Trump’s presidency is still not widely seen for the fascist coup that it is

~ Louis Further ~

Be honest and ignore your ‘scepticism’ about the ‘decency’ of politics in the United States: would you have believed it, had you been told ten years ago, that its president would be a twice impeached convicted felon, nevertheless elected with a healthy majority for a second term (and who is considering an illegal third term)?

Would you have thought that a serial rapist, a failed businessperson notorious for not paying debts—a bankrupt even; an avowed white supremacist, misogynist, anti-Semite; a notorious liar; someone without a basic grasp of history and science—could become the most powerful person in the world? 

Could a US president really build a fascist movement of such strength as to do what Trump/MAGA/Musk are doing: effectively (and illegally/unconstitutionally) dismantling multiple agencies of government, as this site chronicles; and potentially crashing the world economy because he has a fetish for half-understood tariffs?

Education is a prime target of fascism. So perhaps—like climate denial—you foresaw universities being wrecked by defunding them (the latest huge withdrawals of funds (a total of US$1.8 million/£1.4 billion) from Northwestern and Cornell); their curricula steered to fall in line with far right dogma; and their accreditation procedures ‘interfered’ with.

Incidentally, lawmakers in states like Oklahoma have a poor grasp of what constitutes good education: their latest exploit requires pupils to ‘learn’ that Trump unfailrly lost the 2020 election. Children in Maine will be worse off because some schools tolerate transgender pupils. In Florida teachers can now be sacked for respecting pupils’ identities.

But were you ready to watch the removal of meteorological (for forecasting), geological and oceanic services—as well as of other scientific data? Would you ever have imagined that the staff and resources of authorities to ensure air traffic and airport safety would be depleted? Could you have seen a wholly unqualified anti-vaccine quack at the head of the equivalent of the NHS in the UK, Robert F Kennedy Jr Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services? Like all Trump’s appointments, he had the backing of a majority of Congresspeople.

One of Kennedy’s first acts was to push Vitamin A as an effective and appropriate ‘solution’ to the growing measles epidemic in the US; it isn’t. This was endorsed by the once-venerable CDC (Centers of Disease Control), which last week became unable to help schools in Milwaukee deal with unsafe lead-levels on their sites… lack of resources due to DOGE’s cuts. Children are now being brought to A&E with liver failure caused by an excess of Vitamin A. Kennedy is also conniving in the closure and defunding of health authorities in—of all places—the very heart of that outbreak.

Could you have expected thousands of staff sacked whose job is to oversee and promote public health—HIV prevention, the asthma and air quality team, environmental hazard response, gun violence prevention, worker safety, reproductive and disability health; TB prevention; blood disorder projects, national surveying of drug use and mental health; lead poisoning prevention and water safety; the tobacco control division? 

All gone.

In the US over a third of people say they are unable to meet their healthcare needs. Worldwide the number of children who will die because of cuts to foreign aid is estimated to be in the millions.

Never mind, though: if you have $1,000 (£763), you can buy ‘supernatural blessings’ on the White House’s own website from Trump’s chief ‘faith adviser’.

Project 2025

You won’t be surprised by any of if you have read Project 2025, which made most of this clear well before the Trump/MAGA victory of November. This ‘tracker’ shows how quickly and comprehensively its objectives are being achieved.

Less attention is so far being paid to what comes next after government agencies are destroyed.But it too was stated clearly and explicitly before the election; and by vice president Vance well before that: illegally dismissed staff in those agencies are to be replaced with MAGA loyalists.

Amongst Project 2025’s most frightening plans is the crackdown on opponents of Trump; while anecdotal evidence has begun to appear of national book bans.

Incompetence

Professionals with hundreds of years of experience and expertise are being replaced with incompetent, dishonest and ignorant amateurs – for instance from a far right TV channel.

Surprised? Maybe not: any government can be incompetent in carrying out its actions. The level of incompetence in this one, though is staggering.

For instance, Pete Hegseth from Fox runs the ‘Defense’ Department—an arm of the élite fanatically praised and supported—not to mention disproportionately overfunded – by those who delight in maiming and slaughtering non-whites. But the error which has inevitably come to be called ‘Signalgate’ (but dismissed by Trump/MAGA/Musk) when members of the administration used semi-public and hackable systems on their phones to discuss the first of several illegal terrorist attacks on Yemen last month and invited a journalist antipathetic to MAGA in on their plotting.

Other examples of this are legion. Many of the aforementioned Kennedy’s actions with healthcare show gross incompetence. As do many of the precipitate actions with deportations; in both these—and other—cases dismissed staff have had to be rehired; but no-one bothered to keep a record of their whereabouts, which is making that impossible.

It took other cult members to point out to Trump the negative impacts on bonds (needed to keep the government financed) for him to reverse most of the tariffs imposed a few days earlier. It was the rather bilious Peter Navaro—another convict and long-time economic advisor to Trump—who ‘invented’ a source, the non-existent ‘Ron Vara’ (an anagram of his name), to advance the cause for economically unsound tariffs and push it Trump’s way – because the latter had long had a fetish for them. Even the fake ‘formula’ for how much to impose on other countries so that America could become ‘great again’—including on two islands inhabited only by penguins—was actually mathematical nonsense… two of the variables cancelled each other out.

Racism

Supremacism continues to play a major part in the administration’s sadism. The process of removing references to non-Whites on public sites and in government communications continues; evidence of the role of Harriet Tubman in the Underground Railroad was removed from a page on the National Parks website. The world-renown Smithsonian Museum complex has been instructed to remove exhibits explaining racism and the very history of non-Whites in the United States. More disturbing, though, is the ‘rationale’ offered for this by Trump: what’s ‘wrong’ with those whose existence is being suppressed is their biological impurity.

To underline ‘racial purity’ you must segregate: in the past companies could be targeted by Equal Opportunities agencies for discriminatory practices. In Trumpworld they are attacked because they are not discriminating. Covert until now, a recently-issued public memo from the General Services Administration (the body which sources and provides billions of dollars of products and services to and for the federal government – properties and equipment, for instance) specifically excludes any requirement in contracts and agreements with anyone providing such facilities to the government that they not segregate their own eating areas, waiting rooms, transportation and drinking fountains and so on.

In other words it will no longer be illegal, say, for a firm renovating a federal property to bus its black and white workers to the site in separate vehicles and use segregated facilities while they work there. 

Trump’s executive order ending racial toleration repeals a regulation dating from 1965 which sought to introduce equal opportunities.

References to the Holocaust are to be removed from the Pentagon’s website; Trump attacked Senate minority leader Schumer along Jewish/gentile lines. Even the MAGA antisemitism gang seems confused.

As long as what’s happening is still not seen for the fascist coup that it is, though, too many people will fail to see the hypocrisy and discrepancy of appearing to fight anti-semitism while at the same time Trump allies himself with, for instance, Charlie Kirk whose promotion on Fox ought to make Fox ‘News’ unwelcome in Trump/MAGA/Musk circles.

Illegal deportations of non-whites continue (indeed, may be increasing in number) without the required due process – in contravention of judges’ orders and injunctions. Several of the kidnappings are obviously punishment for the views held by the deportees – despite the fact that they have committed no crime; unidentified government gangs are now snatching non-whites off the streets. And, of course, because of misidentifications – not so far put right.

Also increasingly being punished are labour leaders while company after company is removing all traces of even the merest nods to equity from their annual reports and mission statements.

Legal

Many—though not all—now believe that the legal system represents the best, last and only block to the régime. But three things suggest that this is unlikely.

In the first place rulings by the Supreme Court have begun to go Trump’s way (on deportations and re-instatement of illegally dismissed staff).

Secondly, it seems likely that court rulings not in the MAGA/Trump/Musk cult’s favour will be ignored. Indeed, several already have—like this one on the retention of documents relating to the illegal ending of foreign aid; and this one on deportations. More and more law firms are giving way to Trump’s illegal extortion moves… “Drop cases which I disapprove of or I’ll slap you with an Executive Order”. Or arrest you.

Lastly, legislation is passing through Congress which would make it easier for politicians to dismiss adverse judges and their rulings.

What may have been the first use of physical violence happened this time last month when members of Musk’s so-called ‘department of government efficiency’ (DOGE) illegally forced their way into the US Institute of Peace (USIP, its website has been suppressed). This ought to please the discredited Erik Prince, who is back at the White House.

Environment

Frighteningly, Musk/Trump/MAGA has yet to turn its attention to large scale environmental destruction. But they have begun: general protections are going, water regulation is under attack (although you can now expect to use unlimited quantities of water when bathing because Mr Trump does) and coal-fired power stations are being encouraged.

The man who is also in favour—when it suits him—of passing authority and decisions to the individual states recently issued an order preventing them from implementing measures to address the climate emergency.