He’s leaking the idea that he might appoint Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, to be the Secretary of Education, a department that he has also threatened to eliminate. This is pure power-mad arbitrary trolling. It’s not as if she has any qualifications for the job.
Among the early arguments against Justice, the foremost is her lack of a college degree, which may be met with criticism from one or two moderate Republican Senators but is unlikely to push any into the “nay” camp.
That tracks. He’s got a pattern of promoting the most ignorant, hateful people to positions of power because he know it will get a reaction from his opponents and get him on the news. It’s a troll move.
You know who else is a petty hateful troll? Nancy Mace.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill with a bill to keep Sarah McBride, soon to be the first transgender member of Congress, from accessing the women’s bathrooms at the Capitol.
Why it matters: The measure is not being immediately dismissed by Republican leadership, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) telling Axios, “We’re going to talk about that. We’re working on the issue.”
He lies, he’s not working on the issue. He’s going to let it ferment as a distraction, because hate is the center of the Republican way. This is how they’ll also get the most anti-woman legislation done, by making hateful women the face of their party on those issues.
I am so sorry for what misery trans men and women are going to go through in the coming years.
I’ve heard it suggested that this is all a distraction. With the media hyperventilating about cabinet picks and young girls (or using the military to do mass deportations…or whatever), the oligarchs can quietly continue to pursue their real goal, transferring vast wealth to themselves.
That was my thought as well.
The GOP are going all in on hate and cultural war issues. This is to play to their base of fundie xian haters, incels, woman haters, and white racists.
It costs them nothing in time or effort.
Meanwhile as usual, the ultra rich oligarchy that mostly already rules the USA will loot the Federal government and the USA.
They won’t just carry sacks of money out of Washington DC. That isn’t even a good idea.
They will rewrite all the laws and the tax laws in their favor.
Want to drill for oil and gas in the National Parks. No problem, inexpensive leases will be for sale.
Corporate taxes will be lowered to zero.
A tax break here, a tax break there.
Can’t forget the monopolies as anti-competitive rules and regulations disappear.
Wait until your cell phone company is called ATTVerizonTM and your monthly bill goes up.
The US laws are already written to distribute the gross National Product to the upper income levels.
You can’t eat hate but money is quite useful, highly sought after, and self reinforcing. Money buys you power and power gets you money in a virtuous cycle that…results in a Third World socio-economic system.
Follow the money!!!
I posted this last night but it fits in here.
Yeah, they are trolling.
This move is designed to make everyone afraid of Trump, the GOP, the MAGAts, and the Federal government.
Latest headline, OT but not by much.
This is BTW, incredibly illegal.
It is illegal for the US military to be used within the USA for law enforcement purposes. It’s called the Posse Comitatus Act.
This is a banana republic class dictatorship move.
A government that uses its own army against its own citizens isn’t a democracy any more.
But we already saw where everything is going.
There is a pretty funny series of articles on the Postillon, a German website somewhat similar to the Onion.
Aparently Trump is apointing P. Diddy as “women’s representative”, a billy goat as Minister of Horticulture (based on a German idiom), Hannibal Lecter as Minister of Nutrition, Walt Putney as Secretary of State and former German Minister of Finance Christian Lindner as Secretary of the Treasury.
Beri beri bold move on the part of Trump. I suggest he put the Rachel chopnik or whatever of libs of TikTok in charge of NASA to clean up all those woke asteroids.
I suspect a lot of this is not some deep plan or intentional trolling. It is a consequence of how shallow and narcissistic Trump’s thinking is and how small the bubble he live in is. You see the same thing with dictators who have been in power for a while.
The people around him don’t want to recommend anybody competent for important offices because it would be creating competition. So posts get filled with people selected for not being a threat to those that already hold power around the leader. The reasonably clever ones get eliminated by events and backstabbing and over time the average level of ability of the circle around the leader goes down. And since the original motivation for recommending people less competent then themselves remains it just gets worse and worse.
The cabinet that Trump is building now has only a couple of primary traits. They are willing to publicly support Trump no matter what, they don’t disagree with Trump on anything, and they are willing to promise to implement Trump’s orders no matter what. At this point Trump is looking for cabinet members that are willing to just ignore the law because it got in Trump’s way so much the first time around.
Don’t fear the so called conservatives, who are more the underclass MAGAts and assorted losers in our society.
That is what they want. Don’t play their game.
Those red necks talking tough with their collection of guns are likely to be a 60 year guy, way overweight, out of shape, and with a heart condition that will likely be terminal.
We saw that with the antivaxxers.
They all talked tough and a lot of them ended up in the ICU on a vent and then they died from a preventable viral disease. Or ended up with Long Covid and they are still sick.
This election was a disaster but it was closer than I thought. Trump got less than 50% of the popular vote and lead by 1.6% to Harris. He won but not by much.
There are about as many of us as there are of them.
In my area of the West Coast, they are a much smaller minority.
The Great American Satan of Freethoughtblogs said it well in a blog post on November 8, 2024.
I’ll just put a link here and read it yourself.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/gas/2024/11/08/how-to-not-fear-conservatives/
Us trans people wouldn’t have to go through this misery if enough cis people started fucking standing up to these assholes and refusing to adhere to their horrible policies instead of just shrugging and going about their day as their government and workplaces harass and discriminate against us. How can so many of you claim to be allies while continuing to work as cogs in machines that are killing us??
Quite possibly, but does it make any difference?
If someone sets fire to your house in order to distract you while they rob you, sure, you should definitely be concerned about being robbed, but your house is still on fire too.
Yeah.
You need to deal with both problems.
In your analogy, you need to stop the robbers and put out your house fire.
So, we need to push back on the cultural war issues and hate.
While also watching and trying to prevent the GOP and their oligarchy masters from looting the USA any more than they already do.
Even some of the MAGAt base can comprehend such concepts as “theft”, “looting”, and raising their taxes while lowering capital gains and corporate taxes.
Enriching the ultra-rich oligarchies hurts everyone who isn’t in the 1%.
It’s a lot easier to loot when no one is looking. We need to make sure everyone knows what is happening.
Dump never appoints anyone competent. They would make him look bad.
lasius@4: I absolutely approve Lindner becoming port of the Trump government – as we have witnessed during the last three years, this guy is really skilled at sabotaging a government he’s part of.
@12 mordred
True, but if there’s a single nice thing that can be said about him, that sets him apart from other Trump appointees, is that he’s not a complete toady.
Apparently none of these cruel GOPQ fundie fake Kristian muggles have ever been to a roadside rest stop in France. Or a public urinal on the streets of Paris.
Viva la France!
He must put incompetents in place to make his own actions look better.
“He’s got a pattern of promoting the most ignorant, hateful people to positions of power because he knows it will get a reaction from his opponents and get him on the news.”
True, but also as important it gives Trump cover and allows him to maneuver within the chaos he creates. When Trump’s chaos thrives, so does Trump. His presidency will be nothing more than “The Apprentice” on steroids. I see the main hope in the battle against ignorance is for Trump to destroy as much as possible with the prospect of hurting enough of his minimally informed supporters that they have no choice but to denounce him. Not a great battle plan, but with control of the cowards in Congress we are limited in alternatives.
If yall want to help trans people now one of the big things you can do as allies is reach out to local support groups in your city or state. There are usually people there looking for housing and other basic needs. Tons of trans people are fleeing red states and non supportive families right now.
Your local groups are the best way to help directly.
Well, porque no los dos?
I very much doubt that Trumpolini is moved by anything other than poisoned ego and spite, he’s far too much into dementia for anything else.
But there are others behind him (Musk and his rancid crew for instance), and those are the ones who want to and will profit from the ensuing chaos, the nation’s well-being be damned. They are quite willing to see the US turned in a banana republic just for a few (or a lot of) bucks more.
I never expected to see the US implode in my lifetime, really…
@18 outis
I mean, I’ve always felt it was likely, but I too never expected court-side seats.
Word is, the really bad effects of climate change are also much ahead of schedule.
Interesting times. Viva la Absurdists!
He’s also just appointed Mehmet Oz to head Medicare and Medicaid, so yeah, this is pure trolling.
Bills of attainder are unconstitutional in the United States, not that Republicans seem to care about such niceties these days.
Also, how the hell are the new incoming House Republicans able to introduce bills a month and a half before the official handover of Congress on January 3?
You say that as if they ever had any trouble doing that during Biden’s term. Or Trump’s first. Or Obama’s. Or W’s. Or Clinton’s …
Ordinarily, I’d agree with you, but the plan in this case is to use them to forcibly relocate 20 million people, which makes it a Hitler class dictatorship move. As in, we’re talking Holocaust II: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut here, if they follow through on this.
Which therefore must be prevented, by any means necessary.
Did y’all honestly think the Toxic Tangerine was going to do anything that benefited anyone else?