“For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves…. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936
I thought it was "twiddling thumbs" but for FDR it can be "twirling," basically, a government that does nothing for working families and everything for the captains of industry, the kind of government FDR and the New Deal was breaking with. Biden could have, should have, said more or less the same in his campaign but in 2024 this wasn't a winning message because of inflation and immigration and people, or half the country anyway, wanting to let Grump and the richest asshole in the world take a wrecking ball to the government and unleash Jan 6 violence on anybody that tries to stop them.
Going on only three weeks in and it's overwhelming, as expected, as planned (Grump's "Flood the Zone" strategy, nothing new), so much so that most my meager energies are spent trying to figure out how to endure or cope with or pace myself through all the offensive police state dictatorship moves. It'd be good to call people in government and get on TV protesting this in big numbers but will that bring out Grump's violent militias?
Last Friday Grump fired all the IG's responsible for finding, investigating, and reducing corruption in government. Okay, so much for draining the swamp, we knew this was a farce anyway but what about his supporters? We're back to Susan Collins has concerns.
The way I've heard the story Fred Trump, Trump's dad, went from petty landlord to big time NYC real-estate developer, precisely, by figuring out how to buy off the necessary local government officials and bureaucrats. Grump is ready now to trash the federal government because they won't play along with his ambitions.
Sure, government administrations ought to be judged by how much they increase or decrease corruption in government. It's a super important criteria in a democracy, anyway. Too much corruption turns democracy into a sham. Consider that the number of legal indictments against Republicans going back to Nixon is over 300, with Trump doubling Reagan and even Tricky Dick. The Democrats have in the same period a record of three indictments, the recent third, hilariously, already calling out for help from Grump against the "weaponization" of the legal system. The partisan comparison preposterous; both-sides this one NY Times! The Repugs are and have been, indisputably, the party of corruption for going on three-quarters of a century and a sham democracy.
In the campaign Grump was the anti-globalization and anti-war, an isolationist. Now he's talking about conquest and expansion, taking over Panama or Greenland by force. I know, possibly a distraction, more owning the lib's bluster; a speciality. Maybe. But:
"Trump’s movement is filled with violent extremists and radicals. They have a demonstrated willingness and eagerness to commit acts of violence against their perceived partisan enemies (mostly Democrats, but also any obstacles to Trump’s will). “Stand back and stand by.” Trump is not simply incautious in his remarks about this fact. He actually mobilizes that propensity for violence as a political tool. It’s already distorting and degenerating American civic life," Josh Marshall, TPM
Grump disavowed Project 2025 in his campaign. Now, as many warned it appears to be in fact the radical anti-government blueprint for his administration.
"While a recent Wall Street Journal poll reveals that American voters want what they call “MAGA lite, rather than extra-strength MAGA.” More than 60% oppose Trump’s plan to replace nonpartisan civil servants with loyalists. More than 60% also oppose Trump’s plan to eliminate the Department of Education. Almost 75% of voters oppose his plans for sweeping deportation raids, wanting only those with criminal records to be removed from the country. More than two thirds oppose calls to take control of Greenland, and only 46% approve of his choices for cabinet positions."
Gulp, sorry American voters, too late!
“I have said this before and it bears repeating—the MAGA claims that ‘DEI’ stands for ‘Didn’t Earn It’ is truly remarkable because in reality, generating historic wealth through 2 billion acres of stolen land from Native Americans, enslaving Black people for 300 years, banning Asian immigration until 1965, and banning women from financial access til 1974—all without paying a single red cent in reparations or restitution—is the living breathing example of not earning it.”
My basic take on the DEI or multiculturalism question is that multiculturalism is less an aspiration than a basic fact of world history and human societies since at least 3500 BCE. The closer you look at any period in world history the more you will find multicultural division and complexity. Multicultural complexity is as basic a characteristic of civilization, cities and mass cultures, as patriarchy or organized religion. It is inescapable. DEI policies and measures are aspirational in that they are a social engineering attempt to turn our already-existing multicultural reality into a source of flourishing cooperation and growth, a source of strength and away from one of zero-sum competition and segregation and cold war stagnation.
So DEI measures may not always be effective, I've encountered a few misguided ones in public education, to be sure, but they are not the cause of the division and conflict and cultural incompetence they are intended to remedy. Blaming DEI is ridiculous and, frankly, pure racist bigot bullshit.
Anyway, I keep having this dream and/or daydream vision lately that is a hodgepodge of a scene in a TV movie about global nuclear destruction, The Day After (1983), and the cover of Chrome's 1977 album Alien Soundtracks and some half-remembered collages of 1950s British pop artist Richard Hamilton:
Through a big window in a suburban home you see a giant mushroom cloud and the flashing light of a nuclear blast. A father and a couple of kids are running around all hairs on fire trying to load up the family station wagon to getaway. The mother, however, in full June Cleaver/Leave It To Beaver uniform, wearing an apron, is standing over an unmade bed--again, with a prominent window in the background with flaming mushroom cloud-- standing over the bed and refusing to do anything else before she finishes making it. She appears stuck in place but standing strong. Very determined to keep something together. The dad and kids are begging her to leave with them but she won't budge.
Needless to say, I'm worried.
By the way, what is Grump saying here?
"After praising Elon Musk, he told the crowd “He was very effective. He knows those computers better than anybody. Those vote counting computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide. So it was pretty good…. Thank you to Elon.”
Further reading:
What's a libertarian? The Hartmann Report
Why is trust in vaccines waning?
"This is how it is. This is what kind of species we are: we are stupid, we are negligent, we are tardy. But on the other hand, we are adaptable, we are smart and even as things are falling apart, we are trying to stitch them together," -Vaclav Smils
Anyway, hang in there and try not to let the violent fascists get you down. Go for lots of walks; hug loved ones. It helps.
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