Trump: On The Wrong Side Of Everything

One of the most annoying aspects of living under the Trump/MAGA regime is the sheer extent of its venality and stupidity. When I first began writing these daily observations, there would come times when I would begin on “empty”–when I couldn’t readily come up with a subject, and would cast around for ideas. That’s no longer the case. Every day, when I sit down at my computer to produce another blog post, I’m confronted with an avalanche of harmful, corrupt and indecent actions of this administration. My issue these days is what to choose from the onslaught.

It turns out that Trump’s AI post after the No Kings protests was accurate–he really is shitting on the country.

Today, my chosen subject is the incredible, truly evil lengths this administration has gone to in its fight to undermine efforts to combat climate change.

The New York Times has reported on one such effort–an effort that was, unfortunately, successful.

More than 100 nations were poised last month to approve a historic deal to slash pollution from cargo ships. That’s when the United States launched a pressure campaign that officials around the world have called extraordinary, even by the standards of the Trump administration’s combativeness, according to nine diplomats on its receiving end.

I have previously compared Trump to a Mafia Don, and the report amply confirmed the resemblance. An Asian ambassador was warned that if he voted for the plan, sailors from his country wouldn’t be allowed to disembark at American ports. Caribbean diplomats were threatened with being blacklisted from entering the United States. And according to the Times, Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, “personally called officials in several countries to threaten financial penalties and other punishments if they continued to support the agreement to cut ship pollution.”

These and other threats, including tariffs, sanctions and the revocation of diplomats’ U.S. visas, effectively killed the deal, according to the nine American, European and developing-nation diplomats directly involved in the negotiations. They spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from the Trump administration.

Although officials of the White House, State Department and Department of Energy denied making personal threats or engaging in tactics of intimidation, they did acknowledge derailing the deal and repeated their strong opposition to efforts to address climate change. They justified their opposition by asserting that the shipping fee would have hurt the American economy. (Like Trump’s insane tariffs haven’t done enough to hurt it all by themselves…)

But foreign diplomats said they were stunned by what they described as “nasty” and “very personal” threats made by State Department officials, which were mostly aimed at leaders from poorer or small countries that are economically dependent on the United States. Some of the delegations were summoned to the U.S. Embassy in London for these discussions, these people said.

Most countries had been ready to vote for the plan, which would have imposed a fee on heavily polluting vessels to push the industry to clean up. It was negotiated over several years by the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency that oversees shipping policy.

But the Trump administration was able to block the vote, the nine diplomats said, after numerous countries backed away in the face of the threats from the Americans.

The Trump administration has consistently denied the reality of  climate change and has opposed any and all climate policies that might negatively affect fossil fuel interests . Promoting the sale of U.S.-produced oil, gas and coal is said to be a top administration priority. The administration has refused to send a representative to the UN climate summit in Brazil, to emphasize Trump’s rejection of the reality of climate change, and Trump is–once again– withdrawing the U.S. from the 2015 Paris agreement. Trump–arguably the most intellectually-limited person ever to occupy the Oval Office–has called global warming the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and has said that the science was developed by “stupid people.”

The shipping fee had been negotiated over decades and would have been a major step toward the elimination of greenhouse gas emissions from the shipping industry. Under the deal, large cargo ships would have paid a fee if their carbon dioxide emissions exceeded a certain level.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse had a reaction to the administration’s tactics that was very similar to mine. He reportedly compared the administration’s bullying to that of  “a bunch of gangsters coming into the neighborhood and smashing windows and threatening shop owners.” He described the administration’s strategy as a “shock-and-awe thuggery approach.”

Does anyone have a horse’s head handy?

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Indiana’s Embarrassing AG

He’s at it again.

I don’t know how many pixels I’ve wasted on discussions of Indiana’s ridiculous Attorney General, Todd Rokita. When I took a look at the history of this blog, I realized that reports of his problematic behaviors began while he was still in Congress, and  accelerated when he became AG. 

Rokita’s self-importance isn’t matched by even a modicum of self-awareness, a lack that has led to admonitions of him from Indiana’s all-Republican Supreme Court. His tireless efforts to play to the craziest fringes of MAGA (and those are some fringes!) have led to his efforts to smear the IU Ob-Gyn who performed a legal abortion on  a ten-year-old rape victim, a recent request that the Trump administration send federal troops to Indiana, and his maintenance of an unvetted list of school teachers who are reportedly sharing “woke” positions in their classrooms.

Rokita’s sustained assault on public education has erupted again, via a bizarre lawsuit Rokita has filed against Indianapolis’ Public Schools for failure to assist ICE in terrorizing students. IPS has had the nerve to demand legal authority before allowing ICE agents into its classrooms.

As the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported, Rokita “filed suit against Indianapolis Public Schools — with help from a conservative think tank — accusing the state’s largest public school district of ‘thwarting’ federal immigration enforcement.”

In response, the IPS board re-affirmed the district’s commitment to “ensuring safe, supportive, and welcoming learning environments for all students.” (It isn’t difficult to picture the eye-rolls that must have accompanied the response–and the “here he goes again” sighs…) Per IPS,

As has always been the case, we will continue to uphold the law while keeping these commitments,” the board added, before knocking Rokita’s intentions.

While IPS takes all legal obligations seriously, we respectfully hope that all concerned parties will recognize the heavy burden that silly litigation and political posturing places on students, families, and taxpayers,” the statement continued. “Every dollar spent on defensive legal posture is a dollar not spent on instructional support, teacher development, student services, or enrichment. In this case, Mr. Rokita prefers those dollars go to fight gratuitous political battles, as has too often been the case.

A very tactful way of saying “we really don’t want to pay for his incessant grandstanding.”

IPS requires that officers have a warrant signed by a judge unless there is an emergency situation, and the school system’s legal counsel must authorize the access. That policy certainly appears reasonable; after all, school systems are legally charged with acting in loco parentis, and with safeguarding the children in its care. Rokita, however, argues that the district should allow individual employees to “voluntarily comply” with ICE demands.

Rokita’s office began “investigating” (harassing) IPS in February, and communications have evidently gone back and forth since, with Rokita’s most recent demanding immediate changes.  As the IPS response noted,

Unfortunately, despite taking six months to craft his opinion on IPS’ policies, Mr. Rokita permitted only five business days from the time IPS received his review to respond, and then refused IPS’ request for any additional time….Yet, these important issues deserve thoughtful, deliberative weighing of important legal rights — not impulsive, superficial efforts for political gain.

Board members also criticized Rokita’s use of the term “aliens” for noncitizen children and their families, accusing him of  “willfully dehumanizing” them.

Assisting Rokita in this effort at bullying the system is something called the America First Policy Institute. (I guess a name really does say it all…) The institute says the Indiana case is part of its mission to hold “rogue” government entities accountable. Evidently, it’s “rogue” to protect children from being terrorized without legal authority.

In the wake of the suit, the Indiana State Teachers’ Association affirmed its belief that “every child in Indiana, regardless of background or immigration status, has the right to a safe and welcoming public school.” The organization confirmed the  professional and moral responsibility of educators “to protect the wellbeing of their students and ensure schools remain places of learning, trust and stability….Turning schools into extensions of immigration enforcement threatens that trust and undermines the learning environment every student deserves. Our focus must remain on educating and protecting students, not politicizing their safety.”

A local immigration attorney interviewed by WTHR believes the lawsuit is part of an effort to increase ICE’s presence in Indianapolis, and characterized it as fear mongering playing to the base….”the idea of federal agents often masked and in full uniform and flak jackets going into schools is just diabolical.”

It would be nice if Rokita would stop his constant pandering to MAGA’s looney-tune fringe and spend some time doing the job he was elected to do, but I’m not holding my breath…

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This Made Me Feel Better

When I saw that eight “rogue” Democrats had bowed to Republican demands to end the government shutdown without a firm agreement to restore the ACA subsidies, I was depressed. And angry. I also was clearly not alone–the pundits I follow were almost uniformly furious.

But then I read Jonathan Last’s analysis in the Bulwark, and felt much better.

Last argues that the very best outcome for Democrats would have been to force Republicans to give them something that would alter the structural balance of power– something like D.C. statehood or the full release of the Epstein files. The next best, he says, would have been getting rid of the filibuster, which would have required Republicans to vote on every unpopular Trump proposal and cleared the way for Democrats to enact sweeping reforms if and when they regain power. The third best outcome would have been to win a tactical concession–perhaps outlawing masks on ICE agents.

Instead, Democrats got the fourth best outcome: Democrats caved without any concessions–while raising the salience of a terrible issue for Republicans.

This is basically what happened. Republicans will allow an ACA subsidy vote in the future, that is meaningless because the House will not pass the bill—and even if it somehow passed, Trump wouldn’t sign it.

But capitulating without getting anything of substance isn’t the worst thing in the world. It preserves the status quo and the status quo is—as last week’s elections showed—good for Democrats.

Trump has plummeted in the polls as the shutdown has dragged on. But what would happen if the Democrats had gotten what they were holding out for–extension of the ACA subsidies and restoration of the Medicaid cuts. Slashing those subsidies and drastically cutting Medicaid were mean-spirited provisions that were central to Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Last’s point is that such a “success” would have been a disaster for the Democrats, because it would have made Trump more popular.

The Democratic proposal was for Trump and Republicans to undo the most unpopular parts of their Big Beautiful Bill.

Had they succeeded, I am fairly certain that 2026 voters would not have given Democratic candidates credit for protecting them.

Why? Our COVID experience suggests that Americans have almost no capacity to grant credit for harms avoided.

Last reminds us that Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill created a political liability for him, because in order to keep GOP legislators onboard, he couldn’t enormously increase the deficit. He needed to include some cost-savings. In GOP land, the most politically palatable cuts are to other people’s health care.

The devil’s bargain Trump made with the BBB was that health insurance costs would rise dramatically for people covered by the ACA and health care access in rural areas would decrease as Medicaid was cut. These effects would be tangible for voters and would manifest months before the midterm elections….

The shutdown presented Trump with the opportunity to have his cake and eat it, too. Having given the holdout Republicans their health care cuts to pass the BBB, he could have undone those cuts as a “concession” to Democrats, thus nullifying their best issue for the 2026 campaign. Democrats would have had to sell voters on the idea that “Your healthcare costs would have gone up without us!”

Good luck with that.

It’s hard to argue with that analysis.

Democrats were doing what Democrats do–trying to avoid harm to the millions of Americans who will lose healthcare–or pay much, much more for it– thanks to Trump and his GOP sycophants. Would those Americans be grateful to the Democrats who saved them from those harms? Some undoubtedly would be–but, as Last contends, most wouldn’t. If the Democrats had won–if they’d forced GOP concessions on ACA subsidies and Medicaid, voters next November wouldn’t be experiencing a world of hurt, and Trump’s GOP would be the beneficiary of its absence.

Why didn’t Trump take this gigantic win? Because it would have meant laying down. He would have had to pretend that he’d been beaten and was capitulating to Chuck Schumer.

Trump’s obsession with strength and dominance simply would not permit that.

So where are we? Last says that– objectively speaking–Democrats emerge from the shutdown in a slightly better position than they entered it. They’ve damaged Trump politically. They’ve insured that health care costs will be a major issue in 2026.
The meaningless future vote on extending the ACA subsidies “will put Republican senators on the spot and create vulnerability for House Republicans when they refuse to take up the bill.”

I feel better. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans won’t…

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The Equal Protection Of The Laws

From day one, the Trump administration has made its disregard for the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and its deep-seated racism too clear to ignore. Just a few examples will suffice: the recently-announced intent to limit the number of refugees the country will accept to 7500, while giving priority to White South Africans; directing ICE to stop and harass people based on nothing but skin color; the constant and ferocious attacks on DEI; the ongoing efforts to disenfranchise Black voters…the list goes on. And on. 

The best response to MAGA protests that the racist label is unfair was in a recent headline from The Hill. It read “If MAGA doesn’t want to be labeled racist, it should stop elevating racists.”

Memo to President Trump’s backers: If you want people to stop calling you racist, stop saying and doing racist things. And stop excusing racist posts and rants by leading voices in the MAGA media.

When Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson recently ranked among the top five on Spotify’s list of top trending podcasts, it screamed out that racism and antisemitism are not a problem for their MAGA-world fan base.

None of this, of course, surprises those of us who have understood since 2016 where Trump’s support lies. MAGA’s racism has been too glaringly obvious to ignore. But more recently, it seems that MAGA’s animus goes beyond race, gender and religion; the administration is evidently determined to undermine the very concept of Equal Protection–the belief that all citizens are entitled to the equal application of the laws. (For that matter, Trump clearly wants the effective repeal of the entire 14th Amendment–beginning with birthright citizenship, but definitely not ending there.)

The Washington Post has reported on the administration’s most recent assault on the very concept of Equal Protection of the Laws. The administration now wants to deny people who hold different political beliefs a benefit to which they are legally entitled.

Employees of nonprofit organizations that work with undocumented immigrants, provide gender transition care for minors or engage in public protests will have a hard time getting their federal student loans forgiven under regulations advanced Thursday by the Education Department.

The 185-page rule revises eligibility requirements for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which cancels the education debt of government and nonprofit employees after 10 years of service and 120 monthly loan payments. It will allow the education secretary to disqualify employers — not individuals — who engage in activities the department deems to have a “substantial illegal purpose” on or after July 1 — when the rule takes effect

Current law makes those holding student loans eligible for a federal program offering loan forgiveness if they focus on areas that serve the public good. The law has defined those categories as including careers in education, public health or public interest law. The proposed rule would dramatically change a program that has offered debt relief “to more than 1 million student loan borrowers across more than 20 sectors of the economy.”

The proposed rule was prompted by a Trump Executive Order that designated disfavored nonprofits that should no longer be eligible for government benefits. 

A partial list of those the administration wants to deem ineligible is telling:

Aiding and abetting violations of federal immigration laws.
Supporting terrorism or engaging in violence for the purpose of obstructing or influencing federal government policy.
Engaging in the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children in violation of federal or state law.
Engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination.

The subjectivity is obvious–and the point. We’ve seen how ICE defines the obstruction of government “policy.” We’ve seen what the administration considers “aiding and abetting” (i.e. offering opinions that are protected free speech). The administration defines medical treatment of transgender children to be “mutilation.”

And of course, the administration takes the position that any effort to level the playing field for minorities amounts to “illegal discrimination” against White Christians.

You can almost hear the mob boss. “Want your student loan forgiven, so you can afford a house or a new car? It would be a shame if all those payments you’ve already made didn’t count…maybe you should change jobs.” 

I doubt that Trump can spell, pronounce or define “arbitrary and capricious” but those terms describe what would result from his efforts to ignore the clear meaning of the 14th Amendment–and for that matter, the rest of the Bill of Rights.  Citizens would no longer have an automatic right to equal treatment–their access to government programs would depend upon the degree to which they are willing to bend the knee.

Like it works in a monarchy…..
 

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My Mother Was Right

I was the product of a mixed marriage. My mother was a Republican and my father a Democrat–although they did hammer out their differences before most election days, in order to avoid, as my mother put it, “cancelling each other out.” 

My mother’s identification with the GOP was based almost entirely on her fiscal conservatism, and she frequently expressed concern about what was then the “crazy fringe” of the party, which she accurately saw as racist and anti-Semitic. She worried about what would happen if the fringe became more powerful, more a part of the party’s mainstream.

She was right to worry.

The party with which my mother and I once identified is long gone, subsumed into that angry and hate-filled fringe. And now, as the saying goes, the chickens are coming home to roost. Republicans who still retain the ability to understand that blatant bigotry isn’t a good look are reacting to the public anti-Semitism of some of the MAGA movement’s most prominent members.

As Charlie Sykes put it, the MAGA Right sowed dragon’s teeth for years, and is now horrified to discover they have grown an actual dragon.

Sykes was addressing what has been termed a MAGA “civil war” over the increasingly open and vicious right-wing antisemitism of the Trumpian Right. That warfare increased when Kevin Roberts, the current president of the Heritage Foundation, announced that the Foundation was standing by Tucker Carlson, who had just platformed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.

As some of us warned a decade ago, the problem of Donald Trump was not merely Trump himself, but the mouth-breathers he was bringing with him — the winking permissions he granted to the movement we once called the Alt-Right. For ten years, he’s brought them into the mainstream; applauded them, encouraged them, dined with and defended them. He shattered the guardrails; dismissed the gatekeepers; and opened the sluices of bigotry.

That reality is what frightened my mother so many years ago, and it’s what makes so much contemporary political debate irrelevant. That irrelevance is especially notable in the constant hand-wringing over whether the Democratic Party should be “centrist” or “progressive.” What that debate ignores is the nature of the center in today’s political world.

A perceptive essay from Lincoln Square honed in on that question.

Where, though, is the center between right-wing authoritarianism and freedom and democracy? As the “Republicans” careen ever farther off the pavement, across the right shoulder, through the guardrail, into the ditch off the right side of the road, the “center,” if that is taken to mean the midpoint, is pulled from the middle of the road ever farther to the extreme right. Should Democrats, then, seek to be in the center by offering “Fascism Lite” as an alternative to full-blown fascism?

The essay quoted Yeats’ famous poem, asserting that “the “rough beast” Yeats envisioned has already been born. “It could not be clearer that “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”  “Where is the center in such a time?”

Where is the center between the First Amendment and a government that seeks to control speech, assembly, and the media and is filled with Christian nationalists who want to establish a state church? Between the rule of law and a president who asserts, “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States”? Between protecting the right of all citizens to vote and seeking to repeal the Voting Rights Act and gerrymander to an absurd degree? Between consumer protection, environmental protection, scientific and medical research, and countless other government functions and maintaining the social safety net created in the 1930s, 1960s, and since and striving to “Take America Back” to the 1920s, the first Gilded Age in the late nineteenth century, or even farther? Between a president ordering the prosecution of anyone he does not like and equal application of the law? Between corruption on a previously unimaginable level and honest government? Between a fact-based examination of our history and making up a past to suit the ruler? Between government of the people, by the people, and for the people and government of the people, by an unchecked leader, and for the billionaires? 

As the essay concluded, the center is not always in the middle. The GOP fringe has been planning the current takeover since the 1970s. And as it has moved the party farther and farther to the right, the center— the midpoint between two ends — moved in the same direction.

Today, to be “progressive” is to be “woke” to that reality–and to refuse to move to that far-right midpoint.

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