PJLC

Earlier this weekend, it appeared that the U.S. attack on Venezuela might warrant an increase in the Threat Index’s Militarism and Foreign Aggression  score. With the benefit of a couple additional days, however, we have decided not to change the Index at this time. Following the U.S. bombing of Iran in June, we raised the Militarism score from 5 to 6. That change reflected a shift by the Trump administration from relying primarily on threats of military action to actually using direct...

As of this month, the Threat Index score remains the same. We continue to see worrying actions from the Trump administration and the broader MAGA movement, but the overall picture has not shifted. An authoritarian movement controls the federal government, but democratic institutions and political opposition continue. Courts, state governments, civil society, and organized opposition continue to push back. The movement’s attempts to dismantle the opposition seem designed to terrorize...

Over the past month, following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the MAGA movement has become increasingly explicit about its desire to eliminate political opposition. They describe larger and larger swaths of political opponents, including “democrats” and the hundreds of thousands or millions of people expected to participate in the upcoming No Kings protests, as “domestic terrorists” who "hate America.” Criminal prosecutions have begun against individuals on the president’s personal enemies...