So far, Donald Trump has targeted the following federal agencies for sweeping layoffs:
- USAID
- National Park Service
- CIA
- FBI
- National Science Foundation
- NOAA?
The FBI is straight-up revenge. NOAA appears to be motivated by a belief that if you get rid of the agency that monitors climate change, then climate change will cease to exist.
The others are harder to suss out. Summer workers at national parks? Research boffins at the NSF? The CIA? And of course, the jihad against USAID, which becomes more inexplicable the longer it plays out.
I suppose this all legal unless Congress sets explicit staffing levels. But it's not going to save much money. Trump has no plans to slash staffing at Defense, the VA, or Homeland Security, and the entire rest of the government accounts for about $100 billion in compensation costs (wages plus benefits). If you lay off 5% of the workforce, which is a lot, you'd save about $5 billion per year. This is roughly five hour's worth of federal spending.
If this staffing really is wasteful, then fine. Cut away. But it's just not what the government spends its money on. That would be defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, social welfare, and interest on the debt. If you don't take those on, you're not cutting spending. You're just showboating.
"The FBI is straight-up revenge."
That is bulshit. Trump intends to convert the FBI to his private gang, so he can use it to intimidate (and worse) any opponents. That is clear from the appointments he made in the DOJ and FBI.
Revenge is small part of it.
The rest is also about controlling the government agencies, and hence being able to use them both for graft and harassing opponents.
Using them as an enforcement wing for his personal revenge aims seems, uhh, to also be revenge.
Intimidating opponents isn't revenge. It is repression.
The largest danger for American democracy is Trump succeeding to convert the FBI to a repressive force, and this seem to escape Drum and most of the commenters on this blog (and the media).
The FBI has often been a repressive force during its history. That is not a new development, but it is a worrying return to an old pattern, with a petty fucking idiot at the helm to make it even worse.
"The FBI has often been a repressive force.."
In the service of a single person?
When it is used by some part of the population it is bad, but not as bad as when it is in the service of a single person. Even more so when this person is a piece of shit.
It is definitely much more serious problem than his stupid ideas about Gaza/Greenland/Panama, tarrifs, and the various other distractions, but it gets much less attention, in this blog and elsewhere.
Well, it's Musk's Meat Axe ® combined with Trump's petty grudges. Musk cuts anything he doesn't understand the value of, the Convict anything that ever offended or inconvenienced him at one point.
EPA is in the crosshairs.
USAID was apparently called out in Project 2025. Fox News is reporting that Musk is combing through Medicare looking for fraud. Apparently looking at Republican Senators is off the table.
Somebody should introduce Musk to Rick Scott. He’s an expert at Medicare fraud.
"We are just unsure where this tranche went, sir."
As someone who worked for CMS they are going to be surprised that the over whelming majority of fraud in Medicare and Medicaid is provider driven. Guess who they voted for?
Musk and his merry Band of Boys will never see that real fraud. They are only looking at code. They have no idea how any (real life, not computer) program works or what any program does. They only have its name and a hit list from Musk and Project 2025.
Finding fraud takes real audits of not just the numbers but management audits. They can't do either one.
No, it isn't.
That's not... Christ, I can't believe you keep writing that this stuff is legal.
Trump is required, as President, to sufficiently staff these agencies to fulfill their ambits. It is deeply illegal for him to fire staff with the explicit intention of making them unable to do their jobs, in the same way his Muslim Ban was illegal; context and intent matter.
This isn't my opinion. Courts routinely take both federal and state executives to task for failing to properly uphold laws they don't want to uphold. Governors have gotten in deep trouble for shit like "the state constitution says I gotta do X, but I don't wanna, so I just won't allocate any money to it or hire anyone to do it."
There's also the fact that a lot of these people have civil service protections. To get rid of them lawfully you need to not just fire them, but to eliminate the position, AND have it not be a pretext to just re-hire someone in precisely the same position. Again, there's legal history on this.
Trump deciding to just fire everyone and leave the agency there with money appropriated but no staff to... well, staff it, is in fact illegal. This is all kinds of illegal.
I can't believe I have to say this.
CJ John Roberts has to be sweating bullets. He either goes down in history as an accessory to a coup or someone who stood up in the face of one.
Alas I must disagree. Roberts has been a "unitary executive" -- translation: autocracy/authoritarianism -- guy from WAY back. Citizens United was no aberration, nor was Trump v US. He cast his lot early on, and he's been in smash-and-grab mode for at least a decade now. He won't lift a finger, and he'll work behind the scenes against those who would.
This is not to say he doesn't have "who, ME?" moments, some of them perhaps even sorta-kinda temporarily genuine. After all, who wants to be held accountable by history for their horrible, reprehensible acts? But that ship sailed long ago.
Once again, CU gets misrepresented. CU has nothing do with any of this. It's about the idea that spending money is equivalent to speaking, and speaking is protected by the 1A, and that corporations (of all forms) have 1A rights. You may and likely do disagree with both of these, and that's fine, but this is what CU is about, not autocracy/authoritarianism.
Say whatever you want about Roberts, but please get the basics of CU right (even if CU ought to be overturned or amended).
I don't think Roberts gives a fuck. He has his, and the turmoil isn't going to hurt him any.
It’ll be hilarious if one of the high school grads cuts Roberts paycheck by mistake.
I'm sure it would be "by mistake, we swear" if he happened to vote against them in a ruling.
+25. Mr Drum appears to be a victim of the "shock'n'awe" campaign. Well, lots of people are. But the key is to not back down or give up or leave the field. For those with "standing" and "agency", file lawsuits. For the rest of us, stop whinging. This is prime time to build a case for "See? This is what you get when you elect Republicans."
I can't say I expected any different. He's a radical centrist.
🙂
Fareed Zakaria is the original radical centrist, I suppose Kevin fits that mould.
Kevin has to believe everything is balanced. He’s not run a “Democrats suck too” post in quite a while so he has to make sure to run lots of “Republicans actually aren’t insane or criming” posts so he can show his face in public to his Orange County friends.
+2
Seriously. And like you, I can't believe it even needs saying.
And Kevin? Honestly, it's like every now and then what's going on right in front of your (our/all of our) eyes is so shockingly unbelievable that you just check out and decide it must be okay. What seems to be happening can't be happening. (I can't help but remember when you concluded folks must be nuts to think then-Gov. Chris Christie would intentionally shut down lanes to cause traffic jams in Ft. Lee, NJ.)
Anyway, maybe you need to reset on this one.
It's not really "illegal"; the Supreme Court established that in 2024, just in time to get Trump off. What could be more in his "conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority" than personnel decisions within the bureaucracy? Well yes, "signing a bill", but only a little bit.
And since the Republican Senate has shown conclusively and preclusively that it will vote "Not Guilty" in any Impeachment that an offended House of Representatives (if that even means something any more) might send over, there is nothing to do except watch the Nation tumble into chaotic "every-man-for-himself" catastrophe. And yes, I mean "man" because women usually aren't that insane.
It's not really "illegal"; the Supreme Court established that in 2024, just in time to get Trump off.
Sure it's illegal. The fact that Trump probably cannot be prosecuted for what his people are doing doesn't mean a judge can't order the regime to refrain from this or that action. This has already happened (the birthright citizenship EO).
Pretty sure that the current congress and the last election results conclusively demonstrate that insanity has no gender or sex allegiance.
Hard agree. That's a ridiculous sentence.
Sure, the President has lots of power to mess up the executive branch, but he can't just fire everyone at will.
Where does the idea even come from that this is legal? They days when the President could legally fire everyone down to the local post master in your town are long gone.
It's because the Supreme Court ruled that nothing the president does is illegal, so it can't be illegal.
But everyone else is.
Not criminally liable for official acts - but could still be violating the law, I think.
+1
Also, this isn't the President acting, it's other people.
Hate to be pedantic, but the supreme court only said the president can't be prosecuted, not that it isn't illegal. (I know, I know)
You're not being pedantic. Trump's executive orders can be struck down, and already have been. This is an important point.
Also, I wonder—if things go too far—if Trump vs. United States couldn't be revisited or tweaked by a Supreme Court that now realizes the error of its ways. What I mean is this: AIUI that infamous ruling held that a POTUS cannot be criminally charged for activities related to the discharge of official, core executive branch duties.
But there's an obvious "out" for a court that wanted to trim or clarify this precedent: what are the limits (if any) to what those core responsibilities consist of? A crime committed in legitimate furtherance of the president's constitutional powers can't be prosecuted. Fine. What about a crime committed in pursuit of an unconstitutional power grab? Is blatant defiance of Congress's spending directives really a constitutional responsibility or duty of the President? For now, probably "yes" until we learn otherwise. But I here lies a loophole if the court wants to tighten up the bad precedent it established last summer. (I believe in the fullness of time Trump vs. United States will be overturned; but that's years away).
Wrong tense. "are" has become "were" in Trumpland. There is no "is" any longer except what Jabba The Hutt declares it to be.
So it depends on what the meaning of "is" is?
Elon Musk’s Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink’s Contracts in Ukraine ,
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musks-enemy-usaid-was-investigating-starlink-over-its-contracts-in-ukraine-2000559365
You're just showboating.
Wait, what?! Chosen One Donald Trump, he of the Mandate, is not Seriously Committed to reducing Waste Fraud and Abuse? And bringing an end to the plague of Wokeness that has made America less than Great? And cuttin' mah AIG prices?!
Surely you jest!
In case it's necessary to say it again, showboating is ALL he's about, with the ultimate hope of getting rich off it (and maybe somehow quieting the voices in his head that have been screaming his entire life about what a worthless POS he is). And showboating is why his followers elected him, and why they support him. It explains his Cabinet appointments, his increasingly bizarre comments about foreign policy, his maniacal (and absurdly inconsistent) obsession with tariffs ... it's ALL showboating.
[Terminator rant] "It's what he does!! It's ALL HE DOES!!!!"
“quieting the voices in his head that have been screaming his entire life about what a worthless POS he is”
In my experience, people who lack empathy also lack consciences. Once you’ve decided nobody else matters, it’s hard to see why you would talk yourself out of doing anything because others think it would be “bad.”
Oh I don't think it's because of a conscience or that others would think it's bad. I don't think there's any question that he's a narcissist to the degree that he's a sociopath.
But as I understand it, the root of narcissism is a lack of SELF-esteem. It's not that OTHERS think you're bad; it's that YOU think you are, or at least not good enough. Thus the grandiosity, the dominance behavior, etc., to try to compensate. The showboating isn't all shouting at others; it's as much shouting at yourself.
I realize it makes me a Bad Person, but I hope -- and I think it's more likely than not -- that most of his private moments are a living hell of frustrated, rage-filled inadequacy. If so, I suspect the encroaching dementia will be something of a relief, and we will see him fade faster rather than slower.
I came across the Mall for you....
".. showboating is ALL he's about.."
That is just nonsense and you should know better.
Trump is trying to amass enough power to become a dictator. he also does other things, some of them pretty dumb, but for him these these are useful "shiny objects" to distract the media and the public from the main project.
It works pretty well for him until now.
In case you want to track the legal challenges.
https://www.courtwatch.news/p/lawsuits-related-to-trump-admin-executive-orders
Unfortunately, our courts move too slow to meaningfully impede any of this.
This is going to end in blood.
Yep. Lots of somebodies in lots of somewheres will have their livelihoods ruined by everything Trump/Musk is doing, and some percentage of those losers will pick up one of the hundreds of millions of guns lying around and Exercise Their Second Amendment Rights. They may not aim at the right people, but that’s of little comfort to the rest of us who don’t have personal security forces protecting us everywhere.
Yep. They won't remember that, no matter how obnoxious "Libs" may be, they run things rather adeptly. Little tremors were shaking the ground during the interregnum between the election of 2024 and Inauguration Day, but the Mierda hit the fan in the months following.
But somehow, someway, "It's that Lib's fault! Blam! Blam! Blam!"
I agree. Academia, Intelligentsia, Punditry, Judiciary will observe the changes, ebbs and flows, plot the points, write the summaries, and publish the arguments and rebuttals...
While damage is done to the Little People.
https://youtu.be/nc1ifhVSciU
NPS has organized resistance in place since the last time MAGA ran amok.
Putin could not do a better job than Trump and Musk in crippling the FBI, CIA and destroying AID. All make the job of undermining America here and elsewhere much easier.
And his proposal on Gaza? That in one stroke alienated 2/3 or more of the world.
Somehow as this unfolded my mind dwelt on the parallel between our reality and Orwell's "Animal Farm", "1984", and Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove (a movie in case younger folks are unaware of it).
Musk's DOGE comes directly out of 1984..--"Department of Government Efficiency" sounds a little like "The Ministries of Truth, Love, Plenty, and Peace"-- maybe next week they will show up.
Our legal system's degradation reminds me of Animal Farm's "All Animals Are Equal but Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others" except that I replace the animal reference with pigs as it's more descriptive of now.
And lastly Strangelove came to mind with Musk's "sieg heil" reminding me of Strangelove's abortive but clearly similar genuflection to Hitler. And Trump yesterday deciding on a whim to take over Gaza a little like Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) launching a nuclear war simply because he could. The ineffective to non-existent resistance from Repubs and Dems to all this is a little like Peter Sellers Capt. Lionel Mandrake's futile attempts to stop the war. And behind it all the goal of making money out of it by privatizing the occupation of Gaza seemed a little like, yes it's a stretch, Keenan Wynn's "Bat Guano" and his defense of the "private property of the Coca Cola company."
Very weird times.
It wasn't Strangelove, but Stangelove's arm that he couldn't control.
😉
+1 I think you've got it!
“That in one stroke alienated 2/3 or more of the world.”
Don’t worry. The Muslims and college students who voted against Kamala because of “Genocide Joe” will never be alienated by Trump.
Are we sure Putin isn’t behind some of these moves? I could imagine him leading TFM to conclude that he needs to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal before (respectively) Russia and China do. And maybe Putin let slip some ‘intelligence’ about USAID workers being up to some anti-Trumpy shenanigans. Putin may not be a military genius, but he knows a lot about manipulating people from his years in the KGB. Obviously TFM’s designs for territorial expansion would vitiate the US’s standing against Russian imperialism.
I have it on good authority that USAID money is being spent to fund drag shows in foreign countries. I didn't ask my Trumpish relative how she learned this.
A Faux News graphic did the rounds yesterday. They highlighted 3 or 4 like... 30-40K expenditures that were arts and culture related and told everybody it was for DEI/transgender ideology. Typical modus operandi for them.
...And people tell me that MSNBC issued a correction because an anchor said Moderna wasn't part of Warp Speed when he meant Pfizer wasn't means MSNBC issued just as far left as Fox is to the right.
There's nothing hard about this. Wannabe autocrats (do I need to drop the wannabe now?) despise any kind of oversight or accountability, and our reactionary death cult party wants to destroy government for the sake of destroying it. Nothing more, nothing less. So for the ones Trump doesn't personally care about, some little shitgoblin whispers in his ear that the National Park Service is cancerous and needs to be cut, actually, or something similar - and so there it goes.
There is nothing complicated going on here.
You have to whisper something he cares about, like “I heard the Director bad-mouthing you”, or “You know, that agency head is skimming and not giving you a cut.”
Rather than a charade, I suggest these layoffs and firings will, perhaps counterintuitively, ironically cost the US government and private industry more money over the short and long haul.
To this point, I suggest forcing the gov't depts to draft an EIS on their actions and to get ahead of BS EISs, associated interest groups should write their own.
Get rid of NOAA to eliminate climate change? That makes about as much sense as suspending testing for COVID to reduce the COVID rate.
Trump's already done that and won a second term. He could argue he's following the will of the people.
The Lard Brain “thought” process escapes everyone. Even the Emperor of Merde á Lardo himself.
Joke's on him. Just don't tell him that NASA does at least as much climate research as NOAA. The Goddard Institute even publishes one of the standard sets of historical temperature data.
A federal worked would have to be insane to sign up for the buyout. Trump is going to wait until new additions to the list slow down, then he's going to renege on the 8-month buyout, and then he's going to fire everyone on the list. And laugh at them.
+1
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more privatization of the VA followed by cuts that are then justified by the greater efficiency of the private sector where efficiency is defined as "denying care to people that need it". Those ex-military suffering from pain or PTSD need to suck it up and deal with it just as President Trump courageously overcame his bone spurs.
Well, they shouldn't, but sorry, yes they can.
I suppose this all legal unless Congress sets explicit staffing levels. But it's not going to save much money.
I honestly don't know what to say. To analyze Trump's moves in terms of whether they are legal or effective in saving money is imo completely beside the point. A normal president (e.g., all past presidents) would be concerned with legality (or at least concerned with being caught). A normal president would be concerned with being effective, whether trying to save money or trying to do something else. That kind of thinking is the opposite of helpful in understanding what Trump is doing.
It's clarifying to think of him as a destructive force. America is his nemesis, and he is trying to annihilate the parts of the country that you or I might value most. His goals: Dismantle the federal government. Establish an apartheid/Jim Crow society. Expand our territory. Use US global power to attack free and democratic lands. Assume absolute power. Suck out every dime to enrich himself. Rule for life. Create a dynasty.
He thinks of himself as a peer of Putin, Xi, MBS, royalty. To varying degrees, Hitler, Stalin, Orban are his models. But none of them had the riches and power of the United States of America. His rise and rule will mark the greatest and most glorious dictatorship ever. And he wants to golf four or five times a week. That is who we are dealing with.
Of course, Trump is full of delusions. But if you were in his shoes, why would you think anybody can stop you?
People who analyze him thinking he is bound by the usual legal and political constraints of a presidency have their delusions too.
"His goals: Dismantle the federal government. Establish an apartheid/Jim Crow society. Expand our territory. Use US global power to attack free and democratic lands. Assume absolute power. Suck out every dime to enrich himself. Rule for life. Create a dynasty."
This.
Like every autocrat in history you get there by destroying whatever judicial and investigative/law enforcement agency there is because they are what get in your way, and also subvert and bend the rest of it for power and profit for you. And if necessary to get to that position and stay there employ every propaganda technique known and invent new ones. I know it's not the best idea to compare anyone with Hitler (but he's not going to kill millions of Jews! Not the same at all!) Hitler (with Goebbels, the actual Propaganda Minister etc.) systemized and brought propaganda techniques up to date. Donald recognizes anything that will help his mission and has done the same thing including with his multiple 24/7 insane propaganda tweets.
"Dismantle the federal government. Establish an apartheid/Jim Crow society. Expand our territory. Use US global power to attack free and democratic lands."
These are just means to an end. He didn't consistently put efforts on these issues.
"Assume absolute power. Suck out every dime to enrich himself. Rule for life. "
That is what he wants. All his life he was (and still is) obsessed with "strong" dictators, and he was (and still is) defrauding people all the time.
" Create a dynasty."
Maybe he wants that, not obvious. Doesn't put much effort in this.
He also wants everybody to conitnuously compliment him.
I am baffled that you think cutting government waste was ever a serious goal. It's a cover story. It was always a cover story. They care about waste the way they care about the deficit. It's a cudgel to beat their enemies with while pretending they're swatting flies.
Earth to Kevin...anybody home? Are you still operating on the assumption that this is actually about saving money? Where did you ever get that notion? It's all performative, which should be your first explanation for anything Trump does.
What has he ever been successful at? Only one thing: pretending to be someone important on The Apprentice. That's it. He's reprising the role of the only thing he's ever been good at in the only way he knows how.
Not to worry. Susan Collins is on it. “There’s no doubt that the president appears to have empowered Elon Musk far beyond what I think is appropriate. I think a lot of it is going to end up in court.”
Well, first of all, when has Trump ever not been a showboat? That magic agreement he extracted from Canada with tariffs? It was already negotiated under Biden.
Second, targeting NOAA is easy to understand and it isn't what you supposed. Start from the position that we know climate change isn't happening, that it is a Chinese hoax to wreck our economy. So if NOAA is saying that it IS happening, they're clearly Chinese agents.
Oh noes! It's all over now!
Susan Collins is Concerned.
Someone posted something along the lines of "stand back, everyone, Susan Collins is concerned" on Bluesky, which I greatly enjoyed.
Are you still operating on the assumption that this is actually about saving money?
There absolutely is an influential faction in the current MAGA regime (I'm no longer calling them an "administration") that is strongly libertarian-Randian in their views on government. You can call it "wanting to radically shrink" government if you prefer that language to "saving money" if you like. But it's the same old Grover Norquist schtick, and it's been with the GOP a long time.
Mind you, that's not the only policy agenda driving this regime. Like any government, they're composed of multiple factions with different priorities. Some of them (say, Russell Vought) want to bring in Christian nationalism. Some of them want to help Israel control all of Palestine. Some of them (Stephen Miller) want to radically reduce immigration. Some of them want to push crypto. Some of them are general, anti-woke cultural conservatives who just want to own the libs and curry favor with Trump (Patel). And obviously some of them equally prioritize more than one policy goal.
But the "radically reduce the size of government and therefore taxation" crowd always has a prominent seat at the table of GOP regimes, and this one is no exception. I think it's pretty clear that Musk is an Ayn Rand-reading libertarian bro who favors a massive reduction in the size, scope and capacity of the public sector in the United States. He's very much a Randian Utopian (heck, he even wants to establish Galt's Gulch—on Mars!).
Unfortunately for Elon, unless he can get congressional buy-in, the reduction is going to be decidedly non-massive.
this post is just embarrassingly dumb.
as if their goal is to save money.
I expect smarter takes than this for my subscription money.
You pay? My man, this shit is free.
On the whole, I am pleasantly surprised at how much I appreciate the first two weeks of Trump's second term.
His executive order protecting women's rights is well aligned with public opinion on the matter, and it should have been a bipartisan initiative. It is very much to the deep discredit of the Democratic party that it's still so intimidated by Trans Rights Extremists that even now, even after the loss to Trump, no major Dem is willing to just agree with the most obvious observation imaginable: men don't belong on women's sports teams.
I'm also happy, of course, to see someone taking steps to dismantle the institutionalized race and sex discrimination of DEI. How on Earth the entire Dem party somehow managed to align itself against the Civil Rights Act (which outlaws the kind of race-based discrimination that DEI champions) is one of the great mysteries of my lifetime.
I would certainly prefer if it were someone other than Trump taking these and other positive steps. It should have been a moderate. But our elite institutions in general, and the Democrats in particular, have so profoundly discredited themselves through years of unwavering support for extremist social justice ideologies that perhaps no one contributed more to Trump's rise and return than they did.
Last November, I cast a vote against Trump's attempted coup in 2020. I couldn't vote for him after that. I voted for Harris. But, even as a Democrat, I never before disliked a Dem candidate for President as much as I disliked Harris (a vocal proponent for unconstitutional racial mandates in the form of "equity"). So, I do not think of my vote as being pro-Harris as much as I think of it as being anti-coup.
And that coup attempt does certainly leave me feeling concerned about what other egregious conduct Trump may engage in during his second term. But I am at least glad to be happy about something. And I'm certainly delighted to see someone defending women and a colorblind society. Polling clearly indicates that large majorities of the country feel the same. And Dems need to deal with that. If they commit themselves to dying on the hill of Social Justice Fundamentalism then that's exactly what they'll do: they'll die.
On the whole, I am pleasantly surprised at how much I appreciate the first two weeks of Trump's second term.
In which the troll reveals his true MAGA colors. Also, don't feed it!
@Jasper_in_Boston:
LOL you didn't actually read anything past the first sentence !
indulging in white grievance makes society colorblind does it?
Be honest. It wasn't worth reading past the first sentence. Just your usual 🦬💩.
Yeah, but he's not 100% wrong, The protecting women thing is a steaming pile of shit, but weaponized social justice hasn't helped us win the heart of the country.
C- trolling
you can do better
No, they can't.
Chef's kiss to using a nonbinary pronoun!
If you listened very closely in the Pod Save America broadcast of the Senate debate on Russell Vought, toward the end after the interview with Sheldon Whitehouse, Jon Favreau (I think it was) noted that once the subject is the budget, the Democrats will have some leverage. The mainstream media is simply missing this story and letting Trump toss goodies for them which Trump himself forgets immediately, like the Gaza story.
Maybe I’m crazy but I think it’s worth noting that Musk is using the same tactics, even the same email subject lines, he used after taking over Twitter
Which he has absolutely tanked. He’s no genius, unless being born rich counts as genius.
Someone brought this up elsewhere and it got me curious.
We've heard nothing from the OG leadership since this disaster started.
Clinton(s), Obama, Harris, Biden...
Flying under the radar?
Consulting with business owners and world leaders on WTF to do?
@Art Eclectic:
My own theory on why Dems in general have been somewhat mute is because they know that they are unpopular and that they have been repudiated.
The public prioritizes economic concerns (as revealed in recent polls), and that places them very much at odds with the priorities of the social justice Leftists who wield a destructive and absolutely inexplicable control over the Democratic Party.
And a lot of Trump 2.0 is in fact quite popular. Immigration enforcement is a lot more popular than the "open borders" that the Dems adopted in 2020 under pressure from Leftist activists. Merit is a lot more popular than the imposition of racial quotas under DEI. Fairness is a hell of a lot more popular than forcing men onto women's sports teams. Even on the topic of government, people seem to like the idea of greater efficiency more than big spending programs.
So a lot of Dems must surely realize that if they condemn Trump's actions on these issues, they'll be condemning moderate policies that are overwhelmingly popular among the public. But if they support those popular policies, they will be ruthlessly savaged by vicious Leftist who behave like Fundamentalists protecting their religion from evil heretics (just look at many of the comments to this blog post for examples of what I'm talking about).
The Dems have placed themselves in this position by excessively catering to unpopular Leftists for far too long. Either a break will happen, or the party will die. But that break will be painful, and obviously a lot of Dems just aren't ready for it. And yet, without it, they cannot possibly move forward.
That horse has long since been beaten to a pulp. You're persistence in continuing to beat it is perversely odd.
Charade implies something which isn't real. Are you indeed that certain they won't actually happen?
Project 2025 wants to PRIVATIZE NOAA. There's nothing they'd like more than to commodify the data that local metereologists and farmers rely on.
Jeebus, stop being so sanguine.
It's the Donald Trump Show. An attention whore is looking for attention. That's all we will be getting for the next four years. That and horrible policy changes. Cuts to social safety net programs, which will hit his Maga base particularly hard, a fact I'm ok with being this is what they voted for. Who better to suffer the most, and the quicker the better.
"The FBI is straight-up revenge. NOAA appears to be motivated by a belief that if you get rid of the agency that monitors climate change, then climate change will cease to exist."
every three year old, including trump, knows if you can't see it, it's not there. get rid of the noaa and you get rid of hurricanes.
But the MAGA base, and even the "saner" base of people who voted for Trump, doesn't seem to be having their minds changed even by actions that affect them personally. Look at what's happening in California with the water:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/06/trump-california-water-policy-farmers-00202751
What an insane and assanine attitude. Especially given the fact that it was detrimental to his livelihood. But party and ideology uber alles. Does he also like to play Russian roulette?