Category Archives: Random Blogging

What MAGA Has Wrought

When Jennifer Rubin and Norman Eisen established The Contrarian, with the intent of keeping tabs on what was clearly going to be a rogue, anti-American administration, I immediately subscribed. (I know a lot of you really don’t want to know about the minutia of Trump/Musk’s assaults on the American Idea, but the publication is worthwhile–begin by just “skimming” if you can’t stomach the details.)

If you just want an overview, a recent article by Jennifer Rubin summed up the incredible amount of damage that these two ignoramuses–Trump and Musk–have done in just the first month of Trump II.

Rubin began by quoting Senator Maria Cantwell:

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee, called out the mindless slashing of vital government employees. “The FAA is already short 800 technicians and these firings inject unnecessary risk into the airspace—in the aftermath of four deadly crashes in the last month,” she said. Acting-president Elon Musk’s DOGE outfit cut 300 FAA employees.

Rubin proceeded to list just a few examples of the major damage being caused by indiscriminate firings undertaken by bozos who didn’t bother to figure out what tasks their targets actually performed or how essential those task might be.

  • Flying is arguably less safe and the risk of calamities is higher.
  • Food safety has degraded and the danger of food contamination is higher.
  • American predominance in science and medicine has been undercut, with the development of life-saving drugs slowed.
  • Farmers are losing income and market share, labs working on crop innovation are shutting down, and supply-chain businesses are facing layoffs. In short, American agriculture (not to mention our image and influence in the world) has become worse off.

As Rubin points out, these Muskovite cuts are not part of an actual reworking strategy.

These are not steps of a brilliant plan to modernize and improve performance. Mindlessly slashing government agencies impinges on the health and safety of all Americans, while the layoffs weaken our economy. (Government workers, of course, live and work throughout America, not just in D.C.) Moreover, Musk-Trump personnel cuts add to the unemployment rolls. Unless fired employees can instantaneously find comparable work, some will seek public assistance, while others will pay less in taxes, reduce purchases, and/or go further into debt….

I doubt many voted for Trump (none for Musk, certainly) because they wanted to increase aircraft accidents and food poisonings while holding back medical science—let alone because they wanted to increase unemployment and shrink the economy. But that is what they are getting—it’s what we’re all getting.

The GOP White House and the spineless Republican senators who confirmed unfit nominees, as well as House Republicans who have ceded the power of the purse to an unelected South African billionaire, own the results of their demolition of government.

This particular article preceded the unconscionable treason of Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine and his undermining of NATO.

In one short month, the administration installed by MAGA cultists has given Putin a victory he could never have won on a battlefield–he is winning a war with the United States without firing a shot.

The MAGA Americans who installed and support this neo-Nazi regime are motivated by one primary–and primal–emotion: racism. It’s past time to call it for what it is.

Trump voters who offer economic or other excuses for their votes are simply unwilling to admit that what really motivates their support is fear of losing White Christian privilege. They were willing to install this clown car of petty incompetents and grifters in return for promises to attack DEI programs and trans children.

If real Americans–those of us who value liberty and equality and the Constitution–fail to rise up, fail to reverse the carnage– future history books will record that America’s precipitous collapse was caused by the persistence of “racial grievance,” the bigotries that study after study have identified as central to the MAGA cult.

As Rubin notes, the “Pottery Barn rule” applies here: you broke it, you own it.

In the case of Musk, Trump, and the AWOL Republicans in Congress, they are responsible for the hopes, aspirations, problems, well-being, and lives of roughly 347M Americans. They may relish breaking government; they may revel in the nihilism. But all of this comes with a steep price. The Contrarian is unafraid to point out that wildly slashing government means Republicans own the airplane disasters, the E. Coli outbreaks, the cancelled medical trials, the excess unemployment, and the consequent damage done when competent people performing critical tasks are fired.

They will also own a world in which the United States has become a minor and unreliable global player.

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Let’s Talk About “Merit”

I don’t think anything has pissed me off more than Donald Trump’s insistence that DEI programs are just an effort to privilege “those people” (insert the object of your bias) over meritorious White guys. As a meme I’ve seen points out, that has it exactly backwards: DEI is an effort to level a very tilted playing field–an effort to combat the longstanding automatic preference given to White guys over more qualified women and minorities.

Study after study confirms that when identical resumes are sent to prospective employers by fictitious applicants–differing only in use of “white sounding” or “black sounding” names–the white sounding applicants get over twice as many interviews.

His pious defense of merit is especially ironic (to put it mildly)  when it is accompanied by Trump’s own incredibly unqualified nominees–a collection of cranks, clowns, conspiracy theorists and sycophants the likes of which no previous President has ever tried to elevate to positions of responsibility. As a friend has noted, in what was a massive understatement, “I’ve seen better cabinets at IKEA.”

For generations, American White guys–more accurately, straight White Christian males–have enjoyed a raft of entirely unmerited advantages.

I will grant that many of the DEI programs have proven to be less than effective, and some have suffered from a surfeit of what we used to call “political correctness.” But they aren’t being attacked for dubious efficacy. If there was any lingering doubt about the profound racism of Trump and MAGA, Trump’s immediate attacks on DEI efforts, and his race to scrub government websites of anything remotely “woke,” should erase it. (No one could ever accuse MAGA folks of being woke–a term that simply means that one has awakened to the existence of structural impediments to civic and economic fairness. They aren’t interested in being fair, or to rewarding individual merit found in women or members of minorities.)

The idea of an actual meritocracy is appealing. But a lot of what we attribute to “merit” is really a leg up, rooted in racial, religious or financial privilege.

The problems with America’s approach to meritocracy implicate–yet again–my two favorite admonitions: “it depends” and “it’s more complicated than that.” We are gradually and reluctantly coming to see, for example, that our definition of what constitutes merit in a given area is often too constricted, and our devices for measuring and determining what constitutes relevant merit may be inadequate.

When I was still teaching, I used to cite the example of an old rule (I’ve long since forgotten which southern state it was from) that restricted entry into local carpenters’ unions to high school graduates who weighed at least 180 pounds. Those requirements kept most Black and female applicants out–in that place at that time, few Blacks graduated from high school, and few women weighed over 180 pounds. The purported justification for the rule was that carpenters needed to be able to read construction plans and needed to be able to pick up at least X number of pounds of materials on the worksite.

But–rather obviously–the best way to determine whether applicants should be admitted to the carpentry trade would be to test them on their ability to read and understand plans and drawings, and to have them demonstrate that they could pick up the necessary weight.

The bottom line is that even seemingly neutral criteria can be–and frequently have been–manipulated so that they are not really neutral.

Those of us who’ve served on university admissions committees know that an applicant’s GPA and test results are necessary but incomplete indicators of whether that applicant will do the academic work required.  We also look for evidence of motivation and discipline.

The definition of merit in a given situation can be complicated. What skills are relevant? What evidence is probative?

One thing has already become obvious: Donald Trump’s criterion for “merit”– being a straight White Christian Nationalist loyal to Donald J. Trump–is inconsistent with the demands of the positions to be filled.

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It’s More Complicated Than That

The MAGA movement is anything but conservative–and that assertion is supported by the number of genuine conservatives who identify as “Never Trumpers.” 

One of my favorites in that group is David French, whom I often cite on this blog. French self-identfies as an Evangelical Christian; he is also a lawyer who respects the rule of law, who understands that policy is complicated, and who recognizes that simplistic answers are almost always counterproductive.

French recently had a lengthy column in the New York Times on populism, in which he made a number of trenchant, important observations. I encourage you to click through and read the whole essay, but I particularly want to focus on a few key points. 

French began by rebutting a comment by the odious Steve Bannon to the effect that Americans really haven’t examined Trump’s populism. French finds that laughable; as he says, there have been countless focus groups of Trump voters, numerous “man-on-the-street” interviews and interviews with supporters at Trump rallies. Anyone who follows politics has read books, watched documentaries and listened to podcasts. “And if you live in Trump country, as I do, you’ll find that Trump voters are very eager to explain themselves. This is not a quiet movement. They don’t exactly hide their interests and passions.”

French warns that “Regardless of how a populist movement starts, it virtually always devolves into a cesspool of corruption and spite. And that’s exactly where we are today.”

Populism is never separate from this “voice of passion.” That is its defining characteristic. It begins in deep grievance. Some of those grievances can be quite real and consequential — such as when modern populist anger is rooted in fury over the Great Recession, long wars in the Middle East or shuttered factories in the Midwest.

Some of the problems, however, that motivate populists aren’t problems at all, and populist anger is rooted in something else entirely. Segregationist zeal fueled Southern populism for generations, for example. Xenophobia has always created fertile ground for populist demagogues.

But regardless of whether the grievances are justified, the real energy of populism is in its emotion — in its raw, unmitigated anger. It’s that passion that makes populist movements so vulnerable to charlatans and demagogues.

As French says, there’s a reason for that vulnerability– actually solving legitimate grievances with good policy is hard; inflaming passion is much easier.
 

There was no easy way to crawl back from the 2008 financial crisis. There are no easy answers in the Middle East, despite Trump’s faith in coastal real estate development in Gaza. The reasons for the loss of Midwest manufacturing jobs go far beyond the trade deals that “they” inflicted on “us.”

So populist politicians lean on the passion, reflecting populist anger back at the public. “The shared emotional connection delivers a singular message: I am your champion, and you are my legions.”

Populism may not place a high premium on honesty, but it is all about authenticity. Virtually every Trump voter I know loves that he speaks his mind and says what other people are thinking but are too afraid to say. 

The most effective populist tactics, or course, are deflection and racism: anything that goes wrong is “their” fault.

When the elected populists don’t fix everything (because they can’t), they lean back on their shared emotional bond to avoid accountability or consequences. After all, in the never-ending battle of us versus them, one can always blame the other side for every failure and frustration. At least for a while.

We’ve seen this clearly with Republican devotion to Donald Trump. He inherited a growing economy and maintained its growth for the first three years of his term. While he deserves a degree of credit for that continued economic success, Trump’s messaging was relentless — he had created the strongest economy in the world.

But what of the failures of Trump’s first term? Well, that’s a “they” problem.

The soaring murder rate in 2020 wasn’t Trump’s fault. That was all about B.L.M. and the left.

The confusion, incompetence and deception that marked Trump’s response to the pandemic were forgotten. The left was the real villain of the pandemic, with its school closings and mask mandates….So when America ended Trump’s first term deeply divided, with lower life expectancy, more murder, less economic growth, more deadly overdoses and higher unemployment than when he entered the Oval Office, none of that was his fault. All of it was due to circumstances beyond his control.

French reminds us that defeating populism doesn’t require defending the status quo. It does, however, require a polity that isn’t so consumed with hatred of “those people” that nothing else matters.

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The Worst Threat

Rational Americans have been spending every day since January 20th freaking out as report after report details new assaults on the Constitution, the rule of law, science, poor people, minorities and women…basically, on the fabric of modern society. As justifiable as those reactions are, however, there is one assault that is easily the worst–because it poses an existential threat to all of humanity. As damaging–indeed, as terrifying– as all the other assaults are, history teaches us that they will eventually be overcome. (Granted, not necessarily in our lifetimes, and not without a lot of pain.)

But that return to sanity faces an unprecedented challenge. Overcoming social and political dysfunction requires residence on a habitable planet.

The single most dangerous and damaging aspect of the MAGA movement is its refusal to occupy reality–a reality that requires co-ordinated efforts to combat climate change.

As Cass Sunstein has recently written,

With the deluge of executive orders in the initial weeks of the second Trump administration, an important directive flew under the radar. It requires the federal government to consider abandoning “the social cost of carbon,” potentially undercutting all climate policymaking.

That is a technical way of signaling something simple and false: Climate change is not real. If the social cost of carbon is treated as zero, then greenhouse gas emissions inflict no damage. Regulations that reduce those emissions have no benefits, which suggests that those regulations should be eliminated.

The social cost of carbon has often been described as the most important number you’ve never heard of. The metric is meant to capture the harm caused by a ton of carbon emissions, making it a foundation of national climate change policy. A lower value would justify weaker regulations, while a higher one would warrant more aggressive policies.

The MAGA movement is hell bent on rejecting science, evidence and reality. Whether MAGA Neanderthals believe that their God will protect them, or cling to the belief that fossil fuel companies’ bottom lines are more important than the lives of their grandchildren, or share the fanciful beliefs of the world’s Musks and Trumps that they are demigods safe from the possibility that ignorance and viciousness won’t bring us all down, the consequences will be the same.

And those consequences are inevitable.

Trump and Musk attack every structural barrier they encounter in exactly the same way: they declare that it has been “politicised” and “weaponized.” So the Department of Justice has to be turned into an agency directed by Trump against his perceived enemies, the press must be cowed into a “balance” favoring euphemistic coverage of Trump’s lawbreaking, efforts to overcome systemic discrimination must be characterized as departures from competence (a particularly ludicrous accusation considering the incredible ignorance and lack of relevant skill of Trump nominees) –and the science of climate change must be demonized and dismissed as some sort of liberal myth.

As Sunstein concludes after his rather technical explanation of the social cost of carbon, “climate change is real. No president, and no federal agency, has the authority to pretend otherwise.”

Americans are currently under the thumb of madmen so arrogant they believe they can defeat reality by the simple act of denial.

Rational people, of course, recognize that belief as insanity. It is one thing to fall short of compliance with global efforts to counter–or at least slow–global warming; it is another thing entirely to reject science and simply refuse to accept the undeniable and mounting evidence that is now all around us.  

The average global temperature has increased by about 2°F (1.1°C) since 1850. The rate of warming has increased in recent decades. Glaciers are shrinking, and the amount of Arctic sea ice is decreasing.  Sea levels are rising at an increasing rate. Rainfall events are becoming more intense. Snow is melting earlier, and spring is coming earlier; plants are leafing out and spring migrant birds arrive earlier each year. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. More land areas are experiencing more hot days and heat waves. Wildfires are starting more easily and spreading more rapidly (as Californians can attest). Etc. Etc.

Trump’s insistence that none of this is connected is undoubtedly motivated in part by his close relationship with fossil fuel magnates, but the motivation is irrelevant. As he and Musk continue their slow-rolling coup, they are destroying more than the Constitution and rule of law. They aren’t just waging war on the legal and philosophical framework of the Founders; they are virtually guaranteeing that much of the Earth will be inhospitable to human life–and sooner, rather than later.

Musk thinks Mars will be a viable substitute. This Earthling begs to differ.

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The Blind Leading The Blind

Assuming that we still have human civilization and historians a hundred years from now, the era we inhabit will probably have been dubbed the Age of Insanity.

Wherever you look, the people we’ve voted into power are pursuing “policies” that defy basic common sense. Here in deep Red Indiana, the so-called Second Amendment defenders–aka gun nuts–have eliminated all rational restrictions on the ownership of weapons. Are you a domestic abuser? No problem. Have you given friends and neighbors cause to think you are off your rocker? Hey, buy an assault weapon. 

Are you blind? Here’s your permit! I

f you think I’m exaggerating, the linked article will disabuse you of that opinion.

WhenTerry Sutherland argued about gun laws with family and friends over the years, he would often joke about whether  he — a legally blind man — should get a gun permit.

Everyone would laugh. Sutherland didn’t think it was possible.
 
“But eventually it kind of started weighing on me,” Sutherland told The Washington Post. “And I started thinking, ‘I wonder if it’s actually possible, and what would it mean if I could?’”
 
So last fall, Sutherland applied for an Indiana license to carry a handgun. He expected someone to stop him at some point in the application process, he said, or at least test if he could shoot at a target.

A few months later, Sutherland received his permit, as Indianapolis news channel WISH-TV first reported. He put it in a clear case and wears it on a yellow lanyard around his neck in hopes of starting conversations about Indiana’s gun laws, which he said are too lenient toward blind people. Sutherland hasn’t changed anyone’s opinions, he said, but some people have been shocked that he received the license.

Welcome to Indiana, where legislators regularly demonstrate that the only part of the Constitution they’ve read is the Second Amendment. (They routinely display total ignorance of the First–especially the Establishment Clause.)

And how are the geniuses in the Indiana legislature responding to the insanity of  the Trump and MAGA hysteria over (dark-skinned) immigrants?  Are they even aware that the U.S. Constitution makes Immigration a specifically federal responsibility?

Don’t be silly!

As the White House ramps up deportation of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, many Republican-controlled state legislatures aren’t just complying with federal directives but taking additional steps to curb illegal immigration.

That includes Indiana.

More than a dozen immigration-related bills have been filed this legislative session, ranging from a bill that would ban children living in the country illegally from enrolling in public school to higher criminal penalties for immigrants caught living here illegally. But lawmakers have ultimately decided to focus their attention on bills that help police enforce immigration policies and detain people living here without citizenship.

The constitutional allocation of responsibilities is obviously irrelevant to our lawmakers, as is the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that the public schools cannot be closed to immigrant children. Jim Banks–the ignorant and nasty Christian Nationalist who is perhaps the most embarrassing person Indiana has ever sent to the U.S. Senate (and that’s saying something) has threatened to defund the police if they opt to “stay in their constitutional lane.” (Indianapolis’ Police Chief–who evidently has read the Constitution–used that phrase in explaining why IMPD would continue to focus on crimes against the city’s residents, rather than assisting in terrorizing Brown residents.)

Two counterproductive House bills have been introduced by Jim Lucus, one of Indiana’s most deranged “Second Amendment” legislators (he also has a FaceBook page that makes Twitter/X look like a DEI site). His measures–which are moving through the process– add stronger criminal penalties to immigrants found to be driving without a license. Never mind that research shows such laws endanger everyone. They result in fewer trained, tested, licensed, and insured drivers on the road, compromising safety for all. (They also perpetuate fear within immigrant communities and create barriers to immigrants’ ability to contribute to our communities and the economy.) 

The MAGA animus toward dark-skinned immigrants is part and parcel of the central MAGA characteristic–racism. If you discount Project 2025, neither the state nor the federal GOP has advanced any coherent policy agenda. As Trump’s coup has proceeded and Musk and his DOGE techno-nerds lay waste to various federal agencies, GOP invertebrates express no concern. The only consistent themes have been concerted assaults on science and on efforts to be fair to those they’ve labeled Other: scrubbing federal websites of information, eliminating DEI efforts, and ejecting the immigrants who disproportionately pick our produce and build our houses.

This really is the age of insanity.


 

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