This past week has given even me pause and I predicted some of these events. If you haven’t been following the news chronicling the demise of our once great democracy, here’s a little of what you missed:
- An inexperienced, unqualified, morally unsuited Florida man was nominated to be our next Attorney General (news flash: Gaetz has withdrawn from being nominated, see below);
- A television “personality” from a right-wing cable “news” network, without experience managing a roadside lemonade stand, has been nominated to be our next Secretary of Defense tasked with managing the most complex organizations in the world;
- A senator with some expertise in foreign policy has been nominated to be the next Secretary of State;
- A man with no medical, scientific, public health, or managerial experience was nominated to head the $1.2 trillion dollar Department of Health and Human Services;
- A woman whose credentials are her anti-American/pro Putin views and unwavering support to the president-elect, and who also was a part-time television “personality,” and who never worked in the intelligence services, was nominated to be Director of National Intelligence;
- A man who does not recognize the historic (i.e., biblical) existence of Palestine was nominated to be the next ambassador to Israel;
- Another television “personality,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, has been nominated to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services;
- A governor who lied about meeting Kim Sung Un but sent her National Guard troops to the southern border is tapped to be the Secretary of Homeland Security; and
- A two-term congressperson who graduated from the Albany School for Girls and Harvard University, and who is 4th in leadership in House will be nominated as Ambassador to the United Nations.
I didn’t mention Stephen Miller who has already been appointed assistant White House Chief of Staff, primarily responsible for overseeing the implementation of the president’s agenda. Nor did I mention the gold dust twins, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as co-chairs of the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE.
That last bit is labeled a “Department” but is not an official government agency. Rather, it’s an ad hoc group tasked with making government more efficient, the belief being that greater efficiency will result in less government spending. At the fascist hatefest at Madison Square Garden right before the election, Musk said that he could cut two trillion dollars from the federal budget.
And for those looking for volunteer opportunities, the co-chairs are vetting applications from people who are willing to work 80 hours a week for … wait for it … no pay! The word is that they’ll select the top 1% of applicants to fill these positions. Just like Trump’s doing to fill his open positions.
How much would you bet that DOGE won’t find any inefficiencies in the contracts awarded Space X?
And we can skip past the oil executive who has denied the existence of climate change was nominated to be the next Secretary of Energy, and a current member of the Federal Communications Commission becoming the next FCC chair. The current member and no doubt soon to be Chair of the FCC, Brenden Carr, contributed to the 2025 Project threatening to go after the “censorship cartel” consisting of Facebook, Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
As of yet we have no nominee to be the next director of the FBI but you can bet that current director Christopher Wray’s days are numbered. And rumor has it that his successor will be Kash Patel, a guy who has accused the FBI and various intelligence agencies of running an illegal campaign against Donald Trump.
Note: the withdrawal of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General shows that even republican senators have some standards, not particularly high standards but standards, nonetheless. But Gaetz’s nomination signals Trump’s intention to control, if not rip apart, the Department of Justice. We’ll see who’s next…
Look, this group ain’t normal. A president will always nominate people to serve in his administration who shares his values, loyalties, and with a few exceptions his political party. But one thing most nominees had in common was competence in the subject matter relevant to their appointments, experience operating complex organizations, or both.
This current group, and the nomination process is far from complete, is a far cry from from earlier standards. Even in Trump’s original first term his picks were those who were at least competent, although some barely, but still by far better than this group of misfits. As the administration wore on, the successor picks were more loyalists than competent.
In comparison, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, (“little”) Marco Rubio, serves as a beacon of competence in this group.
Events of the last few days have brought into stark relief the true intentions of this coming administration.
A few days ago, it was reported that Trump wanted to review the actions of all military leaders who were involved in the removal of American forces from Afghanistan. This review would determine whether any or all these officers would be subject to court martial proceedings.
This is pure nonsense. I know of no instance of anyone following the legal orders of their superior officers or their Commander-in Chief being court-martialed. The withdrawal from Afghanistan, initially ordered by President Trump and eventually executed by President Biden, while unfortunately marred by the deaths of American soldiers, were not illegal orders. The withdrawal executed by Biden fulfilled the terms of an agreement entered by Trump with the Taliban.
In reality, there’s nothing to see here. So why the fuss?
I think this is an attempt to weed out those officers loyal to their oaths to preserve and protect the constitution and replace them with officers loyal to Trump. By numerous published accounts, in his first term, Trump felt betrayed by the the civilian and military leadership of the armed forces. Trump even excluded the Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff from the chain of command in the execution of certain orders authorizing the use of force.
By putting high ranking officers in jeopardy of some hostile review, some might retire only to be replaced by Trump loyalists; and others may remain, resigned to toe the Trumpian line.
Whether real or just signaling, the threat of this review is important and may be key to one of Trump’s “Day One” policy implementations.
We know that among the many Day One actions that Trump has said he’ll take, none is closer to his tiny little heart than the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants. He’s been campaigning on this issue since he and Melania glided down on the gold escalator in 2015, but in 2024 he reached new levels of lies and vitriol to justify a massive deportation scheme.
This will involve the construction and staffing of multiple detention centers throughout the country. There will be roundup along with transportation logistic issues that will consume vast material and human resources.
Even if every Customs and Boarder Patrol agent, ICE agent, and members of the state and local police were devoted to identifying, detaining, securing, and transporting the numbers of people needed to complete the mission still wouldn’t be enough.
The only organization capable of supplying the necessary resources needed to support this deportation plan is the United States military. From some reports out of Trumplandia, they’re talking about bringing 30,000 troops home from overseas.
Now this might (would?) run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act. Enacted in 1878, this Act prohibits the use of the military on American soil to enforce domestic policies. There isn’t much doubt that the apprehension, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants constitutes a domestic civil policy.
And therein’s the rub. Normally, it would be expected that the military leadership would push hard to resist any military participation in this deportation policy. The armed services might provide unused spaces to house those apprehended and awaiting to be deported. The military might provide material resources (e.g., food, medicine, bedding, etc.) but as far as supplying personnel, the civilian authorities are on their own.
But these aren’t normal times, far from it! Look at the nominee for Secretary of Defense. Could anyone reasonably expect that he would go to Trump and say “Sir (because everyone calls Trump “sir”), we can’t do that because it’s illegal!”?
Or is it likely that Trump’s nominee for Attorney General (whomever they may be), and two of the other nominees subordinate to the Attorney General, would argue that there was no legal workaround that would permit the military to conduct operations in support of a civil policy on American soil?
And there is the military leadership and officers’ corp, you know, the same guys Trump wants to investigate and possibly court martial. What do they do? Do they fight, do they resist, or do they bend the knee in anticipatory compliance with the policies of the new regime?
None of this is normal.
As of this writing it’s been 15 days since the election and what we’ve seen are merely the opening acts. The main show will begin on January 20, 2025. As Bob Dylan wrote many years ago, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
In February 2017, on an on-line news site, I wrote a guest column wondering how Trump would navigate through the competing centers of power and get things done. He had spent his entire life as the head of a small family business. There were no competing power centers, and no board of directors that he had to worry about. He did what he wanted, and everyone else did as they were told.
I noted that during the campaign he had shown distinct authoritarian tendencies: he demonized the “other,” he continuously and knowingly lied about commonly accepted facts, he attacked news outlets he considered hostile to his candidacy. In his inaugural address, he described a country that didn’t exist, putting himself forward as the Strongman who could fix it.
There was more but you get the idea. His presidency more than validated my concerns. And in the 2024 presidential race, he didn’t even bother to hide his inclinations. He ran as a full-fledged authoritarian, and with the support of other authoritarians Trump did not hesitate stating what he would do if elected.
Now he’s starting to do it.
These past months, I’ve written several pieces warning about the rise of fascism if Trump was elected. It has been only 15 days, and we see who he’s selected to serve in top positions in his government. As is the case with all authoritarians, the main qualification for subordinates to serve is loyalty to Trump. Personal loyalty. If it’s a conflict between loyalty to the constitution or to Trump, Trump will demand loyalty to him.
We’ve seen his choice of people to serve in his administration. To a person, they have shown almost slavish loyalty to Trump. Their qualifications to serve in the positions they’ve been selected for is purely secondary. Just go back and look at the sample of misfits cited in this article.
I, and others much smarter than me, warned of these authoritarian fascist acts and policies Trump and his sycophants promoted during the campaign. We warned that he would violate every governmental norm and disregard the rule of law altogether.
When he told a crowd at one of his appearances that if they elected him, they wouldn’t need to vote again. He meant it. At least never have to vote in a free and open democratic election again. Think Hungary and Viktor Orban’s illiberal democracy.
What we’re witnessing are openers, the main act will be here soon enough. The question is, what are you going to do? If people sit by and don’t even object to the political obscenities sure to come, if we sit back while too many in the mainstream press try to continue to rationalize and normalize Trump’s actions, then we’re lost.
If this plays out and we sit in silence, future historians will look back at the death of the modern world’s oldest democracy and write that November 5, 2024, was the day that sent our democracy into its death spiral.
To MAGA voters and non-voting democrats, over the past few months, I wrote five pieces warning of this now unfolding disaster. Now I’m left with only one question: why didn’t people listen?
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