Power to the People News — March 12, 2026
March 12, 2026: Trump's $2B donor scheme, ICE warehouse prisons, and Project 2025 out in the open. Power to the People News from People Power United.
When Power Abuses, the People Respond
The stories this week share a common architecture: power being exercised in the open, with no expectation of consequence. A president rewards donors with policy. An agency builds mass detention infrastructure in secret. Allies are threatened for standing by a neighbor's sovereignty. And the authors of the blueprint being followed are bragging about it. These are not abuses hiding in the shadows — they are the system working exactly as designed.
📰 Stories Shaping Power to the People Right Now
The Presidency as a Subscription Service
A major investigation found that more than half of 346 large post-election donors — contributing to a fundraising haul now topping $2 billion — have directly benefited from White House actions: pardons, dropped enforcement cases, government contracts, and industry-friendly regulatory rollbacks. Corporations including ExxonMobil, Amazon, and Goldman Sachs gave and gained. One former administration official turned lobbyist described the dynamic plainly: the donors were making “business decisions.” Project 2025 explicitly called for weakening campaign finance laws and amplifying donor influence — and that vision is now government reality. Our leverage is our voice, our vote, and our organized people power. New York Times
80,000 People. Warehouses. No Convictions Required.
Leaked internal documents reveal plans to convert industrial warehouses across seven states into mass detention hubs, each holding up to 10,000 people — the largest expansion of immigration detention in U.S. history. The system is designed as a “feeder pipeline” to accelerate deportations, even though nearly half of those currently detained have no criminal conviction or pending charge. Local officials and human rights advocates have called the plan inhumane and potentially unconstitutional. This is not immigration enforcement. It is a mass coercion apparatus, built with billions of your tax dollars, to pressure people into surrendering their legal rights. Washington Post
Threatening Allies: The Greenland Warning Europe Couldn’t Ignore
When the administration threatened military action and punishing tariffs against eight European democracies — including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany — for sending troops to Greenland in solidarity with Denmark, it sent shockwaves through the transatlantic alliance. Trump backed down temporarily at Davos, but the warning was unmistakable. When a U.S. president threatens allied democracies with force for defending a neighbor’s sovereignty, that is not a negotiating tactic — it is a declaration of values. Project 2025 envisions an America operating outside international norms, unbound by alliances, answerable to no one. Greenland showed the world exactly what that looks like from the inside. New York Times
Project 2025 Is the Law of the Land — And Its Authors Are Proud
One year after dismissing Project 2025 as “ridiculous” and claiming ignorance of its authors, the administration has implemented it page by page: ending DEI programs, dismantling the Department of Education, mass immigration enforcement, overhauling the federal workforce. California AG Rob Bonta, who used the document to prepare legal challenges, called it the defining blueprint of Trump’s first year back in power. One of its lead architects compared watching the executive orders to seeing his sketchbook come to life on screen. The gaslighting is over. Project 2025 is not a conspiracy theory — it is the operating system of the current federal government, and the people who wrote it are proud of what they’ve done. NPR
💥 Your Power in Action: What You Can Do Today
🐊 Take action: Shut down Trump’s “Alligator Alcatraz” detention camp
💰 Take action: Tell Congress to end the cash-for-deportation scheme
🛡️ Take action: Tell Social Security to stop sharing data with ICE
⚖️ Take action: Demand accountability for the fatal Minneapolis ICE shooting
📣 Take action: Tell Congress to investigate ICE retaliation against protests
👑 Bonus action: Sign up for the next national No Kings Day of Action
The movement for progress and power to the people starts here.
🔥 What Comes Next: The Work Is Ours
What makes this week’s stories different from simple scandal is the openness. The donor-to-policy pipeline is documented and defended. The warehouse detention network is under construction and on schedule. The Project 2025 architects are giving interviews. When a government stops hiding what it’s doing, it’s because it no longer believes there will be consequences. That belief is the thing we have to break.
Consequences come from organized people. They come from attorneys general like Rob Bonta who read the blueprint and prepared legal challenges before the orders were even signed. They come from local officials in Social Circle, Georgia — a Trump-supporting town — who are saying no to a 10,000-bed detention facility dropped on their water system without a phone call. They come from the communities, workers, and voters who are refusing to normalize what they are watching unfold.
Democracy is not self-sustaining. It requires people who treat it as worth defending — in courtrooms, in city councils, at the ballot box, and in the streets. The work has always been ours. Right now, it is more urgent than it has been in a long time.
Together, we can champion our rights, freedoms, and democracy, hold our leaders accountable to the people’s will, and inspire voters to make a meaningful difference.
Laurie Woodward Garcia
(paid with hugs and kisses, not bought by special interests)
Leader, People Power United
People Power United | In this community, we will always speak out against racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, misogyny, sexism, ageism, ableism, sizeism, elitism, transphobia, misogynoir, and bigotry!
Join the Resistance
This is our moment to rise, resist, and reclaim our democracy. Millions of Americans are already refusing to back down — in the streets, at the ballot box, and in their communities.
The blueprint for fascism is written. The resistance starts here.