I feel very conflicted. Recently, I started a thread about the rage that I felt after the election. As I’m transitioning out of the rage stage to more of a depressed stage, I’m feeling somewhat hopeless myself.
My wife wants to leave the country, or at least have a “Plan B” waiting for us if it gets bad enough. I am thinking of a “move to a Blue State” option instead, at least as a starting point. I live in Georgia, which is a red state that has gone somewhat purple recently. But I’d feel more comfortable in a solidly blue state. To me, that’s a “Plan B”. But then, I’m not ignorant about the risks even in a Blue State. No one in any state is safe from the fascists that are taking over the federal government. I am almost 58. I have about 4-5 more years at my current company that I plan to finish up and retire when I’m 62-63. That might get thrown out the window though, if things get bad enough.
OTOH, I could stick it out in Georgia and try to help lead the fight for Democrats in this state going forward.
Regardless, we shouldn’t take lightly what is ahead of us. This country will be a very different place in 4 years. That much, I can gaurantee.
I didn’t study up on him carefully, but the general impression I got was pretty much every time something especially offensive and insulting came out of the Trump campaign, Cheung was pretty closely involved.
Agreed. So could there really be someone on the transition team, leaking to WaPo who believes normal vetting is somehow going on? Thinking about it again, the answer is maybe, but probably no. The transition team leak, complaining that Hegseth wasn’t vetted, was just something to tell reporters if you do not want Hegseth confirmed.
I found another transition team member who could be the leaker, one Cliff Sims:
Undoubtedly Trump is enjoying that aspect. But what’s more important is demonstrating to Congress that they are now the Duma: a show-body, powerless and compliant. Or else.
Either the Republicans will give Trump his recess (and consequent recess appointments), thereby proving they are irrelevant, or they will vote for his most insane picks, thereby proving they are irrelevant. Heads he wins, tails they lose.
The crazier the picks, the more it proves his dominance. Once they’re broken, he need no longer worry that they could interfere with anything he wants to do. It’s a classic how-to-become-an-autocrat tactic.
But you know this.
Yes. The confidence some have that ‘nothing will really change’ and ‘the guardrails will hold’ and ‘he can’t do anything about the laws’ is naïve. (Or something else.)
People behave according to what they believe to be their self-interest. Workers at the cabinet departments will, for the most part, try to go along with the orders of the person they’re told is the lawful boss. Whether the boss genuinely IS lawful is not something the workers are going to try to determine for themselves. They want their paychecks to keep coming.
You don’t understand. The Democrats are the party of sexual abusers, groomers and pedophiles. Just because Donald Trump has been found liable for sexual assault, hung around with Epstein and allegedly had sex with underaged girls at his parties and repeatedly made sexual comments about underaged girls, and Gaetz allegedly had sex with an underaged girl and this guy allegedly paid off a woman for sexual assault doesn’t mean that the Republicans are the party of sexual abusers and pedophiles
Don’t forget Trump’s connections to John Casablancas (also moved to a private island after intimate relations with younger teens), Tevfik Arif (arrested in Turkey for trying to traffic underage girls in as part of a business deal for a creepy business partner), and George Nader.
One notes that the pedophile thing is usually thrown in because of things like Michael Jackson, Cory Feldman’s accusations, and other rumor and scandal from Hollywood - the Democratic homeland. But that all forgets that the guy who bailed Trump out of his billion dollar loss in the casino business was the same guy that owned Michael Jackson’s house, and that Trump was a successful reality TV show producer that was in on the whole couch casting thing.
For as much as Trump might be associated with New York, he was also a big Hollywood guy.
Chris Wright, who founded a fracking company in 2010, is Trump’s choice for Secretary of Energy.
“There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either,” Wright said in a video posted to LinkedIn last year. “The only thing resembling a crisis with respect to climate change is the regressive opportunity squelching policies justified in the name of climate change,” he added.
Not obviously a predator or security threat, so I feel better about him heading the Department of Nuclear Weapons (+ Some Other Stuff) than some of the other picks.
The cabinet of destruction.
From my Australian friend:
“Third world countries often have very little in the way of regulatory authorities.
They often have a lot of building collapses, fires, health problems and disastrous environmental issues…”
That is where we are headed. Musk will be in his plane headed to DC to slash nuclear waste programs. Meanwhile Ramaswamy has scrapped the FAA. The plane can’t land. Musk has to go back to Texas and land at a ranch where a billionire has a private strip.
This is the only thing I’m really sure of over the next 4 years. Maybe not Homan specifically, but the Trump admin is going to foment unrest, protests, and riots, for the sheer joy and spectacle of putting them down. Bonus points if he gives at least tacit approval to outsourcing some of the “enforcement” to paramilitary gangs like Proud Boys.
In theory, that may be true but who would contest it and how? The "unlawful’ Secretary shows up and orders that X be done. Some subordinate says, “You don’t have the power to do that.” He gets fired and security physically removes him from the building. How many subordinates will he go through before someone does what he is told?
Maybe, some public interest group files suit. How long would that take to wind through the system? Even if a restraining order were to be issued, how long before a Trump judge reverses that? Saying that something is unlawful is meaningless when the enforcers are the offenders and the biggest offender has immunity.
Perhaps, this is all hyperbole but this is how dictators come to power.
The Lewis book (The Fifth Risk) outlines a lot of necessary departements, which are there for our safety. Is there something we can slash safely for four years, at least? Yes, research. Medical research, drug research in colleges, many types of chemistry (think Lithium batteries) and countless practical fields are funded by the USA. Graduate student scholarships to do research. All that can be scrapped. Industry does not invent new chemical reactions, for example (many can’t be patented, they are there for common good). All that will need to be scrapped for now. And in the long run we will not be the leader in innovation anymore. China will be. They will also do many types of public constuction. We can’t build the Hoover Dams that the future technology will need.
Sadly, most Republicans have demonstrated since 2016 that they completely lack the courage to do anything similar. I think @MikeF’s scenario is far more plausible.