Week 3: The Week We Refused To Disappear
A week of cruelty from the top. A week of defiance from below.
Six days. That’s all Week 3 needed to show Trump’s second term for what it is: unapologetic fascism. Not governance. Punishment. Punishment for immigrants who refuse to disappear. For students who walk out instead of staying silent. For government workers who keep the machine running but can’t control who’s driving it. For queer people who dare to live openly. And for anyone else bold enough to stand in the way.
ICE raided families in broad daylight. Trump signed bans, crushed aid, and punished the International Criminal Court (ICC) for trying to hold war crimes accountable. Congress shrugged. Loyalists cheered. Bureaucratic so-called leaders obeyed.
But the streets answered back. Freeways were shut down. Kids flooded city halls. The streets roared “Nobody is Illegal!” loud enough to drown out every pundit telling the people to wait and “get out the vote” for the mid-terms. WTF!
If they want fascism, they’d better be ready for resistance.
Here’s what Week 3 looked like — day by day — in a country that still remembered how to say “No! Not on our watch!”
TL;DR:
Mass deportation protests erupt. Thousands shut down Olvera Street, block the Hollywood Freeway, and march through San Diego.
High school students walk out. L.A. and Pasadena kids flood City Hall, showing the next generation won’t stay silent.
Trump escalates trade war with China. New tariffs hit everyday imports, while China hits back hard.
“Maximum pressure” returns on Iran. More sanctions, more saber-rattling.
USAID gutted. Trump shuts down foreign aid missions, thousands of aid workers recalled.
ICC targeted. Trump sanctions the International Criminal Court for daring to investigate U.S. war crimes.
Trans rights attacked. Trump signs order banning trans women from women’s sports.
Protests spread nationwide. People march coast to coast against Trump, Musk, and Project 2025.
One judge blocks part of the sabotage. A temporary stop to Trump’s plan to sideline 2,200 USAID workers.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2025
THE STREETS DIDN’T SLEEP
Thousands flooded Olvera Street in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, waving Mexican flags and homemade signs that declared what so many have always known: Nobody is illegal. Viva Mexico. When the chants weren’t enough, they poured onto the Hollywood Freeway — turning miles of concrete meant to divide communities into a river of resistance that brought the city’s gears to a halt. For a moment, L.A. belonged to the people — not to ICE, not to the cops, not to the billionaires locked away in the hills.
By dusk, they gathered at City Hall. No arrests. No apologies. Just proof that they were ungovernable when they stood together.
Down in San Diego, more than a thousand marched from the Convention Center through the Gaslamp Quarter to the “Coming Together” statue — a fitting landmark for a city that lived on the edge of a border drawn in blood. The streets made it clear: they wouldn’t bow to it anymore.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2025
THE EMPIRE SHOWED ITS TEETH
Trump signed off on a blanket 10% tariff for every Chinese import, killed the de minimis rule — and millions of working people picked up the tab. China fired back — tariffs on U.S. energy, farm equipment, and cars. Export controls on critical minerals. Big Tech caught strays: China launched an antitrust probe into Google and blacklisted PVH Corp and Illumina. The trade war was good business for warmongers and fear merchants — bad news for everyone else.
On the same day, Trump dragged Iran back into “maximum pressure.” The Senate handed the Justice Department to Pam Bondi — a loyalist wrapped in the language of law. USAID staff got their marching orders to go home. Thousands of aid workers packed up while the world’s crises burned without them. Helping the vulnerable didn’t pay dividends in Fortress America.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2025
THEY FOUGHT BACK ANYWAY
Cities across the country swelled with protests. People poured into the streets coast to coast to shout down Trump’s second term, Elon Musk’s techno-feudal dreams, and Project 2025’s Christo-nationalist fantasy. While they roared, Trump signed an executive order banning trans women from women’s sports — performative cruelty for the culture war bonfire.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2025
JUSTICE GOT PUNISHED
Trump signed off on sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) — a threat to any investigator with the nerve to hold Americans or Israeli allies to account for war crimes. Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, played Cold War cowboy, ordering the seizure of a Venezuelan government jet in the Dominican Republic. This was what the empire looked like in 2025 — petty, paranoid, unhinged.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025
A CRACK IN THE WALL
A federal judge in D.C. blocked Trump’s order to shove over 2,200 USAID staff onto paid leave. A pinhole of resistance in a week of scorched-earth policy — a reminder that the courts could stall a bulldozer, but they couldn’t steer it.
Back in L.A., students walked out of high schools citywide, flooding downtown and City Hall. In Pasadena, they marched too — proof that the next generation learned early: never ask permission to defend your community.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2025
WHO WAS AFRAID OF ACCOUNTABILITY?
The ICC Prosecutor, Karim Ahmad Khan, became the first person ever slapped with U.S. sanctions for doing his job — investigating war crimes. In Trump’s America, justice was outlawed if it pointed the wrong way.
THIS WAS THE WEEK IN AMERICAN POLITICS
People took freeways. Kids walked out of school. Politicians signed papers drenched in cruelty. The powerful bet the country was too tired to notice — too scared to act.
But the streets answered. The schools answered. The people who refused to disappear answered.
They were not going quietly.
And they were not done yet.
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