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The Three Key Plot Points for Understanding Trump’s First Week in Office

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For regular readers, the events of this week likely did not come as a surprise. Trump and, more importantly, the gang of nativist ideologues he empowered around him, have begun executing their radical reimaging of America viewed through the prism of the white nationalist great replacement theory. Just as we reported, they have begun doing exactly what they kept telling their base they would day and day out on the campaign trail, even if they dodged those specifics when addressing the non-converted.

The predictability of their radical approach, however, doesn’t make it any less disturbing. Donald Trump’s first week after returning to power was sweeping in its extremism, signing executive order after executive order driven not by concerns for public safety or elevating the stresses of working families, but instead a politics of retribution and weaponizing nativist fear as a means to sell a larger authoritarian project while releasing a massive gang of violent criminals back into the streets with a charge to menace his perceived enemies. 

Needless to say, it was a long week of drinking water out of a firehose. But while the details are important, here are the three pieces for how we are processing this week:  

  • Billionaire GOP megadonor and unconfirmed Trump administration official Elon Musk did a Nazi salute during an official inaugural event and displayed a powerful symbolic summary of the week. 
  • Trump released 1,500 violent criminals back onto the streets, issuing blanket pardons or clemency to supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, including extremist group leaders who were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the United States and rioters who brutally assaulted law enforcement officers, leaving some with traumatic injury and PTSD, sending a gruesome signal about permission for political violence if it’s on behalf of Trump’s enemies.  
  • Trump thrilled white nationalists by signing orders seeking to end to birthright citizenship (which fortunately has already been temporarily blocked by a federal judge), enabling the arrests of hardworking immigrant moms and dads, and declaring a national emergency based on the deadly “invasion” lie.

MUSK’S NAZI SALUTE

White nationalists were also thrilled at the actions of billionaire row member Elon Musk this week. During a post-inauguration event, the unconfirmed Trump official twice raised his hand in highly questionable hand salute used by Nazis while at a podium emblazoned with the official seal of the president of the United States. You can check it out for yourself below:

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Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-01-20T19:58:05.706Z

The shocking display at the sanctioned event – which coincided with the commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day – was “about as unsubtle as it gets” but was quickly sanitized by “right-wing hacks and corporate media,” New York Times contributor Wajahat Ali wrote at his “The Left Hook” newsletter. New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, for example, came to Musk’s defense and claimed during her U.N. Ambassador nomination hearing that “he did not do those salutes.” But this shouldn’t come at any shock. Last year, Stefanik refused to condemn Trump for repeatedly parroting the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler, and, like Musk, is herself a promoter of deadly white nationalist conspiracy theory. Experts on facism and the far-right, however, were unequivocal about Musk’s actions at the official event.

“Historian of fascism here,” Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat wrote at Bluesky. “It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too.” Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said in a statement condemning Trump’s extreme day one actions that Musk’s “engaging in what appeared to be a Nazi salute at a Trump rally provides more encouragement and validation to the extreme right.” Die Zeit, a top German newspaper founded by a number of anti-Nazi journalists, was unambiguous. “A Hitler salute is a Hitler salute is a Hitler salute,” read the headline shared by journalist Daniel Nichanian. Charlotte Knobloch, a Jewish leader in Germany, “described the gesture as ‘highly disconcerting,’” The Guardian reported. “But she said it was not as significant as Musk’s recent attempts to meddle in German politics, where he has endorsed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland ahead of next month’s federal election.” NBC News reported that AfD “has been frozen out of mainstream German politics, in part, because its leaders have downplayed Nazi atrocities.” 

Die Zeit, a prominent German publication, titles its article: 'A Hitler salute is a Hitler salute is a Hitler salute.'

Taniel (@taniel.bsky.social) 2025-01-21T17:22:55.702Z

Musk’s salute, subsequent defense by Trump allies like Stefanik, and continued place in his administration after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into his 2024 victory is a disturbing indicator of how deeply committed it remains to using neo-nationalism as justification for their authoritarian designs. 

Musk’s Nazi salute didn’t directly affect the policy shift of the new administration’s first week but it still acted as a powerful simulacrum of a march towards an oligarchical, nationalist authoritarianism that this week represents.    

TRUMP RELEASES VIOLENT JAN. 6 INSURRECTIONISTS AND COP-BEATERS

During his first week in office, Trump also issued a blanket pardon or clemency to roughly 1,500 radicalized supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol at his direction on January 6 in a doomed, last-ditch effort to overturn the rightful results of the 2020 presidential election. Among the violent individuals who have already been released or are set to be released back into American communities by Trump and complicit Congressional Republicans include extremist group leaders who were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the United States and rioters who brutally assaulted law enforcement officers, leaving some with traumatic injury and PTSD. At least four officers who responded to the attacks that day subsequently died by suicide. In an unhinged official statement, the Trump White House claimed that the order to release the Jan. 6 insurrectionists “ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation.” Just hours earlier during his inaugural address, Trump also claimed that his administration would “restore fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law,” as well as “bring law and order back to our cities.”  

But those released by this so-called “law and order” president this week include Oath Keeper and Proud Boys leaders who were convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to years in prison. Already, one insurrectionist who was alleged by a judge to have carried out “some of the most violent and serious offenses of any of the charges being brought against participants” was rearrested on gun charges just one day after his release by Trump. The defendant had previously been convicted of domestic violence, People reported

The message of these pardons is clear: vigilante violence on behalf of Trump’s enemies will not be punished. This will create an ongoing serious public safety threat for all Americans. But this threat is particularly acute for those who violent vigilantes or unscrupulous law enforcement officers perceive to be one of those foreign “invaders” the president claims are lurking just around every corner. 

The downstream consequences of no consequences for deadly violence if it is on behalf of Trump and his enemies is hard to overstate, as America’s Voice Senior Research Director Zachary Mueller noted. “Trump unleashed violent 1,500 criminals on the streets,” he noted at Bluesky. “Clemency for Oath Keepers, Proud Boys fuels extremism threat, experts say,” read one headline from The Washington Post. In just two examples of how extremists are feeling emboldened, KKK members distributed anti-immigrant flyers in Kentucky, The Guardian reported. In California, multiple United Farm Workers offices received letters calling for reporting “illegal aliens” at locations including schools and churches.

At the same time, Trump and his allies have misleadingly framed the Ken Paxton Empowerment Act, a.k.a the Laken Riley Act, as a public safety issue. But none of the bill or debate is about public safety, law and order, and national security. Not when Trump has released 1,500 dangerous criminals from behind bars back onto our streets. 

EXTREME FIRST-DAY EXECUTIVE ORDERS PROMOTING CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND ATTACKING BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP AND WORKING PARENTS

Trump’s day one avalanche of promised executive orders were more about advancing disorder, nativist divisions, and scapegoating immigrants than about lowering the costs of groceries, childcare, and housing for working families. As noted by America’s Voice Senior Research Director Zachary Mueller in a Bluesky thread earlier this week, the sum total of the decrees were “a declaration that they believe they get to decide who is a ‘real American,’ assaulting the Constitution to redefine the bounds of citizenship and using their neo-nationalism as justification for their authoritarian designs.” We could expect dozens and even hundreds more executive orders.

Decrees signed by Trump after taking office attacked the Constitution by targeting the 14th Amendment – which first granted citizenship to freed slaves and has defined citizenship in the United States for the last 150 years – to radically redefine who gets to be an American. The national emergency order employed the replacement theory concept, asserting that immigrants constitute a literal military “invasion.” This should worry everyone, as it could be used as an excuse to carry out mass roundups, including of Americans exercising their right to peacefully assemble. 

What is happening here must not be overlooked. The president of the United States is invoking a blatantly false white nationalist conspiracy theory to inform his public policy. He is using this racist lie to claim we are at war. His evidence isn’t fuzzy photos of alleged weapons of mass destruction, it is desperate families feeling for their lives, seeking a legal path to asylum on US shores. Some of history’s darkest chapters begin with the idea of going to war with imaginary enemies. 

And, in opposition to Trump’s claims of law and order, rescinded common sense immigration enforcement guidelines that formerly prioritized individuals who were convicted of serious criminal charges or were deemed to be a risk to public safety. Rather than targeting actual public safety risks, hardworking moms and dads of American citizen children are now a prime target for “bloody” mass deportation. On Thursday, a Reagan-appointed federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”

“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades,” Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is.”

Border Patrol raids targeting California’s agricultural heartland one day after Trump’s 2024 win was certified by Congress also offered a terrifying preview of the administration’s nativist agenda, including the stalking of immigrants outside of stores popular among farmworkers and the arrest and detention of a Latino U.S. citizen. And, in another telling sign of the actual scope of who will be targeted by the new administration, Trump also rescinded long-standing guidance that previously barred raids at schools, hospitals, and houses of worship. The decision was rebuked by faith leaders including El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration. “The end of the Department of Homeland Security’s sensitive locations policy strikes fear into the heart of our community,” he said, “cynically layering a blanket of anxiety on families when they are worshiping God, seeking health care and dropping off and picking up children at school.” 

And, in a courageous sermon that has now made her a target of despicable attacks from the White House and its allies, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde made an impassioned plea to Trump “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now … Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”