The Tit-for-Tat Republic?
Opinion by Team Thomas
Photo Credit: Adobe Stock by Otseira
When Power Becomes Punishment…
Has America crossed a line that democracy cannot cross back over? That is the question when a president turns the agencies of government into instruments of personal vengeance. The republic itself begins to deform. The IRS, the Department of Justice, ICE, and Homeland Security – these agencies are not supposed to be weapons of political war. They are supposed to be walls protecting citizens from the abuse of power.
And yet under Donald Trump’s second administration, those walls are cracking, especially when Congress is not inclined to prevent the weaponization of agencies against political opponents. The machinery of government, built to serve the people, now appears to serve the grievances of a president. The question is not whether America has changed. It’s whether it can change back.
Weaponizing the Republic
The evidence is neither theoretical nor partisan. According to multiple press and inspector general reports, officials across federal departments have faced direct or indirect pressure to target critics, opponents, or institutions perceived as “disloyal.”
The IRS has been urged to “audit activists” and now even former President Clinton’s foundation. The Justice Department has been told to “review” investigations into the president’s allies. Homeland Security has been used as an umbrella for “domestic threat analysis” that too often tracks political speech, not violence.
And when ICE is dispatched to intimidate local officials over sanctuary policies, or when the Department of Education investigates universities seen as “too critical,” it no longer feels like governance. It feels and looks like payback, which does little to advance the agenda of this current Administration. Once the power to enforce law becomes the power to enforce loyalty, democracy has already crossed its Rubicon.
Five Times America Flirted with This Before
There are historical echoes that warn of the danger of repeating them:
1. Nixon’s “Enemies List” (1971-1974)
President Richard Nixon’s White House compiled and acted on a list of journalists, politicians, and activists targeted for IRS audits, surveillance, and professional sabotage. The result: Watergate, impeachment, and a lasting wound to public trust.
2. McCarthyism (1950s)
Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade used federal authority to destroy reputations, blacklist citizens, and chill free speech, all in the name of patriotism. The fear outlived the facts.
3. COINTELPRO (1956-1971)
The FBI's covert operation against civil rights leaders and political dissidents, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., remains one of the darkest chapters in domestic intelligence history. It proved how quickly “national security” can become political suppression.
4. The IRS Scandals (Across Administrations)
Both Democratic and Republican administrations have faced accusations of politically motivated audits, from the NAACP under Bush to Tea Party groups under Obama. But never before has a president explicitly demanded such an act as part of his governing style – or admittedly in public or on social media.
5. Trump’s Own Precedent (2017-2021)
Even before returning to power in 2025, Trump publicly urged the prosecution of opponents, labeled the media “enemies of the people,” and promised to “use DOJ properly” in a second term. He has since made good on that promise, not as a warning, but as a blueprint.
These are not random echoes. They form a pattern. And this time, the pattern may become the policy.
The Dangerous Precedent
Our current president has done what even Nixon never imagined: institutionalized retaliation. He has made the abuse of power – similar to the abuse of power he was previously impeached for – a point of pride, not shame. When the president brags about “getting even,” it’s not campaign rhetoric. It’s a constitutional threat.
The consequences are twofold:
1. Future leaders will see retribution as a governing tool.
2. Citizens will begin to expect it and even demand it.
The day Americans stop being shocked by government revenge is the day democracy becomes a costume.
The Temptation of Tit-for-Tat
It would be easy, maybe even satisfying, to promise that when President Trump leaves office, his enemies will get their turn. That he and his most ruthless lieutenants will feel the same humiliation and fear they inflicted on others.
But that’s how republics die. One justified act of revenge at a time.
Democracy’s strength lies not in reciprocal cruelty, but in restraint. Mr. Trump’s enablers must indeed face accountability, but through law, not vendetta. The moment America begins to imitate what it condemns, the moral high ground collapses into moral equivalence.
Justice must be impartial, or it ceases to be justice at all.
Have We Crossed the Line?
Yes, and dangerously so.
The norms that once restrained power have eroded. The civil service is no longer viewed as neutral, but as an instrument of loyalty tests. Inspectors General and watchdogs are dismissed as nuisances. The Attorney General now sounds more like a personal lawyer than a public servant.
But the line is not yet erased. Congress can still investigate. Courts can still intervene. Civil servants can still refuse unlawful orders. Citizens can still insist that truth is not treason.
Crossing the line is the crisis. Refusing to step back from it will lead to the collapse.
A Warning from the Founders
The framers feared exactly this kind of power. The transformation of a republic into a monarchy of personality. James Madison warned that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judicial, in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Yet here we stand, watching that definition unfold in slow motion.
The Founders assumed ambition would check ambition. What they never imagined was that millions of citizens would cheer ambition unrestrained and call it strength.
The Thomas Take
America has always survived its demagogues by outlasting them. But survival alone is not success. The goal is not to wait for power to pass, but to rebuild the walls it breached.
We can no longer trust personality to protect principle. We must codify restraint through stronger civil service protections, mandatory congressional oversight of federal law enforcement, and legally enforced independence for inspectors general and agency heads.
We need to step back across the line. We do not need a new revolution. We need a restoration.
“The moment the government remembers enemies, it forgets the people.”
Donald Trump’s legacy need not be the end of American democracy. But it will be if citizens decide that the only way to fight fire is to burn the Constitution.
The answer is not tit-for-tat. The answer is truth, tested by law, bound by conscience, and defended by those who still believe that power was meant to serve, not settle scores.
