Concerns and Distractions

We’ve Been Here Before, but Not Entirely

When Trump lost the 2020 election and, instead of conceding, tried to overturn the result of the election, culimnating in the seditious riot at the capitol on Jan. 6, we narrowly escaped a crisis. Now, because eggs were expensive, or people thought Trump cared about Palestine, or whatever reason, we’ve decided to give him another go at it. Now, a lot has been happening in the last several weeks, a combination of deeply concerning developments and things that seem more like distractions at this point. This post is my attempt to summarize what I see as the most concerning.

Admittedly, this post has evolved a lot since I started writing it. It seems like there are new developments every day. This has become a list of the things I see as the most concerning and what I’ll be paying attention to. I’ve also added some thoughts on bright spots I see at the end.

Dismantling of the U.S.-led World Order

The U.S. isn’t first in education or health outcomes, but it has the largest economy and military, and is arguably the most powerful. That economic power and global influence has been built up over time in large part by alighing with other countries on Western ideals, which include democratic rule, free speech, and free markets. What we are witnessing with the suspension of USAID, levying of tarriffs on the United States’ closest neighbors and allies, and tariffs threatened against European countries, is the United States’ abdication of its leadership role in the West-aligned world order. With countries as with people, relationships take a long time to build, but can be unravelled in an instant. Even with the one-month suspension of tariffs against Canada and Mexico, the decoupling of our economies and decay of goodwill between countries has already begun.

Also alarming is the suspension of USAID. Ignoring the abrupt halt to the operations of the program, leaving food to rot instead of being sent to people who need it, and upending the lives of both USAID workers and those they were helping, the halting of the USAID program unravels one of the more effective and peaceful ways of countering the influence of rival nations across the globe.

While the U.S. is torching its relationships with allies, there has also been a torrent of attention-grabbing stupidity related to foreign policy. Whether Canada could become the 51st state, whether the U.S. could by Greenland, whether the U.S. could take the Panama Canal, the renaming of the “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America” are all distractions. Trump loves grandstanding and spectacle. He would love for everyone to be talking and debating about these things while he enacts a disastrous, isolationist foreign policy that provides a boon to Russia and China, who will no doubt fill the vacuum of influence that the U.S. leaves behind.

Crusade against Immigrants and Expansion of Guantanamo Bay

One of the important things to watch with this administration is how the crusade against immigrants develops. Already, the Trump administration has announced they are expanding the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to hold detained migrants, and although they have claimed that they will be detaining the “worst criminals” there, and have sent some Venezuelan gang members there, they have also sent migrants with no criminal record other than entering the country illegally. Hardly the “worst criminals”. Guantanamo Bay has two primary qualities for the Trump administration: the spectacle of using a detention center made infamous during the “War on Terror”, and the ability to run a detention center with less accountability and where those detained have less access to resources that can help them understand their options and their rights. This opens up the possibility for Guantanamo Bay to become something very dark. The Trump administration is already stretching the definition of who they’ve said they would send there. They’ve also said that the intention is for immigrants to be detained there for only weeks or months, not indefinitely; so it will be important to pay attention to whether they stretch this stated intention of theirs as well.

(Update: This post has taken me a little while to write, and as I’ve been writing, it appears that a large number of the Venezuelans held at Guantanamo Bay were repatriated into Venezuela, however Guantanamo Bay remains active, with little transparency into its operations.)

Power Grabs Leading to Constitutional Crisis

Over the past few weeks, Elon Musk and his “Department of Governmetn Efficiency” has infiltrated federal agencies and commandeered their operations. On its face, it may appear simply to be controversy caused by a disruptive business leader being disruptive as he brings government spending under control, but a look at the details of the situation makes it apparent that the extreme cost cutting is a means for executing a power grab, rather than the other way around. One might wonder why a remarkably successful businessman might take an interest in taking over the operations of the federal government. It would not be unreasonable to believe that Musk is simply a savvy businessman interested in employing his skills for the good of the nation, if you’re not aware of the long list of clashes he has had with federal agencies: the SEC, FAA, NHTSA, NLRB, FCC, FTC, and the EPA are just a few of the federal agencies that currently have some investigation or action ongoing related to Musk or one of his businesses. These agencies are now under his control. The motivation for commandeering government agencies is there.

On the cost-cutting side, what we are witnessing is at the same time both dramatic and unserious. Elon Musk is enacting the playbook he knows: mass firings, requiring employees that stay to be “hardcore”, (i.e. loyal, in this particular case,) and stopping payments that are already owed to their recipients. It is dramatic because of the constitutional crisis it pushes us towards. It is unserious because of how amateurish and ineffective his approach has been to closing the budget deficit.

The most shocking part of Musk’s takeover of federal agencies is that it runs directly counter to the dictates of the constitution. Predictably, lawsuits have followed. In response, Musk and the Trump administration have asserted, falsely, that they cannot be bound by the courts. Trump has supported Musk’s flouting of the law and the constitution with statements like, “He who saves his country does not violate any Law.” It remains to be seen what will happen if a judge rules against Trump or Musk, and they simply ignore the ruling. We’ve been a lot of places, but we’ve never been there before. That could create a genuine constitutional crisis, where an appeal to the constitution is no longer effective in bringing order, accountability, and the proper checks and balances to our government. Power would simply belong to those who are in a position to grab it.

The unseriousness of Musk’s cost-cutting efforts is exposed by its ineffectiveness, especially in light of the cost we have already borne through those efforts. Musk has made numerous declarations of having discovered fraud, however none of these have actually been fraud. Musk’s organization has recently claimed to have brought $55 billion in savings from cancelling contracts, however they have failed to produce any evidence that they have found that much in savings. Their record keeping has also been mired in errors, mistaking a cancelled $8 million contract as an $8 billion contract. On top of all this remains the fact that you could eliminate every single non-defense government agency, fire every government employee, and cancel all contracts, and in exchange for having a non-functioning government, (no air traffic controllers, postal service, national parks, weather service, etc.) you would eliminate roughly 15% of the government’s expenditures, and still have a budget deficit.

Additionally, Musk’s slash and burn approach to cost cutting cannot be seen as an honest attempt to close the budget deficit because there has been no talk of the other side of the budget equation: increasing the federal government’s income. In fact, Trump and his Republican colleagues are eager to extend trillions of dollars in tax cuts that are set to expire this year,– tax cuts that will primarily benefit the wealthy.

This hostile takeover of federal agencies looks a lot more like a power grab than an honest attempt to close the budget deficit. The sad thing is that the budget deficit and national debt are becoming a big problem that needs to be addressed, but this issue becomes a distraction in the face of an assault on the constitutional foundation of our government.

Propaganda and Attacks on Press Freedom

Trump’s disdain for mainstream news outlets is not new, but there are some new developments this time around. During Trump’s first term, he and many of his followers fantasized (ironically, given their platitudes about “free speech”,) about having a state-run media apparatus that would combat the “fake news”. This time around, he has that in Truth Social and X. Elon Musk, ever the “free speech” warrior, has famously bent the X feed algorithm to amplify his own voice, and anyone saying things he doesn’t like finds themselves banned or suppressed on the platform. This is particularly important, since X has become the platform for official communications from DOGE, (and other federal agencies are following,) with both DOGE and Musk posting and promoting a lot of misleading (previously linked) information there.

While X is becoming a propaganda platform for Musk and the Trump administration, Trump is continuing his crusade against the media. The owners of the L.A. Times (Patrick Soon-Shiong) and Washington Post (Jeff Bezos) seem to have gotten a head start on Trump’s program by blocking their papers from endorsing a candidate while the election was approaching. Cowtowing to Trump can be seen as a recipe for success, since recently, Trump revoked Associated Press reporters’ access to the Oval Office because of the AP’s decision to continue calling the Gulf of Mexico by the name that most people still know it by, rather than calling it “Gulf of America”. (Trump’s press secretary went so far as to make the Orwellian claim that calling it the “Gulf of Mexico” amounts to a lie.) Trump’s new FCC is launching an investigation into CBS for alleged “news-distortion” over their interview with Kamala Harris, threatening to revoke their license for so little, in an unprecedented attack on the free press.

I mentioned earlier that whether it’s called the “Gulf of America” or “Gulf of Mexico” is a distraction. It is, but the U.S. government retaliating against news organizations that don’t use their preferred language is not a distraction. Fortunately, there are media institutions that are resisting the pressure to contort themselves into Trump sycophancy, but this will be something to watch as Trump tries to crush any news outlets that produce reporting unfavorable to him. I think the Associated Press, Wired, CBS, and ProPublica have been doing great work and I encourage supporting them.

Good things

There is a bright spot in all of this. I’ve seen people who are unhappy with this situation mobilizing. Public opinion is starting to sway against Trump as even many of the people who voted for him already feel betrayed, whether on mass deportation, tariffs, disastrous foreign policy, mass firing of federal employees (including disabled veterans who found a place to continue serving their country), Ukraine, Palestine, or on some other topic. Public opinion is likely to continue to sway against Trump once we get hit by the first natural disaster without FEMA, or as other consequences surface from the gross mismanagement that has prevailed in the past several weeks. I think a lot of people are feeling helpless right now, feeling relegated to doomscrolling and venting on social media. But, we’re not helpless. Even talking with others about what’s going on is important, as the worst thing that could happen is for people to have the perception that everyone’s just going along with it. They’re not. Right now, it’s unnerving because the possibilities of where we go from here are diverse and uncertain, but we’re not destined to go down a dark path. One common thread in all the possible bright paths that lay before us is that people make their voices heard, refuse accept the capture of our government by an authoritarian surrounded by oligarchs, and engage in collective action.

Some concrete things you can do:

• Write your senators and representative in congress. Even if you think they align with your opinion already, it helps for them to hear that their constituents have their back, and that what they’re doing is important.
• Participate in the Feb 28 Economic Blackout as a form of protest
• Join an anti-Tesla protest
• Write your thoughts and share on a blog or social media
• Catch up with friends, know you’re not alone, talk about these issues.
• Stay informed
• Join a volunteer organization in your community
• Donate to organizations you feel will make an impact in the current climate