that Trump has succeeded in so far. I’m going to aim for more focus and organization and less scattered outrage over everything—although I know that’s going to be a challenge.

I experienced just how difficult it can be to track everything firsthand during the first Trump Administration. I started commenting on television and radio shortly after March 10, 2017, when Trump fired all of the remaining Obama U.S. Attorneys. I had resigned the night before Trump’s inauguration in January, so when news organizations went scrambling for someone who could explain what was happening, I was already out of government and available. I thought it would be just a few quick TV hits over the firings, but Trump kept on plowing through democratic norms, and they kept calling me back. Because I was on TV every day talking about the fresh news, I kept copious notes, organized by month and day, of every fresh outrage as it occurred.

It turns out I have a lot of notes. I don’t think anyone could have anticipated that even Donald Trump would have so blatantly violated norms, laws, and the trust of the American public in such a pervasive and shameless manner. But he did, and he gives every indication he will again. The record of his time in office is a jumble because he did so much that we were unable to absorb it all and develop a cohesive narrative in real time.

Trump delayed his way into escaping justice in the courts and persuaded a majority of American voters to return him to office. He avoided the truth by overwhelming us with so much bad governance and bad conduct that it was hard to get your arms around all of it. But the election was close, far closer than was thought on election night. Despite all of our doubts and fears about how the next two years will shape up, there is an election on the books for 2026, and we need to prepare for it. I understand some people are tempted to give up and believe it doesn’t matter anymore. But I don’t believe that. I think we’re going to have to be smart and fierce about how we go about it, but I think we can still protect democracy.

This time, instead of running a chronological list like I did last time, I’ll be keeping an index of the ways that Trump threatens, damages, and tries to destroy democracy. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of bad stuff he does in this new administration, I’m going to try and understand it in real time, which can be hard to do—history usually does a far better job than observers who are so close to events. But we have some ideas of Trump’s goals, and we have the benefit of having studied Project 2025 together. I hope you’ll help me and be a part of this!

We’re in this together,

Joyce