Welcome, everybody.

I want to start today using a word.

We have the best words here that many people are understandably afraid to use.

That word is dictatorship because of course we look around we have elections we

have courts that some people follow when they make a legal court order um but what we are seeing

right now at the federal government is not just dysfunction it is is a devolution, de-evolution, devolution, uh, into

dictatorship, becoming a dictatorship and becoming is a key word. Now, I want to make it very clear

that this is not some like over the top hyperbolic nonsense. I'm not saying we live under Hitler. I'm

not saying we have a 20th century style literal dictatorship under Donald Trump. But what we do have

are the first signs of the structural decay where courts get ignored, the law is bent around one man, a large

orange man, civil society gets demonized, power centralizes in the executive, opposition is

framed as illegitimate, media critical of leadership is seen as disloyal and treasonous and you don't have to live under literal dictatorship to see that these are the early stages of how dictatorship forms.

Plato warned about this.

First the people get angry and they get desperate.

Then a strong man comes in loud and angry and vengeful and sometimes charismatic who says

he basically always he is the only one who can fix it.

And soon the institutions don't work unless he allows them to. The institutions

don't work unless, unless they allow him to do whatever he wants to do. So it's really important

to understand that authoritarian don't always storm the palace on horseback. Sometimes they tweet,

or once Twitter becomes X, they excrete on X. Sometimes they host rallies. Sometimes they tweet or once Twitter becomes X, they excrete on X.

Sometimes they host rallies.

Sometimes they just ignore court rulings and dare anyone to stop them.

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