The Art of Making Things Worse

 

As usual, Politico’s editorial cartoonist, Matt Wuerker, says more in his drawings than mere words can, so I begin with his conception of the present political chaos.

Little did I know.  I was just one of many pawns being used to carry out The Disrupter-in-Chief’s “plan” of destroying our democracy from within.  As his bizarre behavior and the ensuing bedlam began to overwhelm everyone after the election, I was reacting with every outrage by emailing or texting articles and thoughts to friends and family.  I’ve been duped, helping to make “awful into worse,” adding my anxiety to what they too were already feeling.  I’m resolving to choose my future messaging more carefully.  So forgive me my friends for these past indiscretions and just adding to what you were already feeling, dreading, suffering, while watching this all play out.

We’ve already gone to the point of no return in Trump’s second Presidency. If this was a story set to music (as dissonant as it would be), the tempo is now approaching “prestissimo” and if not resolved in some satisfactory way, it just collapses upon itself.

The numerous opportunities we had in our traditional political system to prevent the obscenity of this 47th Presidency have come and gone, two impeachments, not being able to bring him to trial for his culpability in the Jan 6 insurrection and his attempt to interfere with GA votes, his stacking SCOTUS with sycophants (Mitch McConnell deserves a special place in hell for that), and now we are left with the utter chaos of cartoon character Cabinet members, revenge plans, tariffs, deportations, and the final straw, DOGE and the anointed Elon Musk.

I write as if Trump is in charge.  He’s been called Putin’s useful fool.  But I also think he is a useful tool for a band of grafters, nihilists, right-wing zealots to whom the dim-witted American Public handed the keys to the kingdom.  Democracy is now dying by a thousand cuts daily, much faster than anyone could have anticipated, and being handed over to kleptocrats and kakistocrats.  (“Like all good illusionists, the kleptocrats know how to distract us from looking at their misdeeds and the kakistocrats know how to distract us from their ineptitude. They do it by talking to us about ideology and attacking those of their rivals. While we watch and play our part in these ideological circuses, they steal. Or tinker with government policies they don’t really understand.”….As quoted by https://carnegieendowment.org and originally published by El País, June 18, 2018)

What’s to be done with sycophants such as AG Pam Bondi who has decreed that someone who throws a tomato at a Tesla is a domestic terrorist while backing her mobster boss’s exoneration of the J6 insurrectionists?  What hypocrisy, but as long as the American public is entertained, job well done!

The lonely anti-Trumpism voices are some journalists and a fragmented Democratic leadership.  The Republican majority in Congress is complicit with its silence, ceding power to the executive branch.  The Judiciary now seems to be useless, and he has cowed the nation’s largest law firms into submission.  Lots of luck getting legal representation!

I’m almost resigned to the fact that if we as a nation survive the next 4 years it will be purely by accident.  To think that we’ve already alienated alliances forged after WWII in these few short weeks.  I’d be embarrassed to show my face in Canada and Europe, and almost any place in the world.

During the weeks since the inauguration, I’ve been frantically forwarding articles from the New York Times, even the Wall Street Journal, from the historian, Heather Cox Richardson, and authors I follow on Substack, many serious journalists and others best described as “acerbic humorists” who plant F-bombs galore in their writing and therefore effectively channel the absolute fury and helplessness we feel.  I was an uninvited curator of such news for friends, but really was intended to make ME feel good that I was doing something.

But what to do with the gut-retching information I normally send in some form? Perhaps I’ll let my frustrations play out in this space from time to time, collecting them and posting when I reach a particular, yet undefined nadir.  I certainly don’t want to set a schedule, like “the weekly list of shock and rage” although there is guaranteed to be plenty of content.  

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal thankfully remain excellent newspapers with both seemingly drawn more towards the middle from their traditional political extremes.  This is good as other papers such as the LA Times and the Washington Post seem to be selling out, kissing the dystopian ring to avoid the wrath of the “President.”

Unfortunately, the Palm Beach Post used to be a real newspaper, but it has become a shell of itself with mostly syndicated articles.  Its original editorial decisions are now subject to local or political pressures. The Gannett Group, now the owner of the PBP, recently dismissed Tony Doris, the PBP opinion editor of some 20 years, because of such pressure.  The NYT asked Doris to comment and he said: “They’re afraid of their shadow. I think it speaks to a misunderstanding or failure to engage with the mission of an editorial page.”

It is symbolic of what is happening all over the country but his dismissal was a particular blow to me as he published my letters and editorial opinions without much change; he seemed to welcome future ones.  Now the venue of local newspapers is disappearing as well; they are really controlled circulation advertising flyers.  Any weakening of 4^th estate has dire consequences.

One feels as if one MUST do something though.  I made an attempt to engage my Congressman Brian Mast.  He is an obedient MAGA disciple. Yet I hoped a reasonable letter might make the difference.  I appealed to his patriotism as a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom.  As a congressman, surely his allegiance to the Constitution would give him pause I thought and as the Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee he might have something of meaning to say about the administration denigrating Ukraine for merely defending itself.  Instead I got what might have been an AI response, but nonetheless I sent a follow up, pointing out the deficiencies of the response, not expecting a reply, and there has been none.

The latest outrage which FOX and Friends and the administration are whitewashing is the Signal messaging app security breach detailing plans for the attack on Yemen. (True to the MAGA gospel of deflection, AG Bondi declared that the incident will not be criminally investigated as “it was a very successful mission.”)  Talk about hypocrisy, the Sturm und Drang over Hillary and her server, while rationalizing the greatest breach of national security I can remember by the amateurs we call our Cabinet, even inviting in a reporter and then saying he’s corrupt!  The content of that discussion is chilling.  It’s like they were playing a video game, replete with emojis of the American flag, a fist, fire, whatever. The real damage (aside from the danger it might have caused our military) is further alienating those European allies who will now remember an American promise is only as valid as the administration that made them as well as the covert hostility by this administration towards them.  (Vance referred to the action as "bailing Europe out again," while Hegseth accused Europe's reliance on U.S. military might as "freeloading" and "pathetic.") 

We need an opposition dream team to come forth, one that can organize and coordinate meaningful protests, a team representing both sides of the aisle: perhaps Beto O’Rourke, Tim Walz, Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Cheney?  Each has spoken out for the truth and each is currently out of politics.  Some have suggested Maryland Governor Wes More as a potential leader.  His is a story of exceptionalism.  Credible leadership is needed now before it is really too late.   

As I was concluding this piece I saw Heather Cox Richardson’s most recent “Letters from an American,” with a particular passage I would normally forward to many.  So instead, I quote it here.  I’ve turned over a new leaf!

The craziness going on around us in the first two months of the second Trump administration makes a lot more sense if you remember that the goal of those currently in power was never simply to change the policies or the personnel of the U.S. government. Their goal is to dismantle the central pillars of the United States of America—government, law, business, education, culture, and so on—because they believe the very shape of those institutions serves what they call ‘the Left.’

Their definition of ‘the Left’ includes all Americans, Republicans and Independents as well as Democrats, who believe the government has a role to play in regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, and protecting civil rights and who support the institutional structures Americans have built since World War II.

In place of those structures, today’s MAGA leaders intend to create their own new institutions, shaped by their own people, whose ideological purity trumps their abilities.

 

Tragedy Over and Within Washington, DC

 

Matt Davies, Newsday’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist

Who do YOU believe, a Congresswoman from Texas or our President?  Rather than writing commentary, I let them speak for themselves:

 

From Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett

No one knows what caused last night's tragic crash outside DCA.

Investigations are ongoing, and no one - not Donald Trump or anyone else - should be drawing conclusions until all the facts have been released.

But here is what we do know.

On his first day in office, Donald Trump froze the hiring of federal employees—including air traffic controllers.

Also on January 20, Elon Musk pushed out the Chief of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Trump didn’t appoint an acting replacement until after last night’s crash

On January 22, Aviation Security Advisory Committee members were told Trump was cutting members of all advisory committees in a “commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security.”

Also on January 22, Trump fired the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard.

In June 2023, the United States Department of Transportation Inspector General found that 77% of air traffic control facilities critical to the industry's daily operations were short-staffed.

FAA staffing shortages have been exacerbated by @HouseGOP's repeated near-shutdowns of the government and their refusal to fully fund critical government functions.

These programs were only funded because more Democrats than Republicans voted to prevent these shutdowns.

 

Trump’s News Conference (as reported by Associated Press)

Q: “Are you saying this crash was somehow caused as the result of diversity hiring? And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?”

TRUMP: “It just could have been. We have a high standard. We’ve had a much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brainpower. You have to go by psychological quality, and psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various, very powerful tests that we put to use. And they were terminated by Biden. And Biden went by a standard that seeks the exact opposite. So we don’t know. But we do know that you had two planes at the same level. You had a helicopter and a plane. That shouldn’t have happened. And, we’ll see. We’re going to look into that, and we’re going to see. But certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that’s psychologically superior. And that’s what we’re going to have.”

Q: “You have today blamed the diversity elements but then told us that you weren’t sure that the controllers made any mistake. You then said perhaps the helicopter pilots were the ones who made the mistake.”

TRUMP: “It’s all under investigation.”

Q: “I understand that. That’s why I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.”

TRUMP: “Because I have common sense. OK? And unfortunately, a lot of people don’t. We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level. When you have 60 planes coming in during a short period of time, and they’re all coming in different directions, and you’re dealing with very high-level computer, computer work and very complex computers.”

Q: “The implication that this policy [hiring people with disabilities] is new or that it stems from efforts that began under President Biden or the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, is demonstrably false. It’s been on the FAA’s website —”

TRUMP: “Who said that, you?”

Q: “No, it’s on the website, the FAA’s website. It was there from 2013 ... it was there for the entirety, it was there for the entirety of your administration, too. So my question is, why didn’t you change the policy during your first administration?”

TRUMP: “I did change it. I changed the Obama policy, and we had a very good policy. And then Biden came in and he changed it. And then when I came in two days, three days ago, I signed a new order, bringing it to the highest level of intelligence.”

 

To preserve my sanity I am trying to avoid watching news and writing about the actions of the Provocateur-in-Chief. But the politicalization of everything sometimes makes the latter impossible.  No sense analyzing the foregoing.  Matt Davies’ political cartoon says it all.

But nonetheless I slide on the slippery slope into the fray, focusing on the normalization of absurdity, perhaps for no other reason than preserving documentation.  Our Gish galloping Provocateur-in-Chief is a Festivus for one, airing his imagined grievances, celebrating the misery deportations will cause, daring anyone to oppose him, his J6 army locked and loaded.

An excellent article “Trump and the Collapse of the Old Order” By Peggy Noonan in today’s Wall Street Journal goes deeper into the seismic nature of it all.  Here are some bullet points:

·       No modern president has achieved this level of complete cultural saturation. It gives him power in this ill-educated, broken-up, low-attention span country.

·       [T]he second rise of Donald Trump is a total break with the past—that stable order, healthy expectations, the honoring of a certain old moderation, and strict adherence to form and the law aren’t being “traduced”; they are ending. That something new has begun. People aren’t sure they’re right about this and no one has a name for the big break, but they know we have entered something different—something more emotional, more tribal and visceral.

·       There’s a sense we’re living through times we’ll understand only in retrospect. But the collapse of the old international order and the break in America’s old domestic order are shaping this young century.

She warns Democrats: not to talk but do. Be supple. The Trumpian policies you honestly support—endorse them, join in the credit….Most of all, make something work. You run nearly every great city in the nation. Make one work—clean it up, control crime, smash corruption, educate the kids.

Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far.  It is time for the Democrats to take some responsibility and implement change.

But, what about Republicans and Supreme Court Justices?  Are there are few brave ones in Congress and/or on the Bench who will recognize the uber-seriousness of this moment, and choose those critical issues that truly threaten Democracy, and do the right thing to preserve the three branches of government?

Traditional journalism is part of the problem; even Noonan’s article which although insightful, normalizes the dangers being created by these first few days of the new “administration.” 

 

 

2025: Year of The ‘Imperial Me’

 

Peter Sellers as The Imperial Me

I’ve written several “New Year” entries, some hopeful, some less so, such as this one after the Trump-inspired violence and invasion of the Capitol on Jan. 6,2021.

 

Also, this is not the first time I found a profoundly eerie prescient message in an old movie such as the dialogue from the 1957 film A Face in the Crowd , written by Budd Schulberg and Directed by Elia Kazan, about the power of a megalomaniac. There are parallels to Trump’s first run at the White House.

 

On Christmas Eve Turner Classic Movies carried Carol for Another Christmas, Ron Serling’s warning to the world about the consequences of a nuclear holocaust modeled after the Dickens’ Christmas classic.  

 

While Serling’s 1964 TV movie is focused on the doomsday clock, a portion of the film directly relates to where we seem to be going in a 2^nd Trump administration: controlling the masses for the benefit of a few while abandoning decency and honor and lawfulness.  It is also ironic that the main character in the film is named “Grudge” as grudge seems to be a motivating factor in Trump’s Cabinet choices, all seemingly designed to destabilize societal norms.

 

The film portrays a wealthy industrialist, Daniel Grudge (Sterling Hayden), who like Scrooge, needs a lesson in ignoring the needs of mankind. As Wikipedia details,  Grudge emerges into destroyed ruins that he recognizes as having been his local town hall, where he encounters the Ghost of Christmas Future (Shaw). This Ghost explains that the town hall was wrecked in a disastrous nuclear conflict that killed most of the world's people. A handful of survivors enter, led by a demagogue called "Imperial Me" (Sellers) who wears a Santa suit and a cowboy hat cut into a crown. The crowd cheers as Imperial Me is paraded in and gives a speech exhorting each person to act as an individual in their own self-interest. Grudge watches his butler, Charles (Rodriguez), try unsuccessfully to convince the crowd that acting collectively for the greater good of all is essential for humanity's survival.

 

It is the dialogue that begins with Peter Seller’s appearance, playing a cult leader (sound familiar?) by the name of “Imperial Me” (sound familiar?) who gleefully whips up the rage of his followers to abandon all vestiges of civility and law (sound familiar?)

 

Here’s the part that can serve as a metaphor for Trump’s role in January 6:

 

IMPERIAL ME: Now, folks, the first item on today's agenda is this business of the people from down yonder and the people from across river wanting to come in here and talk about what they call our mutual problems, our common differences.

[ Crowd murmurs ]

Now, they want to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk about our problems. They want to debate, debate, debate about solutions until somehow they get their problems solved. They want to waste our time. They want us to commit ourselves to that kind of surrender.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Unpatriotic!

They're...

They're insane.

Unpatriotic!

[ Shouting stops ]

Now, then. They don't come out in so many words and say that they want to take us over.

[ Chuckles ]

They're too clever for that..But that's what they want. They want to take over us individual me. And if we let them seep in here from down yonder and across river, if we let these do-gooders, these bleeding hearts propagate their insidious doctrine of involvement among us, then, my dear friends, my beloved mes, we'se in trouble...Deep, deep trouble.

[ Laughter ]

And because...Because we have now reached a pure state of civilization, the world of the ultimate me is finally within our grasp...This world where only the strong will exist, where only the powerful will love, where finally the word "we" will be stamped out and will become "I" forever. Because we are each the wise...We are each the strong...And we are each the individual mes!

[ All chanting "me!" ]

[ Chanting continues ]

CHARLES: Listen! Listen! No, listen!

CROWD: No!

CHARLES: Please!

CROWD:  No!

CHARLES: Listen! Listen to me!

[ Chanting continues ]

Please, let me speak!

[ Chanting stops ]

IMPERIAL ME: Let him speak.

CHARLES: To the best of our knowledge, we are all of humanity who remain alive, all that's left. Now, we have survived the Holocaust, and if we are to go on surviving, we must work together now. We must talk together.

[ Light laughter ]

And if other people want to join us, if they want to talk with us, we... we must listen to them.

[ Laughter ]

And we must respond to them. We must begin again. We must have law again and  ethics and honor and decency.

[ Laughter ]

These things were not destroyed by the bomb!

[ Laughter continues ]

This time, they must be made real! They must be made facts!  Only these things can guarantee our survival!

[ Laughter continues ]

The potential goodness of man.

[ Laughter continues ]

The potential morality of man.

[ Laughter continues ]

The capability... that's it! The capability of human beings to achieve dignity and decency. Together! Not "I" or "they," but "we." Don't you understand? The only alternative to that is nothing! Don't you see that, people?!  Don't you see?!

[ Laughter continues ]

[ Microphone bangs ]

IMPERIAL ME: That's enough. Bring him over here. Come. Bring him over here. You are charged with the treason of involvement. You are charged with the subversion of the individual me. How do you plead?

WOMAN: Guilty, guilty!

ALL: Guilty, guilty, guilty!

[ All shouting ]

[ Microphone bangs ]

[ Shouting stops ]

IMPERIAL ME: You anything to say? It's your right as an individual me, you know. Just say anything that comes in your head. You don't have to think about it. Just say it. Go ahead. Oh, you want to use the microphone?

CHARLES: I may be all the sanity that is left. I may be all the conscience that remains on earth. I can't let you kill me!

[ Laughter ]

 

The “treason of involvement and the subversion of the individual me,” chilling in every respect.  This was the America when Trump left office and we voted for a reprise.  The death of Jimmy Carter and the impending passing of the baton, again, to DJ Trump mark the laying to rest “we” and the reemergence of “me.”

 

It will be the 4^th anniversary of the January 6^th insurrection tomorrow.  Indeed, the American Flag should fly at half mast out of respect for Jimmy Carter, but as well for abolishing justice for the events of January 6, 2021. At least there will be poetic justice: it still will be at half mast inauguration day.

January 6, 2021, also a day which will live in infamy