🚨 A Dictatorial Coup Is Taking Place Within The United States Right Now 🚨
What's Happening. Why It's Dangerous. How To Push Back.
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I'm creating this thread as a Public Service Announcement about recent political developments within the United States, for folks who either don't live here or have tuned out of politics in the weeks and months following the election.
This thread wasn't created for argument or debate - any comments to that effect won't be responded to.
While I created this Substack to write about philosophy, I felt compelled to create this thread because we're in an incredibly dangerous moment right now, and traditional news media (CNN, The Associated Press, etc) is failing to convey the gravity of recent political developments.
I'm also asking those who live in the States to pay attention to what's going on, and to take action.
(Thanks to 50501 for this post on the night of the coup, some of which I’ll be quoting verbatim. I’m less interested in precise accreditation right now than I with getting this information out there).
What's Going On In The United States Right Now? (Short Version)
In short, the US is currently in a Constitutional Crisis. Since taking office, Donald Trump and his Project 2025 backers have been aggressively testing the waters to see what types of dictatorial actions they can get away with. Since taking office, Donald Trump has been abusing Executive Orders to consolidate unprecedented power under the Executive Branch.
The unambiguous intent of these executive orders is to do away with the Constitutional checks and balances that prevents one person, such as a president, from amassing unchecked power. To that end, Trump has been using Executive Orders to appropriate the Constitutional Authority of Congress to draft laws and control spending. And he's been attempting to usurp the ability to the Courts to interpret the Constitutionality of laws.
Executive Orders are NOT laws. They cannot be used to overturn Constitutional Amendments (such as birthright citizenship), or to shut down federal departments (such as the Department Of Education). Nor can they be used to override or 'veto' spending that's been approved by Congress. Trump has been using Executive Orders to do all three, in clear violation of the law and the US Constitution, out of a belief that no one is able or willing to stop him.
Elon Musk, an unelected private citizen without any security clearances, broke into the highly sensitive US Treasury system, which controls $6 trillion of federal payments. He now very likely has access to the Social Security Numbers and bank account information of every US taxpayer, in the biggest data breach in human history.
What's Changed Within The Last 24 Hours? (As Of 2/19/2025).
The White House just announced an unprecedented executive power grab, stripping independent governmental agencies of their autonomy. This order gives the President direct control over all regulatory bodies, allowing them to manipulate financial markets, elections, environmental policies, and legal interpretations. Agencies must now obey White House directives or face defunding.This Executive Order effectively ends independent oversight of the U.S. government. It cements total presidential control over regulatory agencies, giving Trump unchecked authority over financial markets, elections, environmental protections, and the legal system itself.
WHAT THIS ORDER DOES:
Eliminates Agency Independence: Agencies like the SEC, FCC, and FEC, which were designed to operate without direct political interference, are now forced to follow White House directives. This means the President can directly control stock market regulations, elections, and antitrust enforcement.
Weaponizes the Budget: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) can now block or redirect funding to agencies based on their political compliance. Agencies that resist will be defunded into submission.
Mandates Legal Loyalty: All federal employees must now follow the President’s interpretation of the law, no independent legal assessments are allowed. The President’s word is now the law.
Enforces Direct Oversight: A White House Liaison will be placed in every agency to ensure complete political obedience. No agency will be able to act without direct presidential approval.
Source: Things Just Got a Lot Worse – WH Announces Massive Power Grab Through Executive Orders, Our Enabling Act Moment of Germany 1933 is HERE.
The cumulative effect of this order is to give Trump and his Project 2025 backers dictatorial control over most US governmental agencies. You can read the Executive Order for yourself here - while the White House is pitching this as ‘restoring a government that responds the American people’, don’t be fooled. This is a naked power grab that has no basis in our laws or our Constitution. It would give Trump unchecked power to rule by decree like a King, gutting the Constitutional checks and balances that were designed to prevent exactly this outcome.
Why This Is Incredibly Dangerous, And Why This Is A Coup
In 1933, Hitler passed the Enabling Act, effectively dismantling Germany’s democracy and centralizing all government power under his rule. This executive order is a direct parallel, it removes the last barriers to total executive control and allows Trump to govern by decree.
If we do not resist immediately, this will be the final step in dismantling American democracy. The checks and balances that kept the presidency in check are GONE.
The term for what is happening right now is an Auto-Coup (also called a Self-Coup) - where a leader or administration comes to power legally, and then uses illegal and unconstitutional actions to stay in power.
What We Should Be Doing Right Now
First and foremost, spread the word that this happening - legacy news media has largely NOT BEEN COVERING THIS. And when they have, it's not been with the urgency that's appropriate to what's happening. For the most part, they've been obeying in advance out of fear that they'll be penalized or shut down by a more repressive government.
If you live in the United States, you need to be contacting your representatives. Flood their offices with calls, emails, and visits demanding immediate legislative action to block this power grab. Here's a simple script you can use to contact your representatives:
SCRIPT:
Hi, my name is [name] , and I’m a constituent from [city and zip code].
I’m calling to urge Senator [name] to take immediate action against the White House’s latest executive order, issued on Feb 18th, which strips federal agencies of their autonomy and centralizes unchecked power under the President. This order effectively ends independent oversight of the US government, giving Trump dictatorial control over markets, elections, environmental protections, and the legal system at his will.
This is an unconstitutional power grab with no precedent in modern U.S. history. I urge the Senator to use every tool available — publicly denounce this, rally opposition, and block its implementation by any means necessary. The Democratic Party must act like a true opposition party before it's too late. Please do everything in your power to stop this. Thank you for your time.Support organizations such as the ACLU that are preparing legal battles to obstruct Trump's coup.
If you're able to, consider joining in a protest. There's a reason that this latest executive order was signed late at night when most of the country was asleep. The more public pushback this gets, the longer and more difficult it will be for Trump to dismantle what remains of our democracy. Here are some organizations that organizing nationwide and state-level protests: #50501. RefuseFascism.org Indivisible.org
Follow organizations like 50501 on social media to stay informed, which are working to build a sustained non-violent resistance against fascism in the United States. I’d also highly recommend Parkrose Permaculture’s channel on YouTube.
Call for and support organizations that are facilitating NONVIOLENT resistance. Empirical studies have shown that nonviolence is much more effective at successfully challenging authoritarian regimes than violent resistance, and leads to more stable and democratic outcomes afterwards. To that end, I’d recommend Erica Chenoweth’s work, who has written about this at length.
It's quite conspicuous that in the official white house press release, under Sec 3, it specifically states that this order applies to the Federal Election Committee, and does not apply to the Federal Reserve or monetary policy.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ensuring-accountability-for-all-agencies/