- How to deal with it; I’m trying to put things into a broader perspective of their deep motivations, which are always about basic, tribalist, human nature;
- Trump is taking over Kennedy Center because he objects to drag;
- Plastic straws, racist speech, inmates in charge of the asylum;
- WaPo shows you some webpages deleted by the Trump administration;
- Perhaps Musk’s motivation for attacking USAID;
- NY Times Editorial Board: Now is not the time to tune out.
A couple phrases have been deployed to describe Trump’s deliberate (or not) strategy upon taking office of moving quickly with lots of executive orders. One is “shock and awe” after Bush’s strategy for invading Iraq; another is Steven Bannon’s “flooding the zone with sh*t” by which he meant spewing so much garbage so quickly that no one could tell what was real and what wasn’t. Another strategy that I saw today on Facebook (I didn’t capture a link) was that Trump treats each day like a media contest. He gets up in the morning and thinks of something outrageous to say on Truth Social, then depends on the news media (who Bannon and his acolytes think can only focus on one topic at a time) to be distracted by that while Trump goes about his real work relatively unnoticed; yet his goal is to ‘win’ the news cycle each day.
So what to do? Dismiss the outrageous things that will never happen, like making Canada a 51st state? Or bring up the casual cruelties? (Such as Trump firing a former Coast Guard leader — for DEI excuses but likely simply because she was a woman — thus giving her three hours to vacate her government-provided home. NBC.)
Or, as I try to do, look at the bigger picture. What does each action by Trump or Musk or his minions reveal about their motivations? About what they believe about the world? Taking an almost psychiatric, certainly psychological, approach. The answers are usually apparent, and they’re not kind. They’re evidence of a very basic, primitive, survivalist, mode of human nature.
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More about Trump taking over Kennedy Center.
Variety, Katcy Stephan, 7 Feb 2025: President Trump Says He Will Fire Kennedy Center Board Members and Name Himself Chairman
Turns out it’s because he objects to drag shows.
Trump went on to attack drag programming mounted at the performing arts center, adding, “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP. The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation. For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
Drag shows put on at the Kennedy Center in 2024 included “Broadway Drag Brunch” and “Dancing Queens Drag Brunch” on the venue’s Roof Terrace Restaurant, “A Drag Salute to Divas” on the South Millennium Stage, “Bertha: Grateful Drag” in the Terrace Theater and “Dixie’s Tupperware Party” in the Family Theater.
Of course base, survivalist human nature priorities expansion of the tribe, and especially in the ancestral environment in which human nature evolved and infant mortality was high, discourages to the point of condemnation any behavior that does not lead to the production of more babies. Thus, drag shows might confuse young people about sexual roles. Thus, the sins of the Old Testament, from homosexuality to onanism. And in the modern age, condemnation of birth control and abortion.
Base human nature is no longer appropriate; in fact, it’s counter-productive. Human sexual urges may endure, but having more and more babies is a danger to the survival of the race given the limitations of the planet. To advocate this is irresponsible.
So then, what would Trump then do? Ban all those classic movies involving drag and cross-dressing, like Some Like It Hot, Tootsie, and Mrs. Doubtfire? I wouldn’t put it past him. He probably just hasn’t thought of it yet. The right already loves to ban books. Why not movies too?
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Headlines:
Yahoo!news, 7 Feb 2025: Trump slams paper straws, vows ‘back to plastic’
He has no clue what the problem with plastic straws might be. Short-term convenience at the expense of long-term ecosystem damage.
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Vox, 8 Feb 2025: The real lesson of the DOGE racist tweets scandal, subtitled “Musk and Trump say they promote free speech. They seem to only defend racist speech.”
Having a history of racist tweets is just fine with the current administration. Because….
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Yet another example of putting the inmates in charge of the asylum.
NY Times, 8 Feb 2025: Advocate of Jan. 6 Rioters Now Runs Office That Investigated Them, subtitled “Ed Martin, a loyal Trump soldier, oversees the U.S. attorney’s office, which is likely to help turn the investigative powers of the government on several of the president’s perceived enemies.”
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Authoritarians always try to shape reality to their liking. So much for freedom of speech.
Washington Post, 7 Feb 2025: A sample of the government webpages Trump doesn’t want you to see, subtitled “When President Donald Trump took office, dozens of government webpages disappeared as part of his plan to reshape the U.S. government to his liking. Not even NASA was spared.”
Everything on the internet is archived, by someone, usually web.archive.org. There is no deleting the past, for better or for worse. The piece here shows current and archived pages from various organizations including DHS, EPA, FDA, USDA, Census, DOJ, NOAA, and many others. Why? Conservatism is always about reducing options. You should only know what your government wants you to know. You should behave in the way conservatives believe you should behave.
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Apparently USAID was instrumental in taking down the Apartheid regime in South Africa… where Musk is from. He’s now ornery that whites in South Africa are being discriminated against, and striking back. Which is to say, he’s not about government efficiency, he’s about seeking revenge against those who reduced his white privilege.
From Facebook: Horsey, The Seattle Times.
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Concluding with
NY Times, Editorial Board, 8 Feb 2025: Now Is Not the Time to Tune Out
Don’t get distracted. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t get paralyzed and pulled into the chaos that President Trump and his allies are purposely creating with the volume and speed of executive orders; the effort to dismantle the federal government; the performative attacks on immigrants, transgender people and the very concept of diversity itself; the demands that other countries accept Americans as their new overlords; and the dizzying sense that the White House could do or say anything at any moment. All of this is intended to keep the country on its back heel so President Trump can blaze ahead in his drive for maximum executive power, so no one can stop the audacious, ill-conceived and frequently illegal agenda being advanced by his administration. For goodness sake, don’t tune out.
Places where Americans can’t afford to turn away:
- Elon Musk’s Executive Takeover
- The Administration vs. Public Officials (a.k.a. Trump’s Enemies)
- The President’s Imperial Bluster and Attacks on Allies
- Public Health Imperiled
- The President’s Anti-Civil Rights Blitz
Do kids these days have any idea what’s going on?
America faces a new reality, and it demands wisdom, endurance and courage. The United States is now led by a president who appears willing to stampede over any person, law, congressional statute or country that stands in his way. He is driven by impulse and is disinterested in rules, history or reality.
How Americans and the world handle such a president will determine much about the next four years, and it will ask much from all of us. We must meet the moment. Mr. Trump won the election fair and square, but his position is that of president, not king or god-emperor. Every time Congress allows him to exceed his constitutional role, it encourages more anti-democratic behavior and weakens the legislature’s ability to check further erosion of the norms and values that have helped make this nation the freest, richest and strongest in the world.
