[Note: This is an updated version of an article published soon after the November election.]
After Trump’s re-election, many people sought to downplay his horrific ‘promises’ and allay people’s fears about a second Trump presidency. They said soothing things like: “It won’t be that bad”… “He won’t really do all the terrible things he promised to do”… or “Our system held firm before, and it will again.”
All I can say is: What utter nonsense! That has all proven to be… merely denial-laced ‘hopium.’ Just three weeks into Trump’s presidency, he and his ‘partner in crime’ Elon Musk have already taken the axe to our federal government (not to mention our international relations) and done immense damage. In only three weeks!
These are not men who care one bit about hurting people, disrupting our society, or ruining or destroying lives. In reality, Trump’s ‘brand’ is about creating maximum disruption. Neither he nor Musk care about following the Constitution, established law, or even proven health and climate science.
Recall: due to Trump’s irresponsible, science-denying approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. suffered 1.15 million deaths — far more than any other nation, including populous ‘third-world’ nations like India and Brazil. And after the 2020 election — which Trump never conceded — his desperate attempts to overturn that election culminated in the horrifying insurrection and riot at our Capitol on Jan.6, 2021.
Fast forward to today… and now, just as promised, Trump has pardoned every Jan.6 insurrectionist, even the seditious planners and violent rioters who brutally attacked the police. This is not a person who respects the rule of law or our Constitution. And Musk is an increasingly unhinged right-wing instigator and scofflaw — and the perfect DOGE ‘axe-man’ for Trump.
The terrifying truth is, over the past 9+ years Trump and his minions have effectively beaten and trampled on the U.S. system — which is now just a shell of its former self. Sure, our legal system rebuffed Trump’s crazed attempts to overturn the 2020 election — but other aspects of our society emerged greatly weakened, including the legislative branch, public health agencies, the EPA, and the press, which he successfully painted as ‘fake news.’ (And now, even our legal system is under attack; more on this later.)
Scarily, all this occurred despite Trump’s inexperience and first-term chaos. Today, he and his allies are far better prepared to enact his dark, self-serving agenda.
Trump’s vast hubris and ‘blitzkrieg assault’ on democracy
After watching Trump and the GOP in action over the past decade, and also witnessing the GOP’s abject capitulation, I predicted that a new Trump regime could be far worse than his first term — and much worse than we can even imagine. And the past three weeks of Trump’s and Musk’s unnerving ‘blitzkrieg assault’ on our basic institutions have confirmed my greatest fears.
Trump is now filled with manic confidence and unbridled hubris — and thinks he’s unstoppable. Not only does he have a self-perceived popular ‘mandate,’ but he has total control of our government. He has a strong GOP Senate and House of Representatives, plus a super-conservative, accommodating Supreme Court. He’s got our entire federal apparatus supporting him and facilitating his ugly agenda.
This might not have been a huge problem IF the GOP was still its former, stodgy ‘law-and-order’ self — but due to Trump’s malign influence, it’s been reborn as a potent subversive and seditious force. Over the past four years Trump managed to dispose of almost every ‘enemy’ RINO — anyone who dared oppose him, that is — so now we’re facing a GOP that has capitulated to Trump and supports his every whim and disastrous or inhumane policy.
Trump and his acolytes are rapidly enacting his plan to fire many career diplomats, bureaucrats, analysts, and department heads and replace them with fawning Trump sycophants. He is fast consolidating more and more power in the executive branch — that is, in himself and Musk — and has the support and resources, this time around, to keep it up.
This is a clear recipe for ongoing, deepening tyranny. I fear that within 6–9 months, Trump will have effectively transformed our federal government and its many programs and policies — and very much for the worse.
America is NOT ‘better than this’
In an opinion piece published a few days after the election (11/8), columnist Rex Hupke began with these lines:
Hupke was right. We’ve shown the world who we really are — again — and it’s an unmistakable revelation of our backward, racist, and misogynistic ‘reality.’
But as for any American “admission” of these ugly truths… well, we can forget it. No honest admission is forthcoming, but what IS coming — fast — is an intensifying dystopian nightmare of intolerance, hatred, racism, cruelty, and misogyny.
That’s what Americans voted for, and apparently, it’s what a slim plurality of us truly want.
We want a massive purge of modern America, especially the federal government. We want to get rid of millions of ‘illegal’ Americans. We want to shut down science and public health. And Trump is delivering the goods.
MAGA’s impossible fever dream
However, there’s a major problem with his ill-advised ‘Make America Great [White] Again’ promises: The demographics of the U.S. have shifted dramatically over the past 40 years, and now we’re on the verge of becoming a ‘minority majority’ nation.
According to most population and immigration experts, the White population of the U.S. will be surpassed by the non-White population by 2045. And that’s exactly what Trump and many (White) Americans find intolerable.
Thus, a massive, destructive collision between two entirely different realities is taking shape. On the one hand, we have the factual reality of America’s increasing multi-culturalism and multi-racial makeup, and on the other, we have Trump’s and many Americans’ delusional insistence that we can just make all these changes ‘go away’ — and this WILL return the U.S. to its (supposed) former glory.
Hmm… here we’ve got the factual truth and on-the-ground reality up against denial and delusional desires. Which will win out? Can Americans’ denial of reality and fervent (racist) wish to return to a former ‘Great America’ actually succeed?
The truth (there’s that pesky word again!) is that it can’t possibly succeed. There’s no way in hell that it could ever work, practically speaking. Butthat doesn’t mean that Trump, his brainwashed acolytes, and millions of Americans won’t attempt it and keep trying and trying, endlessly.
And therein lies the problem — the insoluble and verydangerous problem — the U.S. now faces. All their zealous anti-democratic efforts lead inexorably to the complete undoing of liberal democracy and freedom as we know it.
Mass deportations will lead to a tanking economy
Take Trump’s expanding efforts to rapidly deport over ten million illegal immigrants.
According to all immigration and economic experts, this ill-conceived ‘plan’ faces insurmountable logistical problems and will cause immense upheaval in both our society and our economy. Locating and deporting millions of illegals requires a vast (and expensive!) bureaucracy of investigators, law enforcement officers, ‘apprehenders,’ and immigration judges, as well as expensive facilities to house them (while they await deportation) and then fly them home.
But wait! The U.S. IS their ‘home,’ now, and in many cases, their countries of origin can’t or won’t take them back. So, what are we going to do with them?
Are we going to load them on planes and then dump them in the ocean like human garbage? Or, are we going to be our usual bullying selves and try to MAKE these nations take these immigrants back — as Trump is already doing with his threats of economic coercion? Just HOW are we going to corral and get rid of 10+ million people?
Sorry, Trump and MAGA, but it’s a practical impossibility — as well as a horrendous social and humanitarian nightmare.
Then there’s… our economy. Do you think our roaring economy will still be ‘roaring’ once we deport millions of workers? Can American farms and businesses do without all their cheap, dependable immigrant labor? Will businesses like farming and home construction even survive the loss of easy, cheap labor?
The answer to all these questions is surely a resounding ‘NO.’ But, of course, we never hear about any of these issues and looming problems from Trump or his MAGA fans. Instead, they deflect and paint ALL of these folks as ‘dangerous criminals.’ The dishonest cruelty is the point. All we ever hear is “Let’s get rid of all these damn criminal illegals — fast!”
Rejecting the rule of law will capsize our society
The irrationality and destructive beliefs at the heart of MAGA and ‘Trumpism’ are revealed — in sharp relief — by their growing contempt for the law and especially judges who don’t rule ‘their way.’ This pattern alone, if allowed to progress to its ‘logical’ (insane) conclusion, would lead to the complete collapse of civil society.
This past week, Musk, Vice-president J.D. Vance, and several Congressmen and Senators have questioned whether any judge can legally constrain Trump or his actions. However, according to this NBC news article (2/9),
Imagine: Trump, Musk, and many in the GOP are on the verge of refusing to comply with judicial decisions and orders… tantamount to deliberately inciting a vast constitutional crisis. Maximum disruption. And since the executive branch controls the Department of Justice and the FBI, there may be no one or no agency willing/able to step in and actually enforce courts’ and judges’ decisions.
If or when that happens… POOF! All constraints on the executive branch are gone, Trump has total free reign… and there goes liberal democracy. Even worse, there goes any possibility of civilization and a relatively peaceful society.
Without the effective rule of law, civil society will rapidly collapse. And the ‘new America’ that emerges will assuredly NOT be ‘great,’ or stable, or kind. It will be a harsh, dystopian rule-of-the-strongest nightmare.
Trump and MAGA are well on their way to destroying America
These are just a few examples of the social chaos, pain, and hatred that Trump’s new administration is deliberately unleashing. Our society, our economy, our personal lives, and our body politic are facing massive, unprecedented upheaval and disruption — all in the name of the false, impossible dream of returning the U.S. to what it was in the 1950s.
It’s both an impossible and deeply undesirable dream — yet it has mesmerized millions of us and assures us that it’s perfectly reasonable, desirable, and doable.
But the clear truth is: it’s NOT reasonable or desirable, and it’s NOT doable.
Nevertheless, Trump, MAGA, and the ‘Trumpified’ GOP are forging ahead and egging on this vast, horrific confrontation between our American reality and their MAGA fever dream. They’re ‘all in’ on winning this social ‘battle’ and show no signs at all of backing down or softening any of their deplorable positions and attitudes.
Rather, they’re laser-focused on intensifying their control and manipulation of the U.S. and its citizens — and seem oblivious to all the problems and pain they are causing.
That’s the big problem with ‘true believers.’ They are willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to further their ‘righteous’ cause — including the rule of law and democracy itself. And unfortunately, the U.S. is about to experience the vast social cataclysm brought on by Trump’s empowered, deluded MAGA cult.
No governmental, social, or local policy or institution is safe, and everything is ‘up for grabs’ now — even our venerable Constitution. Even our freedom and the rule of law itself.
In Trump’s America, nothing and no one is safe, nothing is sacred, and everything we take for granted and cherish is in danger of being ripped away. All in the name of a destructive and impossible illusion.
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This post was previously published on The Left Is Right.
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