Donald Trump, in just four days in office, has applied the “wrecking ball” on the federal government.
Thousands of civil servants in many different government agencies have been told not to come to work, and have lost access to their offices and websites.
The Civil Service system set up in 1883 under the Pendleton Act is being eviscerated before our eyes.
The plan is to end government agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) created under President Jimmy Carter; the Department of Education, also created under Carter; and radically changing the State Department, Defense Department, the intelligence agencies, and the Department of Justice, all of whom Trump considers to be the “Deep State”.
Additionally, undocumented immigrants and gay and transgender people are subject to threats and lack of protection of basic human rights.
Plans are in place to undermine public education, and promote a right wing agenda on the curriculum, ignoring the reality of American history, and denying the reality of climate change and global warming.
Access to health and medical information is being limited, and if Robert F. Kennedy Jr is confirmed as Health and Human Services Secretary, or even if replaced by some other extremist, the nation will not be ready to deal with future health crises and potential for pandemics, since there is a denial of the reality of disease threats. And any investigation of racial disparities in disease study, and also of health issues involving gays and lesbians, has been halted, an absolutely horrifying scenario!
And Trump is trying to undermine the Constitution by promoting the end of Birthright Citizenship, which is protected by the 14th Amendment, clearly a racist move to limit migration and citizenship of immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa.
His proposal to allow a third term defies the 22nd Amendment, and is clearly a power grab by his supporters in Congress.
And his decision to deny continued security to former members of his earlier administration, including John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, is an outrage, putting their lives in danger!
But clearly, he only cares about himself, and does not value human life beyond what it can do for his power grab.
And to top it off, the pardoning of known violent extremists who attacked the US Capitol viciously gives these threats to public order the potential to cause more violence and bloodshed, and likely receive future Presidential pardons, so it is like the Brown Shirts of Adolf Hitler!
We are living in a time of right wing radical extremism, which is a threat to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the rule of law, and the concept of American democracy.
And at least short term, there is not much of a reaction or counter plans to deal with this crisis which is on the level of a potential equivalent of the Civil War or the Great Depression or World War II in the past of American history!