Weekly Roundup - Special Edition: Regime Impacts

Who is Trump hurting? An easier question to answer might be, who is he NOT hurting.

USAid Website Gone Missing

The world is starting to feel the effects of the Trump regime’s actions. More than just tariffs, Trump has shut down USAID, an independent agency that his daughter Ivanka ran during Trump’s first term, that had a budget of $50 Billion. Formed in 1961 by executive order of President John F. Kennedy in order to reorganize foreign assistance programs, it has helped people all over the world for such things as disaster relief, poverty relief, technical cooperation on global and bilateral issues, and socio-economic development, providing a positive spotlight on America in developing countries. It is further authorized by Congress in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

At a very basic level USAID keeps people alive by feeding people in poverty. Relief kitchens all over the world are shutting down, and people will be going hungry and dying if not restored. Hundreds of other projects are in jeopardy, and host countries are questioning what will happen next? Considering the programs are funded through congressional acts, this ‘freeze’ on activity is unethical, if not illegal.

News organizations are reporting over 8000 web pages have gone missing, and whole sites as well. Besides usaid.gov, the following sites are known to be offline: youth.gov, feedthefuture.gov, sandia.gov, aanhpiheritage.gov, distraction.gov, and 450 other domains are reported permanently down by wired magazine, who had a machine set up to test government domains. Most of these sites and pages are related to the DEIA smokescreen such as the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage site take down. Others, such as the Sandia Laboratory site take down, are probably in response to security theater or right wing conspiracy theories run amok. The Census Bureau was down for an hour Friday, and when it came back up, it was stripped of a large number of pages. Government employees have reported anonymously that they have been scrambling to save data, but their access to certain data, and sites has been pulled. Archives have also been cleaned of certain pages, in apparent violation of data retention policies and laws.

This is reminiscent of efforts by China to erase or rewrite historical facts in the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)’s favor, erasing whole peoples from history. This is totally un-American.

Besides illegal immigrants, and those immigrant-adjacent that has been reported on extensively, who else is impacted? Government employees have been targeted as ‘agents of the deep state’ in reference to right wing conspiracy theories. In addition to having their access restricted, they have not been informed of any organizational restructuring, and have been asked to report fellow employees who’s work involves DEIA in any form. Personnel have been offered buy-outs to leave the government - a disrespectful pittance for years of service, and probably illegal to boot. The title on the letters sent to all federal employees was “Fork In The Road” - the same title Elon Musk used to gut Twitter after his takeover there. Given orders to return to the office, this is clearly a means of offering employees a way out that is least painful and easy for them to take. All of this is an effort to not only make the government smaller, but also to elimenate professional employees in favor of at-will (loyal) employees who will do the bidding of the Trump regime.

Trumps proclamation that there are only two sexes in the government’s eyes has established an underclass of LGBTQ people both in and outside government - eliminating gender as a defining feature for enforcement of federal laws regarding sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations. This also has impacts on people in the business world, as companies try to navigate this new regulatory landscape. Again, this is probably illegal given legal precidence, but we shall see how this proceeds through the court system.

Education related orders will effect students in higher education; in particular DEIA and Affirmative Action are on the chopping block - but Federal laws protect many student programs, and there will be plenty of court objections. In particular underrepresented students, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions will be impacted. As an immigrant non-US citizen student, you will be scrutinized more closely in the vetting process to allow your student visa. NGOs who help undocumented students with any help like legal aid, admission, and other services will now be liable as a possible terrorist organization - and have their NGO status pulled. Schools, colleges, hospitals have all been removed from ‘sensitive location’ status - which means you can expect to see ICE raids on a campus near you.

K-12 education is also on the block, as two executive orders were signed by Trump. The first addresses shifting federal funds from public schools to ‘parental choice initiatives’. In the case of the working poor and middle class this equates to abandonment of education for their children at a time when 70% of 8th grade reading levels and 72% of math levels are not proficient. As in the regime’s approach to DEIA, children with special needs will be on their own. Additionally, he also signed an order to “End Radical Indoctrination in Public Schooling” - again more focus on right wing conspiracy theories, at the expense of education. You can expect to see ‘Radical MAGA indoctrination’ at an elementary school near you.

Healthcare is also impacted through a number of orders that rescind extension of the enrollment period for affordable healthcare program, and funds for third parties that help people with it. This will impact 24 million Americans who use the affordable healthcare (e.g. Obama Care) system - and will particularly negatively impact people on the edge - who lost a job and their healthcare with it - won’t be able to address their healthcare need outside of the narrow enrollment period, and there will be less third parties to help them navigate the system.

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is impacted by the employee hiring freeze and buyout offers - but the big impact is how this already understaffed agency will handle downsizing while managing congressionally approved housing programs. This will also negatively impact efforts to address and repair racial and social inequities in housing and homelessness, put marginalized people at greater risk of harassment, discrimination, housing instability, and homelessness, and negatively impact state efforts to address the same issues. This only hurts the least able and people in their most vulnerable moments - and is a slap in the face to the poor, working poor, and those aspiring to enter the middle class.

This order is a potential five-alarm fire for nonprofit organizations and the people and communities they serve. From pausing research on cures for childhood cancer to halting food assistance, safety from domestic violence, and closing suicide hotlines, the impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives. This order could decimate thousands of organizations and leave neighbors without the services they need.

- National Council of Nonprofits' President & CEO, Diane Yentel.

As mentioned above, a number of these orders affect nonprofit organizations. The particular order freezing federal funding, is a direct attack on those programs, and as Diane Yentel stated, will cost lives. The order regarding taking away nonprofit status for organizations that support terrorism is open-ended and dangerous because it could be pointed at any NGO that doesn’t please the great leader.

All taxpayers will be hurt by regime plans to cut taxes for the rich. Babies will be hurt who are born here to parents who are not legal immigrants. And finally, we will ALL suffer when the environment collapses due to the stupid policies from the regime’s orders.

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Analysis

Sitting back in my chair now, I’m wracking my brain to figure out how anyone could think this positively affects the American people. The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that there are 70 million Americans who identify as having a disability. If a good chunk of these orders remain unchallenged, that is a very large chunk of the population that will be left out in the cold. Then there are the children under 18 years old - another 70 million people who are already suffering because of lack of funding of public schools and the pandemic, and will largely be hurt by the proposals to privatize schools, leaving the dregs for those who aren’t able to take advantage, on top of those who will suffer in religious schools without adequate education in science and critical thinking.

There are 3 million government workers - both full and part time - affected by the president’s orders, having their careers and their retirement options shortened, but also negatively impacting the hiring of future people dedicated to public service, after seeing how these people were treated. And this will have fall-on effects as government customer service further degrades after years of lack of funding. You thought the line at the DMV was long, wait until you need help with your social security and disability or veterans benefits.

The policies above will have a disproportionate impact on the poor unemployed and working poor - and disproportionately people of color and mixed race people. There are about 37 Million poor people in the United States. That is over 10% of the population. This could be a life and death struggle for many of these people.

There are 1.8 Million nonprofit organizations within the USA. Only 7% of those provide human services, while 40% are churches. The rest are a mixture of grant-making organizations, art, business supporting, and schools. Guess which ones are disproportionately impacted by the orders?

While roughly half of the population is directly targeted by these orders, the other half isn’t in the clear either. Lack of proper funding, coupled with ineptitude will impact us all in ways we can’t even imagine today. But I will try: rampant unemployment, and mismanagement of the economy including the tariff regime Trump is putting in place, and tax breaks for the rich, will all combine to make the effects of war, famine, and increasingly dangerous impacts from global warming, even more deadly and economically and socially consequential during this regime.

So who really benefits? From what I can see the top 1% of Christian White Nationalists; they are getting massive corporate welfare checks in the form of subsidies (tax breaks) and government contracts for their businesses. There are 21 Million of these people, and only 813 are Billionaires as of 2022. Their average income is $837,000 a year, and it ramps from there.

So to make this as plain and easy to understand as possible: 6% of the population is rigging the system, so the remaining 94% of the population will not only pay for them outside of all human needs and requirements, but are willing to sacrifice, not only their follow citizens, but the whole world in the process. Somehow, in the last election they managed to dupe 70+ Million (20%) citizens to support thier crazy plan.

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What do we do about it?

Regardless of all the smokescreens and BS that the regime throws out to redirect us to orient on the next ‘shiny thing’ - it is clear to me, and the evidence supports: we have to fight every step of the way. Furthermore, anyone who says “we don’t need to be more progressive than we are now” - I’m looking at you Bill Clinton - is blowing smoke up our collective cabooses. To really put fighters into office in the House and Senate - we need to elect progressives. The neoliberal NewDemcrats, are among the 6% who are our avowed enemies - unless they get on board and start fighting against the regime of Donald Trump, and for all of the things that will help the 94% of people who are not the rich elite.

Case in point, why did Ruben Gallego drop out of the Progressive Caucus when he ran for the Senate seat? Furthermore, why did he vote for the Laken Riley Act? We don’t need these kind of people in positions of power, if they are just going to fold when confronted by evil. This moment is a defining moment and we need people who are not afraid to go head to head against the regime that is so inept and evil in it’s intentions for the rest of us.