nd some analysis about what is happening here in the U.S. You may be sorry that you asked.
Back in February, I shocked a Bikini Day* workshop by reporting about what could only be described as fascist assaults on U.S. constitutional democracy. Unfortunately, I was not exaggerating. Trump and his MAGA allies are in the midst of fighting a counterrevolution to consolidate white supremacy, to multiply the obscene wealth of the richest oligarchs—especially Trump and his family—in the tradition of monarchs and feudal lords, and to impose the structures and repression necessary to maintain a plutocratic, and potentially military, dictatorship.
Drawing on the foundation of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 report, from day one of Trump 2.0 ambitious and opportunistic operatives and incompetent but loyal cabinet members, Trump has excelled in further enriching himself and his cabinet while doing his best to deliver punishing retribution to all who have or will challenge him, including leading celebrities like Bruce Springsteen and Beyonce. With a firehose of Executive Orders—many either unconstitutional or illegal—Trump has sought to remake U.S. government in the kleptocratic tradition of the 1890s Gilded Age, spiked by nostalgic efforts to recreate Jim Crow apartheid, and smash-and-grab imperialism (think Greenland, Panama, and Gaza).
Trump is no intellectual shining light, but he rules in the autocratic, but less enlightened tradition of former French President De Gaulle. In 1950, soon after assuming power, De Gaulle humiliatingly upbraided a member of his cabinet by saying that the official had been appointed to his position because he was stupid, and that his stupidity ensured his loyalty.
On the subject of stupidity, just the other day Kristi Noem—the current head of Homeland Security and former governor of South Dakota who once boasted about shooting her dog—revealed her dangerous ignorance. This is the beautiful cabinet member who recently and obscenely posed in a tight sweater, pin up style, in front of hundreds of jailed and dehumanized deportees in a El Salvador gulag jail that has been compared to Nazi concentration camps. She demonstrated the truth of the Gaullist model of Trump/MAGA rule when she was asked during a Senate hearing if she knew the meaning of habeas corpus. She failed that basic test, saying that it is a law that allows the president to deport immigrants. She didn’t flinch when she was then corrected with news that it is the 13th century’s most essential and founding principle of Anglo-Saxon governance. Referred to as “show us the body,” the writ of habeas corpus established the right of anyone who has been imprisoned to come before a judge for adjudication of the legality of his or her detention. And it was written into the U.S. Constitution 250 years ago in direct response to the abuses of King George III. Without the right of habeas corpus, we are all vulnerable to arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, and of being disappeared.