Democrats and grassroots activists gain traction
Democrats and grassroots activists worked for a second day to oppose the unfolding coup against the Constitution by Musk and Trump. Activists held protests across the nation. Legal advocacy organizations partnered with aggrieved federal workers to file lawsuits, and federal judges issued orders halting unconstitutional executive orders signed by Trump. Democrats in Congress claimed they had placed a hold on all Trump nominees (althoughĀ 22 Democrats voted forĀ VA Secretary Doug Collins, and Senator John Fetterman voted to confirm Pam Bondi).
In short, there were positive signs that should inspire confidence among those who care about democracy and our Constitution.
Even so, the Musk / Trump efforts to overthrow the Constitution and destroy the federal government continued to creep across the land like a deadly virus.
We cannot relent. We cannot ease up. We cannot normalize or minimize what is happening by describing the unconstitutional efforts as ācontroversial,ā ādisruptive,ā or āillegal.ā Two menāone elected and one unelectedāhave arrogated to themselves the power to override Congress and ignore the Constitution. If that scenario took place in any other country in the world, we would call it a coup. Our reluctant legacy media continues to bow and scrape before Trump and Musk, hiding behind euphemisms and restraint in the face of a national emergency.
Three notable exceptions are Will Bunch in theĀ Philadelphia Inquirer,Ā The Musk/Trump coup will not be televisedĀ and Mark Joseph Stern and Dahlia Lithwick inĀ Slate,Ā Elon Muskās Power Grab Is Lawless, Dangerous, andāYesāa Coup.
A hostile takeover of the government by folks who werenāt elected . . . is the classic definition of a coup.
Stern and Lithwick write,
An elected leader who illegally entrenches his own power, as Trump did four years ago,Ā is engaged in a self-coup. . . . What do we call it when the president is too lazy to gut the government himself, giving away power to a zealous and unaccountable friend? Call itĀ a double-self-coup . . . .
We are facing a constitutional crisis like no other in living memory. The first step is to recognize the threat for what it is: A coup designed to sunder the Constitution by installing the president as the unbounded ruler of America.
The Founders fought a revolutionary war to overthrow a monarch. Trump and Musk are seeking to undo the outcome of the American Revolution. That should alarm every American.
There is much to cover from Tuesday. I will endeavor to make sense of the many developments by grouping them into the following broad categories:
Additional unconstitutional actions by Musk / Trump
For the second day,Ā protesters gathered outside the US Treasury Building in Washington D.C. The Tuesday event was coordinated by MoveOn and Indivisible. See MSN,Ā Protesters Hold 'Nobody Elected Elon' Rally Outside Treasury Building.
Dozens of members of Congress showed up at the eventāa sign that Democrats in Congress are paying attention to their constituents. A delegation of Democratic representatives and senators were denied entrance to the Treasury Building. See Axios,Ā Congressional Democrats denied entry to Treasury Department
Dozens of readers sent photos of the protest. (Thanks to everyone who sent photos and videoāI received hundreds!)
A smaller group of concerned citizens attempted to visit Senator Schuck Schumerās office but were turned away. They then held an impromptu demonstration in front of his office building. See photos below.
An organic, national protest is planned for February 5 with the goal of holding protests in every state capitol building. See Newsweek,Ā What Is the '50 States' Anti-Trump Protest Movement? What to Know About 50501. The short notice is a challenge. The planned protest times are included in the Newsweek article.
If you are within driving distance of your state capitol, please make an effort to show up! Protests must start somewhere, so donāt fret if the initial demonstrations are small(ish). The point is that people are finding their voices, which is good!
The National Womenās March is organizing a weekly Moment of Silence at 12:53 pm to mark the time when January 6 insurrectionists broke through the barricades at the US Capitol. See Not the Bee,Ā Women's March announces "weekly minute of silence" on Wednesdays at 12:53, "the moment January 6th rioters first crossed the barricades".
If you would like to promote other protests, please post the details in the Comment section or āreplyā to this email with the details. Change the subject line to āProtest Details.ā
Legal advocacy groups continued to file suits against the Trump administration, seeking to obtain injunctions against illegal executive orders.
Two suits on behalf of FBI agents were filed on Tuesday. NBC News,Ā FBI agents sue Justice Department, alleging 'retribution' over their work on Jan. 6 cases.
Per NBC, in one suit, nine FBI agents argue that the specific purpose of an internal FBI survey "is to identify agents and other FBI personnel to be terminated as a form of politically motivated retribution.ā
The suit seeks to represent a class of 6,000 current and former FBI agents who are on the list that has been provided by the FBI to the DOJ identifying those agents.
Per NBC, the second suit requests
āprotectionā from the Justice Departmentās āanticipated retaliatory decision to expose their personal information for opprobrium and potential vigilante action by those who they were investigating.ā
Federal employees sue over alleged ābuyout offer.ā
SeeĀ The Hill,Ā Union sues over Trump buyout offer. (āThe largest federal government employee union is suing the Trump administration to block its buyouts for workers, calling the offer āan arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum which workers may not be able to enforce.ā)
Order prohibiting the transfer of transgender inmates to menās prison
A federal judge issued an order enjoining the transfer of three transgender inmates from womenās prison facilities to menās prisons. SeeĀ CNN,Ā Judge blocks federal prison system from moving three transgender women to menās prisons
Additional unconstitutional acts
The coup by Trump and Musk continued at full steam despite court orders and assurances by administration officials claiming that āThere is nothing to see here, move along.ā
Muskās hacking into Treasury payments system.
Secretary of Treasury Bessent told lawmakers in a private meeting that Musk has not gained access to payments by the Treasuryādespite Muskās boasts to the contrary on Twitter. As Josh Marshall explains, there is strong reason to doubt Bessentās denials. SeeĀ Talking Points Memo,Ā Musk Cronies Dive Into Treasury Dept Payments Code Base.
Iām told that . . . DOGE operatives received full admin-level access on Friday, January 31st. The claim of āread onlyā access was either false from the start or later fell through. The DOGE team . . . . has already made extensive changes to the code base for the payment system.
If you canāt trust assurances from the Secretary of the Treasury, who can you trust? Not Secretary of State Rubio! Read on!
USAID effectively shut down
Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubioās claim that the Trump administration plans to reorganize USAID, Trump has effectively shuttered the agency by placing nearly every employee on administrative leave. SeeĀ NBC News,Ā USAID announces nearly all direct hires will be placed on administrative leave.
Trump cannot legally terminate the USAID as an agency or impound funds appropriated by Congress to USAID programs. He is attempting to circumvent those legal and constitutional prohibitions by effectively firing the entire workforce.
Consumer Finance Protection Board ordered to cease work
The CFPB is a congressionally created agency that cannot be terminated by Trump. So, Trump appointed Treasury Secretary Bessent as the new CFPB head, who immediately ordered the CFPB to cease work. SeeĀ NPR,Ā New CFPB head, Scott Bessent, orders staff to halt work.
Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, is a hedge fund manager who is no friend to consumers. Not surprisingly, major banks cheered Bessentās appointment to the consumer protection bureau and urged the immediate repeal of pesky regulations that protect the banking industryās customers from unscrupulous practices. (See NPR article, above.)
Trump moves to shut down Department of Education
The Trump administration is preparing an executive order that appears to pave the way to shutter the Department of Education. Although the executive order recognizes that Trump cannot eliminate an agency created by Congress, he will likely use the same tactic deployed against USAID and the CFPBāorder the workforce to take administrative leave, thereby suspending all work. SeeĀ Newsweek,Ā Trump Moves To Dismantle Department of Education With New Order.
Again, Trump has no authority to prevent the disbursement of funds allocated by Congress to assist local educational programs and students with disabilities. If Trump places the DOE into suspended animation, millions of families with disabled children will be thrown into ruinous financial hardship and chaos.
Trump has sent a ābuyoutā offer to the entire CIA workforce. SeeĀ CNN,Ā CIA sends ābuyoutā offers to entire workforce.
To state the obvious, a mass departure from the CIA would inflict grievous harm on US national security. Other deferred resignation letters have suggested that mass layoffs are imminent. If the same applies to the CIA, Putin must be popping Champagne in the Kremlin.
Trump moves to reclassify chief technology officers in agencies
Until now, the chief information officers in charge of technology at federal agencies have been civil service employees who are selected on technical merit, not political persuasion.
Trump will change that rule on February 14. After that date, chief information officers will be political appointees because, you know, what really matters in creating a stable computer network is where your political loyalties lie, not what education, experience, and skills you possess. See NBC News,Ā Trump admin moves to make tech officials appointees amid DOGE clashes
Trump's comments regarding Gaza
During a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump made comments regarding Gaza that were simultaneously bizarre, offensive, and destabilizing. Trump suggested that:
Two million Palestinians in Gaza should be forced to emigrate to Arab countries (Trump said, āI donāt think they are going to tell me no.ā)
The US would take control of Gaza
The US would develop Gaza as āthe Riviera of the Middle East.ā
The context and details of Trump's remarks are here: NYTimes,Ā Trump Proposes U.S. Takeover of Gaza and Says All Palestinians Should Leave. (Accessible to all.)
Saudi Arabia and representatives of Palestinians in Gaza issued statements condemning the proposals. As noted in the NYTimes article, Trump's proposals may imperil the second stage of hostage releases in the current cease fire. Trump's recklessness may have condemned the remaining hostages to additional time in captivity.
Okay, that wasĀ a lotĀ to digest. But keep this in mind: Not everything that Trump and Musk have announced will actually occur or will be easy to implement. And we will have time to resist, fight back, slow walk, and seek injunctive relief from the courts. We can blunt some of the damage but cannot prevent it all. Still, we must do our best to protect as many people and programs as possible.
Despite the challenging outlook, we must push back forcefully. Trump and Musk have overreached; the damage will soon appear on national news and local newspapers. Tales of hardship and unfairness will be shared in church basements and grocery stores. The damage will be felt on farms and in small businesses, at colleges and primary schools, in hospitals and police stations.
Sadly and inevitably, Trump's mass firings and politicization of the federal government's information technology infrastructure will lead to technical disasters. Per the Talking Points Memo, above, Muskās engineers are placing ābackdoorsā into federal agency computer systems, weakening their defenses against cyber-attacks from foreign adversaries.
All of this will backfire sooner or later. Just like Trump's ridiculous comments about Gaza. His ignorance and impulsiveness will be his undoingāand that of the GOP. It will be painful for us, so we must be prepared. There is a reason that Democrats are holding town hall meetings with constituents, but Republicans are not. Republicans fear the growing public concern about Trump's slash-and-burn approach that will hurt millions of Americans without regard to political party.
We must be tough, steeling ourselves for rough times ahead. But we must also be proactive in planning to leverage Trump's mistakes to our advantage.
Donāt give up. Donāt look away. Endure. Abide. Keep the faith. If we can do that, we will prevail. It is only a matter for time.
[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]
