The Witness Chronicles, 3/2/25

The insanity

Mar 02, 2025

snow covered trees and road during daytime — Photo by Nikola Johnny Mirkovic on Unsplash

Searching For Good News in a Country Gone Mad

The sheer callousness of it all is overwhelming

Note, this was written on Friday, February 28th, but I wanted to see how things would unfold as the weight of what the President and Vice President did, I believe intentionally, shocked anyone who saw it. The responses I’m hearing are shame, shame on them, and shame on us for ever granting them this power.

Today, during a White House meeting attended by the press and on camera, Trump and Vance started yelling at the President of a country long our ally, Ukraine. It was an ugly scene as they tried to strong arm Zelenskyy, ganging up on him like bullies in a schoolyard.

Their thuggish behavior feels more like an extension of Putin’s Russia than America’s White House with Vance and Trump screaming at Zelenskyy.

Every time I think these people have reached a new low they step up the disrespectful, indecent, and ugly actions and arrogantly take pleasure in the pain they are causing others. They are going out of their way to make the firings and freezes as demeaning and damaging as they can and it is unrelenting.

It is impossible to underestimate what this is doing to the country as we watch the cruelty of those we somehow elected as leaders, and one man no one elected but who may be the most cruel and arrogant jerk on the planet. And now, in the space of just a few weeks, they are showing the world the rotten side of the American fantasy.

Our worship of those who acquire wealth by any means necessary is a vivid demonstration of that dark underbelly, and it will only get worse as the elected Republican Party members cower in fear of Trump’s thugs and his followers’ threats if those elected officials dare to do their jobs. It is pitiful.

Without those Republican politicians, resistance cannot build momentum and there is no sign of that ice breaking. As we see throughout the history of emerging dictatorships, fear is their most effective weapon, fear of others and fear for ourselves, as we are hit with an unending stream of events and threats from our own government and President.

The President and Vice President today publicly humiliated the leader of another country, lying over and over again about the Russian invasion, throwing blame on Ukraine, and then yelling orders at Zelenskyy and accusing him of campaigning for Kamala Harris in the election.

That last item is critical because we know Trump is obsessed with retribution against anyone he imagines has done things to him and now we are seeing Vance embrace the same obsession. As for Musk, he was not involved in this disgraceful demonstration of uncontrolled arrogance. I don’t think he is driven by the same need for vengeance though I do think he openly takes pleasure in cruelty. Either that or his rumored Asberger’s diagnosis means he is incapable of sympathy.

Either way, these three men are essentially ganging up on the country and the world. Why they are doing this is incomprehensible to most of us and that is why so many Trump voters seem to be struggling to understand that the man they voted for lied to them and could care less about their interests.

Why they should be bewildered by these events when he repeatedly told them exactly what he was planning, while at the same time claiming during the campaign that he was against the Project 2025 plan, then implementing it on day one. That plan was wildly unpopular last year when it came out so he simply lied about it until he could get into office by any means necessary.

In my case, I am sorry to say that none of this surprises me after watching the campaign closely during the last year. Nevertheless it is depressing to watch and write about and on top of that, to write during the worst winter we have seen for years, including impassable sidewalks, frigid cold, and not seeing the sun for weeks.

I know I’m not alone in this because I hear from readers every day who feel the same. Fortunately, this week finally brought a thaw around here and a few days of sun, relative warmth, and melting of that ice and snow. I wish I could say I see a thaw coming in DC, but the cruelty and arrogance seem to be unlimited with this administration.

This week also saw the first full Cabinet meeting dominated by an unelected, unconfirmed, and unofficial blowhard in Elon Musk. Watching the coverage revealed a room full of powerless men and women who thought they would actually be participating in running the country. Instead they could barely conceal their glum expressions as Musk rambled on about this successes. In fact those ‘successes’ are turning out to be entirely overstated or outright made up.

The net result of all of this is a White House that no one can trust, a place filled with liars and backstabbers where no one is safe from the whims of a self-proclaimed and unstable king. And that distrust is spreading through country like a disease, perhaps the worst effect of all of this in the long run.

A lot of people I know have given up on trying to follow or even understand this, but willful ignorance is what got us here and this is not the time to pretend that these people are not what they obviously are. As citizens of a democracy, this cannot be rendered acceptable on any level, no matter how much easier it might be to turn away from the reality.

I usually try to inject a little optimism into my pieces and today’s events make it pretty difficult, but maybe, just maybe, they have gone as low as they can go with their disgusting behavior. Maybe, although it is hard to imagine they won’t get worse.

At least the sun is out and I can get a walk in to temporarily clear my head of all of this. Counting my blessings, where I can find them.

Update: having watched today’s encounter several times and seeing commentary from reporters in the room, it appears that Vance and Trump may have choreographed the explosion, with Vance suddenly bursting in with his accusations, giving Trump an opening to turn on Zelenskyy. If true that is straight out of the Kremlin playbook.

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