Donald Trump promised to be a “dictator on day one”. Two weeks in and there’s no end in sight, as I made note of over 40 steps in the march to illiberal madness and complete control by one faction of one party. The Constitutional challenges and lawsuits from states to unions are mounting. Some are even suggesting all this is happening so fast to keep the public and lawmakers off-balance, as per tactics espoused by Steve Bannon. The term “coup” is now on the table, though some of us recognize it started in 2020. Others have noted that the majority of his executive orders are directly out of the Project 2025 playbook — as are so many of his cabinet picks from the Heritage Foundation in spite of pre-election denials of connections. The MAGA faithful have continued to cheer while telling the rest of us we are just being crybabies, and should just sit back and watch how wonderful the next four years will be. This article is for the future, as no doubt historians will study these times carefully to see what went horribly wrong so fast.

Please note I have put les-than-usual effort here into curbing my own biases. However, every point is based on fact-checkable truths, most of which I did so myself. Also, this is not an exhaustive list. I am not going into tariffs or ridiculous bids and threats to buy, steal, or invade Panama, Greenland, and Canada. The Epstein-worthy list of appointments going before Congress is too much to even address here, although even before his inauguration, plans to bypass the usual FBI background checks were underway.

Pardoning His Insurrectionists

The first of these steps was to pardon those who tried to seize, kidnap, and kill members of Congress — and even his own Vice President — to keep him in power after losing a lawful and exhaustingly-demonstrated fair election. This is where, you, the reader, will be separated as wheat or chaff. If you don’t see this as a treasonous conflict of interest, please just stop reading now. You are simply not armed to process any other facts or logic here. For the rest of us, this arguably marks the end of the rule of law with regards to political violence. We must also note that the new top prosecutor for DC advocated for the insurrectionists and parroted Trump’s false election claims.

The worst of it is that Trump explicitly said the militia group Proud Boys should have a voice in politics. These are the people Trump told to “stand back and stand by” as the election certification neared, the leader of which was given the longest sentence for his orchestrated, tactical assault on the Capitol, since pardoned and lounging at Mar-A-Lago. {Update: There are rumors that the new Attorney General, Pamela Bondi, plans to go after those who prosecuted or were involved in the arrests of the January 6th criminals.}

Dismantling Safeguards, Stacking the Deck, Political Retribution

The big news here are the buyouts offered to federal employees across multiple agencies, including the FBI, where leaders have been told to leave the bureau or be fired. In the Justice Department, the plan is immediate termination of employees who worked on criminal prosecutions of President Trump (now with hints of clemency for those “just following orders”). Dozens of senior aid officials were placed on leave, citing possible resistance to Trump’s orders. Also …

• Trump “granted” top secret security clearances to White House staff without going through traditional vetting.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson has removed Republican Rep. Mike Turner as Intelligence Committee chair because of orders “from Mar-A-Lago”.
• Two top security chiefs at USAID were placed on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk.
• Federal payments were suspended, then reinstated after lying about it, with some systems still down “for maintenance”.
• Prohibitions on executive branch employees accepting major gifts from lobbyists was rolled back, and bans on lobbyists seeking executive branch jobs or vice versa are gone.
• Security protection was removed for past political opponents, including those who were targets of violence due to his own attacks and spreading conspiracies.
• An executive order restores a category (Schedule F) of federal workers which would lack job protections ordinarily afforded career civil servants.

Of particular interest to the reader should be a pause on the ban of TikTok, something he attempted his first term and now claims to be saving. His plan is to have United States become half-owner. This vague statement was originally interpreted by some as meaning American companies, but he is now proposing the creation of US sovereign wealth fund to be 50% owner. This fits perfectly well with Musk’s control of X and Zuckerberg’s capitulation to the new order of things, ushering in America’s first mass media controlled by a combination of state and state-aligned oligarchs. (See my article “America’s Brave New Media”.)

The Most Powerful Man in the World

Without any Congressional approval or consent, Musk attempted to access Treasury infrastructure. After those attempting to prevent him were removed from their offices, he and his team were given full access February 1st. He immediately locked out senior government officials, websites vanished, and employees are now locked out of the building. Contrary to assertions otherwise by the President’s Press Secretary, multiple employees have reported that some members of his team do not have sufficient clearance to legally access some records — including ones that listed employees’ security clearance levels. {People have noted that there would not have been sufficient time for Musk himself to have been given security clearances, along with his college-age assistants.}

The ever-naive apologists are saying it’s about time someone goes in and cuts all the waste and reduce government bureaucracy. Well, we’ve all wanted this for a LONG time. We know there will be countless finds and things worthy of scandal done over many years and administrations by both parties. But this is being done under an authoritarian with no regard for constitutional restraints, fanatical partisan intentions, an agenda of vendettas and far-Right extremists, and the ability to take complete control of the government if he isn’t stopped no matter how benign anyone wants to believe. The very possibility of data breaches and back-door controls by the richest man in the world to every system and dollar is not merely concerning, but utterly insane.

On more sensational matters, was he just “sending his love” when he gave what so many are calling a “Roman salute”? A hand-gesture doesn’t make someone a Nazi, but dog-whistle or not, American Neo-Nazis are throwing parades in support of the new normal. But let’s stick to the man himself. As he pumped a record-breaking insane amount of cheddar ($277 million) into our presidential election, he is speaking and funding fascist parties in European elections. The Union is pursuing criminal action for such interference at this point. But wait, there’s more! Trump declared that aid will be cut off to South Africa over policies called “racist” by their far-Right, pro-Apartheid party. {Update: It is rumored that Visas for many countries will be limited, the exception being WHITE citizens of South Africa.}

Interestingly we come to the topic of Artificial Intelligence. Previously something Musk warned the world as being a threat, guidelines restricting AI use have now been removed. In response to cancelling investments in childhood Cancer research, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt argued that AI will provide the answers, there being planned a HALF TRILLION DOLLARS in AI development. This is in part a response to China releasing an open-source AI it developed for comparative pennies. One can only wonder how much of that “investment” will go to Musk, whose technology depends heavily on AI. Ironically, he is using AI to crawl governmental administrative systems “looking for cuts”.

Culture War

Obsessed with all things “woke” as the scapegoat for an fear-mongered collapse of White, Christian, English-speaking America, the language of reverse-discrimination is now absolute. Somehow the term DEI became associated with political opponent Harris to the point where using the word “equitable” in a sentence makes one a radical Leftist. So what happened so far?

• All Federal DEI-related staff have been terminated.
• The Spanish-language page and social media channels for the White House were shut down
• Videos with ASL interpreters were eliminated (because ‘captions should be enough’).
• Trump’s anti-DEI order resulted in Air Force videos of Tuskegee Airmen and female pilots to be removed from training (since restored after protest)
• How own order overturned the Equal Employment Opportunity order from 1965
• The Justice Department dropped a case against a Texas doctor charged with leaking transgender care data
• Trump reversed EPA guidelines for environmental justice, eliminating help for Black and Latino communities hit harder by pollution
• The Defense Department intelligence agency has paused identity-related observances, such as federal holiday Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth himself declared the end of ‘Cultural Awareness Months’.
• Trump blamed diversity and people with disabilities for a plane crash with no evidence whatsoever, falsely claiming that pilots and air traffic controllers could be mentally disturbed or disabled, or possibly a dwarf (no, I can’t make this up).
• The Army pulled its sexual assault regulations off its websites
• Education Department employees were threatened to be placed on leave for attending diversity training. (One employee reported they were literally on an airplane when informed the training conference they were going to was cancelled.)
• Measures to protect and improve justice for rape victims on college campuses were repealed.
• The CDC was ordered to retract or censor research papers submitted to journals based on now-forbidden gender language.
• An actual federal mandate that only two genders be legally recognized
• Threatened to withhold school funding based on teachers acknowledging pronouns

The Primary Scapegoat

Trump and the news(ish) outlets that prop him up have successfully convinced America that an immigrant “invasion” is not only really, but the biggest threat to America. This sentiment is nothing new, as the Fentanyl issue rhymes with Reefer Madness in terms of creating associations between Mexicans and criminals who wantonly rape our White women. Prolific talking head Tucker Carlson parrots White Nationalist and Supremacist language into the publics ear regularly, and those south of the border are always the biggest threat to poison the blood of America (Trump’s words) and replace us White folks (Tucker’s words). This propaganda is so effective, this specific issue radicalized an otherwise Liberal woman killed trying to break into the Speaker’s Lobby on January 6th — a Democrat living in a FOX-saturated household.

Now the promises to mass incarcerate and deport are being kept, and doesn’t stop at those who have committed criminals — or even those BORN HERE.

• An open arrest of migrants in churches and schools is being flaunted, hotline and all.
• Trump has declared birthright citizenship invalid.
• Trump is questioning the legitimacy of Native American citizenship.
• Plan to reopen Guantanamo was proposed, supposedly housing 30,000 inmates. The current facility is meant for under a thousand people. Cuba rejected this plan, people have already now being shipped there.
• The DOJ has halted legal programs for detained immigrants, and cut off advocate’s access to facilities.

Anti-Science, Anti-Health, Anti-Environment, Anti-Consumer

He, of course, immediately withdrew the United States from both WHO and the Paris accords. Other actions in terms of government norms are more concerning.

• Health Agencies have been ordered to stop publishing bird flu warnings, and even scientific reports in journals.
• An independent EPA advisory board was fired.
• Prescription drug price controls were lifted.
• Trump fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The States

The states haven’t been sitting still these past four rears, particularly in squeezing out anyone associated with stopping the attempts to overturn the election. Trump loyalists have been pushed into primaries across the board to displace anyone who contradicted The Big Lie. During these two weeks it continues, locally and in Congress. Elon Musk promised that he will use his wallet to remove any legislator who does not support Trump by replacing them at their re-election. And many states have passed or at least introduced myriad regressive, even draconian laws.

• In Tennessee, it is now a Class E felony for a legislator to vote against any measure that contradicts Trump’s policies on immigration. This is the first time in American history where a lawmaker could suffer legal action for their vote.
• Oklahoma dissolved its Department of Mental Health and Substance Use Services, with everything to be turned over to the Department of Corrections. (This is reminiscent of Alabama using $400 million of COVID relief funds to build prisons.)
• With Federal blessing, various law enforcement investigations have been cancelled.

But let’s not forget interference in State issues — where it’s convenient, of course. Disaster relief funds for California are being held back under political conditions (demands), namely the turning on of a non-existent water flow to the areas hit by wildfires, and passing voter ID laws. Various states (and cities) are now striking back at both federal anti-sanctuary policies and interstate lawsuits against doctors and patients regarding reproductive services.

Are We There Yet?

Most of these authoritative changes are prefaced as childishly framing everything as Biden and/or Obama’s fault. (If anyone wonders why he never let’s a chance go to attack Obama, we must remember Trump’s Birther roots and consider the possibility that it was his racism coupled with a Black President that induced him into becoming a Republican and running for office in the first place.) And here also enters doublespeak phrases like “Gender Ideology Extremism”, “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” (DEI), “Climate extremism”, all from the White House’s website.

The bottom line is that this is not normal. This is not just pushing an agenda that’s allowable under MAGA’s new catchphrase “we won, deal with it”. Trump promised to completely overhaul an office that no one man owns, and ignores all laws and limitations in the hope they can now win Supreme Court challenges. Not enough? Not to worry, Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee introduced the measure proposing a constitutional amendment to allow a third presidential term.

ADDENDUM {February 8th, 2025}

In the few days it took to write this, a slew of other steps have been taken toward oblivion, including…

• Trump signed an order imposing sanctions on International Criminal Court over investigations of Israel
• The Senate confirmed Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget
• Trump removed the head of the Federal Elections Commission.
• At the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump announced the coming creation of task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias”, a term even he admitted he had never herd of before.
• Trump started a conspiracy-scandal about subscription payments to news agencies.
• USAID executives were removed with plans to shut it down, along with the Department of Education (as promised) and other departments.
• NPR and PBS (and existing public media in general) are being targeted for defunding (and outside money may be prohibited, effectively shutting them down).
• Trump ended Biden’s intelligence briefing access, likely in retaliation of having had it done to himself over his actions and unlawful possession and sharing of classified documents.