Further Dispatches from the Coup

With the psychotic Gish Gallop of unconstitutional, catastrophically stupid, and morally leprous things cascading out of the joint administration of Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk and their minions, lackeys, cronies and slaves these days it can be hard to keep track of it all. The last time this cancerous tumor on the American body politic was in office I posted running lists of things so they wouldn’t be forgotten – and to register the simple fact that I do not accept any of it – and it looks like I’m back to that again. MURCA!

My goal is to quarantine these things in these posts because they do need to be said but otherwise I will never write about anything else.

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1. If you’re not actively infuriated by the deepening spiral into pure unadulterated Fascism that the current regime of Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk is imposing on the once-proud United States, you’re deluding yourself. You need to be taking this deadly seriously, as in “this could – and more likely than not will – end in bloodshed that might well affect me personally” seriously. Every article I’ve read from political scientists, military strategists, and intelligence specialists over the last few weeks has explicitly noted that there is only one way this goes and our window to stop it or even slow it down is rapidly closing. Do you want to know why I devote so much space to all of this here? I’d really rather not, you know. It sucks. I’d rather be discussing my own life and opinions because that’s the kind of wild man I am. But this is a fast-moving and potentially catastrophic crisis and I am going to do everything I can to throw sand in its gears, even if most of that is just shouting into the wind.

2. Perhaps the most frightening development of the last week has been the abduction and disappearance of a green-card-holding US resident because he participated in protests that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk disapprove of. Mahmoud Khalil helped to lead protests at Columbia University against the Israeli war crimes in Gaza last year, and for this explicitly the current regime has vowed to deport him without trial. Folks, the First Amendment to the US Constitution – literally the first one, written by James Madison and approved by the Founding Fathers mere months after the Constitution was ratified – explicitly bars the federal government from persecuting people it disagrees with. And if they can disappear a green-card-holder for speaking publicly about an issue, there is nothing to prevent them from doing that to citizens. You are not safe. You have been warned.

3. ICE – “America’s Gestapo!” – summarily declared that Khalil’s green card was revoked, a flatly illegal act. Any change in Khalil’s status has to be done through due process of law, including a hearing before an immigration judge. The idea that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump’s minions have any authority to unilaterally say otherwise is grotesque and criminal and everyone involved in that decision and action should be jailed.

4. When questioned, the head of the Department of Homeland Security (sic) could not provide any clear justification for why Khalil was arrested beyond the fact that he spoke out on an issue on the opposite side from that which Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves are on. As the Alt National Park Service (a site you should be following) put it, “If the mere act of demonstrating is grounds for arrest and potential deportation, it represents a significant erosion of civil liberties and a step toward authoritarian tactics where individuals are punished for their political beliefs rather than actual crimes.”

5. This, by the way, is the time-tested strategy of dictators. Crush dissent, terrorize citizens and residents who were doing nothing illegal, and make people afraid. If you don’t see where this is going there is no hope for you. None at all.

6. For fuck sake, even Ann Coulter – a right-wing ghoul of long standing – thinks this is unconstitutional. “Isn’t this a violation of the First Amendment?” she asked. Credit where due, I suppose. Perhaps other right-wingers will start to realize that the current regime will come for them too if they let it continue.

7. Because we are in a new age of McCarthyism. Did you know that there is an entire list of words that you’re not allowed to use anymore if you work for the federal government, according to this regime? Every last one of them is something that would allow Americans to realize that the world is composed of more than just wealthy straight white men. You’re not allowed to say “belong.” You’re not allowed to say “bias.” You’re not allowed to say “climate science.” You’re not allowed to say “cultural differences.” You’re not allowed to say “diversity.” You’re not allowed to say “female.” You’re not allowed to say “hate speech.” You’re not allowed to say “inclusivity.” You’re not allowed to say “LGBTQ.” You’re not allowed to say “multicultural.” You’re not allowed to say “Native American.” You’re not allowed to say “privilege.” You’re not allowed to say “pronoun” or “race” or “segregation” or “sexuality” or “stereotype” or “transgender” or “traumatic” or “tribal” or “victim” or “women.” Again, the First Amendment is specifically designed to prevent the federal government from doing any of this, not that this Fascist regime seems to notice or care.

8. Part of this censorship here in the Land of the Free (tm) is that the current regime is actively scrubbing historical archives of any hint that there were anything other than straight white men at any point in American history. This photo, of black women soldiers during WWII, for example, was removed from its archive without explanation or warning.

And if you really want to know the depths of the blind fanaticism, so was this one.

That’s the Enola Gay, the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima at the end of WWII. Apparently the word “gay” is too much for their tiny little minds to handle, so they scrubbed this photo. Perhaps there has been enough public ridicule that they put it back by now, but it wasn’t there when I checked. Again, this is right out of the totalitarian playbook. We have always been at war with Eastasia, after all.

9. The next obvious step is to target universities, which are notoriously unruly when it comes to free speech. Even universities can’t police universities – lord knows they try sometimes. But Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump has cut $400,000,000 in federal grants to Columbia University because they offended his precious feefoos somehow – again, entirely illegally and I’m sure that Columbia has an army of lawyers working on this now. He’s cut $800,000,000 from Johns Hopkins University for the same unconstitutional reason, so the’re going to start laying people off while they pursue legal responses. Which is why the current regime is now explicitly targeting for political persecution any law firms who dare to represent people that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump disapproves of.

10. If you want to destroy American science – and with it any hope of American prosperity going forward – that’s how you do it.

11. Iowa State recently sent this out to a prospective graduate student in Chemistry. I have no doubt that it will not be the last such letter sent out this year. Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk are not working for the United States, folks. You need to figure out who they are working for before they destroy it all.

12. Is anyone surprised that the US is now on an international watchlist as a violator of human and civil rights? We’re right there with a host of dictatorships and rogue states, and honestly I can’t really fault the watchlist people for it – they’re not wrong.

13. But we’re a free country, right? Right? Hello? Is this thing on?

14. As the next step in the unfolding coup against the United States by Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk they are seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act over a non-existent “emergency” regarding immigration, and if they do that there likely will be no further elections in this country. The Insurrection Act allows a president to declare martial law across the United States – he wouldn’t even have to declare that there is an insurrection happening. Ordinarily the US military would be oath-bound to disobey any unlawful orders that might result from that, but since Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump purged both the highest level of military commanders across all four services and most of the Judge Advocates General – the military lawyers who would be responsible for determining what is and is not an unlawful order – and replaced them with blind loyalists, that may or may not happen. One thing about Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump is that you should always take him seriously. Like most sociopaths he has no sense of humor, and like most people slipping into dementia he has no ability to stop saying the quiet part out loud. During the campaign he flat out said that if he won nobody would ever have to vote again. Believe him.

15. As the recently purged Secretary of the Air Force put it, “There is one characteristic of this President and this administration, and it is the utter lack of respect for legal restraints. … It is time for the American people, across the political spectrum, to realize what is happening. We have a rogue President and a rogue administration, and we need to acknowledge that and respond.”

16. D. Earl Stephens, the former managing editor of Stars & Stripes, the official newspaper of the US military, is very clear on where we’re heading. It would be helpful, he said, that Americans get over the idea that democracy is theirs by right and has no end date because the US may well be arriving at that point now. “We are in deep, deep trouble, and now would be a wonderful, necessary time to step in front of your favorite mirror and honestly ask yourself what you are willing to do to fight for our nation’s survival.” The clock is ticking, he said, and “there will be blood.”

17. And once that starts nobody has any idea where it will end up or who will die. That’s why it’s a stupid idea. But history is full of stupid ideas that people acted on, so watch your back. I don’t condone political violence in this country, but like every observer with more than half a dozen brain cells I do predict it.

18. Meanwhile, Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk have managed to take an economy with the lowest unemployment rate in half a century and a stock market that had increased by nearly 50% in the previous four years and destroy it in less than two months. Stocks have fallen into “Correction” territory (a decline of over 10% from a previous high) and are heading closer to bear market territory with every passing day. The cost of living is going up, not down. Treasury yields are falling. Long term bonds – a sign of how confident investors are in the health of the US economy over the next decade – are down. Corporations are pulling back from investing in new productive capacity because they realize nobody is going to be able to buy any of what they produce and the economic chaos unleashed by this administration makes it impossible to make sensible plans. The price of eggs remains high. All of the economic lights are blinking red and it is very likely that the US will be in a severe recession within four to six months. All this from a position of strength relative to the rest of the world when Joe Biden left office. Truly, everything that Trump touches dies.

19. Even conservatives are noticing this. Fox “News” talking head Peter Doocy – a reliable right-wing mouthpiece for the last few years – went after Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at a recent White House briefing. “This is a White House that came in trying to get federal workers to retire by the hundreds of thousands but it’s tough to make the argument that you should retire if your retirement accounts are getting throttled, which is what is happening right now. … You said that the Dow dropping and dropping is a period of transition. You’re sure nobody here at the White House shorted the Dow?” It will take a shift in the mindset of conservatives to make any real change happen, as Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves have already written off everyone else. They’re more likely to write off the right-wingers who disagree with them than listen to them, but it has to start somewhere.

20. No wonder Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump is posting “Shut up about eggs!” on his social media feed.

21. The ongoing tariff war is not going to help anything. Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump has imposed random and punitive tariffs on all of our biggest trading partners – Canada, Mexico, the EU, and China – and has reacted with all of the petulance of a spoiled toddler when they responded with tariffs of their own. I mean, who saw that coming, right? For those of you who have no fucking clue how economics actually works, a tariff is a tax paid by your own consumers. Good luck, my fellow Americans! Everything you buy just got more expensive.

22. We’re going over the roots of the Great Depression right now in class, and it’s interesting how timely the discussion of how “the vast wealth inequalities of the laissez-faire 1920s led to an unsustainably narrow consumer base, which collapsed the economy, and when the US imposed punitive tariffs on its trading partners (despite every competent economist in the world screaming at us not to do that) it made everything worse” actually is.

23. The Wall Street Journal, that noted bastion of fuzzy-minded socialism, called it the “dumbest trade war in history.” And you will lose. Not Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump or Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk – they have more money than they know what to do with. They’ll be fine. But you? Sucks to be you.

24. This may be one reason why Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, lackeys, cronies and slaves are so hot to invade Canada – and yes, remember, Trump has no sense of humor and no ability to not say the quiet part out loud, so they are indeed planning to do this. Former US Navy intelligence officer and terrorism expert Malcom Nance predicts an invasion within 18 months, one that will also encompass Greenland (both of which are NATO members, which will trigger an all-out intra-NATO war). The consequences of this will be catastrophic – the US would become a pariah nation, its constitutional structure would likely collapse, and roughly 60% of the US military would likely disobey the unlawful orders that would have to be given to make this invasion happen. Contrary to what Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves think, the combat would not end well for the US. Canada is a huge country and its citizens are as well armed as Americans. There would be decades of guerilla war. And if you think this sort of thing is unlikely, just swap “Russia” for the US and “Ukraine” for Canada and see how things parallel.

25. It is an utter moral and political outrage that I even have to point this out. Invade Canada? What the actual fuck? Everyone in the current regime should be removed from office – preferably on a rail – for even suggesting such a thing in public, and then stripped naked, coated in maple syrup and dropped into a forest with nothing but a pair of boots and a pocketknife. And if they make it back, they should have to do it again.  On behalf of every sane American, we're sorry Canada.  It should never have come to this.

25. Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and Junior Assistant JD Vance tried to bully Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky in a pre-arranged ambush in the Oval Office in what amounted to a complete surrender to Vladimir Putin before Trump declared that he would abandon Ukraine and let Russia have it. This is perhaps the most despicable foreign policy decision the US has ever made, and let me tell you as a historian that this is not an easy title to win.

26. Did you know that the US is actually obligated by international treaty to defend Ukraine? The US, Russia, and the UK signed it in 1994. For Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump to shred that in order to suck up to his Kremlin handler is cowardly and subversive. Lech Walesa, one of the heroes of the Cold War resistance to the Soviet Union and now long retired, took time out of his day to remind the US not only of this responsibility but also of our larger responsibility to the world. Not that the American right wing wants to hear about any responsibilities, let alone ones that don’t pay them money. But it’s worth reading anyway.

27. Even Trump voters are “livid” about how Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump treated Zelensky. “I was in my district yesterday,” said Rep. Jake Auchincloss, “and this city voted for Donald Trump. … The propaganda that they heard from the commander in chief made Americans feel less safe and made them feel ashamed.” As well it should have.

28. It’s not that hard to figure out, though.

29. Meanwhile, Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk continues to slash and burn his way through the federal government, though on what authority is not clear. Much of what he’s declared has been overturned by the courts as blatantly illegal and unconstitutional and most of what hasn’t has proven disastrous. Mostly he seems eager to steal all of your information – often, as with the case of taxpayer information, in clear violation of federal law.

30. Efficiency!

31. His “tell me five things you’ve done in the past week or you’re fired” threats were so blisteringly stupid that even officials appointed by Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump were telling their people not to bother. And as one intelligence officer pointed out, to comply with this would be an intelligence nightmare and a giveaway to every hostile nation on earth.

32. Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk’s popularity – never high to begin with – has nosedived and taken with it most of his investments. Tesla’s stock has lost over half its value since Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was inaugurated. Canada and other nations have canceled Starlink contracts worth billions, and when Musk publicly insinuated that the richest man in Mexico was connected to organized crime that man canceled Starlink contracts worth $7,000,000,000 and then got his allies to cancel contracts worth $25 billion more. Musk has lost more than a million dollars a minute in 2025. He’s overleveraged, and it is entirely possible that his empire might collapse in the near future. It’s not an accident that the first people he tried to fire were the ones in the federal government who had any kind of regulatory authority over him.

33. But Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump to the rescue! He turned the White House lawn into a car dealership and promised to buy a Tesla. Wouldn’t it be bitterly ironic if that was all it took to get all of the MAGAts to drop their gas-guzzling pickups and buy an electric car?

34. The car dealership stunt was not the first time a Fascist leader has used his office for a car deal, of course.

35. Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk – the world’s richest man, at least for the moment – has now set his sights on destroying Social Security. I hope your grandmother is independently wealthy, because otherwise she’s going to starve – that’s why FDR put that system in place in the first place, after all, to make sure that the American consumer economy would not run out of consumers in the future and as a byproduct keep the elderly from being turned out into the streets. Social Security is the third rail of American politics and I for one will enjoy watching the world’s richest man – at least for the moment – electrocute himself on it.

36. It all comes down to empathy, you know. The ability to understand and inhabit the position of others. One of the defining characteristics of the right is that they lack this quality and don’t see why that’s a problem. It’s been a problem of the right for nearly a century now, probably longer, and I don’t think it will get better.

I’ll stop calling them Nazis when they stop doing the things the Nazis did.

37. Perhaps this is why Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves have unilaterally slashed over a billion dollars in food aid given to local schools and low-income food banks across the country, which will not only hurt students and the poor but also the farmers, many of whom were blinkered enough to vote for this guy. FAFO, I suppose. The through-line of wealthy right-wing men immediately using their political power to take food away from children is notable, and pretty conclusive proof of the nonexistence of a loving God.

38. Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump has introduced his Shiny New Tax Proposal and if you’re at all surprised at who will benefit from this and who will get fucked by it you haven’t been paying any attention at all since Reagan have you?

39. The Culture War continues unabated, since it serves as a useful distraction from the many crimes and embarrassments of the current regime. Did you know that the US has spent millions on transgender mice? You didn’t? Congratulations! That puts you one up on Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump who made that accusation in a nationally televised speech before Congress only to have every responsible commentator in the nation – once they stopped laughing – point out that the mice were actually “transgenic” and were being used for cancer research.

40. Yeah, this is not a surprise.

41. But the assault on trans people – a small and powerless group who just want to live their lives without being destroyed by the blind hatred of the ignorant (and good luck to them on that) – also continues unabated. There is currently a bill in the Texas legislature, for example, that would make the mere existence of trans people a felony punishable by two years in jail and a $10,000 fine. Think about that. Representative Tom Oliverson – a Republican, of course – is so far gone in blind hatred that he honestly thought he could say these things in public and a) not get curb stomped by every normal human on earth and b) have people take him seriously. I have no idea how part “a” is going for him and I frankly don’t care to find out one way or the other, but I do know for sure that part “b” isn’t going well.

42. The GOP is also trying to get rid of 504 plans, because why should disabled people get any breaks? Speaking of lack of empathy.

43. If you haven’t read the transcript of the takedown that Representative Sarah McBride (D-DE) and Representative Bill Keating (D-MA) put on self-important turd Keith Self (R-TX) for his repeated and deliberate misgendering of Rep. McBride (a trans woman), do yourself a favor and look it up. When Self addressed McBride as “Mr.” she responded by addressing him as “Madam Chair,” and when Keating gave Self a chance to exit gracefully that Self obstinately refused to take he told Self that he was out of order. “Have you no decency?” Keating asked – a clear reference to Joseph Welch’s takedown of another self-important turd, Joe McCarthy (R-WI). Whereupon Self dismissed the hearing and fled. Pure gold.

45. There are some good signs, though, in all of this. The courts are having none of it – Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and Unelected Co-President Elon “Sieg Heil” Musk are getting their asses handed to them by increasingly angry and incredulous judges, many of whom had been appointed by Trump in his previous administration. GOP Representatives are now hiding from their own constituents because they can’t go out without being confronted with their crimes. Anonymous took out what was once called Twitter and likely will continue to do so whenever the mood strikes them. Wankpanzers across the country are rotting in unsellable numbers. You take your victories where you can.

46. Remember folks. We’re in this for the long haul.