The Purge
From a Google Image Search - News from the States - Congressional leaders blocked
As a freshman in college my history prof assigned us a book called The Anatomy of Revolution by Crane Britton. The book offers an in-depth look at four revolutions and discusses the uniform stages revolutions seem to go through. Of course, this is not to say that what America is experiencing right now is a classic example of a revolution, but since a coup is a kind of revolution the stages of even a relatively peaceful coup are like those of a revolution, perhaps with minimal bleeding. Clearly changes are being made within our federal government which do not have the backing of all Americans. Trump, with the help of the Republican Party, has divided America into an extreme right wing (Trumpers) and what he consistently denigrates as an extreme left (the Libs).
Once a coup or revolution succeeds in tossing out the seated government, perhaps by subverting voting to produce the desired result, or through some violent overthrow, Britton tells us, a purge usually follows. We are seeing this stage right now in America. Trump's first coup attempt on January 6, 2020, was unsuccessful and he went into exile at Mar-a-Lago and his other golf courses. Soon he was back out talking to his "cult" members at rallies, keeping alive the choice to run for the presidency again. (Letting an insurrectionist run for office again was our true constitutional crisis, although our documents offered no means to enforce this law.) The "man who should not be president" then broadcast messages of retribution against his enemies who were and are legion.
Trump used his true genius for wrangling the justice system, the courts, to avoid all but civil convictions. He and his peeps destabilized voting some more, beginning the purge before his reelection by purging voter rolls. Since he had already, with the help of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, stuffed the Supreme Court with allies, a ruling giving presidents unlimited powers passed and awaited Trump's return to office. Trump's politics and economics may be outdated and short-sighted but his ambition to be a dictator for life has been realized, although he has yet to grasp the third term ruling that will allow him to emulate Xi and Putin. One goose step at a time.
The purge, however, is in full swing, although Trump will have to play the "Game of Courts" which tends to energize him and stoke his anger. It's "Trump chess".
From a Google Image Search - Axios - Closing of the EPA
Although no official figure is available for how many workers have been caught in the purge, one source (from Business Insider) said this: (These are all probationary workers.)
Treasury 7,605
Agriculture 5,714
HHS 3,248
VA 1,900
Interior 1712
Commerce 791
Transportation 788
Energy 555
EPA 419
Gen. Serv. Ad. 366
Homeland Sec. 313
HUD 312
SBA 304
Internat. Devel. 270
Labor 170
FDIC 156
CFPB 117
Education 65
IRS 7,315
Attribution: "We finally learned how many federal probationary workers the White House fired and where they worked", Brent Griffiths and Madison Hoff, March 18, 2025, Business Insider.
From a Google Image Search - CBS19
This is a purge. So is the recent removal of at least 2 persons with green cards or visas to prisons in Louisianna for exercising their right to free speech. Mahmoud Khalil and Badar Khan Suri.
From a Google image Search - Financial Times
We have deported immigrants before but the extreme dehumanization on display as Homan dressed Venezuelans being deported to El Salvador in those all-white outfits and forced them to sit in ranks on their haunches with heads bowed looked like nothing we have ever experienced in America.
So is the purging from all websites of anyone considered guilty of the newest sin, diversity, equity, inclusion.
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/dod-continues-removal-of-historic-content-from-websites-citing-DEI
According to an article in Business Insider this also includes veterans.
Purging people from our media and our websites is scarily reminiscent of stories that came out of Russia in the 60s about the Russian government forcing the rewriting of news stories that appeared in Pravda if they didn't agree with state ideology, something we once saw as a symbol of authoritarian rule. Will these deletions from our history be permanent? Will the purge include all the books, newspapers, magazine articles where these events are recorded?
We are still mid-purge, and the cuts and rewrites will continue daily until it will seem almost impossible to restore our true history or to reconstitute a federal government that can once again live up to its democratic ideals, to restore our republic, as given to us by our forefathers. Why did we ever think this man (Trump) was harmless? Why did we ever think either of these men (Trump, Musk) were harmless. What will America be like when the purge stage is complete?
Thanks for reading.