I have been using artificial intelligence to research issues and help edit my writing. Of course, anything produced by AI must be reviewed carefully, with its sources, facts, and context independently checked. But AI often provides a logical framework for examining a complicated issue.
So, I asked it to list the behaviors commonly associated with communist governments. The list included:
One-party rule. Consider the SAVE America Act and other efforts to make voting more difficult, centralize control over elections, discredit unfavorable results, and preserve one party’s power.
State ownership or control of industry. Consider the federal government’s acquisition of equity positions in private companies, efforts to influence major corporate mergers, and the use of government approval as leverage over business decisions.
Central economic planning. Consider Trump’s attempts to pressure the Federal Reserve, impose sweeping tariffs through questionable emergency authority, select favored industries, punish disfavored companies, and personally direct major economic decisions.
Abolition or restriction of private property. We are not there, at least not generally. But a government that selectively punishes businesses, law firms, universities, media companies, and individuals for opposing the leader begins to weaken the security that property and contractual rights are supposed to provide.
Economic redistribution. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” certainly redistributes wealth. It transfers benefits upward through tax cuts and subsidies while reducing health, food, and social supports for ordinary Americans.
Government control or intimidation of the media. Consider interference in media mergers, threats against broadcast licenses, lawsuits and investigations aimed at news organizations, pressure on corporate owners, and the use of prosecutorial or regulatory power against media figures and companies.
Punishment of political opponents. Consider the investigations, indictments, threatened indictments, firings, security-clearance removals, and public demands for prosecution directed at senators, members of Congress, former federal officials, state officials, lawyers, prosecutors, and others who opposed Trump.
By that rough comparison, Trump appears to exhibit six of the seven listed behaviors; an 86% score for Communism behaviors!
We are witnessing is a modified communism, close to authoritarian state capitalism: private wealth remains, but access, protection, mergers, contracts, tariffs, investigations, and government favor increasingly depend upon loyalty to the leader. Trump, and his allies shout “communism” at their opponents. But the greater danger is the evolving government in which economic opportunity, political freedom, justice, and even personal security increasingly depend upon whether one is loyal to Donald Trump.
I decided to ‘drill down’ toward some detail and the following is what I found and believe to be the real case.
Government by Favor, Fear and Revenge
Donald Trump presents himself as the defender of capitalism, individual liberty and the rule of law. He routinely condemns communism and accuses his opponents of “weaponizing” government.
Yet his administration increasingly displays the conduct Americans have historically associated with authoritarian governments: interference with the press, political pressure on independent institutions, government selection of favored businesses, regulatory decisions driven by presidential financial interests, military action without meaningful congressional authorization, dismissal of public servants associated with investigations of the president and criminal prosecutions directed at prominent political enemies.
Trump’s new claim is ‘Communism is the biggest threat to America’. Ironically what Trump is building closely resembles authoritarian state capitalism combined with personal government. A system where businesses remain nominally private, but government approvals, investments, regulatory relief and protection increasingly depend upon access, loyalty and accommodation to the ruler.
The central characteristic is a modified modern communism. It is the concentration of public power in one man and the use of that power for political, personal and financial advantage.
CBS, “60 Minutes” and the Price of Defiance
One of the clearest warning signs was the administration’s treatment of CBS, its flagship news program “60 Minutes” and CBS’s parent company, Paramount.
Trump sued CBS and Paramount over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign. CBS maintained the editing was a routine exercise of journalistic judgment and denied that it had acted unlawfully.
Nevertheless, Paramount caved in July 2025 paying $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit. The settlement ‘coincidently’ occurred while the company needed federal approval for its multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance Media. The Federal Communications Commission subsequently approved the transaction after Skydance made commitments to the company’s programming, newsroom practices and diversity policies. As the FCC’s Democratic commissioner stated, the process was an improper intrusion into editorial independence.
Trump and Paramount agreed to a merger approval sending a threatening message throughout the communications industry. Trump, deploying the power of our government, attacked a television network for personal retribution. He sued its corporate owner. The owner paid millions of dollars while seeking approval from an agency controlled by the president’s appointees. The government then approved the owner’s multibillion-dollar merger.
A free press does cease to be free when police close a newspaper or soldiers occupy a television studio. However, modern authoritarian governments use more sophisticated means. They threaten licenses, delay transactions, initiate investigations, pressure corporate owners and demonstrate that resistance carries financial consequences. The result is anticipatory obedience.
Editors begin asking not only whether a story is accurate and newsworthy, but whether broadcasting it could provoke the president, jeopardize a corporate merger or bring federal regulators to the company’s door.
That is censorship achieved without issuing an official censorship order.
The Federal Reserve Must Serve the Country, Not the President
Trump has also attempted to bend the Federal Reserve to his political will.
The Federal Reserve was deliberately given a significant degree of independence so that interest-rate decisions would be based upon inflation, employment and economic conditions, not upon a president’s desire for a temporary economic boost or favorable political headlines.
Trump repeatedly attacked Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and demanded lower interest rates. A president is entitled to criticize monetary policy. He may argue that rates are too high, that the central bank is moving too slowly or that its economists have misjudged the economy. What he should not do is threaten the independence, tenure or personal security of officials because they refuse to produce the policy he wants.
An independent central bank can frustrate any president. That is precisely the point. Authoritarian leaders seek control over central banks because controlling interest rates, credit and the money supply provide enormous political power. Once central-bank officials understand that professional disagreement may lead to dismissal, investigation or prosecution, their decisions are no longer independent.
They become presidential directives disguised as economic policy.
Government Ownership and Favored Corporations
The administration’s acquisition of financial positions in selected companies represents another departure from traditional free-market conservatism.
There may be legitimate national-security reasons for the federal government to support domestic semiconductor manufacturing, critical-mineral production, advanced technology or other strategically important industries. The challenge presented by China’s state-directed economy is real.
But direct government investments create unavoidable concerns:
- Who chooses the companies?
- What political relationships influence the decision?
- Will competitors receive equal consideration?
- Can regulators impartially oversee a corporation in which the government owns a financial interest?
- Will business leaders conclude that praising the president, his family, or friends improves their chances of receiving subsidies, contracts or investment? (Check out Donald Jr.’s $ 1.6 billion contract for the 1789 investment firm he joined just last year?)
A government that simultaneously regulates, subsidizes, owns stock in and awards contracts to private businesses possesses extraordinary economic power. Without transparent standards, independent oversight and clear congressional authorization, industrial policy can become political patronage. A supposedly free market then becomes a market in which the president chooses the winners.
Regulation That Benefits the Regulator
The conflict becomes even more troubling when federal policy overlaps with the president’s own financial interests.
Trump has promoted cryptocurrency and established a more welcoming federal posture toward digital assets while Trump and members of his family have held extensive interests in cryptocurrency ventures. That arrangement creates an intolerable conflict. When the president regulates an industry in which his family earns enormous sums, citizens cannot determine whether a decision reflects national policy, personal profit or some mixture of both.
When foreign investors, corporations or wealthy individuals can place money into enterprises associated with the president’s family, they may reasonably believe they are also purchasing access, goodwill or influence.
The danger is not limited to an envelope of cash passed secretly across a table. Corruption can be institutionalized through investment structures that allow money to flow toward a ruler’s family while that ruler controls tariffs, sanctions, export licenses, contracts and foreign policy.
The appearance of corruption is no longer incidental. It becomes part of the architecture of government.
The Iran War and the Disappearance of Congress
The administration’s war against Iran presents an even more fundamental constitutional question.
The Constitution divides war-making authority between Congress and the president. Congress possesses the power to declare war, fund military operations and make rules governing the armed forces. The president serves as commander in chief and has authority to respond to immediate threats, but the office was not designed to allow one person to begin and perpetuate a major war indefinitely without legislative approval.
The War Powers Resolution requires the president to consult Congress whenever possible before introducing American forces into hostilities. It also establishes reporting requirements and limits continued military involvement without congressional authorization.
Trump nevertheless entered and expanded the Iran conflict without obtaining a declaration of war or a specific authorization for the use of military force.
His administration may argue that the president possesses inherent constitutional authority to defend the country, protect American forces or address urgent national-security threats. Presidents of both parties have made broad claims of executive military authority.
But a sustained war lasting months, involving repeated bombing, American casualties, enormous expenditures and the risk of regional conflagration cannot credibly be treated as a brief emergency response.
In June and July 2026, both chambers debated measures seeking to require congressional authorization or direct the removal of American forces. On July 23, the House passed a war-powers resolution by a vote of 214–208, with four Republicans joining Democrats. The Senate blocked a similar measure by a narrow vote. The votes reflected more than disagreement with military strategy. They exposed a constitutional failure.
Congress should not finance a war after the president has already chosen it, expanded it and placed American forces in danger. Consultation after the bombs fall is not consultation. Seeking money after hostilities begin is not authorization. The administration has attempted to create a dangerous precedent: the president decides when America goes to war, while Congress is reduced to paying the bills and mourning the dead. This is not the constitutional arrangement the founders created.
The president is not the sole owner of the nation’s military power. The lives placed at risk belong to American sons and daughters (we don’t see any of his there!). The money spent belongs to American taxpayers. The consequences the entire country. The decision must therefore involve the people’s elected representatives.
International Law Cannot Mean Whatever Trump Says It Means
Trump’s disregard for congressional war powers is consistent with his broader treatment of international law.
His foreign policy increasingly appears to rest upon a simple principle: powerful countries may do whatever they possess the military or economic strength to accomplish.
International law is admittedly imperfect. It is inconsistently enforced, and powerful nations have violated it throughout history. But the alternative is not a better system of justice. It is a world governed solely by force.
If the United States claims the unilateral right to attack another country, remove its leaders, control its resources or dictate its government whenever the president declares it necessary, it weakens America’s ability to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s threats against Taiwan or any other nation’s violation of sovereign borders. The principle cannot be that invasions and attacks are unlawful when our adversaries commit them but lawful whenever an American president wants the result.
That is not international law. It is the law of the jungle.
America cannot preserve an international order based upon rules while openly proclaiming that the rules do not bind America.
The Actual Weaponization of Government
Trump and his supporters spent years accusing previous administrations of weaponizing the Justice Department. Yet upon returning to office, Trump’s administration began doing openly what it had condemned: using personnel authority, investigations and prosecutions against people associated with cases involving Trump or against prominent figures who had opposed him.
The Justice Department fired dozens of lawyers who had worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal prosecutions of Trump. The department also removed prosecutors involved in January 6 cases and sought the identities of FBI agents who had worked on those investigations. These were not political appointees making policy decisions for an elected president. They were career public servants assigned to investigations.
Jack Smith resigned before Trump took office after dismissing the federal prosecutions because Justice Department policy prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president. Smith later testified that the cases had been abandoned because of that policy, not because the evidence had exonerated Trump. But the administration’s dismissal of Smith’s colleagues sent a message throughout federal law enforcement: Investigate the president or his allies, and your career may be destroyed when political power changes hands.
That message does not merely punish the people involved. It deters future prosecutors and agents from pursuing evidence that might lead toward a president, Cabinet official or politically powerful associate. An independent Justice Department cannot function when career employees must first calculate whether doing their jobs will make them targets of presidential revenge.
ICE, Mass Detention and the Denial of Due Process
The administration’s use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is an example of government power being exercised without respect for individual rights. A nation must enforce its immigration laws, secure its borders and remove people. But enforcement is not a license to discard the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment does not only protect citizens, it includes “persons.” The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized people physically present in the United States are entitled to basic procedural protections before the government may deprive them of liberty or remove them from the country.
Yet under Trump, ICE has increasingly operated through mass arrests, warrantless detentions, rapid transfers between distant facilities, restricted access to lawyers and accelerated deportation procedures that can make meaningful judicial review nearly impossible. ICE’s system has too often treated arrest as though it were proof of guilt. Federal courts have ruled approximately 4,400 times that ICE illegally detained individuals. Evidence of a system in which unlawful detention has become recurring and institutional.
When masked federal agents seize people in public, refuse to provide clear identification, place them in unmarked vehicles and transport them to unknown locations, the experience is indistinguishable from an abduction to the family watching it occur. Government agents may possess lawful authority, but lawful authority should be visible, documented and subject to immediate review.
A policy supposedly intended to improve public safety has made entire communities less willing to cooperate with police, doctors, educators and the courts.
ICE has arrested people who appeared at immigration courthouses for scheduled hearings, transforming courthouses into traps for people who had appeared in compliance with government orders. A government cannot credibly demand respect for the law while arresting people for appearing in court to follow it. Such tactics undermine the judicial system the administration claims to enforce. Due process cannot consist of placing people on an aircraft first and litigating their legal rights afterward.
The government describes immigration detention as “civil” rather than criminal. That legal classification does not change what detainees experience. They are confined behind locked doors, movements are controlled, they may be transported in restraints, separated from spouses and children, their jobs, homes and ability to defend pending legal cases. Unlike criminal defendants, immigration detainees generally do not receive government-appointed lawyers and are forced to navigate an extraordinarily complicated legal system while confined, frightened and unable to communicate easily with family or counsel.
The purpose of mass detention is not limited to removing particular individuals. Its broader effect is to create fear, politically useful to an authoritarian administration. A frightened population is easier to control than a population confident in its legal rights.
Americans should not dismiss these abuses because the first victims are immigrants. A government permitted to arrest people without meaningful judicial warrants, conceal where they are being held, deny prompt access to lawyers and disregard court orders develops methods that can later be directed against protesters, journalists, political activists and citizens.
The constitutional question is therefore larger than immigration. Trump regularly portrays due process as an obstacle that prevents the government from removing dangerous people quickly. But without due process, innocence offers no protection because the government never has to listen.
This is not the American rule of law.
Letitia James and Selective Justice
The prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James further illustrates the danger.
James successfully brought a civil fraud case against Trump and his business organization. Trump publicly attacked her repeatedly and demanded action against her. In October 2025, federal prosecutors indicted James on flimsy allegations of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution involving the financing of a Virginia property. She pleaded not guilty. The question is not whether Letitia James must obey the law. Of course she must. No public official should receive immunity merely because she investigated Trump. The question is whether the same standards are being applied consistently.
Trump’s own business practices involved repeated representations to lenders, insurers and taxing authorities about the use and value of properties. A New York judge found him liable for persistent civil fraud, although Trump denied wrongdoing and challenged the judgment.
When an administration vigorously prosecutes a political enemy for an allegedly inaccurate representation connected with a mortgage while the president dismisses or minimizes comparable allegations involving his own property transactions, the public has reason to suspect selective enforcement. The issue is not that an offense becomes permissible because Trump may have engaged in something similar. The issue is that criminal justice becomes corrupt when conduct is aggressively prosecuted against an enemy but tolerated, excused or treated as ordinary business when associated with the president.
Equal justice requires equal standards, not one law for the ruler and another for those who challenged him.
James Comey and “86 47”
Former FBI Director James Comey has long occupied a special place on Trump’s list of enemies. Comey was first charged over allegations that he lied during congressional testimony concerning the authorization of disclosures to the press. Critics questioned both the legal theory and the use of 2020 testimony to revive a dispute centered upon statements made years earlier. After that prosecution encountered legal difficulties, the Justice Department pursued Comey again over an innocuous photograph he posted showing seashells arranged to read “86 47.”
Trump and his supporters twisted the image as a threat against the 47th president. Comey said he had understood “86” to mean rejection or removal and deleted the image after learning that others interpreted it as a call for violence. In April 2026, a federal grand jury indicted Comey over the post. Prosecutors alleged that it constituted a threat against the president. Threats against any president must be investigated seriously. Political disagreement never justifies violence.
But context, intent and the First Amendment matter. Criminalizing an ambiguous political expression because the president and his supporters choose the most sinister possible interpretation risks converting protected speech into a felony. Clearly, the government kept searching for a charge that could be used against a man Trump didn’t like.
A prosecution may be technically possible and still represent an abuse of discretion. The federal government handles countless questionable statements, exaggerations, mistaken testimony and offensive social-media posts. It does not indict every speaker. When unusual prosecutorial energy is reserved for the president’s best-known enemies, discretion becomes the weapon, as in the failure of Trump’s Department of Justice to prosecute and of the Epstein abusers who have been identified , whether countries have moved ahead?
Revenge as Policy
Viewed separately, the administration can offer an explanation for each action:
- The Smith prosecutors were allegedly untrustworthy.
- The January 6 investigators were supposedly biased.
- Letitia James allegedly committed mortgage fraud.
- Comey allegedly lied and later posted a threat.
- CBS allegedly manipulated an interview.
- The Federal Reserve allegedly mishandled monetary policy.
- Iran allegedly posed an urgent danger.
Every authoritarian government produces individual justifications.
The pattern is what matters:
- Those who investigated Trump lose their jobs.
- Those who prosecuted him become investigative targets.
- Those who defeated him in court face federal scrutiny.
- Those who criticize him encounter lawsuits, licensing concerns or government pressure.
- Those who control economic institutions are threatened when they refuse his demands.
- Those who might consider opposing him are shown what happened to the people who did.
The objective is not merely revenge against past enemies:
- It is deterrence of future opposition.
- A prosecutor considering an investigation will remember what happened to Smith’s team.
- An FBI agent will remember what happened to personnel connected with January 6.
- A state attorney general will remember what happened to Letitia James.
- A former official contemplating public criticism will remember what happened to James Comey.
- A television executive will remember what happened to CBS and Paramount.
- A corporate leader will understand that favor from Washington may depend upon favor toward Trump.
- A member of Congress will learn that military action begins whether Congress approves it or not.
This is how democratic institutions are disciplined into submission.
This Is Not Law and Order
Law and order do not mean the president commands law-enforcement agencies to protect friends and pursue enemies. Law and order mean that neutral rules are applied through regular procedures by officials who are not punished for following the evidence. The Justice Department is part of the executive branch, and the president has constitutional authority over it. But that authority was never intended to convert federal prosecution into a personal grievance department. The president may establish enforcement priorities. He may appoint an attorney general who shares his policies. He may replace political appointees. He must not demand personal loyalty from prosecutors, punish career employees for lawful work or use criminal investigations as warnings to political opponents.
The distinction is the difference between a republic and personal rule.
The Authoritarian Pattern
Trump is creating a non-conventional communist government similar to the conduct shared across authoritarian communist states, fascist governments, oligarchies and kleptocracies. In each:
- Independent institutions gradually lose their independence.
- Media owners learn that survival requires accommodation.
- Businesses discover that loyalty brings opportunity.
- Regulators become political instruments.
- Central bankers are expected to satisfy the ruler.
- Prosecutors pursue enemies and protect allies.
- Career officials are dismissed for insufficient loyalty.
- Legislatures are bypassed.
- Courts are obeyed only when their decisions are convenient.
- International rules apply to weaker countries but not to the regime itself.
- The ruler’s family and associates accumulate extraordinary wealth while standing close to public power.
The common denominator is not one economic ideology. It is the replacement of impersonal government with personal government.
A Government Belonging to One Man
Republicans once warned that government should not pick winners and losers. They defended congressional control over war, independent monetary policy, neutral law enforcement, constitutional limitations and skepticism toward concentrated federal power.
Trump has abandoned those principles:
- He has placed CBS and “60 Minutes” under extraordinary governmental and financial pressure.
- He has attempted to subordinate the Federal Reserve.
- His administration has acquired interests in selected corporations while relaxing regulations affecting industries connected to his family’s wealth.
- He has taken the country into war with Iran without obtaining a declaration of war or specific congressional authorization.
- He has treated international law as optional.
- His Justice Department has dismissed prosecutors who worked on cases against him.
- His administration has pursued Letitia James and James Comey after Trump publicly demanded retribution against political enemies.
This is not limited government.
It is government by favor, fear, force and revenge.
The question is not whether each action perfectly reproduces communism, fascism or some historical dictatorship. Authoritarian systems do not arrive with a single identifying label.
They emerge when power becomes concentrated, personalized and monetized.
The essential questions are straightforward:
- Can the press criticize the president without fearing financial retaliation?
- Can prosecutors follow evidence without losing their careers?
- Can an attorney general investigate the president without later becoming the target of his Justice Department?
- Can citizens engage in political expression without ambiguous words being converted into federal crimes?
- Can the Federal Reserve make economic decisions without satisfying the president?
- Can companies compete without cultivating political loyalty?
- Can the president take the country to war without congressional authorization?
- Must the president obey courts, statutes, treaties and international law?
- Can foreign interests enrich the president’s family while seeking favorable government action?
When the answers become uncertain, democracy itself becomes uncertain.
America was not founded upon loyalty to a ruler. It was founded upon the principle that no ruler is above the law and that public power belongs to the people. A president who uses that power to intimidate critics, punish investigators, pursue opponents, pressure institutions, bypass Congress and enrich his family is not restoring law and order.
He is transforming the government of the people into a government belonging to him.
Only one way to stop the transformation when Congress has abrogated its responsibility to protect our rights and freedom.
VOTE!!!
RESIST!!! & EDUCATE!!!
THE AMERICAN POSEIDON ADVENTURE 
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