Trump Is Setting Everything Afire. Will He Be Engulfed, Too?

As firefighters have learned — some fires are actually beneficial.

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk / Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

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Now we see it, now we don’t. Within seconds of being awarded power over a vast and consequential machinery relied on for everything from basic services to perpetuating life on the planet, Donald Trump… began burning it all down. 

It’s possible that I’m wrong, but I predict he will reduce himself and the GOP to ashes in the process. 

We’ll all take a hit, but we may survive — and actually thrive — as the lunacy becomes manifest even to the most clueless among us. And we all know how many of those there are.

I could — and will — tote up some of the examples of Trump’s deliberately incendiary choices. But I doubt the parade of unqualified and dangerous appointees has escaped your notice. 

Equally striking is the phenomenon of those Trump insulted and humiliated, those who warned of Trump’s essence and threat, getting in line to genuflect before the Great Leader and to seek a place at the banquet table. For a humorous take on this, see Jimmy Kimmel’s outstanding compilation. 

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The truth is that one person after another, from regular folks to the most ambitious and opportunistic, may quickly come to their senses and realize that inviting an entertaining maniac to drive your kids’ school bus isn’t such a great idea. Even if it seemed fun or bold for a brief moment. 

I was thinking about all this the last few days while dealing with a tear in my knee. It had me in Ubers and taxicabs, in wheelchairs, in diagnostic testing areas, in waiting rooms. I was quickly able to ascertain that, even in Manhattan — supposedly home to the country’s most educated, sophisticated people — there are legions who have not been reached, maybe cannot be reached, except with very crude and simple concepts. 

A young Black female attendant at a hospital — a target demographic for Kamala Harris — told me she hadn’t voted, that it didn’t matter, and that it was all in God’s hands. An older X-ray technician, an immigrant from India, told me that he liked Trump and pretty much mouthed every simplistic notion that MAGA has been drumbeating. An immigrant driver told me he was worried about criminal immigrants. A couple of people mentioned how expensive everything seems. 

Ok, fine. So they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that things are very bad, and that Trump may have the answer.

Now, how are they going to feel in a bit? 

Let’s consider some of the incredibly vile, dangerous, and sophomoric choices Trump has made.

For ambassador to Israel he chose Mike Huckabee, a religious nut who wants the Jews to triumph so that later they can either be converted to Christianity or killed in the battle of Armageddon. How will this play with people who, for a legitimate, principled reason, were upset with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Gaza? I’m guessing the buyer’s remorse is already widespread.  

And of course inviting Matt Gaetz — a man who has been investigated repeatedly for possible criminal behavior and basically admitted to some shocking personal behavior but claimed it was nobody’s business; a man even fairly crazy Republicans think is beyond the pale — to be the highest law officer in the land, an appointment that gives the ultimate middle finger to the American experiment in democracy. 

Also people like Pete Hegseth, whose experience as an Army National Guard member and Fox News pundit doesn’t exactly suit the task of running the Pentagon in a hair-trigger world. 

Kristi Noem, slated to run the Department of Homeland Security, falsely claimed in her book that she had met with Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea. She also stated that this man she never met underestimated her because he “[had no clue] about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all).” Putting aside the mountain of problems with this puppy executioner, psychologically, morally, ethically, and so forth, it’s highly unlikely anyone will rest well knowing she’s protecting the country. 

Lee Zeldin, Trump’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, voted against nearly all legislation on green issues. Those red-staters spending all their time at Home Depot shoring up their homes for emerging extreme weather will have new tasks awaiting them. 

Proposed CIA director John Ratcliffe, serving as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, declassified at Trump’s direction documents containing sensitive intelligence about Russians discussing Hillary Clinton and her 2016 presidential campaign. 

This kind of reckless obeisance will indeed alarm the so-called Deep State, security apparatus lifers, as well as allies, and pretty much anyone who follows these things. Reforms are one thing; usurping the spy agencies for a personal agenda — and creating opportunities for troublemaking by foreign dictators, which is part of the package — is something else indeed. 

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I’ve been quite active in warning against the threats from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. since early on. There’s not much I can add here except that — besides mixing in bland, standard concerns about diet, toxins, and so forth — his legacy is promoting unfounded mistrust in science and medicine. 

I read the other day about the debate over fluoride in water, and how Buffalo, for complex reasons, stopped fluoridating its water without the public knowing, and tooth decay in young people soared. 

Thanks to anti-vaccine attitudes, measles — which had been completely eliminated by the year 2000 — is spreading in the US. (Kennedy attributes the elimination of measles to “nutrition and clean water,” not vaccines.) Clearly, if people stop getting vaccinated, we’re in for some tough years ahead. Few are going to welcome the consequences of a Bobby Health Care World.

Related: Will Anti-Vaxxers Merge With More Violent Groups to Destabilize the US?

Related: Building Herd Immunity to the Truth: More on RFK Jr,’s Anti-Vax Crusade

Speaking of which, I see that he’s already inviting members of the public interested in a government position to contact him. ‘Nuff said. 

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Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Energy may be even more dangerous than Kennedy: climate change denier Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy. He says that, because life is impossible without carbon dioxide, “the term carbon pollution is outrageous.”  

That’s like saying, because life is impossible without water, we should tolerate tsunamis and floods. 

Related: Trump and the Mystery of Stupidity 

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Meanwhile, Trump may very well follow through with his promise to eradicate the Education Department. Then where does education go?

Just look at Louisiana, where they are trying to require that schools display an entirely fictional “memo from God,” the Ten Commandments — a list of prescriptions that those wanting it on display don’t follow anyway, unless perhaps as a reminder of sins waiting to be committed. This past week, a judge blocked them. But the state attorney general quickly promised to appeal the decision. 

Then there’s Susie Wiles. Trump’s new chief of staff’s main claim to fame is helping big corporations plunder the public coffers that were filled by the taxes of ordinary people. Will she make sure the average American is in better financial shape while also perpetuating the rapid transfer of global wealth into a few pockets? 

That certainly would be keeping in the spirit of things. Trump is the first president to openly welcome a plutocrat — the world’s wealthiest, Elon Musk — to have the run of the place and “reinvent government” so it suits him, in a role so expansive that it raises doubts about who is actually going to be running the country. It may be time to refer to him as “President Musk” and Trump as “Deputy President.”

Musk, who thrives in part thanks to lucrative government contracts, promises to strip down all government that does not directly benefit him personally, and call for the steps he earlier admitted would cause “economic hardship” — not to him or his tech-bro buddies, of course.

All this belt tightening will not feel so nice, and people propagandized to blame the Democrats because things felt a little too expensive will suddenly wake up to how they have been tricked. 

Virtually everything Trump has already done in a matter of days is so completely irrational that when I heard the Discord leaker Jack Teixeira was just sentenced to 15 years in prison, the first thing I actually thought was: Trump will definitely pardon the guy, but it would hardly surprise anyone if by the time his first pick for national security advisor resigns in frustration, Trump appoints… Teixeira himself. Too crazy, you say? In the current scenario — with cultist, Putin apologist, and grave national security risk Tulsi Gabbard slotted in as the next director of national intelligence — nothing is. Nothing. 

A lot of this damage may not have sustained consequences, and could be reversible. Less so what Trump will do with the Supreme Court (and the entire federal judiciary). He’s certain to try to replace some of the older conservative justices with very young ones who will be there for many of our lifetimes. Then, the only recourse will be turning back to Congress for new laws, assuming they’re not just struck down by Trump’s justices. So maybe a new Constitution?

In any case, Trump & Co. got what they wanted — a chance to wreak havoc. 

During the campaign, they complained that government, as run by their opponents, was an instrument of oppression and corruption. Trump and his backers, however, are perfectly glad to use it to do terrible things, openly, gleefully, with no sense of consequences to others — or even, ultimately, to themselves. 

That is the essence of self-destructiveness. And surely, what seems to be almost a subconscious wish for self-immolation, at the highest levels of our government, is bound to play out in ways terrible for us all. 

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