Opinion: The most important office in the United States is not in the White House, the Capitol or the Supreme Court.

It is the office of citizen.

That office comes with a duty: pay attention, speak plainly, protect one another and vote. With the November 3 midterm election 22 days away, that duty has rarely felt more urgent.

The Trump administration is testing whether Americans will accept the steady conversion of public institutions into instruments of personal and partisan power. This is bigger than an argument over tax rates, immigration quotas or foreign policy. It is about the rules that make disagreement possible in a democracy: an independent Justice Department, a free press, elections administered under law, a professional civil service and a Congress willing to check a president of its own party.

Those guardrails are being strained at the same time. The accumulation is the story.

Power without restraint

Project 2025 supplied a blueprint. Its Mandate for Leadership says the next conservative president must “limit, control, and direct” the executive branch. Its recommendations seek tighter presidential control of agencies, personnel and law enforcement. Its immigration proposals include moving the Office of Refugee Resettlement—the agency responsible for caring for unaccompanied children—into a new border and immigration agency built around enforcement.

This is not simply a partisan label attached after the fact. The document is nearly 900 pages of agency-by-agency instructions, written to be operational. An independent tracker maintained by the Center for Progressive Reform and Governing for Impact concluded in February that the administration had initiated or completed 53 percent of Project 2025’s domestic administrative agenda. Individual Trump policies do not become illegitimate merely because Project 2025 recommended them. The significance is cumulative: personnel control, weaker independence inside agencies, aggressive immigration enforcement, diminished regulatory capacity and concentrated presidential authority are advancing together, just as the blueprint envisioned.

This reflects the theory of the unitary executive: the idea that the president should exercise sweeping control over the executive branch. A president is not a king, however. The Constitution divides power for a reason. Congress writes laws and controls appropriations. Courts decide cases. States administer elections. Civil servants owe their duty to the Constitution and the public, not to one person.

When those distinctions are treated as obstacles, accountability begins to collapse.

Congressional Republicans could insist on meaningful oversight. Too often, they have chosen permission instead. The Justice Department could maintain a visible boundary between law enforcement and presidential retaliation. Instead, the public is watching investigations of perceived political enemies unfold alongside the president’s repeated demands for punishment.

On October 12, federal agents searched the home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar as part of an immigration investigation. The Justice Department says agents executed a judicially authorized warrant; the precise focus of the investigation was not immediately public. Omar says she is being targeted as a political enemy. Vice President JD Vance had previously signaled that the administration would investigate her over allegations she denies. Those facts require two ideas to be held at once: a warrant is not proof of political abuse, and judicial authorization does not erase the danger created when national leaders publicly demand investigations of named opponents. The rule of law requires evidence, regular process and prosecutorial independence—not a presidential enemies list followed by official action.

That is how intimidation works. It does not need to imprison every critic. It needs only to make every critic wonder whether they will be next.

Institutions offered a choice: submit or suffer

The pressure extends beyond elected opponents. Universities have faced billions of dollars in threatened or frozen federal research funding while the administration demands changes in governance, admissions and campus policy. Law firms associated with the president’s adversaries have faced executive action or the threat of losing government business and access. Some institutions have fought in court. Others have negotiated.

Government may enforce civil-rights law, contracting rules and grant conditions. But enforcement becomes coercive when punishment is selective, demands reach beyond lawful authority, and the implied bargain is political obedience in exchange for relief. The objective is larger than winning one dispute. It is to teach every institution that independence carries a price.

That is not accountability. It is compelled alignment.

A free press treated as an enemy

The same pressure is being applied to journalism. The White House barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from its grounds until a federal judge ordered their access temporarily restored. The Justice Department is now investigating whether the White House television press pool’s decision to suspend coverage violated antitrust law.

The administration says it is enforcing standards and protecting access on its terms. News organizations and press-freedom advocates see retaliation and intimidation. Whatever label one chooses, the effect is chilling: newsrooms must consider whether critical reporting could cost them access, credentials, licenses or a federal investigation.

The First Amendment was not written to protect only agreeable journalism. A free press exists precisely because those in power should not decide which questions may be asked or which facts the public may hear.

Children turned into instruments of enforcement

Immigration policy provides some of the starkest examples of power without mercy. During Trump’s first term, the government identified roughly 5,500 children taken from parents at the southern border, although deficient recordkeeping means the full number may never be known. Years later, the Associated Press found that the second administration had detained or deported dozens of parents who had received legal status and protections through the settlement of that earlier family-separation case—separating some families a second time.

The scale of today’s separation is broader than the first-term border policy, but it must be described accurately. The government does not publish a complete count of children left behind when ICE detains a parent inside the country. A May 2026 Brookings analysis therefore produced an estimate, not an administrative tally: approximately 205,000 children may have experienced the detention of a parent since the second term began, including about 145,000 U.S.-citizen children. These children were not all taken into federal custody, and this is not a count of formal border separations. They are children whose home life was ruptured when a parent was detained.

The distinction does not make the harm imaginary. A child born here is an American citizen even when a parent is not. When that parent is jailed or deported, the child may be forced to leave the country, remain with relatives or sponsors, enter an already strained care system, or lose regular contact with a mother or father. Brookings emphasized that its figures rely on demographic assumptions because ICE does not systematically track the children affected.

Nor is this enforcement limited to people convicted of serious crimes. Associated Press reporting found that about 70 percent of people in ICE detention had no criminal conviction; immigration cases are civil proceedings. Arrests have occurred during required immigration check-ins, at courthouses, in hospitals, at workplaces, during traffic stops and at people’s homes. Some of those arrested had lawful status that the administration later revoked or sought to terminate. Showing up for a required appointment can now become the moment a parent disappears from a child’s daily life.

Due process is supposed to determine who may remain and who must leave. It is not a favor reserved for citizens or for people the government finds sympathetic. Yet accelerated removals, restricted access to counsel and the detention of people while their claims are still being contested can turn the process into punishment before a case has been fairly heard.

The administration has also moved to reshape how unaccompanied children are represented while immigration-enforcement veterans have assumed influential roles around the Office of Refugee Resettlement. A new HHS legal team would advise children in immigration proceedings; advocates warn that government-employed lawyers cannot substitute for independent counsel when the same government is seeking removal.

There is a legitimate national debate about borders and immigration law. There should not be a debate about whether children deserve due process, safe care and protection from being used to frighten entire communities.

When official policy is designed to make people afraid to attend court, seek medical care, report a crime or claim a legal right, fear is not an accidental byproduct. Fear is the plan.

Deals abroad, sacrifice at home

The administration’s foreign-policy choices show the same concentration of discretion. President Trump reached a diesel arrangement with Vladimir Putin only weeks after signing a bipartisan sanctions law meant to restrict the oil and gas revenue financing Russia’s war against Ukraine. The announced shipments—300,000 metric tons immediately, followed by larger amounts—may be too small to transform U.S. prices. Their strategic value to Putin is much greater: revenue for Russia’s war economy, relief from isolation and proof that pressure can be broken.

Trump also announced an energy ceasefire that Ukraine said Russia violated within hours. Ukraine, the country under attack, was pressured to stop striking Russian refineries—one of Kyiv’s most effective means of reducing Moscow’s war income—while Russia received economic relief without first demonstrating compliance.

The contradiction extends to the war with Iran. The United States is fighting a costly war that has killed 21 American service members and wounded 865, according to the Pentagon’s latest public accounting. Iranian attacks and Iran-aligned forces have targeted U.S. personnel and installations across the region. At the same time, Reuters reported that Russia supplied Iran with cyber assistance and satellite imagery covering military bases, airports and other sites; Russian military and economic support strengthens the very adversary American forces are fighting. Sending U.S. money into Russia’s energy sector therefore cannot be treated as a simple transaction at the pump. It improves the position of a government helping Iran while replenishing Moscow’s ability to wage war in Ukraine.

The administration has also allowed exports of powerful H200 artificial-intelligence chips to approved buyers in China under revised restrictions. Officials describe safeguards and limits; national-security critics warn that the technology could strengthen a strategic competitor. At minimum, decisions once defended as matters of national security now appear increasingly negotiable.

Working families absorb the cost

Families in Tacoma and across the country continue to feel the costs of food, fuel, housing and medical care. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August that food prices were 2.6 percent higher and shelter costs 3 percent higher than a year earlier. Real average hourly earnings—the value of wages after inflation—fell 0.3 percent between August 2025 and August 2026. The 2025 reconciliation law is projected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by $911 billion over ten years compared with the prior baseline.

Food assistance is already contracting. Federal data reported by the Associated Press show that SNAP enrollment fell from 42.2 million people in May 2025 to 36.6 million a year later—a decline of 5.6 million people, or more than 13 percent. That does not mean every one of those people had benefits abruptly “stopped” on the same day. It does mean millions fewer people are receiving grocery assistance as new work requirements, eligibility changes, administrative burdens and fear among legally present immigrants take effect.

The dismantling of USAID also reached back into rural America. Food for Peace and related programs bought American wheat, corn, soybeans, sorghum, lentils and other commodities for humanitarian relief. Funding freezes halted purchases, stranded hundreds of millions of dollars in American-grown food and disrupted contracts on which some producers and farm organizations had relied. USAID purchases were only a fraction of total U.S. agricultural exports, so it would be inaccurate to blame the agency’s closure alone for a Midwest farm crisis. But those lost markets landed alongside high input costs, tariff retaliation and declining foreign sales—pressures serious enough that the administration announced billions of dollars in farm aid.

Abroad, the human stakes are even higher. Claims that USAID cuts have already “killed” a precise number of people rely on statistical models, not individually verified death records. But the most rigorous warning is still staggering: a peer-reviewed Lancet study projected that if the announced funding reductions continue, they could contribute to more than 14 million additional preventable deaths by 2030, including roughly 4.5 million children under five. A projection is not a completed body count. It is a warning about the likely consequences of withdrawing vaccination, nutrition, maternal-health and infectious-disease programs at extraordinary speed.

The contrast in lived experience is hard to miss. Associated Press reporting identified 57 senior Trump administration officials worth at least $100 million, including eight of 23 Cabinet members. Wealth is not itself misconduct, and successful people can serve honorably. But an administration dominated by extraordinary wealth should be judged especially carefully when its policies reduce food and health assistance while ordinary wages lose ground to prices.

These figures do not prove that one president caused every household hardship. They do show why promises of prosperity should be measured against people’s actual lives.

Public office, private fortune

Against that backdrop, the president’s family businesses have expanded through cryptocurrency, foreign real-estate projects, licensing arrangements and media deals at a pace without a modern precedent.

Trump’s annual disclosure reported more than $1.4 billion in income from family cryptocurrency ventures in 2025. That included more than $500 million in revenue from World Liberty Financial products and more than $600 million from meme coins bearing his image, according to Associated Press reporting. Crypto companies operate under policies written and enforced by the administration he leads.

The foreign connections make the conflicts sharper. Days before the inauguration, a company linked to the United Arab Emirates bought nearly half of World Liberty Financial for $500 million. A UAE government fund later used $2 billion of World Liberty’s stablecoin in a transaction involving Binance, generating the potential for substantial interest income for the Trump-linked company. The administration subsequently approved UAE access to advanced American chips. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao—who had pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program—later received a presidential pardon. World Liberty and the White House deny any improper connection among those actions.

The Trump Organization also announced eight foreign real-estate deals during the first year of the second term, after avoiding new overseas deals during the first term. Associated Press reporting has identified projects and licensing relationships in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Vietnam while those governments sought consequential decisions on military equipment, tariffs and technology. Separately, first lady Melania Trump’s production company obtained a reported $40 million documentary agreement with Amazon, a company with extensive federal contracts and regulatory interests.

These facts do not, by themselves, prove a criminal quid pro quo. They establish something democratically corrosive even without that proof: people and foreign governments seeking favorable treatment can put money into enterprises that enrich the president’s family while the president controls the policies affecting them.

The legal technicalities matter, but so does the democratic standard. Public office should not become a marketplace where the public cannot tell where national policy ends and private profit begins.

The election is being discredited before it happens

The most immediate threat is the effort to make Americans distrust an election they have not yet completed.

The Justice Department has demanded state voter-registration lists and sued states that refused to provide them. The president has sought federal control over parts of voter eligibility and mail-ballot administration. Courts have blocked major portions of that effort while litigation continues.

At the same time, familiar claims return: mail voting is corrupt, voter rolls are suspect, fraud is everywhere and an unfavorable result must be rigged. Repetition does not turn an unsupported allegation into evidence.

Washington’s vote-by-mail system is lawful, established and administered by state and county election professionals. Voters can track their own ballots. Signature questions can be cured. Results are canvassed and certified under public rules. Criticism and verification are healthy; declaring the outcome fraudulent in advance is not. It is preparation to reject the voters’ judgment.

The office of citizen is open

Taken together, the conduct described here is not merely a collection of controversies. It poses a fundamental question: Who gets to decide the direction of this country—the people, after examining the record for themselves, or officials who use the power of government to narrow their choices, frighten their communities and discredit their votes before they are cast?

In a representative democracy, the answer must be the people. We choose our leaders; our leaders do not choose their voters. They do not get to decide which citizens count, which lawful ballots deserve suspicion, which news organizations may ask questions or which opponents may participate without fear of punishment. Government receives its authority from the governed, not the other way around.

That is why citizenship requires more than accepting anyone else’s account of what is happening—including this one. Read the evidence. Check the sources. Compare the administration’s promises with its actions and their consequences for families, constitutional rights, national security and the public trust. Then make your own judgment and express it through a ballot that belongs to you alone.

Voting will not, by itself, repair every damaged institution or resolve every national dispute. It does something more basic: it preserves the public’s right to decide who holds power and how that power may be used. Staying home transfers that decision to others—and rewards those who benefit from exhaustion, confusion and fear.

Washington ballots are scheduled to be mailed by October 16. Online and mailed voter registrations or updates must be received by October 26. Eligible voters may register or update their information in person through 8 p.m. on Election Day, November 3. Pierce County election officials are urging voters who can do so to use an official ballot drop box. Current information is available from the Washington Secretary of State and Pierce County Elections.

Check your registration. Read the voter guide. Make a plan for your ballot. Help a neighbor do the same. Support election workers and local journalism. Refuse to spread claims that are not backed by evidence. And do not let anyone convince you that your participation is pointless.

Fear makes people withdraw. Intimidation makes them silent. Confusion makes them stay home.

Do not give anyone that victory.

The most important office in the United States is the office of citizen. It is open now. Use it.