Guest post: Empty-headed sycophants whose only talent is fellating his ego
Originally a comment by YNnB on Not far from how it started in Donetsk.
This is a sign of madness and a policy objective at the same time. The repeated utterance of the “51st State” bullshit by yet another official is an indication that this is something Trump is serious about. This is 25th Ammendment level insanity. It amazes me that this is a cabinet-level official behaving like this. It is as clear an indication as any that Trump has surrounded himself with empty-headed sycophants whose only talent is fellating his ego. America is now threatened by its own government. Not only by the erosion of its democratic institutions, and Trump’s accelerating authoritarianism, but also by the installation of idiots in key positions. Mass firings of experienced civil servants is lobotomizing the country’s institutional memory. Getting rid of people who know how things work is a great way to get the things to stop working, and since Trump (and Musk) haven’t bothered to learn how the systems they’re destroying work, they are going to find out the hard way. They actually need some of the people they’re getting rid of, but those who are still around (or who are hurriedly being rehired once the need for their talents is accidentally discovered) are now working for a very different government, a very different country, from the one which originally hired them. How much of the original America will they be able to preserve and protect in the face of Trump’s MAGAmerica? Can they work for America without working for Trump? Working for Trump is working against America. It is clear that you cannot be loyal to both. This is the dilemma that many of those fired are going to be facing.
America’s enemies can see as plainly as the rest of us, that Trump is weakening America. Filling posts with people whose only qualifications are personal loyalty to him, rather than any experience or talent for the jobs they’ve been handed, means the United States is being run by people who don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, who don’t know that they don’t know what fuck they’re doing. His all-consuming narcissism keeps him from seeing beyond his own ego-gratification, and his government reflects and is directed by his petty grievances, and his pathological need to “win.” How can you see where you’re going if all you’re paying attention to is your own reflection in the rear view mirror?
It’s all play-acting from the top down. Trump is the stupid person’s idea of a tough guy. He thinks he’s a tough guy. (I rest my case.) He’s a parody of himself, a living, breathing cartoon character, armed with nuclear weapons. He thinks he only has to issue orders for things to happen, that his words have the power to shape reality. He can certainly shape reality, but not in the way he thinks he can, not even in the way he would like. His botching of the pandemic left hundreds of thousands more dead than should have died. The raking of forests, the “watering” of Califiornia to stop wildfires, his delusions about “developing” Mar-a-Gaza, are all symptoms of his detachment from reality, and his grandiose belief in his ability to control it. Trump thinks he can change the world with an Executive Order and a Sharpie. Canute would like to have a word with him; he knew he did not have the power to stop the rising tide.
It’s strange; even though as a Canadian, I feel threatened by Trump’s insanity in a way that I have never felt threatened before (not even during the mid 80’s with Reagan’s rhetoric, tens of thousands more nuclear weapons, etc*), and I have no idea what’s going to happen, I have come to realize that Americans have it worse. We might live next door to him, but Trump lives in your house. He’s your monster, and he’s not alone. Tens of millions of Americans voted for him, and are cheering him on.
Canadians are uniting and rallying around our shared rejection of Trump’s unasked-for “offer” to make us part of the United States. America is dangerously divided, with Trump well on the way to criminalizing dissent and oppostion to his regime, both of which are unacceptable obstacles to the MAGA project. Trump and his “movement” represent the greatest threat to the United States since the Civil War, because he is a domestic enemy with frighteningly widespread support. A homegrown dictatorship like his is a greater danger to America than overseas dictatorships ever could be. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan could never have been the kind of existential threat that Trump is; yes, the USSR threatened nuclear annihilation, but none of these foreign totalitarian regimes was ever going to invade, take over, and destroy the country. America could only ever do that to itself. And now it has. With any luck, Trump’s greed, narcissism, and stupidity can be turned against him by Americans themselves, that they might save their country from its descent into tyranny. Like I said, America has it worse.
Trump is so easily fooled and so easily led. He has no long game; he has no grasp of subtlety or nuance, no sense of public service, sacrifice, duty, or honour. He is not a genius, he is not a good or decent human being. He is not good for America. His personal corruption goes far beyond Nixon’s, his continuing crimes are more widespread, and corrosive to the very fabric and foundations of America itself. And those who work for him are as corrupt and shallow as he is, otherwise they wouldn’t be working for him. It is naive to think that America’s enemies will not encourage and take advantage of the spreading brain-rot and ineptitude in the American government. Trump and his cronies won’t see it coming, because they’ll all be too busy looking at him.
*My mom, who experienced the Depression as a child, and saw her dad march off to war overseas in WWII, once told me that the only time she was ever really scared was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’m not “there” yet, but I can feel things edging closer.
Very well written.
It is extremely worrying. We keep hoping for someone to step in and redirect him into something less fraught, but instead we seem to be doomed to watch him get away with the most astonishing behaviour.
Thank you tigger.
It’s amazing how much he’s destroyed in less than two months. I’ve heard Trump mouthpiece Leavitt go on about how Trump has done more since being sworn in as President than Biden did in his entire term. Sure, but look at the “doing”. Violating the separation of powers, handing over unprecedented control and influence to an unelected individual with no official government position, who was not put through the confirmation process to which Cabinet appointees are supposed to submit, and allowing said individual and his unvetted, unauthorized employees unfettered access to the private information of all Americans; illegally firing thousands of government employees from departments that are crippled, or shut down completely, without determining their actual purpose and utility to the country’s citizens; these aren’t exactly “accomplishments” in the traditional sense of the term. It’s vandalism on a nationwide scale.
It’s time to wake up. Using the threats against Canada might even help, though highlighting the firing of veterans, and the cuts to the VA might be better. These people volunteered to take bullets to protect your counytry; they shouldn’t be taking more now. Not at the hands of Trump and Musk. You need to isolate and remove the dangerous madman who has taken control of your country, and is turning it into another of his properties, or failed businesses. America is rapidly turning into a failed state. This is what Russia and China have longed for for decades. Trump is doing their work for them, without their having to fire a shot. You need to stop that from happening. Now. But do it for your own sake, if not ours. The country you need to save first is your own. If America returns to sanity and legality, the rest of us won’t have to worry so much. There might even be some Republicans who will oppose Trump if enough of their constituents can be convinced of the danger to them that Trump represents. If they can be shown how they will suffer with Trump’s mounting tyranny, that might stir them from their unthinking support of him.
What happens in America matters to the rest of the world. America has been a power for good. Not always, and not always without self interest, but it has been better than many others are, or might have been. American ideals have been a beacon to much of the rest of the world, which is a better place for having them as examples to strive towards. America’s own history has played out as a continuing struggle to meet, secure, and protect those ideals for more and more of its people, but it is an ongoing process, not a final goal. As those who are still fighting for full acceptance into the community allowed to partake fully in these ideals, their security can never be assured, or taken for granted; they are won, not given. And as we are seeing, they can be lost, squandered, or taken away.
Turning away from, or betraying these values gives comfort to regimes around the world who would welcome America’s failure as a green light to the continued oppression of their own people, and the maintenance of unaccountable tyranny. It would represent the extinguishing of a beacon of hope. Having survived the buffeting of Civil War, World Wars, and the Cold War, it is comprehensible that Americas would blow it out themselves. (Forty years ago, I would have scoffed at such talk as this as corny, American propaganda, naively seeing more similarity between the two superpowers than was really there. If we were at risk of being incinerated by thermonuclear fire, did it really matter which side was “better” or “worse”? Not that the US was perfect; far from it. But I now have fewer illusions as to the horrors of Soviet Communism than I had then, and a greater appreciation of the sacrifices of others, including Americans, that have given me the freedoms I have. We live and learn. Freedom is a journey, not a destination; the more who join in following that path, the better for all. Those who stray or are forced from that path diminish all of us. Ironically, the US is now moving closer to its erstwhile Cold War adversary than it ever was in the days of Reagan.)
The Democrats should be screaming bloody murder before things come to bloody murder. Waiting for things to settle down only works in Trump’s favour. Things aren’t going to “settle down;” they will only get worse. Each illegal, unconstitutional victory emboldens him to further violation. He’s trying to “move fast and break things” before too many people oppose, and stop him. The point is to stop him now, before he’s gone any farther, before his destruction is a fait accompli, before he consolidates his “accomplishments” and solidifies his position. We are watching in realtime the autolysis of the American body politic. Sure, launch actions in the House and Senate, and in the Courts, but go back to your constituents and get them riled up too. Spell out what is at stake: the loss of their country and their freedom. It’s going to take feet in the streets.
This is a coup. This is an attempt to extra-constitutionally restructure the rules of American governance. Your country is in peril. This is going to call for service and sacrifice from ordinary citizens. I believe that that is what it’s going to take. You can’t rely on others to do this for you. You can’t count on Trump’s stupidity, narcissism, childishness, and cowardice to impede his race to autocracy; look how far he’s gotten already. This is more dangerous than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. America was never going to fall to the Japanese, but it is in danger of falling to Trump. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
Here in the UK I groan at how much of our news is dominated by what’s happening in the USA and normally I’d say that the internal workings of a foreign country aren’t a huge concern to us though of course its appalling foreign policy is. However it is impossible to look away at what seems to be a coup. The presidential system is different from our own parliamentary system, where at least the Prime Minister has to stand in the House of Commons and be questioned and harangued by the Leader of the Opposition, but it’s so puzzling that there seems to be so little push back from Democrats and more responsible Republicans.
Someone on FB pointed to this piece by Ralph Nader about the silence of what should be vehement opponents.
March 14, 2025
There are reasons why influential or knowledgeable Americans are staying silent as the worsening fascist dictatorship of the Trumpsters and Musketeers gets more entrenched by the day. Most of these reasons are simple cover for cowardice.
Start with the once-powerful Bush family dynasty. They despise Trump as he does them. Rich and comfortable George W. Bush is very proud of his Administration’s funding of AIDS medicines saving lives in Africa and elsewhere. Trump, driven by vengeance and megalomania, moved immediately to dismantle this program. Immediate harm commenced to millions of victims in Africa and elsewhere who are reliant on this U.S. assistance (including programs to lessen the health toll on people afflicted by tuberculosis and malaria).
Not a peep from George W. Bush, preoccupied with his landscape painting and perhaps occasional pangs of guilt from his butchery in Iraq. His signal program is going down in flames and he keeps his mouth shut, as he has largely done since the upstart loudmouth Trump ended the Bush family’s power over the Republican Party.
Then there are the Clintons and Obama. They are very rich, and have no political aspirations. Yet, though horrified by what they see Trump doing to the government and its domestic social safety net services they once ruled, mum’s the word.
What are these politicians afraid of as they watch the overthrow of our government and the oncoming police state? Trump, after all, was not elected to become a dictator—declaring war on the American people with his firings and smashing of critical “people’s programs” that benefit liberals and conservatives, red state and blue state residents alike.
Do they fear being discomforted by Trump/Musk unleashing hate and threats against them, and getting tarred by Trump’s tirades and violent incitations? No excuses. Regard for our country must take precedence to help galvanize their own constituencies to resist tyranny and fight for Democracy.
What about Kamala Harris — the hapless loser to Trump in November’s presidential election? She must think she has something to say on behalf of the 75 million people who voted for her or against Trump. Silence! She is perfect bait for Trump’s intimidation tactics. She is afraid to tangle with Trump despite his declining polls, rising inflation, the falling stock market and anti-people budget slashing which is harming her supporters and Trump voters’ economic wellbeing, health and safety.
This phenomenon of going dark is widespread. Regulators and prosecutors who were either fired or quit in advance have not risen to defend their own agencies and departments, if only to elevate the morale of those civil servants remaining behind and under siege.
Why aren’t we hearing from Gary Gensler, former head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), now being dismantled, especially since the SEC is dropping his cases against alleged cryptocurrency crooks?
Why aren’t we hearing much more (she wrote one op-ed) from Samantha Power, the former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under Biden, whose life-saving agency is literally being illegally closed down, but for pending court challenges?
Why aren’t we hearing from Michael Regan, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under Biden about saboteur Lee Zeldin, Trump’s head of EPA, who is now giving green lights to lethal polluters and other environmental destructions?
These and many other former government officials all have their own circles – in some cases, millions of people – who need to hear from them.
They can take some courage of the seven former I.R.S. Commissioners — from Republican and Democratic Administrations — who condemned slicing the I.R.S staff in half and aiding and abetting big time tax evasion by the undertaxed super-rich and giant corporations. I am told that they would be eager to testify, should the Democrats in Congress have the energy to hold unofficial hearings as ranking members of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees.
Banding together is one way of reducing the fear factor. After Trump purged the career military at the Pentagon to put his own “yes men” at the top, five former Secretaries of Defense, who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents, sent a letter to Congress denouncing Trump’s firing of senior military officers and requesting “immediate” House and Senate hearings to “assess the national security implications of Mr. Trump’s dismissals.” Not a chance by the GOP majority there. But they could ask the Democrats to hold UNOFFICIAL HEARINGS as ranking members of the Armed Services Committees!
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker can be one of the prime witnesses at these hearings – he has no fear of speaking his mind against the Trumpsters.
On March 6, 2025, the Washington Bureau Chief of the New York Times, Elisabeth Bumiller, put her rare byline on an urgent report titled, “‘People Are Going Silent’: Fearing Retribution, Trump Critics Muzzle Themselves.”
She writes: “The silence grows louder every day. Fired federal workers who are worried about losing their homes ask not to be quoted by name. University presidents [one exception is Wesleyan University President Michael Roth] fearing that millions of dollars in federal funding could disappear are holding their fire. Chief executives alarmed by tariffs that could hurt their businesses are on mute.”
To be sure, government employees and other unions are speaking out and suing in federal court. So are national citizen groups like Public Citizen and the Center for Constitutional Rights, though hampered in alerting large audiences by newspapers like the Times rarely reporting their initiatives.
Yes, Ms. Bumiller, pay attention to that aspect of your responsibility. Moreover, the Times’ editorial page (op-ed and editorials) are not adequately reflecting the urgency of her reporting. Nor are her reporters covering the informed outspokenness and actions of civic organizations.
Don’t self-censoring people know that they are helping the Trumpian dread, threat and fear machine get worse? Study Germany and Italy in the nineteen thirties.
The Trump/Musk lawless, cruel, arrogant, dictatorial regime is in our White House. Their police state infrastructure is in place. Silence is complicity!