Dear Trump Voter, This is the result of your vote.

As you likely know, during the first 10 days of Trump’s Negative 2.0 Presidency, he rescinded dozens of previous presidents’ (mostly Biden’s) Executive Orders, as well as creating his own, covering a range of categories below.  News summaries couldn’t convey the true essence of the rescissions and orders as well as snippets of the original text below.  Moreover, there are orders which will have broad-reaching consequences and thus were short sighted.  Here are insights and perspective on the most consequential, by topic:

Civil Rights & Diversity

In 2017, a friend who I greatly admired unfriended me, because she was a Trump supporter and felt that my posts suggested that all Trump supporters were bigots.  After a decade of listening to Trump berate, denigrate, vilify, and attack non-white-male groups, I honestly believe that anyone who supports Donald Trump must also sanction discrimination and thus bigotry.

Moreover, a vote for Trump lead him to believe that he has a mandate (see below) to enshrine bigotry into America’s DNA.  To effectuate that, on Day One he rescinded more than a dozen of President Biden’s Executive Orders meant to increase equity and reduce discrimination of marginalized or minority groups.  Here is a sampling:

“INITIAL RESCISSIONS OF HARMFUL [note propaganda] EXECUTIVE ORDERS AND ACTIONS,  Executive Order,  January 20, 2025...The following executive actions are hereby revoked:

• • “...Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government...
  • “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility [seriously] in the Federal Workforce...
  • “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation...
  • “Advancing Equity, Justice, and Opportunity for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders...
  • “White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics...
  • “White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities...
  • “Enabling All Qualified Americans To Serve Their Country in Uniform...”

>  The Trump administration also put a freeze on the Civil Rights division at the Department of Justice, halting all previous and future litigation, investigations, and agreements.

>  With regard to Women, former President Biden felt he had legal standing to make the Equal Rights Amendment the law of the land, posting it on the White House website.  However, there were legal issues with this, and the Trump administration removed the page.

> Trump also gave multiple orders eliminating DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) regulations, programming, and training, under the guise of promoting merit over race, and stating that DEI is evil, dangerous nonsense that promotes shameful discrimination against white people.

The chilling domino effect is just beginning to be felt, as impacted employees and funding recipients begin to feel the implications.  One consequence was that over 900 pages of content were removed from the Department of Education website, including information on special education.  Funding for projects considered “environmental justice” (EJ) is also now in jeopardy.  The EJ projects were implemented under Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act and impact primarily low-income and non-white communities; ironically, 78% are in Republican congressional districts.  In most cases, it is incomprehensible how the term “merit” applies to any specific ban.

Moreover, the elimination of DEI has its roots in white supremacy; stay tuned for more details on this movement.

Other rescissions and orders should leave you scratching your head:

Healthcare

Orders to rescind:

• • “...Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans...
  • “Continuing To Strengthen Americans’ Access to Affordable, Quality Health Coverage...”

Executive Orders:

• • Freezing funding and grants for the NIH & CDC, halting disease research. The NIH has a budget of $48 billion, with over 60,000 grants covering 300,000 researchers.
  • Pausing reporting from the FDA/NIH/CDC, just as concerns about domestic bird flu outbreaks are increasing.
  • Removing the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

Voting

Order to rescind:

• • “...Promoting Access to Voting...”

Climate Change & The Environment:

Order to rescind:

• • “...Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science [seriously] To Tackle the Climate Crisis...”

Executive Order:

• • Trump’s “UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY” order requires all government agencies to pause disbursement of funds for Biden’s IIJA and IRA, but only if those funds specifically facilitate implementation of the Green New Deal, which addresses climate change, the environment, and environmental justice.

The summary, on page 5 of The Green New Deal, includes things like building resiliency against climate change (highlighted once again by the L.A. fires); repairing and upgrading infrastructure (like improving access to clean air and water, thus mitigating health risks and costs associated with their subsequent pollution); plus investments in sustainable technologies which can aid communities in the transition away from non-renewable fossil fuels.  The document lists dozens of grant opportunities for communities to access funding and offer creative solutions.

The short-sightedness is astounding:  Grants have been issued, projects started, employees hired, work begun.  As projects are being halted, the impact is already being felt, not only to businesses’ bottom lines but also by laid-off workers.  Moreover, it can’t be understated that the cost of climate disaster impact and response, in terms of economic and human tolls, outweighs more than tenfold the cost of prevention.

Justice

>  First, everyone knows about the executive order to pardon the January 6, 2020 insurrectionists.  But here’s what’s alarming:

• • Trump is trying to recast the event as a “day of love” with assaults that were mostly “minor incidents.” Yet the evidence—including horrific video footage—shows that participants used a variety of objects to assault officers, including a pitch fork, tasers, a metal whip, a flag pole, slabs of wood, etc.; that over 140 officers suffered injuries including concussions, traumatic brain injuries and brain damage, PTSD, broken bones requiring surgery and rehabilitation, burns, shattered spinal discs, stabbing, heart attacks, and strokes; that there were 9 deaths as a result of the event, including Officer Sicknick who died after suffering two strokes and 4 peace officers so traumatized that they took their own lives; and that members of congress and the Vice President were traumatized and feared for their lives.
  • Trump ordered the Department of Justice to remove the database detailing the participants’ criminal cases from the government website, in a brazen attempt to silence history.

Rewriting history to recast the commander in chief in a more favorable light is what autocrats do.

>  Second, Trump ordered the firing of at least 15 Inspectors General, which are the governments’ non-partisan ethics watchdogs.  The failures of previous administrations have necessitated IGs.  This action removes important ethics guardrails for Mr. Trump and his administration, just as autocrats do to clear the way for their authoritarianism.

>  Third, Trump fired or reassigned dozens of DOJ officials.

Immigration

The true horror of Trump’s deportation plan for non-citizen immigrants is just beginning to reveal itself:  Trump’s pre-election statements that federal deportation efforts would be on undocumented criminals was a misdirect;  he now says everyone who is undocumented is a criminal.

Although there is much that can and will be said, the most glaring orders are:

• • Trump expanded arrest powers to include churches and schools; try to imagine the trauma inflicted upon school students experiencing this...
  • Trump ordered federally funded non-government agencies to suspend legal services for immigrants.
  • Trump suspended immigration cases and the CBP One app, which allows asylum seekers to monitor progress on their cases. This impacted hundreds of thousands of people, 30,000 of whom already had scheduled hearings.

The story not being told by Fox et al is that non-citizen immigrants are an essential part of the factory and agricultural worker segments, who take jobs many Americans don’t want.  They contribute approximately $100 billion annually in taxes, as well as support local economies through the purchase of goods and services.

Foreign Relations

Trump ordered a halt to all foreign aid, with some exceptions still in flux.  The big picture is that we give aid to stabilize foreign governments and establish trade partners, to support humanitarian efforts and improve global health, and provide emergency aid during war and famine.  These efforts improve our standing on the world stage.  Removing foreign aid allows other countries, (like Russia and China) which may not share our priorities, to step in and take our place, threatening our global partnerships and national security.

Domestic Spending

A freeze was put on all federal spending for grants and loans.  But public pressure was swift, as people felt the immediate impact of suspended government financial assistance and programs and then expressed worry about impending program closures and lay-offs.  Portions of the freeze are being lifted.

More alarming is that Trump broke the law:  He can’t order a blanket withholding of spending, under the Impoundment Control Act.  Congress holds the purse strings, so Trump must ask Congress to reconsider a specific spending appropriation, which temporarily halts the funding for 45 days while Congress reconsiders the matter.

Trump has fired IGs and justice department officials and tried to usurp Congress’s spending authority, in a blatant attempt to weaken our government’s checks and balances.  This is what autocrats do to consolidate power.

~~~~~~

As I re-examine these orders, one thing jumps out at me:  Lots of people will be losing their jobs.

So, Trump voters, this is what you voted for, but is it what you wanted?  If not, then you better speak up now—before our democracy turns into an autocracy.