Trump’s Regime Plays Its Hand
Ben Cable (Originally Published on Substack)
The strategy is unsettlingly simple: intimidate, destabilize, dismantle structures. From military raids in Democratic cities to mass deportations, institutional purges like firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, and even symbolic erasure such as painting over rainbow crosswalks near the Pulse Nightclub memorial, these are not isolated actions. They are coordinated tests of our resilience, designed to impose fear and normalize authoritarian control.
Manufactured Fear, Orchestrated Submission
Authoritarian playbooks operate on both sight and symbol. Military convoys entering cities, judges vilified, immigrants imprisoned, institutions stripped of autonomy—and rainbow crosswalks painted gray. Take Orlando: officials secretly scrubbed a rainbow crosswalk at the Pulse memorial, a site where 49 people, primarily from the LGBTQ+ community, were murdered in 2016. Locals responded with protests, chalked rainbows, and signs proclaiming “queer joy, love, resistance.” As Senator Carlos Guillermo‑Smith said, it was “an insult to families and survivors” and “a sign that we will not be erased.”
This is theater. Against the backdrop of fear, communities see their heritage erased, muddying identity and memory. For historians like Wendy Rouse, this comes in the context of a larger “Rainbow Panic”: a resurgence of historical erasure, censorship of LGBTQ+ history, and government-sanctioned removal of queer narratives from public platforms.
Women’s rights & public health
Reproductive autonomy. A solid national majority continues to back legal abortion in some form: 63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center’s latest trend update (fielded April 2024 and updated June 2025).
Contraception is mainstream health care. Eight in ten U.S. women ages 18–49 report using some form of contraception in the past year; nearly 7 in 10 say it is crucial to avoid pregnancy next month, a reminder that attempts to restrict birth control collide with everyday health realities (KFF Women’s Health Survey 2024). KFF
Maternal mortality remains an American outlier. The U.S. maternal mortality rate fell to 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023, an improvement from the pandemic spike but still alarmingly high compared with wealthy peers. Black women faced a rate of 50.3 per 100,000, far higher than White (14.5) or Hispanic (12.4) women, according to the CDC’s 2025 Health E-Stat. OECD benchmarking shows many rich countries clustered around ~10 per 100,000 or lower. The gap is structural, not incidental.
Project 2025 targets SRHR. Health policy experts warn the Heritage-aligned Project 2025 agenda would sharply curtail sexual and reproductive health and rights—from abortion access to contraceptive programs, by remaking HHS and executive-branch levers to privilege ideology over evidence.
“Anti-woke” medicine and the COVID vaccine rollback
Funding cuts, political framing. In early August 2025, HHS announced it would wind down mRNA vaccine development under BARDA, canceling and de-scoping 22 projects, a move justified by leadership as a pivot away from mRNA platforms and widely interpreted by public-health leaders as political signaling against “woke” science. Reuters and the HHS press statement confirm the BARDA wind-down; hospital associations warned the step undercuts pandemic preparedness.
Talk of bans and state pushback. Reports indicate that close Trump allies and HHS leaders are considering an outright U.S. ban on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Meanwhile, the White House has dismissed this as “speculation,” while states are exploring regional public-health autonomy in anticipation of potential federal distribution or guidance curtailment. A formal national “ban” has not been enacted yet.
CDC workforce and authority under stress. In parallel with HHS restructuring, hundreds of CDC staff have received termination notices amid broader cuts and reorgs, raising concerns about capacity for routine immunization programs and outbreak response.
According to Pew, 63% of Americans support legal abortion in all or most cases, and KFF finds 82% of women 18–49 used contraception in the last year—evidence that reproductive care is mainstream, not fringe. Yet the U.S. still posts 18.6 maternal deaths per 100,000 births (Black women: 50.3), far worse than many OECD peers around ~10. Instead of closing that gap, Project 2025 seeks to erode SRHR infrastructure, while HHS has begun winding down federal mRNA vaccine development, and CDC capacity is being pared back. Meanwhile, ~23% of adults still opted for the 2024–25 COVID booster by late April, showing that politicizing vaccines isn’t neutral “culture war” theater—it’s a direct hit to public health in which ordinary people bear the risk.
But millions still depend on updated shots. Even after a bruising political fight, about 23% of U.S. adults reported receiving the 2024–25 COVID booster by April 26, 2025, with additional adults stating they planned to get it, indicating that rolling back federal support would disrupt care that many still seek.
Authoritarian Choreography
When public opinion favors abortion access, women rely on contraception, and maternal health outcomes already lag, a governing agenda that shrinks SRHR access and politicizes vaccines functions as power over bodies, a textbook feature of authoritarian movements. Historians and public-health scholars have long noted that regimes seeking social control police reproduction and rewrite medical authority to subordinate science to ideology. Project 2025 provides that blueprint; the BARDA mRNA wind-down, CDC workforce cuts, and “ban” talk supply the execution; and the data above show the real-world costs if this course continues.
Stephen Miller: The Fear Architect
Behind the scenes, Stephen Miller designs and delivers the authoritarian playbook:
- As Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor, Miller engineered raids, deportations, and expanded enforcement powers.
- Through America First Legal, he provides the legal pretext legitimizing such operations.
- His fingerprints dominate Project 2025, a 900+ page guidebook from the Heritage Foundation that envisions a militarized, ideologically purged federal government. It calls for purging career bureaucrats, deploying armed forces domestically, slashing civil rights, and remaking government via a radical “unitary executive” framework.
Miller is not just an idea man; he is the field commander—turning fear into execution.
Project 2025: Authoritarianism in Print
Project 2025 isn’t policy, it’s the blueprint for dismantling democracy:
- It proposes removing civil service safeguards and replacing career professionals with partisan loyalists.
- It endorses deploying military forces within U.S. borders for law enforcement.
- It aims to gut independent agencies and codify Christian nationalist policies.
- Its ideological core is the “unitary executive”, centralizing absolute presidential power.
Critics—from constitutional scholars to historians- warn that it establishes an authoritarian superstructure without checks and balances.
The Removal of Lisa Cook: Institutional Erosion in Real Time
In late August 2025, Trump attempted to fire Lisa Cook, the Fed’s first Black woman governor, citing alleged mortgage fraud. She refused to resign, pledged legal resistance, and is now challenging the unprecedented dismissal.
Legal experts are alarmed. Professor Peter Conti‑Brown (UPenn) noted the alleged mortgage issues predate Cook’s confirmation, making them a flimsy basis for “for cause” dismissal. He warned that punishing non-work-related activities retroactively undermines the entire concept of secure tenure.
The legal ambiguity is stark: The Federal Reserve Act allows removal “for cause,” but that has historically been interpreted narrowly—typically for on‑the‑job misconduct. No prior president has attempted such a removal based on personal conduct that predates their tenure.
Economists say the Fed’s independence is a global pillar of financial stability. Undermining it could erode inflation control, weaken monetary credibility, and destabilize global markets.
Symbolic Erasure as Control
When state authorities paint over a rainbow crosswalk honoring Pulse victims, it’s not merely aesthetic censorship; it’s symbolic control over memory, identity, and belonging.
This echoes authoritarian regimes that sanitize history to erase oppositional narratives. As historian Wendy Rouse observes, this cycle of erasure (“Rainbow Panic”) is dangerously reminiscent of past silencing of marginalized communities.
The Choreography of Fear and Control
Together, the pieces fit like a puzzle:
- Project 2025 – The authoritarian blueprint.
- Stephen Miller – The operator translating ideology into raids, deportations, and enforcement.
- Lisa Cook’s ousting – The purge of independent institutions.
- Rainbow crosswalks erased – Cultural memory rewritten.
- Women’s rights gutted, healthcare dismantled, vaccines politicized – Bodily autonomy and public health sacrificed to ideology.
This is not chaos, it is choreography. Each move is calibrated to remind Americans: your safety, your memory, your health, even your autonomy can be stripped at will.
Conclusion: Resistance as Strategy, Not Reaction
If Americans react with fear or disunity, the regime will declare an emergency, impose martial law, and suspend elections. If we respond silently, democracy fades into a compliant habit.
The only way forward? Organized, strategic, disciplined resistance, peaceful yet powerful.
Because democracy doesn’t fall during a raid or a firing, it crumbles when fear reconfigures our civic norms, and silence becomes our consent.
Call to Action
Stay informed. Stay vocal. Resist normalization of fear. Share this. Subscribe. Because this regime thrives on submission, but collapses when citizens refuse to play its game.
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