The events of 2025 may feel contemporary, yet the strategy—altering rules and institutions to entrench power—has historical precedents. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, for instance, returned to power in 2010, then amended the constitution, redrew electoral districts to favor his Fidesz party, and systematically placed loyalists in judicial and media regulatory bodies. Vladimir Putin took a more incremental route in Russia, orchestrating constitutional referendums and legal maneuvers to stay in office until 2036. Both leaders framed these changes as “modernizing” their nations.
In a more drastic example, Adolf Hitler infamously secured the Enabling Act in 1933—billed as an emergency measure to protect Germany. That act effectively dismantled parliamentary democracy from within and handed legislative power to Hitler’s cabinet. While the contexts differ, the mechanism remains strikingly similar: changing the legal guardrails so the system itself is compelled to serve the leader’s ambitions.
Why It Matters
These rule changes often occur behind a veneer of legality. Executive orders, legislative amendments, or referendums are cloaked in justifications ranging from national security to economic necessity. If they secure formal approval—whether through partisan votes, public referendums under questionable conditions, or court decisions that defer to “the Executive’s predictive judgments”—they can appear above board. For many citizens, it’s a slow burn. By the time they sense how dramatically the power balance has shifted, the institutional structures that might have stopped it are already compromised.
Trump’s 2025 moves exemplify a leader operating squarely within such a strategy. Pressuring bureaucratic agencies, restructuring civil service rules, marginalizing perceived ideological opponents, reversing key regulations, and centralizing fiscal authority all tilt the playing field. As in Orbán’s Hungary or Putin’s Russia, critics can legally complain but find themselves boxed out by newly fashioned regulations and newly placed loyalists.
A White House official summed it up at an April 3, 2025, media briefing, perhaps more candidly than intended: “We’re not just adjusting processes—we’re revolutionizing the way government works by eliminating outdated bureaucratic obstacles.” To the administration, it’s a necessary reform. To its opponents, it’s the playbook for keeping power by rewriting the rules that once kept presidents in check.
And so, with each new order stamped, each new appointment confirmed, the story continues. What began as a handful of administrative changes now stands as a broad reconfiguration of America’s governing system—a reminder that democracy, when taken for granted, can be dismantled one quiet, bureaucratic step at a time.