The Failure and The Fall

When I heard a few days ago that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was going to visit the White House to meet with American President Nope Still Not Going There donald trump to discuss arrangements to keep the U.S. committed to Ukraine's defense against Russia, I knew it was going to be a disaster.

We've long known that trump adores/worships Russia autocrat Putin - that trump seeks to emulate Putin's corrupt ruling style - to the point of defending him on the global stage in spite of America's own interests. There's been stories, rumors, even criminal investigations into trump's ties to Russia that exposed how extensive those ties were (and still are). With regards to which side trump took in Russia's prolonged and expanded war on Ukraine ever since 2022, it was clear trump was rooting for Russia even parroting every pro-Russian talking point in opposition to the real world.

Whatever Zelenskyy was hoping to get out of this meeting revolved around confirming at least security agreements in Ukraine's favor leading to any legitimate peace negotiations, making sure that Ukraine won't get abandoned at the table. Leading up to all of this were efforts from trump and his foreign handlers trying to squeeze a reckless deal for Ukraine's rare minerals to the tune of $500 billion, a public and vulgar attempt at extortion.

So this meeting, whatever hopes people had going in... well, that got stomped into dust real quick. This is trump we're talking about: his idea of "the art of the deal" is to bully and yell at his opponents until they cave and give him something to crow as a victory.

The bullying came in different directions, not only from pro-Russian media attendees asking skewed and insulting questions at Zelenskyy but also from Vice President "Weird Boy" JD Vance making accusations that allowed trump to ratchet up his own threats (via NPR):

Trump told Zelenskyy, "You're not acting at all thankful" for the support Zelenskyy's country had received from the United States, adding that the Ukrainian leader had been disrespectful and telling him, "You're gambling with World War III."

Zelenskyy tried to object, saying he has "all the respect for your country" and saying, "I said thanks," as Trump raised his voice to speak over him...

The argument came at the end of a lengthy question-and-answer session with reporters, after Trump defended his approach with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was trying to broker a deal between two parties.

"I'm not aligned with anybody. I'm aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world, I'm aligned with the world, and I want to get this thing over with," Trump said.

Vice President Vance then defended Trump's approach as "diplomacy."

That elicited a strong response from Zelenskyy, who said Putin had broken previous deals. "He broke the ceasefire. He killed our people... What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?" said Ukraine's president, who has been seeking greater security assurances as part of any deal to end the war.

At least Zelenskyy left having retaining his nation's mining rights and natural wealth from falling into trump's greedy mitts. On the other hand...

In terms of actual diplomacy, this was a disaster for the United States. It exposed trump as a bully - yet again - on the international stage, and this time with arrogance and recklessness that our allies can no longer ignore. It showed trump and his administration are wholly on the side of Russia, which is the clear villain in all of this tragedy, and signals the growing likelihood that trump will flip almost 80 years of American pro-Western policy to turn us into Putin's next puppet state alongside Belarus and Georgia (and what Putin wants to do to Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Baltic nations, and the rest of Eastern Europe).

There was this dread during trump's first term disasters that he was going to pull the United State out of NATO, a long-standing alliance that assured peace between the major Western nations since the 1950s, all to appease Putin who is desperate to dissolve NATO in order to rebuild his dream of a Russian Empire. Previously, he didn't have full control of his Cabinet or the Joint Chiefs who were likely horrified to lose NATO allies. This time, trump is in full control and all he needed was an excuse like "being disrespected" for everything the U.S. (under Biden) did to support Ukraine since 2022.

After today, the NATO nations have to understand they are on their own. The newly elected (likely) German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said after his party's victory this past weekend that it's clear "this administration does not care much about the fate of Europe." Whatever dominance the United States had as a superpower in the post-World War era - our political influence, our ability to maintain global alliances across every continent - is fading fast as trump reveals that most of the nations out there can no longer rely on America.

Doubling down on this has been the recent freezing of USAID financial, medical, and transactional support of nations and peoples in need of aid. trump's open disdain of "shithole countries" has translated into an immediate refusal to provide any support, leading to broken services overseas and broken promises as people start dying from this cruelty (via Alan Yu, Allison McManus, and Laura Kilbury at American Progress):

The forced takeover comes after two weeks of attacks on foreign aid. On January 20, President Trump signed an executive order freezing nearly all U.S. foreign assistance for 90 days, claiming a need to reassess taxpayer dollars spent abroad. Days later, Secretary Rubio issued further guidance that forced U.S. officials to issue “stop work” orders to contractors, nongovernmental organizations, and aid groups; in response to strong opposition, Secretary Rubio later issued a waiver for core “life-saving” humanitarian needs, but its scope remains ambiguous.

In total, the Trump administration’s actions the past two weeks have caused unnecessary chaos and disruptions across the world. U.N. agencies, international relief organizations, and U.S. aid groups are scrambling to assess and mitigate the damage to lifesaving programs and more. While some of the administration’s efforts are already facing legal challenges and strong pushback from members of Congress—several of whom were denied access to USAID headquarters this week—these actions have real and lasting consequences for Americans and people around the world.

Trump’s attacks on aid are not about cutting waste or making the government more efficient; they’re about using blunt force to fulfill Project 2025’s pledges to put to death U.S. foreign assistance spending and “serve the President’s agenda...” But slashing the U.S. foreign assistance budget is a textbook example of penny-wise, pound-foolish. In fiscal year 2023, USAID managed a budget of $43 billion, comprising about 0.7 percent of the total U.S. budget. Extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, by comparison, would represent the equivalent of more than nine USAIDs each year: $400 billion in costs that would disproportionately benefit the ultrawealthy...

The broad range of U.S. foreign assistance programs—from lifesaving global health programs to alliance-building security partnerships—represent cost-effective ways to ensure global safety, security, and stability that do not require the United States to send troops into war. Foreign aid accounts for just 1 percent of the federal budget, and by disrupting it, the administration invites costly litigation and job loss throughout the foreign assistance sector...

Nothing kills trust like abruptly halting equipment, training commitments, and funding. Foreign governments that count on U.S. assistance now see their agreements suddenly upended by a political decision in Washington. Such harmful actions are “own goals,” both undermining trust and partnership with recipient countries and sending a clear message of unreliability and untrustworthiness around the world. This weakens U.S. global power—not just the so-called “soft power” of foreign assistance but also the required foundation of trust, durability, and respect to rally foreign partners’ support and action when it comes time to achieve U.S. goals. These include competing with China; combating transnational threats such as climate change, narcotics trade, and pandemic disease; and addressing the next global macroeconomic crisis...

The United States - for all the sins we've committed over the decades, the questionable wars and military interventions, the economic dominance we've imposed that kept poorer nations struggling to serve our needs, the cultural hegemony that made America arrogant and ignorant on the global stage - was (no longer is) a legitimate leader among nations trying to keep the peace and perform real humanitarian work. Now, no nation can trust us nor should they rely on us. Other superpowers like China and Russia - whose goals on the global stage are not humane nor friendly to their regions - are likely racing to fill the void of leadership that trump created, and the chaos that's coming will be unavoidable.

Today was the day the American Empire - not so much an empire of nations as it was an empire of ideas - fell from grace. The damage being done even if we free ourselves of trump's - and the Far Right sadists' - corrupt rule will last at least this generation and the next.

I apologize to the rest of world: I know there are a sizable number of Americans - broken and spiteful - gleefully reveling in this destruction. There were a near-equal number of Americans who tried to prevent this, and there's arguably a growing number of Americans who were disaffected before now waking up to the damage done. But all the guardrails were torn down in my nation the last 40 years, and now we're all falling over the cliff into the rocky shoreline.

I call on America's allies, our long-standing friends across every continent, to stand against the evils trump and his wingnut lackeys are inflicting on all of us, do everything possible to break and end his corruption before it ruins us all.

Erasing America

Update: Thanks to Steve In Manhattan over at Crooks & Liars for including this blog in Mike's Round Up! Please take a look around, and I am getting close to my 2,500th post so keep an eye out for anything special I'll do for that moment (haven't figured it out yet).

Ta-Nehisi Coates warned us, years ago:

His political career began in advocacy of birtherism, that modern recasting of the old American precept that black people are not fit to be citizens of the country they built. But long before birtherism, Trump had made his worldview clear. He fought to keep blacks out of his buildings, according to the U.S. government; called for the death penalty for the eventually exonerated Central Park Five; and railed against “lazy” black employees. “Black guys counting my money! I hate it,” Trump was once quoted as saying. “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” After his cabal of conspiracy theorists forced Barack Obama to present his birth certificate, Trump demanded the president’s college grades (offering $5 million in exchange for them), insisting that Obama was not intelligent enough to have gone to an Ivy League school, and that his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, had been ghostwritten by a white man, Bill Ayers.

It is a shameful yet common view among racists that Blacks are "unqualified," a long-standing myth since the (first) Civil War that Blacks can't be literate, intelligent, or successful. Frederick Douglass spent his adult life as abolitionist defending his eloquence, writing skills, and self-learning. It's a myth that defined the segregationist Jim Crow era that prevented Blacks from achieving better employment, and reaching higher ranks in the military until the Second World War; when the more vicious racism of the Nazis compelled America to look for our better angels.

Even after all of the efforts of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s - after all the attempts to equalize educational and employment opportunities - that racist world-view is what got trump his electoral chances to enter the White House and impose his fearmongering and rage onto the nation's already broken psyche.

To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies. The repercussions are striking: Trump is the first president to have served in no public capacity before ascending to his perch... that is the point of white supremacy—to ensure that that which all others achieve with maximal effort, white people (particularly white men) achieve with minimal qualification. Barack Obama delivered to black people the hoary message that if they work twice as hard as white people, anything is possible. But Trump’s counter is persuasive: Work half as hard as black people, and even more is possible.

As Coates noted, trump entered the White House as the least-qualified person ever - since arguably Andrew Johnson, who at least had political skill to win elections in his career - only because he exulted his whiteness. trump was a disaster as a businessman, filing more bankruptcies than people have had hot dinners, and yet marketed himself as a deal-making "genius" all to get people to buy his next scam. 

If a black man had even filed once for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, he'd never get another loan to start a new business ever again. But trump did repeatedly, even after banks realized he was a money pit from which they'll never get their interest back. 

If a black man got exposed as a sex offender, his political career would end in a heartbeat. trump exposed himself repeatedly, was even found liable for sexual assault that the judge equated to rape, and most of the media and national leadership ignored it all while enough Americans voted for the monster to gain - and regain - the presidency.

All of the warning signs were there that trump is a monster, and yet his whiteness became the very thing that lifted him into power. And now, he's using that power to drag the rest of us backwards into our racist past to rebuild an America that was never all that great. As Adam Serwer noted this weekend at the Atlantic (paywalled):

Since taking office, Trump has rescinded decades-old orders ensuring equal opportunity in government contracts and vowed to purge DEI from the federal government, intending to lay off any federal worker whose job they associate with DEI. Yesterday evening, Trump fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q Brown, and replaced him with a lower ranking white official, a retired three-star Air Force officer named Dan Caine. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had previously attacked Brown as an unqualified diversity hire based on the fact that he is Black. Trump’s Department of Justice has implied that it will prosecute or sue companies that engage in diversity outreach. Elon Musk’s DOGE is attempting to purge federal workers “that protect employees’ civil rights and others that investigate complaints of employment discrimination in the federal workplace,” the Washington Post reported. Colleges and universities are being threatened with defunding for any programming related to DEI, which the free-speech organization PEN America has noted could include “everything from a panel on the Civil Rights Movement to a Lunar New Year celebration...”

Under the Trump administration, schools within the Department of Defense system that serve military families—American service members are disproportionately Black and Hispanic—have torn down pictures of Black historical figures and removed books from their libraries on subjects such as race and gender. This record, within a school system entirely under the administration’s control, offers an alarming preview—one in which a historical figure like Harriet Tubman is no longer a welcome subject in educational settings because she was a Black woman.

An OMB memo ordering a federal-funding freeze illustrates the ideological vision behind these decisions. The memo states that the administration seeks to prevent the use of “federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies,” Acting Director Matthew Vaeth wrote. Equal opportunity in employment is described here as “Marxist,” because it affirms what the desegregators see as an unnatural principle: that nonwhite people are equal to white people, that women are equal to men, and that LGBTQ people deserve the same rights as everyone else...

It should be noted that Marxism - and Communism, and even Socialism, all equated to Liberalism by the Far Right - is the go-to dismissal of civil rights, painting the Civil Rights movement as a Soviet plot to undermine American greatness (it was also accusations by the South African Apartheid system to suppress Blacks in their country). The Far Right didn't want to accept those equality gains of the 1960s, and they are desperate to undo everything LBJ, hell everything Truman and FDR and even Teddy Roosevelt ever did to advance the rights of all of us.

If the Great Resegregation proves successful, it will restore an America past where racial and ethnic minorities were the occasional token presence in an otherwise white-dominated landscape. It would repeal the gains of the civil-rights era in their entirety. What its advocates want is not a restoration of explicit Jim Crow segregation—that would shatter the illusion that their own achievements are based in a color-blind meritocracy. They want an arrangement that perpetuates racial inequality indefinitely while retaining some plausible deniability, a rigged system that maintains a mirage of equal opportunity while maintaining an unofficial racial hierarchy. Like elections in authoritarian countries where the autocrat is always reelected in a landslide, they want a system in which they never risk losing but can still pretend they won fairly...

Serwer seems to think that these acts of erasure by trump and his wingnut allies will only go as far as resetting our nation back to the segregated days of Jim Crow. But I see something more ominous, tied into the efforts by trump and his cohorts to undo birthright citizenship. They may be currently aiming at the children and families of Latino immigrants, but going after those rights opens the door to allowing whoever is in power - and right now it's that racist bastard trump - to expand denying citizenship to so many others.

I wrote about this before, when wingnut punditry and politicians were talking about undoing the 14th Amendment years ago:

What could happen then in a world where Citizenship is not an automatic given based on birth but instead vulnerable to the whims and interests of whichever political party is in charge of Congress, the White House, and the Courts?  Nowadays the Republicans can call you "Un-American" and that would be just another insult.  If the 14th Amendment were gone... A Republican With Authority can call you "Un-American" and mean it... which would also mean no rights under the law, no protection from immediate arrest, no Habeus, no home, no life...  This is the true danger of what the Republicans are proposing to do by getting rid of the 14th Amendment.  They claim it'll be to get rid of unwanted illegals... but also consider that the Republicans have no love of Muslims right now, and not much love for Blacks, and very little love for Liberals... and so on, and more, and also...  Repeal the 14th Amendment and NO ONE would be safe from the charge of being "Un-American."

We're looking at a reality where trump - backed by a cowardly Republican-controlled Congress that won't stop him and a supine Supreme Court that's already enabled trump's criminality - can erase the rights of any group he despises, which is a lot of us who aren't rich, white, and male.

With citizenship gone, the minority groups across America - Blacks, Latinos, Asians, even women (the GOP will try to carve out exemptions for White women who register Republican, no doubt), and even the handicapped (trump has a serious hate-on for them) - will lose their right to vote which Republicans hope would ensure their control of government forever, will lose their rights to own property, will lose any possibility of getting good jobs at good wages because companies will ignore or abuse them, will lose any chance at higher education (and see their basic education weakened to the point of uselessness), will lose any standing before the courts where in theory (alas, not in practice) we're supposed to be equal before the law, which was the major horror of the Dred Scott decision, when Taney proclaimed Blacks - even freedmen - had no rights. That was why the birthright citizenship clause was formed in the first place. 

It won't matter how qualified a Black or Latino or Asian person will be with their education, their experience, their genuine skills. It won't matter how qualified a woman will be with her education, her experience, her genuine skills. It won't matter how qualified a military veteran or handicapped person will be for those jobs or educational opportunities offered through the civil service. They will all lose their standing compared to White men who have not enough education, not enough experience, not even the skills for the jobs and opportunities that are out there. All because trump and his ilk are convinced "unqualified" minorities are taking all the good jobs away from "deserving" White men who aren't competent or deserving at all.

In this version of trumpian dystopia Black- Latino- Asian- and Native Americans, the poor and starving, the women and families fighting to feed and care for their own, will have no recourse but to submit to every demand and folly the powers that be - the patriarchy of mediocre white guys - can squeeze them and get away with it. All because mediocre White guys can't abide sharing anything with others they can't perceive as being human. They will all be erased - from the history books, from our archives, from our rollcall of legends and heroes - to allow these mediocrities the delusion that they alone are superior over everyone, even fellow Whites who won't play to those fantasies.

It's been noted before: White Privilege White Grievance is a hell of a drug.

And our nation is truly going to suffer for this. Any and all competency and expertise we tend to see in our civil service - our communities even at the municipal and county levels, where the lack of federal aid and quality of service will be felt most - will disappear in a wave of cronyism and hackery that would make the Spoils system of the 19th Century seem quaint.

All because trump and his racist allies cannot see the beauty and strength of a diverse and unified community that America could be.

That long arc bending our history towards justice is no longer tied up in a pretzel. It is now a solid u-turn back to the dark ages of ignorance, racism, and fear. The next thing we'll see is the campaign of violence and terror that defined the horrors of the Jim Crow years, and arguably a nation caught up in a tyranny of martial law under the worst White man to ever sit in the Oval Office.

Gods help us.

Downsizing America

Update: Thanks as always to Batocchio for including my blog at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Remember to think positive, call your lawyers to sue Musk for stealing our personal data, and ignore any emails telling you there's a "fork in the road."

It's gotten ugly during the first two weeks of President trump Musk raiding and hijacking federal agencies (via David Ingram at NBC News):

The billionaire tech magnate has never been elected to office or been confirmed by the Senate for a high-level government job, but in the span of a few days, Musk has still gained access to sensitive federal data through his position as head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency project, or DOGE, to push a far-reaching agenda and potentially spark a constitutional crisis. 

Musk has embraced Silicon Valley’s most notorious instincts to “move fast and break things” in a lightning battle to muscle into the computer systems and power structures of federal agencies. As he did with his corporate takeover of Twitter in 2022, he has brought in a team to assess details such as office building leases, budget line items, vendor contracts and the performance of individual employees — with the stated intention of radically downsizing the organization...

There are deep concerns among many Democrats and some Republicans that Musk — and his staff members who are not government workers and are not bound by the same ethics and rules that apply to federal workers — are acting in secret, without accountability and potentially against the law in the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government...

DOGE’s targets include the U.S. Agency for International Development, which closed its headquarters Monday in anticipation of shutting down entirely. Musk’s DOGE has staff members working at the Treasury Department, which pays the government’s bills, and he has said on X that he wants to slash or overhaul several other agencies, including the General Services Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Education Department...

Inside the offices of USAID, more than 1,000 staff members and contractors have been fired or furloughed because of a near-total freeze on foreign assistance, and the agency’s security leaders were put on administrative leave Saturday after they tried to prevent DOGE employees from accessing secure systems, NBC News has reported. At least some of the DOGE employees had insufficient security clearances, sources have said.

None of this is legal. Musk is operating at a level in trump's administration that deserved a vote of approval from the Senate, operating without any level of accountability, and operating against a slew of laws and constitutional authority.

As Ingram noted, Musk is bulldozing through our federal agencies on a mission to downsize our government like he took over Twitter... which he turned into a disaster through mass firings, questionable policy changes, and a willingness to let the worst of the worst take control under his guidance. Musk - like many other CEO oligarchs and high-income pundits - is obsessed with the idea that "government should be run like a business".

There are two problems with that mindset. First, a government is not focused on generating profits - which businesses do, and for the most part that's how capitalism works - government is focused on performing public service (as Grover Cleveland noted: "Public office is a public trust.") so it's not about saving money as it is about effective customer service to the millions of Americans. Second, Musk - and that epic business failure donald trump - are not the best people to fucking run government. 

It's being documented - even as Musk and his techbro interns (gods, one of them barely graduated high school) try to hide from public scrutiny - how sloppy these office raids are being conducted in terms of cybersecurity. There's evidence Musk's teams are inserting bad code into existing networks that will make them more vulnerable to future attacks. They're violating every privacy requirement in the CFR and US Code books. Musk is literally mismanaging our nation's major institutions, and no one fucking voted for him to do that.

In the process, Musk is fulfilling the fantasy of every Far Right wingnut out there - from Grover Norquist on down - who dreamed of shrinking government small enough to drown in Grover's - and now Elon's - bathtub. They're convinced that there's too much waste in the federal system, and they believe it's all tied into to oversized staffing and bloated personnel budgets. This is why trump ordered a freeze for new hires and why Musk is pushing workers to retire early on questionable "deferred resignation" offers. They don't notice or care that a lot of agencies are understaffed - that's not where the bloat is, the wasteful spending is from corrupt vendor contracts - and by gutting many of these agencies of trained, qualified employees is going to make public service that much worse.

Treating the federal government like it's a new acquisition for a venture capital vulture capitalism firm is a bad idea. Mass firings - which you can see Musk is heading, because he's done it before - do not lead to improved services, only to overwhelmed staff that remained which now have to juggle more duties, and which worsens performance. Any attempt to refill those agencies will suffer from trump's need to staff people who are loyal to him, getting people not qualified for those duties.

The loss of jobs cascades across the employment spectrum: places that relied on a major employer - like a regional federal agency that staffed 200-500 people - will see less income coming in, gutting local businesses that will have to fire their own employees, which adds to the downward spiral. All of that job growth that happened under Biden is going to stop, unemployment is going to go up, and without any genuine investment from public spending - as Musk grabs every penny from a hijacked Treasury - our economy is going to tank.

All of this is happening because a Republican-controlled Congress refuses to fight trump - or Musk - on this issue, relinquishing any authority they have with "the power of the purse" to enforce the spending and staffing they already voted for. It's been up to the agencies' unions or outside advocacy groups filing lawsuits to try and stop Musk's rampage. And even that might not work as these lawsuits will end up before a conservative - and trump-friendly - Supreme Court that may well expand their definition of presidential powers to eliminate any checks or balances the Constitution demands.

This is going to get ugly, as fast as Musk can break everything.

Gods help us.

Current Status: My Writing Efforts

Just as a quick note, since I can no longer submit blog articles to the FWA Royal Palm Literary Awards, I submitted two unpublished short stories - one involving vampire bikers, and a sci-fi flash fiction - for consideration instead.

In the meantime, my trip to last weekend's Sunshine State Book Festival yielded zero sales for Funny Locations or any of the Strangely Funny anthologies I had on display. The guy on my right sold seven of his books, the guy on my left sold four. 

/deep heartbroken sigh 

I gotta work on my marketing skills ('cause I don't have any).

Will blog later tonight.