On July 7, 2025, during a “Jimmy Kimmel Live” segment hosted by Anthony Anderson, Stacey Abrams presented a ten-step outline warning Americans of President Trump’s potential slide from democracy to autocracy. She said the U.S. has reached “step nine” and urged citizens to resist.
Abrams began by noting that autocracies arise when a leader consolidates power and staffs government with loyalists. As she numbered further, her framework included blaming vulnerable groups and using propaganda to silence critics. “Step nine you start to encourage and incentivize private violence… send the National Guard in… kidnap people off the streets and pretend that’s normal,” she warned, describing this as frighteningly reminiscent of non-democratic regimes.
Abrams cited Princeton professor Kim Scheppele as the source of her framework, adapting it for her analysis. She cautioned that reaching step ten would mean suspension of elections, when citizens are “afraid, poor, broken, or complicit.”
She called on viewers to counter these trends with civic action: protest, mutual aid, and unwavering truth-telling. Abrams stressed, “They will lie so often it sounds like the truth… We’ve got to keep telling the truth… We are entitled to the truth.”
