About The Cassandra Archive
"Cursed to speak the truth. Cursed to be ignored."
Why "Cassandra"?
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a Trojan priestess gifted with prophecy by Apollo. When she rejected him, he cursed her: she would always speak true prophecies, but no one would ever believe her. She warned the Trojans about the wooden horse. They didn't listen.
This archive exists because the warnings were given. The signs were visible. Legal scholars, judges, journalists, and former officials all raised alarms. The receipts must be kept, whether or not anyone listens.
What This Is
The Cassandra Archive is a systematic, nonpartisan documentation project tracking actions taken during the second Trump presidential term that have generated significant legal, constitutional, or democratic concern.
This is a not-for-profit, anonymous endeavor protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. It is not affiliated with any political party, campaign, advocacy group, or organization. Its sole purpose is to create a durable, well-sourced historical record.
Methodology
Collection
Each week of the Trump second term (beginning January 20, 2025), we conduct a structured review of news reporting, court filings, executive orders, agency actions, and congressional records to identify actions that have generated controversy — particularly with regard to:
- Erosion of democratic institutions and norms
- Challenges to constitutional rights and civil liberties
- Departures from the rule of law or established legal procedure
- Patterns consistent with authoritarian consolidation of power
Sources include major national news outlets, court docket systems, the Federal Register, congressional records, and legal analysis from nonpartisan organizations.
Classification
Each documented action is categorized by subject matter, assigned a threat level (1–5), and tagged with the constitutional provisions, democratic norms, and populations affected. Actions fall into 16 primary categories representing distinct vectors of institutional change:
Multi-Pass Analysis
Each action undergoes multiple independent analytical passes to build a comprehensive picture:
- Legal Analysis: Every action is examined against its claimed legal authority and evaluated for its actual legal status. This includes identification of specific constitutional provisions violated, relevant Supreme Court and federal court precedents, and assessment of likely judicial outcomes.
- Humanitarian Impact: Assessment of direct and indirect victims, vulnerable populations disproportionately affected, types of harm inflicted, irreversibility of damage, and illustrative human stories that ground abstract policy in lived experience.
- Institutional Damage: Analysis of which democratic institutions are targeted, the mechanisms by which damage is inflicted, what democratic functions are lost, the difficulty of recovery, and historical parallels — including similarities to actions taken under known authoritarian regimes, current or historical.
- Counter-Argument (Steel-Manning): In the interest of intellectual honesty, we present the administration's strongest possible justification for each action before evaluating it against legal, factual, and principled standards. Each action receives a verdict: JUSTIFIED, UNJUSTIFIED, or INDEFENSIBLE. This approach prevents strawman arguments, forces honest engagement with opposing viewpoints, and ensures that even when an action is condemned, the condemnation withstands scrutiny.
- Timeline & Status: Tracking of implementation versus announcement dates, escalation patterns, and whether each action remains in effect.
- Cross-Reference & Pattern Analysis: Identification of coordinated patterns across actions, dependencies between seemingly unrelated moves, and acceleration indicators that reveal broader strategic intent.
- Deep Synthesis: Actions rated at the highest threat levels receive an additional in-depth analysis providing executive summaries, worst-case trajectories, accountability gaps, citizen action recommendations, and projected historical verdicts.
Threat Level Classification
Actions are classified on a 5-level scale:
- Level 5 — Existential Threat: Actions that fundamentally threaten democratic institutions, constitutional order, or the rule of law itself. Recovery may be generational or impossible.
- Level 4 — Unconstitutional: Clear violations of constitutional provisions or fundamental democratic norms with severe institutional consequences.
- Level 3 — Illegal: Violations of federal law, statutory requirements, or established legal procedures.
- Level 2 — Questionable: Actions within legal gray areas but potentially undermining democratic norms or institutional integrity.
- Level 1 — Minor: Minor procedural irregularities or norm violations with limited impact.
What's Coming
The archive is a living document. Upcoming additions include:
- Full bibliography and source citations — linked court filings via PACER/RECAP, Justia, and official court websites; primary source documents; and archival news clippings
- Expanded action coverage — ongoing weekly documentation as the term continues
- Searchable database with filtering by category, threat level, affected group, constitutional provision, and date range
- Downloadable dataset for researchers, journalists, and legal professionals
A Note on AI
This project uses artificial intelligence as a research and analytical tool — not as a replacement for human judgment. AI assists with systematic categorization, cross-referencing legal precedents, and ensuring consistency across hundreds of entries. All analytical frameworks, editorial decisions, source selection criteria, and final review are human-directed. The AI does not decide what to document or how to frame it. People do.
Contact
Corrections, additional documentation, or tips:
cassandra@bitsofgeek.com
The Cassandra Archive is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit documentation project protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. It is not affiliated with any political party, campaign, or organization.