'Horrible' ways Americans were 'sleep-marched into fascism' detailed by scholars

Critics of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, both Democrats and Never Trump conservatives, are attacking many of his actions as "power grabs" — from firing at least 15 inspectors general to a federal funding freeze that was rescinded following a vehement outcry.

Trump, critics say, is making a concerted effort to undermine the United States' system of checks and balances. And one of Trump's most scathing critics at Salon is Chauncey DeVega, who discussed Trump's first two weeks in office with a range of scholars and reporters in an article published on February 3.

"President Trump's first weeks back in office have been a whirlwind of chaos and political destruction," DeVega warns. "This is by design, and one of the central features of the 'shock and awe' strategy that Trump and his allies have been planning for years, as detailed in Project 2025 and Agenda 47, to undermine American democracy and replace it with a form of autocracy, if not outright authoritarianism."

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The Salon journalist continues, "This strategy is being rapidly enacted through such actions as the almost 100 executive orders that include voiding the 14th Amendment, declaring a national emergency for Trump's mass deportation plan, gutting the Department of Justice — seemingly as part of a plan to get revenge on his personal 'enemies' — firing inspectors generals en masse, reversing 60 years of progress in civil and human rights and freezing federal loans and grants."

Dr. Anthea Butler, who teaches religious and Black studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, also has a warning about Trump's second administration: "Buckle up folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride."

Butler told Salon, "As someone who has been speaking, writing, and cajoling people about the dangers of a Trump Administration since January 6, 2021, I am not surprised about the rapidity with which everything is moving forward. After all, I was speaking about Project 2025 in December 2023…. Knowing all of this, I think it is important to say that no matter how down or defeated by all of this, you should prepare yourself to either think about ways to participate, organize and strategize locally. It is important and the only way to prepare to push back in the midterms — if we even have midterms."

Journalist Heidi Siegmund Cuda, who writes for Byline Times, believes that Americans "were sleep-marched into fascism."

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Cuda told Salon, "Those who ignored the election are finding out about the dire reality and stakes of this situation. This is a life-and-death matter. Where I live in Southern California, we just suffered through the worst fires in our history — and the response from the Trump Administration was to weaponize our tragedy against our Democratic leaders. They are coming for any politician with empathy, who takes their public servant oath seriously — anyone who gets in their way of unbridled greed. Welcome to West Russia, where the oligarchs run the politicians and all are bandits who steal from the poor to give to the rich."

Historian/author Federico Finchelstein, who teaches at the New School for Social Research in New York City, argues that Americans are experiencing a "numbing effect" while being conditioned to accept the unacceptable and the "horrible."

Finchelstein told Salon, "What we are witnessing is an attempt to set the tone to render acceptable what is usually in normal democracies regarded as unacceptable. They want to numb the population to idiotic statements, fascist types of lies and unpredictable and illogical actions — for instance, the surreal exchange with the Colombian president and the use of tariffs to negotiate non-economic political spectacle."

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Chauncey DeVega's full article for Salon is available at this link.