One of the key guarantees against authoritarian rule in the United States is the independence of a number of key institutions, especially the judiciary, but also academia, the press, and legislators. We know that President Trump is keen to maximise executive power - but is it simply a case of testing the boundaries and pushing them as far as they will go - or is it a process of silencing and co-opting all those institutions by the raw exercise of power? And how far can the latter go before you don't have a democracy worth the name any more? Let's discuss.