Elections have consequences. When future generation historians set about to describe life in America in February 2025 CE, it will not be inaccurate to say those of us who were alive and fully awake found ourselves in the midst of a surreal and frightening reality. It is very like emerging from a bizarre and dystopian dream that didn’t dissolve back into our subconscious ether but instead remained in our face 24/7. It does not matter who voted for WHAT or against WHO. This heartburn and grimace-inducing grind is all day, every day. Back in the saddle at center stage is a familiar rogue executive demanding total loyalty from all his subordinate YES-bots and Congressional minions. If any media outlet or its associated persons fail to extend him a maximum level of due deference and respect, he will make sure they pay dearly. Eight years ago his ineptitude, ignorance and gruffness reflected a level of crazy that at least provided limited worth as late-night entertainment. In the first three weeks since inauguration in 2025, he has taken control of all the levers of government he can get his hands on in a deliberate and calculated tactic of ‘Shock & Awe.’ He has done so with the intention to overwhelm and fatigue John & Jane Q. Public into losing interest into what is actually happening to the framework of American bureaucracy. And what IS actually happening? While acting like Congress and the Constitution do not exist, the newly sworn in president has set about to capitalize on what he’s convinced is a “sweeping mandate” despite having won less than 50% of the popular vote. By issuing dozens of Executive Orders, many aimed at rolling back the social and economic gains of the nation’s marginalized populations over the past sixty years, he is wasting no time in stomping his footprint back onto history. He is doing so in machine gun fashion such that it is virtually impossible for the average citizen to keep up, very like forcing everyone to drink from a wide-open fire hose. That is HIS wide-open fire hose of MAGA/Project 2025 policy.
Striking while his iron is hot having issued over fifty EO’s, the president has banned diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) programs and policies from all federal government agencies and the military, banned from competition all transgendered college athletes, pardoned all who were convicted of crimes associated with the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, closed the US/Mexico border to asylum seekers, placed a 10% tariff on goods from China, threatened military seizure of Greenland and Panama, proposed a takeover of the Gaza Strip and that isn’t even a fraction of his actions. After relieving the national archivist without cause, he moved to terminate multiple members of the board of trustees from Washington’s Kennedy Center. He is dismantling anything with the slightest hint of what he thinks is WOKE or seems threatening or opposed to him in any way. He has gone about performing the task in the manner of a world class body builder swinging a sledgehammer while under the influence of a six-pack of venti-sized energy drinks laced with testosterone and mixed with enough alcohol to blunt judgement and ensure amnesia. A less sophisticated description of what has played out in rapid succession before the nation and world is that a wealthy old man with the social skills of a seventh-grade boy is taking a bucket full of dog manure and throwing it piece by piece at a pristine white brick wall. What sticks, stinks and what doesn’t stick still stinks but sends a message. Personally, I’d like to encourage those future historians mentioned above to note this exercise in MAGA lunacy as “The Great 47 Crap-Throw!”
All laughter-inducing dismissive descriptions aside, the permanence of the radical changes that have been made in haste remain to be seen. Despite their appeal to his loyal MAGATs whose pressing desire to “own the Libs” gets them out of bed in the morning, this president will likely cave and walk back any decision that generates excessive controversy or that may cause him undue recurrent annoyance. He has shown no restraint in extending free reign to his personally appointed and unvetted favorite billionaire to plunder about at will. Being appointed head of a newly invented post, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the billionaire sent his also unvetted geek squad of 20-something software engineers into multiple government offices. Their stated purpose for entering the spaces of the Social Security Administration, Medicare and Medicaid to access the data systems was looking for things deemed worthy of elimination. This was all done in the quest of reducing government spending and waste. This then prompts the question, why would these aides working for an unelected appointee not be accountants and auditors instead of programmers? Also, why the mass firings and layoffs of so many government employees? Some may call this an exercise in self-fulfilling prophecy given the decades-old narrative that government is inefficient and therefore the problem. Engineering it to where government agencies cannot fulfill their intended mission through understaffing and underfunding will give a rogue executive the opportunity to end them through abolition or pack them with incompetent lackeys for the purpose of demonstrating what government-run failure looks like and offering an alternative solution, that being privatization. I would usually be willing to give even the likes of this president a chance to promote his brand of American excellence by putting his best foot forward, but this is a man who bankrupted a casino. In moving ahead, there is no more room for benefit of the doubt for him or his administration. When he and his henchman seek to weaken and abolish a 64-year-old organization like USAID, referring to the humanitarian professionals staffing it as “radical left lunatics,” he shows his contempt for the humanity that is embodied in the American ideal. The growing concern of several, including some in his own party, about who he is working for and what outcome he is really seeking is becoming evident. His first term in office produced results that served few at the expense of many. That brings us to a specter that has existed in the mind of the non-MAGA collective for some time. For most of the past decade we have been duly warned about a slow-moving coup and, well, here we are.
The sad reality confronting everyone is that 2025 is not 2017. Eight years ago, watching the lunacy of a reality TV star with no experience in government try to lead our nation was initially an innocuous mix of sad but mostly entertaining amusement. It lost its charm quickly when his incompetence began to have demonstrable detriment to the lives of real Americans. It went from ugly to hideous when it emboldened the most extreme and intolerant elements of the rightwing fringe as was evidenced in Charlottesville, VA. It went from hideous to terrifying when it became obvious that a POTUS could not effectively manage a national public safety crisis caused by a lethal contagion which claimed the lives of well over a million citizens. This time the consternation it has created is beyond concerning. It is downright frightening. Everything we discovered about the architects and planners of Project 2025 is proving to be factual. The deck is being stacked to cater to a very narrow segment of the U.S. citizenry, and nobody is exaggerating when they say this may be the last episode of what has been the great American Experiment in self-governance. We can only hope that the comfortable mouthpieces on all sides who insisted we were all being overdramatic with our fears of the MAGA King were right all along. I however do not think it unreasonable to raise holy hell when our precious home and all we hold dear is going up in the flames of a disaster that, in hindsight, was completely avoidable. I close my eyes and cringe when I think that the mess from MAGAs blundering and plundering of the USA over the next four years may prove to be much more difficult to repair, assuming it still exists at all at that time. The essence that is America remains a beautiful dream that is getting ever more difficult to realize. We can only hope it can survive yet another nightmare of misguided leadership and the accompanying ill-advised misuse and abuse.
Thank you for reading.
02/09/2025:
J.D. Vance signaled the Trump administration may try to ignore judicial orders, which could trigger a constitutional crisis.
The vice president wrote on X, “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
The underlying truth of what has occurred during this most recent election is that the American people have done this to themselves… elections do have consequences, regardless of the percentages garnered by the victor(s). And one of those consequences is that there is no going back – no ‘do-overs’ are allowed. What a majority of the American people have evidently forgotten, is that there is a profound difference between “politicians” and fascists.
The hallmark of a politician is compromise – their main purpose is always to seek solutions to the problems at hand. Their overarching goal is to work within the existing structure of government to make things (hopefully) better for their constituency, and the electorate as a whole.
On the other hand, fascists don’t give a damn about compromise – their main purpose is always to get whatever they may want, regardless of what anyone else may think or desire. They have only disdain for governmental structures, and couldn’t care less about what the electorate, or general public, want or need. Their overarching goal is to remake the prevailing system into something that better suits their own purposes, and if that causes daily disorder & destruction for ordinary people, then that’s fine by them. They are LOOTERS and DESTROYERS, seeking to usurp the legitimate authority of democratic government.
And once fascists have gained control of the structure of government, they will never give it up voluntarily. They would rather bring down the whole edifice of government, regardless of the consequences, than revert back to being without power.
How about an easy A, multiple choice pop quiz to boost sagging GPAs, if nothing else? Choose the best response here.
Not to boast, but I’ve been:
a) aggravated
b) bereft
c) calloused
d) disgusted
e) embarrassed
f) feeling f’cked over
g) generally all of the above and much more
since elections and results for 2016.
If you chose “g” then you know me pretty well, and I feel for you. Smart, unfortunate soul…
Nothing this individual says, does or attempts to do surprises me. I had so hoped life could be different, but the majority of my homeland has spoken aloud (and legally, at least in our now content head honchos eyes. At least we have been spared a repeat of January 6, 2021. Gee, yay.)
We face horrible consequences I had never dreamed could become real. What I cannot claim to know is what all of these consequences do do benefit any living creature except already ridiculously wealthy people who care nothing for anyone else.
Guess this is a sort of final exam for those of us who are basically relegated to sidelines to watch the unfolding drama that is our government. Watching this shitshow while caring for my seriously ill spouse of 35 years may be my test of a lifetime. I can only hope, pray, dream that my “founding fathers and mothers” had experienced enough tyranny in their lives to plan to prohibit something like that from happening here. I also applaud our local youth who have protested the recent activities ordered by this individual I will never understand until this saga in history becomes an epic all-Star film, especially the youths who touted the “how can a person be illegally present in a stolen land?” sign.
Time for me to get off the fence and exercise my rights. While I still have any.
Power to the people and to my Route 66 Friend Stan. Still Wish you had won when we needed that so badly.
I’m so fed up with politicians. When msnbc sent me a letter asking for donations to keep its doors open, I’ve never been so pissed off. They have drained us dry of money, had us buy stupid shit and back only their suppliers. It’s a 2nd or 3rd job. My response is, do your jobs politicians. Or we will fire you. Hands of medical and ssi.