Kick. Scream. Go Apeshit.
The coup is finished. We are not.
On Thursday, Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Department of Education refused to answer whether or not Donald Trump had effectively outlawed Black history.
Responding to questioning from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) during hearings before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Secretary of Education nominee Linda McMahon said she didn’t know things. She wasn’t sure if a K-12 school’s African-American history class would violate Donald Trump’s executive order to withhold funding from schools that engage in “discriminatory equity ideology.” McMahon — a longtime advocate for eliminating the Department of Education — also indicated that it wasn’t clear if the order effectively banned organizations like the National Society of Black Engineers.
She also didn’t seem to know that her boss had already announced his intentions to dismantle the DoE during the swearing in of Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence.
That same day, a few minutes after conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services, a 25-year-old henchman walked into the Internal Revenue Services and hijacked the agency responsible for collecting tax revenue.
Gavin Kliger, a top aide of unelected, unconfirmed Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk, ostensibly met with the IRS to “examine the agency’s operations,” according to Reuters. But Kliger is the same employee who led the agency’s gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Despite having no security clearance, Klige was also granted access to the Consumer Protection Bureau’s internal system just before Musk announced plans for a payment system that the CFPB would have regulated.
On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance the nomination of Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director who bragged about having an “enemies list.” Hours later, a four-day dispute between the Trump administration and the Associated Press came to a head when the White House barred two credentialed AP journalists from covering an official event by the executive branch of the U.S. government.
“The administration has blocked the AP from covering a handful of events at the White House this week, including a news conference with India’s leader and several times in the Oval Office,” the AP reported. “It’s all because the news outlet has not followed Trump’s lead in renaming the body of water, which lies partially outside U.S. territory, to the ‘Gulf of America.’”
And today, a week after firing the head of the National Archives, Donald Trump finally gained control of history.
It is finished.
It is all but guaranteed that McMahon will be confirmed, which means a woman who wants to destroy federal oversight of the education system will soon oversee the American education system. An anti-vaxxer who does not believe in controlling diseases is now in charge of the Centers for Disease Control. A woman who might be a spy is in charge of America’s spy network. And, while the “Department of Government Efficiency” sounds very official, there is no legislation outlining DOGE’s authority or structure or congressional oversight of DOGE. It’s just Elon Musk.
One Nazi-saluting billionaire has unfettered access to the entire U.S. Treasury, every single Social Security number and the tax records of every American citizen. By strong-arming the press and controlling the departments of justice, education and revenue, they have seized control of the past, present and future.
The coup has already happened.
I’m not trying to be an alarmist. In fact, I tend to generally lean toward optimism. But because I also have eyes and ears and common sense, it would be insane to think that the story of Trump’s first three weeks in office has an alternate ending that does not involve authoritarian oligarchs controlling the federal government. Again, all this happened in one week. Trump has been in office for 26 days. I am not a pessimist or a doomsdayer; I just can’t think of any other logical outcome other than what has already happened. Or, maybe he’ll change over the next three years, 11 months and four days.
Oh, wait … This just happened:
Never mind.
Forget about the Democrats’ messaging and their feckless performative public condemnations. The mainstream press is made up of cowards. Fuck rallies and boycotts. Goddamned a lawsuit. Those tactics might be effective measures to combat a takeover in progress, but tweeting disapproval or chanting “shame” cannot reverse the ever-moving hands of time. The authoritarian government we feared is already here.
As the great political philosopher and orator Sheree Whitfield said: “Who gon’ check [them], boo?”
Us.
We have always been the answer. The country that declared “all men are created equal” did zero things to prevent the most inhumane system of human subjugation in the history of the planet. A Black woman understood the assignment nearly a decade before a bunch of white men began drafting the U.S. Constitution. If they had listened to Elizabeth Freeman and ended slavery, the nation wouldn’t have had to engage in the bloodiest period of white-on-white violence in the history of the continent.
Black soldiers fought disproportionately in World War II, and white men lost their lives because the country didn’t listen to the Black journalists. The Black press’s Double V campaign probably sounded crazy when they explained how to kill Hitler and Jim Crow before America entered the war.
We built this ContrabandCamp because we know no one else is coming to save us. What’s more, we understand that we sound crazy, understand that America is crazy. That’s the entire point.
This week, on ContrabandCamp, we explained why Kendrick Lamar upset more white people than Donald Trump’s policies. Our “Primary Sources” series unwhitewashed the Montgomery bus boycott to illustrate how individual acts of resistance can change the world. Angela Rye gave us a cheat code for political change. Monique Judge explained Pete Hegseth’s absurd plan to rename Fort Bragg, and Stephen Crockett exposed the menace of Elon Musk. Jason Johnson calmed fears of a “woke” Captain America, and we explain why Black art makes white people uncomfortable.
The Nazis and the fascists are already here.
While that may sound fatalistic or absurd, ContrabandCamp is here to let you know you are not crazy. You should be kicking. You should be screaming at the top of your lungs. There is nothing your political allies, your elected officials, and your favorite social media influencers can do to reign them in.
To be fair, no one has ever cared. We have always saved ourselves. Our voices, our commitment to the truth and our collective humanity is all we’ve ever had. We sacrificed our lives for a military that did not protect us and fought for a Constitution that did not include us. Yet, in the 248-year history of this former quasi-democracy, we have never surrendered.
Not one single time.
This is why we built a ContrabandCamp.
We gon’ check them, boo.
OK, I’ve been lurking (unpaid subscriber), but this one got me to upgrade to a paid subscription. I needed the hope tempered with cold, hard realism and this piece delivered. Thank you!
✅