Opinion: America's Promise Under Threat by Fear-Fueled Rule
The Founding Idea of America
For 250 years, the United States has stood out as a unique nation. Charles Krauthammer, a late Fox News commentator, captured this essence when he stated, “America is the only country ever founded on an idea,” emphasizing that the idea is liberty. This concept has never been seen before and yet it has worked. The U.S. has become the most flourishing, powerful, and influential country on Earth with this system, created by some of the greatest political minds in human history.
Despite not being perfect, the country has shown a capacity for self-correction. It took time to recognize the unalienable rights of all races and sexes. The nation has faced challenges, fought internally, and at times misused its military power. However, when violence was used, it was typically to defend liberty both at home and abroad.
A New Challenge
Now, the nation faces a new challenge with leaders who do not believe in the founding idea. Freedom threatens them, so they rule by fear. So far, neither the institutions nor the people have mobilized to correct this mistake.
President Trump and his supporters are emboldened enough to openly express their ill intentions. They know that if they commit crimes on his behalf, he will pardon them. Trump uses taxpayer money and federal institutions, such as the U.S. Department of Justice, which is the world’s largest law office with 10,000 tax-supported attorneys and 25,000 investigators, to harass, sue, and prosecute those who disagree with him. Even if legal actions are groundless, they place enormous emotional stress and financial burden on critics, creating "anticipatory obedience" among those who might challenge him.
Attacks on Justice and Media
The Justice Department has attempted revenge prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and former special counsel Jack Smith, all of whom were involved in past prosecutions of Trump. The FBI is investigating six former members of the military and intelligence services now in Congress who participated in a video advising members of the military not to follow unlawful orders. Trump’s Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has censured one of them, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), and begun proceedings to demote him and lower his military retirement benefits.
Trump attacks freedom of the press. Over the last year, his administration took more than $1 billion away from public broadcasting; launched investigations into NPR, PBS, ABC, NBC, and CBS; and forced media organizations to pay $32 million to settle his lawsuits against them. He has taken 76 federal actions to restrict, punish, and revoke journalists’ credentials.
Use of Federal Force
But Trump’s biggest use of federal force to intimidate and terrorize civil society is his deployment of immigration agents and military troops in U.S. cities run by Democrats. Federal agencies have deported more than 605,000 people over the last year. Trump promised to focus on immigrants convicted of crimes, but his agents have arrested productive and longstanding American residents. As of Nov. 30, nearly 74 percent of the detainees had no criminal convictions. During 2025, 32 people, including children, died while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Many have been “disappeared” to other countries, some to prisons, and denied their constitutional rights to due process. During 2025, the administration stripped legal status from 1.6 million immigrants. Nearly 2 million immigrants “self-deported.”
Tragic Incidents
Last week, Americans watched on television as an armed immigration officer shot and killed a frightened mother of three, an American citizen, in Minneapolis. Without the benefit of an investigation, Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and other federal officials quickly went public to describe the woman as a rioter and “terrorist” who “weaponized her vehicle” against the officer, forcing him to defend himself.
The American people have also watched the U.S. military kill foreign nationals by simply blowing up 35 boats in the Caribbean, killing at least 115 passengers. The Trump administration claimed the boats were smuggling drugs into America but provided no evidence.
International Actions
Then came the invasion of Venezuela to arrest its leader and bring him to the U.S. for trial. Trump openly admits he wants to seize the country’s oil reserves, the largest (and some of the dirtiest) in the world. In the style of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, he wants to turn America’s oil billionaires into oligarchs. Time will tell how the entrenched interests in Venezuela react, and whether the invasion escalates into America’s latest oil war.
And Trump aspires to control not just Venezuela but also Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. He has sacrificed America’s moral authority to oppose Russia’s and China’s forceful acquisitions of other sovereign states.
Views on Power
Trump adviser Stephen Miller, considered the administration’s “brains,” says that “the real world” is governed by “strength,” “by force,” and “by power.” “The United States,” he says, “is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere. We’re a superpower.”
The U.S. is supposed to be different, but Trump sees the world as an extension of himself—a place where bullies gain wealth and power by mistreating others and controlling them with fear.
William S. Becker is co-editor of and a contributor to “Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government for the People,” and a contributor to Democracy in a Hotter Time, named by the journal Nature as one of 2023’s five best science books. He previously served as a senior official in the Wisconsin Department of Justice. He is currently executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.
