Bill Clinton: He's interested in people who are loyal to him 100% of the time no matter who gets hurt. He believes that his supporters have no confidence whatever in the federal government. And Lord knows he's done everything he could to destroy that confidence.
That last part is important and it’s a key to GOP success. They constantly denigrate the government and then go to great lengths to make sure it fulfills all of their negative descriptions. Trump has taken this to a new level by using the con artist’s tactic of convincing people that they can believe him or they can believe their lying eyes about his own performance, which resulted in tens of millions of people believing that his adminstration was the greatest in world history and that the election was stolen from him. It means that they are now in a position of saying government sucks only under Democrats which is a big advance.
Whether that will work for anyone but Donald Trump is unknown but I have my doubts. He is a very skilled pathological liar and I’m not sure others will be able to pull it off. But I have no doubt they will try. Right wing politics is no longer about ideology, that’s been proven. If they ever really cared about small government or individual freedom or traditional values, we now know they no longer do. (I’m actually not sure they ever did.) Everything’s gone but their hatred of “the other” and their love for power and money.
The share of Republicans who say that they’re worse off financially than they were a year ago is already down 15-points since the election. By February we’ll see an historic economic miracle.
This is why the “kitchen table issues” approach to politics has less salience than we like to think. So much of it is just tribalism, with “the economy” standing in for “your team bad, my team good.” It’s not nothing, but it isn’t everything either.
Oh, and by the way, Democratic views will change as well, but if history holds it will be much less dramatic. It’s the Republicans and GOP leaners who fully deny reality in service of their partisan identity. And, needless to say, they are helped immensely by the Wingnut Industrial Complex.
Musk, Ramaswamy today gave us first “DOGE” roadmap; as I understand the key steps:
1) Put DOGE ppl at each U.S. agency, then use “advanced technology” (AI?) to have them identify “thousands” of regulations to cut across government
2) Give Trump a list of “thousands” of regs to cut across the government, & have him approve their elimination
3) Identify “the minimum number of employees” necessary to maintain each agency’s core function, which should be lower once 2 is complete. (NB: Musk oversaw ~80% reduction in X headcount)
4) Cut the federal employees – Musk/Ramaswamy call for for severance packages/ “incentives for early retirement,” but we have no details
5) Cut programs where where Congress’s specific spending authorization has lapsed (This category includes VA health care, NASA, antipoverty programs)
6) Approve a “temporary suspension of payments” amid “large-scale audits” (Details, specifics hugely unclear)
7) Assert POTUS authority to stop spending w/o Congressional approval by challenging 1974 budget law on impoundments All seems to be *w/o Congress*
If they actually try this, and I see no reason why they wouldn’t, everything will be challenged in the courts. At this point, I think the best we can hope for is to take up the Trump method and pick friendly venues and delay, delay, delay. Maybe the Democrats can actually win back some power in two years and put a stop to some of this.
After all, Trump may never have to run again but Republicans in congress do. The vast unpopularity of this garbage, assuming the media does its job and the Democrats get their voters to protest energetically against this, could create a 2010 level tsunami.
Apparently, CNN called him for comment on the news that the ethics committee had found he had group sex with the underage girl in a separate incident. This was at 11:30 AM, they told him that they would be going with it at 12:30. He withdrew at 12:24 on Xitter. Yeah.
That popping sound you hear is Kevin McCarthy opening a bottle Dom.
It had been quite a morning. The Bulwark reported that Gaetz had been telling the Senators, “Look, I’m not going to go there and indict Liz Cheney, have storm troopers bust through the studio door at MSNBC, and arrest Anthony Fauci in my first week,” which wasn’t exactly reassuring. The mere fact that he made that list and then issued a disclaimer “in the first week” was a little disturbing.
They did everything they could:
Trump advisor tells @jonkarl the message to Senate Republicans who try to oppose confirming Matt Gaetz: "If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it" @ABCpic.twitter.com/fJpU62jHB9
The Yahoo News-YouGov poll, which asked people to indicate whether they viewed these individuals favorably, also included questions about businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who were asked to run an external cost-cutting group; and South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
Only Rubio, Kennedy and Gabbard were viewed with approval by at least 4 in 10 Americans. None of the eight individuals was viewed favorably by a majority of respondents; three — Hegseth, Gaetz and Noem — were viewed favorably by only 3 in 10 Americans.
Why are their numbers so high? They are all jokes who have no business being anywhere near power. Not that it will matter. I’m going to bet that they will all be confirmed without too much trouble when all is said and done. I guess there’s a chance that Gaetz might be defeated because his own people loathe him but I actually doubt it. We’re going to have to wait for Trump to fire them.
This I learned from 35 years working in the corporate world: Employees who start hearing “shareholder value” had best update their resumes. Layoffs are coming. The same could be said for “efficiency.“
Season 2 of “The Apprentice Goes To Washington” will feature not only the firing of cabinet officers and West Wing advisers from “central casting,” but the wholesale purging of federal employees who have dedicated their lives to serving the American public no matter which president’s photo hangs on the office wall.
Except the Project 2025 team isn’t using euphemisms to signal the coming purge. They submitted a bill under the pretext of dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the Dismantle DEI Act on Wednesday. Sen. J.D. Vance’s June announcement alleges his bill means to “restore merit” to government hiring practices, and to ensure only “the most qualified candidates” get hired.
“We’ve got now a World Wide Wrestling Executive who’s gonna run education,” said recently reelected Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D) of New Mexico. “We’ve got a Fox News commentator who’s gonna run the military for us!” she said in exasperation:
Call it the Catch-2025.
President-elect Donald Trump’s Republican loyalists were called out Wednesday by a frustrated Democrat over a paradox concealed within their promised purge of federal government professionals.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) told the Oversight Committee she was confused by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s bill to dismantle Diversity, Equity and Inclusion protections on the grounds it burdened the federal government with unqualified workers.
Her problem? Trump’s chosen appointees.
“If this is really about making sure that we have qualified individuals inside the federal government,” she asked, “Why is the president-elect choosing absolutely unqualified Cabinet secretaries to be at the head of every single agency?”
Stansbury, a former federal employee with the Office of Management and Budget, issued a damning rebuttal to Vance’s Dismantle DEI Act of 2024 which was brought to a mark-up without a hearing, as is usual.
The New Mexico Democrat noted the bill would amend the Civil Rights Act and the federal code as well as require a list be drawn up of federal workers and contractors no longer eligible for such employment.
She called the requirement “blacklisting” and likened the bill to policies pushed by the notorious Sen. Joe McCarthy, the notorious perpetrator of America’s 1950s “Red Scare.”
“Welcome to the new House Committee on Un-American Affairs and the new McCarthyism,” she said. “We have arrived here today with this bill.”
How many of you actually watch Congressional Hearings? Y’all should be paying attention. Take 5 minutes and listen to @Rep_Stansbury in there fighting the good fight ✊🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/0N3hvKxrUf
Season 2 of “The Apprentice Goes To Washington” will be filled with characters whose major qualification is television experience. In Season 1, Donald Trump hired only “the best and most serious people” for his administration. And them he fired them one by one. See, it’s not good TV to fire them all at once. You have to build the suspense, keep the audience coming back week after week to see who goes next. That’s how you keep your ratings up.
For Season 2: “Trump Unbound,” the aging actor elected to play a president on TV hopes to bring higher production values to the show by casting more television veterans (The New York Times):
President-elect Donald J. Trump, whose rise was fueled by reality TV stardom, is once again turning to television to recruit the key cast members of his new administration.
The latest was Dr. Mehmet Oz, the former syndicated TV host, who was picked by Mr. Trump on Tuesday to oversee Medicare and Medicaid.
Dr. Oz follows Pete Hegseth, who could move straight from co-hosting the weekend edition of “Fox & Friends” to overseeing 1.3 million active-duty troops as defense secretary, and Sean Duffy, a Fox Business host and former star of MTV’s “The Real World,” who is now poised to run the Transportation Department. (His wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, is Mr. Hegseth’s erstwhile “Fox & Friends” co-host.)
Mike Huckabee, Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, hosted a live Fox News show for seven years. Tulsi Gabbard, whom Mr. Trump has said he plans to nominate for national intelligence director, was a paid Fox News contributor until August. His choice for border czar, Tom Homan, was a contributor at the network until last week.
At this rate, the second season of the Trump administration may end up with more television stars than the first one.
Stars in quotes. The reality-show president is obsessed with surrounding himself with characters straight out of central casting, with his ratings, and with “crowd sizes,” but he has not cast particularly popular actors to fill roles in Season 2. Perhaps that is by design. We’ll start an online poll to predict who is first to hear “You’re Fired.”
The Associated Press provides this callback to Season 1:
Choosing TV personalities isn’t that unusual for the once-and-future president: A number of his first-term choices — John Bolton, Larry Kudlow, Heather Nauert and Mercedes Schlapp, were all on TV — mostly also on Fox. Omarosa Manigault Newman, a confrontational first-season member of Trump’s NBC show “The Apprentice,” was briefly at the White House before she was fired.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who ran Trump’s 2016 transition team until he was fired, said that eight years ago, Trump held “Apprentice-like interviews at Bedminster,” summoning potential hires to his club in New Jersey.
On a call on Tuesday organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, Christie said this year’s Cabinet choices are different than 2016’s but it’s still “Donald Trump casting a TV show.”
“He’s casting,” Christie said.
Yale historian Timothy Snyder (“On Tyranny“) explains that Trump’s cheesy reboot of the fictional “The West Wing” represents the only reality Trump knows. It’s all fiction, even his concocted image as a successful businessman.
Timothy Snyder is spot-on about the fictional reality the serial lying psychopath inhabits. 😳👇 pic.twitter.com/PulaxsUyUc
Trump turned daily COVID-19 briefings into more airtime for his vacuous ramblings. Trump needs the spotlight like plants need sunlight, and he withers without it. Sadly, the media — Fox News and beyond — is more than happy to coddle him. And his fans are more than happy to tune in. God help us.
This is what people are saying on Fox News in the wake of Mike Johnson passing a law that bans transgender Rep. Sarah McBride from using the women’s bathroom:
Jeanine: Whether he has his— thing or not, I don't want him in my bathroom. I don't want to think about him. I don't want to wash my hands near him. pic.twitter.com/lHOgAvNbzr
I can’t properly convey how horrified I am by this grotesque bigotry. It is reminiscent of what I heard people say about Black people living in the south in the 1960s. And frankly, I don’t think anyone would have said this out loud on Fox News even a few months ago. Their evil is unleashed.
I fear for the safety of Sarah McBride, right there in the US Capitol. They’ve lost all sense of humanity.
JV Last at the Bulwark discusses the fact that lefty influencer/podcaster Cenk Uyger (with whom I once had a passing acquaintance back in the early blogger days) seems to be cozying up to right, specifically Elon Musk. I won’t attempt to question what his motives might be — it could be any number of things. But Last makes an observation with which I totally agree out of hard won experience:
You know about horseshoe theory, right? It’s the idea that the political spectrum is not a straight line but a U-shape, where the far left and far right end up nearly touching.
Usually when people talk about horseshoe theory, it’s in terms of policy preferences—how the policies of the far left and far right can start to overlap. But I think it’s driven much more by temperament.
If you are the kind of person who tends toward conspiracy theories, you will gravitate toward the far end of the horseshoe. The same is true for people who are driven by grievance.
And also for populists. If you disdain expertise and despise the opinions of “elites” who happen to know a lot more than you do about, say, military logistics or the actuarial side of force planning, then you will tend to make common cause with people like Elon Musk. Or Musk’s boss.
My advice is to keep this in mind when evaluating potential allies. Just because a person seems like they’re on one side at the moment doesn’t mean they’ll stay there. Personalities and character matter.
Once you understand that, it’s not all that hard to predict who will end up where on the horseshoe.
No, it is not. I have learned that the people who have this particular personality and temperament can be very appealing when they’re on your side. They’re often fighters who are brave enough to do and say things that others won’t. But in the end, you can almost always bet that their sense of grievance, attraction to conspiracy theories or hatred for elites will drive them to make common cause with the right. It’s happened over and over again.
Temperament matters more in politics than you think it should.
