The Witness Chronicles, 11/21/24
Gaetz out
Gaetz out, and a few other silver linings emerge
What a week!
First, the news just came out that Matt Gaetz removed himself from consideration as Attorney General. It looks like he heard in the Senate yesterday that he was unlikely to be confirmed and that his ethics investigation would need to be revealed before a number of GOP senators would vote for him.
That’s a relief, about the only positive political news since the election. And personally I’ll be happy to not have to look at his constantly smirking mug on the news.
The weather across the country has been tumultuous with bomb cyclones and massive rains hitting Northern California and the northeast forest fires spreading across the Hudson Valley, New Jersey and New England due to drought conditions. Fortunately we are getting some fairly heavy rain the next few days. I only mention weather because it just keeps getting worse and Trump,is doubling down on his denial of climate change.
I guess it will take a direct hit from a hurricane on Mar A Lago to get his attention, though I doubt that would do it. The really bad news about climate is that not only will we lose at least four years of efforts to deal with it, they will likely make it accelerate even more with their promised deregulation.
But that’s our reality now. I’ve cut back on my news consumption since the election and consequently have been catching up on reading. But my news addiction is still there and I’ll still be writing, though I fear it will be more doom and gloom than I really want to put in your inbox.
The Gaetz thing seems to indicate that Trump’s appointees may face a bigger challenge than he anticipates, particularly with Hegseth for Defense and RFK Jr at Health and Human Services. Trump may have assumed he had a lock on Senators because of their majority but we still have some Republicans with minds of their own.
Despite Trump’s repeated claims of having a mandate, now that we have most of the numbers in it appears he did not win a majority of the popular vote, which is what defines a mandate from the people approving his policies. Nevertheless he will still make that claim.
The other day I wrote about my sense that any resistance movement should go slow and let some of those policies implode on their own. Unelected advisors Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have revealed their draconian plans to cut government spending to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations. However, many of the cuts they propose are going to be extremely unpopular with many Republican members of Congress.
I suspect both of them will wear out their welcomes fairly quickly. Scuttlebutt already says there is the expected infighting starting within the emerging Trump regime and we know Musk has a superiority complex that rubs people the wrong way with regularity.
Personally I wish he would stick with rockets and cars, but the ego is simply too big to rest on his laurels.
It appears that Trump has dodged any sentencing for his business crime convictions in New York until his term is over, meaning he has successfully put himself above the law, a precedent that will haunt the legal system for years. Of all the effects of his time in politics, this flaunting of the rule of law is the most disturbing.
Except it seems that half the voters simply didn’t care or could not be bothered to think about it. David Brooks pointed out the phenomenon of voters who only voted from Trump and did not bother to vote for any of the other elections on the ticket, another sign that his voters have no loyalty to his party other than their loyalty to him.
If I was a Republican that would be worrying me as it bodes very badly for the midterms in two years, as those voters are unlikely to turn out without Trump on the ballot.
As you might guess I’m looking for silver linings in this mess and it’s not easy but they are there and more will emerge. So the story can change but it going to take awhile. Patience required, but the Gaetz withdrawal is at least one glimmer of silver in the dark cloud.
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All of Trump’s picks would be equally bad for the country, but I suppose there’s no hope of blocking them all.
Your surmise that there are a few Republicans with backbones isn't supported by any evidence - at least so far. It IS a fond hope of mine (I like to think the best of folks), but so far, even Rs that had a backbone in the last 6 or so years seem to have succumbed to melting backbone syndrome, possibly due to over absorption in Faux Noise.