- How the current administration deals in “alternative facts”;
- With a reminder of some central themes of this blog;
- Now the Smithsonian Institution is targeted for “improper ideology,” which seems to mean that the prejudices and stereotypes of decades ago are to be restored;
- Heather Cox Richardson on the administration’s definition of “the Left”;
- Hillary Clinton on the current administration’s hijinks: “It’s not the hypocrisy; it’s the stupidity”;
- Short items on even WSJ being accused to fake news; whether Trump believes in the fee market or not (as he orders car companies not to raise prices in response to his tariffs); ending laws against child labor; now they’re abducting people in broad daylight; business leaders compare Trump to a mob boss; Christians are now plotting to overturn Obergefell (as predicted); how Pam Bondi thinks judges have no authority to overrule the president.
First, a reminder of the current situation.
The Bulwark, Mona Charen, 28 Mar 2025: What Happens When the Government Starts Reporting ‘Alternative Facts’?, subtitled “The truth is the last weapon of the opposition.”
THE SECOND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, like its namesake, has set a new record for buffoonish moments: the “Gulf of America,” the Tesla showroom on the White House lawn, the Mar-a-Gaza insanity, and so many others. Some take comfort in this, reasoning that clowns are not dangerous. But surely we’ve all learned by now that beneath the clown makeup lies a hyperactive malevolence.
Much has been written about the Trump team’s assault on civil society, universities, public health, the judiciary, and our global alliances, and rightly so—but there is one danger that deserves more attention, because our ability to thwart this attempted revolution, this upending of our constitutional system, depends upon truth itself.
We have seen one institution after another buckle before Trump’s onslaught. If Congress is conquered, and Big Tech won’t oppose him, and big media is bending the knee, and big law is folding, and universities are crumpling, and the judiciary is a question mark, who is left? Only the voters. They retain the power to wrest control of Congress from the GOP in 20 months, which would slow, if not quite extinguish, Trump’s attempted revolt.
Once again, I dwell on topics like this not to be political, exactly, or to rag on Republicans. It’s because this is more evidence, or illustrations, of several of principal themes of this blog, themes which can be taken as extending the philosophy of science fiction. We are an evolved species. Human nature evolved for survival, not for accurate perception of the real world. Survival, in humanity’s deep past, took place in small tribes that prioritized reproduction and demonized rival tribes. Thus the tribal, or conservative, mindset: tribal stories [religions] are more important than evidence about reality; other tribes are dangerous, even demonic. But as humanity has filled up the planet, and all these tribes have come into contact with one another, this mindset is leading only to endless conflict. Global perspectives, a cosmopolitan, mindset will be needed the solve global problems, or the species will not survive. Attempts to overcome tribalistic tendencies were made in the Enlightenment and in particular the US Constitution, which contemporary politicians seem not to understand, or ignore. The tribalists are today’s conservatives; the globalists are today’s progressives. The tribalists tell whatever stories they need to maintain tribal solidarity. This can’t go on forever, because the reality of the world will fight back.
Continuing:
But what if the voters don’t have a grasp on reality? What if the inflation rate rises to 9 percent, bird flu is ravaging farms across the Midwest, unemployment is climbing, the economy is shrinking, measles is killing hundreds of children, crime is up—but the government has suppressed or falsified the data that would reveal those conditions?
Lies have always been the engine of MAGA, but now we face the prospect that many government statistics, on which businesses, health professionals, and our whole society depends, will be manipulated by Trumpists.
The demolition work has already begun. The Labor Department has dismissed a committee of economists, academics, and business leaders who advised the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Websites for the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Technical Advisory Committee and its Data Users Advisory Committee have been scrubbed from the agency’s website.
The Commerce Department has disbanded the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee—an arm of the Bureau of Economic Analysis—which seeks, or rather sought, to help the government provide accurate statistics on many aspects of the economy. The move came on the heels of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick telling Fox News that he plans to alter the way GDP is calculated. “You know the Commerce Department runs the statistics of GDP. Governments historically have messed with GDP. They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.”
It goes on. One more sample.
Under Kennedy, HHS is taking lying to new extremes. Though multiple studies, including one featuring half a million Danish children, have discredited the notion that there is a link between vaccines and autism, Kennedy has authorized a new study to search for a “link.” This is beyond mendacious. The original paper suggesting a connection was found to have been a hoax years ago, and again, no reputable research since has found any association between vaccines and autism. Autism diagnoses are rising due to awareness, not vaccines, as any person not suffering from oppositional defiant disorder can figure out.
Kennedy is a kook.
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For example,
Salon, Griffin Eckstein, 28 Mar 2025: “Remove improper ideology”: Trump puts Vance in charge of purging the Smithsonian Institution, subtitled “The White House wants the quasi-independent network of museums to remove ‘improper ideology’ from its collections”
President Donald Trump directed the Smithsonian Institution and Department of the Interior on Thursday to sanitize exhibitions, possibly restore Confederate monuments and remove objectionable pieces to restore “truth and sanity to American history,” part of what he described as a war on “corrosive ideology.”
An executive order on Thursday instructs the Smithsonian museum system to axe any projects or exhibitions that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.”
The order instructs Vice President JD Vance to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian’s museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo, per the order. The order is the biggest executive reach into the quasi-independent trust in its more than 175 year history.
Here’s what this means: all the old stereotypes and prejudices are to be reinstated. To the extent that exhibits have changed since, say, the 1950s, to better reflect how we understand American natives, or black slaves, the administration is saying no, you cannot learn anything, you must regress to the stereotypes of generations ago. Anything else is ‘improper ideology’. MAGA is always about clinging to tribal values, which seems to amount to white supremacy.
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Again, as a reminder.
Heather Cox Richardson, 28 Mar 2025: March 27, 2025
The craziness going on around us in the first two months of the second Trump administration makes a lot more sense if you remember that the goal of those currently in power was never simply to change the policies or the personnel of the U.S. government. Their goal is to dismantle the central pillars of the United States of America—government, law, business, education, culture, and so on—because they believe the very shape of those institutions serves what they call “the Left.”
Their definition of “the Left” includes all Americans, Republicans and Independents as well as Democrats, who believe the government has a role to play in regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, and protecting civil rights and who support the institutional structures Americans have built since World War II.
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Hillary.
NY Times, Hillary Clinton opinion, 28 Mar 2025: Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get? [gift link]
It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.
This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.
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Shorter items.
- Washington Post, Dana Milbank, 28 Mar 2025: As Trump mayhem spreads, MAGA unity cracks, subtitled “From the Wall Street Journal editorial board to Fox News, capitulation is on the way out.”Even the Wall Street Journal, the most conservative of the major newspapers, is being accused of “fake news” by the Trump administration.
- JMG, 28 Mar 2025, from Business Standard: WSJ: Trump Warned Automakers Not To Raise Prices. Do conservatives believe in the free market, or not? Or do they support a dictator setting prices?
- Child labor is just fine! JMG: WH Ends Programs Against Child And Forced Labor
- Now the administration is abducting people on the street, in broad daylight, and the White House ridicules them. Contemptible. JMG: White House Ridicules Arrested Migrant With Meme
- Well, of course. JMG: Axios: Business Leaders Compare Trump To Mob Boss
- JMG: Christian Leaders Meet To Plot Overturning Obergefell. Think about this. She’s putting the “rights” of children to have both a mother and a father, over the rights of already-living adults, and implicitly acknowledging the gay couples might have children.
- JMG: Pam Bondi: “Many Judges Need To Be Removed, They Cannot Be Impartial, They Think They Have Authority”. But they *do* have authority. Does she not understand how the US government works? She thinks she’s working for a dictator.
