*Part II of III of the January 2025 recap of Trump’s presidency. Part III will post in a few days. Thanks for reading!
“Trump promised us he would be a dictator on ‘Day One’. Having seen our new president sign numerous executive orders that either override Congress, overrule the courts, or undo the Constitution altogether, it is entirely clear that Trump has kept his word." - Rep. Yvette Sanchez
Crypto Scam
Trump launched a new crypto currency shortly before taking office. Though its value is already down nearly 80% from its peak, it has still netted Trump billions of dollars, should he sell. More importantly, anyone in the world can now easily funnel cash into Trump’s pocket invisibly and without accountability.
As evidence, “Paul Krugman, in his new Substack newsletter, speculates that the Chinese government kept Trump’s China tariff at 10 percent (against 25 percent on Canada and Mexico) by purchasing vast numbers of Trump’s memecoins. That’s pure speculation, but the memecoin racket is not, because somebody is buying up vast quantities of them. Citing a report from Business Insider, Krugman observes that around 40 so-called ‘whales’—that is, very rich investors—own fully 94 percent of the Trump memecoins. Each of these 40 whales owns more than $10 million of these worthless trinkets.”
As with all crypto, there is no underlying asset. Trump produced nothing of value. And now this concept of money is somehow worth billions on speculation alone. If Trump succeeds in tying crypto to the wider economy, a full economic crash will only be a matter of time.
DEI
Trump is working to end all government DEI programs. It’s not white nationalism; it’s just the belief that anyone who’s not white cannot succeed by legitimate means because they’re inherently inferior. Not white nationalism. Or racism. Or anything else that it very, very obviously is. Note that Republicans have begun adding an “A” to DEI for “accessibility,” apparently feeling threatened by wheelchair ramps and braille. He further put all federal DEI workers on paid leave until he can fire them outright. “DEI” has now replaced “woke” as the official boogeyman term the GOP can apply to literally anything to either deflect blame or just piss off the MAGA horde. That’s the point of such trigger words: to instantly shut down critical thought. See also “Thought-Terminating Cliché.”
In a related story, alcoholic woman abuser and general failure of a human, Pete Hegseth, has been confirmed as our new Secretary of Defense, in charge of the world’s most powerful military. So, to clarify, when a competent, experienced person of color gets a job, it’s DEI. When an incompetent white male dipshit fails his way to the top, it’s merit. Again, not white nationalism.
Border
Trump declared a “national emergency” at the border, where incursions are now lower than at the end of his first term. This allows him to deploy the U.S. military domestically. It remains to be seen who he will turn it on once he runs low undocumented immigrants to abuse.
He also “cancelled the CBP One app, an online lottery system through which asylum seekers could schedule appointments with border agents, leaving asylum seekers who had scheduled appointments three weeks ago stranded.”
Wildfires
Trump has supported making aid for the California wildfires conditional on their willingness to embrace Republican policies. Democrats has never held disaster aid hostage, but why wouldn’t Republicans play politics with the suffering of fellow Americans? Oh right, because anyone who doesn’t vote for Trump isn’t a real American. In the words of John Stewart, next time a red state gets hit with a hurricane, they’ll…well, they’ll “get the money anyway because we’re not fucking psychos.”
Ron Filipkowski writes, “Mike Johnson said the quiet part out loud when he was asked if he will force CA to mandate voter ID before they get any wildfire aid: ‘We have been lamenting the lack of voter security there for some time. We were deeply concerned in this last election cycle and we saw three of our seats, frankly, slip away from us in CA.’” So the party that spent four years bitching about “weaponizing the government” is now withholding aid to American victims of a natural disaster to punish them for not voting Republican.
H-1B Visas
Trump has supported increasing H-1B visas, a program that exists primarily to replace American tech workers with lower-paid foreigners—the opposite of the thing Trump primarily ran on. When MAGA supporters balked, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy basically responded that Americans are too stupid and lazy to make good engineers while “free speech absolutist” Musk further blocked the Twitter accounts of those criticizing him. While this threatened a rift in Trump’s support, the MAGA base fell obediently back in line, like they always do and always will. Nothing pleases them like taking abuse from President Daddy.
Trump himself, March 4, 2016: “The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay…. I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first…. No exceptions.” But, of course, he caved to his master, Elon Musk, who was requesting thousands of H-1B visa workers even while laying off Americans in early 2024.
Empire Building
Trump has been threatening to annex Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal, apparently having all the foreign-policy expertise of an 8-year-old playing Risk. To simulate support for Trump’s plans, Don Jr. went to Greenland and paid homeless people to pose for photos in MAGA hats.
Inauguration
Trump’s inauguration was moved indoors due to the cold, though also likely to avoid the embarrassment of small crowd sizes. David Axelrod noted that “the windchill was 7 degrees at JFK’s inauguration, the same for Obama’s in 2009, and minus 2 for Reagan in 1985.” In a situation too on the nose to mock, Trump literally left his supporters out in the cold to hang out with billionaires.
Ron Filipkowski writes, “The richest oligarchs in America and their spouses got front row seats for Trump’s inauguration while Trump’s Cabinet sat behind them, and state governors and congressional spouses had to watch the ceremony in the Emancipation Hall overflow room. Letting everyone know from the first minute who is really in charge… One Republican Representative grumbled to Axios: ‘Charlie Kirk has better seats than every member of Congress. Tells you how little Trump’s team thinks of Congress.’” Not that that will prevent those same Congressmen from licking his…let’s say, boot…at every opportunity. The TV ratings for the inauguration were abysmal, with 71% of viewers over the age of 55. This article covers the ridiculousness of the inauguration with some truly excellent photos.
Elon Musk capped off the Inauguration by twice flashing a “Heil Hitler” salute to the audience. Many have tried to downplay this and pretend it was something other than what it very clearly was. Given that Nazi content has flourished on Twitter since Musk took over, and that he reinstated the accounts of known neo-Nazis, and that he has promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and is now actively promoting Germany’s Nazi-sympathetic AfD party, I think those apologists are in denial.
Our president is wholly owned by a Nazi sympathizer, who happens to be the richest person in history. Authoritarianism isn’t coming; it’s here. Oligarchy is not a threat; it’s our government. And inexplicably the most vile political movement in all of history is ascendant. What’s amazing, though, is how even while doing something so despicably evil Musk can still manage to look like a complete doofus.
Being a Good Christian
At the inaugural prayer service, Bishop Budde asked Trump to be merciful to vulnerable Americans (VIDEO). Trump responded as only a stable genius Christian could:
Ever eager to please Daddy, Republican leaders piled on: “Fox News host Greg Gutfeld literally called her ‘Satan.’ His colleague Sean Hannity described it as a ‘disgraceful prayer full of fearmongering and division.’ Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones called Budde’s words ‘radical leftist.’ The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh declared that ‘hell exists for people like Mariann’ and called her ‘exhibit A for why women should not be pastors, priests, or bishops.’ Even members of Congress got in on the act, with one Republican suggesting that the American-born bishop should be ‘added to the deportation list.’ Naturally, with conservative audiences fully whipped into a fury, Budde says she began receiving wishes for her death.”
Parker Molloy writes, “Remember this moment. Remember that asking for mercy toward scared children and immigrants was enough to trigger a full-scale campaign of intimidation from the highest levels of government and media. Remember that a sitting congressman suggested deporting an American citizen for the crime of asking the president to be kind.”
Miscellany
Trump renamed Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America so his dipshit followers can feel patriotic as they go broke buying groceries and medicine. He also renamed Denali to Mount McKinley, just to be a dick apparently.
Trump was officially convicted and sentenced for in the hush money case with no actual punishment. Liberals are doing their best to claim this as a victory. Meanwhile, the cases against him for trying to steal the election and for stealing classified documents and hiding them at Mar-a-Lago have been suspended.
To everyone’s total surprise, Trump did not end the war in Ukraine in “less than 24 hours” as he repeatedly promised. He does seem to be working on a deal to exchange U.S. military assistance for access to rare earth elements in Ukraine, which would seem unconscionable in normal times, but at this point anything short of a full endorsement of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine feels like a possible win.
Trump revoked government security for Dr. Fauci, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo and others who face plausible death threats at home and abroad. Political retaliation, plain and simple.
And, here’s a link to all the ways he’s screwing veterans.
And somehow that’s still not everything. See you for Part III in a few days!
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