I get regular emails from a handful of political outlets that are aligned with my own viewpoints which is left of center for sure. This I don’t mind one bit for many reasons.
I received this email newsletter today:
Dear Member,
It’s barely been a week since the election, but Donald Trump has already made more than a dozen appointments—and they’re exactly the staff envisioned by Project 2025.1 Some of the appointees even wrote Project 2025.
A white nationalist in charge of immigration policy. An insurrectionist and misogynist as Defense Secretary. A conspiracy theorist and homophobe helming the Department of Health and Human Services. An evangelical Christian and staunch opponent to Palestine as ambassador to Israel. A climate change denier as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.2
And Trump named Elon Musk as the co-head of the effort to “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy” and hand our country’s future over to corporations and billionaires.3
This wave of extremist appointees—who are rife with extraordinary conflicts of interest—is antithetical to American values. It’s overwhelming. It’s depressing. That’s exactly MAGA’s point.
Trump is dumping this deluge of awful appointees and plans for his administration on us in hopes that we will be so exhausted that we won’t fight back. He couldn’t be more wrong. We are already fighting back—in fact, we just had an amazing victory we’ll tell you about in a minute—and we are preparing for four years of nonstop campaigning to stop Trump’s anti-democratic, anti-civil-rights agenda.
Trump’s appointees are a veritable Who’s Who of right-wing extremism, racism, and hate.
To no one’s surprise, white nationalist and architect of Trump’s “kids in cages” plan Stephen Miller is now deputy chief of staff for policy—ready to implement Trump’s mass deportation plan.4
Trump appointed “Fox & Friends” host Pete Hegseth, famous for cheering on the January 6 insurrection and saying that women don’t belong in combat, as secretary of defense. Trump also announced plans for appointing a board to weed out any military generals who are not sufficiently loyal to him.5
Other appointees include Mike Huckabee, who believes that Gaza should be eradicated, as ambassador to Israel.6 Climate change denier Lee Zeldin as Environmental Protection Agency administrator.7 John Ratcliffe, who weaponized secure data against Trump’s opposition during his first term, as CIA director.8
And just minutes ago, Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, to lead the nation’s public health department.9
His MAGA House of Representatives tried to fast-track a bill through Congress—H.R.9495—that would have granted Trump unilateral power to strip organizations of their nonprofit status if they were accused of “supporting terrorism.” His administration would have no burden of proof or standard to meet—just a stroke of the pen would take down any organization (such as MoveOn!) that he perceived as an enemy.10
The bill had bipartisan support and was assumed to be a done deal, but our members fought back. Thousands of our members called their representatives, and our voice was heard in the halls of Congress as well. Because of the work of you and others in our coalition, H.R.9495 failed.
The American government is one of checks and balances, and we can rein in Trump’s assault on us if we are willing to hold our leaders accountable to those checks. As an organization of millions of voices, we are strong. We are powerful. And as long as we keep speaking out together, we can stop Trump’s attack on our civil rights, on our economy, and on our democracy.
But we must be prepared to campaign around the clock and use every tool at our disposal, which takes vast resources—resources that are depleted in the wake of the most expensive election in history.
What are your thoughts? Share them. Did you vote this past election year?
If you did not vote, like far too many Americans did not—approximately 7-8 million registered voters did not turnout at the polls—then your silence was beyond horrendously appalling for such a historically unprecedented election year given what was at stake for our country! That is the sole reason tRump and Republicans won so many positions of government! Sad, very very sad America.
The above source citation footnotes follow below…
Sources:
1. “What White House picks tell us about Trump 2.0,” BBC, November 13, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198839?t=8&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC
2. “Trump Picks New EPA Head Guaranteed to Destroy the Environment,” The New Republic, November 11, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198840?t=10&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC
3. “November 12, 2024,” Letters from an American, November 13, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198841?t=12&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC
4. “Trump Brings Back White Nationalist Stephen Miller for Second Term,” The New Republic, November 11, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198842?t=14&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC
5. “November 12, 2024,” Letters from an American, November 13, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198841?t=16&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC
6. Ibid.
7. “Trump’s EPA Pick Is a Climate Skeptic. What It Means for EVs.” Barron’s, November 12, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198843?t=18&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC
8. “A running list of all the people Trump has picked to serve in his administration,” MSNBC, November 13, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198844?t=20&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC
9.”Trump picks RFK Jr. , anti-vaccine activist, for Health and Human Services secretary,” NBC News, November 14, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198880?t=22&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC
10. “US House fails to pass anti-NGO bill that could target pro-Palestine groups,” Al Jazeera, November 12, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198834?t=24&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC
The Professor’s Convatorium © 2023 by Professor Taboo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
The Professor's Convatorium 