- Adam Lee on our current age of “stupidity” and whether or not the stupid can bring down society;
- The commentariat: Catherine Rampell on the naked Trump; Robert Reich on Trump’s “national emergencies”; Paul Krugman on Trump’s war on American greatness;
- Short items: JD Vance and Chinese “peasants”; censoring black history; Elon Musk calls out Peter Navarro; Vance perpetuates a discredited claim about Social Security fraud; Trump defies a law meant to rein in his first-term abuses; and how Republicans want to fool you into thinking tax cuts are free.
Here’s a piece that might provide one. A big picture.
OnlySky, Adam Lee, 7 Apr 2025: The coming dark age of stupidity, subtitled “The future is not so bright.”
He begins by setting the stage.
The 2024 election damaged America in ways that will reverberate for generations to come. While every American will feel the pain, the targeting of scientists and intellectuals points in a direction reminiscent of China’s Cultural Revolution — a self-inflicted lobotomy on a national scale.
Elon Musk and his gang of frattish techbros are purging federal employees on a massive scale, with all the care and caution of a ketamine addict waving a chainsaw over his head. They’re decimating the specialists who safeguard us and keep society running smoothly, from park rangers to meteorologists to cancer researchers to public health experts, with no concern for the damage they inflict. If anything, they’ve shown a sadistic glee in firing people who’ve devoted their lives to public service.
Trump’s administration is choking off federal funding for science, arbitrarily banning whole categories of research, and withholding grants across the board to punish universities that don’t bow to his whims.
And so on. ICE, an anti-vaccine crackpot, and now an economic war against the world.
I use the term “stupidity” advisedly. It’s the only word that adequately captures the scope of what’s happening in America.
Not ignorance, he decides; not poor judgment.
The mindset I’m referring to is more malicious than either of these. It encompasses both ignorance and poor judgment, but also an aggressive disdain for the very concept of expertise. It’s a mindset which refuses to admit that some people can know more than others. It refuses to admit that reason and evidence should guide our decisions, or that there are facts which don’t bend to political ideology.
Here we are back to conservative, tribal ideology.
Instead, this mindset holds that inconvenient facts can be dismissed by sheer force of will. It holds that those who have the power can do as they like, have no need to study the problem or consult with anyone, and will never have to worry about the consequences. “Stupidity” is the term that best connotes this arrogant and willful rejection of reality.
This poses real questions about the survival of the human race. It seems less and less likely that we can achieve a global culture that will reach out to the stars, as much of science fiction has assumed will happen eventually.
All this poses the question: Has intelligence become a suboptimal survival strategy? Are we entering a new dark age where smart people will be persecuted and hunted?
No; intelligence still pays dividends.
The good news, such as it is, is that the economy runs on science and technology, and that’s not going to change. We’re not going back to a society based on rural agrarian labor and animal husbandry, or on people toiling in coal mines and sweatshops. Those eras are gone for good. No president can undo that, any more than he can give orders to the tide.
Then several examples of what may seem to be merely looking on the bright side. But if I think about it, I’m pretty sure this is where I end up. The “stupid” can hurt themselves, but they can’t bring down all of society.
This means that economic rewards will still accrue to those who value knowledge, education, and the scientific method. In fact, the more that stupidity dominates our politics, the greater the advantages will be for those who choose a better path.
On the other hand “the foolish will feel the full weight of their folly.” Example, and conclusion:
When education budgets are slashed, libraries are hobbled by book bans, and teachers are barred from teaching American history, science, and other ideologically inconvenient subjects, the result will be an education system that’s scarcely better than no education at all. It will leave its graduates totally unequipped to compete in a modern economy. Those who vote for this degraded system and send their kids through it are dooming them to a hardscrabble future. Meanwhile, people who still value education enough to seek it out will have a massive advantage when competing for high-paying jobs.
Obviously, this strategy won’t shield us from every danger. When society makes awful decisions, we all pay a collective price. No single person can turn back that tide. But no matter how chaotic the world becomes, we have the power to make choices about how to respond. For as long as stupidity reigns supreme, it’s even more crucial to make the best choices possible for you.
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The commentariat:
Washington Post, Catherine Rampell, 8 Apr 2025: Who will tell Trump he’s naked?, subtitled “The president’s advisers are falling over themselves trying to excuse tariffmageddon.”
Who will tell the emperor he’s buck naked? Not his Cabinet. Not his donors or corporate executives. And certainly not Congress.
After President Donald Trump launched his multifront trade war — leading to one of the worst market massacres since World War II — his closest confidants and aides have been unwilling to call him out or rein him in.
Worse, some have egged him on.
During media appearances, every Trump underling agreed that his “Liberation Day” rollout was brilliant — even as they offered contradictory stories about the supposed purpose of the tariffs or the administration’s plan.
On Sunday, economic adviser Kevin Hassett said the tariffs were a temporary negotiating ploy, to be lifted as soon as countries acceded to Trump’s (unspecified) demands. “More than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation,” he said. On another network, at virtually the same time, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested the tariffs would be permanent, because Trump needs them to revive U.S. manufacturing.
She goes on, with different stories from Peter Navarro (him again!), Brooke Rollins, and Scott Bessent.
Emboldened by the sycophants and cowards who refuse to speak the truth, Trump insists Americans should “hang tough,” swallow his “medicine” and stoically endure the pain he is inflicting. But calls for collective sacrifice ring hollow when voiced by a guy who went golfing as the economy melted down.
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On this last point.
Robert Reich, 7 Apr 2025: The real reason we’re in a national emergency, subtitled “Trump is creating national emergencies to gain more power. In the process, he’s subjecting millions to real harm.”
It’s hard to remember that only 10 weeks ago, the American economy was quite good, our foreign relations were on the whole positive, we were on the way to dealing with climate change with subsidies for wind and solar energy, and we still lived in a democracy.
Today, all that is disappearing. The economy is in acute danger, our relationships with traditional allies are collapsing, we’re subsidizing fossil fuel polluters, and we’re turning into a dictatorship.
This has happened in part because of Trump’s continuing creation of fake national emergencies.
[ … ]
All told, since taking office on January 20, 2025, Trump has declared six national emergencies, including a “National Energy Emergency” and an emergency declaration against Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
He has also in effect declared an emergency to justify his wholesale leveling of significant portions of the federal government and civil service and his virulent attacks on the pillars of civil society — our universities, the media, science, law, and the arts.
And he’s terminating government agencies, like a portion of FEMA, that would mitigate real disasters.
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Paul Krugman, 8 Apr 2025: Attack of the Quack-Industrial Complex, subtitled “Another front in the war on American greatness”
Another litany of the damage the Trump and his administration are doing.
By now it’s obvious to anyone willing to see — which many people still aren’t — that Donald Trump is, in practice, waging war against American greatness. And the attack is taking place on multiple fronts.
For the past few days everyone has understandably been focused on tariffs and the destruction of the world trading system. But in the long run, and maybe much sooner than that, the dire impacts of tariffs may be matched by the havoc Trumpism is wreaking in other areas.
DOGE and SSA. RFK Jr.
We don’t know how many Americans will die prematurely because public health is now being run by a man who rejects medical science, but it’s likely that the number will eventually run into the millions. As the chart at the top of this post shows, America had substantially lower life expectancy than other advanced countries even before Covid, and the gap widened when Republican hostility to vaccines led many Americans to refuse Covid shots.
With other examples. Then:
Why is this happening? Is it about anti-science ideology, or is it about greed?
Yes.
Two months ago I wrote about how the partisan divide had become a divide between people who focus on facts and reason, on one side, and those who prefer to rely on feelings, on the other. At that point layoffs of scientists were just getting started, but I predicted that
the current purge of language will eventually turn into a purge of people, with the administration firing anyone suspected of being more loyal to science than they are to Donald Trump.
Alas, I was right.
There’s more. Medical snake oil; Dr. Oz; cod liver oil. Concluding:
I’d like to offer some reassurance that we will eventually recover from this self-inflicted calamity. But I can’t. Even if research funding is restored, even if NIH and other agencies try to rebuild, U.S. science will have suffered huge long-term damage. So will the world trading system, which will never be the same even if the Trump tariffs are reversed, and the effectiveness of the federal bureaucracy, which will be impaired for many years even if DOGE’s depredations stop.
So much wreckage, achieved in so little time.
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Short items.
NY Times, 8 Apr 2025: China Criticizes JD Vance for Calling Its People ‘Peasants’, subtitled “A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry denounced the vice president’s comments as ‘ignorant and impolite.'” (via JMG)
Not racism or xenophobia, I think, so much as ignorance and arrogance.
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Salon, Tatyana Tandanpolie, 8 Apr 2025: “It’s sickening”: Trump order censoring Black history displays a “fundamental misunderstanding”, subtitled “‘You can’t make America great again if you don’t acknowledge all the things that America is'”
This, on the other hand, *is* racism.
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Even Elon Musk calls out that Trump advisor who cites a fake expert and inspired Trump’s tariffs.
Mediaite, 8 Apr 2025: Elon Musk Escalates Feud With Trump Adviser Peter Navarro in Scorched Earth Rant: ‘Dumber Than a Sack of Bricks’
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Washington Post, 8 Apr 2025: Vance’s whopper on alleged Social Security fraud, subtitled “The vice president falsely claims that 40 percent of calls to a retirement program involve fraud.”
No, it was this: “Approximately 40 percent of Social Security direct deposit fraud is associated with someone calling SSA to change direct deposit bank information.” When Vance’s original claim was debunked, he kept repeating it, again and again. Can he not tell the difference? Or is the claim simply an excuse to cut Social Security? Is that why they’re so obsessed with fraud, everywhere and in every direction? Or is it standard conservative thinking that most people are bad? Provisional conclusion: these false claims of fraud are made as excuses to cut programs Trump and MAGA don’t like.
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Washington Post, 8 Apr 2025: Trump is openly defying a law created to rein in his first-term abuses, subtitled “Withholding congressional funding led to Donald Trump’s first impeachment. Now the White House won’t post their spending moves.”
Of course he is.
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LA Times, Thomas Kahn, 7 Apr 2025: Republicans want to fool you into thinking a massive tax cut has zero costs
This is why the wealthy contribute to Republicans.
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Music. Listening to Sibelius #2. It’s very nice… but I still think the final movement is overwrought. I’ll find a version on YouTube to link tomorrow.
