The Witness Chronicles, 1/30/25

Chaos, then rescinded chaos, then it’s back on

Photo by Carine L. on Unsplash

Trump Budget Office Creates Chaos, Abruptly Cancels Chaos

The sweeping order backfires big time

Well, that was unexpected. With little explanation, the wide ranging executive order putting an immediate hold on virtually all government spending was canceled. It’s not totally clear why except the likely created a backlash from Republican politicians and states.

Lawsuits were flying, rumors got out of control as voters realized the order was unclear about things like Medicaid and Social Security. Doom was predicted and it appears this messy order was just too inhuman and unpopular across the political spectrum.

Frankly, as a cost cutting methodology, a broad and unclear order like this was lazy, clumsy, and just plain bad politics. I realize the Trump people may actually believe they have an overwhelming mandate (they don’t) which may have led to putting out an order seemingly designed to create chaos across the entire government. Not only that but it affected every form of government from the smallest locality to all the states.

18 states were already planning a major challenge to it, with more likely to join in.

The words that come to mind here are arrogant and sloppy. There’s a lot of those attributes going around in the White House right now. Which is what happens when loyalty outweighs competence as a job requirement. For those of us who believe this executive branch is a disaster in the making, the incompetence we are seeing already is shocking.

There will be a lot of missteps. As I’ve pointed out, the effects of many of Trump’s policies will be much more far reaching than they seem to have considered, if they considered them at all.

Shortly after the order was rescinded they changed course again. Now the White House is saying the order is not rescinded despite the memo sent out today stating it was rescinded. So what is it? A second federal judge put a restraining order on the original order and this confusion is apparently a way to avoid those orders and the impending flood of lawsuits.

Confused yet? I sure as hell am.

The spectacle of RFK Jr’s confirmation hearing today was also an example of a man who was willing to say anything to get near power, including walking back his long term anti-vax crusading, which was not based on any science and scared the hell out of parents across the country.

It is amazing to think that this administration has only been in power for ten days as I write this. If they wanted chaos they are certainly doing a great job generating it. But breaking things is a lot easier than making them and they are breaking things at a breathtaking pace, intended or not.

Shifting gears, I want to talk about isolationism or as Donald Trump likes to call it, America First, a phrase that harkens back to the US prior to WWII, when it was a reactionary movement aimed at keeping us out of European wars. Coming after the terrible killing and destruction of the First World War, an isolationist message was understandable, though the attack on Pearl Harbor abruptly ended it.

This new version is based on two Republican fantasies. The first is the inherent superiority of America, which is not based on patriotism but rather is essentially a racist policy. The complete blocking of any refugees entering the country seems to mainly apply to black or brown people.

The second driving force behind this new America First movement is equally troubling because it ignores the reality that we live in a globally interconnected economy, even trading with acknowledged possible enemies like Russia and China.

Trump threats of tariffs against other countries is an acknowledgement of this interconnectivity. If we were not doing enormous amount of trade with other countries, tariffs would be ineffective as a deterrent.

The WWII era America First movement was the last gasp of the belief that our geographical isolation between two oceans provided enough protection that we did not need to connect with the rest of the world. That idea was demolished by Pearl Harbor and by swarms of German U-boats on the Atlantic coast sinking US shipping. Even back then isolationism was a fantasy.

Without international trade, virtually every product we buy and everything we eat would not exist. Without treaties and alliances like NATO, we could be facing global war alone and we are not capable of that.

The vision of a state standing alone, run by white men, and facing off with hostile hordes of ‘vile people’ from the rest of the world is a dangerous and short-sighted one. And it is one that does not represent who we are, who we have become, and who we aspire to be, regardless of what Trump and his ultra wealthy cronies want us to believe.

I have to hammer away at the cultures and belief systems they are trying to force upon us, and the divisions and lies they cynically used to regain power, lies they no longer bother to pretend are true. I’ve often disagreed with the direction our country and government has taken over the years but at my core I respect and believe in democracy and the rule of law. So I’m going to keep making my little noise here and elsewhere. I hope we all will.

Otherwise we become the sheep they want us to be, sleepwalking into a dictatorship.

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Martin Edic