Somehow, four years of Trump’s cheating, lying, cronyism, ineptitude, ecocide, xenophobia, racism, war crimes, and shocking ignorance in his first term wasn’t quite enough for the majority of American voters. They wanted more. So here we are again: stuck in a nightmare we can’t quite wake up from as the world sinks deeper into an apocalyptic, white supremacist hellscape.
On his first day back in office, Trump signed 26 executive orders, more than any US President has in history has on their first day. His primary targets were immigrants, the environment, humanitarian aid, and healthcare. Executive order “Protecting The Meaning And Value Of American Citizenship” repeals birthright citizenship for infants born in the US to undocumented parents and to parents who are here lawfully with temporary status. Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the 14th amendment of the constitution passed after the Civil War.
The executive order was immediately challenged in a court hearing, during which Washington attorney, Lane Polozola stated “births cannot be paused” while the court considers the case and stated harming the babies of immigrants without permanent status “appears to be the purpose” of the executive order. Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, called the order “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a restraining order against it.[i]
Another order signed on inauguration day entitled “Protecting the American people Against Invasion” accuses immigrants of terrorism and suspends the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. On January 29th, Trump doubled down on his attacks on immigrants, issuing a memorandum to expand the inmate capacity of the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay to 30,000, so that it could hold “the worst of the worst” immigrants and refugees.
Trump directed the US to again withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and signed another order entitled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” reversing restrictions on oil and gas extraction within the state’s vast wilderness. Another order withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization, despite the organization’s progress reducing the worldwide prevalence of smallpox, polio, malaria, trachoma, and malnutrition. On the same day, Trump signed an order entitled “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,” directing the attorney general to “take all necessary and lawful actions to ensure that each state…has a sufficient supply of drugs needed to carry out legal executions.” Trump wrote in the order that “politicians and judges who oppose capital punishment have defied and subverted the laws of our country.” Clearly, Trump believes death is a better investment than life, medicine, and healthcare.
Executive order “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” requires the Secretary of the Interior to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.” In January he expressed his desire to turn Canada into a “51st US state,” tried to buy Greenland, rename it “red, white and blue land” and stated he may try to take over the Panama Canal. Denmark, which owns Greenland, made a satirical petition to buy California in response.
On inauguration day, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of his supporters charged with crimes in the attack on the Capital building on January 6th 2021 dismantling, the largest investigation and prosecution in the history of the Justice Department.
In an unambiguous attempt to take complete control over federal funding, on January 27th, the Office of Management and Budget wrote a memorandum that ordered a temporary pause on all grants, loans, and financial assistance so that they could be reviewed by trump administration. The memo was rescinded two days later after backlash.
From day one, Trump’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) headed by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has been busy cutting social services, diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and humanitarian aid. Musk stated his intention to eliminate the United States Agency for International Development and has reduced its number of employees from 10,000 to 294.[ii] The DOGE has also cut $900 million from the education department to cripple the Institute of Education Sciences and Education Innovation and Research grants.[iii]
DOGE has also told the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, (CFPB) to stop working until further notice. Trump installed Christian nationalist, Russell Vought, as director of the CFPB on February 7th. Without providing any reason, Vought closed the bureau’s headquarters in Washington and “directed staff to stop virtually all their work, including the supervision that the agency does to check whether companies are following the law. It also instructed staff to cease any pending investigations.” With the building closed to staff, representatives of Musk’s DOGE were seen at the headquarters and “granted access to key systems, stirring concerns about the fate of the vast amount of sensitive information maintained by the bureau.”[iv] It is likely Musk is targeting the CFPB because it regulates auto-lenders like Tesla. Unlike many government agencies that produce nothing of value to taxpayers, the CFPB has returned $20.7 billion to consumers since 2011 while its 2025 budget was only $823 million.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen stated the next DOGE targets may be the “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and then the Social Security Administration.” Where does Elon Musk think US tax dollars should go? Weapons, of course. Since the US already spends more than the next top nine spenders on defense combined[v], why not spend more? Musk wrote on X: “American weapons programs need to be completely redone. The current strategy is to build a small number of weapons at a high price to fight yesterday’s war. Unless there are immediate and dramatic changes made, America will lose the next war very badly.”
On January 25th, Trump lifted a hold on the sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. On February 4th, in a press conference with Israeli PM Netanyahu, Trump stated his intention to take over Gaza and permanently expel Palestinians from their homeland: “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too…We’ll own it … get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out…”[vi] He stated he was prepared to use US troops to implement the plan. In a Fox “News” interview with Bret Baier, Trump added, “Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.” His intention seems to be to buy Gaza, a site of brutal occupation and genocide, and turn it into “a Riveria in the Middle East” for wealthy, racist settlers. Who he would buy the land from has not been made clear, but it is safe to assume it would not be from the Palestinians who own it. Naively, he underestimates the connection Palestinians have to their homeland and asked “Why would they want to return? The place has been hell.”
Trump vaguely suggested Gaza’s residents “should go to other countries of interest… and build various domains that would be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death, destruction, and frankly bad luck.” Egypt and Jordan both rejected Trumps plans to relocate Palestinians.
Of course, the genocide in Gaza has nothing to do with “bad luck”. It is white supremacist Zionists like him, Netanyahu, and Biden that are responsible, and it is hypocrisy to claim he wants other countries to accept Palestinian refugees while he closes US borders to all refugees. It’s also ironic that similar arguments were made by the Nazis to expel Jews from Germany.
On February 1st, Trump signed another executive order imposing 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada and 10% tariffs on imports from China. These tariffs will increase the costs of almost everything for Americans and result in thousands of lost jobs. This inflation will likely cause the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates or at least stop cuts this year. Trump’s supposed justification for the tariffs is to force these states to tighten their borders and reduce fentanyl smuggling and undocumented immigration.
On February 10th, Trump signed two executive orders imposing 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports with no product exemptions, regardless of the country of origin. Trump also imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum in his first term, causing US manufacturers that rely on these metals to lay off thousands of workers due to increased procurement costs.
While it would be beneficial to localize the economy and reduce American dependence on other nations and the fossil fuels used to import goods, trump’s actions will not do that. Production costs will rise for almost all US manufacturers as there aren’t enough US producers of steel, lumber, aluminum, electronics, appliances, and vehicles that China, Mexico, and Canada currently import to satisfy US demand. Further, the immigrants he seeks to deport are the source of cheap labor that makes US products affordable. This coupled with trump’s tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs (if imposed) by Canada, Mexico, and China will cause massive inflation. Because there is such a cult of personality around him, it is likely Trump supporters will continue to support him. As the prices of groceries and other staples skyrocket, they will shift the blame to democrats, minorities, immigrants, gay, transgender people and anyone else who scares them. For Trump fanatics, he can do no wrong. He is revered as some kind of God as so many pathetically seek a leader they can place all their faith.
60% of US crude oil imports come from Canada[vii] Of course, Trump’s aim here isn’t reducing carbon footprint of the US but, in fact, the opposite. He wants more US oil consumption and production to offset the reduction of trade with Canada and Mexico. This will mean more US drilling on public land and as stated in Alaska, especially. Even if he get his way, gas prices will increase in the short term, climate change will worsen, and those most vulnerable will suffer. So long as resistance remains purely theatrical and symbolic, nothing will change, and the propaganda will continue.
[i] Birthright citizenship: Judge blocks Trump’s ‘blatantly unconstitutional’ executive order | CNN Politics
[ii] Trump administration to keep only 294 USAID staff out of over 10,000 globally, sources say | Reuters
[iii] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/politics/musk-doge-education-data.html
[iv] Russell Vought closes CFPB HQ, tells staff to stop work : NPR
[v] https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-united-states-spends-more-on-defense-than-the-next-9-countries-combined/
[vi] Trump: “The U.S. Will Take Over the Gaza Strip”
[vii] Canada’s crude oil has an increasingly significant role in U.S. refineries – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
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