America’s 1933 - The Abolition of the Republic

In March 1933, under pressure from the streets, the German Reichstag passed a law that still makes the world shudder: the so-called Enabling Act. It stripped parliament of its legislative power and transferred it to the executive branch - Adolf Hitler could now govern without oversight, without opposition, without the rule of law. What followed was not a slow decline, but a plunge into the abyss: within months, Germany had become a one-party state, the law a tool of power, the judiciary under control. What happened then was spectacular - and at the same time frighteningly banal. One law, one stroke of a pen, one round of applause - and democracy was history. Today, nearly a hundred years later, this process is repeating itself in the United States of America - not with fire, but with forms. Not with gunshots, but with rulings. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that individual district judges may no longer issue nationwide injunctions against federal laws or presidential orders. A small sentence in the ruling - and yet a massive rupture: because what does it mean when a court may still declare a law unconstitutional - but its ruling no longer extends beyond the place in which it was made?

It began with a single judgment that was never issued - and with a majority that no longer slows down, but accelerates. On July 1, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision that may, in retrospect, be seen as the legal equivalent of the 1933 Enabling Act. From now on, federal judges are prohibited from issuing nationwide injunctions against laws or orders from the federal government. No single judge, no district court, no court of appeals may order a nationwide suspension of a government law - even if it violates the Constitution. In other words: those who sue Trump may still win - but no longer effectively. The law is being localized, fragmented, disempowered. And the Supreme Court is not just going along with it - it is leading the way. The measure strikes at the heart of the separation of powers. Nationwide injunctions were once a central pillar of constitutional protection in the US. They allowed judges to temporarily suspend laws when serious doubts about their constitutionality existed. In this way, harm could be limited and fundamental rights preserved until a final ruling was reached. With the new precedent, this safeguard disappears. What remains is a judiciary with the brakes on - and a president who capitalizes on it. Just hours after the decision, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: "No judge can stop us now. Beautiful." It’s a line out of a dystopian screenplay. And it was not uttered in a novel, but in the middle of Washington. The line has been crossed. Deliberately.

At the same time, Congress is pushing through the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” - an 887-page legislative behemoth with tax cuts for the rich, billions for the military and deportations, and drastic cuts to health care and social programs. 11.8 million people could lose their health insurance, the deficit is set to rise by 3.3 trillion dollars, and yet the Republican majority cheers. Because with the elimination of nationwide injunctions, the law can be implemented even if parts of it are unconstitutional. A judge in California may rule that the deportation measures are illegal - but the ruling would only apply to California. A federal court in New York may declare the tax breaks unconstitutional - but the middle class in Texas still loses its coverage. This is the legal fragmentation of the republic. What we are witnessing is not mere reform - it is the slow disempowerment of democratic checks and balances. Just as in March 1933 in Germany, when the Enabling Act allowed the chancellor to rule without parliamentary control, so is America’s government now dismantling the institutional restraints that once held it in check. By September 1933, Germany had become a one-party state. And while today there are (still) multiple parties, the logic is the same: concentrate power, silence dissent, eliminate oversight. The separation of powers - once a cornerstone of the US Constitution - has become stage decoration. A backdrop to a political theater that no longer tolerates brakes. The Republican Party applauds. The Supreme Court joins in. And the democracy we once knew becomes a memory.

And as the judicial restraints fall, new walls are being erected - literally. In the middle of the Florida swamps, a facility called “Alligator Alcatraz” is being built - a high-security complex for the internment and deportation of migrants, established under the pretense of efficiency, filled with people whose only crime is hope. It is more than a prison. It is the architectural confession of a state that no longer seeks to integrate, but to exclude. ICE - the immigration agency that critics long ago compared to historic secret police forces - is becoming the executive arm of an order that no longer needs to justify itself. Those who are deported no longer receive a court ruling, but a ticket. And those who sue no longer receive a national ruling, but the cold shoulder of a hollowed-out legal system. The United States of 2025 are not building a future - they are building memorial valleys to an authoritarian nightmare the world vowed never to repeat.