Marking our progress since Feb 1, 2025: We should be proud.

February 1, 2026

Major media marked the first anniversary of Trump’s second term by referencing Inauguration Day—January 20, 2025. But for most Americans, the real “anniversary” was February 1, 2025—exactly one year ago today, as I write this edition of the newsletter.

I doubt that most Americans attach any significance to the second Saturday following Trump’s inauguration, which had taken place 12 days earlier. I remember it well.

February 1, 2025, was the day most Americans awoke to the realization that Trump was serious about implementing the full horror of his “Project 2025” plan. Panic spread across the nation as elected officials and media outlets struggled to comprehend—much less respond to—the unfolding lawlessness that rushed over us like a tsunami.

Here is a metric to help explain how widespread the panic was: Since 2023, this newsletter’s increase in new readers has been about 1,000 per month. On February 1, 2025—a single day—over 6,800 new readers signed up to receive the newsletter—nearly 7 months of “new readers” in a single day. (I understand that other Substack writers experienced similar surges in new readers on February 1, 2025.)

The newsletter I published on February 1, 2025, “Call it by its name: A coup,” was the most-read edition of this newsletter, with 386,709 views. Most of Today’s Edition’s newsletters are “shared” or “restacked” about 200 times. On February 1, 2025, the newsletter was shared 4,824 times.

I offer those statistics not to boast about newsletter circulation, but to show that something significant happened on February 1, 2025, something that most of us have forgotten—the day that we learned Trump would trample the Constitution in his effort to punish his enemies and reward his friends.

It was also the day that we experienced the sinking feeling that Congress couldn’t stop Trump, that the Supreme Court wouldn’t, and that the media was too frightened or inept to report the true significance of Trump’s actions—that they amounted to a coup.

We should review where we were a year ago to help us understand how successful our resistance has been. One year in, we have fashioned ourselves into an effective rapid response force capable of mounting mass demonstrations. We have learned how to mount civil self-defense and self-protection against occupying armies of secret police. We have roused Democratic members of Congress to the existential threat posed by Trump, even as some congressional Democrats still cling to the false hope that capitulating to Trump will soothe his madness and satiate his ego. We have secured help from US district court judges who have held the line and spoken the truth about Trump’s lawlessness.

In less than a year, we have gone from shell-shocked to battle-tested, from leaderless to self-reliant, and from anxious and afraid to anxious and courageous.

I reprint below some highlights from the newsletter I published one year ago today, to remind us of how much we have endured and how far we have come. The entire newsletter is here: Call it by its name: A coup, February 1, 2025. Selected excerpts are below:

On Friday, January 31, 2025, Trump moved to complete the coup he began on January 6, 2021. Trump failed the first time, and he will fail again—because he has underestimated the American people. We must steel ourselves because things will get worse before they get better--but they will get better. It is a fool’s bet to assume that the American people will sit idly by as their freedoms are stolen by a corrupt oligarch and a convicted felon destroying the government to promote their selfish interests.

Speaking the truth about what is happening is difficult and unpleasant. Hearing the truth is also difficult and unpleasant. But the longer we fail to recognize the current situation for what it is—a slow-rolling coup attempt—the longer it will take for us to recover.

I am speaking more directly and using stronger words to describe the situation than many of the mainstream media outlets. CBS, CNN, and NYT are reporting on bits and pieces of Trump’s actions as if they are mere political stories. But those outlets are not addressing the obvious coordinated nature of the unprecedented attacks on the DOJ, FBI, Office of Personnel Management, Treasury Department, and dozens of other agencies.

Taken together, those actions amount to a hostile takeover of the US government by those who are loyal to Trump rather than to the US Constitution. The only word that accurately describes that situation is “coup.” Any other description is a sign of fear, submission, or surrender.

Here is a partial list of what is happening:

Elon Musk and a team of DOGE infiltrators have taken over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by connecting non-government computer servers to the US personnel mainframe computers. They have reportedly seized private information about millions of federal employees. They have locked the senior managers of the OPM out of their agency’s computers. They have moved “sofa beds” into the OPM offices and put the offices into a “lockdown mode.” See Reuters, Exclusive: Musk aides lock government workers out of computer systems at US agency, sources say.

The hostile takeover of OMP allowed Musk to send an unauthorized memo inviting millions of federal employees to resign in exchange for eight months of “non working paid employment.” [Two unions representing federal workers have filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s plan to reclassify and terminate hundreds of thousands of federal workers.]

Elon Musk and a team of DOGE infiltrators have attempted to seize control of the US Treasury payments system—the gateway through which ALL funds from the federal government flow. When a senior manager at the Treasury asked why Musk needed access to the highly sensitive system, the manager was immediately placed on leave. He chose to quit, instead. See The New Republic, Top Official to Quit as Musk Tries to Get Hands on Key Payment System

As of Friday evening, the Acting US Attorney for Washington, D.C., fired about 30 US Attorneys who prosecuted January 6 insurrectionists. See Politico, DOJ fires dozens of prosecutors who handled Jan. 6 cases. Think about that for a moment: The convicted felons who attacked the Capitol have been pardoned and the loyal servants of the Constitution who prosecuted them have been fired. That fact should outrage every American.

Also on Friday evening, the FBI told eight of its most senior leaders to resign or be fired on Monday. Those senior officials head divisions of the DOJ responsible for cybersecurity, national security, and criminal investigations. Senior FBI leaders ordered to retire, resign or be fired by Monday | CNN Politics

The FBI has fired dozens of agents who worked on investigations of January 6 insurrectionists and has asked for a list of every agent across the US who worked on the largest criminal investigation in the history of the FBI. That list will include hundreds—possibly thousands of FBI agents. The implication of the memo ordering the compilation of the list is that those agents may be fired. See Reuters, Trump’s DOJ launches purge of Jan. 6 prosecutors, FBI agents.

Also on Friday, the FBI told the senior agents in charge of field offices in Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles to resign or be fired on Monday. Reuters.

Readers alerted me to postings on Facebook and elsewhere (that I cannot authenticate) claiming to be from current government employees describing an atmosphere of chaos and fear as DOGE infiltrators ominously demand lists of employees who are apparently “next” to be fired.

Dozens of government websites were taken offline on Friday, ostensibly to be scrubbed for references to diversity, gender, or human attributes that are not white, male, and Christian. The effort was brutish, clumsy, and ignorant. The Census Bureau website was offline as DOGE infiltrators attempted to remove references to the fact that America includes people who are not white male Christians. Websites relating to LGBTQ equality, women’s health, transgender issues, and scientific knowledge in general were taken down.

The Pentagon has advised NBC, NYT, NPR, and other mainstream media outlets that they would be “rotated out of the building (i.e., the Pentagon)” to make room for NYPost, Brietbart, and OANN. See @DefenseBaron.bsky.social.

And as all of the above is happening, Republicans in the Senate will vote to confirm a Director of National Intelligence with suspiciously warm views toward Putin and an FBI Director who published an “enemies list” that included dozens of politicians, journalists, military officers, and career government officials.

What can we do? Here’s what we can do: Trump’s rolling coup is (mistakenly) predicated on his belief that the American people are sheep. He believes that we will sit still while he does whatever he wants.

He is wrong.

America is based on the consent of the governed, and its economic health requires the cooperation of the participants in the economy. If Americans withhold their political consent and economic cooperation, both the political and financial systems in America will grind to a halt.

What does withholding consent and cooperation look like? That is difficult to predict given the fluid situation, but the citizens of other nations that have grappled with similar challenges have used sustained and massive street protests, national work strikes, work slowdowns, taxpayer strikes, business boycotts, and transportation boycotts.

Soon, very soon, Americans will be called upon to leave the comfort of their homes and the anonymity of their computer screens to engage in massive, coordinated action to remind Trump and Musk that they are servants of the people, not vice-versa.

Okay, back to today. After reviewing the newsletter from one year ago today, I hope it is apparent that we survived the onslaught and we are still standing.

No, more than that, we are winning. Trump is acting with increasingly desperate actions because he knows he is on a burning platform with time running out and that we will win, eventually. That’s the good news. And the bad news. The more we win, the more erratically Trump will act. But we have demonstrated our mettle over the last year. We have seized the momentum and captured public sentiment.

While we must refrain from telling “just so” stories to make ourselves feel better, the victory in a state senate race yesterday in Texas is illustrative because it is part of a year-long trend. See Politico (2/1/26) Democrat wins reliably Republican Texas state Senate seat, stunning GOP.

Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a special election for the Texas state Senate on Saturday, flipping a reliably Republican district that President Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024.

Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, easily defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist, in the Fort Worth-area district. With almost all votes counted, Rehmet had a comfortable lead of more than 14 percentage points.

There are many reasons to be cautious about this astounding outcome—it was a special election with fewer than 100,000 votes cast. But the race received national attention from the DNC and Trump—effectively making it a national referendum on Trump.

The most important point about the result is that it confirms a year-long trend of repudiating Trump and the GOP’s anti-democratic, unconstitutional Project 2025.

If I could have told readers a year ago, “We have lots of work to do, but in one year Democrats will be flipping ruby‑red Texas state senate seats by producing a 31‑point swing from Trump’s 17‑point win in 2024,” some of the anxiety that exploded a year ago on February 1, 2025, could have been tempered.

There is always a fine line between pointing out reasons to be hopeful and disincentivizing people from acting like their democracy is at risk. But both propositions were true a year ago and remain true today.

Our democracy is at risk—unless we act to save it. Yet, we have reason to be hopeful. We have endured a hundred-year storm and are in a strong position moving forward.

As we mark our progress since Feb 1, 2025, we should be proud of what we have accomplished.

Concluding Thoughts.

Jill and I hosted a “Today’s Edition” reader party in Los Angeles today—February 1, 2026. As always, it is a delight to spend time with readers. Many traveled from NY, NJ, ME, MN, WI, WA, CO, and VA to Los Angeles. One reader, visiting family in LA from Switzerland, also attended.

In my remarks, I discussed “The Path Forward.”

My notes (loosely followed in my remarks) included the following:

What is the path forward?

We are the path.

Over the last eight years, we have learned that we are the most important element in the defense of democracy.

In the past, we took for granted that we are the source of all power in the government. In the Declaration of Independence, the Founders said,

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . .

In the Constitution, the Framers said,

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The very idea of our nation begins and ends with us, the people.

We have learned, through bitter experience over the last nine years, that all the other guardrails of democracy can be corrupted or intimidated into silence by fear or greed.

But not us. Not the people. We have remained steadfast and loyal to the Constitution.

It has been a difficult eight years. But we have learned that our strength comes from community. Together, there is nothing we cannot do.

There is more, but I must close the newsletter for this evening. Bless all of you who raised your voices in the streets this weekend!

Talk to you tomorrow!

Daily Dose of Perspective

The following photo was published one year ago, on February 1, 2025:

Pro-democracy protest photos

Berkeley, CA

Cypress Park Home Depot (Los Angeles, CA):

Randolph Vermont

Hailey in Blaine Co, ID

Charlotte, NC

Kalamazoo Visibility Brigade; Kalamazoo, Michigan

Peterborough NH

St. John's County Indivisible Group (with support from 50501, St. Augustine Beach Dems)

I-89 shoveling crew, over I-89 in Enfield, NH

Atlanta, GA near MLK Center

Northfield, MA

Springfield, IL

San Juan Capistrano, CA

Portland, Oregon.

Pittsburgh, PA

Astoria OR

Kahului, HI