Trumpism Doesn’t Compromise — It Consumes

What’s unfolding isn’t politics as usual; it’s the deliberate capture of every map, court, and cultural institution to guarantee one party’s rule for a generation.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Follow him on Substack for more by clicking here.

Once upon a time in Washington, there was at least a performance of compromise; a little political kabuki where Democrats and Republicans would shake hands, slap each other on the back, and pretend they were working in the same America. That’s over. Dead. Buried. Cremated. And the ashes? Well, they’ve been handed over to President Trump to scatter over whatever gold-plated fantasyland he’s building in his head.

What’s happening now isn’t about negotiation, and it’s not about shared governance. It’s about bending the entire machinery of government — every institution, every lever of influence — to serve one ideology: Trumpism. Not Republicanism. Not conservatism. Trumpism. That’s an entirely different beast. It’s not a political philosophy; it’s a loyalty test. And in Trump’s America, you’re either a loyalist or you’re an enemy.

The MAGA-fied GOP isn’t just aiming at the usual suspects — the “woke” universities, the environmental agencies, the media. Now, the crosshairs are on places most Americans assumed were apolitical sanctuaries. The Smithsonian. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Institutions dedicated to preserving our history and culture are suddenly “too liberal,” “too woke” for the Trump crowd and must be remade in the leader’s image. Even the Bureau of Labor Statistics — yes, the people who count jobs — is seen as a dangerous, left-leaning hive that needs to be “corrected.”

And don’t even get me started on law enforcement. The Trump playbook is simple: federal law enforcement must be gutted, defanged, and reconstituted as a political weapon. First, it was the FBI and DOJ under constant attack. Then, D.C. police authority came into question. Next stop? Your town. If you think local sheriffs, state police, and prosecutors are immune to this takeover, you haven’t been paying attention. The endgame is a system where law enforcement doesn’t just enforce the law; it enforces Trump’s law.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Okay, but Congress can stop this,” let me ruin your morning coffee: that’s where the most dangerous piece of this puzzle comes in — gerrymandering. Remember my previous Substack article? My alarmist call for building an unstoppable community?

The Washington Post recently laid out the stakes in brutal detail — even better than I did. Trump’s push to redraw congressional maps has set off a redistricting arms race. Both parties are in the fight, but it’s an uneven match. Republicans have more states under their control, more opportunities to shift the map, and fewer pesky independent commissions standing in the way. In short: they have the ammo, the battlefield advantage, and no hesitation about pulling the trigger.

In Texas, they’re already moving to add as many as five new red seats. Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana — all ripe for partisan surgery to carve out more MAGA districts. The plan is to stack the House so deep in Trump’s favor ahead of the 2026 midterms that even a blue wave couldn’t dislodge them. And the Republicans are playing the long game. Redraw now, lock in power for a decade.

Democrats? They’re scrambling. Sure, there are moves in California, Maryland, New York, Illinois, maybe Oregon. But let’s be honest; Democrats have already squeezed most of the juice from their controlled states. The GOP has more raw territory to work with, and the math isn’t on our side. Even Maryland’s lone red district and Illinois’s few remaining Republicans are more about symbolism than game-changing seat grabs.

One Republican strategist put it bluntly: “There is no scenario where we don’t have more seats to go get than they do.” Translation: We’ve already beaten you on the battlefield map; now we’re just deciding how big the victory will be.

And here’s the real kick in the ass: this isn’t just a numbers game. Gerrymandering isn’t some abstract civics class issue. It’s the foundation for everything else. If you control the House, you control committee chairs, investigations, budgets — the levers that determine what gets done and what gets buried. It’s how you stack the courts, starve agencies, and pump money into pet projects that serve the ideology. If the Republicans lock in the House through redistricting, they can block anything that doesn’t pass the Trump loyalty test. Forever.

We’re already seeing the consequences. State courts in places like Florida and Ohio, now dominated by Republican appointees, are shrugging off constitutional limits on partisan maps. In 2022, Ohio literally used a map its own Supreme Court had rejected. That’s the level of brazenness we’re up against.

The bigger picture? This isn’t just about winning elections. It’s about total institutional control — the kind that can’t be undone by one cycle or one president. Think about it: a Smithsonian reimagined to celebrate “patriotic” history, purged of anything uncomfortable; a Kennedy Center programming season that reads like the entertainment lineup at Mar-a-Lago; a Bureau of Labor Statistics that magically produces economic numbers that flatter the leader. And a law enforcement apparatus that enforces political loyalty above the actual law. That’s the America Trump and his loyalists are building.

Which brings me to the part where I sound the alarm — again. The 2026 midterms are not just another election. They are the firewall. If we don’t take back Congress, this redistricting arms race will cement Trump’s grip on power for a generation. And once that happens, good luck prying his hands off the wheel.

This is not hyperbole. I lived inside Trump’s world. I know how far he’ll go to punish dissent and reward loyalty. He’s not aiming to win the game; he’s aiming to change the rules so only he can play. And unless Democrats, moderates, independents — anyone who still believes in or wants a functioning democracy — unite to stop this ideology, we’ll wake up one morning to find that the America we knew has been quietly, surgically, and permanently replaced.

The time to act is now!

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