Every day we get a new gob-smacking surprise from America under Trump, each more incredible and outrageous than the one before. This morning, the BBC reported that Trump wants to take over Gaza and own it 'long-term' with the Palestinians 'resettled' in Jordan and Egypt, as if it's just a piece of real estate and the population simply a problem that needs to be cleaned up. Needless to say, neither Jordan nor Egypt have been consulted and immediately rejected the idea, as has Saudi Arabia. Marco Rubio will have his work cut out in the Middle East when he isn't busy in Canada, Denmark, Panama, Mexico and Brussels shovelling up the mess that Trump's stream-of-consciousness utterances leave behind. There is no way the USA will occupy Gaza.
Back home, America’s institutions are being placed under massive strain by President Trump and his cohort of right-wing nationalists, white supremacists, Christian fundamentalists, incompetents, and halfwits. There seems little doubt that many of Trump’s executive orders break the law or are contrary to the Constitution. At least 20 legal challenges have been launched including a class action by FBI officers and others by trade unions and civil society organisations. We can be sure more are on the way.
Elon Musk acts as if the USA is a business he has just acquired, like Twitter. He sends in his people to obtain all the data, fires anyone who stands in his way, and generally acts the bully. He is doing this on the grounds of cutting federal spending to the bone. But, and there is a very large BUT, he is halting the flow of funds that a democratically elected Congress has approved, and doing it without proper legal authority. His DOGE department isn't constituted by law and hasn't any employees. The 'lackeys' he's sending in are his own workers!
There is absolute outrage. This is Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. You can feel the boiling anger in her voice:
Senator Elizabeth Warren, "In the building behind me Elon Musk is seizing power from the American people" "A few months ago he spent $280m to buy an election for Donald Trump.. Now he is here to collect on his investment.. To seize power for himself.. We are here to fight back"— Farrukh (@implausibleblog.bsky.social) 4 February 2025 at 22:56
Judges have already issued restraining orders blocking Trump’s attempt to freeze all or most federal spending. Whether or not he or Musk complies remains to be seen. Democratic Congressmen have gone into the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to find out for themselves what Elon Musk’s lackeys are actually doing.
A number of FBI agents have launched a legal action to prevent the Department of Justice under Trump appointee Pam Bondi from getting the names of 5,000 agents who were involved in investigations into the 6 January insurrection in 2021:
A group of FBI agents asked a federal judge to block the Trump administration’s efforts to collect information on thousands of case agents who worked on investigations tied to President Donald Trump or the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost.com) 4 February 2025 at 17:47
This is the beginning of a purge to clear out any employees who may not be loyal to Trump. We had better get used to this sort of chaos. The courts are going to be very busy.
However, the real test of the US legal system and Constitution will come in 2028. Trump sparked the 2021 insurrection, there is zero doubt about that, and was as close as we can imagine to refusing to quit the White House, even when he was surrounded by people up to and including Vice President Pence, who were telling him he had lost the election and had to step down. They remained loyal to the oaths they had sworn to uphold the Constitution. In the 2028 election, things will look very different.
Trump is appointing sycophants, loyalists, yes men, and MAGA cultists to positions of power. Pam Bondi is Attorney General and Kash Patel could soon head up the FBI. During their confirmation hearings, neither would confirm Biden ‘won’ the 2020 election, even when pressed extremely hard. They couldn't bring themselves to say "Biden won" either because they didn't believe he had or feared the backlash from Trump. Either way, they are dangerous people.
The best they could manage was to confirm Biden was president, as if he had got there four years ago by cheating.
If Trump succeeds in his plans, whole departments could be purged with decent, impartial, even-handed civil servants who are faithful to the law and the Constitution being replaced by MAGA supporters and felons. This is already happening.
Also, I wouldn’t automatically assume things in America will be so bad, voters will flock to the Democrats en masse in the mid-terms or in 2028. That isn’t a given. Underestimating the extent to which millions of Americans have been captured by a cult won't bring success.
Trump is unpopular but if he succeeds in deporting millions of undocumented immigrants there are a lot of voters who will believe that's a good thing. And with the backing of the right-wing media and a lot of racists, he could easily scrape through.
Trump is in a far more ruthless frame of mind this time around. The Republican Party has been converted to Trumpism so that even if he’s forced out before the next election, democracy will have been so subverted and undermined that a fair election and a peaceful transfer of power will be all but impossible.
Expect a lot of voter suppression measures, gerrymandering, corruption, misinformation, and law-breaking when voters go to the polls in 2028. And even if a Democratic President wins, don't expect a peaceful transfer of power.
The MAGA lunatics know what they are doing is wrong, probably unlawful, and what their opponents could do to them if they voluntarily give up power, so they won't.
