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October 20, 2025 • 7 mins

👉 Check out Trigger Warnings playlist More analysis on how world events impact neurodivergent lives and practical resistance strategies.

I just saw Trump disbands Congress. For all intents and purposes, the US government isn’t just shut down—Trump has effectively rendered Congress useless and substituted his own personal will for governance.

00:00 Cold Open + Promise 00:25 “Disbands Congress” Now 01:43 Soft Authoritarian Playbook 02:12 Congress Halted; Senate Stalled 03:28 De Facto Control Landscape 04:36 One Tiny Move to Martial Law 05:09 Wrong Time to Be Different? 05:49 Resistance Starts at Home 06:39 What’s Next?

This is not a good time to be different. To have the wrong politics, wrong religion, wrong color. Closer to home, the wrong neurotype.

But neurodivergent people have always known how to find patterns in chaos and recognize the moment when to act. We find our moment.

👉 Subscribe for upcoming episode: Local resistance playbook specifically for autistic and neurodivergent communities. Get updates on new episodes. 👉 Watch “every clock as a handgun pointed at my head” next. More on autistic experience of time and survival.

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#neurodivergent #politics #resistance #autism #congress #authoritarianism #patterns #community

👉 Sources. Not comprehensive or complete. But some of what I found.

House procedure and swearing‑in dispute

* CNN — Speaker Johnson said he’d swear in new House Democrat ‘as soon as she wants.’ Now Republicans are backtracking (2025-10-07): https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/07/politics/johnson-adelita-grijalva-swearing-in

* The Hill — Johnson: Not swearing in Democrat has ‘nothing to do’ with Epstein files (2025-10-07): https://www.thehill.com/homenews/house/5543576-johnson-grijalva-seating-delay/

House no‑show/shutdown strategy and operational sidelining

* Associated Press — Speaker Johnson keeps the House away as he fights to end the government shutdown (2025-10-10): https://apnews.com/article/house-speaker-johnson-government-shutdown-grijalva-526647b57faa2710382674646dfd2b37

* Politico — Mike Johnson sticks to no‑show shutdown strategy as resistance mounts (2025-10-09): https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/09/mike-johnson-shutdown-no-show-00601215

Broader executive power and democratic backsliding context

* Brookings — Tracking regulatory changes in the second Trump administration (2025-09-29): https://www.brookings.edu/articles/tracking-regulatory-changes-in-the-second-trump-administration/

* NPR — U.S. is sliding toward authoritarianism, hundreds of scholars say (2025-04-21): https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5340753/trump-democracy-authoritarianism-competive-survey-political-scientist

Reference for formal congressional status

* Federal Register — 2025 Donald J. Trump Executive Orders (index): https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders/donald-trump/2025

* Wikipedia — 119th United States Congress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/119th_United_States_Congress

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