When Trump issued his July executive order on unhoused people, it shocked the nation. In the name of “ending disorder,” the White House ordered mass encampment clearings, arrests for camping or loitering, and opened the door for forced hospitalization of unhoused people. Civil rights lawyers and housing advocates called it terrifying — and it was. Vulnerable people, many disabled, were swept up and labeled as “threats,” their autonomy stripped in the name of public safety.
But now, the August executive orders in Washington, D.C. show something even more chilling: these were not isolated acts of cruelty. They are steps on a staircase toward authoritarian rule.
Step One: Criminalizing Poverty
The homelessness EO targeted the most vulnerable. By reframing poverty as crime, Trump gave police and even the National Guard a green light to treat survival as disorder. Encampments weren’t communities in crisis anymore — they became battlefields of “law and order.”
This EO normalized detention without choice: you don’t get treatment or housing, you get locked away. It set the tone that being poor itself is a crime.
Step Two: Ending Bail Reform
In late August, Trump went further with orders that ended cashless bail in D.C. and threatened states with the same. Without bail reform, poverty again becomes a sentence. If you can’t pay, you sit in jail — days, months, even years — before trial.
This isn’t about “safety.” It’s about building a pipeline. Pre-trial detention is mass incarceration without a conviction. It’s the power to cage people before they’ve been proven guilty.
And who gets caged? Poor people. BIPOC communities. Protesters. Anyone the state chooses to label “dangerous.”
Step Three: Silencing Protest
Alongside the bail orders, Trump signed an order to criminalize flag burning. The Supreme Court ruled long ago that flag burning is protected free speech, but Trump doesn’t care.
By criminalizing it anyway — and sending federal enforcers to uphold it — he is ignoring the courts and daring them to stop him. That’s not lawmaking. That’s dictatorship.
And it’s not about the flag. It’s about silencing dissent. If the president can declare one form of protest illegal despite the Constitution, what stops him from declaring all protest illegal?
Step Four: Federalizing Policing
The most dangerous piece? Trump’s orders explicitly empower the National Guard and federal prosecutors to override local authorities in D.C. This isn’t about D.C. alone. It’s a template.
Tomorrow it could be Baltimore. Chicago. Or anywhere Trump declares a “crime emergency.” With one order, he erases local democracy and replaces it with federal troops.
The Staircase to Authoritarianism
Seen alone, each EO looks extreme but isolated. Together, they build a staircase:
Erase rights & protections (DEI bans, Trans rights stripped).
Criminalize poverty (homelessness EO).
Cage people pre-trial (end bail reform).
Silence dissent (flag burning order).
Federalize force (National Guard overrides).
Step by step, Trump is building the machinery of mass incarceration and political suppression.
Why This Matters for Us
These orders aren’t just about crime or patriotism. They’re about power. Each one expands federal reach into local lives. Each one redraws the line of who is considered a “threat.” Each one makes it easier to cage, silence, and erase.
That’s why communities like Unity Harbour, SkyStone Vale, and Community Forge matter. We are building models outside the grip of federal overreach — local, cooperative, trauma-informed sanctuaries that resist authoritarian capture.
Because if these orders continue to pile up, the only safe ground will be what we’ve already built together. Those who don’t participate in any form of community may not survive. We hope you entertain the hundreds of forms there are.
The world has a new Hitler, with the Fuehrer’s SS sending away illegal migrants, together with anyone else that Trump doesn’t like.