The Witness Chronicles, 12/7/24

I’m watching how fast Trump moves

I Write When I Have Something To Say

Something substantive, rather than pure horror at what is going down

Yeah, this thing is going to get more personal, if that is possible. And it has to, for all of us. Stuff going down in DC may seem a million miles from your life but this time around, everyone is going to get hit. And that hit may be long term (political rant just ahead).

The people entering the White House in the next month do not have your interests at heart, not even close. There are a half dozen billionaires among them and on the close sidelines. If you think they share your daily concerns, you’re wrong. These people remind me of the spoiled demigods in Greek mythology, individuals whose egos are out of control and who routinely play games with ordinary humans.

At this point we are simply witnesses to what is going down, witnesses that can’t do much and it can be frustrating. But reality is a hard mistress and these people are feeling pretty invincible and powerful right now, a dangerous situation for them and us. The fact that I feel there is a ‘them and us’ is pretty awful but I don’t think it represents reality on the ground.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not them or us.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post points out that Republican politicians have self-interests (big surprise) that can outweigh the Trump ideas if they conflict with and affect the politician personally. This is where Trump’s treatment of what used to be the Republican Party can backfire. We’re seeing it with the hesitation about confirming Trump’s more blatantly unqualified nominees for Cabinet posts.

I suspect a lot of that is a typical Senate Republican weighing how they will look if a candidate like Kash Patel, nominated to run the FBI, starts doing what he has repeatedly threatened to do: using the Bureau to investigate and arrest his political enemies. Please note that I specified ‘his enemies’ rather than Trump enemies. Patel is, in my opinion, a danger to Trump because he is so extreme. The man sees enemies everywhere to the point of paranoia.

In his first term Trump chose relatively competent advisors then fired them when they disagreed with him. He has learned his lesson this time around and is sticking to people he sees as loyalists, first and foremost. But this carries its own set of potential problems.

These people are so extreme and so confident that they have voters’ permission to be extreme that Trump could find himself putting out fires started by his own people. While he may not believe it, he needs congress to get things done. The question is will Republicans in Congress kowtow to these loons Trump is putting out there?

As I pointed out recently, the Trump White House is going to be in a big hurry to tear things apart as fast as possible because the midterms could mean a big shift in power in DC, and they are not that far away. This is another situation where his policies could be so extreme and rapid that they shock the American public, if that is still possible.

Take the mass deportation for example. It’s going to be ugly and people are going to find out just how much of the dirty work in this country is done by illegals. Hard right racists who pretend that kicking hard workers out of the country will create jobs, will find out that the average American does not want to work in meat packing plants or clean posh hotel rooms, not to mention picking produce.

Several years ago in Georgia, they cracked down on immigrant farm labor so hard they scared away long term seasonal workers and crops died in the fields. Farmers desperately tried to replace those workers but found few takers. The work was just too brutal. That crackdown didn’t last long.

This is where right wing mythology breaks down. That mythology says that illegal immigrants are lazy and simply came here for handouts and to commit crimes, ignoring the reality that they risked their lives to find a better one.

There’s a lot of that convenient mythology out there, produced mainly by racists and conspiracy theorists with no basis in reality. Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s belief that women should not fight in combat units is not based on any facts, it is based on the fact that Pete Hegseth has some serious issues with women, including his own mother.

Some of these myths are completely mystifying. I really don’t understand how RFK Jr, a serious wacko, fits into the right’s agenda. That can be said of others like Tulsi Gabbard, apparently picked for her similar ability to hold conflicting views that contradict each other.

The only reason I am getting into these impressions is because until now, the American public has only had limited exposure to these people, because they existed on the fringes. But now Trump wants to push them into the mainstream.

That is likely to create some pretty weird situations as they find themselves in spotlights far from Fox News and facing actual journalists who have credibility and integrity. We have already seen it with Hegseth as those journalists from publications like the Times and the New Yorker uncovered reams of scandalous info on him in just days after he hit the spotlight.

There is going to be a lot of that. I suspect one of the reasons Matt Gaetz abruptly left is because he realized the scrutiny was about to get turned up to eleven. It did with Hegseth and he is scrambling to deal with it, unsuccessfully so far.

This is going to be the story of the next month or so with many of Trump’s appointees as they get vetted by both the FBI and the media. It is showing every sign of being relentless, as it should be.

In the case of Hegseth we are already seeing the Trump transition team undermining his nomination as rumors spread that Trump is looking for a replacement, someone safer like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Apparently no one told Hegseth, who may be learning what can happen when you trust Donald Trump.

If the stakes weren’t so high, this would all be very entertaining. Instead it is horrifying as we see wildly unqualied candidates being replaced by equally unqualified candidates who appear less controversial.

Right now the country is caught up in the capitalist celebration known as the holidays, a convenient distraction, but that goes away next month and all of this stuff gets kicked front and center in the news. I wonder if anyone will pay attention?

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