What a depressing night.
Not because a newly unbound Donald Trump will wreak havoc on American democracy. I've never believed that. He remains too ignorant, too vain, and too undisciplined to do that.
He'll still do plenty of damage. Like all Republicans, he'll continue to bankrupt the country with tax cuts. He'll have four more years to nominate conservative judges. He'll be disastrously inattentive to climate change. He'll fire Jack Smith and escape all responsibility for January 6. Palestinians will be even more utterly abandoned.
But the big ticket items he's been threatening will be hard to fulfill. Does he really want to deport every illegal immigrant in the country? I don't know, but at a minimum he'd have to hire half a million new ICE officers to do it, and Congress won't go along with that.
Does he really want to fire 4,000 civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists? Probably. But it's not clear he can do this on his own. The Project 2025 folks think he can, but it's never been tested in court and there's a good chance it would fail.
And all those panderific tax exemptions for tips, overtime, Social Security, and so forth? I doubt Trump was serious about them, and in any case Republicans in Congress won't go along. They're too expensive and don't benefit corporations or rich people.
RFK Jr. may want to ban vaccines, but he can't. Elon Musk may have fantasies about cutting the federal budget by $2 trillion, but he can't either. It's impossible.
Trump has more freedom to impose tariffs on a whim. But the kind of tariffs he's been talking about are so obviously brain dead I doubt even his most loyal advisors would stand by and let 'em rip. They'd violate treaties; promote retaliation; create inflation; and tank the economy. Even MAGA cultists have some kind of minimal survival instinct against such rank stupidity.
Of course, even if I'm right about this Trump will cause plenty of misery along the way. Immigrants will be terrorized. Ukraine will be left vulnerable to further Russian expansionism. God only knows what will happen on abortion, or what he'll do to trans people.
But even that's not why this is so depressing. That's simpler: It's the fact that Americans would elect a boorish, blustering, fantasizing, moronic, self-absorbed dimwit like Trump. Any other Republican, sure. Sometimes the country turns right. But how can a man like Trump be supported by the vast majority of the Republican Party? That's depressing.
Yesterday I started reading a Ta-Nehshi Coates book. As usual I found him engaging, but my white male reaction was that while I agree with much of what he says, it can’t really be quite as bad as he portrays. I am struck that tonight as I continue reading, it will be with a different perspective.
They’re really not particularly great people. I have some fond memories from my younger life, but haven’t maintained any real attachments to Republicans over the years and don’t really miss them.
+1
Thank you for being a sane and sober voice, Kevin. I'm avoiding most commentators today, but not you. You've earned my loyalty.
Yeah, the only news I’m reading today is KD and the Sometimes crazy tribe.
It's not so much Trump it's the people around him how now feel they have a mandate to do whatever they want and put in all their crazy ideas. Fine then. Let them fire all the civil servants and gut all the government agencies. They own this now. Let there be no "deep state" to stop them. They're the establishment now, for once.
You see what the problem is. The right has successfully created an alternative reality because they have no responsibility to real reality. It when they are forced into positions where they do have to care about what's really going on is when they fuck up (Iraq, Katrina, COVID) and they will so so again.
I feel the same way, but …
- lots of blameless people will suffer if the capabilities of the govt are broken. I may want the Rs to own their damage but there’s a real cost to real people.
- they won’t own it! They will weasel out of any blame! Just look at covid. We all saw what a shitty job they did, how many extra thousands died because of that, but are they owning that? Are they getting blamed for that? They are not.
I limiting my exposure to national news and politics as much as I can. There's no point anymore and to follow along a tweet storm is useless. What happens, happens
Because that part of the party was purged. Half of the population is by definition below average. What makes you think MAGA cultists think this is stupid? What makes you think the courts will step in when they've been stacked with Federalist Society judges? Can you imagine an entire judiciary staffed with Matthew Kaczmareks and Aileen Donovans? And it isn;t just Trump's profound stupidity, laziness, and self absorption. His actions on January 6 fit, in my opinion, the Constitutional definition of treason. If attempting a coup d'etat isn't levying war, what is? Ukraine is dead. When Trump pulls out of NATO, Putin will feel free to go after Poland and the Baltic states. The ONLY thing Trump learned from his first term was to never hire anyone who doesn't fully support his agenda. And anyway it is Vance that is in charge. Trump may be stupid and self absorbed, but Vance is pure evil.
There are two votes on the Supreme Court that will go along with anything Trump wants. The only real question is are there three more? I fear there are, at least that will go along with most things.
Think about Michael Flynn as Secretary of Defense or State or Chair of the Joint Chiefs and see if you still feel this way. Now think about thousands of Michael Flynns.
I hoped Americans would go out and show America what we hold dear. I should have been more specific
Midterms is in 2 years, right? That's how long we should let Trump and Republicans go wild and do everything they want with the mildest of pushback. Americans have such short memories and an even worse knowledge of history. They need to experience the consequences of their actions. They need to see for themselves that they were wrong rather than being lectured on how dumb they were for not listening.
People will ask, "why aren't Democrats doing more to stop them?" And the answer shall be, "you voted us out so we don't have an ounce of power; anything we try will backfire and the vindictive leader will lash back at you further."
Is it driven by Schadenfreude? Maybe a little. Is it lashing out at people who don't know what they're doing? No. This is about letting people learn from their mistakes.
Kristof is an unimaginative, un-strategic person; don't listen to him. If we don't want to fall into a Victor Orban Hungary, we have to let Americans see just how fucked up their lives and the world will get. Americans have to want Democrats to help them, they have to want Liberal Democracy, or it's just a waste of time going in circles with Democrats minimizing the harm which gives people the impression that Trump and Republicans weren't so bad.
YOU live your best life and let the chips fall where they may. And when that time comes and hell breaks loose, you will be ready and willing to step up and into the fray.
I agree with you whole heartedly. Give Trump and the Republicans enough rope and they'll hang themselves with it. The Democrats should hammer every bad policy ir outcome as if it were the end of the world just as the Republicans did.
not just "the vast majority of republicans" kevin. a majority of americans had a collective brain fart. 4 more years of the msm slobbering over trump is what really makes me sick.
Have to wonder about the feasibility of the deportation plan. Half a million ICE officers x $100,000 each for one year salary would be $500 million, right? Plus, say, another $500 million for operations and you've got only $1 billion. Chicken feed compared to a new military plane, for instance. If it's only the money that makes it infeasible, and the limiting factor is Congressional Republicans caring about costs, I'm not so sure they won't view this as integral to their appeal to the populace and go for it anyway. Of course, on the other side, Trump didn't build the wall and he's spent his whole life making empty promises. But I'd like to hear more of the reasoning why this will never happen.
As someone who voted against Nixon in 1968, voted against Reagan in 1980 and 1984, voted against GH Bush in 1988, voted against GW Bush in 2000 and in 2004, voted against Trump in 2016 and in 2024 -- and every f****ng time saw a majority of my fellow Americans choose differently than I -- I have decided to retire from voting for presidents.