How Trump Is Turning the U.S. Government into a Weapon of Revenge

Trump’s second term isn’t a presidency. It’s a punishment.

I. The Second Term That Shouldn’t Exist

Donald Trump wasn’t supposed to get a sequel. He was the bad TV president who got canceled, a real-estate grifter turned game-show host turned Commander-in-Chief, voted out in 2020 like the last guest who overstayed his welcome. But thanks to voter suppression laws that made it harder to vote than to buy an AR-15 in Georgia, a media ecosystem where truth is optional, and a Democratic Party that still thinks “when they go low, we go high” works against a man who brought a shovel, Trump got his encore.

Now, he’s making the most of it. Not by governing. Not by healing. Not by uniting a country that’s hanging together by duct tape and collective exhaustion. He’s using his second term the way he’s always used power: like a cudgel.

Welcome to the United States of Retribution.

II. The Department of Vengeance

When Trump first told the world he was running for president in 2024, he made one thing crystal clear: this wasn’t about policy, or the economy, or even winning. It was about settling scores. “I am your retribution,” he declared. And now, the phrase isn’t just campaign rhetoric. It’s policy.

Let’s start with the Department of Justice, an institution once known for impartiality and a blindfolded lady holding scales. That lady’s been mugged, and the scales are now being used to whack anyone who dared oppose the President.

Case in point: Miles Taylor, the former Department of Homeland Security official who wrote an anonymous New York Times op-ed in 2018 warning that staff were working to contain Trump’s worst impulses. Taylor eventually revealed himself, endorsed Joe Biden, and became a cable news fixture. Fast forward to March 2025: Trump orders the DOJ to investigate Taylor for alleged violations of national security law, calling him guilty of “treason” before any investigation has even begun. A presidential memorandum—signed and released publicly—directed the DOJ to “determine whether he unlawfully disclosed classified information” and to assess the revocation of his security clearance.

That same week, Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—fired in 2020 for saying the election was fair—was also targeted for federal investigation. Krebs’ sin? Doing his job. Upholding democracy. Telling the truth.

You don’t need a poli-sci degree to see what’s happening here. These aren’t legitimate security probes. They’re political hit jobs disguised as legal proceedings. Banana republic tactics with an American flag slapped on top.

III. Academia on Trial

The Trump administration’s retribution machine isn’t just aimed at former officials. It’s been deployed against some of the most enduring institutions of American society: the universities that teach our doctors, our engineers, our future presidents—and maybe more importantly, our protestors.

In April 2025, Cornell University and Northwestern University found themselves at the wrong end of the administration’s microscope. The Department of Education and the Pentagon suspended more than $1.7 billion in federal grants and contracts, citing “ongoing investigations” into alleged civil rights violations linked to pro-Palestinian protests and student activism.

It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t slow. It was the policy equivalent of a baseball bat to the knees.

Cornell acknowledged “partial stop work orders” from the Department of Defense. Northwestern confirmed the funding freeze, though it said it hadn’t yet received formal notice. Both institutions had been home to protests criticizing Israel’s conduct in Gaza—a hot-button issue for this administration, which has treated dissent on foreign policy like a federal crime.

Nowhere is this clearer than at Columbia University, the current ground zero for academic retaliation. After months of protests, Columbia saw $400 million in federal contracts suspended, and in a move worthy of Orwell, the administration offered a “deal”: give up academic independence, submit to federal monitoring, and we’ll consider reinstating your funding.

Columbia caved—sort of. It agreed to revise protest policies and increase oversight of its Middle Eastern studies department. But Trump officials are pushing for more: a consent decree, a legally binding agreement that would give the federal government direct influence over university curricula, hiring, and research.

If that doesn’t terrify you, you’re not paying attention. That’s not democracy. That’s autocracy with a syllabus.

IV. ICE Raids the Ivory Tower

The Trump administration’s campaign doesn’t stop at institutions. It’s personal. It’s punishing students—specifically, foreign students—who have dared to speak out.

In March, Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and Columbia graduate, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement without charges. His crime? Leading peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. The administration accused him of supporting terrorism—without offering any public evidence—and began deportation proceedings.

And Khalil isn’t alone. Dozens of international students at American universities who joined last year’s protests are reportedly having their visas revoked, their passports flagged, and in some cases, being detained without trial.

The State Department—under Secretary Marco Rubio—has even begun compiling lists of “anti-American foreign nationals” allegedly engaged in “subversive” behavior. That includes students, professors, and even visiting researchers.

This isn’t border enforcement. This is ideological cleansing.

V. The Great Purge of Public Service

But Trump’s not stopping with the students or the professors. He’s coming for the bureaucrats too—the faceless but vital civil servants who keep the trains running and the food safe and the weather forecasts accurate.

In February, Trump signed an executive order called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Workforce Optimization Initiative, which sounds like something cooked up at a tech startup and implemented by Stalin.

What it actually does: allows the federal government to fire career employees en masse without cause. In March, the Department of Education laid off 50% of its staff. Weeks later, the Department of Homeland Security initiated a “reduction in force” that gutted oversight offices and left hundreds unemployed.

If you’re wondering why, the answer isn’t fiscal responsibility. It’s power. These departments are where whistleblowers live. Where ethics rules are enforced. Where dissent can still spark a congressional hearing.

Not anymore.

But not everyone has gone quietly. Inside agencies across the government, some career officials are quietly documenting violations, issuing inspector general reports, or preserving digital trails others hoped were deleted. These bureaucrats—the ones Trump wants purged—aren’t just pushing paper. They’re pushing back. It’s not enough to stop the machine. But sometimes resistance doesn’t look like revolution. It looks like delay. And delay buys time.

VI. Judges on Notice

This administration’s contempt for checks and balances doesn’t end with the executive branch. Trump has made threatening federal judges a recurring theme of his second term.

In February 2025, after a federal judge temporarily blocked a provision of Trump’s immigration crackdown, he lashed out on Truth Social—his PR platform disguised as a social network—calling the judge “a disgrace to the robe” and urging his followers to “demand accountability.” The backlash wasn’t just rhetorical.

That same week, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) began drafting articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr., who had ruled against the administration’s freeze on federal funding. Not long after, Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) introduced similar articles targeting Judge Paul Engelmayer, who had temporarily blocked Elon Musk and DOGE from accessing Treasury systems, citing due process violations. Both resolutions were referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

And while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene didn’t file articles herself, she made her position clear. As chair of the Oversight Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, she pledged during a hearing: “We will hold this judge and others who try to stop the will of the people and their elected leaders accountable.”

This isn’t hypothetical anymore. It’s procedural. It’s being drafted, filed, and logged. The message is unmistakable: the judiciary exists at the pleasure of the president and his party. And any judge who steps out of line will be named, shamed, and possibly impeached.

Trump is building an America where judges don’t interpret the law. They interpret the president’s mood.

VII. The Message Is the Policy

This isn’t politics as usual. It’s not normal. It’s not a pendulum swing or a rough patch or a return to “law and order.” This isn’t about tax brackets or tariffs or policy disagreements on the margins.

This is something else entirely. This is the deliberate dismantling of American democracy from the inside out. Not with tanks in the streets, but with legal memos, executive orders, and a thousand little nods that say: Yes, Mr. President. Whatever you want, Mr. President.

The DOJ now investigates political enemies. The State Department now flags dissent. ICE knocks on doors not because of what someone did, but because of what someone said. Universities are punished. Judges are threatened. Journalists are labeled traitors. And none of this is a glitch in the machine. It is the machine.

Because in this administration, the message is the policy. Obey or be punished. Praise or be purged. Fall in line—or fall.

And through it all—through it all—the Republican Party, once the party of Lincoln, of Eisenhower, of Reagan, of John McCain… now stands by like a wax museum with a Twitter account. Silent when silence is complicity. Smiling when the house is on fire.

They don’t legislate. They don’t deliberate. They don’t dissent.

They repost.
They amplify.
They perform.

All the moral courage of a paper towel in a hurricane—soaking up nothing, blown in whatever direction the wind of Trump’s ego decides to gust that day.

This was once a party that stared down fascism, built highways, landed astronauts, and tore down walls. Now it spends its time chasing conspiracy theories and retweeting threats from a man who sees power not as a responsibility—but as a weapon.

This isn’t a disagreement between left and right. This is a test between courage and cowardice.

And we’re watching one side fail it in real time.

VIII. This Isn’t Just History Repeating. It’s History Being Dismantled.

We like to tell ourselves this country has been through worse. That we’ve seen presidents lie, break the law, tap phones, drone civilians. That the system bends, but it doesn’t break. That the Constitution, however battered, holds.

But that’s a fairy tale. The comforting kind. The kind we tell ourselves at night, so we don’t feel the tremor underfoot. Because this time is different. Not just because of the man in the Oval Office, but because of the party, the institutions, the machinery—all of it—moving in silent synchronization toward something we haven’t seen before: the dismantling of democracy from the inside out.

Nixon had an enemies list. He wanted to punish his critics, but the courts pushed back. The press investigated. Republicans in Congress blinked and flinched and finally broke. The system held because enough people inside it refused to go along.

Bush had the Patriot Act. A surveillance state built on fear. And it went too far. But even at its worst, it didn’t demand that universities sign loyalty oaths or surrender their curricula to White House lawyers. It didn’t turn grant money into ideological ransom.

Trump isn’t overreaching. He’s rewriting the rules—undermining truth, dismantling independence, redefining justice as obedience. His enemies list doesn’t sit in a drawer. It sits in federal court dockets, hiring decisions, student visa databases, and State Department memos. And the people who refuse to play along? They get fired. Or investigated. Or doxxed.

This is not the sequel to some messy chapter in American history. It’s a whole new genre. It’s not Watergate. It’s not McCarthy. It’s not Bush-Cheney. It’s something more efficient. More coordinated. And more dangerous.

The institutions haven’t held. They’ve been hollowed out and repurposed. And if you’re still looking for the tipping point, stop. You missed it. We’re not tipping anymore. We’re tumbling.

IX. What Do We Do Now?

Don’t mistake this for a call to arms. It’s a call to attention. To resistance. To memory.

Start here: stop pretending it’s going to self-correct. It’s not. Stop assuming the courts will step in, the press will hold the line, the “grown-ups in the room” will save us. The grown-ups have either been fired or are reading cue cards on cable news.

What we’re facing now isn’t a single act of corruption. It’s not one bad bill or one dangerous policy. It’s a theory of power. A worldview. One where obedience is loyalty, dissent is betrayal, and government isn’t by the people—it’s on the people.

So what do we do?

We fight like hell without raising a fist. We speak like the microphones are always on. We show up at town halls, at school boards, at the polls—but also in the moments between, when no one’s watching, when it’s inconvenient, when it’s uncomfortable. Because democracy doesn’t need us when it’s easy. It needs us when it’s collapsing.

Teach your kids that liberty is not a given. That it’s rented. And the rent is due every day. Show them what courage looks like in small acts: refusing to laugh at the wrong joke, correcting the lie that slides by, naming the thing no one wants to say out loud.

Because this won’t be undone by one election. Or one candidate. Or one speech. This will be undone by citizens who stop mistaking silence for peace.

And remember this: authoritarians don’t seize power. They don’t kick in the doors. They don’t wear medals or ride tanks. They get invited in—by people too exhausted to care, too cynical to believe, or too polite to interrupt.

So interrupt. Interrupt loudly. Interrupt constantly. Interrupt now.

Because the president already has.

And he wasn’t whispering.