We need to recover language like “equality of opportunity.” What’s the aspiration we want people to say “yes” to?
I like “anti-DEI fetish.” My bet is that every federal education policy and law can be linked to DEI because the idea of equality of opportunity guided us long before DEI. We need distinct language to draw attention to the ludicrousness of going after DEI. I will share this language with Mayor Brandon Johnson who has vowed to fight Trump regime requirements to expunge DEI policies from schools. That would be illegal!
Here’s another use of “fetish” applied to conservatives (example from Dictionary.com)
“But conservatives are aware that this death fetish cuts against their ‘pro-life’ brand.”
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such principles, and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The key words there are "deriving their powers from the consent of the Governed". That means us! And that is what makes us the US!!! Most importantly, though, are the words "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the RIGHT of the people to alter or to abolish it". So, people of the US, impeach him and all his cronies!! We need to effect our own Safety and Happiness now!!!
Exactly, that’s exactly what it is: transparent racism!! This is not American! This administration screams racism and is one of the important reasons why it must be stopped!
DEI is the dog-whistle used to make a segment of the population believe women and people of color do not matter and "they" are not like "us". Hegseth fired another female military officer and all you hear is silence. One-man rule cannot last...and should not last.
Heard it from Trumpers at our Hands Off protest. These are people that can only parrot catch-phrases. Anti-intellectualism at its finest. Autocracy at its peak.
Thank God we are not all like them. ! We can not let this stand. I’m too old for it to affect me but I have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who will be negatively affected and who will suffer. It makes my heart hurt!!
If anyone say “DEI” to me, my immediate response is, “Don’t say DEI, say the words. Say the words, tell me you oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion and tell me you oppose those principles. And listen to yourself when you say it. If you can stomach that, you’ve told me everything I need to know about you. And if you can’t, maybe you’ve learned something about yourself.”
Cults need simple sing-sing phrases that brainwash, rather than elucidate. The dumb, sneering voices who sing-song "DEI" as though it were some kind of bad weather report are those who sing other pointless 2-and 3-syllable concoctions as well: "woke-ism" "libruhls" "the gay agenda" "tax and spend" "pro-life" and before that: "welfare queens" and "nattering nabobs of negativity."
It's meaningless, ritual incantation, like "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" and "Make America Great Again." It is as empty as space itself, but also a knee-jerk code, designed to claim virtue, channel your brain toward thoughtlessness, and soften it up for dictatorship "I alone can solve this problem." Haitians are eating cats and dogs, America is being overrun by little boys with vaginas determined to invade public bathrooms and force-teach your kindergarteners critical race theory....
I agree with you. But my very favorite word is snafu, which is an acronym. There is a difference between acronyms which are slurs and ones that express reality, IMO.
Oh dear. These days my favorite acronyms are slurs. DODO for Dictator On Day One (what the DODO proclaimed he intended to be) and TWERP (The World’s Evil Richest Person).
Except for insulting extinct birds, I don't have a problem with your acronyms. Besides, twerp has always been a slur, and I don't know that it has always been an acronym. (I'm open to education if it has been.)
I actually did not know that snafu is an acronym until I watched Ken Burns's World II documentary where they explained SNAFU and FUBAR. Until then, I thought snafu was an innocent little tangle in a problem. I agree with you that both acronyms, particularly FUBAR are appropriate for the time in which we find ourselves, as long as we go ahead and give the details for those people who are still in their bubbles and not seeing it.
Steven Spielberg sprinkled FUBAR liberally throughout "Saving Private Ryan" for which I'm grateful. Only a FUBAR Army could have found another Private Ryan to tell him his brother (in grade school) had been killed in the line of combat. There must have been thousands of FUBAR-like situations like that, to which GIs must have privately responded accordingly.
About ten years ago, I found out a work colleague younger than me by about 20 years had never heard of FUBAR and had no idea what it was. Pity -- it felt like there was more truth-telling back then. "Shell Shock" is so much more real than "Post-Traumatic-Stress-Syndrome."
I agree with you completely about Shell Shock. The big issue is that for health insurance purposes, it doesn't have quite the medical credibility (my vocabulary has deserted me, I can't think of a better word) that PTSD does.
Many of us are having sleepless nights, due to the constant nightmarish barrage of horrendous daily news. It feels like all respected traditions and norms of civilized governance are being discarded, along with citizens’ dignity and inalienable rights, with the mere stroke of a Sharpie.
It’s like we have fallen down the rabbit hole and the Mad Hatter is dictating policy, with neither thought nor care for the consequences. And Trump’s emotionless surrogate Elon Musk, via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is ransacking programs and peoples’ lives, with robotic disregard.
I am overwhelmed with sadness, for the lives that will be lost, the diseases that won’t be prevented and the research for cures that will be stymied, by the freezing of USAID funds. It’s difficult to fathom the abject cruelty behind stranding millions of tons of emergency rations rotting in shipping containers abroad and in U.S. farmers’ warehouses, while children are dying from malnutrition.
Trump has also signed an Executive Order (EO), withdrawing The United States from the World Health Organization. This administration has an empathy-free protocol. The appointment of vaccine denier Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health, further serves to emphasize Trump’s lack of concern for the health of the nation.
I am appalled by the disrespect and lack of compassion for veterans, who have seen the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) stripped of personnel and resources. The recent budget and staff cuts enacted by DOGE, greatly limit programs devised to provide lifelong resources to vets and their families, including therapy and suicide counselling.
I’m disgusted by the blatantly displayed racism behind ending the Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiative. D.E.I. exists to give everyone a fair chance at education and employment, regardless of race, sex or physical limitations. Trump would have us believe its purpose is to steal placements from white men, to put it simply. The extent of his discrimination is so cancerous that attempts have been made to erase the historical records of accomplishments by minorities.
I am flabbergasted by the utter stupidity in disregarding the importance of departments like The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAH). Trump’s actions to eliminate clean energy incentives and environmental protection regulations are to accommodate his “drill baby drill” declaration. This short-sighted attitude of greed and climate change denial, has also resulted in withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.
The flood of irresponsible and detrimental policy changes and E.O.s, flowing like toxic sewage from the Oval Office is extensive. The self-serving actions of Musk’s DOGE, are to wreak havoc, and to protect himself from a myriad of pending lawsuits, by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Installing corrupt cronies to oversee these government agencies, also facilitates Trump’s crypto scams and stock manipulations, by removing any semblance of oversight.
The Supreme Court majority has virtually surrendered its vigilance of constitutionally mandated laws, with last year’s verdict giving Trump immunity, for most of his actions, while in power. Just today SCOTUS allowed the Trump administration to temporarily maintain the suspension of $65 million in teacher training grants, due to DEI concerns raised by the Education Department. Universities across the country are being threatened with defunding, if they don’t comply with Trump’s agenda.
All politically unaffiliated department heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice have been replaced by inept MAGA toadies, who have sworn allegiance to Trump, over loyalty to their country. Trump wasted no time activating those agencies in a personal witch hunt of retribution and extortion, against anyone involved in trying to bring him to justice, for his multitude of past crimes. Law firms are being blackmailed into refusing representation to anyone challenging his edicts. As an added insult, Trump not only pardoned the entire despicable cast of the January 6th insurrection, he is floating the idea of compensating them.
Meanwhile, students are being illegally deported and imprisoned without due process, for exercising their rights to peacefully protest. Minorities with tattoos are being renditioned to a El Salvador prison, and kept in sub-human conditions, on the judgemental whims of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The recently announced illogical tariffs, which already threaten to tank the economy, are instrumental in achieving the end result of rendering the American public penniless and powerless. Trump reportedly posted on Truth Social Friday, April 4th, that his strategy is “ALREADY WORKING” and “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” according to The New York Times.
While it may seem that an unhinged demented President is steering the ship with a malfunctioning compass, there is method to the madness. Demoralizing and overwhelming the public into a sense of helplessness, is essential to the unfolding plot line scripted in Project 2025. That 900 plus page guide to presidential transition is based loosely on the beliefs of Curtis Yarvin, that democracy is doomed, and the population should be ruled by a Monarch or C.E.O. It was produced by The Heritage Foundation and other ultra conservative groups, as a blueprint for Trump’s return to office, and suggests the President should have absolute power over all branches of government. Project 2025 is Yarvin on steroids. Trump tried to publicly distance himself from it before the election, but since his inauguration in January, his actions and E.O.s have echoed The Heritage Foundation’s guidance.
There can be no doubt, that a coup is underway, and rapidly approaching fruition. The systematic dismantling of checks and balances of power, is pretty much accomplished. Cowardly Republicans and supine Democrat Congressional Representatives’ voices of dissent have been absent, but for a few rarities. The hope for a blue wave of dissent in 2026, to alter the present course of mayhem, will fade into the vapour of fantasy, if they don’t collectively condemn this administration.
Today, courageous people will stand up and be heard in massive nationwide demonstrations. I anticipate their cries of outrage will be thunderous. I pray their voices will be heard and heeded, for their cause is righteous. Their success is crucial.
Thanks for reading john king! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
John, excellent post about what this is all about. Some years ago, i thought we were making slow but steady progress to living up to democratic ideals. Before that I did not know a lot of these problems existed because i grew up in the late 40s, early 50s when all this was under the table....in Elkhart, Indiana, to be precise. Then I have watched the steady chipping away at the hard won progress. What really brought this to the fore was the election of Obama. Horrors, a black President and one with class too. And now we are at the place of total destruction as you have pointed out.
Thank you. Stopping Trump will be a start, but there are many changes needed to get government actually working for the people, instead of lobbyists, etc. The coming protest being organized for April 19th is essential and must dwarf the turnout of April 5th. April 20th is Hitler's birthday and also the date Trump will receive faux confirmation from a study produced by Hegseth and Noem, reassuring him that he can go full dictator, to defend the country.
April 19th happens to be my birthday. A huge turnout will be a nice birthday present. The only problem I see is that this is Easter weekend. Yes, the Gnome and the Drunk.....what a pair. And the date!!!
Dear Contrarian : as usual, you translate the code into real words and phrases. I keep thinking that HandMaids Tale is here ; Atwood always says she writes about things that have happened not about the future. Kudos to you for being the resistance and speaking truth to power.
Trump's father was a member of KKK. Musk's grandfather tried to do to Canada what Musk is doing to the US and when Canada regurgitated him, he went to South Africa at the beginnings of apartheid. These current behaviors are not an accident. They align well with the resurgence of Jim Crowe feelings following the removal of all the statues and renaming of all the place locations.
I have never understood the removal of any statuary depicting an important historical figure from the battles that have been waged here in the US. You can't erase history by removing or destroying a statue. If a statue should be offensive to some, that's a shame but I don't believe it requires it to be removed. We need to remember our mistakes as well as our wins. Having said this, I will be amongst the first ones to push, pull, tug, or blow up any statue of PINO if one should ever be engaged and displayed.
This breaks my heart. All are created equal. The government cannot erase what is true, even though they are trying. I am a retired teacher who is white, but I am so against this awful ruling of white washing of our country.
Trump put a drunken rapist in charge of rooting out meritorious people from the Department of Defense. I'll take a DEI employee over a DUI employee 100% of the time.
I'm not sure the Trump Administrations hiring policies are as anti-DEI as they would appear to be. After-all, as far as I can see, merit figured into their hiring decisions as little as possible. Otherwise, how to explain putting drunks in charge of our nukes, Putin fan-girls in charge of our national intelligence operation, and Fox talking heads or frequent guests in charge of just about every major cabinet department or agency. Mehmet Oz? Pete Hegseth? Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Kennedy? Certainly, numerous personnel decisions were not based on merit.
George Orwell famously said “ who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” The effort to rewrite history is an essential component in the effort to create dystopian MAGA future.
From AP: ‘U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the only woman on NATO’s military committee, was fired over the weekend by the Trump administration, U.S. officials said Monday.
Although no reason was given, officials said it was apparently tied to comments she has made that supported diversity in the force.
According to the officials, Chatfield got a call from Adm. Christopher Grady, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and was told the administration wanted to go in a different direction with the job.
The officials said they believe the decision was made last week by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but it was unclear whether he received any direction from President Donald Trump. Three U.S. officials spoke about the firing on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Chatfield is the third top female officer to be fired since Trump took office. Hegseth announced in February that he was firing the chief of naval operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti. And Trump fired Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan just a day after he was sworn in.’
The Extreme court decision to leave a person in a horrible gulag while they make up their precious minds is in human! I am with Fredrick Douglas that the Constitution is not JUST a legal document but a moral one too. So far the Roberts court has ruled for John Adams version of the Constitution
DEI in Baghdad By the Sea means Hispanics. We have more Hispanics per square inch than any county in the country. We are majority Democratic. But those Hispanics voted for Trump. .
Ironically our 3 MAGA House members are Cuban American. Although most of their consituents are treated like DEI by the Trump administration, they still stand by him. Although Putin is the ally of their archenemy, Cuba, they stand with Putin's puppet, Trump.
Daniel, I will compete with you for having more Hispanics per square inch than any other county. Maybe your population is larger than ours, but my city's population is about 85% Hispanic. We are right on the border with Mexico, next to a Mexican city with a population of of about 2 million.
That's his attitude and it ain't gonna change. I've been reading Wounded Knee by Heather Cox Richardson, and the army was all about annihilating Native Americans. trump's attitude is nothing new. We've been that way since the beginning. I find myself going back to a PBS documentary, many years ago, that explained sociopaths. The sociopath sees an old woman coming out of her house carrying her purse, and he steals it from her, because in his mind the purse belongs to him. That's how the Europeans who settled this continent have always been to the Native Americans, as well as toward the African slaves. I now see our country has having been sociopathic since the first immigrants landed.
Good on you for changing the name of Mt. Evans. I agree that trump would want it changed back. What really pains me is the realization that for our entire history as a country "others" have no value, they are just in the way and should be disposed of (unless, of course, they are enslaved). I can only read a couple of paragraphs at a time in that book because it is so painful.
The transformation of the contemporary Republican Party from a sensible, conservative, mainstream, constitutional party into something oligarchic, hyperChristian, and profoundly racist, is rooted in the Southern Strategy of the 1960s.
With the election of Trump in 2024 (embraced by his Party despite the coup attempt, despite the madness, despite the cruelty and crudity and felony indictments) the South had indeed risen again: and Robert E Lee had posthumously won the Civil War.
The original Republican Southern strategy had been inspired by the intense backlash (mostly Southern Democratic, overwhelmingly evangelical Christian) against Brown v Board of Education, handed down a decade earlier.
In response to the Supreme Court's ruling against "separate but equal" public schools, opportunistic preachers like the odious Jerry Falwell Senior preached race-hate and separatism from their pulpits and launched the infamous seg academy movement that encouraged raging white parents to remove their white children from integrated public schools so they could be educated in whiteness, taught to be white by white teachers (many of whom could barely read or write, but who were unequivocally white).
Over the decades, the Republicans would cash in handsomely on their rejection of civil rights and human dignity.
Those Republicans who had helped Democrats craft and pass the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s (notably the Voting Rights Act, which John Roberts has now vitiated) were purged from the party, replaced by intensely segregationist legislators.
Many of the new Republicans were former Southern Democrats. Race hate and separatism allowed Republicans to seize the Solid South, once segregationist populist Democratic, but by the 1980s and 1990s increasingly segregationist populist Republican.
By the 21st century the old Confederacy was a stronghold of Republicanism: even the more civilized states, like North Carolina and Georgia, were swamped by propaganda and (after 2010 and Citizens United) by great lashings of dark money, which combined to eradicate the fragile sense of civilization and decency that had once distinguished them from other Confederate states.
The Party's embrace of segregation found its surest footing post-Reagan, with the rise of men like Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich, along with a swamp of billionaire-funded talk radio and religious radio agitprop artists like Limbaugh.
These new Republicans claimed to be "color blind" ("we don't even SEE color, just ask our friends Armstrong Williams and Allen West"), but mounted a ferocious legislative attack on laws and policies that leveled the playing field or provided equal opportunity.
At the same time, they waged war on the federal judiciary, packing our courts with reactionary judges profoundly opposed to human rights, civil rights, labor rights, women's rights, and the other vexations of a democratic society.
For years they clung to the polite pretense of color-blindness, but with the rise of Trump they were able to cast that mask aside and show themselves for what they are: blatantly, crudely white supremacist, male supremacist and Christian supremacist.
Republicans now speak openly, without shame, of "white civilization" and white superiority.
As they violate our laws and use terror and brute force and lawlessness and extortion to seize more and more power for themselves, they natter on smugly about the "natural" criminality of non-white human beings, the "natural" superiority of whites like themselves.
Under Trump Republicanism the US is swiftly morphing into something out of William Faulkner: from coast to coast we are a sad, sleazy, depressed, unequal sundown town, straight out of Mississippi circa 1951: profoundly segregated, brined in a myth of a Glorious Past, with a corrupt oligarchic gentry living in plantation splendor while a white rabble (kept in a ferment by constant preaching) enforces the racial hierarchy through intimidation or, as needed, open violence.
I think the word you are looking for to describe anti-DEI is "racism."
Also misogyny, homophobia,transphobia, and anti-semitism
Which, all taken together, roll up to white male supremacy. The through-line goes straight back to the times of the Southern slave-owning oligarchy.
I have used “nationwide Jim Crow.”
Teresa, yes. That is exactly what it is but worse. Because it is anti-ERA and we will never recover.
Never say “never”
We need to recover language like “equality of opportunity.” What’s the aspiration we want people to say “yes” to?
I like “anti-DEI fetish.” My bet is that every federal education policy and law can be linked to DEI because the idea of equality of opportunity guided us long before DEI. We need distinct language to draw attention to the ludicrousness of going after DEI. I will share this language with Mayor Brandon Johnson who has vowed to fight Trump regime requirements to expunge DEI policies from schools. That would be illegal!
Here’s another use of “fetish” applied to conservatives (example from Dictionary.com)
“But conservatives are aware that this death fetish cuts against their ‘pro-life’ brand.”
https://www.salon.com/2024/12/02/dont-care-if-women-from-abortion-bans--but-they-dont-want-you-to-know-about-it/
Reminder from our Declaration of Independence:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such principles, and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
we need to recover the house and senate
The key words there are "deriving their powers from the consent of the Governed". That means us! And that is what makes us the US!!! Most importantly, though, are the words "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the RIGHT of the people to alter or to abolish it". So, people of the US, impeach him and all his cronies!! We need to effect our own Safety and Happiness now!!!
Kamala Harris ran on the promise of an opportunity economy, but MAGA didn’t listen to her.
Exactly, that’s exactly what it is: transparent racism!! This is not American! This administration screams racism and is one of the important reasons why it must be stopped!
Racism + misogyny=White Male Supremacy
“MAGA Racism” includes racism in all its ugly forms, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-semitism.
And sexism
Or White Male Supremacy
DEI is the dog-whistle used to make a segment of the population believe women and people of color do not matter and "they" are not like "us". Hegseth fired another female military officer and all you hear is silence. One-man rule cannot last...and should not last.
Heard it from Trumpers at our Hands Off protest. These are people that can only parrot catch-phrases. Anti-intellectualism at its finest. Autocracy at its peak.
Thank God we are not all like them. ! We can not let this stand. I’m too old for it to affect me but I have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who will be negatively affected and who will suffer. It makes my heart hurt!!
If anyone say “DEI” to me, my immediate response is, “Don’t say DEI, say the words. Say the words, tell me you oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion and tell me you oppose those principles. And listen to yourself when you say it. If you can stomach that, you’ve told me everything I need to know about you. And if you can’t, maybe you’ve learned something about yourself.”
Cults need simple sing-sing phrases that brainwash, rather than elucidate. The dumb, sneering voices who sing-song "DEI" as though it were some kind of bad weather report are those who sing other pointless 2-and 3-syllable concoctions as well: "woke-ism" "libruhls" "the gay agenda" "tax and spend" "pro-life" and before that: "welfare queens" and "nattering nabobs of negativity."
It's meaningless, ritual incantation, like "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" and "Make America Great Again." It is as empty as space itself, but also a knee-jerk code, designed to claim virtue, channel your brain toward thoughtlessness, and soften it up for dictatorship "I alone can solve this problem." Haitians are eating cats and dogs, America is being overrun by little boys with vaginas determined to invade public bathrooms and force-teach your kindergarteners critical race theory....
So absolutely, DO NOT USE THEIR LANGUAGE.
Acronyms obscure meaning, so I always oppose using them. Say the words. Always.
I agree with you. But my very favorite word is snafu, which is an acronym. There is a difference between acronyms which are slurs and ones that express reality, IMO.
Oh dear. These days my favorite acronyms are slurs. DODO for Dictator On Day One (what the DODO proclaimed he intended to be) and TWERP (The World’s Evil Richest Person).
My favorite acronym is FUBAR which is exactly where we are headed.
FUBAR takes SNAFU up a notch. FUBAR has just joined my vocabulary in the last couple of weeks, but SNAFU has been there since the 1960s.
Except for insulting extinct birds, I don't have a problem with your acronyms. Besides, twerp has always been a slur, and I don't know that it has always been an acronym. (I'm open to education if it has been.)
I actually did not know that snafu is an acronym until I watched Ken Burns's World II documentary where they explained SNAFU and FUBAR. Until then, I thought snafu was an innocent little tangle in a problem. I agree with you that both acronyms, particularly FUBAR are appropriate for the time in which we find ourselves, as long as we go ahead and give the details for those people who are still in their bubbles and not seeing it.
Steven Spielberg sprinkled FUBAR liberally throughout "Saving Private Ryan" for which I'm grateful. Only a FUBAR Army could have found another Private Ryan to tell him his brother (in grade school) had been killed in the line of combat. There must have been thousands of FUBAR-like situations like that, to which GIs must have privately responded accordingly.
About ten years ago, I found out a work colleague younger than me by about 20 years had never heard of FUBAR and had no idea what it was. Pity -- it felt like there was more truth-telling back then. "Shell Shock" is so much more real than "Post-Traumatic-Stress-Syndrome."
I agree with you completely about Shell Shock. The big issue is that for health insurance purposes, it doesn't have quite the medical credibility (my vocabulary has deserted me, I can't think of a better word) that PTSD does.
Chaos And Confusion Are The Tactics
Distraction And Disillusion Are The Goals.
Many of us are having sleepless nights, due to the constant nightmarish barrage of horrendous daily news. It feels like all respected traditions and norms of civilized governance are being discarded, along with citizens’ dignity and inalienable rights, with the mere stroke of a Sharpie.
It’s like we have fallen down the rabbit hole and the Mad Hatter is dictating policy, with neither thought nor care for the consequences. And Trump’s emotionless surrogate Elon Musk, via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is ransacking programs and peoples’ lives, with robotic disregard.
I am overwhelmed with sadness, for the lives that will be lost, the diseases that won’t be prevented and the research for cures that will be stymied, by the freezing of USAID funds. It’s difficult to fathom the abject cruelty behind stranding millions of tons of emergency rations rotting in shipping containers abroad and in U.S. farmers’ warehouses, while children are dying from malnutrition.
Trump has also signed an Executive Order (EO), withdrawing The United States from the World Health Organization. This administration has an empathy-free protocol. The appointment of vaccine denier Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health, further serves to emphasize Trump’s lack of concern for the health of the nation.
I am appalled by the disrespect and lack of compassion for veterans, who have seen the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) stripped of personnel and resources. The recent budget and staff cuts enacted by DOGE, greatly limit programs devised to provide lifelong resources to vets and their families, including therapy and suicide counselling.
I’m disgusted by the blatantly displayed racism behind ending the Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiative. D.E.I. exists to give everyone a fair chance at education and employment, regardless of race, sex or physical limitations. Trump would have us believe its purpose is to steal placements from white men, to put it simply. The extent of his discrimination is so cancerous that attempts have been made to erase the historical records of accomplishments by minorities.
I am flabbergasted by the utter stupidity in disregarding the importance of departments like The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAH). Trump’s actions to eliminate clean energy incentives and environmental protection regulations are to accommodate his “drill baby drill” declaration. This short-sighted attitude of greed and climate change denial, has also resulted in withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.
The flood of irresponsible and detrimental policy changes and E.O.s, flowing like toxic sewage from the Oval Office is extensive. The self-serving actions of Musk’s DOGE, are to wreak havoc, and to protect himself from a myriad of pending lawsuits, by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Installing corrupt cronies to oversee these government agencies, also facilitates Trump’s crypto scams and stock manipulations, by removing any semblance of oversight.
The Supreme Court majority has virtually surrendered its vigilance of constitutionally mandated laws, with last year’s verdict giving Trump immunity, for most of his actions, while in power. Just today SCOTUS allowed the Trump administration to temporarily maintain the suspension of $65 million in teacher training grants, due to DEI concerns raised by the Education Department. Universities across the country are being threatened with defunding, if they don’t comply with Trump’s agenda.
All politically unaffiliated department heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice have been replaced by inept MAGA toadies, who have sworn allegiance to Trump, over loyalty to their country. Trump wasted no time activating those agencies in a personal witch hunt of retribution and extortion, against anyone involved in trying to bring him to justice, for his multitude of past crimes. Law firms are being blackmailed into refusing representation to anyone challenging his edicts. As an added insult, Trump not only pardoned the entire despicable cast of the January 6th insurrection, he is floating the idea of compensating them.
Meanwhile, students are being illegally deported and imprisoned without due process, for exercising their rights to peacefully protest. Minorities with tattoos are being renditioned to a El Salvador prison, and kept in sub-human conditions, on the judgemental whims of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The recently announced illogical tariffs, which already threaten to tank the economy, are instrumental in achieving the end result of rendering the American public penniless and powerless. Trump reportedly posted on Truth Social Friday, April 4th, that his strategy is “ALREADY WORKING” and “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” according to The New York Times.
While it may seem that an unhinged demented President is steering the ship with a malfunctioning compass, there is method to the madness. Demoralizing and overwhelming the public into a sense of helplessness, is essential to the unfolding plot line scripted in Project 2025. That 900 plus page guide to presidential transition is based loosely on the beliefs of Curtis Yarvin, that democracy is doomed, and the population should be ruled by a Monarch or C.E.O. It was produced by The Heritage Foundation and other ultra conservative groups, as a blueprint for Trump’s return to office, and suggests the President should have absolute power over all branches of government. Project 2025 is Yarvin on steroids. Trump tried to publicly distance himself from it before the election, but since his inauguration in January, his actions and E.O.s have echoed The Heritage Foundation’s guidance.
There can be no doubt, that a coup is underway, and rapidly approaching fruition. The systematic dismantling of checks and balances of power, is pretty much accomplished. Cowardly Republicans and supine Democrat Congressional Representatives’ voices of dissent have been absent, but for a few rarities. The hope for a blue wave of dissent in 2026, to alter the present course of mayhem, will fade into the vapour of fantasy, if they don’t collectively condemn this administration.
Today, courageous people will stand up and be heard in massive nationwide demonstrations. I anticipate their cries of outrage will be thunderous. I pray their voices will be heard and heeded, for their cause is righteous. Their success is crucial.
Thanks for reading john king! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
John, excellent post about what this is all about. Some years ago, i thought we were making slow but steady progress to living up to democratic ideals. Before that I did not know a lot of these problems existed because i grew up in the late 40s, early 50s when all this was under the table....in Elkhart, Indiana, to be precise. Then I have watched the steady chipping away at the hard won progress. What really brought this to the fore was the election of Obama. Horrors, a black President and one with class too. And now we are at the place of total destruction as you have pointed out.
Thank you. Stopping Trump will be a start, but there are many changes needed to get government actually working for the people, instead of lobbyists, etc. The coming protest being organized for April 19th is essential and must dwarf the turnout of April 5th. April 20th is Hitler's birthday and also the date Trump will receive faux confirmation from a study produced by Hegseth and Noem, reassuring him that he can go full dictator, to defend the country.
April 19th happens to be my birthday. A huge turnout will be a nice birthday present. The only problem I see is that this is Easter weekend. Yes, the Gnome and the Drunk.....what a pair. And the date!!!
Happy birthday. Jesus won’t mind us protesting during Easter weekend. He’s probably as sick of MAGA as we are.
Indeed. The antithesis of what Jesus taught.
You are right. Thank you for your words.
Let us pray... Amen.
You've summed it all up very well!
Thank you.
Dear Contrarian : as usual, you translate the code into real words and phrases. I keep thinking that HandMaids Tale is here ; Atwood always says she writes about things that have happened not about the future. Kudos to you for being the resistance and speaking truth to power.
Many here speak well, bring good points to the table, need shared.
Thank you all
Trump's father was a member of KKK. Musk's grandfather tried to do to Canada what Musk is doing to the US and when Canada regurgitated him, he went to South Africa at the beginnings of apartheid. These current behaviors are not an accident. They align well with the resurgence of Jim Crowe feelings following the removal of all the statues and renaming of all the place locations.
I have never understood the removal of any statuary depicting an important historical figure from the battles that have been waged here in the US. You can't erase history by removing or destroying a statue. If a statue should be offensive to some, that's a shame but I don't believe it requires it to be removed. We need to remember our mistakes as well as our wins. Having said this, I will be amongst the first ones to push, pull, tug, or blow up any statue of PINO if one should ever be engaged and displayed.
Yes.
When one grows up entrenched in privilege, equality feels like discrimination.
(Some) white men have discovered that when the playing field is (almost) level, women and people of color out-compete them.
And that makes them feel persecuted.
This breaks my heart. All are created equal. The government cannot erase what is true, even though they are trying. I am a retired teacher who is white, but I am so against this awful ruling of white washing of our country.
Christian Nationalists claim our rights come from god, not the government. Ask them why their god is a homophopic, racist, mysogynist.
I got it free online and read some of it every day. I'm not even halfway through it and I am already sick to my stomach.
Trump put a drunken rapist in charge of rooting out meritorious people from the Department of Defense. I'll take a DEI employee over a DUI employee 100% of the time.
I'm not sure the Trump Administrations hiring policies are as anti-DEI as they would appear to be. After-all, as far as I can see, merit figured into their hiring decisions as little as possible. Otherwise, how to explain putting drunks in charge of our nukes, Putin fan-girls in charge of our national intelligence operation, and Fox talking heads or frequent guests in charge of just about every major cabinet department or agency. Mehmet Oz? Pete Hegseth? Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Kennedy? Certainly, numerous personnel decisions were not based on merit.
Merit has another definition to MAGA folks, and it is loyalty and fealty that defines merit.
it's white
Many great signs at rallies last week. My personal favorite was IKEA has better Cabinets.
George Orwell famously said “ who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” The effort to rewrite history is an essential component in the effort to create dystopian MAGA future.
From AP: ‘U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the only woman on NATO’s military committee, was fired over the weekend by the Trump administration, U.S. officials said Monday.
Although no reason was given, officials said it was apparently tied to comments she has made that supported diversity in the force.
According to the officials, Chatfield got a call from Adm. Christopher Grady, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and was told the administration wanted to go in a different direction with the job.
The officials said they believe the decision was made last week by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but it was unclear whether he received any direction from President Donald Trump. Three U.S. officials spoke about the firing on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Chatfield is the third top female officer to be fired since Trump took office. Hegseth announced in February that he was firing the chief of naval operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti. And Trump fired Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan just a day after he was sworn in.’
https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-hegseth-trump-dei-chatfield-nato-23df15b59766458d106567ba782d2f15
This is absolutely a display of male supremacy! It is also why we had laws to prevent discrimination in opportunity.
The Extreme court decision to leave a person in a horrible gulag while they make up their precious minds is in human! I am with Fredrick Douglas that the Constitution is not JUST a legal document but a moral one too. So far the Roberts court has ruled for John Adams version of the Constitution
DEI in Baghdad By the Sea means Hispanics. We have more Hispanics per square inch than any county in the country. We are majority Democratic. But those Hispanics voted for Trump. .
Ironically our 3 MAGA House members are Cuban American. Although most of their consituents are treated like DEI by the Trump administration, they still stand by him. Although Putin is the ally of their archenemy, Cuba, they stand with Putin's puppet, Trump.
Please target Carlos Gimenez 202-225-2778
Mario Diaz-Balart 202-225-4211
Maria Elvira Salazar 202-225-3931
Also CANF The Cuban Americn National Foundation
2147 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33135
Phone: (305) 592-7768
https://canf.org/
they do all come from a macho society...
Daniel, I will compete with you for having more Hispanics per square inch than any other county. Maybe your population is larger than ours, but my city's population is about 85% Hispanic. We are right on the border with Mexico, next to a Mexican city with a population of of about 2 million.
That's his attitude and it ain't gonna change. I've been reading Wounded Knee by Heather Cox Richardson, and the army was all about annihilating Native Americans. trump's attitude is nothing new. We've been that way since the beginning. I find myself going back to a PBS documentary, many years ago, that explained sociopaths. The sociopath sees an old woman coming out of her house carrying her purse, and he steals it from her, because in his mind the purse belongs to him. That's how the Europeans who settled this continent have always been to the Native Americans, as well as toward the African slaves. I now see our country has having been sociopathic since the first immigrants landed.
PS. I just looked up Mt. Evans, and I love the name Mt. Blue Sky. Until the polluters ruin the sky, it's a great name.
Good on you for changing the name of Mt. Evans. I agree that trump would want it changed back. What really pains me is the realization that for our entire history as a country "others" have no value, they are just in the way and should be disposed of (unless, of course, they are enslaved). I can only read a couple of paragraphs at a time in that book because it is so painful.
The MAGA definition of DEI: Destroy, Eradicate, Invade
The transformation of the contemporary Republican Party from a sensible, conservative, mainstream, constitutional party into something oligarchic, hyperChristian, and profoundly racist, is rooted in the Southern Strategy of the 1960s.
With the election of Trump in 2024 (embraced by his Party despite the coup attempt, despite the madness, despite the cruelty and crudity and felony indictments) the South had indeed risen again: and Robert E Lee had posthumously won the Civil War.
The original Republican Southern strategy had been inspired by the intense backlash (mostly Southern Democratic, overwhelmingly evangelical Christian) against Brown v Board of Education, handed down a decade earlier.
In response to the Supreme Court's ruling against "separate but equal" public schools, opportunistic preachers like the odious Jerry Falwell Senior preached race-hate and separatism from their pulpits and launched the infamous seg academy movement that encouraged raging white parents to remove their white children from integrated public schools so they could be educated in whiteness, taught to be white by white teachers (many of whom could barely read or write, but who were unequivocally white).
Over the decades, the Republicans would cash in handsomely on their rejection of civil rights and human dignity.
Those Republicans who had helped Democrats craft and pass the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s (notably the Voting Rights Act, which John Roberts has now vitiated) were purged from the party, replaced by intensely segregationist legislators.
Many of the new Republicans were former Southern Democrats. Race hate and separatism allowed Republicans to seize the Solid South, once segregationist populist Democratic, but by the 1980s and 1990s increasingly segregationist populist Republican.
By the 21st century the old Confederacy was a stronghold of Republicanism: even the more civilized states, like North Carolina and Georgia, were swamped by propaganda and (after 2010 and Citizens United) by great lashings of dark money, which combined to eradicate the fragile sense of civilization and decency that had once distinguished them from other Confederate states.
The Party's embrace of segregation found its surest footing post-Reagan, with the rise of men like Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich, along with a swamp of billionaire-funded talk radio and religious radio agitprop artists like Limbaugh.
These new Republicans claimed to be "color blind" ("we don't even SEE color, just ask our friends Armstrong Williams and Allen West"), but mounted a ferocious legislative attack on laws and policies that leveled the playing field or provided equal opportunity.
At the same time, they waged war on the federal judiciary, packing our courts with reactionary judges profoundly opposed to human rights, civil rights, labor rights, women's rights, and the other vexations of a democratic society.
For years they clung to the polite pretense of color-blindness, but with the rise of Trump they were able to cast that mask aside and show themselves for what they are: blatantly, crudely white supremacist, male supremacist and Christian supremacist.
Republicans now speak openly, without shame, of "white civilization" and white superiority.
As they violate our laws and use terror and brute force and lawlessness and extortion to seize more and more power for themselves, they natter on smugly about the "natural" criminality of non-white human beings, the "natural" superiority of whites like themselves.
Under Trump Republicanism the US is swiftly morphing into something out of William Faulkner: from coast to coast we are a sad, sleazy, depressed, unequal sundown town, straight out of Mississippi circa 1951: profoundly segregated, brined in a myth of a Glorious Past, with a corrupt oligarchic gentry living in plantation splendor while a white rabble (kept in a ferment by constant preaching) enforces the racial hierarchy through intimidation or, as needed, open violence.