I see a tiny bit of hope for the future. Donald Trump is making all kinds of wild appointments right now, giving us a peek at the United States government for the next four years.
- Tulsi Gabbard, director of intelligence
- Matt Gaetz, attorney general
- Pete Hegseth, defense secretary
- No one, Department of Education (it will be dissolved)
- RFK Jr, health secretary
- Ramaswamy & Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”, ha ha, Musk’s adolescence never ended)
It’s an odd thing in which to find solace, but it’s obvious that Trump is packing the highest levels of government with the worst, most incompetent, most inappropriate people he can find. There is a method to this madness. His purposes are 1) to spite the people who opposed him with appointments that will enrage his critics, 2) to reward the loons who supported him, and 3) to support the long-held Republican dream of dissolving government altogether. It’s a policy of chaos and destruction.
The saving grace is that Trump is not Lawful Evil. He isn’t making a well-planned, disciplined assault on our government with a cunning long-term goal. He’s Chaotic Evil. He’s in this for vengeance, wanton destruction, and self-aggrandizement, and he’s not subtle about it. And he’s not building a legacy that will last.
He’s following his hero’s, Hitler’s, pattern. Hitler was also a wild card who lashed out with the resources of a strong nation to achieve striking initial successes, which were then undermined by his own ego and incompetence (invading Russia? That’s insane). In the final analysis he left Germany a smoking ruin, shattered and divided, with about 80 million dead. That’s what the USA has to look forward to, I fear.
You may wonder what’s hopeful about that. Consider the alternative: what if Hitler had been a careful, disciplined genius, who succeeded in establishing the Thousand Year Reich? That would have been far worse. No one is going to regard Trump as a genius.
OK, here’s an even more optimistic take. The USA is about to embark on a 4 year long bender, we’re going to leave a swathe of destruction behind us, and eventually end up broke, stinking, and puking in a ditch, and we’re not going to be funny-drunk, we’re going to be bitter-angry-drunk. Sorry, world.
If you’re not convinced yet, he wants to put Herschel Walker in charge of an imaginary missile defense shield. Madness.
That’s not good enough. You need to keep your ideological war on your own soil and not let it spill over and harm anyone else. Where do you think you are? Vietnam?
Matt Gaetz resigns ahead of key Ethics Committee meeting
This could turn out to be a lucky break. If he’s already out of Congress, then fails to get confirmed to a cabinet position, maybe he will go away.
Did anyone really think there would be any grown-ups in the room in a second Former/Next Guy administration? He’s learned his lesson, the adults would take away his toys, even if they couldn’t stop his temper tantrums. No more Mr. Nice Guy. He’s gonna show us.
Even if it will be possible to elect a different party to power after the next four years, it will take them longer than one term to repair the damage that this bunch of toddlers will inflict on the system that keeps the US running. Or whatever tendrils it has to influence things outside of its borders.
Buckle up, people, it’s going to be a rough ride. And the suspension is fucked.
The rest of the world is about to find out just what all those decades of effusive, sycophantic admiration and endless support for the Indispensable Country were good for. Sadly, not unlike a battered spouse realising, too late, that there’s simply no changing some people.
I had this conversation with a friend in 2020. Trump isn’t chaotic. Chaos is unpredictable, and Trump is entirely predictable. Given any option Trump will inevitably pick the stupidest one.
He’s not Chaotic Evil; he’s Stupid Evil.
Trump and the kleptocapitalists who support him believe:
Bad government is good government.
Good government is bad government.
That is what works for them.
My wishful thought is that perhaps his “team” is so incompetent that they can’t get anything done. They will be so obsessed with their main ambition, getting richer, that they will mainly focus on how to move money out of the government and into their bank accounts. As the infighting over the spoils unfolds, their program of destruction will dissolve into disarray.
That’s my wishful thought, my fantasy.
Of course, even under the best of circumstances it will be a disaster for people around the world, including American people. I wish I knew what to do about it.
That is an oxymoron.
I’ve never noticed that Tulsi Gabbard is all that intelligent.
She might be the best of Trump’s picks so far, so clueless that she can’t even figure out how to destroy our 18 alphabet spy and information gathering agencies.
The terminus technicus for all this is, I believe, kakistocracy. Breaking up a state by making its institutions a laughingstock.
@6
This sounds familiar.
George Orwell has it right again.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Bad government is good government.
Good government is bad government.
I did not want to live my last years living in 1984 in 2024.
Shrug.
This is what the majority of the voters of the USA voted for.
Old saying.
Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.
The goal here is to destroy as much of the USA and the US government as they can in 4 years.
No surprise.
This of course, shows a deep seated hatred of the USA and what it supposedly stands for, “Truth, Justice, and the American way.”
Even Superman gave up.
His new slogan, changed in 2021, is “Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow”.
As I wrote before, this might not be as easy as the GOP christofascists think.
The USA is a huge country of 345 million people with the world’s largest economy.
We’ve got a lot of momentum here.
We also have powerful ultra rich oligarchies that dominate our government and politics. If wrecking the USA threatens their income and power, they are going to oppose it and probably at least somewhat effectively.
I’ll wait and see, watch from a distance, and really, I’m past caring all that much.
I cared deeply for 50 years, fighting against the Vietnam war while still in high school, and look where it got us.
Hitler destroyed Germany and Trump is about to do the same to America. Trump needs to be admired beyond any known standard. PZ said, “He’s in this for vengeance, wanton destruction, and self-aggrandizement, and he’s not subtle about it.” His vengeance and wanton destruction purpose is to eliminate anyone who does not worship him. This does two things, it exiles those who don’t/won’t yes him, he is never wrong and when you suggest something different, you at telling him he is wrong. See what he’s done to Nikki Hale and Pomeo. It also makes those who do worship him want to endear themselves even more. They see him as (all) powerful but what they really fear is being shunned. This creates a cycle of elevating Trump even further. His self-aggrandizement drives everything. This parallels Christian beliefs in God. The Christians believe Trump is here as a catalyst to bring about their Christian Prophies, what they don’t get is he is here to replace their god.
For many years, I thought it was wildly unrealistic that comic books had Lex Luthor getting elected President. Now I realize that was the most realistic thing to happen in the DC universe.
We knew this was going to happen. Trump is a paranoid idiot who was going to pick people he trusted to be personally loyal to him for his new administration, which necessitated choosing only people dumber than he is.
microraptor @14 —I doubt personal loyalty has much to do with any of this. They would throw each other down the stairs in a heartbeat.
True. It’s one reason if I had a single ticket to a time machine, I’d use it to undo Henry Kissinger’s atrocities.
RFK Jr, health secretary
Well it was nice knowing y’all, I guess I’m going to die of something interesting and painful in the next four years
More seriously, that’s extra terrifying considering we almost certainly will have a bird flu pandemic some time soon. And I guarantee you a second Trump regime would fuck it up as badly as the first one fucked up COVID-19, even without RFK Jr as Health Sec.
“Never a more wretched hive of scum and villainy…”
Add two cups nuclear weapons, two tablespoons climate change, and stir.
Cross-posted with Mano Singham’s blog.
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With 53 Republican senators you only need to find useful ‘kompromat’ for four of them to turn the tables and block the government.
Consider the moral fibre of this bunch.
.
Just identify the ones that have done mail fraud, insider trading, illegally stuffed money into numbered bank accounts abroad, accepted $$$ from foreign powers to influence the govenment, committed sexual assault, tax evasion, had sex with a minor/ a boy/ a domesticated pet.
You can start with the four most promising, and keep the other dozen in reserve.
Admittedly, president Rapist will pardon anyone revealed doing a federal crime during his presidency, This is why you start by hinting Mr 34 Felonies will only be around four years and #48 may not be as accomodating. In case they call your bluff and threaten to go public, it is useful to start with the ones having the most embarassing secrets, things even Fox News will be unable to give a positive spin.
But I am confident there are plenty of non-federal crimes waiting for exposure.
.
In worst case, use the Dark Web to make it known there is $ 1 million waiting for anyone with useful, easy-to-confirm kompromat and arrange the handover in some territory that is not impressed by US laws. 1 million is dirt cheap for an economy worth trillions.
Dr Singham nails it: I suspect that Trump appointed him [Gaetz] knowing that this would disgust many of the senior professionals in the justice department and they would resign, sparing him the trouble of firing them. He can now fill those positions with loyal hacks who will carry out whatever Trump wants them to do…
The same surely applies across the board.
Artor@#13:
People were pointing out back during Trump’s first term that in the comics, when Lex Luthor was elected president, he actually did divest himself of his business holdings and hand running them off to people like Mercy Graves while he was in office. Yes, a freaking supervillain was more ethical than Trump.
Do your job, shut up or be fired. That’s how it’s going to roll out and it doesn’t take much to gum up the works of a government agency.
In 2003, Bush appointed a “communications guy” to NASA, a campaign staffer, whose mission was to limit access to climate researchers and to cast doubt on science. The doofus resigned for lying on his resume, but not before he caused some concern and damage to NASA’s credibility.
Same again in 2020 when Trump appointed toady Michael Caputo to communications at the CDC. Caputo’s mission was to suppress data and research coming out during COVID and he caused some real damage before resigning for “medical reasons.”
Those who work in those organizations will have a choice to fall in line and keep their jobs, or speak out and get fired. Either way it will be a bad scene.
Invading the Soviet Union being a huge blunder that Hitler forced on unwilling generals is a myth that said generals perpetuated in order to exonerate themselves. In truth the German military top brass had less hangups about invading the USSR than they had about invading either Poland or France. Reason being that the recent purges in the Red Army and the Soviet failure in Finland had made the USSR look like a giant paper tiger while the fast victory over France and some other smaller countries had boosted the confidence of the German leadership into the stratosphere.
There’s also the fact that the USSR was increasingly propped up by lend-lease which plugged one of the biggest holes the Red Army had, its god-awful logistics (sound familiar). The Studebaker truck arguably contributed more to the Soviet victory over Germany than the T34.
Don’t forget that before president George Bush wrecked the US economy and millions of 401(K) plans, he managed to destroy a US city. That was New Orleans, living below sea level during hurricane Katrina.
It wasn’t even all that hard.
Bush appointed Michael Brown, someone with no training or ability to head FEMA.
You can’t blame Brown and FEMA for the hurricane or the levee failures, but the Federal response afterwards was nonexistent so they had to call up the national guard.
Trump topped that in his first term with his response to the Covid-19 virus pandemic, which killed hundreds of thousands unnecessarily.
That is where the bar is right now.
Can the Trump maladministration do even more damage and kill even more people?
PS It took Bush 8 years to destroy the US economy. That momentum thing.
Don’t expect this current Reich to wreck everything immediately. Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day.
#20 @ birgirjohnssen
How very rational of you.
Speaking as one of the Christians who read this blog? They worship and fear him more fervently than God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost. I have seen in them and live myself this kind of faith. Their object-of-faith is of course as mistaken in my mind as all y’all feel mine is. Yet this devotee (the root of this word ‘deva’ is applicable here) belief is in the end a very REAL aspect of the world we live in. I have spoken with straight men who would willingly, slobberingly, and eagerly suck his tiny teeny toadstool.
The civil methods of justice and order in this country have been proven loudly publicly and repeatedly ineffective against this threat. You are having a lovely dream. :)
I’m getting my pop corn ready for the imminent Trump/Musk fall out. Apparently Mr Elon has been hanging around Mar Lago for days, just chilling and cosplaying being a president*. Trump likes to suck up to actually rich people but I am expecting a power trip on his part to tell Elon to fuck off.
footnote: Yet another proof that CEO’s don’t do jack shit. Elon is supposedly running multiple companies, but right now chilling next to Trump and before he used to play Diablo for days, long enough to apparently be top 20 in some the raiting of some dumbass dungeon.
On one point I’ll have to disagree:
“You may wonder what’s hopeful about that. Consider the alternative: what if Hitler had been a careful, disciplined genius, who succeeded in establishing the Thousand Year Reich?”
maybe such geniuses do exist, but a dictator cannot be one of those. To become undisputed, unique ruler by force in a short period one needs to be a frickin’ bloodthirsty animal (see AH et al) and such qualities are not compatible with the Moriarty-like personality you describe.
That’s why 99.99% of dictators come across as total idiots on every axis, save “ability for bloodshed”.
Addendum: any animal cunning they may have at the start vanishes after ten years or so, as they will surround themselves with bootlickers and in so doing lose contact with reality.
Addendum for the addendum: PLUS, AH was out of his fuckin’ head with drugs in his last years. If memory serves, his doctor’s diary notes something like 800 doses of Pervitin in total (what today is called crystal meth), plus the necessary downers to bring him down plus sleeping pills plus Shaitan knows what else. A slobbering drughead, which explains a lot.
@21
You’re putting to much thought into that, because Trump sure as fuck doesn’t do anything thinking. He pick Gaetz, cause Gaetz blows smoke up his arse. As long as Gaetz keeps blowing smoke up his arse, his job is safe.
robro @15: Everyone Trump has picked is someone who indicated that they believe in the Rule of Trump ahead of the Rule of Law. That’s the loyalty I’m talking about- Trump doesn’t want people who are going to tell him “no, you can’t do that, the law doesn’t allow it” this time.
As regards the AG pick… For those that know their G&S, I’m going to be referring to him as Matt “Koko” Gaetz.
To paraphrase the old Polish proverb: It’s tRUMPS circus, it’s tRUMPs monkeys. But, we are facing monkeys throwing hand grenades.
Wow, terrible play on words came to mind. For those of you that know jazz musicians ‘felonious monk’
As if that wasn’t enough, in Northern Scarizona (and likely elsewhere) large numbers of medical practices are being hi-jacked by huge corporations and we know of at least 10 physicians in our area that said, ‘screw that, I quit’.
The thing is, everyone knows this is going to blow up in the next 2 years, and in 4 years there will be complete democratic control. So everyone that cares about the US needs to stop paying attention to Trump, and start being part of the process that determines who will be running in 4 years. The real work of determining the next administration won’t take place in 2028, it will be in the democratic town halls, primaries etc that lead up to that. If enough people get organized into significant voting blocks, enough to actually change the result of a primary, then there is a chance to actually move the Democrats position in a positive direction. That’s where progressives actually need to be working now.
I am told Hegseth is not only a serial adulterer, he is also claimed to have said he has not washed his hands in ten years.
@35 That’s not a claim, he said it on Fox five years ago. He also said he doesn’t believe in germs because he can’t see them. The clip was shown on Colbert, Kimmel and Meyers, along with the clip of him nearly killing a drummer during a hatchet throwing stunt.
What’s more troubling about him is all the Christofascist tattoos he’s covered in. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/whats-the-deal-with-pete-hegseth-crusader-tattoos
In his appointments he’s taking Steve Bannon’s infamous motto to a new nadir. Flood the zone with SHIT!
How in hell did this wackjob survive the COVID pandemic? And serial adulterer? What woman in her right mind would let those filthy hands anywhere near her body?
whheydt@31:
For those that know their what?
raven@25– Brown and FEMA weren’t just useless during Katrina, they repeatedly blocked local emergency services. At their most egregious they shut down all air traffic over New Orleans, at a time when airlifting was the only safe rescue method for thousands of people, so Bush Jr could fly over the city in Air Force One and look at it from above.
Gilbert and Sullivan.
Ko-Ko is a character from The Mikado. The lord high executioner of Titipu (the highest rank a citizen can obtain), Ko-Ko was a cheap tailor who had been sentenced to death for flirting, until he was raised to his high position through “remarkable circumstances.”
@35. Ridana & #birgerjohansson : Yup. See via Stephen Colbert here – Shock Noms: Trump Picks Gaetz, Hegseth, Huckabee, Gabbard | Biden & Trump’s Cordial WH Meeting here 5 mins 25 secs mark onwards esp. a dozen minutes long in all.
@12. stuffin : “The Christians believe Trump is here as a catalyst to bring about their Christian Prophies, what they don’t get is he is here to replace their god.”
Yup. Truth. Remember they even made a literal golden idol of him at CPAC one year :
Guess a lot of supposed Gawd fearin’Bible-readin’ Xns forget the whole Golden Calf episode in Exodus.
It wasn’t even a parody or satire but serious…
Ibid.
it really is a kult.
@26 seachange
I have to be honest here. I really don’t get believers. Everything about “worship”, is some version of, “Those how walked away from Omelas.” Why? Because its a variation of the same story. Either there is some Utopia, but behind the scenes someone is being tortured, and everyone knows it, to make it a paradise, and the people that walk away from it are outcasts, and seen as fools, by those who stay, or its, “We haven’t reached that paradise yet, but it will be wonderous. All you have to do is do everything exactly as you are told, and the price is merely the fake self sacrifice of someone to themselves, and… oh, the minor issue that if you choose wrong we will have to lock them in a basement and torture them for eternity. But, heh, you get paradise out of it, so yeah! Oh, and you have to be a fool to walk away from it.” Somehow, there is always a freaking child, naked, abused, and locked in a basement, who “has to exist”, for everyone else to have Nirvana. And, the Trump cult has this in spades too – “I we just torture, kill, or exile everyone who is gay, trans, an immigrant, etc., we will have a paradise! Heh.. Why the heck are you walking away, get back here?!”
Even when some of the ideals are solid, the core is always rotten, and built on the misery of others, and this is supposed to be a “good thing”.
@33. canadiansteve :
Everyone knows? That’;s very rarely true and I don’t think it’s true in this case. Everyone is a whole lotta people and peopel sure can be ignornat -either willfully or otherwise.
Then there’s the assumption that relatively free and fair elections will occur again. I doubt that will happen. Things are already rigged in the Repugs favour with the EC, gerrymandering, lack of preferential voting etc..
Trump & co, you may have noticed don’t respect rules or Democracy & principles and ideals thereof or the USA’s Constitution. (The document not the old ship that is.) So. You think the next elections will happen and be fair and be ones others can win? I’d like to hope so but I doubt that.
Then there’s the issue of the Democratic party and as you also might’ve noticed from a lot of people commentiung here how badly it has performed and done. Its in a pretty bad state, been pushed to the far rightalong withthe whole ugly Overtoin window in the States and is going to struggle to recover. Yeah, we have four years and alot of dmage ha sbeen done and more will be done. Can ann actual third party (Greens or other) really come along and become strong enough? Will that be a help or a hindrance enabling & empoweringthe reougs as usual? Willthe peopelthat ned tolearntheir lessons and be smart this time , next time, if there is one, do that?
Dunno.
I wish Icould sayiand think something mor ehopeful?
Military coup? Regime change by the rest of the planet to save our shared planet? Huh. Maybe? Suggestions?
I suspect Pete from Fox probably committed at least one war crime during his military service in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Remember the term. “Jumping the shark”. I didn’t realize a whole country could do it.
For the world as a whole, Trump ruling the USA is far more dangerous than Hitler ruling Germany, for three reasons. First, because of onrushing climate and environmental disruption. These next four years are the most crucial yet, and perhaps the last chance to avoid civilizational collapse. Second, because of nuclear weapons; not that I expect Trump to launch a nuclear war with Russia or China, although he might nuke a non-nuclear armed state that annoys him – but both his carte blanche for Israel and abandonment of Ukraine will hugely increase instability. Third, because the USA is a far more powerful state than 1930s Germany in relation to the rest of the world – and it has now voted for fascism, meaning all three of the world’s most powerful states are now on the path to fascism*. However much of a genius Hitler had been, Germany simply did not have the resources to do what he wanted – see Adam Tooze’s The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. Even after conquering most of western Europe, Nazi Germany was desperately short of key resources, among them food, coal, and oil. He could not defeat Britain without unrestricted submarine warfare which – as in WW1 – would bring the USA into the war. He always intended to invade the USSR, but also felt he had to seize its resources and destroy Britain’s hope of a two-front war before the USA entered anyway.
But despite the desperate situation, we can’t give way to despair. I understand it is more dificult for anti-fascist Americans not to do so – but you also have much more direct opportunities to fight Trump. I agree with canadiansteve@33 that working toward a left takeover of the Democratic Party is the strategy to adopt – while hoping that the incompetence, corruption and infighting that it is already clear will be rife in Trump’s “administration” hamper the ability of Trump and the more organised forces of technofascists and Christian nationalists to make free elections impossible.
*Some will cavil at the desciption of China as on the path to fascism. But it is now a personal dictatorship – as it has not been since Mao – and Xi has surrounded himself solely with Han Chinese men (the entire Standing Committee of the Politburo consists of them), and is pursuing both genocidal and expansionist policies, while economic inequality has ballooned – but the billionaires remain at the mercy of the party, as the megarich did in Nazi Germany. Where are the differences from fascism?
This reminds me way too much of the 1980s. Many of us knew that the guy at tha top was a self-centered, less-intelligent/wise-than-seems in general, utter loon… so we watched what his trusted “friends” were doing. And who those trusted “friends” were (like this one and his sidekick)… and neither of those substance-oriented descriptions goes very deeply into “personal foibles relevant to fitness for office,” especially not the first one.
Any deep game of “well, you rejected the real turd, here’s one slightly less smelly that you really, really need to confirm” is being played by those trusted “friends,” not by the guy at the top. That game would fit with the sociopathy, but not the narcissism.