Thoughts on the New Administration – Febuary 12

A follow up from my Response to the Executive Orders of January 20, 2025.

The new administration overwhelms. The news floods my thoughts and hours pass before I think to respond. I talk to my husband, and my emotions pour out too hard to be heard. My mother avoids the news for fear of the horror and sadness. Too much. Too much. 

And our institutions, it seems, are as overwhelmed. Is it legal? While legislators and judges scramble to make a case, ten more violations occur. The damage staggers while the institutions spin in circles to address them. Law does not define morality. My soul cries STOP THIS!

The internet feeds me horrible details, and worse, I have my own to add. A principal, coming home from her first day at her new position, told me how she fears for the wellbeing of the children she’s newly sworn to protect in the wake of Title 9’s overthrow. ICE raids occurred a couple of blocks from a friend’s home, and she asked us (her white friends) if we would take action with any footage she took. My cousin’s after-school program went from 19 to 9 students in the span of 4 days because they live in a largely Hispanic community. My coworker planned a trip to visit her family overseas, but she works on a visa, and now we’re worried she won’t get back into the country. My husband’s social media feed showed a trans family member denouncing the ban of trans people in sports, and, immediately after, another family member lauding it. I learned about the human cases of the bird flu epidemic third-hand because the government agencies usually tasked to disseminate this information have been stripped of functional power. Several of my friends and family were forced out of their homes due to California fires caused by climate change, then 2.2 billion gallons of water were released from the California reservoirs, wasted before a summer where that water would be useful, and any mention of climate change is stripped from government websites. At a time when I try to get pregnant, reproductive rights and information are stripped from government websites, and abortion is banned in many surrounding states. The list grows longer, more horrific, and closer to my frantically beating heart by the day.

Elon Musk has been granted unprecedented power for a private citizen within the new administration, so his character merits close scrutiny. Julie Gray, who was with Musk when he toured Auschwitz, said he was completely unmoved by the experience. Empty of empathy. He simply did not care. He’s a sociopath, and he has extraordinary power in our government. I had a friend who was neighbors with a sociopath and went through hell. At the time, I plotted petty revenge, so I researched how to deal with a sociopath and the depressing, all-encompassing advice from every source was ”don’t.” Every scrap of information I found said to disengage, leave, don’t look back. My friend had to move, but that time traumatized them in ways I can’t begin to comprehend. Now, I find myself living in a country where sociopaths rule.

Science is -to me- the pinnacle of human achievement and evolution. A place to look for solace in the face of the infinite unknown. The closest that it is possible to come to an objective truth about the universe. Now, every day, I witness a brick-by-brick criminalization of my faith. Words and information related to immigration, climate change, and reproductive rights are ripped out of government websites. Scientific publications are forced to withdraw or censor themselves of terms relating to trans and non-binary identities. 

Among other details, NASA recently removed an article from 2023 mentioning that the class of 1978 included the first female, Black, and Asian-American. This removal was due to the new administration’s anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. I hold my breath, waiting for this scientific institution to resist the censorship of its history. As a representative word of the powers I hold sacred in this world, they hold a responsibility to me and those like me to guide us through the world with honor and objectivity.  Instead, see more and more 404 page not found errors where diversity used to be.

Trump touts Guantanamo Bay as having room for 30,000 immigrants, and I look up the definition of concentration camps. In his inaugural speech, Trump stated he would invoke The Alien Enemies Act of 1798, best known for its role in Japanese incarceration during World War II. “Detentions and deportations that occur under the Alien Enemies Act do not go through the immigration court system, which provides immigrants the chance to seek relief and make their case to stay in the country.” Guantanamo Bay is not on US soil and, therefore, exempt from laws that restrict torture. The nonprofits to assist those seeking to immigrate have been defunded and shut down. Now, birthright citizenship is attacked. 

Last night, before I went to bed, I heard that the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) had passed the House. If it passes the Senate, among other things, people who have changed their names—like married women who took their husband’s last name—would be ineligible to register to vote unless they have a passport with their new name. So, in fear, I checked my own passport.

I am frightened. And the fear mounts. Less than 30 days have passed of this administration as I write this. These changes terrify me as a herald of what’s to come in the next 1430 days.