The headline in early May prompted me to start a notebook. White House Deputy Chief of Staff told reporters the administration was “actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus.
I’m just a layperson. I haven’t studied law or political science. But I knew enough to know this was a BIG DEAL.
According to Wikipedia: Habeas corpus is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether their detention is lawful. The right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus has long been celebrated as a fundamental safeguard of individual liberty.
To paraphrase: habeas corpus prevents unlawful imprisonment. This principle goes back to before the Magna Carta (1215), which contains the clause:
No Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned… nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land.
When I read that headline, it was a shock—like someone had taken the guardrails off. As commentator RealSpeechProf has warned, when rights stop applying to everyone, they cease to be rights at all—they become privileges that can be withdrawn at will.
The loss of your freedoms and access to justice shouldn’t be another Tuesday.
I started keeping this journal—a blow-by-blow, week-by-week log of events. At first, each entry felt like an alarm bell: banning media outlets, escalating ICE detentions, military deployments in civilian cities.
But it didn’t slow down. The stories stacked so quickly that before I’d finished processing one, another had already dropped. The calendar blurred. Outrage had no time to breathe before the next crisis came along.
The deployment of federal troops in civilian settings shouldn’t be another Tuesday.
Month by month, at a pace like a snowball rolling downhill—except this one’s growing into an avalanche. And somewhere along the way, the shocks start to feel less sharp. That’s the most dangerous part. With each new entry, the extraordinary became ordinary.
What would have been the headline of the year twelve months ago is now just today’s headline.
The POTUS declaring yet another “national emergency” shouldn’t be another Tuesday.
There’s a fatigue that sets in—not just for me as an observer in New Zealand, but for the people living through it. I’ve heard the “nothing surprises me anymore” tone in people’s voices. It’s not apathy; it’s a defense mechanism against being crushed by the weight of constant crisis.
But I can see the patterns:
Eroding the Senate’s authority.
Using the military to bypass civil law.
Scapegoating immigrants.
Manufacturing “national security” crises.
Undermining the judiciary.
Controlling the media.
Rigging the electoral rules.
Weaponizing chaos itself.
It’s a pattern as old as history: from Ancient Rome to the 21st century—and yes, even in fictional galaxies far, far away—the trajectory is the same.
The decline from Democracy to Empire shouldn’t be another Tuesday.
I don’t know what to do with this except write. I’m just an observer at the ends of the earth keeping a diary as a global superpower implodes.
So I’m putting this post out here to say: I see you. I see what’s happening, and I’m keeping a record.
Because as emotionally and mentally draining as this is, it can’t become another Tuesday.