Google Caved and I’m Overwhelmed By Trump in Less Than One Month

At this rate, will we make it to Summer 2025?

I am tired. I need to rest. But every time I take a break, even over a weekend, I come back to see even more of the world burning under a Trump/Musk administration. Each day, I wonder, what part of society he broke today? I watch as some people try to cope in different ways. People zone out the news. They stay off Twitter/X. Facebook is quickly becoming toxic, just like Twitter/X. They feel helpless. They tried to vote against him, but the democratic party was too ill-prepared, and racism and the patriarchy were too strong to beat. People preferred to believe a con man!

Just off my head, here are some of the flames he has set recently:

1. He declared himself the Chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and set up his board. All the actual art people like Shonda Rhimes resigned when they heard he took over, which was precisely what he wanted.
2. He renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and banned journalists from the Associated Press (AP) for not changing their style to reflect this. Independent journalism is gone now.
3. Google caved! Google Maps changes it to the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America), making sure to fall in line. This is an interesting sign that even large companies are bending to the autocratic strongman.
4. HIV rates will likely increase because people can’t get access to anti-retroviral drugs in South Africa. After all, he banned all aid from the country. After all, they brought Israel to the International Court of Justice for their on-tv genocide in Gaza. Musk is also South African, who left after apartheid, so one can imagine he is heavily funding the position party to take over to maintain their 70% stronghold on lands in South Africa when they are 7% of the population.
5. Musk is using his position to sell thousands of trucks to the State Department, all against any public bidding process.
6. Autocrats from other countries are asking for names of people and organizations who worked with or got funding from USAID so they can persecute them and jail them, maybe worse!
7. Musk and his IT guys are roaming from agency to agency, taking over computers, firing people, and wreaking havoc on government agencies. One friend who works for the Veterans Affairs (VA) said, “Every day is like a hurricane at work!”
8. Trump asked 2 million federal workers to resign from their career jobs so he could install loyalists who may know nothing about the work but will do his bidding. Seventy-five thousand workers, so far, took the offer to quit now and get paid until September 30.
9. Despite the 22nd Amendment prohibiting more than two terms in office, Trump is already signaling, a supposed joke, that he will serve a third term. Is it a taunting tactic to flex power? As my grandfather always said, “Serious things are often said in jest!” It’s no joke. He means it! He is removing all the guardrails to stop him.
10. ICE is roaming public schools looking for undocumented resident children to deport.
11. Court orders are only temporary when he also goes after the party considers liberal judges who block his executive orders.
12. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) shuts down its diversity program. I suspect they will eventually close PBS unless it reports what they want.
13. The far Right party in Germany likely to win from heavy social media and financial support from Musk.
14. He rendered the Consumer Protection Agency useless, halting all staff work.
15. Two questions on intelligence job applications now for a job with this administration: “Was January 6 “an inside job?” And was the 2020 presidential election “stolen?”

I am tired. I have a hard time keeping up. I still need to work, sleep, and do other things. It’s like watching Atlas Shrug by Ayn Rand, as competent career people resign or are pushed out to be replayed with MAGA-ites. Some may be qualified, but watch what systems work and what does not. History has shown us what happens when we replace experts with political operatives. Systems tend to fail. I read the MSNBC list (see link below) of the mess they are doing, and while a few overlap with my list, there are so many more that I can’t have time to mention and still have time to sleep.

The world reels, as his actions not only indirectly affect others, but he is directly making overtures on other people’s countries, talking about what he wants to take over: own Gaza, invade Panama, buy Greenland, and even the Azores, take over, where next. No one is safe from a country as powerful and gone mad as America.

I see some congressmen, senators, and Democrats having town hall meetings to tell people what’s happening. I see Rachael Madow of MSNBC reporting on what’s happening, but they can’t even keep up, and that’s their job. It’s a strategy. Overwhelm the system with so many illegal executive orders, lies, and closures of institutions responsible for checks and balances that the Senate, Congress, journalists, and the public cannot keep up. Even if they plug one or two holes, many more remain open to leak out civil liberties. One of my friends in Washington, DC, was happy with the court injunctions. But, Trump has openly said he will ignore many of the court orders. Her reassurance in a justice system by a President who does not care about a justice system or the law makes her beliefs of American democracy sink into quicksand.

Who can stop him? Who can stop them?

A list of (nearly) everything Trump did over the last week (February 11, 2025)