It's Only Been 2 Months...

Reflecting on the 2nd Trump Term

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Wow. This 2nd Trump administration is a complete and total nightmare. Every element of the last term: corruption, moronic statements, illegal unenforceable executive orders, and straight up evil policymaking have been cranked to 11. Trump makes equally asinine as menacing comments; proclaiming himself king and backs it up by kidnapping people and sending them to foreign gulags run by crypto hustlers. He illegally shuts down departments and programs authorized by Congress and illegally fires critical employees. Infrastructure projects and grants, already in motion, cancelled or delayed. Just recently, newly launched investigations and disruption at opposition aligned platforms akin to all the right wing hybrid regimes Trump & Co. ape. It’s unprecedented devastation.

I hate this. It feels like the very fabric of our country is tearing apart and no one in power seems to care or be capable of stopping it. Those who are sounding the alarm, trying to fight this have been left powerless by Democratic leaders who cannot articulate a solution to this.

There was a moment when Democrats could have seriously put up resistance to Trump. House Democrats had a plan to shut down the government to force the Trump administration to bargain. They held firm but were betrayed at the last moment by 10 Democratic Senators, led by Senate Leaders Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin. These Senators cited that during a shutdown the President would gain new found authority to layoff even more and cut even more. However, they never answer what provision or how that works. As pointed out in the blog Off the Line, the entire argument these defectors make is bogus. Not only that, the President has demonstrated he is more than happy to act illegally to fire people and cut programs and is increasingly trying to disobey court orders to stop. Even the federal employees' unions endorsed a shutdown!

To give this rant some structure, there are 4 big areas I am most concerned about. The Constitutional Crisis, destroying government programs that work fine, the naked robbery we are witnessing by Trump & Co., and the betrayal of all our allies to the benefit of China and Russia.

The Constitutional Crisis

I defer to smarter writers here to give better arguments. In particular, Jamelle Bouie’s recent column in the New York Times,

“The president and his de facto co-president, Elon Musk, have unleashed the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to slash the federal work force and unravel entire agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Education. But the 1883 Pendleton Act, establishing the federal civil service, is a law. The 1979 Department of Education Organization Act, establishing the titular agency, is a law. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, which established U.S.A.I.D. as its own agency, is a law. And it is a fundamental rule of American constitutional government that the only force that can invalidate an act of Congress, other than a ruling of the Supreme Court, is another act of Congress.

To assert, against the plain text of the Constitution, the power to seize appropriations and destroy the work of the legislature is to break a core premise of constitutionalism. It is anti-constitutional.”

All the while, behind the cuts, court order shenanigans, and the daily inane executive orders: Trump & Co. make the assertion that since Trump won 49.9% of the vote, he is entitled to break the law. You should take seriously the idea that the current GOP consensus is a sort of Americanized Fascism. A dictatorship on behalf of the people, legitimized by social media applause-o-meter, “setting things right” regardless of whatever the corrupt and failing laws of old say.

Oh and one more thing: always keep in mind Mahmoud Khalil and those deported to El Salvador. I turn to John Ganz, writer of the sublime Unpopular Front, for wiser words than my own:

“Here’s the most important thing about this whole affair: The state cannot make it up as it goes along. It can’t seize people in the night and invent flimsy pretexts later. And if it does, then we no longer live under the rule of law, we live in a police state. Don’t kid yourself: They will not stop at non-citizens. Trump threatened that Khalil’s arrest would be “the first arrest of many to come.” Khalil is a soft target: a “foreigner” who is part of a controversial political movement on an Ivy League campus. Unfortunately, he might not get a ton of public support for these reasons, but whatever one’s beliefs or reservations about his specific politics or activism, it’s absolutely vital to insist on due process and Constitutional rights. This goes far beyond any specific movement or political group. We’re talking about our basic freedoms now.”

Breaking Stuff that Worked Just Fine

Trump is trying to break the Post Office, again. 10,000 laid off and worse to come. And Trump is sabotaging more things in this new administration. A very stupid one was cuts to tax help centers… during tax season. This is alongside cutting the recent IRS expansion which produced shorter wait times and collected far more money than dollar budgeted.

It doesn’t end there. Social Security is in jeopardy of missing payments. New changes are coming that will dramatically worsen customer service and valid recipients are already seeing money being taken from their accounts. I expect them to totally sabotage and destroy Social Security, something that Elon Musk has made a special target. Trying to destroy Social Security sank George Bush’s 2nd term early, much like how failing to repeal the ACA shipwrecked the 1st Trump administration. But while those were legislative efforts, this is an inside job. Regardless of how you feel about the politics of Social Security, the actual day-to-day operation side of the program was perfectly fine before DOGE got its grubby hands on it.

Last, I’ll mention they’re trying to break the weather service, too. Don’t worry, I’m sure some politically juiced in Silicon Valley tech company will have the privatized alternative that doesn’t fucking work.

They’re Robbing Us

Speaking of juiced in Silicon Valley freakshows, Elon Musk is looting our government. Whether it be trying to steer a multi-billion contract to his own companies or holding up loans for rival companies, Elon Musk is robbing you, the taxpayer. Musk is getting the President of the United States to cut car commercials on the White House lawn to help his companies freefalling stock price. On the subject of stocks, one may have noticed the extreme market volatility as of late. A conspiratorial minded reader could possibly think that Trump & Co. are deliberately announcing and retracting tariffs gaming the stock market with insider knowledge. The man takes multi-million direct payments to have dinner with him, he’ll do anything for money.

This of course leads me into the biggest robbery the administration is trying to pull off. While the last term’s tax cut bill was one of the most pointless wastes of money ever seen, making those cuts permanent will turn things from bad to worse. These tax cuts are going to be financed by enormous cuts in Medicaid, food aid, clean energy, and education. Taking from the poor and giving it to the rich. It’s disgusting. These must be opposed at all costs.

Ruining American Foreign Policy

The Zelensky Oval Office ambush & the betrayal of Ukraine are stuck in my mind as some of the stupidest and evilest things done in American foreign policy since the Iraq War. The Trump administration, to again quote from John Ganz, is seeking the political destruction of Zelensky. Remember, it was Zelensky who they were trying to extort for Hunter Biden dirt causing Trump’s first impeachment. And given Trump’s overwhelming Russophilia, the fact that Ukraine has survived for 3 years is irksome to him. He wants Ukraine to lose.

This stupidity and evil is only rivaled by the continued hostility towards Canada and the rest of NATO. The embarrassing, stupid, and shortsighted attacks on our allies is destroying the western alliance. Trump is doing the bidding of Russia and China by turning away from Europe and East Asia. One thing I hate are dumbasses like Marco Rubio who will say out loud, “we’re trying to split Russia and China” like it's a video game. The Sino-Soviet split was produced by very specific circumstances that have been long since resolved! Or the idiots who want to drive us into a protracted low-scale insurgency in Central America. Moronic conservative policymakers and leaders are convinced they can swoop into Mexico or wherever and wipe out the cartels with precision airstrikes and special forces. These people are trying to make Tom Clancy and Sicario real. I could go on. They ruin America’s reputation and are wrecking the Armed Forces, what else is there to say?

Conclusion

Before I go, a few final words. First, I am still somehow shocked at how stupidly, brazenly racist this administration has been. The latest: deleting DoD pages about the Navajo Code Talkers and Jackie Robinson for being “DEI”. They’ll purge all mention of non-white people in American history by years end if they can. Second, Illinois and Chicago posting will resume in the coming weeks. It’s hard to write about that while so much awful stuff is happening nationally.

Third, want to do something? Join me this Saturday with Operation Swing State. We will be heading north to Milwaukee to canvas for the upcoming Wisconsin State Supreme Court election. Don’t worry, carpooling is available and there are multiple gathering points throughout Chicagoland. Turn some of this anxiety into action. Can’t join us? Vote in your upcoming Spring municipal election, then! Also consider becoming a paying subscriber to help support my political endeavors!

I’ll see you in the next one.