In his frantic race to fuel a new Gilded Age, President Donald Trump operates on the cognitive delusion that he is merely destroying the liberal programs he abhors.
But in truth, he is blowing up fundamental American institutions, policies, beliefs, and truths that have been embraced by most Americans and administrations…until now.
Under siege today are the cornerstones of what made our democracy the envy of the world and a magnet for immigrants seeking better lives. As the U.S. standing in the world collapses, our federal government sneers at other countries and vilifies our closest allies, all while Trump declares his 10th national emergency – failing to recognize that he is the national emergency.
America has not always perfectly succeeded in the pursuit of our communal aspirations for the future and hopes for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Most presidents do of course have a preferred political philosophy but generally it has been executed on the shared framework of the promise of America – equal rights, economic opportunity, equal justice under law, the power of American ingenuity, innovation and research, and the common faith that we are all in this together.
But Trump is not just content to work within this kind of framework. He is intent on demolishing all semblance of other points of view and anyone that expresses them. Governing with pettiness and a policy of distraction, he has numbed his followers into thinking that using the federal government to investigate his political rivals, to enrich himself and his family, and to extort money from universities, media companies, and law firms is normal.
Destroying Democracy’s Anchors
Alternative energy is an example of his behavior. It isn’t enough to genuflect to the oil industry by eliminating incentives – there was never a “mandate” despite what he says – for EV vehicles. No, he must also do all that he can do to eliminate solar power, wind power, and any kind of alternative energy that does not come from a mine or gushing from a hole in the ground, even if it means slowing down electricity projects themselves.
His denial of scientific fact includes climate change which essentially says don’t believe your lying eyes as we all watch more and more serious climate events devastating Americans’ lives and draining government budgets – or what’s left of critical government budgets as he hacks their funding. And our country protects oil as China as we lose competitive advantage to China has it changes to a county run totally on electricity.
Any assertion of a scientific fact that runs contrary to the Trump cult, even if by a scientist expert, is discounted by many of his supporters and comes couched in a statement that often begins, “I don’t believe…”, although it’s not about a belief system but a scientific fact.
It is a phenomenon of the MAGA movement that its members practice the intellectual convenience of simply attaching the word, FAKE, to anything they do not want to hear like the child who puts his fingers in his ears so he doesn’t hear his parents.
It is made more curious by the fact that only a few years ago, these same people were decrying people who didn’t agree with MAGA as “woke” and part of a “cancel culture.” Yet, today, it’s the MAGA movement that is the practitioner of cancel culture – books, universities, museums, public education, historical markers, major blue cities, programs for poor families, LGBTQ programs, historical accuracy, and even awards to Tom Hanks for his patriotic movies and series.
If The Word Fits
MAGA world once called anyone who reacted to their slurs as “snowflakes,” but today it’s MAGA movers and shakers who melt down in any debate about their policies.
That said, there are words that cause them to recoil, such as charges Trump policies and their implementation are racist. But what else would you call the removal of all Black leaders in the Pentagon (especially if they have the second strike – they are women), the lack of people of color in the Administration, a deficit-busting bill that attacks Medicaid, regular smears of minority majority cities as cauldrons of crime and chaos, the obsession to end birthright citizenship, the marauding bands of masked agents engaging in racial profiling, the removal of historically accurate references in federal parks and on federal monuments to people of color, cuts to poverty programs, the censorship of books to whitewash efforts by minorities to claim their full rights, and that’s just the short list.
It’s hard to think of a more accurate adjective than racist to describe this bundle of actions. The common denominator of the targets gives it away.
But what makes these policies and programs even more disturbing is the cruelty and chaos that is intrinsic to all of them. Even those of us of a certain age cannot recall a time when the president reveled in the gleeful inhumanity that undergirds so much that Trump and his administration do.
Government by Narcissism
Members of his administration and Congress give sycophants a bad name. That’s especially true of the obsequious MAGA rubber stamps that represent us – Congressman David Kustoff, Senator Marsha Blackburn, and Senator Bill Hagerty – who never raise a question or make a constructive suggestive that reflects Memphis’ needs.
To the contrary, Blackburn supports orders that would dispatch the National Guard into Memphis to fight crime, never mind that the men and women of the Guard are not trained in law enforcement. But she and others, particularly in the Tennessee Legislature, can never pass up miss a chance to beat up a majority Black city and county.
Governor Bill Lee has already sent a couple of hundred members of the National Guard to Washington D.C. so he’s unlikely to have a problem dispatching them to Memphis. Regularly forgotten is the fact that when Guard members are sent somewhere, they are ripped away from their families and their jobs. And if their main benefit is to put more people in uniform walking the streets, why don’t Trump and his minions simply fund the same number of law officers rather than vote to cut federal funding to local police departments and crimefighting programs?
Meanwhile, majority African American Shelby County will face the negative ramifications of Trump’s anti-urban, anti-minority obsessions. There will be cuts in life-saving research, fewer people with Medicaid, greater economic inequality, more masked ICE agents profiling people to arrest, less federal money for public transit and public education, no support for police reform, less funding for nonprofit groups, more harassment policies for transexuals, and a fragile economy characterized by higher prices, fewer jobs, and climbing inflation.
We Are On Our Own
And things don’t look any better from a global context. The war in Ukraine that he would end on his first day continues and the grand influence he claimed over Vladimir Putin is proven as just talk: the situation in Gaza gets grimmer by the day as Trump’s sociopathic view of the world sees it as a future resort site; his incomprehensible Liberation Day tariffs have turned the world against us with his toughest talk aimed at our most important allies who are pushed closer to China; he bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities and fired the national intelligence advisor who honestly said the damage would only set back the country a few months; he blew up a speedboat in international waters, and so much more.
What is clear is that our community, like all of America, should prepare for chaos because here’s the central fact: we are on our own. Trump has no cohesive, comprehensible philosophy of government. He is motivated by grievance and cruelty, paybacks, the weaponization of government, and imperial delusions.
After all, he is the child his father raised and the adult who imprinted on the detestable Roy Cohn. At 79 years old, his personality is calcified and it has now metastasized into all corners of the U.S. government where its damage will likely take America generations to repair – if we are able to return to the core values and core institutions that have undergirded our shared history and ambitions.
Americans appear to be waking up. The only president with poorer approval ratings in his first year than Trump is Trump – in his first administration. More and more questions are being asked about his cognitive decline and the impact of his impulsive policies.
That said, the most baffling question about him these days is how roughly 40% of the public can still support him.
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