Kat Gale’s Reviews > Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America > Status Update
Kat Gale
is on page 122 of 320
Republican lawmakers stayed behind Trump so long as he was delivering their wish list. In addition to the 2017 tax cut, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, Trump enabled Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to decimate the judiciary. During Trump’s term, McConnell churned through judicial nominees, putting in place more than 1 out of every 4 federal judges and, crucially, 3 Supreme Court justices.
— Apr 09, 2026 09:54AM
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Kat’s Previous Updates
Kat Gale
is on page 236 of 320
A history that looks back to a mythologized past as the country’s perfect time is a key tool of authoritarians. It allows them to characterize anyone who opposes them as an enemy of the country’s great destiny.
— Apr 26, 2026 03:58PM
Kat Gale
is on page 235 of 320
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, a lawyer and former television comedian, who put on military clothes and, when offered an escape from his besieged city, responded: “I don’t need a ride, I need more ammunition.”
— Apr 26, 2026 10:34AM
Kat Gale
is on page 212 of 320
[President Grover Cleveland] warned: “The gulf between employers and the employed is constantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling poor…. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”
— Apr 25, 2026 11:23AM
Kat Gale
is on page 180 of 320
When the 1920 census revealed that urban Americans outnumbered rural Americans, the House capped its numbers at 438 to keep power from urbanites, including immigrants, whom lawmakers considered dangerous, thus skewing the Electoral College in favor of rural America. Today, the average congressional district is 761,169, which both makes representation less effective and reduces the power of states with more people.
— Apr 24, 2026 06:27PM
Kat Gale
is on page 164 of 320
Nazi lawyers and judges turned to America’s Jim Crow laws for inspiration. Hitler looked to America’s Indigenous reservations as a way to rid a country of “unwanted” people. He called the Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews whom he intended to massacre “Indians.”
— Apr 24, 2026 03:06PM
Kat Gale
is on page 156 of 320
The Supreme Court, stacked with “originalists” after years of Republican appointments, bolstered states’ rights advocates. Rather than preserving established law, as courts had always prioritized, it repeatedly threw out precedent and emphasized that the states, rather than the federal gov, should determine the laws under which we live. That restriction on federal authority had immediate consequences for equal rights
— Apr 24, 2026 09:52AM
Kat Gale
is on page 155 of 320
As Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell used the filibuster to guarantee that the Democrats couldn’t protect voting rights, end the partisan gerrymander, stop dark money from pouring into elections, or restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
— Apr 23, 2026 12:01PM
Kat Gale
is on page 149 of 320
“We won’t stand for this,” he told supporters, assuring them he'd won. “We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.” But it didn’t, and by the time all the ballots were counted, the election wasn't close: Biden beat Trump by more than 7 million votes and by 306 to 232 in the Electoral College, the exact same Electoral College margin Trump had declared a landslide when it favored him in 2016.
— Apr 22, 2026 11:28PM
Kat Gale
is on page 148 of 320
Trump knew that Democratic mail-in ballots would show up in the vote totals later than Republican votes cast on Election Day, creating a “red mirage” that would be overtaken later by Democratic votes. “Trump’s going to take advantage of it,” Bannon said, by calling the election early and saying that the later votes were somehow illegitimate. “That’s our strategy...After then, Trump never has to go to a voter again."
— Apr 22, 2026 08:06AM
Kat Gale
is on page 131 of 320
Appointing unqualified figures is a key tactic of authoritarians, who turn to staffers who are fiercely loyal because they are not qualified or talented enough to rise to power in a nonpartisan system. They recognize that without the leader who elevated them, they will never again be in power—and sometimes will be in prison—so they will cleave to him to the end.
— Apr 21, 2026 02:08PM
