Monthly Update: 9/11/2025

Hello everyone,

As you may have noticed, we have shifted from weekly to monthly updates for the Threat Index. We will publish more often if the score changes, but the increasing pace of relevant news makes weekly analysis less practical. The purpose of the Index has never been to track headlines in real time. It has always been to give a larger perspective. Recent events such as an attack on a Venezuelan ship, the mobilization of the National Guard in Washington, the Supreme Court’s reversal of an order for ICE to follow the Constitution, the federal government taking a stake in Intel, Trump boasting that he “loves the smell of deportations in the morning,” and the breaking news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination and its reaction all deserve attention. However, none of them have changed the Index score (though we are watching closely for calls from MAGA leaders for retaliatory violence that might raise the Paramilitarism and Political Violence measure).

So if we instead stay focused on the bigger picture, we see that the Threat Index has continued to remain stable. MAGA leaders and the Trump administration continue to make shockingly authoritarian statements and take limited actions that test the country’s acceptance of authoritarian practices. However, there seems to be little appetite to fully cross the line into widespread authoritarian repression.

There is no single answer for why things have stayed this way. The threat comes from many directions at once. There is the MAGA movement itself, which contains many conflicting motives. There is the Republican Party, with its mix of self-interest and inner divisions. There is the Trump administration, shaped by rivalries and internal drama. And there is the President, whose motives and objectives are often unclear.

One way to view the moment is that these actors are playing with fire. They chase power, wealth, ego, or revenge while ignoring the danger to democracy. They may stir up authoritarian instincts, but destroying democracy is not, in itself, their aim.

Another view is that some within MAGA, the Republican Party, and the administration are patiently working toward authoritarian rule. In this telling, they are moving slowly, getting people used to authoritarian ideas at a small scale now, with plans to expand later. If this is correct, the real test may come during the midterm elections.

A third view is that this period is part of a familiar swing between progressive and conservative forces in American history. On this account, the moment is troubling but not unique, and not as antidemocratic as slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, Jim Crow, or the exclusion of women from civic life. What is happening now is an effort to roll back a century of progress, not the creation of something new.

Another possibility is that American democracy is stronger than it looks. Courts, state governments, and even the bureaucracy have taken heavy pressure without breaking. Market and political incentives also create limits. Elites who profit from the performance of authoritarianism often prefer to keep it as performance, since the drama is more profitable than the endgame. Republican leaders also know that going fully authoritarian could spark a powerful backlash from voters. For all of these reasons, the system bends but has not shattered.

A different possibility is that MAGA and the Trump administration are simply too weak and disorganized to consolidate power. The coalition is full of contradictions, uniting groups with clashing goals that cannot be pulled together into a single project. Trump’s way of governing makes this worse. He pushes until he meets resistance, then loses interest. What looks from the outside like restraint may really be dysfunction.

The Threat Index cannot tell us which of these explanations is correct, and in fact, they may all be true to an extent. It does show that the danger is real. Whatever the intentions of the actors involved, the risks to American democracy remain high and deserve constant attention. The evidence so far suggests a system that can endure strain but not one that is beyond the risk of failure.