Stop debating is fascism is here or not. It is. The question is what are we going to do about it?

We need to bear witness to every atrocious step on Trump's path to eliminate institutions that hold him in check.

That the incoming Trump administration aims to consolidate power in the fashion of Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban is not in serious dispute. Or, more accurately, it is disputed only by lies.

In practice, that means we have to focus our efforts on the Congress and do everything in our power to protect its independence and legitimacy as a check on presidential power.

Let me just lay out of few of the facts:

The new administration - as is abundantly clear from in its words, its previous record, and in its new appointments - will act as if the Unitary Executive Theory is established constitutional order. In their view, every individual in the executive branch works for the president. That includes the Attorney General, the head of the FBI, and the BLS (the agency that publishes monthly jobs reports). Going forward, these people will seek to do what the president wants rather than what the Constitution or their job requires. Prosecute political rivals? Absolutely. Tap the phones of business rivals? Why not? Give a sneak peak at economic data to favored investors? Sure thing.

To make all of that easier, the incoming administration will end civil service- the practice of hiring people independent of politics based on their qualifications for the work- and replace it with Schedule F, a patronage system that was outlawed here in Chicago decades ago.

Independent centers of oversight and power are already being attacked. The FBI is described as lawless. That’s a pretext to taking it over. The independent inspectors general that help catch a lot of waste and fraud in the government? Expect their investigative powers and budgets to shrink dramatically. Entire departments that serve as checks on corporate power will be gutted - starting with the Department of Education, and despite climate change, also the EPA.

Look for the administration to move the enforcement of voting rights laws from the civil rights division to the criminal division - a signal that it intends to move from protecting voting rights to make voting illegal for many Americans.

Photo Credit: Justin Lane/ Reuters

Campaign finance laws are already laughably weak. Look for them to be gutted further. The transparency that allowed us to learn, belatedly, of Elon Musk’s $277 million in direct campaign donations will likely go away. To be fair, the long sought goal of Citizens United- a country where the wealthiest can buy politicians without anyone knowing- probably was already secured when they succeeded in buying the Supreme Court in secret.

Trump plans to create a panel that will court martial senior leadership of America’s armed forces. This purge would replace leadership chosen by merit with those chosen by loyalty to Mr. Trump. A Heritage Foundation funded group has already publicly released a hit list of senior officers it wants removed. Their pictures are already being shown on FOX Cable and in the New York Post. There is no American precedent for this kind of purge. There are, however, plenty of totalitarian examples.

Expect the Impoundment Control Act to be ignored, and for Trump to ask the Supreme Court to void it entirely. That means Trump alone, not Congress, will decide who gets US Government money. A billion dollars in disaster aid? He could decide to spend it in Florida but not in California.

I could go on, but it is counterproductive. The conclusion is clear. Donald Trump and the entire incoming Executive Branch pose an unprecedented danger to our democracy, to our rights, to our fundamental sense of ourselves as Americans.

We need to bear witness to every atrocious step on his path to eliminate institutions that hold him in check. We need to bear witness to every rhetorical effort to divide us in order to gain support for his radically destructive rule.

In practice, however, this means we have to strengthen the institutions that can be strengthened to hold him in check. And that begins now with the United States Senate. Instead of repeatedly complaining that Trump is doing exactly what was promised in Project 2025, we need to push Senators to stop him while they can.

That begins with serious hearings on the qualification and fitness of Mr. Trump’s appointees for leadership positions in our government. Call you representatives and your Senators. Demand that we have real hearings and tell them that there are plenty of talented people, people with integrity and wisdom, in our great nation, and that there’s no excuse to put unqualified and unfit candidates in these positions of authority. Pete Hegseth must not lead the Defense Department. Kash Patel must not lead the FBI. Tulsi Gabbard must not lead DNI. It’s not just that we can, but that we must do better. This is also a test of the Senate’s independence. Will they surrender their essential constitutional role in the very moment when the very idea if of independent institutions itself is most under threat? We cannot let them.