How Does Trump Screw Us? Let Me Count The Ways

That wasn't the original title, but as I started writing, it just seemed more apt.  

This post is about two videos - one by Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut who lays out the details of the unprecedented level of corruption in the first six weeks of the Trump administration.    (Thus the title of this post.)  

The second is a woman from Oklahoma venting her anger over the botched Signal chat that put her husband (stationed in the Middle East) in potential danger.  

I was struck by the contrast between these two approaches to criticizing the Trump administration - one highly factual and rational, almost like a college lecture.  The other focused, but almost unhinged in the level of anger and invective.  

I'd argue that we should all be at the level of anger and resistance that woman is at.  We shouldn't wait until we are directly impacted.  100,000 people raging like she does would probably pry enough US Senators away from Trump to stop the venal actions that Senator Murphy describes in detail.  

We need the facts and details to understand how we're being screwed to raise our level of anger and resistance.  And we need her passion and fury to get us to stop pretending life will not be completely disrupted if we don't stop this horror right now.  

Murphy Video

There's a lot of content and detail here.  You can skip down to the video, or you can first look at my outline of the ways Murphy lists that Trump is corrupting government and enriching himself and his oligarch supporters - from streamlining the art of the bribe to dismantling agencies that have investigations that hurt Trump supporters.  Here are some of them, to help you keep track.  I've added links if you want to find out more about each.  

1.  Memecoins - He starts out talking about Trump meme coins that can be used to transfer money, unreported, directly into Trump's account.  This is the latest in bribe technology. 

What are Meme Coins?

I had to look up meme coins to try to understand what they are.  Here's a link to investopedia.com and one to wikipedia to help you understand.  The first link even offers ways to invest.  The Wikipedia link is more contextual and historical.  One thing I learned looking this up is that DOGE - the Department Of Government Efficiency - the rogue mob that Elon Musk is leading, is also the name of one of the more popular memecoins, one that Musk promoted.

2. Pays off Oil/Gas Industry's $1 billion bribe.   On day one Trump privileges oil and gas and hurts their competition- wind, solar etc.  This article documents the billion dollar ask, but the actual money count doesn't get that high.  But the benefits were given.  

3.  Jan 25  Fires the watch dogs - all the Inspectors General - the people who investigate corruption

4.  Jan 27 - Fires head of National Labor Relations Board.  This means NLRB cannot investigate cases.  Musk has lots of cases before the NLRB.  And many others around Trump have cases pending.

5.  Jan 30 - awards $800K stock of Trump Media platform  to  cabinet members, which Murphy says is another way for people to move cash to bank accounts of cabinet members in order to get favors.  

6.  Feb 23 - Weaponization of DOJ  - Drops case against Musk SpaceX    Then drops case against a GOP congressman.  Then Operation Whirlwind that targets anyone critical of Musk or DOGE.   DOJ turned into entity that drops cases of Trump loyalists and attacks those who criticize Trump.

7.  Feb 1  - Shut down Consumer Finance Protection Board  which was investigating Musk and Trump backers - consumer protection actions now gone

8.  Feb 4.  Meetings in White House with Business Partners - Saudi Gulf League and PGA - Saudis play torunaments at Trump golf course 

9.  Feb 6 - Pam Bondi - dulls foreign government agent act - No longer registering as foreign government represenatives  = now his friends can lobby government while secretly getting paid by foreign governments.  

10.  Feb 10 - Eric Adams case dropped and publicly announced that gettting rid of the charges against Adams if he pledges loyalty to Trump.Six  people in DOJ refused and resigned and finally the seventh agreed.  

11.  Buying $400 million Tesla’s.  Biden admin was going to buy $483K, Trump bumps it up to $400 million.  This seems to have been scuttled.

This is only a partial list.  The rest are in the video.  

 The Murphy Video

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The second video is just sheer anger at Trump's inept appointees jeopardizing the life of the lady's husband as well as of those of his fellow Middle East stationed military men.  [This is supposed to end after about 4 minutes 30 seconds - I added instructions into the code.  But it didn't work.  I'm not recommending you watch the whole thing.]

The original video I saw, but couldn't find a way to embed, was sharply directed to Sen. Lankford of Oklahoma.  She vows to end his career.  Very powerful messaging.  You can see it at this link to a Bluesky post.

As I said above, we should all be at the level of anger and resistance that woman is at.  We shouldn't wait until we are directly impacted.  Murphy offers us just a few of the reasons we should be angry as hell.   100,000 people raging like the woman in the video does would probably cause enough GOP Senators and Members of Congress away from Trump to stop the horrors that Senator Murphy describes in detail.  

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 – 1861

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

This poem is in the public domain.

Whoops, Forgot the Title: Tech Bro Plans For The Future

[Overview:  The key here is the video.  Find 30 minutes to watch/listen.  It puts lots of important things into place.  The rest of the post includes thoughts I had about the video and the people described in it.  Something about the narrator of the video.  But the video is the important thing.  It's not just someone's opinion - it's a well documented overview of the role of the billionaire tech bros in the Trump election and administration

This video came across my screen this morning.  It offers much more depth to the previous post  that said a coup was happening.  While we all knew that the tech guys were involved - Musk, of course, and that Peter Thiel bought Vance's election to the Senate and the vice presidential nomination, etc. - my impression had been that Project 2025 had been something from the Heritage Foundation - (from the ACLU):

"Project 2025 is a federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity."

The Heritage Foundation has been around a long time and among other things, created a whole conservative law society that groomed right wing attorneys with their ideology and got them onto the Supreme Court.  

But this video outlines a different set of influences for Project 2025 - libertarian leaning, billionaire tech bros.  And as we watch live - but not like we watched January 6 live - Elon Musk sucking up government data, this video makes much more sense of what's happening and why.   

   

Here's an outline of the video from the YouTube channel:

"chapters

00:00-01:00 Introduction

01:01-04:25 The Dark Agenda of Tech VCs

04:26-07:10 Networks and Patchworks: Reinventing the State

07:11- 09:44 Praxis and Pronomos

09:45 –12:37 Making it a Reality 

12:38 –18:03 Vance, Thiel, and Yarvin

18:04 –19:28 Tech and Project 2025

19:29-20:00 Butterfly Revolution Step 1: Campaign on Autocracy

20:01-21:42 Butterfly Revolution Step 2: Purge the Bureaucracy 

21:43-23:00 Butterfly Revolution Step 3: Ignore the Courts

23:01-23:50 Butterfly Revolution Step 4: Co-Opt the Congress

23:51-25:06 Butterfly Revolution Step 5: Centralise Police and Powers

25:07-27:54 Butterfly Revolution Step 6: Shut Down Elite Media and Academic Institutions

27:55-28:35 Butterfly Revolution Step 7: Turn Out the People

28:36-29:40 Conclusion"

While this may make things seem worse, I'd argue that this guys had the right set of skills to get rich in the tech age in the US, but their smarts are limited.  As Musk has shown with Twitter, there are important interpersonal skills he's lacking.  When I read Atlas Shrugged in my late teens, it only took me about 150 pages to realize how repulsive the main characters were.  But these guys think they know much more than they do, and want to create a libertarian world where they are free from government interference, where they are the government (and thus free to interfere with others.)

Now, I can understand how a bunch of rich techies with no serious background in the history of government, liberty, democracy, etc. can feel oppressed by government that seems to (and in many cases probably is) be a bit behind the changing technologies, but is trying to apply regulations to the industry and, even worse, tax their earnings.  But that's only because they think their tech ability and the fact they got rich makes them smarter than everyone else.  Sort of like doctors who think they have expertise in every other field beyond medicine.  

So while I expect they're going to do a lot of damage to democracy, the world economy, and the planet* (by not fighting climate change particularly), I also think they're going to have a lot of failures and a lot of disagreements with each other and with the older legal far right architects of the US move to fascism.  

But understanding what's happening is the first step to effective corrective steps.  

* "doing damage to . . .the planet" - I'd like to clarify that 'damage to the planet' is a human-centric idea.  The planet, it seems to me, follows the laws of nature.  Does a volcano do damage to the planet?  I'd say it changes the planet, but 'damage' is a word that judges the change negative.  Climate change will make life more difficult for many plants and animals.  Some will probably thrive.  As I think about this, probably the only 'objective' use of 'damage the planet' would be to describe its total annihilation at which point pieces of the earth would, I guess, scatter in space, and still exist, but in a different way.  

Who is the narrator, Blonde Politics/The Silly Serious? 

Finally, I've never seen this YouTube presenter before,  I was impressed with the presentation, but I did want to at least minimally vet her before sharing with my readers.  So I did look her up.  Here's what I found in a quick search.  She's Australian Joanna Richards.

"Hey.

I am a writer, actor, and academic.

I love to create art, and feel fortunate to be able to blend my various interests to create meaningful work. Above all else, I love to laugh, and make others laugh! Using art to tackle important and controversial topics, I hope to create work that challenges people without making them feel defensive.

My academic research focuses on the relationship between gender, political authority, and language philosophy. I frequently appear in print and on television to discuss issues relating to gender and representation. Sometimes I am on tv pretending to be someone else!

Please reach out if you want to chat.

Affliations

Institute for Governance Policy Analysis - Doctor of Philosophy (in progress)
University of Canberra - Bachelor of Philosophy (First Class Honours)
Moscow Art Theatre School - Fine Arts Conservatory (Stanislavski Intensive)

Australian National University - Bachelor of International Relations"

The reach out seems serious.  At the bottom of the page it says:  

"email: hello@joannarichards.com     Currently in: New York City"

   

Solano, California - one of the cities tech bros are trying to create  

On the video, Joanna talks about one the tech bros billionaires goals to build private tech, corporate owned cities.  Which made me think of stories I read when I still had a subscription to the LA Times about tech billionaires buying up land in northern California to build such a city.  Only the story didn't get into the more sinister underpinnings Joanna mentions.  You can read an AP story about this here.  They did qualify to put the proposal on the ballot, but later withdrew it.  But they're planning to be back in 2026.  And as I listened to the video again, Joanna does mention Solano. (about 11:40 in the video).

[Let me add one more note:  I'm using Tech Bros as the technical term for white men who get rich through IT and generally think they know more than everyone else and that the rule of law doesn't apply to them.  This definition is open for editing.]