In Federalist No. 1, Alexander Hamilton wrote
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
Reflection and choice require something entirely absent from Trump, Musk and their respective clown shows: knowledge and understanding.
MAGA’s ferocious assault on knowledge, expertise, and factual communication has given us today’s constitutional crisis–a crisis that reflects not just the massive civic ignorance of the general population, but the arrogance of the White Christian Nationalists who can–thanks to the Internet–choose such “facts” as they want to believe. Of course, as Hamilton would tell us, choosing false facts is not “reflection,” and ignoring both inconvenient facts and laws does not facilitate rational choice.
There is a chasm between the world inhabited by people who are capable of recognizing the current coup and the credulous souls and MAGA cultists who combine profound and visible ignorance with a wholly unearned arrogance–who take the laughable pronouncements from Trump and Musk at face value.
In a recent Substack letter, Paul Krugman described that chasm.
Here’s where we are as a nation right now:
1. We may be in the middle of a trade war. Or maybe not
2. We’re in the middle of a constitutional crisis. No maybe.
3. We may be in the midst of a sort of digital coup, which might as a side consequence cause large parts of the federal government to cease functioning at all.
The unifying theme here, I guess, is that the federal government has been taken over by bad people who also are stunningly ignorant.
Krugman referenced the “concessions” made by Mexico and Canada, in return for Trump backing off his ridiculous tariffs. Neither country agreed to do anything it wasn’t already doing--indeed, as Heather Cox Richardson has noted–these “concessions” confirmed agreements previously reached with the Biden administration.
As Krugman wrote,
The U.S., on the other hand, agreed to crack down on weapons shipments to Mexico. Trump will spin this as a victory; low-information voters and some intimidated media outlets may go along with the lie. But basically America backed down.
So is Trump the classic bully who runs away when someone stands up to him? It definitely looks that way.
Let’s be clear, however: this isn’t a case of no harm, no foul. By making the tariff threat in the first place, Trump made it clear that America is no longer a nation that honors its agreements. By caving at the first sign of opposition, he also made himself look weak. China must be very pleased at how all this has played out.
And as I argued the other day, the now ever-present threat of tariffs will have a chilling effect on business planning, inhibiting economic integration and damaging manufacturing.
Krugman described Musk’s effort to abolish USAID (which the man-child called a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America,”) pointing out that Musk not only isn’t president — he isn’t even a government official. Trump’s approval is irrelevant: shutting down an agency established by Congress is both illegal and unconstitutional. Only Congress can legally abolish it.
This isn’t about saving money–USAID is responsible for a tiny fraction of the federal budget, although few voters understand enough about the federal budget to recognize how small a portion it is. Krugman observes that “in Musk’s worldview the mere fact of trying to help people in need makes you a radical-left Marxist who hates America.” And helping people is what USAID does; it funds humanitarian programs around the world. It feeds, medicates and vaccinates people. It saves lives.
Its termination–or even a pause–will cause many deaths.
And how many voters understand the enormity of the threat posed by the takeover of the Treasury’s computers by Musk’s interns?
Those systems control all federal payments, from grants to nonprofits to Social Security checks to salaries of federal workers. The potential for mischief is immense.
Imagine that you’re a federal contractor who has made campaign donations to Democrats; suddenly the government stops paying what it owes you and brushes off inquiries by saying that they’re working on the problem. Or you’re a federal employee who, according to somebody in your office who has a personal grievance, has expressed sympathy for DEI; somehow your regularly scheduled salary payments stop being deposited into your bank account. Or even imagine that you’re a retiree who canvassed for Kamala Harris, and for some reason your checks from Social Security stop coming.
Don’t say they wouldn’t do such things. We’ve seen these people in action, and of course they would if they could.
As I type these words, America is in thrall to people who disregard the law, disregard court orders to stop, and whose arrogance deprives them of any understanding of the immense and long-lasting harm they are doing, as they play to the cheers of an equally ignorant cult.
Instead of “reflection and choice,” America is submitting to “accident and force.” And the rest of the world is watching.
It’s more than just arrogance and ignorance. Creatures like Trump and Musk are also proving that they aren’t as smart as they’d like everyone to believe. Musk’s attack on USAID has its roots in his white bias from South Africa. USAID, after all, supported the anti-apartheid movements that led to blacks being “given” equal partnership in governing.
Trump’s bigotry is well-documented, profound and based on his immigrant ancestors’ response to prejudice they experienced when emigrating here. These two baboons in the pantry of OUR government is definitely a worst-case scenario for our democracy and our rule of law and our Constitution.
The thing is, the baboons don’t give a damn about any of those things. Their minds are so weak and sick that all they can do is operate from their bases of hate and grievance. No wonder MAGA loves these bastards. They are the same in the hate/bigotry school of “reasoning”. These 25% of us have been around since before we were a nation and Hamilton’s words foresaw today’s outcome.
Oh. And having 10,000 Mexican troops at the border across from thousands of American troops creates another confrontational scenario. What could possibly go wrong?
I just posted this question, in all caps, on my Facebook page in the “What’s on your mind…” EXACTLY WHAT DID SCOTUS’ IMMUNITY OF TRUMP COVER?
I am asking that question again here! It is obvious that he believes himself to be “IMMUNE” to democracy, Rule of Law and the Constitution of the United States of America…and that “IMMUNITY” appears to also cover MAGA and all sitting Republicans in the federal government. Their elephant mascot has become a herd.
Any news to share about upcoming protests? Thanks.
THESE are the issues we face now, Dr. Kennedy, & thank you for this post. There is always a question of survival when societal breakdown occurs, but we can look back at the Depression for guidance, when that generation chose people with new ideas and a willingness to try them.
Sadly, this generation has chosen the wrong people to deal with the problems of this era – people who have no ideas but think the old methods are new ones.
So, the questions still remain – how can we survive, and is it too late?
After three weeks of sleepless nights, shock and tears I’ve decided to rejoin the fray.
I am going to join Hoosiers for Democracy and participate in their activities as much as I am able. Added to that I will initiate my own protests in the spirit of Gandhi’s non-violent protests. I don’t know where this is all going, but I do know this…. “Non-compliance with evil is a sacred duty.”
MUSKRAT & donny boy may relish their current self adoring gratification of power and abuse of the most vulnerable. They can control even their own obituaries by writing them for themselves now and leaving a trust to pay publishers to print and distribute. But MUSKRAT & donny boy cannot control history beyond their waning days that will paint in perpetuity their evil intent, shallow character and misguided actions.
Individual knowledge has always been necessary and was once sufficient, but that was long ago. Because we know so much now, we are stuck with overlapping shared knowledge. What I know is necessary but insufficient.
That’s why we and society have evolved from competitive to collaborative.
Can I offer an example from my own life? I suffer from an overactive mind that occasionally gets me in trouble unless I keep it busy attending to learning. I’m paranoid about falling too far behind the human explosion of knowledge.
So now I’m keeping busy building a cluster server of SBCs (single-board computers) by collaborating with thousands of helpers. They and I share an ever-growing language. In the case of the SBCs, the language is Linux software, and in my case, it’s my sons and a cadre of social media experts who learn from more detailed experts, ad (almost) infinitum. It’s quite an adventure.
I invest a little of our kids’ inheritance and lots of free time; Amazon delivers things daily to our house. I assemble lots of tiny parts (that has its challenges at 82) into a multi-faceted computer, assembled as a cascade of computers, which themselves are interpreters of language (Linux). I have to learn a lot more than I started with to forge it into a valuable tool for our family, a family file-sharing server.
Why? I can, I learn, and I connect. Knowledge is its own reward to me.
Now, we have the M in MTV and a cluster of operatives deep into .gov computers mucking around with millions of lives by changing bits and bytes just to see what happens, while the T in MTV takes to the curb whatever trashed lives they create by mixing chaos into order.
This is precisely why Hamilton wrote what he did in Federalist No. 1.
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”
There are some facets of USAID that I can’t get into, but those can easily be changed and the money could still flow to help those people we were helping. In this case, they not only threw the baby out with the bathwater, they drowned him first.
I’ve already stated in previous comments how the capture of the Treasury might affect me. If they only take the five percent that was government contribution from my thrift plan, I’ll be okay. If they take the whole thing or block access to my money, my life will be drastically changed for the worse. I’m preparing for the latter.
Some people say they would never do that. Those people obviously haven’t learned the lesson of the history of the last ten years. My only hope is the reason Orange Jesus backed down on tariffs. The stock market would have plunged dramatically if he hadn’t backed down by opening bell. That’s backlash that really counted.
As evil as Trumpolini may appear, did anybody catch Bibi smirking at Donnie’s press conference announcing that the 1.8 million Palestinians will be removed from Gaza so they can develop a resort in the Middle East owned by the US? Bibi is Satan on Earth right now.
For those repulsed by the capture of USAID, I’d direct your anger toward whoever decided to use it as a cutout for the CIA. More precisely, it’s the funder of the cutouts used by the CIA to fund opposition governments in countries “needing democracy.” The media and the CIA chose this false narrative, which they also called “humanitarian efforts.” That makes me laugh!
Populists on the right and left have known this for quite some time. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that Trumpolini’s administration bothered to mention it since USAID is handy for overturning governments that don’t see things our way, like Ukraine and Georgia. It’s been used frequently in Central and South America.
One of my favorite cutouts funded by Soros and USAID is the “independent journalists” from the OCCRP. They are the journalists who broke the corruption story via the Panama Papers several years back. Supposedly, hackers were responsible for that scoop. However, it started to look fishy when all the corrupt officials were from Russia and other Eastern European countries. Only a couple of no-name Americans were part of the corruption. LOL
The OCCRP was discovered to be part of the US version (CIA) of a “hack and dump” to discredit those governments not toting the US Oligarchy.
For instance, a story broke yesterday that the OCCRP was involved in Trump’s first impeachment attempt. It was about Trumpolini bribing Zelenskyy to investigate Biden, or Donnie would turn off the money spigot. More will be revealed…
And for Vern, the anti-USAID program had nothing to do with Musk (he was clueless). The person holding the CIA front accountable is Steve Bannon. Since the right wing is making the loudest noises, I am sure it had to do with Soros’s connection.
Trumpolini and Musk stumbled upon part of the actual “deep state.”
Actually, Todd, USAID helped the anti-apartheid movement directly, CIA or no CIA. That action pissed off dear old dad Musk as well as his racist son Elon. Elon still carries the racist baggage.
You’re right about Blowhard Bannon. He also is not as smart as he wants us to believe he is. “Blow it all up! Tear it all down!” “Replace it with what, Steve?”
“Just tear it all down. End the administrative state.” Yeah. Brilliant.
BET the people in NC could use some of this money to help rebuild their lives.
What a novel thought
— $8 million to Politico for “subscriptions”
— $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language”
— $20 million for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq
— $4.5+ million to “combat disinformation” in Kazakhstan
— $1.5 million for “art for inclusion of people with disabilities”
— $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala
— $6 million to “transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles”
— $2.1 million to help the BBC “value the diversity of Libyan society”
— $10 million worth of USAID-funded meals, which went to an al Qaeda-linked terrorgroup
— $25 million for Deloitte to promote “green transportation” in the country of Georgia
— $2.5 million to promote “inclusion” in Vietnam
— $16.8 million for a SEPARATE “inclusion” group in Vietnam
— ~$5 million to EcoHealth Alliance, one of the key NGOs funding bat virus research at the Wuhan lab
— $20 million for a group related to a key player in the Russiagate impeachment hoax
— $1.1 million to an Armenian “LGBT group”
— $1.2 million to help the African Methodist Episcopal Church Service and Development Agency in Washington, D.C., build “a state-of-the-art 440 seat auditorium”
— $1.5 million to promote “LGBT advocacy” in Jamaica
— $2 million to promote “LGBT equality through entrepreneurship” in Latin America
— $500K to solve sectarian violence in Israel (just ten days before the Hamas October 7 attack)
— $2.3 million for “artisanal and small scale gold mining” in the Amazon
— $3.9 million for “LGBT causes” in the western Balkans
— $5.5 million for LGBT activism in Uganda
— $6 million for advancing LGBT issues in “priority countries around the world”
— $6.3 million for men who have s*x with men in South Africa
— $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion”
For decades, USAID bureaucrats believed they were accountable to no one — but that era is over. President Trump is STOPPING the waste, fraud, and abuse.
My first effort at non-compliance will be to file my tax returns at the last minute. What a message that would send if all protesters did this. The government is used to having that money for months before the April 15th deadline hits. What happens if the IRS has to report to Trump/Musk that the people are not filing? No longer cooperating?
@Pete … enjoyed your story. It is gratifying for me just to reassemble my newest technology: flexible blade electric shaver with my own arthritic best hand! Much less a series of SBC’s adapting Linux language in collaboration with 1,000 kindred techs online. 🤗
Sadly, one of your best, Sheila. I keep thinking of my kids and grandkids and what their future will be with Trump and Musk making decisions for the future. I feel privileged to have been raised to care about all of the others, and I want our progeny to be raised the same way. With T and M in charge, there seems to be a major impediment to that. Poor America – our reputation has been gouged.
gail, , You’re right. There is a lot of waste in government programs. There is, and always has been, a legal way to correct those matters. It comes through Congress now controlled by Republicans. Trump could have had his followers use the legal way of correcting the problem, but instead he turned a fool loose to do it DIRTY! At the same time Trump and Musk have caused massive confusion and suffering which seems to be the real motive behind their actions.
Trump fired all the IG’s that were overseeing for waste and fraud in all Federal Departments. His goal is to create chaos while behind the scenes he’s robbing US blind. He’s a lying con man want to be dictator that’s causing great harm to US and the American people.
Gail. What are you so afraid of? You, personally. The total amount of your list is peanuts compared to what has been paid out in disaster relief $2.6B.
If you think for one minute that individual states could muster and manage that kind of financial and material support in a few months, you are delusional. They have no internal infrastructure in place, people, stockpiles of supplies immediately available, especially when the physical infrastructure needed to deliver those supports is destroyed. The logic of such ideas is absent.
China is moving quickly to replace and dominate where the U.S. leaves with little compassion or empathy, just drive to colonize and gain unfettered access to resources.
Gail, you have (and so do MTV, (Musk, Trump, Vance, and I) our individual opinions on what each category costs us all in taxes, who falls under each supported category, and whether or not the bang for them is worth the buck and what the consequences are of not continuing our investment.
Of course, those questions have already been addressed by others who have accumulated more human knowledge relevant to understanding each of those questions in the context of other potential threats and opportunities that are part of managing the total Federal budget.
The OMB has that responsibility, and it is better equipped to manage the budgeting process.
Anyone can second-guess the experts. Some seem to do it 24/7/365 just for entertainment. If they want to waste their time second-guessing people with more expertise, then it’s their time to waste, not mine.
JoAnn, I do not know what the SCOTUS ruling leads to, but Trump believes himself immune to ANY of the normal social, legal, guardrails anywhere in the world. Reminder: He is a Malignant Narcissist!
Narcissists may be a dime a dozen, or not, but the Malignant variety is, very happily, quite rare. The diagnosis was developed for Hitler, and perhaps Idi Amin fit the picture, Pol Pot, too, then there is Trump, maybe along with his Big Bro Putin. The latter insists he is not a murderer, but I expect that history will not support his claim.
Information and knowledge, based on empirical evidence is required for one to have the best available understanding of the world one inhabits. So, of course, the MAGA world wants to shut down the Dep’t of Ed.!!!!!!
Thanks Professor for restating Hamilton’s Federalist No.1, first published in newspapers in 1787. I suspect the answer to Hamilton’s question, “…whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice…” is, Yes, our society is capable of establishing good government.
The evidence of an eventual good outcome is the newspapers and the persistent existence of the American press, including expansion into the “electronic press” which we are all reading at this moment. American leaders Hamilton, Lincoln, and Harding all owned newspapers and understood the importance to sound government of newspapers in forming the opinions of the citizenry. And then, as today, Americans want to hear that message, and have always been willing to pay a modest amount to the publishers, which enables the critical information dissemination to continue.
Hamilton’s publication, The New York Post, and Warren G. Harding’s paper, the Marion Star, both survive today. Lincoln’s newspaper, the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger, existed only in 1859-60, but in Lincoln’s time, there were an astounding 4,000 newspapers, apparently founded in response to the incessant drive for Americans to communicate with each other. That drive continues today with thousands of both major, and shoestring-budget publications, all trying to improve their quality and appeal, in the fight for subscribers.
In Hamilton’s day, as today, it’s always been the readers’ responsibility to be alert to corrupt, biased, propagandistic, and untrue press, and determine which are the true messages. Readers of this blog are champions of this sorting!
That prolific, widespread communication, and blogs such as the one we are reading, are the reasons I am optimistic, and have faith that good government will win out during this stimulating period of turmoil!
“MAGA’s ferocious assault on knowledge, expertise, and factual communication has given us today’s constitutional crisis–a crisis that reflects not just the massive civic ignorance of the general population, but the arrogance of the White Christian Nationalists who can–thanks to the Internet–choose such “facts” as they want to believe. Of course, as Hamilton would tell us, choosing false facts is not “reflection,” and ignoring both inconvenient facts and laws does not facilitate rational choice.“
No way to say it better, Sheila, but, at least, I can repeat it and support it.
As we consider the ways to resist, and to support scientific pursuits, reliance on expertise, and, you know, facts, it’s sad to see little press coverage of the protests across America yesterday, in red states and blue against the ‘shock and awe’ onslaught of executive orders……even The New York Times chose to embed the protest news in its insipid column on Fox News covering NJ Governor Murphy’s vague reference to hosting an undocumented immigrant on his spacious grounds instead of covering the protests…. That’s The Times doing just what Fox did.
And, may I take additional space to remark on House Speaker Mike Johnson’s observation that the protests by Congressional Democrats—and American citizens across the nation—were overreacting to the sweep by Musk through federal agencies and the termination of access to critical federal agency’s websites: “It looks radical,” he said, “It’s not, I call it stewardship.”
Seriously!
Flood the Zone with B.S.
Steve Bannon, 2016
While they perform in front of the cameras, nobody can see what they are doing behind the curtain.
I hear fury in the initial paragraphs of Sheila’s post. Reasonable. As a Canadian, my household is making an effort to _not_ buy American, and I don’t see this changing for the next four years at least. And we’re definitely not the only ones.
I suspect people do not understand just how much damage shutting down these systems can do. Consider the spending freeze last week. These systems are not meant to be shut down. It may be very difficult to determine what payments were missed during the shutdown. It depends how the shutdown was accomplished, and how the system tracks payments. If it is simply a timer that triggers a payment to go out, the system will have no way to determine what was missed, and only a ton of human effort will be able to determine the correction.
The point is that if Musk’s moron bros turn systems off, it may be very difficult to determine what gets missed. People who miss social security checks, for example, may _never_ get them.