DocWatts

I'm creating this thread as Public Service Announcement about political developments within the United States, for folks who either don't live here or have tuned out of politics in the weeks and months following the election. This thread wasn't created for argument or debate - any comments to that effect won't be responded to. I felt compelled to create this thread because we're in an incredibly dangerous moment right now, and traditional news media (CNN, The Associated Press, etc) is failing to convey the gravity of recent political developments. I'm also asking actualizers here who live in the States to pay attention to what's going on, and to take action. (Thanks to 50501 for this post on the night of the coup, some of which I’ll be quoting verbatim. I’m less interested in precise accreditation right now than I am with getting this information out there). _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What's Going On In The United States Right Now? (Short Version) In short, the US is currently in a Constitutional Crisis. Since taking office, Donald Trump and his Project 2025 backers have been aggressively testing the waters to see what types of dictatorial actions they can get away with. Since taking office, Donald Trump has been abusing Executive Orders to consolidate unprecedented power under the Executive Branch. The unambiguous intent of these executive orders is to do away with the Constitutional checks and balances that prevents one person, such as a president, from amassing unchecked power. To that end, Trump has been using Executive Orders to appropriate the Constitutional Authority of Congress to draft laws and control spending. And he's been attempting to usurp the ability to the Courts to interpret the Constitutionality of laws. Executive Orders are NOT laws. They cannot be used to overturn Constitutional Amendments (such as birthright citizenship), or the shut down federal departments (such as the Department Of Education). Nor can they be used to override or 'veto' spending that's been approved by Congress. Trump has been using Executive Orders to do all three, in clear violation of the law and the US Constitution, out of a belief that no one is able or willing to stop him. Elon Musk, an unelected private citizen without any security clearances, broke into the highly sensitive US Treasury system, which controls $6 trillion of federal spending, and now likely has access to the Social Security Numbers and bank account information of every US taxpayer, in the biggest data breach in human history. What's Changed Within The Last 24 Hours? (As Of 2/19/2025). The White House just announced an unprecedented executive power grab, stripping independent governmental agencies of their autonomy. This order gives the President direct control over all regulatory bodies, allowing them to manipulate financial markets, elections, environmental policies, and legal interpretations. Agencies must now obey White House directives or face defunding. This Executive Order effectively ends independent oversight of the U.S. government. It cements total presidential control over regulatory agencies, giving Trump unchecked authority over financial markets, elections, environmental protections, and the legal system itself. WHAT THIS ORDER DOES: Eliminates Agency Independence: Agencies like the SEC, FCC, and FEC, which were designed to operate without direct political interference, are now forced to follow White House directives. This means the President can directly control stock market regulations, elections, and antitrust enforcement. Weaponizes the Budget: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) can now block or redirect funding to agencies based on their political compliance. Agencies that resist will be defunded into submission. Mandates Legal Loyalty: All federal employees must now follow the President’s interpretation of the law, no independent legal assessments are allowed. The President’s word is now the law. Enforces Direct Oversight: A White House Liaison will be placed in every agency to ensure complete political obedience. No agency will be able to act without direct presidential approval. ( Source: WH Announces Massive Power Grab Through Executive Orders, Our Enabling Act Moment of Germany 1933 is HERE. ) The cumulative effect of this order is to give Trump and his Project 2025 backers dictatorial control over most US governmental agencies. You can read the Executive Order for yourself here - while the White House is pitching this as ‘restoring a government that responds the American people’, don’t be fooled. This is a naked power grab that has no basis in our laws or our Constitution. It would give Trump unchecked power to rule by decree like a King, gutting the Constitutional checks and balances that were designed to prevent exactly this outcome. Why This Is Incredibly Dangerous, And Why This Is A Coup In 1933, Hitler passed the Enabling Act, effectively dismantling Germany’s democracy and centralizing all government power under his rule. This executive order is a direct parallel, it removes the last barriers to total executive control and allows Trump to govern by decree. ( Source: WH Announces Massive Power Grab Through Executive Orders, Our Enabling Act Moment of Germany 1933 is HERE. ) If we do not resist immediately, this will be the final step in dismantling American democracy. The checks and balances that kept the presidency in check are GONE. The term for what is happening right now is an Auto-Coup (also called a Self-Coup) - where a leader or administration comes to power legally, and then uses illegal and unconstitutional actions to stay in power. What We Should Be Doing Right Now First and foremost, spread the word that this happening - legacy news media has largely NOT BEEN COVERING this. And when they have, it's not been with the urgency that's appropriate to what's happening. For the most part, they've been obeying in advance out of fear that they'll be penalized or shut down by a more repressive government. If you live in the United States, you need to be contacting your representatives. Flood their offices with calls, emails, and visits demanding immediate legislative action to block this power grab. Here's a simple script you can use to contact your representatives: SCRIPT: Hi, my name is [name] , and I’m a constituent from [city and zip code]. I’m calling to urge Senator [name] to take immediate action against the White House’s latest executive order, issued on Feb 18th, which strips federal agencies of their autonomy and centralizes unchecked power under the President. This order effectively ends independent oversight of the US government, giving Trump dictatorial control over markets, elections, environmental protections, and the legal system at his will. This is an unconstitutional power grab with no precedent in modern U.S. history. I urge the Senator to use every tool available — publicly denounce this, rally opposition, and block its implementation by any means necessary. The Democratic Party must act like a true opposition party before it's too late. Please do everything in your power to stop this. Thank you for your time. Back organizations such as the ACLU that are preparing legal battles to obstruct Trump's coup. If you're able to, consider joining in a protest. There's a reason that this latest executive order was signed late at night when most of the country was asleep. The more public pushback this gets, the longer and more difficult it will be for Trump to dismantle what remains of our democracy. Here are some organizations that organizing nationwide and state-level protests: #50501, RefuseFascism.org, Indivisible.org Follow organizations like 50501 on social media to stay informed, which are working to build a sustained non-violent resistance to fascism in the United States. I’d also highly recommend Parkrose Permaculture’s channel on YouTube. Call for and support organizations that are facilitating NON-VIOLENT resistance. Empirical studies have shown that nonviolence is much more effective at successfully challenging authoritarian regimes than violent resistance, and leads to more stable and democratic outcomes afterwards. To that end, I’d recommend Erica Chenoweth’s work, who has written about this at length.

Representative Al Green, who was tossed out of the State Of The Union for disrupting Trump's hideous lies about Medicaid, showing more courage and humanity than anyone else in the chamber that day. We need to be demanding much more of our legislatures - this shouldn't be the exception. https://youtu.be/Xn1Mtn0RiLY?si=8En71Um-QeVg1qmD

Update: 9000 people (!!!) showed up to the event in my hometown of Warren, MI. (While I was there my guess was maybe two or three thousand in attendance). Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and UAW president Shawn Fain spoke before Bernie. The entire event was highly energetic and incredibly well organized. Would highly recommend attending one of these events if you have the opportunity. Great opportunity for face-to-face solidarity with people from your community.

I'm writing this from a Bernie rally in Michigan right now! Probably a good 2000-3000 people here. I've been handing out phone banking flyers 🙂 (Bernie hasn't arrived yet).

The MAGA (ie Russian) propaganda on this topic is the modern equivalent of claiming that 'Poland invaded Nazi Germany'. Continue to call this out whenever you see it.

We as Americans need to get clear on the fact that no one is coming to save us - and that it's unrealistic to expect Bernie or AOC to change the Democratic Party on their own. (I'm %100 confident that Bernie would agree with this sentiment). They need help from millions of ordinary people who are willing to fight to change the Democratic Party. Instead of bitching about how the Democratic Party is failing us (and it is failing us), take on some responsibility for changing things - make phone calls to your legislators, attend town halls, canvas for progressive candidates, become a member of your local DSA or Indivisible chapter - there's no shortage of avenues for civic participation. And as daunting as that seems, it's exponentially less daunting then overcoming the massive structural barriers that prevent third parties from competing fairly in elections, or from building the infrastructure for a new political party from scratch.

How about everyone who's paid into Social Security for decades only to have our money from our paychecks literally STOLEN from us when Elon / Trump axes Social Security.

That's like claiming that what the Nazis did was justified because they won a plurality of Reichstag seats in the 1932 election. The 'vast majority' of Americans did NOT vote for this - Trump didn't even win a majority of the vote, he eeked out a thin plurality of just 31.8% of eligible voters, compared to Harris's %30.8. %36 of the country did not Vote - far more than voted for Orange Shitler. Stop spreading disinformation. Democracy doesn't mean that if you win an election you get to rule by decree like a king. We have Constitutional checks and balances for a reason. If you want to live under a monarchy, there's plenty of countries in the Middle East that you could emigrate to. Enough with the gaslighting.

I'm planning on handing these out at the Bernie Sanders rally that's happening near my house this weekend. I'd encourage anyone who's planning on attending a rally or protest to do the same.

I'm encouraging everyone I know to flood the phonelines of House Minority leader Hakeem Jefferies and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. Until we can replace these unimaginative cowards with leaders that have the spine to fight like our lives are depending on it, the next best thing we can do is a sustained public pressure campaign against the Democratic leadership to do their damned jobs and act like an actual resistance party. Below is a script you can use: Hakeem Jefferies (202) 225-5936 Chuck Schumer (202) 224-6542 ____________________________ Hi, my name is [name], and I’m a longtime Democratic voter from [state and city]. I'm calling to urge [Representative Jeffries / Senator Schumer] to use his position of leadership within the Democratic Party to denounce Trump's unconstitutional power grab as a COUP in direct and uncompromising language. The Democratic Party needs to communicate to the American people that Trump's regime is a puppet of Vladimir Putin and billionaire oligarchs, drawing out the parallels between Trump's regime and Vichy [vee-shee] France during World War 2. I don't want to hear what the Democratic Party can't do because it's in the minority - I want to hear a bold vision for how it plans to resist Trump's authoritarian power grab, that doesn't place all of its hopes on midterm elections that are nearly two years away. At the very least, I expect [Representative Jeffries / Senator Schumer] to rally Democrats to: - Vote NO on every Trump nominee and appointee - Weaponize procedure: demand quorum calls, block unanimous consent, and slow everything down. - Make Republicans' lives hell: force endless votes, filibuster, and grind things to a halt. In short, the Democratic Party must abandon 'business as usual' and act as a true opposition party before it's too late. Thank you for you time and consideration.

No, they won't. At least most of them won't, until it's too late. Waiting for a mass exodus of Trump voters to grow a conscience is a fool's errand, when they've had countless opportunities to do so over the better part of a decade. Most will continue to believe that it's undocumented immigrants and the Democrats who are ruining their lives when Trump is taking away their Social Security and Veteran's benefits. Or they'll still consider Trump the 'lesser of two evils' when he starts a war with Canada or abandons NATO to ally the US with Putin. The vast majority of people who collaborated with the Nazis never took any personal responsibility for their political choices. It was the next generation after the war who began the painful process of grappling with Germany's past. By and large these 'little Nazis' were okay with what Hitler was doing, right up until they were the ones who were paying for it with their lives. But by then it was too late. It won't be any different with most MAGAs. First they came for the undocumented immigrants. And I did not speak out because I was not an immigrant. Then they came for trans people. And I did not speak out because I was not trans. Then they came for federal workers. And I did not speak out because I was not a federal worker. Then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak out for me.

Public pushback is having its intended effect in making it slower and more difficult for Trump to fulfill his fascist agenda - so KEEP FIGHTING! Public pressure was never going to completely stop Trump's fascist agenda, but it can gum up the gears and buy us more time. Even authoritarian regimes need some level of public support in order to carry out their plans - not because they give a shit about the public, but because logistically their agenda requires cooperation from state and local governments and agencies. But we need to be doing more - encourage everyone you know who's not a MAGAt to flood their reps with phone calls, and tell them not to cooperate with Trump's regime in any way shape or form. Pressure your local reps to hold a town hall. Attend protests. Withhold your money from corporations such as Amazon and Target that are collaborating with Trump's fascist regime. Stay informed by following organizations like 50501 and Indivisible, and be willing to have uncomfortable conversations with friends and acquaintances who don't normally follow politics. In short - stop doomscrolling and find a way to integrate civic participation into your life. The Orange Shit Stain had the gall to think dismantling our democracy would be effortless, that we'd just sit back and allow him to destroy our lives without a fight - let's show him how wrong he is.

I'm a registered Democrat in the state of Michigan, and I've volunteered in 2022 and 2024 as a door-knocking canvasser through Progressive Victory, which led me to the Michigan ONE Campaign. I also make a point of always voting in Primary elections (though I haven't canvassesed for a primary election yet). While I'm well to the Left of the mainstream Democratic Party, I'm also a pragmatist who bows to simple political realities. Until Ranked Choice Voting becomes a norm everywhere in the country, voting for third parties is actively counter productive to building a Leftist movement that's politically relevant. Bernie Sanders, in pursuing a strategy of Game Change to drag the Democratic Party kicking and screaming into returning to an actual working class party ala The New Deal is the correct approach IMHO. This 'game change' approach is largely the only reason that we managed to get surprisingly good domestic policy from Joe Biden during his presidency. The Green Party is unfortunately a joke, even if on paper they're much closer to my own politics than the Democratic establishment. If they were a serious political party they'd be building up a political base in local elections where they might actually have a chance at gaining actual political power, rather than disappearing into the woodworks between presidential elections. Right now, I'm pleading with everyone I know who's not a MAGAt to flood their representatives with phone calls demanding that the Democrats act like an actual opposition party. And I've also been encouraging my friends and family to attend local protests, and find at least one group to follow, such as 50501 or Indivisible. Also whenever I can I try to push back against the false-equivalency narrative that the two parties are the same. While Joe Biden was working to cap the cost of insulin, the Orange Shit Stain is getting rid of Medicaid and Social Security. The Dems have Bernie, Rashida Tlaib, and AOC who've been vocal critics of Israeli's genocide, while every single Republican is fantasizing about completing the ethnic cleaning in Gaza so that billionares can build condos there.

Getting a lot of 'Nazi Germany had to invade Poland to defend itself' vibes from the people here defending Trump's fascist regime. I'd say it was disappointing if that wasn't the reason I took a long hiatus from the Politics subforum in the first place. I'd encourage everyone else to find a sustainable form of civic engagement beyond just posting on Forums and social media in the upcoming weeks and months. (Note that doom scrolling is not a valid form of civic engagement). Find a group like 50501 or a local chapter or Indivisible to connect with. Don't waste your time trying to 'save' MAGA Cultists from their delusions - all the 'reasonable' ones have left by this point. Now's the time where we build the infrastructure for when conditions get much worse, and the streets become flooded with angry, desperate people. Should that happen, it would be much better if there's an organized nonviolent civil resistance to absorb these folks, and keep the resistance nonviolent. (Note that nonviolent doesn't mean 'nonconfrontational'. It means leveraging the fact that nonviolent civil resistance is much more strategically effective in resisting authoritarianism than violent insurrection).

My sense is that the Post I linked is using strategic steelmanning / a Motte-and-bailey reversal, in order to reach people who are incapable of arriving at this incredibly fucking obvious point otherwise. I don't have a problem with offering an olive branch to conservatives to dump America's Hitler, if that's a building blocking in saving us from fascism. (I've shouting from the rooftops about the Orange Shit Stain for the better part of a decade, and I hate that I've consistently been proven correct). But otherwise I completely agree with your point.

Proud of my home state for showing up to the state capital yesterday. The fact that Trump is threatening protesters is indicative to me that they're getting under his skin.

Hit the nail on the fucking head with this take. Trump is what happens when you give someone with the ego development and impulse control of an immature child the keys to the country.

Germany has much better parade floats than we do - my fellow Americans, we need to step up our game.

In regards to Vaush, he's not a tankie like Hasan Piker, is more pragmatic with his takes than much of the online Left, is willing to speak to men's issues - but otherwise I'd agree with this take. Just know you're getting some insightful political analysis mixed with overt bias and a healthy dose of hyperbole.

If you live in the United States - CALL YOUR SENATORS AND REPS ABOUT THIS!!!! The more public pushback that Trump's regime gets from the public, the more difficult and costly it will be for him to fulfill his fascistic foreign policy goals. Trump may not give a shit if the United States loses all its credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world and becomes a pariah state ala Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa, but his pillars of support (Republican legislators in vulnerable seats, multinational corporations) will care if public outrage over these disgraceful actions begins to affects them. Here's a sample script you can use (or modify and personalize from): Hi, my name is [Your Name], and I’m a constituent from [Your City/Zip Code]. I’m calling to urge Senator [name] to loudly and boldly condemn Donald Trump’s disgraceful betrayal of Ukraine and his alignment with Vladimir Putin. His recent summit with President Zelensky — where Trump and JD Vance tried to humiliate and threaten Zelensky, while pushing pro-Russian propaganda that Ukraine started this war — was an absolute disgrace and an embarrassment to the United States. This is mob boss behavior, not presidential leadership. Watching this unfold feels like watching the U.S. abandon its democratic allies during World War II and align itself with Nazi Germany. I urge the Senator to denounce Trump’s actions loudly and clearly, rally opposition to his pro-Putin agenda, and use every tool available to prevent him from undermining Ukraine and our democratic allies. The Democratic Party must act like a true opposition party before it's too late, and Ukraine is abandoned to its destruction. This is a defining moment. The world is watching, and history will remember who stood up to authoritarianism. Please do everything in your power to stop this. Thank you for your time.

@Elliott Insiders are saying that Republican Senators and reps are scared shitless of threats of violence from MAGA extremists if they break ranks with Trump. Lest we forget, MAGA has already tried to kill several of our elected representives, including Mike Pence and the Governor of my home state. Moreover, thanks to the hostile takeover and subsequent politicization of the FBI by MAGA extremists, they won't be trying to stop these attacks on our elected officials (or the public, for that matter). https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-congress-political-violence

Given how ham-fisted and blatant these moves are, you may be right, but the only way that happens is by a sustained public pressure campaign on these legislators from members of the public. In short - call your senators, even your Republican ones, tell them that you expect them to uphold the Rule of Law, and not cede their constitutional authority to Elon Musk and Donald Trump. (Ie, "Senator [name], I voted for you to represent me, not Elon Musk"). Musk is the weakest link in Trump's coalition, I'd recommend pushing that angle if your representatives are Republicans.

I don't know if you live in the States, but I do. We're that fucked up - or getting there at any rate. We're in the early stages of what is known as a 'legitimacy crisis', where key political players and a sizeable minority of the country have dropped the pretense that they care about the Rule Of Law. I'm not saying this to be alarmist, no particular outcome to this crisis is inevitable, but it doesn't help anyone to pretend that any of this is normal.

Speak out loudly and boldly that a coup is happening. Grind all congressional work to a halt. Filibuster every bill that comes to the floor, refuse to nominate cabinet picks. Obstruct legislative committees. Participate in protests. In short, abandon 'business as usual' without major concessions from this regime to restore oversight and accountability. Use their legislative authority to make every action that this regime wants to take as slow and frustratingly difficult as possible.