The Witness Chronicles, 2/4/25
The indescribable cruelty
The Political Keywords of 2025: Cruelty, Arrogance, Indecency, Fear, Retribution
Is this their vision for America?
In my writing here there is a word that comes up over and over again. The word is decency. Unfortunately it’s the lack of decency that causes that frequency. It’s such a basic human quality to be a decent person and it’s hard to understand how we have a White House and major political party that have lost their sense of decency, if they ever had it.
If the last ten days are any indicator, we are in for an endless display of how venal the Trump administration can be. It’s actually hard to fathom it getting worse than what we’ve seen already. When I named this newsletter The Witness Chronicles I couldn’t imagine just how low things would go, and that was after the first Trump administration. Witnessing becomes a duty as these thugs try to change history.
Right now it is hard to find any good political news. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel will fail to be confirmed, though I seriously doubt it. Senate Republicans have caved shamefully to the Trump mystique, something those of us in opposition are mystified by.
Since I wrote the above, Trump announced that 25% tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico and 10% from China will start this week. Those countries have said that no White House official they contacted was open to any negotiations.
One of the most famous books on negotiation, Getting To Yes, describes a style of negotiation called the Soviet style, named after the Soviet Union. Soviet style is put an offer on the table and refuse to change it. My way or the highway. And that is apparently the current Trump position on these tariffs.
It’s my belief that these moves will almost immediately backfire on Trump, starting with immediate across the board huge price hikes on everything: building materials, cars and trucks, appliances, food, you name it. If they go through with this we will undoubtedly see businesses raising prices right away.
This could very well throw us into a recession, offering Trump’s MAGA supporters proof that he never had any intention of really trying to rein in inflation. That assumes they are paying any attention, a doubtful assumption.
Yesterday, after the news of the tariffs freaked out financial markets, Trump announced a deal with Mexico to hold the tariffs for thirty days based on their sending 10,000 troops to police their side of the border. He did not mention that this action on their part was planned during the Biden administration.
Later that day, another deal with Canada was reached for another thirty day hold after Canandaigua threatened a retaliatory tariff of US goods going the other way. Trump claimed he lifted the tariff because Canada had agreed to spend $1.5 billion tightening the border. This was another action already agreed to during the Biden term.
This is political theater and it will continue with any country we have a beef with. And Trump’s voters will skip the details and cheer his triumphs as those they are real or meaningful. But, inevitably, countries will call his bluff and those voters will pay, one way or another.
Trump is purging all the senior management of the FBI, rendering the nation’s federal criminal investigation agency essentially headless. Considering Trump ran on claims that crime was skyrocketing (it was going steeply down), those claims were just more cynical lies.
Perhaps the worst action taken in the past two weeks was the decision to allow Elon Musk access to the Treasury Department’s payments systems, the means used to pay out federal funds, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, among many programs. Musk has handed over access to a team of his employees ranging in age from 19-24.
In one blow, Trump has given an unelected and unofficial outside player the keys to the federal budget, bypassing all legal restrictions and safeguards, a man who has no security clearance, and a team of inexperienced kids who are like to do far more damage than good. Lawsuits are already flying but they take time and Musk can blow up a lot of stuff critical to governing the country before they stop him. If they stop him.
We knew things would be bad, but this is insane and the Trump people do not seem to have any interest in any outcomes that may disagree with Trump’s claims. In other words, reality is unimportant to those running the executive branch, a stance that could cause a general collapse of the federal government. We know that this is the desire of the most far right in the Republican Party.
The Democrats seem stunned and the Republicans hypnotized by all of it and that is certainly the planned intent of moving so fast and loose. With no organized opposition and a congress who appears to have given up their role as a check on unlimited power, it is hard to see a way past this storm and back to something resembling normal.
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Martin Edic
He's giving China, Russia and Iran just what they want, chaos
I cannot believe Elon and his minions weren’t stopped at the door. But what are we to do once the horse is out the barn? In addition to what information was stolen, what additions were made to the system in terms of spyware or malware? I hope none of those kids know any COBOL.