Interesting Times
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Carrying on.
I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis your friendly neighborhood climate journalist. And, oh yeah, we are in the middle of a coup.
It feels strange to write that. And yet, tens of thousands of people across the United States have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest the takeover of our government by outside actors.
In other words, a coup.
People have likely already begun to die in service of this coup. Cancer patients have had treatment halted, children deprived food, TB drugs were left rotting in warehouses. They forced one USAID worker to abandon their post so quickly, they left behind their family dog.
These are all we have to show from the efforts of Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency." I'm using quotes because it is not an actual federal department. It's a data mining operation intent on stealing the country's information while enacting their racist, eugenicist fever dream.
It's also inefficient.
Big, growing crowd just west of the U.S. Capitol protesting Trump, Musk and DOGE on President’s Day. “Hey Congress, grow a spine,” they shout, gathering for a rally around the reflecting pool.
— Alejandro Alvarez (@alvarezreports.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T17:19:07.262Z
They fired nuclear weapons workers because they did not know that they worked on nuclear weapons. They're trying to hire them back but they failed to secure workers personal emails before kicking them out of their work emails. They don't know how to reach them. Do you feel safe knowing the nation's nuclear arsenal is currently held together with only the finest of filaments? I sure don't.
They’ve fired hundreds of FAA workers only two weeks after the deadliest plane crash in the US since 2001. Early evidence suggests that staffing shortages were a problem, so yes, let’s cut even more workers. Elon - who again was not elected, has not done proper security clearance - said his company SpaceX can do that work. What is the dictionary definition of (alleged) graft?
DOGE also left a database open on their website allowing anyone with the know how the ability to post to their website. They have leaked classified information. They've had occupational safety handbooks destroyed (that workers keep dying at Musk's companies is likely unrelated). They've halted payments to farmers. And they've blown past their own deadline - twice - that they promised to show people "receipts" of how much money they've “saved." When they finally did post information late on Monday many of their “savings” involved cutting essential programs like firing FDA inspectors which is akin to say that you’re saving money by not eating. Sure, but you’re also killing yourself.
The protest in Santa Fe is aimed at much at #ElonMusk as at #DonaldTrump. Maybe it’s a huge error to have put a weirdo fascist billionaire from South Africa in charge of the US government.
— Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) (@spencerwindes.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T19:39:35.451Z
Where they have succeeded is in stealing information, firing thousands of workers - including those trying to help halt climate change - and expanding corruption. Oh, and raiding your IRS files. These files are normally so private that an ex-IRS contractor who leaked Trump's IRS data was sentenced to five years in prison. An IRS worker simply disclosing that someone filed a tax return could be prosecuted. But Musk and his DOGE team which includes people like Marko Elez, who last July tweeted "I was racist before it was cool," get access to your income, your bank account, your address. When the WSJ uncovered Elez's tweets he resigned but this week he was rehired.
On Friday, in what some are calling the Valentine's Day massacre, at least six DOJ officials resigned because they refused to drop federal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Adams. Trump had agreed to drop the charges - without prejudice meaning he could bring them back if Adams steps out of line - in exchange for Adams agreeing to help Trump terrorize immigrants. When three DOJ officials resigned in 1973, in what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre, and Congress impeached Nixon. Now we're being made to feel like it's just another Friday.
Union Square rally.
— Paula Schaap (@redsonja.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T18:29:38.449Z
If this is news to you it's because (and it pains me to admit this as a member of the press), the media is failing at its job. I will note there are a few bright spots, Wired has done admirable work, ProPublica has been killing it, so has 404 Media, so has Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket. But, broadly, my industry has been giving people the facts but not the context to help them connect dots to see the full picture. To understand what I mean read this story on Gavin Clinger's now deleted Substack post about why he joined DOGE.
It's impossible to read that piece and grasp that Clinger was radicalized by the writings of a Holocaust denier who hated Black people and thought KKK murders garnered too much news attention. While some outlets are getting it right - Mother Jones covered Clinger's views in detail for example - most are doing the above. Clinger, by the way, has access to your IRS data.
This is a fundamental reshaping of the United States by white supremacists with no real oversight or democratic involvement. The world is working in ways to protect themselves from the US and if the country doesn't arrest the slide, it will be a failed state.
And most people - especially if they rely on TV news for their information - don't know.
Much of the news are treating this as normal politics and not a complete arresting and undermining of democracy. The executive branch has fallen, the judiciary is trying its best to hold the line.
A couple of days ago Trump wrote on his Truth Social Network, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law." Napoleon is thought to have said it shortly before he crowned himself emperor. But it’s a quote that was most recently made famous in 2011 by Anders Behring Breivik, the white supremacist terrorist who carried out the worst mass murder in Norwegian history. Breivik killed 77 people, many of them children, on an attack at a summer camp. Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order granting only the attorney general or the president the authority to interpret laws executed by the executive branch essentially crowning himself king.
You need to tell your friends in family regardless of political affiliation what is happening in plain non-partisan terms.
Ask them: why has Elon Musk's DOGE raided the IRS to get access to your tax information? Why does he have access to your social security number? Why does he have your bank account information? And remind them that DOGE is mostly staffed with inexperienced workers who can barely work the code they’re tasked with changing, not accountants or people who understand finance. Tell them that a 19-year-old who goes by Big Balls, is a Senior Advisor.
These are issues you should bring to your legislators too. The website 5Calls has tools - including scripts - for you to reach out to your elected officials. And while the media has normalized only Democrats being expected to do something, if you live in a red state or a red county it’s just as important to call your GOP officials. If Mitch McConnell can switch sides in defense of ::checks notes:: stopping polio, yours can too with the goal of preserving the Union. Because that’s what’s at stake.
There is also a document making the rounds (which if I am honest have not fully vetted) around steps you can take beyond protesting and voting.
I had planned to build this newsletter around sharing some of my writings, climate change explainers, and so on. And I will, but ignoring that we're in the middle of a coup, seems an abdication of my journalistic duty.
So, expect more of both climate and coup content from me. That is unless I wind up in jail. Musk has already called for the jailing of journalists.
Additional Reading
“I’m a disabled vet and the only thing I ever asked for from this country was this job, and they took it,” said the former EPA employee, who fought back tears. “I made all the money for my family. We don’t know what we’re going to do.”
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