Check the temperature, the water is boiling and we need to jump out.

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198 Things the Trump Regime Exposed, Broke, or Burned Down in 13 Months, With Receipts

Christopher Armitage Feb 25, 2026

Image from Jim Nichols, The Progressive

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Check the temperature, the water is boiling and we need to jump out.

I originally put this information together to drop into MAGA comment sections, to send to friends who voted for Trump but “aren’t political,” and to send to representatives who may not be acting with the urgency needed. A subscriber asked if I’d share it with all of you too. Every fact is sourced, every link works. I labeled the original file “The Fax Machine.” If you do one thing with it, I would suggest sharing it in any online space and encouraging people to take a look at the scope and urgency of where we are today.

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But first: what we do about it. We have drafted four pieces of model legislation that use powers states already have to prosecute corruption immune from presidential pardon, protect their own tax revenue, and build systems that function whether the federal government cooperates or not. The most urgent is the Child Sex Trafficking Investigation and Accountability Act, which gives every state independent power to investigate and prosecute trafficking connected to the Epstein files. A governor can authorize it by executive order. In some states, the attorney general can act now. In every state, a representative can introduce it tomorrow. Find yours at openstates.org/find_your_legislator and tell them to pass it. Then share this with someone who will do the same.

Here are 198 reasons why.

  1. Trump pardoned approximately 1,500 January 6 defendants on his first day in office, including people convicted of assaulting police officers, and ordered the DOJ to dismiss roughly 300 pending indictments.
  2. Among those pardoned: a man who repeatedly tased a police officer in the neck, a man who crushed an officer in a doorframe with a riot shield, and a man who pepper-sprayed an officer who died the next day.
  3. By October 2025, at least 33 pardoned insurrectionists had been rearrested or charged with new crimes, including 6 for child sex crimes and 5 for illegal weapons possession.
  4. In November 2025, Trump pardoned 77 more allies tied to the fake electors scheme, including Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, and 67 people who submitted fraudulent electoral certificates.
  5. AG Pam Bondi established the Weaponization Working Group inside the DOJ, led by a man who promised to charge Trump’s political enemies wherever possible and “name and shame” those who could not be charged.
  6. James Comey and Letitia James were indicted in September and October by Lindsey Halligan, a former insurance lawyer with no prosecutorial experience sworn in as interim U.S. Attorney three days earlier. A federal judge dismissed both indictments, ruling her appointment unlawful. A grand jury then refused to re-indict James.
  7. John Bolton was indicted on 18 Espionage Act counts. His Secret Service protection had been stripped within 24 hours of the inauguration despite active Iranian assassination threats.
  8. The DOJ moved to drop Eric Adams’ corruption charges in February, arguing the case interfered with immigration enforcement. The federal judge dismissed with prejudice, writing: “Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.” Eight federal prosecutors resigned in protest.
  9. Trump fired 17 inspectors general in a single night, by email, without the legally required 30-day Congressional notice. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley publicly demanded an explanation. A federal judge ruled the firings unlawful. Over 75% of IG positions sat vacant throughout the year. The “unlawful” ruling was not acknowledged or addressed by the Trump regime.
  10. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division lost approximately 75% of its attorneys, roughly 400 people. New mission statements included “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” and “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.”
  11. Job creation collapsed from over two million in 2024 to 181,000 in 2025, the weakest year outside a recession since 2003.
  12. The economy was 862,000 jobs weaker than anyone was told. The BLS annual benchmark revision revealed the March 2025 numbers had been overstated by nearly a million.
  13. Employers cut 744,308 jobs in the first half of 2025, the highest six-month total since COVID.
  14. 85% of all jobs created in 2025 existed before the April tariffs hit. Almost nothing was created after.
  15. Manufacturing lost 103,000 jobs in twelve months.
  16. Blue-collar workers lost 166,000 jobs. College-educated workers captured 76% of all gains.
  17. Unemployment reached 4.6% in November 2025, a four-year high. 21 states plus D.C. saw it climb year-over-year.
  18. One in four unemployed Americans had been out of work for 27 weeks or more, up 9% from the year before.
  19. 9.3 million Americans worked two or more jobs in November 2025, the most since tracking began in 1994 and the highest share in 25 years.
  20. Four in ten Americans now earn income from side jobs.
  21. 4.9 million people worked part-time because they could not find full-time work in January 2026, 410,000 more than the year before.
  22. Michigan had the largest unemployment jump in the country, 1.4 points, with 70,000 more people out of work. Motor vehicle parts employment fell to 120,600, half its peak.
  23. Ohio: 42,077 announced job cuts. Texas: 55,681. Florida jumped from 3.4% to 4.3% unemployment with 26,650 announced cuts.
  24. The administration issued executive orders targeting law firms that had represented Trump’s opponents. Steve Bannon stated the goal: “What we are trying to do is put you out of business and bankrupt you.” Paul Weiss agreed to $40 million in pro bono work for administration-aligned causes. Skadden, Milbank, and Willkie Farr agreed to $100 million each. A judge permanently struck down the orders, calling them an “overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints.”
  25. Judge John McConnell, who blocked the federal funding freeze, received over 400 threatening voicemails and 6 credible death threats, including someone searching the dark web for his home address. A congressman posted his face on a “wanted” poster. Judge Coughenour was targeted by a swatting incident. Amy Coney Barrett’s sister received a bomb threat.
  26. Eight federal judges faced GOP-introduced impeachment resolutions. House Speaker Mike Johnson endorsed judicial impeachments in January 2026.
  27. Federal courts ruled in over 4,400 cases, from over 400 judges, that the administration acted illegally. In New Jersey alone, the DOJ violated court orders more than 50 times across 547 immigration cases. A Minnesota federal judge held a Trump administration attorney in civil contempt, the first federal attorney sanctioned during the second term.
  28. House Republicans passed legislation designed to defund enforcement of contempt orders, attempting to make court defiance consequence-free. The DOJ sued every sitting federal judge in Maryland.
  29. Cleveland-Cliffs cut over 2,000 workers across four states: 600 in Dearborn, Michigan; 655 miners in Minnesota; 559 at the Steelton Mill in Pennsylvania, America’s first rail mill, built in 1865, shut permanently; 420 more in Illinois and Pennsylvania. The company lost $495 million in Q1 alone.
  30. Stellantis laid off 2,450 at Warren Truck Assembly in Michigan, 900 more at Warren and Sterling Heights, and idled 1,100 at the Toledo Jeep plant.
  31. GM permanently cut 1,140 workers at Factory Zero. Ultium Cells at the former GM Lordstown plant in Ohio laid off 1,334.
  32. Ford cut all 1,600 employees at its Glendale, Kentucky EV battery plant, 750 at its Dearborn Lightning plant, and killed a $1.5 billion Ohio EV project, erasing 1,800 planned jobs.
  33. Whirlpool cut 650 workers in Amana, Iowa, a third of the workforce. Goodyear cut 815 in Danville, Virginia, the largest single layoff in the state.
  34. Howard Miller, a 99-year-old Michigan furniture and clock company, shut permanently. Tariffs were “a main culprit.” 195 jobs gone.
  35. Tyson Foods cut 1,761 at its Amarillo, Texas beef plant. Southwest Airlines executed its first-ever mass layoff: 1,726 jobs. Chevron slashed 15-20% of its global workforce.
  36. SK On killed a $2.8 billion battery project in Tennessee. 3,300 jobs vanished.
  37. Companies canceled $34.8 billion in clean energy projects in 2025 while announcing only $12.3 billion in new ones, a 3-to-1 loss ratio. Republican districts absorbed $19.9 billion and 24,500 jobs worth of cancellations. Michigan alone lost 14 projects, $7.7 billion, and 9,800 jobs.
  38. John Deere ate $600 million in tariff costs, saw profits drop 26%, cut more than 2,000 jobs, froze salaried wages, and projected a 15-20% drop in large machinery sales.
  39. iRobot filed bankruptcy in December 2025, owing $3.4 million in unpaid tariffs, U.S. revenue down 33%. SplashZen in Bonney Lake, Washington lost its owner’s life savings. Bunnies By The Bay in Anacortes, Washington laid off six.
  40. Over 51 days, the U.S. conducted over 1,000 airstrikes on Yemen at a cost exceeding $1 billion. Airwars documented 224 civilians killed, nearly matching the previous 23 years of U.S. operations in Yemen combined. No congressional authorization was sought or obtained. On April 28, U.S. strikes hit a detention center holding African migrants, killing 68 people and injuring at least 47.
  41. Seven B-2 stealth bombers struck three Iranian nuclear facilities, deploying the 30,000-pound bunker buster for the first time in combat. Later reporting showed Iran’s nuclear program was set back by months, not years.
  42. The National Security Advisor accidentally added a journalist to a Signal group chat containing 18 senior officials including the VP, Secretary of State, and CIA Director. The Secretary of Defense shared real-time Yemen strike details: weapons, targets, and timing. He also shared them in a separate chat with his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. The Pentagon Inspector General found he “risked compromising sensitive military information.”
  43. On September 2, Hegseth gave a verbal order to “kill everybody” aboard a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean. After the first missile left two survivors in the water, a SEAL Team 6 commander ordered a second strike to comply. Former Judge Advocates General called it “war crimes, murder, or both.” Since September, 22 boats have been struck, killing at least 86 people. The administration has produced no public evidence confirming the identities of anyone on those boats. The Pentagon IG found Hegseth’s Signal use risked troop safety and that information he shared matched material classified SECRET/NOFORN. He refused to sit for an interview with the inspector general.
  44. Farm bankruptcies surged 46% to 315 filings. The first half alone produced 181, nearly matching all of 2024. Wisconsin: up 700%. Minnesota: up 300%. Iowa: up 220%. Montana: up 200%. Missouri: up 167%. Georgia: up 145%. Arkansas hit its highest total this century; one farmer estimated a third of Arkansas farmers could go bankrupt or quit.
  45. USDA cut its 2025 farm income forecast by $25 billion. Median farm household income went negative: minus $1,498. Only 52% of borrowers expected to turn a profit. Crop farmers collectively lost $34.6 billion. North Dakota State economists project another $44 billion in losses from 2025-26 crops.
  46. Soybeans sold at harvest for $8.65 a bushel. It costs $10.75 to $11.50 to grow them. Soybean farmers lost $89 per planted acre. Corn growers lost over $150.
  47. China stopped buying American soybeans entirely for six months. Exports to China fell more than 50% in value. Beef exports fell more than 90%. In 2016, China bought 40% of its soybeans from the U.S. By 2024, that share was 21%.
  48. Brazil expanded soybean acreage 35% since the first trade war and now plants 121 million acres. China invested $285 million in Brazil’s Port of Santos to permanently replace American supply chains.
  49. Running a 310 HP tractor costs $255.80 an hour, up from $181.10 in 2021. Tariffs on agricultural inputs jumped from 1% to 12%, with herbicides and pesticides above 20%.
  50. Farm expenses hit $467.4 billion, the highest ever. Interest costs will reach $33 billion in 2026. Total farm debt will hit $624.7 billion. All three are new highs.
  51. Taxpayer bailout payments to farmers surged to $40.5 billion, a 301% increase from 2024. Taxpayers now cover nearly 25% of total net farm income.
  52. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker living legally in Maryland with a wife and American-citizen children, had a court order barring his deportation. The government deported him anyway to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison and conceded it was “an administrative error.” The Supreme Court unanimously ordered his return. Trump acknowledged he could bring him back but refused.
  53. The DOJ fired the career attorney who told the Supreme Court about the Abrego Garcia deportation error.
  54. Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan nationals, the first use outside a congressionally declared war. Three planes carried over 260 people to El Salvador’s CECOT prison. A 60 Minutes investigation found no criminal records for 75% of them: 179 men sitting in a mega-prison with no charges, no trial, and no release date. The Fifth Circuit ruled 2-1 that no “invasion or predatory incursion” justified the Act.
  55. ICE conducted 1,912 removal flights to 79 countries by August 2025. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody during 2025.
  56. Since October, more than 400 federal judges have ruled in at least 4,421 cases that ICE detained people illegally. Over 20,200 habeas corpus petitions have been filed since Trump took office; before this administration, no single month going back to 2010 had seen even 500. ICE kept people locked up even after judges ordered their release. The number of people in ICE custody reached 68,000, up 75% from inauguration day.
  57. Tariffs went from 2.4% to 16.8%, the highest rate since 1935. At their April peak they reached 28%, the highest since 1901.
  58. Without tariffs, inflation would have been roughly 2.2%, essentially at the Fed’s target. Instead, tariffs added 0.7 points to the CPI and pushed it to 2.9%.
  59. American consumers and businesses bore almost 100% of tariff costs. Goldman Sachs confirmed the split: 82% fell on the U.S. side. The Fed projects inflation at 3.0% in 2025 and 2.6% in 2026, still above its 2% target.
  60. Tariffs cost the average household $1,700 a year.
  61. Someone earning under $29,000 paid an effective tax increase of 6.2% from tariffs. The top 1% barely noticed. The poorest Americans carried more than 3 times the burden of the richest as a share of income: 2.7% versus 0.8%.
  62. American businesses and consumers paid $233 billion in tariffs from March to December 2025. Tariff collections more than doubled year-over-year.
  63. Small businesses absorbed an average of $151,000 in extra costs from April to September, roughly $25,000 a month. One shoe importer took a $250,000 loan at 32% interest to pay tariffs on a single shipping container from India.
  64. Tariffs will shrink GDP by 6% and wages by 5% over the long run, costing a middle-income household $22,000 across their lifetime.
  65. Every 10% tariff increase raised producer prices roughly 1% and destroyed 220,000 jobs, rising to 320,000 when Chinese retaliation kicked in.
  66. 65% of jobs targeted by Chinese retaliatory tariffs sit in Trump-voting counties. The EU, Canada, and China all deliberately aimed retaliation at Republican-held states.
  67. The goods trade deficit hit $1.24 trillion for 2025, an all-time high, despite the tariffs that were supposed to close it.
  68. Tariff costs by state: Texas $11.4 billion. Georgia $7.1 billion. Ohio $6.5 billion. Pennsylvania $6.3 billion. South Carolina $5.2 billion. North Carolina $5 billion. Kentucky $4 billion. Michigan $3.3 billion.
  69. Indiana has 154% of GDP exposed to tariffs, the highest in the country. Michigan and West Virginia face the steepest import cost increases at 22%.
  70. Texas has a $281 billion trade relationship with Mexico supporting 3.6 million jobs. Tariffs would cut Texas GDP growth nearly in half, from 3.2% to 1.7%, killing 100,000 jobs. The Perryman Group projected $45 billion in lost output and 360,000 jobs.
  71. Brownsville-Harlingen unemployment jumped 2 points to 7.5%. Eagle Pass jumped 2 points to 8.9%.
  72. Ohio farmers watched Chinese export sales collapse 74% in a single year. The state’s $7.5 billion soybean industry saw per-bushel prices fall 8.8%.
  73. Trump froze all military aid to Ukraine on March 3, 2025, affecting over $1 billion in approved arms. On August 15, he hosted Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, the first invitation to a Western country since the invasion. Zelenskyy was not invited.
  74. The leaked 28-point peace plan would require Ukraine to cut its army by 50%, renounce NATO membership, and grant the United States 50% of profits from a joint reconstruction fund, with the agreement “guaranteed by the Peace Council, headed by President Donald J. Trump.”
  75. Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement on his first day. On January 7, 2026, he signed a presidential memorandum withdrawing from 66 additional international organizations, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a Senate-ratified treaty from the 1990s. The U.S. became the first and only nation to leave the parent treaty of the Paris Agreement.
  76. Credit card debt reached $1.28 trillion, the highest since the New York Fed started tracking in 1999. Total household debt: $18.8 trillion.
  77. Subprime auto loan delinquencies (60-plus days) hit 6.9%, surpassing the 2008 financial crisis peak, the worst since tracking began in the 1990s.
  78. Even people with near-perfect credit scores (781-850) saw auto delinquencies spike 300%. Non-prime delinquencies surged 59% in low-income ZIP codes since 2021.
  79. Car repossessions are projected to exceed 3 million in 2025, a level last reached in the Great Recession, up 43% since 2022.
  80. Americans carry $1.66 trillion in auto debt. Average monthly payment on a new car: $761, about $300 more than 2019.
  81. Nearly one in three federal student loan borrowers with payments due were 90-plus days behind by April 2025, the worst ever tracked. By October, 5.5 million borrowers owing over $140 billion were in default. Three-quarters had never defaulted before.
  82. Nearly half of Black borrowers and roughly 30% of Hispanic borrowers are delinquent on student loans. The administration blocked income-driven repayment plans and mass-denied 328,000 applications in a single month.
  83. Two million student loan borrowers watched their credit scores drop an average of 100 points, from 680 to 580, with 76% plunging into deep subprime. Another 1.2 million Americans became subprime borrowers overall.
  84. The personal savings rate collapsed to 3.5%, less than half the pre-pandemic rate. The $2.1 trillion in pandemic savings was gone.
  85. 401(k) hardship withdrawals hit all-time highs, running 28% above 2024 and 365% above the 2016-2021 average. The top reason: avoiding foreclosure or eviction.
  86. Bankruptcies climbed 11% to 565,759. Small business filings hit 2,446, a new high. Corporate bankruptcies reached 717 through November, the most since 2010. Georgia business bankruptcies jumped 184%. Wyoming: 366.7%.
  87. Credit card delinquency maps almost perfectly onto Trump country. Mississippi leads at 37%. Louisiana 32%. Alabama 31%. The fastest-growing rates concentrated in red and swing states: Minnesota (+33%), Iowa (+32%), Kansas (+30%), Ohio, Mississippi, Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama, Wisconsin.
  88. One in three Gen Z Credit Karma users holds a subprime credit score. Gen Z carries more credit card debt than any prior generation at the same age.
  89. Eggs hit $6.23 a dozen, up 49.3% year-over-year and 368% from mid-2020.
  90. Beef up 16%. Coffee up 20%. Ground beef up 15%. Orange juice up 28%. Clothing up 14%. Furnishings up 8%. Cumulative grocery inflation since December 2019: 29.5%.
  91. A low-income family spends 32.6% of after-tax income on food. A wealthy one spends 8.1%.
  92. More than half of all renters now spend over 30% of income on housing, the highest share ever measured. Renters earning under $30,000 are left with $250 a month after rent, the lowest on file. The country is short 7.1 million affordable rental homes.
  93. Tariffs added $7,500 to $10,900 to every new home and $30 billion in total costs to residential construction. Aluminum up 30.5%. Steel up 17%. Copper wire up 22.3%.
  94. Home prices rose 53% since 2019. Wages rose 24%. A household earning $75,000 could afford 21.2% of homes on the market in March 2025, down from 48.8% in 2019.
  95. First-time homebuyers fell to 21% of purchases, the lowest ever measured, down from 44% in 1981. The median first-time buyer turned 40.
  96. Housing starts dropped 7%. Building permits dropped 3.6%. Builder sentiment stayed negative for over 20 consecutive months. Two-thirds of builders offered incentives; 36-40% were cutting prices.
  97. Tariffs added $2,000 to $10,000 to the price of a car depending on where it was made.
  98. Four million households had their power shut off at some point in 2025. Pennsylvania alone saw 280,000 involuntary shutoffs in eight months, up 21%. Electricity prices jumped 10.5%, more than 3 times the overall inflation rate.
  99. Regulators approved $34 billion in utility rate increases in nine months, more than double the year before. Low-income families spend 6-10% of income on energy, 3-5 times what wealthier households pay.
  100. LIHEAP, the federal heating assistance program, was cut from $6.1 billion to roughly $4 billion, reaching only 17% of eligible households. The administration fired the entire LIHEAP staff and proposed killing the program.
  101. Child care: $15,570 a year. 70% of Americans said raising kids is too expensive, a 13-point jump from 2024.
  102. North Carolina recorded 202,861 eviction filings, the most on file. Denver ran 72% above pre-pandemic levels. Nashville ran 46% above. Minnesota hit 23,000-25,000 filings, 30% above pre-pandemic average.
  103. The administration froze approximately $6 billion in federal funding across at least nine major universities. Harvard lost $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts after rejecting demands that included screening international students for beliefs “hostile to American values.” A judge ruled the freeze a “targeted, ideologically-motivated assault” using “antisemitism as smokescreen.”
  104. Columbia had $400 million canceled and ultimately settled for $221 million. Northwestern: $75 million. Cornell: $60 million. Brown: $50 million.
  105. The Pentagon identified 4,240 active-duty service members with gender dysphoria for discharge under a new ban on transgender military service. The Supreme Court allowed the ban to take effect while litigation continues.
  106. The birthright citizenship executive order would deny citizenship to children born on American soil whose parents lack legal status. Every lower court that reviewed it found it unconstitutional. One judge called it “blatantly unconstitutional.” The order has never been enforced.
  107. An executive order required documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote using the federal form, such as a passport. Only about 48% of Americans hold an unexpired passport. A judge issued a permanent injunction: “Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States, not the President, with the authority to regulate federal elections.”
  108. Trump announced a census that would exclude people without legal status, unprecedented since the first census in 1790. At least 1,300 Census Bureau employees departed, with more than a fifth of leadership positions vacant.
  109. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut $900 billion to $1 trillion from Medicaid over ten years, the deepest cut in the program’s 60-year history. 11.8 million people will lose coverage.
  110. The same law triggered $536 billion in automatic Medicare cuts over nine years.
  111. Medicaid work requirements of 80 hours a month will push 4.8 million people off coverage by 2034. Modeling shows up to 5.2 million adults losing insurance, GDP declines of $43-59 billion, and 449,000 job losses.
  112. Medicaid enrollment dropped from 94 million to 76.8 million, a 19% decline. 69% lost coverage over paperwork, not because they were ineligible.
  113. Texas had a 65% disenrollment rate. Louisiana and Virginia face the steepest federal cuts at 21%. Twelve states have “trigger” laws that automatically end Medicaid expansion if the federal match drops.
  114. Half of American children are on Medicaid or CHIP. 10.9 million Americans will become uninsured under the OBBBA.
  115. ACA premium tax credits expired. Average marketplace premiums more than doubled, from $888 a year to $1,904. Insurers raised 2026 rates by a median of 18%, the largest hike since 2018.
  116. Eighteen rural hospitals closed or converted in the year ending February 2025, 182 total since 2010. Another 432 are vulnerable and 756 are at financial risk. 87% of Kansas’ rural hospitals operate in the red. 70% of Oklahoma’s. 70% of Wyoming’s.
  117. Rural maternity wards closed at an accelerating rate: 27 in 2025, up from 21 the year before. Only 41% of rural hospitals still deliver babies.
  118. The CDC confirmed 2,281 measles cases in 2025, the most in over 30 years, across 45 states. Three people died, including two unvaccinated children in Texas, the first measles deaths in a decade. HHS Secretary RFK Jr. spent months refusing to recommend the vaccine, promoted vitamin A as treatment, and called the outbreak “not unusual.” Kindergarten MMR coverage dropped to 92.5%, below the 95% herd immunity threshold, leaving 286,000 kindergartners unprotected.
  119. In January 2026, the CDC formally demoted six vaccines from the routine childhood schedule, including rotavirus, influenza, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and meningococcal disease, based on no new clinical data. HHS modeled the new schedule after Denmark’s, a country with universal free healthcare, without explaining why. Major insurers pledged to cover the old schedule through 2026, but that pledge expires at year’s end. The New England Journal of Medicine warned that a 10% drop in MMR vaccination could produce 11.1 million measles cases over 25 years.
  120. SNAP was cut by $187 billion over ten years, the deepest in the program’s history. Four million people will see food assistance cut or eliminated, losing $146 a month on average.
  121. Work requirements alone will push 2.4 million off SNAP. Roughly one million children will see food benefits slashed.
  122. The administration killed the $471.5 million Local Food Purchase program, froze $500 million in emergency food funds, and canceled the USDA’s annual food security survey, ending 30 years of hunger tracking right before the cuts landed.
  123. Planned Parenthood covered $45 million in care in September 2025, the first month it could not bill Medicaid.
  124. The government shut down for 43 days, October 1 to November 12, 2025, the longest in American history.
  125. SNAP benefits for 42 million Americans froze during the shutdown, the first disruption in the program’s 60-year history.
  126. Food insecurity hit 16% of the general population and 46% of SNAP recipients.
  127. Food banks were overwhelmed past COVID levels. A West Virginia food bank saw a 1,800% increase in families. Philadelphia’s Share Food Program saw a 12-fold spike in new registrants. A Colorado food bank went from 300 people a day in 2020 to 1,700 in 2025. A Wisconsin food bank logged 101,859 first-time visits. SNAP provides 9 times the food of the entire food bank network. The system was never built to absorb that kind of demand.
  128. The shutdown permanently destroyed $11 billion in GDP. That money does not come back.
  129. A Senate investigation found DOGE generated $21.7 billion in waste, not savings. The breakdown: $14.8 billion paying 200,000 federal workers to sit at home for up to eight months, $6.1 billion on 100,000 more removed from jobs but still collecting paychecks, and $263 million in lost interest at the Department of Energy.
  130. Federal spending rose $248 billion in 2025 despite all the cuts.
  131. DOGE actually cost taxpayers $135 billion when accounting for severance, legal costs, and rehiring.
  132. Elon Musk’s companies had $2.37 billion in avoided liability facilitated through DOGE access.
  133. Three days before inauguration, Trump launched the $TRUMP cryptocurrency token. His companies control 80% of the supply. A forensic analysis found 813,294 wallets lost $2 billion trading the coin while Trump’s entities collected roughly $350 million in token sales and fees. He then invited the top 220 coin holders to dinner at his golf club, including foreign nationals who cannot legally donate to U.S. campaigns. The SEC under his appointees declared meme coins are not securities, meaning zero investor protection. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations launched a probe into whether the coin functions as a channel for untraceable foreign payments to the president.
  134. 322,049 federal employees left government by February 2026. 154,000 took deferred resignations, the largest mass resignation in American history. Another 25,000 probationary employees were fired using what courts called “sham” performance citations.
  135. USAID went from 4,500 employees to 15.
  136. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lost 88-90% of its staff. The Department of Defense lost 61,600 positions.
  137. The FDA shut down two of seven food-testing labs. The CDC cut foodborne pathogen tracking from 8 diseases to 2.
  138. Virginia alone lost 23,500 civilian federal jobs.
  139. The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office lost 60% of its staff to DOGE buyouts, freezing new loans from a $400-plus billion fund. One battery company canceled a factory in Arizona. Another canceled a factory in Georgia and moved it to China.
  140. GSA sent 800-plus cancellation notices to landlords targeting half its 7,500 leases, often without telling the government workers inside. Hundreds of purged employees were later asked to come back after months on paid leave.
  141. The IRS lost a quarter of its workforce, from 103,000 to 76,000, with two-thirds of cuts hitting enforcement.
  142. The IRS lost 31% of its auditors, 18% of revenue officers, and 10% of tax examiners in three months. The unit that audits the ultra-rich lost 38% of its staff.
  143. ProPublica documented a team of fewer than 10 IRS engineers who had recovered $5 billion in tax returns over four years. That team no longer exists.
  144. IRS cuts will cost $350 billion over a decade in uncollected taxes. Treasury officials projected a $500-plus billion shortfall for 2025 alone.
  145. The Wage and Hour Division was cut to 611 investigators for 165 million workers: one per 278,000, a 52-year low.
  146. Wage theft enforcement collapsed 97%: 91 cases resolved versus a typical 3,500. Penalties dropped 83%. At least 4 million workers are illegally paid below minimum wage every year, costing them $3,000 each. That enforcement is now effectively gone.
  147. OSHA inspections dropped 20%, with the agency down to 736 inspectors from 878. “Willful violations” found dropped 42%. A bill to abolish OSHA entirely was introduced in Congress.
  148. Trump fired an NLRB board member in January, leaving the board without a quorum for 345 days, unable to rule on unfair labor cases.
  149. The Fifth Circuit ruled the NLRB’s structure likely unconstitutional, freezing all enforcement in that circuit. Union elections fell 30% to 1,498, with 59,000 fewer workers participating.
  150. Executive orders stripped more than one million federal workers of collective bargaining rights. Labor historians called it the largest single act of union-busting in American history.
  151. The Social Security Administration lost 6,645 staff, more than 11% of its workforce. Six of ten regional offices closed. Disability waits exceeded 236 days.
  152. Phone wait times doubled. Then phone service for benefit claims was eliminated entirely on March 18, forcing disabled and elderly Americans to go online or travel to offices that may have closed.
  153. The SSA plans to cut field office visits by 50% in FY2026, from 31.6 million to no more than 15 million. More than 7 million Americans over 65 get 90% or more of their income from Social Security. More than 11 million disabled Americans under 65 depend on SSA benefits.
  154. The VA lost roughly 17,000 workers by July 2025. Over 6,000 veterans themselves were fired from federal jobs.
  155. The VA’s suicide crisis hotline staff were fired twice and reinstated both times.
  156. DOGE terminated 585 VA contracts including those supporting PTSD treatment and electronic health records, directly undermining the PACT Act’s mandated expansion of care for burn pit and Agent Orange exposure.
  157. The bottom fifth of households gained 0.6% in income from the OBBBA’s tax provisions but lost 7.4% from Medicaid cuts, netting a loss of 6.8%. The top 1% gained 3.9%.
  158. Black unemployment reached 7.5% by late 2025, with the Black-white ratio hitting 1.9-to-1 nationally and 3.9-to-1 in Washington, D.C.
  159. An estimated 300,000 Black women were pushed out of the labor force between May and August 2025. The Black jobs deficit stands at 1.8 million positions and $87 billion in lost income.
  160. Black workers make up 18% of the federal workforce versus 12% of the overall workforce, making DOGE cuts disproportionately devastating.
  161. Trump promised during the 2024 campaign to release the Epstein files. AG Bondi told Fox News in February 2025 they were “sitting on my desk.” On July 7, the DOJ announced it found no “client list” and no further files would be released. Trump called Epstein “somebody nobody cares about” on July 12 and the files “a big hoax” on July 16. In May, Bondi had privately told Trump his own name appeared in the files. Congress forced release through a discharge petition. The House passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act 427 to 1. Trump signed it without reporters present. The DOJ missed the legally mandated 30-day release deadline, released files in waves with hundreds of pages entirely blacked out, and a bipartisan group of senators called for an investigation into DOJ compliance.
  162. An NPR investigation found the DOJ removed or withheld Epstein files specifically related to accusations that Trump sexually abused a minor. The FBI interviewed the accuser four times; only the first interview, which does not mention Trump, is publicly available. Of 15 documents listed in discovery material for a second accuser who described being taken to Mar-a-Lago as a child, only seven appear in the public database. The DOJ removed at least one interview from the public database after initial publication and declined to explain why.
  163. The administration banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One because AP refused to exclusively use “Gulf of America.” A judge ruled the ban violated the First Amendment. It has not been reversed.
  164. The administration seized control of the White House press pool from the White House Correspondents’ Association, which had managed it for over 100 years, and removed Reuters, AP, and Bloomberg. The Pentagon required journalists to pledge they would not gather information not “expressly authorized for release.” At least 30 news organizations refused.
  165. The administration deployed 4,000 National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles and sent CBP and ICE agents with automatic weapons and full combat gear to downtown Chicago. Trump directed ICE to “FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities,” explicitly naming Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York as “the core of the Democrat Power Center.”
  166. A 60-foot-wide, 170-mile strip along the southern border was designated a “military installation”, authorizing military personnel to detain and search people without invoking the Insurrection Act.
  167. Projected retail closures: roughly 15,000 stores. Joann Fabrics shut all 800 stores across 49 states. Rite Aid shut all 1,600. Party City shut 700. Forever 21 shut 215.
  168. Washington, D.C. set a new mark: 92 restaurant closures through November. 83% of operators cited immigration enforcement and federal layoffs.
  169. The national debt grew $2.25 trillion in one year to $38.4 trillion. It grows $68,902 every second.
  170. Interest payments on the debt exceeded $1 trillion, surpassing defense spending for the first time. Projected to hit $2.1 trillion by 2036.
  171. The FY2025 deficit: $1.78 trillion, 5.9% of GDP. Debt-to-GDP reached 99.8%, up from 97.4% the year before. Cumulative deficits over the next decade: $24.4 trillion, averaging 6.1% of GDP against the 50-year average of 3.8%.
  172. Moody’s stripped the United States of its top credit rating on May 16, 2025, a rating held since 1917. All three major agencies have now downgraded U.S. sovereign debt. The 30-year Treasury yield jumped above 5%.
  173. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act adds $3.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years and will shrink GDP by 4.6% over 30 years.
  174. Federal debt will surpass the post-WWII high of 106% of GDP by 2030, reaching 120% by 2036.
  175. After the April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff announcement, the S&P 500 fell nearly 21% in five days, the second-fastest bear market in history. Bearish sentiment hit its highest level since March 2009.
  176. The February 20 semiconductor tariff announcement erased $359 billion in shareholder wealth. The next day destroyed $1.2 trillion more. During Liberation Day, over $6 trillion evaporated, roughly 20% of 2024 GDP.
  177. Stocks in redder counties fell harder during Liberation Day, directly contradicting the claim that tariffs would help Trump country.
  178. GDP growth came in at 2.2% for 2025, the slowest since the pandemic year of 2020. Forecasts for 2026 range from 1.8% to 2.5%, all below the 2.8% achieved in 2024.
  179. Consumer sentiment hit 50.3 in November 2025, the second-lowest reading since 1952. Consumer confidence fell to 84.5 in January 2026, lowest since 2014. The partisan gap reached 50 points, the widest ever measured.
  180. The Economic Policy Uncertainty Index hit all-time highs in April 2025. Uncertainty alone cut investment by an estimated 1 to 2 percentage points.
  181. Declining immigration cut GDP growth by 0.75 to 1 full percentage point below projections.
  182. The combined cost of all Trump immigration policies: $1.9 trillion in lost GDP from 2025-2028, $5,612 per person, with the labor force 6.8 million workers smaller by 2028.
  183. Foreign investment in the U.S. collapsed 62.5% in a single quarter. New facilities on American soil fell from $17 billion to $8 billion, with expansions down 78% and greenfield FDI falling to 0.03% of GDP.
  184. International tourism fell 5.4%, the only decline among major nations while global arrivals grew 4%. The U.S. will lose $12.5 billion in visitor spending, the only country among 184 to see a decline.
  185. Canadian visits collapsed 25.2% through July, with 1.75 million fewer visits in the first half alone. Western European arrivals dropped 17% in March.
  186. International student enrollment fell 17%, the largest non-pandemic drop ever tracked, costing $1.1 billion in revenue and 23,000 jobs. Student visa issuance dropped 12% from January to April, then fell another 22% in May.
  187. Three out of four U.S. scientists are considering leaving the country. Applications to the European Research Council from Americans nearly tripled.
  188. Europe is recruiting American scientists with cash. The EU put up 500 million euros. France added 100 million. Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain launched parallel programs. France’s platform attracted 30,000 visitors from 157 countries, 34% from the United States.
  189. Roughly 2,100 NIH grants worth $9.5 billion were cut by June 2025. NIH issued 24% fewer R01 grants than its 10-year average. The NSF terminated 1,400 grants worth $1 billion. New grant spending fell 53%. Estimated cost: $10-16 billion a year and 70,000 jobs.
  190. The FY2026 budget proposes cutting NIH by roughly 40% and NSF by 57%.
  191. The dollar fell 9-11% in 2025, its worst year since 1973. Its share of global reserves fell to 56.32%, the lowest since 1995, down from 72% in 2001. Central banks replaced dollars with gold, which rose from below 10% of reserves in 2015 to over 23%.
  192. Chinese exports to the U.S. fell 20%. But they grew 8% to Europe, 13% to Southeast Asia, 7% to Latin America, and 26% to Africa. The trade is being permanently rerouted around the United States.
  193. The EU hit back with tariffs on $28 billion in U.S. goods. Canada retaliated on C$155 billion. China exceeded 100%.
  194. The oil-directed rig count fell 33% from its 2022 peak to 397. WTI crude averaged under $70 a barrel, below breakeven for many Permian Basin producers. The Dallas Fed Energy Survey showed activity negative the entire year.
  195. The United States dropped to 57th of 180 countries in press freedom.
  196. The V-Dem Institute classified the U.S. as undergoing “the fastest evolving episode of autocratization in modern history” and reclassified it as an “electoral autocracy” by September 2025.
  197. The Century Foundation dropped the U.S. democracy score from 79 to 57 out of 100 in a single year.
  198. The American Bar Association’s Task Force for American Democracy concluded: “Our American democracy is under threat… we are, in fact, in the midst of a constitutional crisis.”
  199. At the November 2025 Melbourne summit, CPTPP held its first official talks with the EU and ASEAN, building a new global trading system. The United States was not in the room.

Those are the 198 reasons to pass these oppositional laws. Civil litigation has won real victories in court, but civil suits cannot match the speed or scale of what we just read. Authoritarians are not afraid of injunctions. They are afraid of handcuffs.

The four model laws and legislator lookup tool help you influence the process. Three countries opened Epstein investigations the day those files dropped. Not one American state has matched them. Find your legislators. Tell them to pass these laws. And send this to someone who will do the same.

Buy any of the books and democracy merch at TheExistentialistRepublic.com. Get them and every guide, booklet, and piece of model legislation for free at BuyMeACoffee.com/TheER.

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