Jamelle Bouie has a clear-eyed, devastating op-ed in today’s edition of the New York Times. Titled “There Is No Going Back”, it lays out in no uncertain terms how deep this constitutional crisis goes – in fact, that the very phrase “constitutional crisis” does not capture what’s happening to us. Click here for an NYT gift link, or click here to read on archive.today. Key excerpts:
[I]f Musk had been elected to some office, this would still be one of the worst abuses of executive power in American history. No one in the executive branch has the legal authority to unilaterally cancel congressional appropriations. No one has the legal authority to turn the Treasury payments system into a means of political retribution. No one has the authority to summarily dismiss civil servants without cause. No one has the authority to take down and scrub government websites of public data, itself paid for by American taxpayers. And no private citizen has the authority to access the sensitive data of American citizens for either information gathering or their own, unknown purposes.The thing, of course, is that Musk isn’t elected. He is a private citizen. He was neither confirmed for a cabinet job nor formally appointed to a high-level position within the administration. He does not even have a presidential commission; he has been designated a “special government employee.”
I always appreciate a good English Civil War reference:
The only institution capable of responding to this with any alacrity is Congress. But Congress is also led by Republicans, and both the Senate majority leader, John Thune, and the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, have declined to take any steps to arrest the president’s illegal arrogation of power or Musk’s destructive effort to run the federal government. Thune and Johnson, acting with the support of Republicans in both chambers, have, in effect, renounced their power over the purse and abnegated their powers of oversight. Their Congress is supine, submissive and subordinate, less the equal of the president than a tool of the executive branch — a subject of his will.
Somewhere, King Charles I is jealous.
This is, for me, the most chilling part:
The president’s opponents . . . still have room to maneuver. But as those opponents strategize their response, it is vital that see the important truth that there is no going back to the status quo ante . . . . And so the president’s opponents, whoever they are, cannot expect a return to the Constitution as it was. Whatever comes next, should the country weather this attempted hijacking, will need to be a fundamental rethinking of what this system is and what we want out of it.
Anything less will set us up for yet another Trump and yet another Musk.
Not to trivialize where we’re at, but the last few months for me have felt like that moment when Wile E. Coyote has run off the cliff only to realize that he is standing in mid-air (though you could say we ran off the cliff on January 6, 2021, or in 2016, or 2003, or…). The last two weeks have felt like we’re finally falling.
Anyway, read that, share it widely. Open thread.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Don’t look down 😁
rikyrah
He is excellent
Rose Judson
@rikyrah: He is always a must-read.
rikyrah
Army Orders West Point to Disband Cadet Clubs
Time
Miranda Jeyaretnam
February 5, 2025 at 5:32 AM
If you’re a member of the Society of Black Engineers at West Point, you can probably forget about attending the national group’s annual conference next month. That’s because the United States Military Academy, one of five American service academies, that trains cadets for the U.S. Army is disbanding its Society of Black Engineers chapter as well as at least 11 other clubs, according to a recent internal memorandum that circulated online.
The memo, issued in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive orders cracking down on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and offices across the federal government, instructs 12 specific clubs to immediately cease all formal and informal activities and remove public facing content. The move comes after the U.S. Army and Air Force shuttered their respective DEI offices and programs and removed related media and trainings on Jan. 23.
The disbanded clubs, all of which have had their webpages removed from the academy’s site, were listed under “affinity” groups on West Point’s club directory, which has also been removed as of publication. The pages, according to digital archives, were available online as recently as last week.
The list of banned student groups, all of which were open to all cadets irrespective of identity, includes the Asian-Pacific Forum Club, which “promotes the general knowledge and application of knowledge about the Asian-Pacific region”; the Contemporary Cultural Affairs Seminar Club, which supported cadets “transitioning from civilian to cadet and cadet to officer” through “academic services, mentorship, professional development opportunities, and community outreach programs”; the Corbin Forum, which aimed to promote women’s leadership within the Army; the Japanese Forum Club, which described itself as a place for promoting “understanding and appreciation of Japanese culture and language”; the Korean American Relations Seminar, which focused on education around the Korean American experience; the Latin Cultural Club, which operated two subordinate clubs: West Point Latin Dance and the mentorship- and outreach-focused Latina Connection; the Native American Heritage Forum, which had the mission to “educate members of the Corps of Cadets about the history, heritage, and current affairs of Native Americans”; Spectrum, a social club that provided support to LGBTQ cadets and promoted acceptance of LGBTQ people in the military community; and the Vietnamese-American Cadet Association, which aimed to increase “cultural awareness of the Vietnamese-American experience” and the “legacy of Vietnamese-American veterans.” It also included the West Point chapters of the National Society of Black Engineers, the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers.
https://www.aol.com/army-orders-west-point-disband-103207412.html
The Limper
“And so the president’s opponents, whoever they are, cannot expect a return to the Constitution as it was. Whatever comes next, should the country weather this attempted hijacking, will need to be a fundamental rethinking of what this system is and what we want out of it.”
Very very true….those Democrats who focus on their “norms” and calls for bipartisanship need to go retire (Schumer/Pelosi) and get out of the way for new, younger Democrats who are willing to fight. Fretting or writing stern letters is a freaking joke and insult to the voters they woo all the time with their incessant fundraising emails.
Matt McIrvin
“Constitutional hardball”, mostly initiated by Republicans but Democrats have of necessity had to reciprocate, has eroded the power of Congress to the point that it’s often a rubber-stamp body for the executive that cannot legislate. Basically the whole thing was designed with the assumption that institutional loyalties would override partisan ones (the Founders even saw strong partisanship as a problem for the design but they seemingly didn’t know how to make any safeguards against it, given that it popped up about five minutes after the ink was dry), and aside from some residual clubbishness in the Senate, that is simply no longer the case. So we really haven’t functionally had anything like the Constitutional system as designed for a while.
Leto
@rikyrah: when I tell people to not count on the military, I really hope they listen. They’re conservative by nature, and they’re going to follow the orders. Not sure how many times I can tell people that.
cain
They can dismantle whatever the fuck they want but free association cannot be stopped. Those cadets will just do whatever needs to be done to associate with each other.
Watching congress abdicate their responsibilities – JFC. I hope they realize that they have voluntarily giving up their power. Why are the GOP even in office? What constituent services can they provide? Just nuts.
Tie every systemic failure to this party. Not sure how given the way the media has also tied themselves to the GOP as well. But they themselves are being replaced by hard right media.
cain
@Leto: Will they shoot their own people? But hey we know, 6 million jews were killed by the military following orders.. so not without precedent.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
They’re not supposed to follow illegal orders
rikyrah
Sassiest Minx nka Petty Betty
(@SassiestMinx) posted at 10:36 AM on Mon, Feb 03, 2025:
For those that haven’t figured out what’s going on yet I will tell you. Leon has control of the Treasury because he will move all of our money away from federal departments, agencies and the treasury and put it into the new Sovereign Wealth Fund. That Fund is not regulated by Congress. There is no congressional oversight. Only the president and anyone he appoints can release those funds.
He is effectively taking away Congress’s power, and that includes the Republicans in Congress, too. They will have nothing to do, and he is effectively neutering them.
And no, this isn’t in project 2025. That’s why he’s having Leon do this. He is basically screwing not only every single person in this country but also TPUSA & Heritage.
(https://x.com/SassiestMinx/status/1886453667936784663?t=6P3Dw__YIwkukt86myubJQ&s=03)
ArchTeryx
@Leto: They’ll believe it when there’s a couple dozen protesters bleeding out in the street. Not before. Our own Tiananmen Square.
And that’s when shit truly will get real for most people. That, or when their government checks get illegally withheld.
New Deal democrat
Just wanted to alert people, in case this hasn’t already been mentioned.
The CO2 monitoring data from Mauna Loa has been taken down.
There was no advocacy, no opinionating, no agenda at the site.
Just data. Forty+ years of Inconvenient data that is now gone from public view.
Also, DOGE has ordered all hands at the DoL – one of the premier providers of economic data – to show up for a meeting tomorrow afternoon:
https://bsky.app/profile/aaronsojourner.org/post/3lhfp2arjds2r
Steve LaBonne
This is how I have been thinking. The system as we knew it has been irreparably broken. Something new will eventually have to emerge. The job is to make sure it isn’t Yeats’s rough beast slouching out of Bethlehem. Don’t ask me how to accomplish that, I’m not nearly smart enough.
Steve LaBonne
@New Deal democrat: They will try to prevent us from knowing when they crash the economy. If millions of people are newly out of work it’s not likely they won’t notice.
Belafon
@rikyrah: I’m wondering what clubs survived.
ArchTeryx
@Steve LaBonne: Nor when they’re evicted from their houses and apartments by Musk cronies, nor when their utility and grocery bills double while their salaries stay the same… or shrink… or just disappear.
The one thing propaganda cannot hide is empty wallets and mass immiseration. People were ready for Civil War II during the Great Depression. We only avoided it by the narrowest of margins.
Even the Nazis, that everyone likes to compare this to, were smart enough to improve the lives of middle class Germans to cement their power. Their opening act wasn’t wrecking the country.
Belafon
We are going to need to get so bad that either every non-voter decides to vote or more than half the Republicans decide that we have to fix things. Because short of constitutional amendments that allow enforcement independent of the executive, we will be right back here in the near future.
Melancholy Jaques
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Who decides on the legality of orders?
ArchTeryx
@Belafon: Trouble is, that’s when countries simply fall and become failed states. Our system is far, far too sclerotic, and negative partisanship too high, to massively rewrite the Constitution.
And even if we call a Constitutional Convention, guess who’s going to be in charge of it?
Old Man Shadow
I have doubts that they will allow a Democratic Congress or President to be seated.
But yes, the bridge back is burned.
Joe Biden was the last opportunity to go back to how things used to be. There will not be another one. If there is a Democratic administration, if it does not respond with equal and opposite force, it will be a failure.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I expect the people who lost money on the meme coins to notice too.
Leto
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yeah, and you’re not supposed to have pineapple on pizza. But this is reality.
@cain: we’ll find out; but they’re following all the rest of the orders and I can tell you right now there’s ongoing discussions among enlisted about what are/aren’t illegal orders, and most of them are failing that conversation. I’m not even going to tell you how special forces think because I need people like Goku to retain some vague sense of “reality.”
@ArchTeryx: You had people like Gen Miley giving his farewell speech, railing against dictators, begging service members to remember their Oaths, but you look at all the J6’ers who were vets/active, you read about the internal threat via white supremacy groups, you read reporting about vets who have setup essentially survivalist camps/training areas that cater to white power groups/right wing ideology…
I simply do not have faith in my former institution. Because I’ve served with so many of them for so long, and all this shit lines up. It’s not just like 1-2 people here or there. /shrug
New Deal democrat
@Steve LaBonne: And Catherine Rampell reports that some important Census Bureau labor data has been taken down:
https://bsky.app/profile/crampell.bsky.social/post/3lhflu73hw22w
Notthatproud
Don’t forget there will be a forward. I know we’re two weeks in and it looks bleak. But this will pass. We have to work and prepare for going forward, not going back.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
I retain “some vague sense of reality”, thank you very much
Kay
I really love him as a writer.
PsiFighter37
This country is done for. I am only glad that my grandmother, who was a hardcore Republican no less, passed in 2023 and will not have to endure the decimation of a country that she had the privilege of living a fulfilling life in.
Kay
And thanks for the post, Rose. I appreciate your work here.
tobie
Norm Eisen is reporting that there will be a telephone hearing today to determine the schedule for the complaint he filed for an emergency injunction against DOGE for its access to Treasury’s computer system. The judge is Collen Kollar Kotelly.
gene108
Bouie is wrong. Every Trump voter voted knowing mass deportations, racism, sexism, trade wars, autocracy, Project 2025, etc. were possibilities. They may have given into wishful thinking Trump wouldn’t do any of it, but they god damn knew this authoritarian takeover was always a possibility and happily voted for it anyway.
Quit giving grown ass Republican voters an out. They have agency. They knew the general parameters of what Trump might do and didn’t mind.
Kay
@gene108:
I do think media deliberately downplayed Project 2025 based solely on Trump’s word, which is just painfully poor work. They had the fucking document with names! They joined with these douchebags to mislead people.
NaijaGal
@rikyrah: The US voted in segregationists. I asked a year ago on mastodon what it means for someone to be anti- diversity, equity, and inclusion. I asked whether it meant that the person was pro- white supremacy, inequity, and segregation. I got my answer with this new administration that a plurality of Americans *voted* for. I missed the deep misogyny part but otherwise segregation (and white Christian male supremacy) is what they’re driving for.
They never learn from history, and always think they’ll emerge unscathed (just like Hitler and Mussolini and Saddam and Gaddafi did, right?) so we have to fight the same battles again and again because sociopaths and psychopaths need to toy with the rest of us for their own amusement.
ArchTeryx
@gene108: Take a look at the Emerson College poll. They want this. They’re cheering it on. Trump has a higher approval rating now than Biden EVER did.
Half the country wants a fascist dictatorship – and the total elimination of the other half. That is the root of our problems, and I don’t see any way out of it. There’s going be a reckoning between Red and Blue America. The only question is how many bodies in the street it will take before that reckoning is done.
Matt McIrvin
@Notthatproud:
For some of us. Question is just how many.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@gene108: I agree. Whatever threats Trump made weren’t deal breakers for them. I find no generosity in my heart for them.
PsiFighter37
@tobie: None of this matters. There is no enforcement mechanism to get Trump and Elon to follow the law. Unless John Roberts starts ordering the Supreme Court police to arrest people, the actual court outcomes do not matter. This is going to be Andrew Jackson giving John Marshall the finger, but on steroids.
LAC
@cain: “They can dismantle whatever the fuck they want but free association cannot be stopped. Those cadets will just do whatever needs to be done to associate with each other.”
They can do WHAT in a regimented institution? Please stop dismissing what the impact of this assault on diversity is about. They are erasing and othering us and it is not okay. We are american cutizens. Get angry for us too!! You’ll want us to go out in the streets and be the canary in the coalmine against this administration, but for what? For a meh?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Kay: WaPo reporting pointed out the direct relationship between Project 2025 and Trump, including naming names.
[ ETA obviously that wasn’t sufficient]
Kay
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Thanks. Its amazing how closely they are following it. Anyone who wanted to know what was coming could read the whole blueprint.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@LAC:
Uh, I’d say cain is angry for you
Matt McIrvin
@ArchTeryx: That all this is still above 50% popular is not surprising to me. Right now, things are exciting and most people have not been bitten by the leopard yet. To many normies, it’s going to just look like Elon Musk is going after all that waste, fraud and abuse they’re convinced is there.
(However: if you look at Joe Biden’s job approval, he did come in with higher general popularity than Trump has now. We’re in Trump’s second “honeymoon” and it’s not great as honeymoons go.)
Citizen Alan
Belafon
@gene108: In order for us to move forward, these voters are going to have to admit they were the reason this happened. There was plenty of information out on what they were going to do. The fact that they were unwilling to look for it, or to act on it, is on them. Just pulling the lever because R is not an excuse.
Kay
Is it true that foreign college students pay full tuition so therefore subsidize all the US students who get various “discounts” (scholarships, Federal grants, etc)?
Avalune
Pineapple on pizza is pretty delicious. I will not abide this slander.
If the Supreme Court decided that the president can’t do anything illegal, then how could any orders coming from the commander in chief be “illegal.” The whole disregard of rule of law and pushing boundaries to see how far we can go is part of the whole conundrum. While a lot of people would like to believe the heroic military would stand up against it, that’s probably being rather optimistic. Some will but how far will this go?
Following orders, not sure what else to do, doing what the rest of the people are doing, feeling strongly about pro America and drinking the koolaid that makes this all seem necessary in the ole this is gonna hurt me more than you way, what is legal, just wanting to keep their job so their family is fed…many things will be at play here and I just really hope we don’t get to that point – though with this let’s take over GAZA thing and the way they like to talk about the military as if they were a private army it seems like a bad bet. I hate hate that I think that…it feels alarmist and tin hat and whatnot but well, I’ve spent some time around the military.
Belafon
@ArchTeryx: When was that poll taken?
tobie
@PsiFighter37: You may be right but I’m not sure that ignoring court order after court order won’t sway public opinion. I dunno. I guess we’ll have to see this country collapse to wake up the sliver of people who voted for Trump who are not dyed-in-the-wool fascists.
hrprogressive
The Fascist Republican Party made it clear for a decade they wanted a totalitarian monarchy over which they would rule.
The Democratic Party isn’t going to stop it.
If the citizens of this country don’t do anything to stop it, then it won’t be stopped.
It may not be a fait accompli yet, but if it isn’t corrected, it will be the de facto government.
tobie
@Kay: At state schools, yes. They cannot establish residency so pay out of state tuition that helps fund in-state tuition for US citizens and green card holders.
Avalune
@Kay: Our foreign students pay full tuition. I’m not sure how specifically it’s used (despite literally sitting in a board meeting from the Financial Risk Committee for two hours this morning, I tried to pay attention but I just can’t) but your statement is probably pretty accurate.
Belafon
@Kay: Yes.
PsiFighter37
@tobie: At this point, only mass civil disobedience is going to move the needle. I am pretty convinced of this.
Kay
@hrprogressive:
They really did. They got in the way of voting in any way possible for the last 30 years. They’re right now overturning the results of an election they lost in NC.
Miss Bianca
@Avalune:
Right on, Avalune! I will join you on that particular rampart.
Steve LaBonne
@ArchTeryx: If we’re talking colors, by far the biggest element of the problem is WHITE America.
Leto
@NaijaGal: I have a friend who works for the Army at one of their training bases. They’ve spent the past week going through 500+ courses looking for anything DEI related, and removing it. They’re also saying that the military’s EEO programs are being deleted. Any type of protection for women and minorities is being nuked from orbit. As they’re a minority themselves, it’s taking a tremendous mental toll.
Be there for your friends and family who are being affected by this. They really need it. One way we can personally fight back against this is by showing kindness, love, and understanding. Kindness/love is radical as hell, and punk as fuck.
Kay
@Belafon:
Thank you. My son has a (college) roommate from Pakistan. He’s scared and he was sort of babbling to me in an effort to persuade me he should be here. I already think he should be here, no matter what he’s paying.
Kayla Rudbek
@Kay: yes, with the exception that science/engineering PhD programs generally pay a stipend to all the students (the deal is that the PhD students are teaching or research assistants and then they are paid for doing that work). Now frequently most of the PhD students are not American citizens as our K-12 education doesn’t prepare us well, then the American citizens get frustrated with having foreign TAs with a language barrier teaching them chemistry/math/physics etc, fewer American citizens go into STEM, rinse and repeat.
schrodingers_cat
A majority of white people voted for this. Both men and women. This is what they want. Confederate States of America 2.0.
John S.
@ArchTeryx:
No he doesn’t.
Trump’s approval rating is 49%. That’s a personal best for him, but it still sucks. Biden’s highest approval rating was 57%.
gene108
@Kay:
One thing the media ignored is that after a few dozen Trump 45 Cabinet Secretaries and staff denounced Trump, along with his VP, who exactly will be willing to work for a new Trump administration?
The question was always hanging out there, but totally ignored.
The media are the laziest, dumbest, and most innumerate* people alive.
*There inability and unwillingness to grasp basic math is one reason economic reporting is so terrible. I noticed during the ACA drafting and debate, when Republicans blathered about choice and free markets solving everything, without any pushback of all the ways “choice” doesn’t apply to healthcare decisions because the “choice” is do this or die.
Leto
@Avalune:
Expect to hear from my lawyer, soon…
Ohio Mom
@cain: 6 million Jews and 5 million assorted others.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made a fuss sbout those 5 million others. Its s hobby horse of mine. I consider it a peculiar sort of Holocaust denialism, and especially ironic when it’s my Jewish community erasing those killings.
if asked, I’d always say, It could happen anywhere. But I thought we’d have a longer run.
Belafon
@Kay: If Trump and Co succeed in essentially turning us in to an isolated country, nearly every single thing in this country is going to be upended, and is going to make everything more expensive.
Matt McIrvin
@John S.: There are a few polls that have him above 50% approval (some are right-wing polls flooding the zone). But it doesn’t look to me either like he’s coming in as popular as Biden, who didn’t have a great “honeymoon” but was definitely above water until the middle of 2021.
gene108
@Matt McIrvin:
This is very true right now.
PsiFighter37
@Belafon: That will be the least of our problems. We are heading full-on into fascist, authoritarian kakistocracy.
tobie
@Ohio Mom: Tare a trip to the Holocaust Museum. It doesn’t focus only on Jews. Your comment disgusts me.
Matt McIrvin
@Ohio Mom: I’ve seen some fussing about whether the term “Holocaust” should properly be reserved for just the Jewish victims or applied to all of them.
But I do think it speaks to what lessons one takes away: does “never again” just mean “there must never be another attempt to exterminate Jews” or is it more general? And I have noticed a marked split on this.
Belafon
@PsiFighter37: Agree, but most Americans feel like they aren’t helped by democracy, so they’re not going to do anything about it until they are hurt hard.
Ohio Mom
@Belafon: Very recently. But maybe too recently because it’s going to be a while until those numskulls wake up, if they are actually capable of buyer’s remorse.
rikyrah
@Belafon:
John S.
@Matt McIrvin:
Trump has nowhere to go but down, and I think his approval is going to get hammered in the weeks to come.
But it’s rather depressing that Biden rode the same roller coaster down, and he certainly didn’t do anything nearly as fucked up as what’s happened in the last two weeks.
Just goes to show you how much damage a corporate media can do to a misinformed electorate.
Belafon
@tobie: You do know that there can be both types of people in a group right? Kind of like how there are many of us whites that hate slavery and segregation and others that don’t think slavery was bad or that segregation was real.
kindness
I went over to the Times and read the piece. I’m heartened that almost all the comments were coming from our point of view. Except the publisher there wants nothing to do with our point of view and will ignore the comments.
The MSM will happily follow Trump in his quest for an American 5th Reicht.
Captain C
@Citizen Alan: IIRC the FTFNYT’s response was, “Well, TCFG said it’s not his, and you know he never lies.”
When Baud is president he should confiscate the FTFNYT from the Sulzbergers and fold it into a nonprofit dedicated to reporting the news accurately. The games division can help fund them. The Sulzbergers should be banned from anything to do with any journalism anywhere ever for as long as their line exists.
Melancholy Jaques
@gene108:
Exactly. Republicans were waving signs saying “Mass Deportation Now!” at their convention. Everybody knew that he is a corrupt, lying bigot who tried to overthrow the government by violence.
They wanted him back in power because of those things, not despite them.
Matt McIrvin
@John S.: Historically, almost every President has had an approval decline upon or shortly after entering office. What varies is how high that initial honeymoon is, and what happens later. Often there have been big swings from events.
It seems to me like something changed with Obama: his honeymoon was better than any Trump or Biden got, but once that wore off, the US was stuck in this position of extreme partisan polarization where you really had only minor variations around “sitting President is a little below 50% popularity.” Obama did have a rise to just barely above 50% approval when he got reelected, and another when he was a lame duck and it didn’t matter.
Ohio Mom
I’d had a small hope that big business would be a countervailing force. They need the data the census collects, that the Commerce department collects, Big Ag needs weather information, and I know there are many more examples my limited knowledge prevents me from llisting.
Does every insurance company want to see their holdings evaporate? They are really investors in the end, payouts are an annoying cost of doing business.
I know there are super-wealthy people who are salvinating at the thought of scooping up everything at bargain basement prices but they are a relatively small group. Don’t most of big business want to stay in business?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
As the weeks progress and more shit like the local ICE raid happen, the start to dismantle the VA, have Putin’s Intel Chief sit in on the morning Pentagon intel briefings via zoom, I’m beginning to long for the good ole days of a James Buchanan administration.
//
Melancholy Jaques
@Matt McIrvin:
Who is going to tell them otherwise? And one very disturbing truth to learn from the 2024 election is that normie voters do not give a rat’s ass about the rule of law, the Constitution, or democracy. So even if someone does try to tell them, they will not listen.
John S.
@Matt McIrvin:
Good analysis. It would seem that there was a pivot to approval ratings that are based more on “feels” and tribalism than actual results. Like so many other aspects of our society.
I have no clue how we unring that bell.
Matt McIrvin
@Melancholy Jaques: I think it actually is more complicated than that: there’s been an increasing split between people with high and low political engagement. I have seen tweets going around from people saying things like “WTF, I’m Hispanic and I voted for Trump, I had no idea he was so obsessed with deporting Mexicans.” Even though that is literally the main thing he talked about from the first time he ran for President. The ability to not pay attention is boundless.
Belafon
@rikyrah: Thanks.
sentient ai from the future
@gene108: yes, they knew, but the these simple-ass motherfuckers need a permission structure to change their minds too.
p.a.
House bill filed to close down Dept of Education.
Click my nym to see 2022 map with numbers on each state’s fed $ per student support.
My comment on fbook: “Bye DoE, hello property tax increase! How did YOU vote?”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Matt McIrvin: The nuns used to call this vincible ignorance. It was not an acceptable excuse.
Matt McIrvin
@John S.: …I also think it’s possible that he could defy political gravity by the traditional totalitarian route: make it increasingly clear that it’s dangerous (socially dangerous, then physically dangerous) not to publicly love him. That’s when you get things like 99% margins in elections.
Bill Arnold
@New Deal democrat:
Whoa.
None of https://gml.noaa.gov/ is responding. Timeouts.
This is now war, for scientists.
rikyrah
@The Limper:
I agree about the bipartisan bullshyt. They should be calling out Republicans everytime they get in front of a camera
sentient ai from the future
@Ohio Mom: read krugman. his take is that bidness decided to ignore the risk, assuming orange shitgoblin was just full of shit as he often is.
but they were keeping their heads in the sand about what an unreliable, unaccountable dipshit in charge would do for the credibility of the us. so there was no pushback that could have bent the curve away from this apocalyptic nightmare.
short term thinking.
Gloria DryGarden
@New Deal democrat: I know some scientists have archived their data and website information. In multiple comments on blue sky, in the science feed, links were given, so people could access it.
it was a few days ago. I don’t recall which projects and data sets were downloaded and saved.But some for sure. I’m hoping more and more scientists hav3 done so.
ArchTeryx
@Steve LaBonne: You’re dead right about that. I’m one of them, but I’m absolutely a “race traitor” to these people. I know who my enemies are, and it isn’t black folks, LBGTQ+ folks, Mexicans, or any of their other kick-down targets. I’m with them, and they’ll kill me just as surely.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Gloria DryGarden: pray for the Wayback Machine.
gene108
@Ohio Mom:
Fortune 500 companies are in denial. We’re heading into unprecedented territory with regards to formerly objective government functions becoming part of the White House propaganda process.
I doubt most of them, like with tariffs, want to pretend it won’t really happen.
I think Big Ag, Mid Ag, and Small Ag are mostly MAGA’s and will justify whatever is done to them, because Trump will given them subsidies to offset his bad decisions.
sentient ai from the future
@gene108: bloomberg’s take today was about as side-eyed as i’ve seen them get so far.
MagdaInBlack
@Dorothy A. Winsor: As a recovered Catholic, I am embarrassed I did not know that term. I do now and it is perfect. Thank you
sentient ai from the future
@Gloria DryGarden: there are very likely copies in the national archives, there was some suggestion elsewhere that you could get prior versions of websites that way, a “Biden administration archive” but you’d have to websearch for details
Professor Bigfoot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): But will they be illegal?
“It’s not illegal if the President does it,” or something like that.
Matt McIrvin
@Ohio Mom: The rise in organized labor power under Biden, in the wake of the COVID dislocations, really spooked them. Most people on boards of directors would rather gnaw their own limb off than cede anything to the unions.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@MagdaInBlack: @Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yes, thanks, great word. The lack of attention has to change. My perhaps over optimistic prediction: it will.
ETA
It seems LLMs are somewhat useful.
&
Spanky
@sentient ai from the future: Claiming that Treasury “brought in” DOGE goons is still very head-in-the-sand.
And of course The Markets are rolling along as if it’s all business as usual. Which I guess it is and will be, until suddenly it very much is not.
Captain C
@sentient ai from the future: Given the last 40+ years of financialization, I suspect most businesspeople are only concerned with “number go up” next quarter and don’t really care how it gets there, nor do they have a clue how to do anything else including actually running a successful business.
ExPatExDem
I have a hard time seeing how the US survives the next 4 years intact. The fascist movement has checkmated the checks and balances system. I think the second great schism of the US is coming.
The fact that more than zero Senate Democrats are still seeking comity while the fascists rip the guts out of the Republic is equal parts astounding, demoralizing, and enraging.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: And the Supreme Court helpfully made that true.
MagdaInBlack
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I especially liked “supine ignorance.” Just roll over and pretend you don’t know. So much of that going on right now.
John S.
@ExPatExDem:
Fetterman is leading the way. He was the only Democrat who voted to confirm AG Pam Bondi yesterday.
Professor Bigfoot
@hrprogressive: The Democratic party cannot stop it.
The only thing that could possibly stop it would be for the majority of white people who support it to change their minds.
That ain’t gonna happen.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Professor Bigfoot:
That flies in the face of the Constitution they swore an oath to uphold
Professor Bigfoot
@PsiFighter37: White America approves of this.
There will be no mass nothin’.
And if anyone other than white people try, they will be met with force. Bank it.
Spanky
I’m ruminating on how much of the security forces are captured by the Right Wing. I’m specifically thinking about our local sheriff’s office, that most resembles a Skinhead meeting house. I hope your local constabulary is in better shape than here in Confederate Southern MD. I think the MD State Police is better managed, but I’m not at all confident that a majority of their officers aren’t right wing authoritarians.
Al Z.
@rikyrah: My firstie kid sent me a picture of this memo; directly impacted by this and I’m heart broken and angry.
Steve LaBonne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): That and 3 bucks will get you cup of coffee at Starbucks. No hand job though- yet.
narya
Aaaaand . . . the organization for which I’ve been doing consulting is going to fold, meaning a lot of the most marginalized people around will not have access to healthcare. It’s a very sad day. I’m hoping I win the lottery tonight to bail them out. At least my brother’s cancer appears to be “treatable” (according to the doc he saw today), but still no info on whether it’s spread, because the CAT scan couldn’t be authorized until after he had a visit with this doc. And now I’m also glad I didn’t rescind my SocSec application.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Professor Bigfoot:
They will when they get fucked over. They can’t ignore their checks being cut off or the economy crashing, with these assholes in charge
rikyrah
Federal health workers terrified after ‘DEI’ website publishes list of ‘targets’
The site calls out workers who have been involved with DEI initiatives. A majority are Black.
Feb. 4, 2025, 7:35 PM CST / Updated Feb. 4, 2025, 9:51 PM CST
By Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Erika Edwards
Federal health workers are expressing fear and alarm after a website called “DEI Watch List” published the photos, names and public information of a number of workers across health agencies, describing them at one point as “targets.”
It’s unclear when the website, which lists mostly Black employees who work in agencies primarily within the Department of Health and Human Services, first appeared.
“Offenses” for the workers listed on the website include working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, donating to Democrats and using pronouns in their bios.
The website, a government worker said, is being circulated among multiple private group chats of federal health workers across agencies, as well as through social media links.
The site also reached Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, who learned about it Tuesday evening when a federal health worker sent it to him.
“This is a scare tactic to try to intimidate people who are trying to do their work and do it admirably,” Benjamin said. “It’s clear racism.”
A government worker said they found out theirs was among the names on the website Tuesday afternoon after a former co-worker sent them the link on social media.
……………………..
On Tuesday evening, the site listed photos of employees and linked to further information about them under the headline “Targets.” Later Tuesday night, the headline on each page had been changed to “Dossiers.”
The site lists workers’ salaries along with what it describes as “DEI offenses,” including political donations, screenshots of social media posts, snippets from websites describing their work, or being a part of a DEI initiative that has been scrubbed from a federal website.
Benjamin suggested the acts of online harassment are criminal. “Law enforcement should look into them.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/federal-health-workers-terrified-dei-website-publishes-list-targets-rcna190711
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Functionally the Constitution is whatever a majority of the Supreme Court says it is, and they say “if the President does it it is not illegal” is in there. Subject to change at any time, of course.
However, I do recommend not acting as if this absurd situation is actually the literal truth. I think a lot of the fights here are about people talking past each other when they take normative or aspirational vs. descriptive views of the law or the system.
MagdaInBlack
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Are we going to do the wide eyed naivete thing again?
This is a coup.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MagdaInBlack:
It’s not wide eyed naivete, it’s insisting and demanding adherence to the law and norms.
ETA: For me, it’s also about not obeying in advance
Ksmiami
@PsiFighter37: agree. Something new will arise, but yeah America is over.
Ksmiami
@Spanky: the German stock market rose and rose from 41-45… just saying
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah: I guess now we know what elno’s boys are doing with the information they are gleaning, don’t we?
Professor Bigfoot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Conservatives will overthrow the Constitution they claim to revere because it permitted a Black man to become President for 8 years.
They now own the entire Federal government, so I think we can safely say the Constitution doesn’t matter anymore.
The Audacity of Krope
Ham, on the other hand…
Professor Bigfoot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Indeed they will. Davis X. Machina’s statement remains true after all.
They will still blame Black people, women, and immigrants.
And they will choose violence, as they have done before.
robtrim
@ExPatExDem: I agree for the most part. The incompetence of Musk, Trump, et al, may create a disaster large enough to alter the fatal trajectory, but it’s no sure thing. I keep thinking of the muslims and other pro Palestinians who voted against Biden. Surely, enough political interest groups will see their ox’s gored and realize that Trump is a con man and a thief.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Professor Bigfoot:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like you’re saying we’re doomed and should give up
Soprano2
@Kay: Sarah Longwell said it was impossible to poll on Project 2025 because when you described something from it to people, they refused to believe it was real or that anyone would actually do that! She said they had to water it down a lot just to get people’s opinions on it, which were almost uniformly negative.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): For what it’s worth, I get what you’re doing. I do think the people here aren’t necessarily the best target for it, it’s the normies I was talking about above.
The Audacity of Krope
Alternatively, the same statement could be considered a call to build something new. Or a call to arms.
tobie
@Belafon: Yes, and OhioMom complained about the “Jewish community” (as in Jews writ large) engaging in Holocaust denialism. It was a disgusting comment as it permitted no distinctions both within the Jewish community and, historically speaking, with respect to the different strategies the National Socialists used to target different groups. In short: it lacked the nuance you are now accusing me of ignoring.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Audacity of Krope:
They’ve pooh-poohed that suggestion in the past, too. They don’t even believe a majority of people would be willing to revolt if things get bad enough. I don’t know, I don’t pretend anything is guaranteed but I do know we shouldn’t just let these people do all this shit in a cakewalk either
The Audacity of Krope
Speaking of nuance, did you happen to notice she identified it as her Jewish community? As in the local one she is part of?.
ETA: Assuming I understood correctly
J. Arthur Crank
@Kay: I don’t know if it generally true elsewhere, but in the California State University system, the international students generally pay the full cost. They cannot get most of the normal financial aid packages that domestic students can get.
The Audacity of Krope
Some people revolt me every day.
Situations will change. Leaders will emerge. The unwillingness to revolt is most typically driven by an impulse to first look after oneself and one’s family. That goes away when things collapse, which they do reliably under Republicans and we seem to be driving to that result again at a breakneck speed.
We aren’t doomed until literally nothing can be done. So until the nukes are in the air or anything black hole comes careening through the solar system, we should operate like things can potentially be fixed.
Miss Bianca
@The Audacity of Krope: GET OUT.
Ham and pineapple on pizza go hand in hand.
The Audacity of Krope
@Miss Bianca: Maybe it’s just me. I have yet to find a suitable application for ham in any context. Too salty for food and too expensive for firewood.
princess leia
I am so sad about the plan to sell off 1/2 of federal land. I wonder if states like CA could be the buyers to preserve public ownership? Otherwise….
rikyrah
@The Audacity of Krope:
Surely, you jest.
Ham in omelettes
Ham as the seasoning meat for almost any kind of dry bean.
Ham sandwich
Ham for breakfast, with eggs and grits…
No ham slander!!!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Audacity of Krope:
That more or less how I feel and I agree
Mr. Bemused Senior
The peasants are revolting
The Audacity of Krope
@rikyrah: Replace any of that with bacon and all of it improves a million fold.
Professor Bigfoot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Oh, gods no.
We will never give up.
But we absolutely are going to be going through some things.
BECAUSE OF WHITE PEOPLE and their need for white supremacy.
The Audacity of Krope
Fuck my fellow pale Americans, at least the ones who cling to their whiteness.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: Indeed, I spent some time at the range this morning.
We aren’t dead yet, but we’re gonna go through some really nasty shit.
White folks do not — cannot understand this, and are spectacularly ill equipped to deal with what’s coming.
The Audacity of Krope
@Professor Bigfoot: White folk are ill-equipped to deal with a ten minute wait at brunch.
RevRick
@New Deal democrat: That site was setup during the Eisenhower administration as part of the 1958 International Geophysical Year. So, almost 67 years.
No Nym
@Matt McIrvin: “I have seen tweets going around from people saying things like “WTF, I’m Hispanic and I voted for Trump, I had no idea he was so obsessed with deporting Mexicans.” Even though that is literally the main thing he talked about from the first time he ran for President. The ability to not pay attention is boundless.”
As others have noted lately, it’s also a result of words and language being corrupted and losing meaning. People hear what they want to hear, not what is said.
The Audacity of Krope
@No Nym: Republican perversion of the English language has been going on as long as I can remember.
Let’s take the language back, starting with words directly associated with political ideology, the first victims of this effort; conservative, liberal, socialist…
pajaro
@The Limper:
Those critics who want to shiv their leadership, particularly when the new reality is just beginning, are helping the other team. There’s never been a war in which generals failed to make mistakes. Did you hear Schumer yesterday? Was he talking about norms? Did you see the members of Congress, including Senators, at AID?
Princess
@cain: Will the American military shoot Americans? In a New York minute.
Prometheus Shrugged
@RevRick: The continuing measurements can be accessed at keelingcurve.ucsd.edu and https://bsky.app/profile/keelingcurve.bsky.social
There is a long interesting history of the relationship between NOAA (who has operated the Mauna Loa lab for the last few decades) and the Keeling labs (Dave Keeling initiated the time series and his son Ralph Keeling continues the measurements). The good news is that anything happening at NOAA can’t stop the measurements or their dissemination through the sites like keelingcurve.ucsd.edu (and yes, there are multiple types of backups–paper, digital–of all the data going back to 1958 in the basement of our building). But needless to say, anyone connected is all horrified.
No Nym
@The Audacity of Krope: I remember how I began to notice that “conservatives” were actually radicals in word and deed, as far as democracy was concerned. My noticing that was an outgrowth of earlier academic exercises in seeing how language was distorted around women and people of color in literature to establish male, white, and heterosexual as the baseline of “human.” Everyone else was “less than.” No wonder these creeps are so terrorized by diversity, inclusion, and equity.
The Audacity of Krope
Straight facts.
bluefoot
@rikyrah: Fear of a Black planet…
more seriously, they are trying to erase history, reality, and all humans that are not white cis-het males. They’ll do their damnedest to get there, including out and out bloodshed. FFOTUS said before the election he wanted a “purge” (like the movie) to “cleanse” the nation.
bluefoot
@Professor Bigfoot: I refuse to give up. This is my country and I believe in our aspirational ideals. But as a WoC, I am realistic about surviving this. This is what the majority of white people wanted, and all of us will pay for it.
Chris Johnson
I cannot object to Jamelle Bouie’s take enough.
The Constitution has not failed. The ADMINISTRATION has failed pretty hard, but it took extraordinary measures by a foreign adversary to do it and is continuing to take those extraordinary measures to stop the administration and Americans from bouncing back and getting real mad.
In no way has the Constitution failed. Do you have any idea how much easier these attacks on America would be if it was anything else, or if it wasn’t there?
Captain C
@Chris Johnson:
The ADMINISTRATION has failed pretty hard,
As have the courts (by design). But I’m also not sure how we go forward with at least 40% of the country in a tight information bubble and wanting to kill, torture, or enslave the other 60%.
Professor Bigfoot
@bluefoot: We are Black Americans.
We don’t give up.
From 1619 to the present day, we fight.
Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” tells the tale.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chris Johnson: It’s not there.
Be honest— “the rule of law” is dead, and y’all need to recognize this.
Conservatives are overthrowing the Constitution they claim to revere because it permitted a Black man to be President for 8 years; and have worked assiduously to make good and damned sure THAT doesn’t happen… and so far they’ve been successful.
Kayla Rudbek
@rikyrah: this is infuriating and I wonder what will happen at the Patent Office (I haven’t seen anything yet on r/patentexaminer but there’s a lot of affinity groups there as well, and they would do a Community Day celebration every year, close down the oval and bring in food trucks and have a parade).
jimmiraybob
In classic literature Trump would be the Trojan Horse from which Musk and the Legion of Tech Incels emerged …… I assume through the anal portal.
I am guessing that I am the last to realize that once the “run our country like a business” project is successful we will lose our constitutional status as citizens and we will be forever expendable employees. SS No.s will thereafter be reissued as employee numbers.
Paul in KY
@Kay: That is true.