What began as a list of warning signs is now a record of what the Trump regime has done. All 10 signs are here, and the receipts keep piling up.
When I first wrote this list, it was a warning. Here are the signs of fascism, I said. Watch for them. A lot of people rolled their eyes. Fascism? In America? Calm down.
In February 2026, I updated it and had to admit something awful. Every warning on the list had already come true.
Now it's October. The midterm elections are 33 days away. And I'm updating it again, because the receipts are piling up faster than I can type.
Here's a quick look at what happened since February:
- The U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran on February 28. Congress never voted on it.
- ICE finished the deadliest year in its history. 37 people died in custody.
- Protesters got decades in prison in the first federal "antifa" terrorism case.
- The president banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House.
- A judge ruled Trump's name was put on the Kennedy Center illegally. Now he's threatening to tear the building down.
- And on the day this update went up, Trump told Time magazine he won't rule out invoking the Insurrection Act or declaring a national emergency around the midterms. "I'm not committing to anything," he said.
The experts are saying the quiet part out loud now. Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way, and Daniel Ziblatt are three of the best-known scholars on how democracies fall apart.
In September, they wrote that Trump's second term pushed the United States into "mild competitive authoritarianism." In plain English, we still hold elections, but the people in power use the government to tilt the playing field.
That same month, the global democracy watchdog International IDEA reported that U.S. scores on things like press freedom and judicial independence fell to their lowest point in 50 years.
This post still takes a satirical look at the 10 signs of fascism. If we don't laugh sometimes, we'll cry and never leave the house. But every fact here is real, and it's linked so you can check for yourself.
Ready to get started? Click next to start with #1 of The 10 Warning Signs of Fascism: 1. Over-the-top Nationalism.
Why are there multiple pages? The full list has a reading time of one hour. It’s easier for readers if the list is broken into sections.
