SHAME
RANT: I am more angry with my friends than I am with my enemies. There is lots of shame and blame to go around. We did this to ourselves.
I am angry.
Of course I am angry with MAGA. But, many of them, if not most of them, were duped, conned - uninformed, misinformed, dis-informed. They were taken in by a charlatan, a grifter, a fraud. They were told lies. They were spoon-fed falsehoods & dishonest manipulations by a complicit right-wing media. And they believed it all. They were aggressively and willfully ignorant of the truth. For that, they share most of the blame.
But, I am also angry with my friends. I think they deserve some blame and shame for what they did and didn’t do to prevent the decimation, destruction, demeaning and dismantling of American foundational institutions. They dissed the very entities that made America, America.
To those who said that both national parties were corrupt: shame.
To those who insisted that compromise was capitulation: shame.
To those who said that the free press was dishonest and biased: shame.
To those who said, ignore him, give him no oxygen and he will go away: shame.
To those who didn’t believe it was necessary to understand MAGA: shame.
To those who thought the Democrats weren’t ‘woke’ enough: shame.
To those who withheld their votes on November 5, 2024: shame.
To those who voted for a third party ‘conscience’ candidate: shame.
To those who preached that voting doesn’t matter: shame.
To those who constantly bad-mouthed American democracy: shame.
To those who thought that Hillary, Joe & Kamala were not progressive enough: shame.
To those who paid no mind to Trump’s criminal wrongdoings: shame.
To those who chalked his threats up to rhetoric: shame.
To those who couldn’t be bothered to read Project 2025: shame.
To those who couldn’t foresee the grave dangers facing American democracy: shame.
To those who thought it was pointless to follow the news: shame.
To those who relied on ‘what-about-isms’ to confirm their biases: shame.
To those who believed that all politicians are only out for themselves: shame.
To those who were quick to demonize instead of empathize: shame.
All of those actions and inactions helped Donald Trump to build a movement of the ignorant and seize power from the establishment. What mattered was that the monster was at the door. The imperative was to stop the monster.
To win, Trump simply ignored all norms, protocols, standards, truths and ethical behaviors. He beat all his opponents - political, journalistic, cultural & judicial. The way to victory, was divide and conquer.
In only ten days, President Donald John Trump, the 47th president of the United States, is quickly turning our democracy into a tyrannical, oligarchic, autocratic kleptocracy. As the Supreme Court has ruled that he is immune from prosecution for any and all official acts as president, he is brazenly and decisively testing the limits of that immunity.
Many, many of the authors of Project 2025 are now putting their ideas into action, under the auspices of their so-called Unitary Executive Theory. They are emboldened. They are busy shifting all power to the wanna-be, and soon-to-be, American King.
Trump is ‘flooding the zone,’ using a firehose of orders, memos and actions to seize control. There are too many outrageous and illegal actions taking place for the press or the political opposition or the courts to count or counter. And it is working.
Trump has pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists. Trump is dismissing FBI leadership, FBI field agents, federal prosecutors and inspectors general. He is removing the legitimate members of oversight watchdog agencies. He is crippling regulatory bodies. He is firing federal civil service employees. He is cancelling foreign aid. He is eliminating government grants and programs. He is rounding up and incarcerating undocumented immigrants. He is erasing history, language and the identities of our fellow neighbors.
Trump’s unqualified and morally bankrupt cabinet nominees are lying under oath to the Senators on their confirmation hearing panels. Acting secretaries are carrying out illegal executive orders that jeopardize American citizens, their rights, their health, their security, their well-being. Trump is illegally impounding congressionally-approved appropriations. He is testing his absolute power.
With a complicit Republican majority in both the House and the Senate, and with a compliant MAGA-majority Supreme Court, there is no institution and no court and no procedure to stop Trump’s lawlessness.
Trump has pardoned the lawbreakers and is threatening the lawmakers and the law enforcers. He is doing what he said he would do. It’s revenge, retribution and revisionism. It’s the remaking of America.
MAKE. AMERICA. GREAT. AGAIN.
WE. LET. THIS. HAPPEN.
WE. ARE. TO. BLAME.
WE. SHOULD. FEEL. ASHAMED.
The Trump administration’s intention, without resistance, is to give Trump complete singular authority over all decisions of the American federal government, including lawmaking, law enforcement, funding (or lack thereof), staffing, national security, intelligence gathering, border control, trade control, monetary control, language control.
WE. ARE. IN. JEOPARDY.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will put our national security in jeopardy.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel will put our justice system in jeopardy.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard will put our intelligence secrets in jeopardy.
Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will put our health care in jeopardy.
Energy Secretary Lee Zeldin will put our environment in jeopardy.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgun will put our natural resources in jeopardy.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will put our economic security in jeopardy.
Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem and ‘border csar’ Tom Homan will put our neighbors in jeopardy.
Bullshit head of the bogus Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, will put all kinds of shit in jeopardy.
And Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and a chief architect of Project 2025, will put our entire idea of American democracy in jeopardy.
Expect the Treasury to be raided. Expect national resources to be exploited. Expect the atmosphere to be further fouled. Expect regulations to be abolished. Expect government oversight of corporate America to end. Expect the oligarchs to have the most powerful seats at the table. Expect the rise of ‘patriotic’ militias. Expect self-dealing and lawlessness by Trump and his cabal. Expect our allies to withhold critical intelligence. Expect world autocrats to be emboldened. Expect our fellow citizens to be put at risk.
The rich will get richer. The working class will become poorer. The poor will be forgotten. The vulnerable will be ostracized. The opposition will be vanquished. The billionaire oligarchs will be virtually omnipotent. And the Trump family will be enriched and emboldened.
I am angry. And I am scared. I intend to support the resistance. But, I can’t seem to find it.
The United States of America is fast becoming the Conquered States of Trump.
I would argue a few points here. While there are those in the MAGA crowd who were duped, most were not as Trump's great media strength is his ability to regurgitate the anger felt by many Americans on the right—whether you agree with them or not. As to the capitulation of the rest, that's been happening for some time and has found its apotheosis in Trump.
The America you're looking to save no longer exists; it's embers do, but the America of the late 20th Century is gone. The greater question is what replaces it. However much you may detest Trump, he is putting what we are front and center: a country that has no central core belief anymore, or a unifying means of desseminating information to the American public. We are a deeply divided nation being fed what we what to hear by a host of disparate "opinion creators" who whole business plan is to maintain and grow their viewerships. Truth, facts, rigor aren't nearly as important anymore. Size and revenue are.
And while Trump is certainly an immediate threat—mostly because we no longer have a functioning Congress—the greater threat is what happens if there are no longer any safeguards or protections on who controls the media we consume (the internet) or the veracity of its content? Imagine the control companies like Google, Meta, X, and Apple would have with no reliable or competent oversight to what we consume through social media? Is Joe Rogan our new Walter Cronkite? After all, HE is the mass media now. It's not CBS, NBC, ABC, or even FOX; legacy means old and dying out.
At some point—and it will probably come after Trump has hollowed out all of our essential governmental departments—we will have to confront what is left. And it might not be democracy, which depends on truthful, factual information in order to function. Are we going to demand that from the media we consume? Are we even going to be able to challenge them if the courts and government are shells of what they once were?
Will people even care so long as life is affordable?
We are going to find out.
Good summary, David. I just hope this conflagration burns out.