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Posted

https://apnews.com/article/west-point-student-clubs-diversity-trump-dei-a8e992f1bbceda4bf217db6dfebd6b92

Quote

WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) — The U.S. Military Academy has disbanded a dozen West Point cadet clubs centered on ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality in response to the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity programs throughout government.

The famed military academy in New York issued a memo Tuesday shutting down groups including the Asian-Pacific Forum Club, Latin Cultural Club, National Society of Black Engineers Club and Society of Women Engineers Club in order to adhere to recent guidance from the Army and Defense Department. It also shut down the Corbin Forum, a decades-old leadership club for female cadets, and Spectrum, a gay-straight alliance.

 

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Posted

FML.

Treatment for HIV, AIDS in Haiti hit by U.S. foreign aid halt despite waivers from Rubio

So waivers were issued. Still cut.
 
Jacqueline Charles
Thu, February 6, 2025 at 10:06 AM CST
10 min read
 

When growing gang violence and the kidnappings of healthcare workers forced Haiti’s leading organization in the treatment of HIV and AIDS-related illnesses to relocate operations from its main site in Port-au-Prince last year, infectious-disease doctors at the health service and research group faced a daunting problem.

As they tried to call patients to come get their antiretroviral treatment, the doctors at GHESKIO — the Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infection — found that they had either changed their numbers, didn’t have electricity to keep cell phones powered or no longer lived close by after being forced out of their homes by armed gangs.

“We were having a big issue in finding them. We could only find 40 to 50%,” said Dr. Patrice Joseph, the physician in charge of GHESKIO’s HIV, Tuberculosis and Infectious diseases program. “So we needed to expand the way in which we contacted those patients.”

The innovative solution: a radio spot in Haitian-Creole urging patients to “Come back to Care” and providing them with community health centers in Port-au-Prince where they could get their medication.

This week, following the Trump administration’s sweeping 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign assistance, doctors at GHESKIO launched another spot. This one informed its HIV/AIDS patients that the U.S.-funded President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program, commonly known as PEPFAR, has been temporarily suspended.

“This sudden decision affects all PEPFAR medical clinics in Haiti and abroad,”

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Posted
43 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

FML.

Treatment for HIV, AIDS in Haiti hit by U.S. foreign aid halt despite waivers from Rubio

So waivers were issued. Still cut.
 
Jacqueline Charles
Thu, February 6, 2025 at 10:06 AM CST
10 min read
 

When growing gang violence and the kidnappings of healthcare workers forced Haiti’s leading organization in the treatment of HIV and AIDS-related illnesses to relocate operations from its main site in Port-au-Prince last year, infectious-disease doctors at the health service and research group faced a daunting problem.

As they tried to call patients to come get their antiretroviral treatment, the doctors at GHESKIO — the Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infection — found that they had either changed their numbers, didn’t have electricity to keep cell phones powered or no longer lived close by after being forced out of their homes by armed gangs.

“We were having a big issue in finding them. We could only find 40 to 50%,” said Dr. Patrice Joseph, the physician in charge of GHESKIO’s HIV, Tuberculosis and Infectious diseases program. “So we needed to expand the way in which we contacted those patients.”

The innovative solution: a radio spot in Haitian-Creole urging patients to “Come back to Care” and providing them with community health centers in Port-au-Prince where they could get their medication.

This week, following the Trump administration’s sweeping 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign assistance, doctors at GHESKIO launched another spot. This one informed its HIV/AIDS patients that the U.S.-funded President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program, commonly known as PEPFAR, has been temporarily suspended.

“This sudden decision affects all PEPFAR medical clinics in Haiti and abroad,”

Shit is going to get real in Florida in about a year.

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Posted

HIV is a major issue in Haiti. It was seen as a oh shit point since it was mutating really quick there.

HIV/AIDS gutted civil society in Haiti. Government, public sector, police, etc.

 

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Posted
FML.

Treatment for HIV, AIDS in Haiti hit by U.S. foreign aid halt despite waivers from Rubio

So waivers were issued. Still cut.   Jacqueline Charles Thu, February 6, 2025 at 10:06 AM CST 10 min read   When growing gang violence and the kidnappings of healthcare workers forced Haiti’s leading organization in the treatment of HIV and AIDS-related illnesses to relocate operations from its main site in Port-au-Prince last year, infectious-disease doctors at the health service and research group faced a daunting problem.
As they tried to call patients to come get their antiretroviral treatment, the doctors at GHESKIO — the Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infection — found that they had either changed their numbers, didn’t have electricity to keep cell phones powered or no longer lived close by after being forced out of their homes by armed gangs.
“We were having a big issue in finding them. We could only find 40 to 50%,” said Dr. Patrice Joseph, the physician in charge of GHESKIO’s HIV, Tuberculosis and Infectious diseases program. “So we needed to expand the way in which we contacted those patients.”
The innovative solution: a radio spot in Haitian-Creole urging patients to “Come back to Care” and providing them with community health centers in Port-au-Prince where they could get their medication.
This week, following the Trump administration’s sweeping 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign assistance, doctors at GHESKIO launched another spot. This one informed its HIV/AIDS patients that the U.S.-funded President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program, commonly known as PEPFAR, has been temporarily suspended.
“This sudden decision affects all PEPFAR medical clinics in Haiti and abroad,”

Bad Idea Jeans
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Posted
2 minutes ago, Hank_Hill said:

Don’t worry the French will step up

No they won't. They can't. sadly, we were the only country that can even contemplate saving lives on the scale that is needed.

 

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Posted
1 minute ago, InkaUtexas said:

No they won't. They can't. sadly, we were the only country that can even contemplate saving lives on the scale that is needed.

 

Pretty sure that was sarcasm

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

Pretty sure that was sarcasm

Yeah I know. Forgot what site I was on. This one hits hard. I was wondering why my whatsapp was blowing up. Now I know why.

Oh, and we cut the funding to the Kenya Peacekeepers I am hearing.

Someone please tell Kush Haiti has nice beaches.

@MissingInAction Haitian curse your ginger ass with voodoo dolls of Sheamous the wrestler for calling them Latinos.

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Posted (edited)
21 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

 

@MissingInAction Haitian curse your ginger ass with voodoo dolls of Sheamous the wrestler for calling them Latinos.

Gingers are immune to curses.

One must have a soul before it can be cursed.

Edited by MissingInAction
Voodoo
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Posted
11 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

Gingers are immune to curses.

One must have a soul before it can be cursed.

image.gif.104465b6b5151597bc345e840b7bc103.gif

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Posted

“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:

"A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a sniveling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set."

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Posted
9 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

FML.

Treatment for HIV, AIDS in Haiti hit by U.S. foreign aid halt despite waivers from Rubio

So waivers were issued. Still cut.
 
Jacqueline Charles
Thu, February 6, 2025 at 10:06 AM CST
10 min read
 

When growing gang violence and the kidnappings of healthcare workers forced Haiti’s leading organization in the treatment of HIV and AIDS-related illnesses to relocate operations from its main site in Port-au-Prince last year, infectious-disease doctors at the health service and research group faced a daunting problem.

As they tried to call patients to come get their antiretroviral treatment, the doctors at GHESKIO — the Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infection — found that they had either changed their numbers, didn’t have electricity to keep cell phones powered or no longer lived close by after being forced out of their homes by armed gangs.

“We were having a big issue in finding them. We could only find 40 to 50%,” said Dr. Patrice Joseph, the physician in charge of GHESKIO’s HIV, Tuberculosis and Infectious diseases program. “So we needed to expand the way in which we contacted those patients.”

The innovative solution: a radio spot in Haitian-Creole urging patients to “Come back to Care” and providing them with community health centers in Port-au-Prince where they could get their medication.

This week, following the Trump administration’s sweeping 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign assistance, doctors at GHESKIO launched another spot. This one informed its HIV/AIDS patients that the U.S.-funded President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program, commonly known as PEPFAR, has been temporarily suspended.

“This sudden decision affects all PEPFAR medical clinics in Haiti and abroad,”

Lin Manuel Miranda already has his first big number for the Trump musical. 
 

 

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Posted
23 minutes ago, hookem2010 said:

So when do we all flee to the west coast, northeast and Minnesota, pray Canada doesn't go too far right and beg for annexation?

Reading some Canadian Reddits, it sounds like tfg has managed to unite them and some think that the conservatives may have a tougher time taking power later this year

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Posted
17 minutes ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Reading some Canadian Reddits, it sounds like tfg has managed to unite them and some think that the conservatives may have a tougher time taking power later this year

I was hopeful that might be the case. This should be a pretty good warning with anyone with half a brain, but the previous decade should have been as well.

Posted
Elon is doing what the did at Twitter/X - just start haphazardly cutting and creating an enormous mess, then having to clean it up later. 
DOGE is getting sued left and right and backing down constantly. This isn't going to be sustainable.
Democrats are doing a good job sending the message that Elon is making a big mess, and then Elon will try to say he was following Trump's orders.
Then Trump throws Elon under the bus and acts like he didn't know what DOGE was doing.

Can he be held personally liable? Would be funny as fuck if he lost Tesla, Twitter, and SpaceX.
Posted
On 2/5/2025 at 1:17 PM, DDD Dad said:

She's lucky wasn't targeted by the Ten.  

 

She should do a Dante Pignetti.

Love that movie and the book is better.

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Posted
On 2/5/2025 at 3:07 PM, ChiTownDoc said:

Trump barely listens to his security.  Or they're awful - likely a combo.  Look at the bozo who climbed up on a shed in broad daylight to set up shop before shooting at his fat head.  I would bet absolutely anything if Putin put all his resources to sleeping either clown, he could easily do it.  I'm not talking something causing mass casualties either.  

I’m not the first to say this, but why would he do that? Never interrupt your enemy and whatnot. I’d be surprised if Putin didn’t have whole divisions of his security agencies monitoring for threats to Trump/Musk.

Posted
On 2/5/2025 at 6:36 PM, Chad Fuck said:


You ATE 30 eggs a week.

 

On 2/5/2025 at 6:48 PM, Pancho said:

Eat? Yes

 

On 2/5/2025 at 7:24 PM, SubliminalHorn said:

I think he means past tense. You used to eat that many eggs, not anymore 

 

On 2/5/2025 at 7:36 PM, Pancho said:

 

No I still do…

 

Well I can’t now because we have no eggs in America #trumpeggcrisis

I'm cracking up at this. Yeah, bruh. That's why he put it in past tense

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Posted

I’ve been reflecting on this for a couple days, and I’m almost convinced that we’ve got things to be very happy about,  If Trump had not gone all in on project 2025 we would be in worse shape.   He would still be creating ill will among our allies and causing economic description with his stupid tariff talk, and he would still be terrorizing undocumented workers.

But the timing of that is incredible. He is hurting farmers and businesses.. He is shutting down much needed  federal aide to school schools and other entities - like those that depend on federal funding to meet the needs of special needs children.  He is firing a huge swath of people in the federal government, all of which will lead to bankruptcies loss of homes, children being pulled out of college, divorces, etc.       Everyone negatively affected by his policies and loss of employment will quit investing in their 401(k)s and IRA’s.  

If he had an ounce of a brain, he should’ve let things ride and been status quo while he rounded up people that had not been given temporary permission to live in the country.    After that was complete, then he could go after the other groups.   

What I am trying to say is that he did not need to create a giant swath of different demographic groups as enemies from the beginning.   Had he waited on some of his worst ideas and just focused on deporting undocumentedHispanics without temporary permits, the pressure would’ve been off him for a while - at least it would’ve been far less pressure from far fewer groups. 

What a pathetic excuse for a Hitler. Hitler annexed Austria. Then the Sudetenland. Then the Czechoslovak Republic. Then Lithuania. Then the Free City of Danzig. Then Poland. Then Prussian Belgium.   You don’t do it all at once.  If Trump had a modicum of sense, he would’ve limited the number of newly created enemies until he had successfully accomplished some of his evil but less problematic policies.

Going full dictator out of the gate is attractive to a narcissist with a 30 second attention span, but he is giving an absolute gift to the resistance by doing this.   It’s the type of business acumen that will make you fail as a casino owner. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Reading some Canadian Reddits, it sounds like tfg has managed to unite them and some think that the conservatives may have a tougher time taking power later this year

An electorate pays attention.

very-interesting-arte-johnson.gif

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Posted (edited)
16 hours ago, MissingInAction said:

The mad man is going after faith based charities now, and to weed out any anti Christian policies of the federal shit show.

Nah, he's a man of great faith.

image.png.e3e56c505ff3222b7c3abc8189ed94e5.png  image.png

 

 

\

 

Edited by jimmyjazz
Posted (edited)

Any legit theories on why Trump didn't go scorched earth on these government agencies the first time around?

 

Edited by jimmyjazz
Posted
6 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Any legit theories on why Trump didn't go scorched earth on these government agencies the first time around?

 

Like all politicians elected to a first term, he wanted to get re-elected. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

Because Project 2025 didn't tell him to? 

I think this is pretty close to the truth.  Now he has a blueprint which includes a third (or unlimited) terms.  He is too dumb to plan that out himself.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, gernblansten said:

Like all politicians elected to a first term, he wanted to get re-elected. 

I doubt he thinks this is his last term.

Posted

If you have anyone in your life that you think might be persuaded as to what's going on and they're just not quite there yet in recognizing what the threat is, this puts it all together. Share this with them.

Quote

 

Now Will We Believe What Is Happening Right in Front of Us?
By Katherine Stewart Ms. Stewart has reported on the religious right for more than 15 years. Her most recent book is “Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.”

They told us they would smash the institutions that safeguard our democracy. And that is exactly what they are doing.

Many Americans chose not to believe what they were saying. Will we now believe what we are seeing?

To be clear, “they” are not just Donald Trump and his billionaire co-pilot. Over the past half-century, an anti-democratic movement has coalesced in the United States. It draws on super-wealthy funders, ideologues of the new right, purveyors of disinformation and Christian nationalist activists. Though it pretends to revere the founders and the Constitution, it fundamentally rejects the idea of America as a modern pluralistic democracy.

The natural tendency in a functioning democracy is to look for ways to “work across the aisle” and “agree to disagree.” But appeasement now would be a mistake. This anti-democratic movement has no interest in compromise. Any concessions will help consolidate the powers of a lawless presidency and entrench a new, kleptocratic, authoritarian form of government in the United States.

It is also bad politics. The Trump administration has charted a course for eventual catastrophic failure. Those who attempt to work with it will go down with it. We must work instead to safeguard our democratic institutions, communicate the threat to the many sectors of the American public that have yet to understand it and prepare for a major cleanup operation in years to come.

Democracy isn’t just about the results of the most recent election. Without a system of justice that applies equally to all citizens, you’re voting for the next elected despot. That is why the leaders of the anti-democratic movement made clear well before the election — in documents such as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which sought to provide Trump with an aggressive right-wing agenda he could just pick up and run with — that they intend to demolish the system of justice as we know it and replace it with a form of policing in service of the ruling party and its chosen leaders.

In its first two and a half weeks, the Trump administration has delivered on that promise. The stream of transparently lawless executive orders — to make it easier to fire federal officials, to freeze spending that the president cannot freeze, to take away a right to citizenship that is written into the Constitution, to name just three — tell us in no uncertain terms that this administration has no intention of respecting the law or the Constitution. (And if you are comforting yourself with the idea that the administration will respect injunctions from judges, which it has in the past, I invite you to consider Mr. Trump’s recent behavior in court.)

The decapitation at the F.B.I., the sidelining of individuals at the Department of Justice and the de facto shuttering of the foreign aid agency U.S.A.I.D. all serve the same purpose. It means that Mr. Trump and his favorites of the moment will find it much easier to operate with the kind of immunity that the Supreme Court has already granted the president.

Tellingly, the most galling indicator of the administration’s lawless intentions actually came early: the blanket pardon for the Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol, even those who attacked Capitol Police officers, which provides Mr. Trump with a powerful recruiting tool for elements that might wish to support him with political violence.

Democracy relies equally on a professional government, staffed with individuals who are subject to ethics constraints and act on the basis of reason and evidence in accordance with the law. That is why the leaders of the anti-democratic movement declared war long ago on what they jeeringly call the “administrative state.” Project 2025 promised a brutal assault on what it maintains is a “weaponized” and “woke” civil service bent on persecuting conservatives, and proposed purges.

Russell Vought, a leading figure behind Project 2025 and now Mr. Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget for the second time, promised to put government employees “in trauma.” The new-right intellectuals behind the anti-democratic movement draw heavily on crackpot writers like Curtis Yarvin, who condemns “the cathedral” — his term for the people and institutions that sustain a functioning modern state — and openly champions monarchical rule.

In its first weeks, the Trump administration has delivered on that promise. The probably illegal firing of inspectors general throughout the federal government; the tawdry “buyout” offer for federal employees; the commandeering of highly sensitive government data by Elon Musk’s DOGE minions; and the ongoing dismantling, firings and deletions of data at multiple federal agencies — these are not ways of making the government accountable to the voters in the last election, as partisans falsely suggest. They are about making sure that the people can never hold the president and his cronies to account. They also have nothing to do with “efficiency.” We are about to witness administrative dysfunction on a grand scale.

Democracy also depends on a corporate sector and a media sector that work independently of the government in power. That is why the leaders of the anti-democratic movement essentially opened a storefront in advance of the inauguration and began inviting corporations and wealthy individuals to prove their loyalty to the ruling party with inaugural fund contributions. Then came the meme coins that allow anyone to enrich the president and his wife, at least in theory, by purchasing digital tokens with no intrinsic purpose or value.

This proved to be one of the easiest parts of the process. The leaders of Meta, Amazon, JP Morgan, Google, OpenAI and a long list of other corporate titans seem to be making it clear that if protecting their profits means appeasing a corrupt autocratic regime, then that is what they will do.

Democracy relies on something softer, too, namely a sense of unity and shared purpose that allows people to work with one another despite their differences. That is why Rule No. 1 of the authoritarian playbook is to divide the populace. Mr. Trump, of course, is a renowned expert in that department. It is hard to think of another American president who would have taken advantage of an airplane tragedy to push hateful rhetoric about D.E.I. To be sure, reforming policies on diversity is not inherently unreasonable. But the administration’s total war on anti-discrimination law has nothing to do with “merit” and everything to do with stoking division.

Similarly, immigration policy is and ought to be debated. But in the past weeks, the administration has made clear that it will use its powers not to solve the many real immigration issues but instead to perform stunts intended mainly to reinforce the myths that helped get Mr. Trump elected (like the myth that immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans or the myth that the previous administration encouraged bands of these immigrant-criminals to roam free).

Why are they so desperate to weaken or even destroy democracy? Mainly, because they know that our system of justice, a functioning government, an independent economic sector and a united people stand in the way of unearned wealth and privilege. But it is important to understand that the anti-democratic movement is not monolithic. In fact, it isn’t even coherent.

One part of the program answers to the oligarchs — that is, the leaders of tech oligopolies and the most narrow-minded of our nation’s billionaires. These people are betting that the deconstruction of the administrative state means no pesky government oversight on their economic activities, plus tax cuts as well as privileged contracts. They may fatten their pocketbooks in the short term, but the idea that wreaking havoc on our democracy will enhance their wealth is tragically mistaken.

Another part of the program is the work of fanatics. I do not use the term loosely. If you take the trouble to read the writings of the thought leaders of the new right, who form a good portion of the brain trust of the anti-democratic movement, you will discover a group of men who really hate women, admire Nazi political theorists such as Carl Schmitt and believe in the existence of an insidious, all-controlling monster called “the woke,” which apparently works out of diversity, equity and inclusion offices in the back of “the cathedral.” They are acting out their fantasies now, taking revenge on imaginary enemies, and the American republic will be the principal victim.

The Christian nationalist ideologues who supply much of the rest of the ideology of the movement are no less extreme. Just listen to Doug Wilson, the powerful pastor from Moscow, Idaho, whom Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, has praised. Mr. Wilson is among the growing contingent who say that women should not have a right to vote. Or Lucas Miles, senior director of Turning Point USA Faith and the author of “Woke Jesus: The False Messiah Destroying Christianity,” who has called progressive Christianity “heretical.” In a promotional video at December’s AmericaFest, an annual convention sponsored by Turning Point USA, Mr. Miles said, “I want to see woke church defunded.”

The left, “recognized early on,” Mr. Miles added, “that they knew they needed a vehicle to carry this progressive ideology, this Marxist agenda, and the best vehicle is the church. … It’s been going on since the 1700s that progressive thought has been creeping in.”

Still another part of the movement, which usually gets the most attention even though it has the least power, is the mass of voters who remain faithful to Mr. Trump. They come in many different varieties. No doubt some saw a vote for him as a vote against “Biden-flation” and the sharp rise in the cost of living. Some may really believe that the 2020 election was stolen or that public schools are indoctrination camps forcing gender change on students. Some did not understand the threats to democracy, others did not take them seriously and some simply don’t value democracy.

What is to be done? Let’s start with that dread word: messaging. In the coming months and years, the anti-democratic movement will cause many people to suffer real harm. We need to make sure these people know who did this to them — and who will fight for them.

As people lose their jobs or have to pay more as a consequence of needless tariffs, as they lose out on the benefits they earned and government services they deserve, as the Trump administration prioritizes buffoonish stunts over sound policy, as our most trusted allies abandon us, as women find more of their rights at risk, as people who don’t fit the regime mold find their careers faltering, and as the oligarchs behave ever more outrageously, we need to say, over and over: They did this.

But there is much more we can do. Now is not the time to curl up in despair. We have institutions to protect, pro-democracy organizations to support, and elections in less than two years. We have lawsuits to pursue, corruption to expose. In normal times, it is the duty of democratic citizens to help a newly elected president succeed. In the present circumstances, it is our duty to protect our democratic republic from a lawless president and the profoundly anti-American movement he leads.

 

 

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