“…of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”
– Alexander Hamilton
These words ring as true today as they did when Alexander Hamilton first penned them in support of the U.S. Constitution’s adoption almost two and a half centuries ago.[1] Since our Founders’ generation, many wise, well-informed voices have warned Americans to be wary of demagogues: leaders who seek power and wealth only for themselves by making many false claims, playing on popular prejudices, and promising incredible changes. To trust such an immoral degenerate in any high office, the Presidency most of all, is to enable a most dire threat to the Constitutional order, to our democratic-republican form of government, and to the hard-won protections of our constitutional liberties as a free people.
The Founders and all who sacrificed for our country since their time are turning in their graves at the modern degeneration of what they gave so much to build and evolve. I, along with many other voices of greater prominence, have been warning Americans for the last decade about Donald Trump. He fits the very definition of a demagogue and would-be tyrant. I made a fact-based case last July here on this blog that, if elected President for a second term, Trump would inevitably seek to dismantle our democratic republic and enthrone himself as America’s first tyrant-king since America declared independence from King George in 1776.[2] Trump is a convicted felon, evidently incapable of repentance. He incited the first violent coup attempt on the U.S. government in our history. He sought to unconstitutionally and illegally stay in power that day, which would have disenfranchised all Americans of their most sacred liberty as a free people: the right to vote. By all rights, Trump should be rotting in a prison cell for the rest of his miserable life for his treachery and high crimes against all Americans and, indeed, against the world.
Yet to the free world’s great despair and detriment, too many Americans were conned into believing the lies sold to us by right-wing media propagandists. They foolishly believed it would be a good idea to re-elect the demagogue Trump to the Presidency a second time.
And so, a very dark chapter in American history has now begun.
…
This series of several parts is being written to brief Americans on the essence of what has happened to undermine the rule of law and democracy in the United States in the second Trump administration’s first months. Each article will focus on one of several primary features of the regime. Each will also feature a list of citations for further reading, with many more detailed references supporting the article’s findings and conclusions.
The conclusions presented in this series, as you will see, are damning to not only Donald Trump but to Republicans in power and right-wing media more broadly for supporting the spread and acceptance of his long litany of lies. Please do not make the mistake of assuming bias on these articles’ part simply because it states a clear opinion, or because you heard otherwise from this or that person that you like, or because of your wish to believe otherwise. Having a clear opinion is not in itself evidence of bias. A reasonable person can know facts and make reasonable conclusions. It is absurd to call such a person biased simply for knowing things and making reasonable conclusions. In fact, this article is backed by original-reporting media sources of the highest caliber quality. It relies upon the facts, and only the facts, to best ensure that independently-arrived, evidence-based conclusions are made. I plead with those of you who are averse to hearing opposing views of Trump to please, for all that is good and holy, to read, review, and sincerely consider what is presented with an open mind. Do not simply take my word for it. Put serious effort into reviewing the sources provided at the end of this article. Confirm for yourself the evidence and the arguments made herein by checking the sources. America, and indeed the world, cannot afford any further compliance and support for the dark whirling undertow pulling us all back down to a dark and smaller world of oppression.
Part I: Dismantling the Government
We begin this series by delving into the rounds of unprecedented mass layoffs and buyouts of federal workers along with massive budget cuts across all federal agencies. These constitute an ongoing, defining feature of the second Trump administration’s early agenda. In only the first ten weeks of Trump’s second term, an unprecedented 300,000 federal workers and counting have been either laid off or bought out. This amounts to 10% of the three million federal employees prior to Trump’s inauguration on January 20th.[3][4]
The administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk’s leadership claims they are combating fraud and waste in order to make the federal government run more efficiently. There is certainly some waste, fraud, and abuse in need of investigation and cleanup. And so offhand, this might seem like a reasonable claim to make.
Except upon closer inspection, the evidence tells us they’re lying.
In reality, the vital federal services which all Americans depend are being haphazardly hobbled, dismantled, and rendered unable to function well, if at all. Services on the chopping block include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, emergency aid for the victims of natural disasters, and for staff and resources to control wild fires. They also include veterans benefits like medical care, cancer research, and prosthetics for wounded veterans. The FBI has also seen mass firings of agents at all levels, and in the midst of important investigations: remember that this is the agency which protects us from terrorist attacks and other domestic threats. The Department of Justice, broad medical and scientific research including weather and climate research from NOAA, the FAA and air travel safety, food and water safety, educational funding programs, consumer fraud protections, pollution regulations enforcement, and much more are as well seeing massive funding cuts, layoffs, and buyouts.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]
Meanwhile, multiple independent savings analyses are revealing that these layoffs and cuts are amounting to very insignificant taxpayer savings. Moreover, what they are doing cannot possibly amount to significant taxpayer savings, even if they continue and complete their current course.[14][15]
There is so much to unpack here. Let’s begin with the repercussions of what they are doing.
The Repercussions
Musk, DOGE, and the broader Trump administration appear entirely unconcerned with the repercussions of the mass firings and cuts. They are still being defended by the Trump administration, even though ramifications across the board have already wreaked mass havoc on the functioning of the government. More unfolding damage is yet to come.
Here is a small sampling of the many ways America and the rest of the world are being adversely affected by the Trump administration.
Invaluable scientific and medical research of various kinds has been disrupted or halted entirely by budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The funding cuts have eliminated lab and office space, equipment, and tools which researchers depend on. Many researchers and other staff were also fired. A lot of the money, time, and effort researchers have put into their beneficial work over the years has been wasted, as ongoing experiments and other research was halted midway. These cancellations have delayed our ability to understand and treat epidemics, various forms of cancer, and other diseases and conditions, for decades to come.[16][17]
The livelihoods of American farmers are being threatened by both food-related federal cuts and tariffs. Food aid for seniors and the poor have also been massively cut due to a $1 billion funding cut to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).[18][19][20]
Housing aid and rural economic development programs through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency were halted. The HUD offices affected most include programs for homelessness, affordable housing, disaster recovery, civil rights law enforcement, and research on housing issues and HUD programs. This is therefore projected to lead to a rise in costs for both homeowners and renters, and a rise in homelessness and joblessness across the country. [21][22]
Humanitarian aid groups across the world have closed operations, laid off staff, and halted life-saving work because of Trump’s freeze on foreign assistance, according to a survey of 246 humanitarian organizations. Malaria now threatens to rapidly spread in countries like Ghana and Kenya because insecticide and mosquito nets stopped being shipped from the U.S.. Medications sit in warehouses while pregnant women in Haiti with HIV are deprived of their ability to avoid passing the disease to their unborn children. Famine in countries like Myanmar is no longer being quelled by food aid from the United States. Malnourished children around the world are no longer being fed. Having given about $14 billion last year, America was by far the biggest contributor to global humanitarian aid. Not anymore.[23][24][25][26][27][28]
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which oversees air travel safety, also saw several hundred layoffs and budget cuts. This, in spite of the fact that the air traffic control system has been overtaxed and understaffed for years. The cuts and layoffs came before and after a series of deadly air crashes and close calls at U.S. airports. While the administration claims no “safety critical” staff were let go, it’s evident there was no effort made to ascertain whether they were critical or not: they were arbitrarily fired. As a notable side note, Donald Trump had the gall to blame diversity hirings for the crashes. In other words, he blamed the hiring of blacks and other non-whites as well as women for the crashes, strongly implying that only white men could do these jobs well. Nevermind the fact that the FAA has been understaffed and was now made even more understaffed by his own executive orders. The cuts also affect national security, as some of the staff and money was funding a new early warning radar system being developed in conjunction with the Defense Department to detect inbound cruise missiles.[29][30][31][32][33][34]
At least 40% of staff at the Administration for Community Living (ACL) were laid off. This agency within the Department of Health and Human Services includes major federal aging, disability, and anti-poverty programs which are now severely cut and left with an uncertain future. The agency funds programs that run senior centers and distributes 216 million meals a year to older and disabled people through what is perhaps its most famous program: Meals on Wheels. Additionally, special education funding which was halted when the Department of Education was also severely crippled by mass layoffs is possibly being added to the ACL, adding more of a burden to this agency’s diminished capacity.[35]
Even the direst potential consequences of the layoffs and budget cuts have apparently not been considered. One of several clear examples of this is in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) layoffs. The NNSA is tasked with designing, building and overseeing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. Some of the 2,000 fired workers at the Department of Energy staffed the NNSA. After they were fired, the Trump administration realized they made a huge blunder. These trained professionals were irreplaceable: America’s ability to ensure nuclear safety was compromised as a direct result of these firings. The Trump administration wanted to rehire the fired workers, but could not reach them because the administration also failed to obtain alternative contact information from them. They only had their work email addresses, which were of course deactivated when fired. Some had “Q-level” security clearance, meaning they had access to America’s nuclear secrets… and the Trump administration did not think to keep them or to keep track of them after they were fired? One of the fired NNSA staffers described the firings as being conducted in a “haphazard” and “arbitrary” manner. “There’s no consideration for the mission. There’s no consideration for whether or not this position is critical,” he said.[36][37]
Firing critical workers and then rehiring them after realizing their folly has become a pattern in this Trump administration. This pattern logically suggests a lack of investigation and concern for who DOGE is firing. Similar firings and rehiring efforts occurred at the CDC when they realized after firing research team leads in the middle of actively combating bird flu that this was a big mistake.[38] And again the administration sought to rehire fired highly trained and specialized physicians and cybersecurity experts at the FDA after realizing they were working on life-saving medical devices.[39] The National Parks Service as well saw some fired workers rehired after public outcry based on the fact that trained staff are absolutely necessary to keep the parks safe for visitors.[40]
Notably, China was discovered seeking to recruit fired federal workers for their own purposes. This includes fired nuclear professionals.[41]
We could go on and on in describing the remaining damage dealt by these mass firings and budget cuts, as this presents a sampling of the havoc being unleashed. But the point has been made.
The Trump administration’s claim, again, is for DOGE to make government more efficient and save tax dollars. Clearly, the various government agencies are not being made more efficient by DOGE. They’ve been battered into a crippled, dysfunctional state, leaving millions of Americans in dire situations of various kinds.
Bad Math… or Intentional Deception?
Let’s now explore the tax dollar savings part of the claim. According to Elon Musk, we can look at DOGE’s online posted “receipts” to prove how much they are saving taxpayers through the mass layoffs and budget cuts. But the numbers don’t add up. At all. To begin with, they’re riddled with errors. The math is so egregiously bad, it should be inexcusable to a junior high school student, let alone an adult working in accounting or budgeting. Some of the claimed savings came from cancelled federal contracts. One contract, for instance, was listed by DOGE as an $8 billion reclaimed expense. But in reality, these were grossly inflated figures. In this case, three extra zeroes were added: the $8 billion dollar contract turned out to be for just $8 million in reality. In other cases, amounts were duplicated numerous times, effectively multiplying the claimed savings by severalfold. One particular $2.5 billion expense was listed three times for example, incorrectly amounting to $7.5 billion. In yet more cases, things like lines of credit are treated as actual spending. To put this into perspective, if an individual hypothetically has $20k of credit available on their credit cards and DOGE was evaluating how much they actually spent on their cards, they’d have simply claimed they actually spent all $20k. Apparently, DOGE did not bother to look at actual expenditures in these cases.[42][43]
All in all, the total claimed savings has fluctuated widely as DOGE continually corrects some errors while perpetually introducing new errors. The claimed total has reached over $100 billion. Independent analyses, such as by doing the math correctly, reveals the real amount is probably closer to only a few billion dollars, nowhere near the claimed $100 billion.[44][45]
Though one might presume these errors were accidental, we are left to wonder whether the more believable culprit is truly egregious math skills, or the dishonesty of those doing the accounting.
Further rendering the claim of making government more efficient a fraudulent claim is the fact that a direct result of DOGE’s firing of some 7,000 IRS agents. This is projected to result in as much as a 10% decrease in federal revenue, or a collection loss of as much as $500 billion from the federal treasury.[46][47]
Incompetence… or Deliberate Dismantling?
Many questions should be arising at this point if this information is all new to you. Why are Musk, DOGE, Trump, and his administration doing this? The claim, again, is to make government more efficient and save tax dollars. Clearly, the various government agencies are not being made more efficient: they’ve been thrown into disarray and are becoming non-functional. And, clearly, the savings are miniscule, and the claimed savings are false.
Why are they really doing this? Let’s explore three likely factors that answer this question.
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Is government dysfunction the real end goal? Though it would be absurd to trust DOGE’s numbers, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment and assume the claimed total savings figure is correct. $100 billion still amounts to only a few percent of what the federal government spent in fiscal year 2024, which was $6.75 trillion. Assuming once more that DOGE’s $100 billion figure is correct (which it certainly is not), then we’ve hit about 10% of Musk’s stated $1 trillion end of year goal in savings for 2025.[48]
If Musk believes his own agency’s figures and continues the same rate of firings and budget cuts, the entire federal workforce of 3 million could potentially be laid off by year’s end.
Let that possibility sink in. No more Social Security, no more Medicare, no more Medicaid, no more veterans benefits… no FBI, no Justice Department, no nuclear safety staff… no more Post Office… no federal services whatsoever. While Musk has not communicated any specifics to the American public about their plan (if they even have one), we would be right to worry about just how far they might go with their purge of the federal workforce and cuts to federal agencies.
…
Or is the erratic disarray born out of sheer incompetence at DOGE and the broader Trump administration? This becomes a more believable possibility when we consider the fact that several agents playing critical roles in Musk’s DOGE are between the ages of 19 and 24 and have little to no government experience between them.[49]
Furthermore, Musk’s entire approach, if we assume he is genuinely interested in government efficiency (which he certainly is not), also reveals a severe lack of understanding on his part about how the federal government actually spends its money. When Musk bought the social media platform Twitter back in 2022 and renamed it X, he did something very similar to what he is doing to the federal government now: he fired most of Twitter’s staff. But, unlike private industry where employee salaries and benefits are the top expense, personnel costs make up just about 4% of federal spending.[50]
About 64% of federal spending amounts to payments made to citizens for Social Security, Medicare, health programs, income security, and veterans’ benefits and services. Another 14% is spent on national defense, and another 13% goes towards paying interest on the national debt. This leaves a mere 9% left for everything else, a small portion of which is the federal staff payroll.[51]
This breakdown makes it clear what the biggest savings targets would be. If Musk does realize at some point that firing federal workers until the end of 2025 will not save much money since it targets only 4% of the entire fiscal budget, what do you imagine his next “efficiency” targets will be?
This recognition of the federal budget breakdown also makes it clear that big business acumen does not translate into federal government expertise. Unlike Donald Trump, Elon Musk understands big business. But Musk certainly has demonstrated gross incompetence in the federal government.
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Or is the administration lying to us about ulterior motives? To put it another way, is defunding as much of the federal government’s independent agencies as they can get away with a means to another end? The evidence tells us this is certainly the case. At the top of Republicans’ first hundred days agenda is the promise to renew Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This plan granted $4 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans during Trump’s first presidential term. If these tax cuts are extended now, the top 0.1% of earners in America would each get a tax cut of $314,000 on average, adding $4.2 trillion to the national deficit over the next ten years. More than half of this total ($2.4 trillion) would go to those earning more than $400,000 annually.[52]
Notably, this tax cut figure is an average. The tax cut would be far, far greater for the world’s currently wealthiest person. And this person happens to be none other than the man in charge of DOGE: Elon Musk.
Couple this with the loss of tax fraud investigations resulting from the IRS layoffs. “When you underpay and understaff the IRS, the agency doesn’t have the power or the resources it needs to go after wealthy tax evaders with their high priced lawyers,” a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center said, adding, “The result is, of course, a disaster for revenue.”[53]
The conflict of interests here, the corruption, cannot possibly be clearer. Or more clearly deliberate.
What’s Really Going On
This is indeed a massive raid on the federal government’s funds by a greedy rich bureaucrat looking for greater tax breaks for the uber-wealthy at everyone else’s expense.
But the evidence points to an even more nefarious motive. This is part of a deliberate breakdown of our democratic-republican form of governance. In its place, Donald Trump and his allies are loyalizing and weaponizing America into a dictatorship to serve his own interests.
A review of the right-wing extremist agenda called Project 2025 confirms that we are witnessing this plot unfold under the second Trump presidency. For now, know that among other alarming things, it pushes for the American Presidency to vastly expand its powers, to effectively transform the United States into an autocratic regime.[54] While Trump has claimed ignorance of the plan, his actions to date have spoken much louder than his words. Trump says many things that are objectively false, while his actions clearly mirror the goals of Project 2025. For example, it calls for an end to the Department of Education, which Trump has already ordered.[55][56][57]
Also in line with Project 2025, President Trump has claimed for himself the Congressional power to directly control federal agencies to control policy and federal funding himself. What is notable about the mass layoffs discussed earlier is the fact that federal agencies are independent of the executive branch (e.g. the Presidency). According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress alone has the power to create, destroy, and fund federal agencies, not the President.[58] Yet on day one of his new administration, President Trump ordered that federal workers be reclassified as “Schedule F” employees, claiming that he, as President, can now directly hire or fire vast swaths of the federal workforce as he pleases.[59] This executive order paved the way for his many rounds of mass firings via Musk and DOGE. An array of lawsuits were filed against the administration, as the order and the mass layoffs are clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of Congressional authority. More lawsuits than not so far have resulted in a rejection of Trump’s blatant authoritarian power grab.[60]
In the next article of this series, we will delve more deeply into the Trump administration’s efforts to consolidate power and transform the United States into a dictatorship.
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