The golden age of America has only just begun.
Despite the insistence that Trump’s return to office
would be a repeat of the incompetent first term,
even while Trump and his allies told us exactly what they planned to do;
despite the liberal assurance that Trump could not possibly win,
while ignoring the fact that Israel’s genocide on Gaza
was driving potential voters away;
despite people’s belief that the institutions of the American state
are strong enough to right themselves after an attack from the inside,
which can only be an anomaly—
Trump took power by a narrow margin
and began dismantling the constitutional state.
Following Steve Bannon’s strategy to “flood the zone,”
using the blueprints of Project 2025,
his attack has taken the form of an unceasing series
of executive orders and sacking of government officials,
with the sheer number of both driving many people into inactive despair.
But this attack has also led many commentators
to insist on the fact that not all of these orders
will become actual policy or law,
that the policies will be defeated in court,
and that the storied institutions of the US state
can withstand this assault.
However these commentators did not keep in mind
the fact that the law and the constitution are imaginary,
only effective to the extent they are enforced and obeyed.
With the removal of officials
and the anticipatory rush of people to obey
his racist, misogynist, anti-trans, and eviscerating economic plans
even before they become official policy,
his orders now become fact.
There is still the potential obstacle of incompetence
in the fact that the bureaucratic replacements are loyalists
but not experienced,
but this roadblock isn’t assured.
It is possible his administration has success in consolidation of power
and instigates some form of further devastation.
That consolidation relies at least partially on obedience—
not only by these loyalists,
but also by opposition politicians, the so called resistance,
and the rest of us.
Equally unexpected was the oversized role Elon Musk would play
as a kind of shadow executive behind Trump.
While both of them are basically incompetent rulers,
they do have a destructive drive for power
that reflects a narcissistic glee in seeing their orders become fact.
Trump is clearly in mental and charismatic decline,
while Musk, who lacks any kind of appeal except to online incels,
has used bogus claims of inefficiency
based on incorrect interpretation of government information
to dismantle any benefits the state affords its so-called citizens,
and to bend the state to serve his own endless search for profit and glory.
We could go through all of the cabinet appointees
who foreshadow eviscerating policies
that will destroy education,
public health and civil liberties.
None of these people are competent
or have ideas that reflect any kind of ideal democratic public good.
It’s almost comical the extent to which these people are evil villains
driven by the hatred of anyone who isn’t a Christian patriot.
The mask is fully off
and those in power no longer even pretend
a reverence for the foundational US ideals—
besides racism.
And even the Christian soldiers
stand to lose the little they have
with the ongoing economic downturn
and Trump’s threats to undermine the global economy that relies on the US dollar.
As in other countries,
trans people have become a lightning rod
for grabs at authoritarian power—
though the specific violent ways of targeting trans people
might vary place to place.
Like abortion,
the right wing in the US has used
anti-trans talking points and legislation
to rally a chunk of the population
to direct their resentment at a minute percentage of the population,
with the aim of opening the door
for direct control over people’s bodies
and reproductive capabilities.
Paired with attacks on migrants,
trans people have become the target of white resentment—
where most of the US population
finds life harder and harder,
less pay and higher prices,
living off debt,
with little to no access to reliable health care,
and poor prospects all around,
they follow the claim led by politicians
on the right and left
that “these” people
(such as trans people, migrants)
are somehow receiving freedoms
at the expense of the white majority.
In the wake of attacks on migrants and trans people
there has also been a dismantling of any policies
that support Black people,
people of color, disabled people, and so on—
racism collapsed into the shadow of the so called woke, or DEI.
Immediately upon taking office,
Trump issued a proclamation against “gender ideology,”
the catchall term invented to encompass
any form of transness in the name of protecting women.
If we read the convoluted language of this executive order,
we can identify a paradox of this expansion of executive power,
which perhaps also points to a way for us to sneak by.
The executive order frames itself as protecting women
from the attack of gender.
In the US,
there is a long history of “defending women”—
that is, white women—
in order to excuse murderous policies,
typically against Black people, immigrants, people of color, gays.
We can see in this language too
the nascent attack on education,
as the order locates what they claim
is an undermining of biology and scientific fact
in phrases that echo queer theory.
The executive order reads:
“This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack
against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding
of biological and scientific terms,
replacing the immutable biological reality of sex
with an internal, fluid and subjective sense of self
unmoored from biological facts.”
Instead, they claim that,
“basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry,
public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.”
People have pointed out the irony of this administration
calling on science to back up this claim,
as they are also willing to oppose so-called objective scientific facts
for other purposes like rejecting vaccines and other effective medicines.
The ridiculousness has extended in new legislation attempts and court cases
to define gender as formed “at conception,”
which is of course a bait and switch
of Christian fascism with pseudoscience.
As this mimics language that opposes abortion,
we see these attacks as the bald attempts at fascist control
over the “health” of the nation’s population.
But this lengthy and jumbled order
also shows to us the impotence of the state to regulate gender,
except by force.
As they say themselves in this order,
“The erasure of sex in language and policy
has a corrosive impact not just on women
but on the validity of the entire American system.”.
Transition is a kind of minor freedom,
sometimes accessed through state institutions,
that points to routes for escape,
an ungovernability.
There is a clear violence in moving incarcerated trans people
from the prisons that match their gender
to incorrect prisons
where they will be subjected to more violence and control.
There is also violence
in removing trans people of all ages
from access to healthcare.
There is a violence in reverting government documents to assigned gender,
creating a visual dissonance between the body and the document
that makes trans people vulnerable
to the forces of the state at different crossing points.
Though in the US,
we have had a few years where transition was made more possible
through open and overt means,
and trans people were gaining more representation and paths to assimilation,
there is a long history of trans people
navigating their needs in and out of state institutions
and sharing knowledge and resources
to reproduce our lives and the possibilities of transition.
This history, which is still present,
like with abortion care,
is where I take my inspiration for the moment.
At this point,
it is undeniable that the edifice of the US state
has irrevocably crumbled .
We are not going back to how it was before,
there will be no return to normal,
except in an adaptation and acceptance of this implementation
of a more direct and overt fascism.
We should not be ignorant of the fact
that the last 50 plus years
have been a right wing gathering
of resources, policies, positions
to instantiate this authoritarian rule
that strips any protections and benefits from the state.
While this counterrevolution is violent
and does not follow our dreams and wishes,
it still is a rupture where we can take action.
Instead of a top-down view
that sees our lives completely determined by what is going on in government,
we take inspiration in the ongoing networks
of mutual aid and resource sharing
that allow for our lives to continue regardless of the regime.
We also can draw strength
from the increasing frequency of uprisings
and the learning process of more and more youth
about how to fight in the streets.
There will be suffering and repression,
but there are clear weaknesses in Trump’s moves at this moment
that can offer us opportunities for care and rebellion.
Don’t forget what operates in the dark.
Don’t forget the damage affinity groups can do.
Don’t forget the spontaneous eruptions
where people come together regardless of politics or identity markers
to wreak havoc on the cities that try to contain us
(unless authoritarian leftists sap our energy).
We have recent memory of fighting
and getting each other’s back,
we can ramp up the militancy
and prepare for a future where we know that we will need each other
because there is no one but us.