Speed Kills
With the usual caveat that I am almost always wrong when it comes to matters of political prognostication, I’ve come to believe that the coming year is going to be even worse than my fellow lefties expect. I predict a blue ribbon shit show magnitudes of order worse than the chaotic first months of the previous Trump administration. Whatever is the constitutional equivalent of a sharknado – I predict that.
While I make this prediction light-heartedly, I don’t make it lightly. I think we’re in for it, although I don’t yet have a clear sense of what the “it” will consist. Immigrant round-ups, for sure. Attempted mass firings of civil servants, fer shizzle. Political prosecutions, you bet dat ass. Unfortunately, I think those might just be the opening bids.
Here's why I think we’re fucked: because if I were heading up the Trump team, I would advocate a blitzkrieg strategy of attacking the entire governmental apparatus from all directions, all at once. I would launch an offensive war seeking to take out as many targets as possible as quickly as possible knowing that the response will be to attempt to smother the fires I’ve started. As they do so, I would light new blazes. The arsonist’s work is much easier than the firefighters, particularly when you own the firehouse.
When I look around at what seems to be happening, that’s exactly what appears to be happening. The nomination of Kash Patel to head the FBI is case in point.
If anybody thought the Matt Gaetz debacle would chasten Team Trump, the Patel announcement must have laid such hopes to rest. Patel is, first and foremost, a Trump loyalist. The FBI is, first and foremost, an independent domestic law enforcement agency. If the ideas of “Trump loyalist” and “independent domestic law enforcement agency” seem in conflict, it’s because they are. In an administration that promises to be staffed with the legally-challenged, Trump is declaring that his FBI will be a projection of Trump vengeance, and which will turn a blind eye to all Trumpian malfeasance. Patel is only one nominee.
Nearly all of Trump’s picks are being installed to either attack the agencies they are being tasked with heading and/or using those agencies as extensions of the Trump agenda of grievance and persecution. My guess is the reason these picks are being rolled out so quickly is that they are meant to hit the ground, en masse, with bayonets already fixed. Last time, the shit show was characterized primarily by incompetence. This time, I fear, the incompetence will be on the side of those opposing his agenda simply because there will be so much to oppose, all at once. It will be a lightning attack and it will prove, I fear, highly effective.
It's Steve Bannon’s famous campaign maxim - “flood the zone with shit” – as governing strategy. Attack on all fronts, all at once. Dismantle the administrative state while you round up immigrants while you deregulate while you offer up tax cuts to billionaires while you prosecute your enemies. The first Trump administration was chaotic by happenstance. This one will be chaotic by design.
Trump’s new Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, is known for both her competence and cunning. Those expecting her to be a moderating influence on Trump, I suspect, will be disappointed. Florida Congressional Rep, Jared Moskowitz, praised Wiles’ hiring, writing. “She is brilliant, tough, strategic. She will serve the country well.” Jared, you sweet summer child.
Wiles has been with Trump since 2015. Nobody whose survived with him that long is likely to serve as anything than an expediter for his autocratic impulses. Consider others who have remained loyal to him for more than a few years: Stephen Miller, Boris Epshteyn, Richard Grenell, Steve Bannon, and the aforementioned Ka$h (his preferred spelling according to his personal logo) Patel. Add to that list Elon “Captain Underpants” Musk and his Boy Blunder, Vivek Ramaswamy. Are any of these people likely to “moderate” Trump?
Are any of his more milquetoast appointments like Marco Rubio or Linda McMahon likely to do anything other than lick the boot? They are not.
So we’re left with a rogue’s gallery of ambitious weasels reeking of eau de fuckface, the official fragrance of Mar-A-Lago, which I imagine to be a heady bouquet of greed, villainy, and chicken fingers. Lincoln’s famous “team of rivals” this is not; yes, many of them will end up as rivals but none of them will be pursuing their aims for love of nation. Their love extends only to what they can buy. They are buying America.
Worse, they’re laughing at us as they do it. A Rolling Stone article entitled “Trump and His Team Are Laughing At Biden’s Commitment to Decorum” discusses the reaction among Trump World to Biden’s “bending over backwards” to welcome back to 1600 Penn the man he has described as a fascist:
These sentiments of gleefully rejoicing and sneering at, as one close Trump ally puts it, the Democrats’ almost performative “capitulation” to Trump — who campaigned on a grossly authoritarian platform that includes wielding the federal apparatus to exact revenge operations on prominent political enemies — are widely shared in Trumpland, according to four sources close to the president-elect or working on the Trump transition.
In recent weeks, according to a source familiar with the matter, Trump himself has privately mocked Biden for being so “nice” after Harris lost the election, with the president-elect sarcastically joking that he would have done the same thing for his Democratic opponents.
The very notion of comity is being met with derision. And no wonder – it’s as if the Superfriends hosted the Legion of Doom for Thanksgiving. The bad guys are only too happy to dine out on another’s expense account. After all, it’s their entire plan for governance.
Of course, Trump being Trump, he may muck up his own agenda. But if I were Susie Wiles, or any of the senior Trump people, I would have already planned for this contingency. I would have studied how Trump operates, how he make decisions, how he responds to persuasion and flattery. I would anticipate that he’s going to say and do things that may fly in the face of his own stated goals, and I would use that confusion to further attack whomever it is I have been hired to eviscerate. Trump is stupid, and I would use that stupidity to my advantage.
The only question in my mind right now is the end game. The Trump people have acknowledged that they want to act quickly. They know, as we all know, that most administrations only have a short window to get as much done as possible before the realities of the midterms loom. My question is their central aim: will they use the pre-midterms window to secure political victories or administrative ones? Obviously, they will try to do everything they can, but at some point they may have to choose between the two.
If they ram through their atrocious policy agenda, it may cost them politically. If they ram through their atrocious administrative agenda, they risk being perceived as not securing enough political pelts to satisfy the base. Enacting the administrative agenda may make the midterms less determinative, which would ease their ability to enact their policy initiatives. Another way to frame this: can they destroy and remake the government quickly enough to blunt or eliminate effective opposition? If they can, what does that look like for the nation moving forward?
The goal of blitzkrieg is to overwhelm with speed. Among many other things the federal bureaucracy is incapable of handling, responding deftly to internal crises heads the list. The United States has proven itself capable of handling threats from without, but we’re not nearly as good at staving off danger from within. Speed kills. My question as we await Inauguration Day: what, and who, will die?
This!! “The arsonist’s work is much easier than the firefighters, particularly when you own the firehouse.” We need to get the house and senate back in the mid-terms and pray we can just firefight until then.
As a pragmatist, Pollyannas drives me nuts. Chicken littles drive me nuts. My gut says this will be a global shit show of enormous proportions. His suck-up misfits of questionable integrity ensure that their scorched Earth policy will put Gingrich's scorched Earth in the category of a votive candle. There will be winners, the upper 1% of the 1%. The moderate wealthy will be pacified through smoke and mirrors, but in the end, they will also lose.
Maybe litigation can put up temporary barriers, but they will be torn down.
The passivity of the Biden administration bothers me right now. The "Oh, well," attitude when disaster looms emphasizes the weakness of Democrats. None of us want any laws to be broken, but taking the law to its edge shouldn't be dismissed. The GOP has played dirty for over 70 years. The Democratic Party dips its toe into the boat rocking then it pulls back. "We are so sorry."
I haven't healed from the choices of neighbors. I can't look into people's eyes because I don't trust their sense of right or wrong. Going shopping has become stressful because others don't care about the rules of law. I must presume they would break laws to get ahead or get their way if they voted for leaders who were known criminals. And they did.
My GA State Senator, Sean Still, is a fake elector who, in 2020, altered federal documents and was a leader in the Stop the Steal movement. He faced criminal federal charges and was reelected to serve again. A crook. My Representative in DC is a known MAGA crook who owns gun stores in Athens, GA. No one represents me. Now everything appears headed to the shitter.
I need a drink.