We are going to eat you

Hey friends. I've spent the past few days fighting with myself about whether to write to you. On the one hand, I don't want to sound like a crazy lady yelling at the sky and I don't want to stress people out unnecessarily. On the other, there is a coup currently underway in the U.S. government and mainstream media outlets aren't adequately covering it. Congressional Republicans are standing aside to let Elon Musk tear apart our systems, and Democrats are... don't even fucking get me started. Absolutely useless pieces of flesh. They tried to subpoena Musk but Republicans said, ha yeah right.

Here are some things I think you should know/resources to read. It's a lot. I don't recommend absorbing it all at once. At the end, I've included a few 'what we can do' links. I totally get it if you'd rather just hit 'delete' and go smell a flower. Don't worry—I'm not turning into a political reporter. I'll be back at you Sunday with some recs. But in the meantime, I wanted to document some things.

Elon Musk is dismantling multiple government departments from the inside and has access to our social security numbers and bank accounts. (Not an exaggeration if you've ever e-filed and elected to have your refund direct-deposited.)
"The replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup. The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical."
Heather Cox Richardson

A group of 19-to-25 year-old engineers that are Musk cronies have hooked up an illegal email server to US Office of Personnel Management systems and are harvesting names and emails (and god knows what else) of federal employees.
Federal Workers Sue to Disconnect DOGE Server

USAID's website has been deleted and its entire workforce put 'on leave'.

Members of the Doge team entered NOAA headquarters today to access IT systems.
“There’s no real transparency. They just show up wherever they want, do whatever they want. They’re following through on major budget cuts and major staffing cuts. I think the strategy here is: ‘Well, we’re just going to do it and dare somebody to stop us, and by the time they stop us, we’ll have destroyed it.’”
Doge staffers enter Noaa headquarters and incite reports of cuts and threats

Mainstream media are being bafflingly lackadaisical about these developments, downplaying, sanewashing, or outright burying important news.
"As Musk and Trump continue to behave like kings, it’s incumbent upon news media to not just report on their actions, but put them in the proper context for the public to understand the threat level they represent; otherwise, we can’t respond appropriately."
As Constitutional Crises Mount, US Press Sleepwalks Into Autocracy

The Democrats are completely useless.
"What have Democrats done instead? Well, last Thursday, they made a time agreement to advance the nominations of several Trump employees, including Doug Collins—who attempted to overthrow the government in 2020 by voting to reject the results of a free and fair election—to head the Veterans Affairs Department. Why did they make such an agreement with Republicans? Because they did not want to work Friday, Saturday, or Sunday and preferred to vote on Monday instead. Three-day weekends are nice but so too is democracy, and it sure would be swell if Democrats showed they cared more about the latter than the former."
Primary Every Democrat

Expect this bulldozer to keep rolling along until someone can get Musk the fuck out of our government buildings. Who exactly that will be remains a mystery. Lawsuits are now flooding the courts but our judicial system is not known for its speed. Case in point: Trump signed the order on birthright citizenship on Jan. 20 and it only today was put to a final halt.

The fact of the matter is that too many people in positions of power refused to believe that they were really going to do this stuff, despite the fact that THEY WROTE IT ALL DOWN. It's here, you foolishly blind assholes. They're dismantling America brick by brick and then setting fire to the bricks and y'all are... tweeting? I don't know what you're doing because the silence is goddamned deafening.

If you want to feel the experience of screaming "I Told You So" in some people's faces, Hamilton Nolan's piece today scratches the hell out of that itch. Here's the closing paragraph:
"The business lobby has, for all of these years, operated on a false assumption. They believed that they could slowly strip away the foundations of the House of Democracy for a quick buck, without the house ever falling down. Wrong. Wrong, mighty business geniuses! Now the house is falling down. The things that you thought would always be there are crumbling. And you are going to be homeless, with all the rest of us. And we are going to eat you. And we are going to laugh and laugh. All your tax cuts have bought you this. I hope it was worth it."

Now here are some things to do. Call Congress. Actions to Stop Authoritarianism. Write it down. Join the 50501 movement. Deep breaths in and out. Find someone to hug.

xoxo,
Carla

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