When Stacey Abrams laid out Ten Steps To Autocracy on The Jimmy Kimmel Show it was a prediction—and a report. A roadmap of how democracies die. And not just anywhere—right here in America. Trump is already halfway through the playbook. But while everyone else is frozen, debating whether to call it fascism or not—I’m here to talk about how we fight back. Not with hope, but with structure. Not with politics, but with unity and ownership.”
“This isn’t about saving America. This is about saving us.“
Over the weekend, you went viral for laying out 10 steps to autocracy. Run us through those steps. So we all know, OK, so this happens in every nation that has become an autocracy, having been a democracy. So whether we’re talking about Brazil with Bolsonaro or India or Putin. In Russia, the Philippines would retorte.
So #1 start with winning an election. Usually the last one you’re gonna get to have for real
#2 you have an expansion of executive power, The president decides he wants more than he’s supposed to have.
#3 you start to make the Congress complicit. So you weaken them and you neutralize or neuter the judiciary, like, ohh, I don’t know, the Supreme Court giving you unfettered power and saying we don’t have the ability to stop things.
Then #4 you move on to firing all of the people who know how to make them work. So you’ve got the civil service, and you do that because you want to break democracy. So people forget stuff that you used to get done so you can’t get your Social Security check, so the CDC doesn’t know what diseases are anymore.
Then #5you put in place these loyalists, people who are only responsive to you. You put them in charge of the FBI. They go after your enemies. You put them in charge of the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, so they can signal to their friends and tell them all about the evil plans that you have.
Then #6 you make certain that you break how we communicate, so you criticize the media and you create your own echo Chamber of propaganda. You call it truth even though you know you’re lying.
Then you go to the next step, and I call that step 7. You have to blame someone. You have to blame people for the broken government. For the broken promises. So you go after DEI, You go after the vulnerable, the dispossessed. You go after any community that doesn’t look like what you think power should be. While you’re doing that, you make certain that you in
Step 8, you eliminate anybody who could help them. So you sue law firms that do pro bono cases. You go after philanthropies and accuse them of giving money to the wrong people. You go after colleges and universities that can teach people possibly what else they should know.
You get to step 9 and you start to encourage and incentivize private violence. You send the US Marines into spaces they should not be. You send the National Guard in. You kidnap people off of the streets and pretend that’s normal because that’s how you quiet dissent. Because you make everyone afraid that if they don’t do what you want, they might be next.
And once you’ve done those nine steps, Steps 10 is easy. That’s when you decide there won’t be new elections because everyone’s either afraid, poor, broken, or complicit.
And here’s the dangerous part: it’s not just Trump this time. The entire Republican Party and the Supreme Court are complicit. The GOP covers for him. The Court just gave him immunity. So at this point, it’s not a warning—it’s an operation.”
The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Quietly Sides with Autocracy
One of the most alarming shifts in American democracy is happening in silence—and with the Supreme Court’s stamp of approval. It’s called the shadow docket, and it’s become one of the clearest indicators that the Court is actively collaborating with Trump to bypass legal accountability and expand unchecked executive power.
The Trump team understood that the Supreme Court, stacked with loyalists, would act as an escape hatch—nullifying judicial scrutiny with one-line, unexplained orders. Stacey Abrams warned that autocracy thrives when executive power expands unchecked, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing:
- The Trump administration issues unlawful orders
- Lower courts push back
- The Supreme Court steps in quietly to override them
This pattern reveals a dangerous alliance:
The Supreme Court is not a neutral body—it is now functioning as a partner in the executive branch’s authoritarian shift.
By refusing to explain its actions, the Court destroys transparency, undermines its legitimacy, and concentrates power in the hands of a single man—Trump.
Trump wants to fire 50,000+ federal workers and replace them with loyalists. It’s called Schedule F. And you know where that idea came from? Hungary.”
“Trump met with Viktor Orbán three times in 2024. That’s not random. Orbán already pulled this off in Hungary. He took the courts, took the media, dismantled democracy from the inside. So what do you think those three meetings were about? This is the authoritarian handoff. Trump didn’t just make this up. He studied it. He’s importing fascism step-by-step.”
At this step, you’re not just breaking government—you’re replacing it with a dictatorship. Trump has already put his people in charge of DOJ, FBI, and the military. He wants the law to serve him—not the people.”
“Now add the Orbán connection. Add the Republican obedience. Add the Supreme Court’s blessing. And you realize: this isn’t politics. This is takeover.”
Everything she just named? We’re already seeing it. Attacks on education. Book bans. State violence against protestors. Propaganda echo chambers. And yes, the threat of no real election ever again.”
“So let me be real with you. We are not in a countdown. We are in the middle of this.”
But this is where our power begins. Not with protest signs. Not with political debates. With each other. With structure. With Black ownership and unity.”
“When they centralize power, we decentralize it with Unity Cells. When they lie through the media, we build our own platforms and tell the truth every day. When they gut the social safety net, we build mutual aid, community care, and economic independence.”
“When they silence us, we get louder. Not once. Not just when it trends. Every day. Like Stacey said: We say the truth one time and when nobody applauds, we stop talking. That ends today.”
“This is not about saving America. This is about surviving what’s coming and building something of our own.”
If the GOP and SCOTUS are complicit:
- The “stop it from happening” window has closed.
- You’re now in the “resist and rebuild from within” phase.
- The Orbán reference becomes the moment that shatters any remaining illusion that this is just “politics as usual.”
“By Step 5, the whole system’s rigged from the inside. And here’s the truth:
He didn’t figure that out alone. He had help.
Trump met with Viktor Orbán three times in 2024. That’s not friendship—that’s mentorship.
Orbán’s already done this in Hungary—took the courts, rigged the elections, silenced dissent.
The Republican Party’s onboard. The Supreme Court just gave him legal cover.
So why wouldn’t Trump believe he can finish the job here?”
Until the next episode:
Because the goal isn’t just to survive autocracy.
It’s to outlive it—with power of our own.
Liberation under white management has failed.
Liberation under Black management is the only path forward.
Stay Woke (because they’ve demonized it). Stay Building. Stay Black on Purpose.
