It’s impossible for most of us to keep up with the unconstitutional, corrupt and overwhelmingly stupid actions of Trump and his merry band of incompetents and bigots–so today I thought I’d enumerate just a few of the actions that are taking my country down the path to fascism and global irrelevance.
Keep in mind that this is a very partial list…..
The FCC has threatened to pull licenses from networks whose coverage of our thin-skinned president hurts his feelings. (What First Amendment?)
Is factual economic news negative? The government will eliminate quarterly reports by public companies, tighten controls on the release of employment data, and delay the release of inflation data, obvious moves to suppress facts and prevent citizens from understanding our declining economic health. As Lincoln Square recently reported,
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) abruptly postponed its consumer expenditures report, the dataset that determines how inflation is measured in the year ahead. No explanation was given. No new date set.
Last year, when the release was delayed, the agency cited an error and announced a rescheduled publication; this year it offered neither explanation nor date. The absence is striking because the report is central to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which shapes interest rates, wages, and the daily cost of living. Critics warn the delay is not accidental but political.
It’s not just economic data. The administration has removed statistics from DOJ websites that inconveniently showed that right-wing violence is by far the nation’s biggest domestic threat. RFK’s HHS is removing data that demonstrates vaccine effectiveness. Etc.
The administration is frantically trying to distract attention from its non-disclosure of the Epstein files. (Pretty much confirms that you-know-who is in those files…)
The administration’s war against education keeps ramping up. Assaults against universities, efforts to destroy public education, demands that museums and national parks scrub the parts of history Trump doesn’t like have recently been joined by administration plans to partner with Christian Nationalist organization Prager U to create a new “Civics Education” for the nation’s children. (Can we spell White Christian indoctrination??)
Does our tech sector rely on recruiting “the best and brightest” from around the world? Hit those “furriners” with a 100,000 fee per visa.
The corruption of this administration becomes more obvious every day. Not only is Trump making out like the bandit he is with patently illegal grifts, not only has he instructed the Department of Justice to bring phony charges against his political enemies (and fired ethical lawyers who refused to manufacture evidence), his administration has also shut down investigation of his border czar’s bribery–despite the fact that Homan’s acceptance of $50,000 from undercover FBI agents was captured on tape.
As I said in my introductory paragraph, this is a very partial list of the wreckage being done every minute of every day by the idiots and grifters currently in charge of our federal government. As Paul Krugman recently detailed in his Substack, what passes for policy in this administration is insane.
We attracted investment from around the world in part because we had rule of law: Businesses trusted us to honor property rights and enforce contracts. So the Trumpists turned us into a nation where the government extorts ownership shares in corporations and masked government agents seize foreign workers, put them in chains, and imprison them under terrible conditions.
We lead the world in science thanks to our unmatched network of research universities and globally admired government agencies like the National Institutes of Health. So the Trumpists are doing their best to destroy both university and government research.
And our economic success — the way we have pulled ahead of other advanced nations over the past generation — rests almost entirely on our leadership in digital technology. So the Trumpists are pulling the rug out from under tech, too.
H-1B visas are a critical ingredient in America’s success. They allow the best and the brightest from around the world to teach in our universities, do research in our research institutes, and work in our tech sector.
Every day, Americans are inundated with propaganda extolling these incredibly harmful attacks on our liberties, our economic well-being and our global preeminence. Thanks to MAGA’s unremitting attacks on those who dare to tell the truth, it gets more and more difficult to separate propaganda from journalism, fact from fiction.
That difficulty is immensely dangerous.
Hannah Arendt said it best, back in 1951, in Origins of Totalitarianism: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
I know I’m a broken record on this, but the focus on Trump obscures the real danger. Trump is largely simple; he is driven by racism, greed, and a lust for celebrity. (He also has a bizarre fixation on tariffs. This is based on his ignorance of them, but also that he sees them as a bullying tactic, which he likes. For Trump, one can never have enough bullying tactics in one’s quiver.) He doesn’t care about a lot of the fundamental damages that are being done to your country. They are led by Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, JD Vance, and others related to Project 2025.
Even if Trump were to disappear from politics today, the danger would be no less. It may even be greater.
“Every day, Americans are inundated with propaganda extolling these incredibly harmful attacks on our liberties, our economic well-being and our global preeminence. Thanks to MAGA’s unremitting attacks on those who dare to tell the truth, it gets more and more difficult to separate propaganda from journalism, fact from fiction.”
I did miss the first part of Trump’s “speech” to the United Nations General Assembly but watched the rest of it; unable to stop watching at his global audacity to air enough evidence of his inability as a leader due to mental incompetence which alone could be used for his THIRD impeachment. The rhetorical lies, the name-calling, the threats, the demands for the Nobel Peace Prize as he works to continue wars, declaring our economy to be the best in the world as w struggle to keep food on our tables, his demands for removal and/or arrests of his purported “enemies” and the plain and simple idiocy of his 56 or 57 minute “speech” to our allies and enemies alike and to the world. But when I later spoke to other Democratic supporters about the speech; they had not bothered to watch. The disappointing lack of stressing the importance of his performance was amazing; continued spouting about Charlie Kirk followed by his forced desperate indictment of James Comey left his UNGA speech in the past as being unworthy of using as evidence of our need to impeach him AGAIN. His United Nations General Assembly “speech” was NOT propaganda; it was EVIDENCE of our need to take action using Amendment XXV immediately.
But the above is only the blathering rhetoric by a frightened, disgusted old woman who wants out of this world NOW.
What if James Comey, if his case is dismissed or he is found not guilty, were to counter-sue for false prosecution? What if every institution that has faced the false allegations from the administration would do the same?
Standing up to a bully is the only way to put an end to bullying behavior. Giving in to a wanna-be dick-tater never placates them, it only encourages them to take more. This is the lesson to take away from the Dick who is tating in the White House now.
James, nice idea about the counter-suit by Comey, but SCOTUS’ utter stupidity and corruption will dismiss it.
In another view, after watching the bizarre behaviors of knuckle-dragging creatures like Hegseth, Miller, Vought, Bondi, Vance, et. al., I keep hearing the famous words spoken by “Deep Throat” in “All the President’s Men”: “These guys aren’t very smart.”
Let’s hope that what happens to this particular collection of dummies is the same or more stringent than those prices paid by the Watergate cabal. They deserve to experience no less than the horrors they’ve visited upon our people and our nation.
“Let’s hope that what happens to this particular collection of dummies is the same or more stringent than those prices paid by the Watergate cabal.”
Vernon I was thinking basically along the same line of past action but…the strength of one newspaper to bring down the White House with the intelligent, but thieving Nixon appointees, was brought about by one loyal American FBI agent and two gutsy young Washington Post reporters. The Washington Post is no longer our “go to” media source for truth in government with it’s paid for first row seat at the private Trump inauguration and the Democratic party was stronger and more unified then than today’s Democrats sitting in Congress as well as the voters who can’t be bothered to vote. Thus, the Crap Shoot! The Republicans have proven that there is full strength in unity; their infighting ends with their unified votes via early voting, mail-in ballots and at the polls which they are fighting to suppress. They are willing to chance suppressing votes believing Republicans will all head for the polls with their qualifying identification. The possibility of married women having their birth name on ID has been pushed to the background with the required proof of name changes for the reportedly required REAL ID demanded by government. I have mine but will I have mail-in ballot rights to use it.
Taking action against Trump’s administration is a Crap Shoot and trying to shoot down all of their crap by another impeachment will either make or break this nation. That will require unity within the Democratic party and a return to loyalty by the mute and idle sitting Republicans and their willingness to unite with the Democrats. The fact that those against the current administration are the national majority is meaningless as they are part of a mute and idle populace…they appear to me to be that Third Party people have been wanting to end the Two Party system they blame for conditions today.
With all of our modern access to information we do not appear to have the strength it took to fire the first shots in the Revolutionary War to free us from an actual Kingship and end taxation without representation.
Who will be our Paul Revere…or our first Paula Revere?
JoAnn, I did not watch the U.N. speech, either. I can not tolerate seeing this waste of protoplasm move his lips, nor the sound of his voice. I was certain that he’d be bloviating and BSing allover the place. But, I am amazed, when I read of bits of the speech, to see how much of it was projection, as when he tells the world that all their countries are falling apart!
Yes, James, Comey would do us all a favor to rake this ##&% over the legal coals once the idiot court case is done. But, I share Vernon’s cynicism about SCOTUS.
In Trump’s increasingly demented mind, there is no limit to what the middle class can afford in supporting the few wealthiest among us.
Trump is just a cartoonish figurehead for the oligarchs, as are the MAGA republicans in Congress. It’s only fitting that the Americans holding them accountable are the comedians and satirists. If our comedians are making a career of mocking these people, can you imagine what global leaders have to say?
I mean, Trump whining for the arrest of the escalator person at the UN building when it was his own staff member is priceless. His teleprompter didn’t work because his administration dropped the ball while he whined nonstop. These are all punchlines for jokes – they write themselves.
We keep expecting serious people to show up in Washington, but if we do so, we’ll only be disappointed. We are in the late stages of capitalism’s collapse, and I believe most of the oligarchs understand this and are taking all they can now. Look at how they are treating Zohran Mamdani in New York. Trump has threatened to arrest him if he wins the election.
Why are all the monied people worried about a democratic socialist?
Socialism is one of the two solutions in the late stages of capitalism. If the people get a taste of socialism, which is focused on all people, not just the wealthiest few, they will reject the oligarchy and state merger, which equals neo-fascism.
If Zohran were running in any other market, the press would ignore him. Since he’s in New York, they cannot do that. The propaganda heading Mamdani’s way from now until November will be ugly and brutal.
The other day, I mentioned billionaire Bill Ackman, the Zionist funder behind Charlie Kirk, who ranted about Zohran receiving donations from outside New York state. He believes that donors should only come from people in a politician’s specific state. Does Bill give money to politicians outside of his state?
Yes, yes, he does. In fact, he gives money to politicians throughout the USA.
p.s. The oligarch, Peter Thiel, who is helping IDF kill Palestinians in Gaza, just wrapped up his four-part lecture about the anti-Christ in San Fransciso.
p.s.s. Don’t forget the ignorance of DOGE’s, Elon Musk. Ignorance appears to be a common theme among our oligarchy. 😉
Very well done, Sheila, as it is breaking my heart even more when I think about my kids, their kids, and THEIR kids. What are we leaving them? The America I so loved growing up and watching through the years, is in dire circumstances – i.e. trump’s pocket. We WILL get out of this someday, but the harm in the meantime is immeasurable. We, the people, the parents, the grandparents, the great-grandparents, have to stand together and work to bring back dignity and respect to our beloved country. We can do it, but it will take time and guts.
Could we all file tort claims against Trump and the government for loss of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Because I am injured.
All joking aside from my last post, I really am just very tired of feeling depressed about all that is going on. It just feels heavy, dark, and utterly evil.I don’t like having a strong disagreement with anyone as an Aquarius. We are supposed to be the “Peacekeepers”. I do feel some sense of hope though by seeing everyone’s comments here.
I just hope all of you are doing ok in your lives and able to find some peace at the end of each day. Somehow we will get through this! I am truly impressed with the way Sheila explains things!