The Trump Presidency Timeline

The Trump administration has discovered a bold new national security threat: affordable, renewable energy. Doug Burgum’s Department of the Interior abruptly froze construction on five major offshore wind projects — Vineyard Wind 1, Sunrise Wind, Empire Wind, Revolution Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind — claiming the turbines might create radar "clutter" that could somehow endanger the military. This, despite Pentagon assessments under Biden that said Revolution Wind would not harm Defense Department missions, and despite the minor detail that the same administration is totally fine with oil rigs, tankers, and whatever else clutters up the ocean as long as it burns nicely.

This pause comes on the heels of a federal judge already ruling Trump’s earlier wind permit ban "arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law" — in other words, illegal cosplay masquerading as policy. So naturally, instead of complying with the law, the White House doubled down and escalated its war on wind, threatening billions in investment, thousands of jobs, and badly needed clean power just as AI-driven electricity demand spikes. Because nothing says "protecting the American people" like sabotaging cheap homegrown energy to keep a bunch of dying coal plants on taxpayer-funded life support.

Trump, who has hated wind ever since it offended the view from his Scottish golf course, summed up the intellectual rigor of the policy at a rally: "Wind is the worst… that’s a scam." In reality, wind is among the cheapest energy sources on the planet, but sure, let’s pretend the real emergency is spinning blades in the Atlantic and not the administration systematically kneecapping the country’s largest source of new renewable power. The message is clear: if it helps the climate, the grid, or consumers, this White House will find a way to call it a security risk and shut it down.

Donald Trump, America’s most famous casino theologian, has decided the real global crisis isn’t war, famine, or climate collapse—it’s the "mass slaughter" of Christians in Nigeria, which he’s helpfully pairing with threats of a U.S. invasion. Because nothing says "religious freedom" like using the Pentagon as your missions committee.

Back home, the administration is busy turning Maga Christianity into an official state religion with better branding. Trump handed Pam Bondi a shiny new taskforce to root out "anti-Christian bias," moved to "protect prayer" in public schools (translation: government-approved performative piety), and issued a memo identifying "anti-Christianity" as a potential driver of terrorism. In other words, the state is now in the business of defining which religion gets special protection and which dissenters get quietly reclassified as security threats. But sure, tell us more about how other countries are hostile to religious liberty.

The pastors in this piece are the inconvenient Christians—the ones who actually read "love thy neighbor" and thought it wasn’t a typo. While Maga preachers bless ICE raids and anti-LGBTQ+ crusades, these folks are running immigrant-support vigils in Oklahoma, escorting undocumented people to their hearings, and organizing letter campaigns to demand basic human decency from GOP officials like Kevin Stitt and James Lankford. In Minneapolis, they’re teaming up with Moms Demand Action to push for assault-weapons bans after a church shooting killed two kids, because unlike the White House, they think "thoughts and prayers" should be followed by legislation.

From Chicago protests under National Guard occupation to Florida clergy camping outside "Alligator Alcatraz" to oppose Trump’s detention dystopia, local faith leaders are doing the radical Christian thing of… acting like Christians. Meanwhile, Trump 2.0 is busy baptizing authoritarianism in holy water and calling it "religious liberty." The good news? There’s a growing movement of pastors who’ve decided that if the choice is between state-backed Maga Christianity and the actual gospel, they’re siding with the guy who talked about immigrants and the poor—not the one who sells $399 Bible bundles on Truth Social.

The Kennedy Center board has apparently decided that American arts history wasn’t humiliating enough and has voted unanimously to rename the iconic venue the Trump-Kennedy Center, according to the White House. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the move and praised the "unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building" — because nothing says cultural stewardship like stapling the name of a reality TV landlord to the memorial of a murdered president.

Leavitt then "congratulated" John F. Kennedy, assuring everyone this will be a "truly great team" going forward, as if we’ve just watched the Celtics trade for a backup power forward instead of witnessing a sitting president glue his brand onto a national performing arts institution. In other words, it’s the Trump era’s favorite genre: state-sponsored rebranding, where every public space is just another opportunity for a naming-rights grift and a little forced gratitude.

The move is expected to be wildly unpopular in Washington, DC, where the building has been an enduring landmark and memorial to Kennedy for decades — but sure, let’s pretend this is about "saving the building" and not about building the Trump cult into the architecture. Authoritarian regimes build statues; the Trump crowd just quietly rewrites the plaques and calls it a unanimous board decision.

The DNC has finished its much-hyped 2024 election ‘autopsy’ on how Kamala Harris managed to lose to Donald Trump, and has bravely decided the American public should never see it. DNC chair Ken Martin says releasing the report would be a “distraction” from winning, because nothing screams confidence in your conclusions like locking them in a drawer and throwing away the key.

According to officials, the review covers organizing, messaging, fundraising, and structural problems, and even notes that Democrats outspent Republicans at every level — in other words, they lit a mountain of cash on fire and still lost to a guy who tried to overthrow the government. But don’t worry, party insiders assure us they’re “already putting our learnings into motion,” which is consultant-speak for “trust us, we definitely read the PDF.”

The New York Times previously reported the autopsy was expected to tiptoe around the obvious questions: whether Biden should’ve run again, whether he should’ve dropped out sooner, and whether Harris was the right understudy to send onstage against a fascist game show host. A progressive group, RootsAction, released its own report blaming the loss on chasing moderates instead of energizing working-class, young, and progressive voters — so naturally that’s the one the party is ignoring while former DNC flacks celebrate the decision to keep the official findings secret as the “right call.”

So as Trump’s second-term clown car accelerates toward the Constitution, Democrats’ big takeaway from their last catastrophic loss is: no public reckoning, no transparency, just vibes and vibes-based strategy. But sure, nothing to see here — democracy will be fine as long as no one ever finds out who screwed up and how.

The Trump administration, with Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr proudly leading the charge, has unveiled its latest plan to "protect" children by cutting them off from medically recommended healthcare. HHS is rebranding gender-affirming care as "sex-rejecting procedures" — because when you can't win on science, you can always try focus-grouped slurs — and CMS will start rule-making to tell every hospital in America: if you want Medicare or Medicaid money, you don't treat trans minors. In other words, deny care or lose your funding. Very normal, very free-country behavior.

The proposal would also ban Medicaid and CHIP from covering this care at all, targeting the half of American children who rely on those programs, because nothing says "protect the vulnerable" like making sure only rich kids can even try to see a specialist. HHS is also sending FDA warning letters to breast binder manufacturers for allegedly "illegal marketing" to minors — turning basic, non-surgical support garments into a federal case, while pretending this is about safety and not about making trans kids' lives as miserable as possible.

Not content with that, HHS is moving to strip gender dysphoria of disability protections under Section 504, rolling back Biden-era recognition so schools and institutions can go back to ignoring or punishing trans students without pesky legal obligations. This all builds on Trump's earlier executive orders declaring there are only two sexes and threatening federal funds for hospitals that dare treat trans youth — a science-free culture war masquerading as policy. Meanwhile, the House, led by Marjorie Taylor Greene, just passed a bill to criminalize parents and providers who follow mainstream medical guidelines, because when you can't run a country, you can always try running a witch hunt.

HHS even produced a handy "review" declaring the evidence for gender-affirming care in minors "very low", a conclusion that just so happens to contradict basically every major US medical organization. But sure, trust RFK Jr and Donald Trump over the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is not healthcare policy; it's a federally coordinated campaign to withdraw rights, weaponize poverty, and terrorize families — all under the banner of "protecting children" from their own doctors, their own parents, and themselves.

The White House now says America would be "lucky" to have Donald Trump for a constitutionally prohibited third term, because nothing says "conservative respect for the Founders" like asking if the 22nd Amendment is more of a vibe than a rule. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson bragged that no administration has done as much in less than a year, so naturally the next step is seeing how far they can punt the whole "peaceful transfer of power" thing down the stairs.

This latest authoritarian trial balloon comes courtesy of Alan Dershowitz, who apparently looked at the crystal-clear 22nd Amendment and decided, "what if it wasn’t?" He’s written a whole book—"Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?"—because in this timeline, trying to lawyer your way around term limits is just another grifty publishing opportunity. Dersh pitched his fanfic directly to Trump in the Oval Office, then workshopped it at a White House Hanukkah party with billionaire mega-donor Miriam Adelson, who responded like someone being offered a third season of her favorite reality show: "Oh my God, I hope this can happen."

Trump’s allies are doing the usual "who, us?" routine. Speaker Mike Johnson says he "doesn’t see a path," Chief of Staff Susie Wiles insists Trump "knows he can’t run again" and is just "having fun" with the idea—meanwhile, the Trump Store is already selling "Trump 2028" hats and the donor class is on stage chanting "four more years" while Trump jokes about getting another $250 million if he "thinks about it." In other words: they’re normalizing the premise, testing the messaging, and pretending it’s all a joke right up until the moment someone decides it isn’t.

But sure, tell us again how the real threat to democracy is college kids protesting and not the president openly shopping for legal theories to stay in power past the constitutional limit while his White House calls it America’s "good luck." Totally fine, very normal, no fascism here at all.