🗓️ 30 days of chaos

Trump spent the first month of his second term illegally attacking federal programs through the new Department of Government Efficiency, and having surprise news conferences nearly every day to announce another terrible (and probably illegal) idea. These are some of the biggest issues to come up since the inauguration:

📍Executive orders and legal challenges

On his first day alone, Donald Trump signed 26 executive orders compared to 33 in the first 100 days of his first term. Many of these were focused on immigration, trans rights, and dismantling federal programs. In total, during his first month, he signed 73 executive orders, made 23 proclamations, and issued 12 official memos. There are currently more than 75 law suits against his executive actions. These are some of the major challenges against Trump right now:

• Immigration

  • Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship was rejected in court because it violates the citizenship clause in the 14th Amendment.

  • Trump’s attempt to suspend access to asylum seekers at the southwest border is being challenged in court by the ACLU for bypassing Congress.

  • Trump issued a memo detailing his plans to house immigrants in Guantanamo Bay, but a federal judge blocked the transfer of three people to the facility earlier this month.

• Trans rights

  • Trump ordered the federal government to only recognize two genders, as well as prevent transgender women from serving time in women’s prisons and end gender-affirming care in federal prisons. Trans inmates are fighting this in court for violating equal protection rights, due process protections and cruel and unusual punishment clauses.

  • Trump signed an executive order banning transgender troops from openly serving in the military, which faces a lawsuit for being a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee.

  • Trump signed an executive order banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports. On Feb. 12, two teenage trans girls in New Hampshire challenged the order in court for violating equal protection and Title IX rights.

• Federal programs and DOGE

  • Trump signed several executive orders to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government and companies with government contracts. There are lawsuits against these orders for suppressing free speech and presidential overreach for bypassing Congress to defund programs illegally.

  • The Trump administration fired 17 inspectors general without giving Congress the legally required 30 days’ notice. Eight of the inspectors general sued the Trump administration as a result.

  • Trump’s executive order to establish the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was immediately challenged for creating a nongovernmental agency that isn’t in compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Trump was also sued for allowing Elon Musk and DOGE to access sensitive taxpayer information through the Treasury Department.

  • Trump has also been sued for issuing a sweeping memo to freeze federal funding, laying off employees at USAID, and offering a buyout to federal employees across agencies.

If you want to stay up-to-date on these cases, this full list of legal challenges from U.S. News & World Report is updated regularly.

📍Disastrous cabinet picks

Ironically (and hypocritically), Trump published an executive order to dismantle DEI programs and “restore merit-based opportunity,” but his cabinet is full of loyalty picks who don’t actually have the experience required to run the federal government. Some of his most controversial choices have already been approved by Congress:

🏥 Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr., is so bad for the job that even Mitch McConnell voted no, but he was still confirmed with a 52-48 vote. He’s bee pushing the lie that vaccines cause autism for years, and has gotten backlash from scientists for his takes on everything from fluoride to raw milk. Despite that, he was chosen to lead federal government agencies on health care and public health, including Medicare and Medicaid, the Food and Drug Administration, and the CDC and NIH. He will also oversee the approval of new vaccines.

💣 Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is a former Fox News host and rightwing personality who has said women should not serve in combat roles and faced allegations of sexual assault and alcoholism. He also got exposed for having multiple white supremacist and neo-Nazi tattoos. Before the confirmation hearings, Hegseth declined to meet with Democratic members of the Senate armed services committee. Despite this, almost every single Republican supported his nomination leading to a 50-50 tie which was broken by Vice-President JD Vance.

🔎 Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has no experience working for an intelligence agency. Both Democrats and Republicans expressed concern over her past comments defending Russia and Syrian leaders, yet she was still confirmed by a 52-48 vote. Gabbard will be in charge of 18 U.S. spy agencies and oversee roughly $100 billion in intelligence programs.

🚔 FBI Director Kash Patel is at least a former defense department chief of staff and ex-federal prosecutor, but has still has a history of promoting conspiracy theories, defending January 6 rioters, and threatening to come after journalists. He denied having a list of “deep state enemies” during his confirmation hearing, but The Trump administration has fired several high-ranking officials and demanded FBI leadership compile a list of employees involved in the January 6 investigations, indicating an oncoming political purge, which could happen with a MAGA loyalist in the role.

📍Tariffs and inflation

Donald Trump promised repeatedly during his campaign to reduce prices for Americans on day one – but he backpedaled weeks after the election saying that it’s not so easy after all. Since the inauguration, Donald Trump has put sweeping tariffs on every country that we trade with, devastating our relationships with allies like Canada and Mexico, while also causing inflation. In fact, prices rose 0.5% for consumers last month and wholesale prices are even more elevated, meaning things could get worse still.

Even though eggs and gas were two major talking points during the election, prices are up for both. Trump also said he has plans to introduce steeper tariffs specifically on autos, pharmaceuticals and chips.’ The US Fed warned that his tariff plan will make inflation worse.

🔐 How to fight the power privately

Trump has promised to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, jail his political foes and journalists, and further restrict abortion and transgender rights. While it’s important to speak up against all of these policies and exercise civil disobedience where possible, it’s also important to do it safely and protect yourself from exposure to prosecution or consequences at work. The United States has a famously robust surveillance network but there are steps you can take to protect your privacy digitally:

📍Encrypted Messaging

It’s not very smart or safe to organize publicly. Posts on social media can obviously be seen by police or your job, but even DMs on apps like X, Instagram, and Telegram are not totally protected. Even though they claim to be “private,” those apps use basic encryption to hide the content of your messages until they reach company servers, where they are decrypted and stored before passing along to the recipient. This means they are technically vulnerable and could be accessed or shared with law enforcement by anyone with access.

Services with end-to-end encryption are your safest bet for digital organizing - look for apps like iMessage, Signal and WhatsApp which keep the messages encrypted even after they reach company servers, so no one can access the content – not even the company itself.

📍VPNs, Private Browsers, and Location Data

Your browsing history, location data, and the purchases you make can incriminate you too. Luigi Mangione’s digital footprint was a huge talking point after his arrest for allegedly shooting the United Health CEO, and people have used everything from his reading lists to the memes he liked to paint a portrait of who they think he is. Even the backpack he was wearing was tracked down, and the company that sold it came under fire for possibly tipping police off about his identity. If – god forbid – you end up arrested at a protest or harmed by police for your activism, you don’t want the media to use that information to create a narrative against you.

You may not need to download anything new. Many basic browsers have privacy modes, and some like Firefox have default features designed to make it harder to track you from website to website and create a digital profile of your activity. There are other browsers dedicated to privacy features too – Vivaldi, Tor and DuckDuckGo have all gained popularity for their built-in encryption standards.

A private browser will only protect your internet history though, and you may need to protect your identity and location in apps like maps or email.That’s where a VPN comes into play. A VPN bounces all your device activity off of a server that obscures your location and device IP address from your service provider so your activity can’t be traced to you directly. The Freedom Press has a great guide for picking a VPN that can protect your identity and location data while you access restricted websites, and has a lot of detail about what to consider when choosing between apps like ExpressVPN or NordVPN.

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