It’s Even Worse Than We Expected

I expected the incompetence and the racism, and the first few days of the Trump Administration fulfilled those expectations. The wholesale assault on diversity–not just the elimination of DEI, but the scrubbing of any mention of minorities from websites (including those used by medical researchers)–accompanied the nominations of pathetically unqualified Whites, unintended confirmation of the charge that MAGA defines “merit” as “White guys.”

Those nominees are being confirmed by spineless GOP Senators to “manage” a workforce that is under attack. Those of us who read and understood Project 2025 anticipated these deeply concerning efforts to destroy civil service rules that  protect  professionalism and guard against politicization of the federal workforce.

But as Robert Hubbell has recently explained, what we are seeing is monumentally worse. It’s a coup. And–as he also says-the longer we fail to recognize that we are seeing a slow-rolling coup attempt, the longer it will take for us to recover. The coordinated attacks on the DOJ, FBI, Office of Personnel Management, Treasury Department, and dozens of other agencies leave little room for doubt.

Taken together, those actions amount to a hostile takeover of the US government by those who are loyal to Trump rather than to the US Constitution. The only word that accurately describes that situation is “coup.” Any other description is a sign of fear, submission, or surrender.

Hubbell proceeds to enumerate the activities that justify identifying what is occurring as a “coup.” (The linked essay has references confirming the allegations.)

Elon Musk and his DOGE infiltrators have taken over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM.) They’ve connected non-government computer servers to the US personnel mainframe computers, seized private information about millions of federal employees, and locked senior managers out of their agency’s computers. They’ve moved “sofa beds” into the OPM offices and put the offices into a “lockdown mode.”

That takeover is what allowed Musk to send his unauthorized memo inviting millions of federal employees to resign in exchange for eight months of “non-working paid employment.”

Musk and DOGE have also attempted to seize control of the US Treasury payments system. That system is the gateway through which all federal funds flow.

When a senior manager at the Treasury asked why Musk needed access to the highly sensitive system, the manager was immediately placed on leave. He chose to quit, instead. ..The Acting US Attorney for Washington, D.C., fired about 30 US Attorneys who prosecuted January 6 insurrectionists…. Think about that for a moment: The convicted felons who attacked the Capitol have been pardoned and the loyal servants of the Constitution who prosecuted them have been fired. That fact should outrage every American.

At the same time, the FBI fired eight of its most senior leaders. They headed divisions responsible for cybersecurity, national security, and criminal investigations.

The FBI has also fired dozens of agents who worked on investigations of January 6 insurrectionists and asked for a list of every agent across the US who worked on the largest criminal investigation in the history of the FBI. That list will include hundreds—possibly thousands of FBI agents. The implication of the memo ordering the compilation of the list is that those agents may be fired.

Dozens of government websites have been taken offline to be scrubbed of references to diversity, gender, or human attributes that are not white, male, and Christian. (The Census Bureau website was offline, presumably to remove evidence that America includes people who are not white male Christians.) Websites relating to LGBTQ equality, women’s health, transgender issues, and scientific knowledge in general were taken down.

The Pentagon has advised NBC, NYT, NPR, and other mainstream media outlets that they would be “rotated out of the building (i.e., the Pentagon)” to make room for NYPost, Brietbart, and OANN.

All of this is happening as the Economic-Idiot-in Chief has slapped 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. As Hubbell quite accurately notes,

the Canadian auto industry—which is a major parts supplier to the US auto industry—cannot survive for a week with 25% tariffs. The Canadian supply chain will shut down, the American car industry will be severely damaged, and tens of thousands of US autoworkers will be laid off. We aren’t talking about inflation increasing or the cost of eggs. We are talking about tens of thousands of job losses and an economic shock likely to lead to a recession….

Soon, very soon, Americans will be called upon to leave the comfort of their homes and the anonymity of their computer screens to engage in massive, coordinated action to remind Trump and Musk that they are servants of the people, not vice-versa.

There is no longer any way to ignore what is happening, or to “sane-wash” MAGA…..

29 Comments

  1. Professor-your words, your thoughts, your message is perfectly on point. Our country, our members of Congress, our Supreme Court must understand what is happening. Keep their feet to the fire, Sheila.

  2. We are now completely under the Rule of Law of Citizens United, the Catholic Church and Trump’s personal oligarch trifecta of Musk, Bezos and Zucherburg. He is their chosen leader and his Flying Monkeys sitting before the U.S. Senate lying their asses off will rule till any of them cross Trump and his revolving door administration will begin revolving.

    The hatred on his face when he announces each new edict is frightening because we understand that with Supreme Court religious backing and immunity there will be no stopping him. Should the Republicans in House and Senate suddenly realize they have been duped along with the nation, they will learn that their support of the Supreme Court rulings and providing Trump’s immunity has made any action by them against him to be moot.

    Trump’s comment when he announced his tariff ruling that they will be a benefit because “We will get rich.” Who is “We”? We down here peering through the weeds at grass roots level are still waiting for our share of the “trickle down”. My Kroger orange juice cost $1.29 till the increases began; last week I paid $4.49 and now I’m waiting for the tariff increase because the orange juice is made from products from Mexico, Brazil and the USA.

  3. “There is no longer any way to ignore what is happening, or to “sane-wash” MAGA…..”. I’m not sure that matters to them, but I’m also not certain it’s true. Sane washing has become a way of life for too many in the media. Keep your set tuned to FAUX NEWS for a quick lesson in how to do it.

    Most people don’t have any idea of how these moves will impact them. As a retired Civil servant, I understand that I could lose both Social Security AND my pension. I’m hopeful that they won’t take my thrift plan savings, but my payments come from .gov, so it’s not impossible.

    Those who don’t have as big of a dog in this fight may still be severely impacted. Too many people need their social security to take care of their basic needs. BTW basic needs will soon cost a lot more.

    Tariffs started yesterday. Isn’t it interesting that he hit Canada and Mexico with 25% and China with 10%? You don’t think the fact that the Shadow President has factories in China and Orange Jesus has his merch made in China might be the reason for the difference? Well they did tell us that there would be “short term pain” – not for them, of course.

    I’d like to take a minute now to blame those who opted not to vote in the last election for our current predicament. Sometimes you just have to decide which candidate will do the least damage to your cause, but EVERY citizen has an obligation to vote, if we are to continue to be free. I just hope that lesson has been clearly learned and taken to heart.

  4. So, when the auto industry workers lose their jobs and there is no government assistance to see them through, what will they consume in a consumer-based economy? With what will they pay idiot-level prices for insurance, food, rent/housing, clothes, etc. Uh oh. Is the word “CRASH” too severe?

    Also, understand that Trump is really, really stupid. He thinks the people he’s hired are not as smart as he is. He also thinks that their loyalty means they are willing to do anything for him. Those things will prove that what these idiots touch will fail and break even further such that there may not be anything for the moronic Republicans in Congress to do.

    Senate Republicans have no fiber for the Constitution, moral or otherwise. They are purely transactional and obviously corrupt to their core. Todd will tell us how both parties are corrupt, but it is the Republicans who are voting for a cabinet that is pledged to destroy our government. How’s that work, Todd?

  5. When prices in the US begin an upward spiral as a result of the effects of trump’s tariffs, perhaps then those in love with the orangeman might finally realize what a phony, ignorant, malignant narcissist we have heading up up the billionaires club, a club that most of this country don’t belong to, including those who foolishly voted for him, believing his myriad of deceitful lies. We’re watching our government veer away from our Constitutional governance at an alarming rate, along with a helpless feeling. Who’s going to stand up for what’s right here? How long will it take before things start becoming irreversible?

  6. ABC news headline yesterday, “DNC selects new leader after 2024 election disappointment” as if Hakeem Jeffries can be blamed for the weakened Democratic party’s total loss at all levels of government. Ousting Hakeem Jeffries is openly anti-DEI by ABC news…who incidentally was not forced out of the Pentagon along with NBC News for their DEI support. Just sayin’

    Ken Martin’s salvation of the party is yet to be seen; I have been looking and hoping for someone in the party to place my hopes on. I found it in the news that David Hogg is the DNC Deputy Chairman; he is the man to watch closely. The survivor of the Parkland school shooting in Florida began in high school showing evidence of his leadership abilities. He is someone Marjorie Taylor Greene must have feared as she stalked and threatened him on his way to a college class; warning him that she carried a gun. Time will tell about Mr. Martin’s abilities as leader but David Hogg is the man to watch for future leadership.

  7. JoAnn is off this morning…Hakeem Jeffries was not replaced because he did not run the DNC. Martin replaced Jaime Harrison, who was black and an impotent leader. Also, the Pope was Biden’s mentor (so he claimed). The Southern Baptists and Evangelicals run Trumpolini’s Christian Nationalism program.

    The right-wing MAGATS won’t refute anything until it impacts them personally. Supposedly, high prices for gas and groceries are why they supported Trumpolini, but we all know that was bullshit. I caught several right-wing pundits on X claiming that the tariffs were a result of Trumpolini clamping down on China, Mexico, and Canada, allowing dangerous immigrants into the US along with pushing killer drugs like fentanyl; since when was Canada sending dangerous drugs or immigrants to the US. LOL

    Several media outlets showed Mexico intercepting major drug busts to demonstrate the effectiveness of Trumpolini’s tariffs. LOL, I am sure those were busts from archived stories. The entertainment media will do anything to get invited back into the Pentagon and Donny Trumpolini’s good graces. Musk has tweaked his algorithm to amplify the right-wing voices because I am now seeing Charlie Kirk and other MAGAT pundits in my X timeline when I never saw them before.

    As Vern pointed out, the Democratic Party and labor unions are not resisting. They have no response. Not only are Musk and Trumpolini taking down structures in the US, but they are also working to shake up Europe. If they blow up the EU and NATO, it would be a good thing for Europeans.

    One last point: China only received 10% because the Walton family is a major importer, as are most companies in the US. I rarely see “Made in Canada” on any items I purchase. Musk wouldn’t care because his Tesla factory in China sells vehicles in China, but it is not very competitive. BYD (I believe) owns the Chinese EV market.

  8. JoAnn, keep in mind that ABC is owned by the very Christian Disney company!
    But, we are not being ruled but the Catholic church, but by dangerous clowns who think that their version of Christianity is the only reality that deserves to exist.
    I do think you could well be right about Hogg.
    Joann does read Trump’s face correctly: his hatred for all that is not “ME!,” or is thought to threaten “ME!,” is a big part of his Malignancy.
    The lack of courage on the part of the legislators on the right, and now 3 Dems, is staggering. Yes, they are protecting, or think they are protecting their careers, but act the expense of their oaths to the Constitution, and the country.
    I’ve red thaT over 100,00 people have signed petitions to impeach the Grifter-in-Chief, but doing so would require congress to act bravely.

  9. JoAnn, just a quick note; Hakeem Jeffries wasn’t ousted as leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, he still has that role. Ken Martin is not an elected official in the US Government, but rather was chosen to lead the Democratic National Committee. Two different roles, and I suspect the two of them will work together. At least I hope so. Finally, I agree with you on young David Hogg, he along with a myriad of other young folks who I now follow on BlueSky are excited about leading the Democratic Party forward, and I’m excited to see it.

  10. Any impeachment action will fail. There are new rules in Washington. Speaking of new rules, The Guardian published a decent article this morning about our lame and subservient Fourth Estate. Not only has it caved, but it’s also sending free money to Trump. These are nothing more than corrupt bribes. No matter how they spin it, it is 100% corruption. As I’ve been saying for a long time, all we have is an entertainment media. It’s fake, but not for the reasons Trumpolini thinks.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/02/trump-media-pressure?

  11. As an unfortunate resident of extremely radical red rural Indiana my hope is that the financial pain that is about to hit all of us will finally wake up the Magats. However, the biggest roadblock to enabling them to open their eyes is that they’ve allowed themselves to be fully brainwashed by Fox Spews and all the other right wing mass media liars. I’ve no doubt that all of the radical right wing media sources have been fully prepared by the Project 2025 authors and supporters with a massive trove of lies to keep spreading 24/7 to their brainwashed viewers. How long will it take those viewers/listeners to recognize that the personal financial pain they are experiencing directly conflicts with the lies they are being told.

  12. Todd; big oops, my bad. I did name the wrong Black Democrat but do you think Jaime Harrison chose not to run again or was he encouraged by the anti-DEI Democrats which are beginning to show their faces?

    I commented on here a week or so ago about a news brief reporting the Treasury Department had been hacked by the Chinese. Musk now has access to Treasury Department information, including our Social Security status. Can anyone deny the connection between Musk and China with much of his manufacturing, and most of Trump’s, is located in China. Nothing in our lives is sacred and nothing is safe from the enemy camp which is now settled into the White House; it is a Circle Jerk situation for them. Democrats ignored President Obama’s warning about becoming a Circular Firing Squad and here we are in “It’s Even Worse Than We Expected” situation which we should have expected after Trump’s first quick and easy takeover of the Republican party in 2015. They knew he was a snake when they accepted him.

    “There is no longer any way to ignore what is happening, or to “sane-wash” MAGA…..”

  13. we let em in..the coins are stacked and will tumble. after the damage is done. im seeing some recognition from the working class here in NoDak, it is not possitive to trump. mosy here ignored the whole election, many, did not care..Im passing on to whoever, your lack of concern,granted you full monte of this takeover. pass on some news sites, Robert Reich is in overdrive. and the best teacher of this new regime. pass it on. its time to deal on their level. dont bore em ,teach…

  14. We thought who we collectively were was immutable, cast in concrete, baked into our DNA. We were the United States of America, a force to be reckoned with globally.

    The Powell Memorandum in 1971 launched the process of changing us to who we have become. Apparently, the time is ripe for an attack against our government, and it has grown steadily ever since.

    We were both socialistic and capitalistic, and today, we see the trappings of blotting out the wisdom of the Constitution by empowering the capitalistic side over the socialistic side from the top down.

    Instead of the United States, we are disunited states, Inc., and our purpose is the capitalistic process of moving wealth upstream from makers to takers.

    The problem is that it simply does not work, and that’s what the nation’s founders knew back in their day. That’s what the American Revolution was all about, and it has been fought over repeatedly in a series of wars, including the Civil War and two World Wars.

    That is the state of our nation, how we got here, and why.

  15. I am encouraged by the election of Ken Martin on the earned merits of his ground work success restoring the farm and labor movement in Minnesota, his success in a vote recount to ensure Democrat victory in a very close election, his strength of character without scandal, his boots on the ground success passing clean water and environment legislation …. refreshingly up from small town to state and national scale policy and political recognized by leading state leaders around the nation. I look for the legitimate rise of David Hogg, too. Not either/or but both/and. Resistance had a strong playbook for the first few announcements by Donny Boy, but the playbook did not anticipate the overwhelming flurry of slick bound executive orders. It takes time for effective retrenching and counter insurgency without announcements for the press until resistance is ready to execute. Draw your adversary in with his fragile stacked orders that have no coherent plan of execution. Counter insurgency works without the press to regain element of surprise.

  16. My question for the future is whether our military will be on the side of the people?
    From what I have read( never know if true) the new Treasury secretary let elon have access to our payment process program and most sensitive information late last night.

  17. I do feel this is very dangerous terrirory and citizens need to act and be heard. But HOW? I’m truly seeking suggestions for the best, most effective organizations to engage with. This is an urgent threat to our way of government.

  18. Commercial enterprises will continue commitment to the aims of DEI because when managed well … it has proven positive for the bottom line. Just don’t need to announce it. Just do it and do it even better. Those who need to know … will know by our deeds.

  19. Musk’s tech brigade has seized the Federal governments checkbook and seem to be enjoying the stress that it’s causing Americans. Will they cut off entitlements and pensions entirely or use the threat as leverage to get compliance? Join Maga or else!

  20. Sadly, I am not surprised, and this started with complacency long before Trump, where the Permanent Republican Majority was more important than democracy. Democrats didn’t help.

    I fear that Rose may be on to the truth – Orange Senility is messing with the economy and the New Unelected Glorious Leader for Life controls the Internet (first all government computers and communication and then, after routing everything though his satellites, everything else).

    Maybe the MAGA-fooled will “woke” up, but more likely they will continue to sleep, saying egg prices will drop next year, if we only stick with Trump. Besides, Obama and Biden are to blame for anything and everything bad. All good derives from King Donald (and the man behind the curtain, Elon).

  21. I don’t know if any of you have seen Adam Mockler on Youtube but he is calling for Elon Musk to be deported. It’s crazy that people just because they have money don’t have to pay the price for not following the rule of law when anyone else doing the same thing would be in jail. I’m shocked that we don’t have people protesting in the streets but it’s probably out of fear with all these crazy people that voted for Trump being pardoned when they have committed violence against other people.

  22. I urge everyone not to lose hope. Two years of Trump will be terrible, people will suffer, and institutions will be damaged. But I predict huge voter registration and get out the vote efforts for the mid-terms and a big Democratic turnout. Elections are won or lost by those who are motivated to show up, and by those who stay home. I think that every Democrat not on life-support will vote in two years, and that many Republicans will be disgusted enough to stay home, or even vote Democratic.

  23. Welcome to Europe 1940 as the Nazis overran the continent. Some, like the Quislings in Norway invited them in. Some, like Vichy in France just capitulated to them. The results were the same either way. People, and the world suffered.

    We need to use whatever resiliency is left in our institutions to mount an organized resistance now, not in two or four years. The sooner we stop the fiasco, the sooner we can start recovering from the damage already done.

  24. I saw someone comment that there are no protests happening. That actually is not true. Immigrants are protesting, there was a big protest in Los Angeles yesterday. The police were actually okay with it, it was fairly large and shut down a freeway. There was even dancing and taco vendors. I believe that there was also one in NYC. 2/5/25 is supposed to be a day of protests in each state capitol at noon. If people can’t attend, they are encouraged to wear blue. The media is not going to cover much of this because they don’t want to embolden us.

  25. The question for me is…what do I do in a coup..before it’s too late for me to take action to protect myself and my family. I am genuinely overwhelmed with anxiety about what I also see coming…and I fear I’m running out of time to be able to exercise any independence in decision making about how my life will look in the next several years..my retirement years.

  26. If you want a group to be involved with, I’d suggest Indivisible. On reddit, there is actually a sub-reddit for being blue in a red state (or some similar title. There are Indivisible groups even in red states, tho they may be fairly quiet and anonymous.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *