It's payback time...
Week 5 Begins - only 1,434 days to go...
When I was growing up, my family was very active in our local neighborhood church. It was non-denominational, probably something like one of those New England congregational churches. Mother and Dad were active in all church activities; my sibs and I had perfect attendance at Sunday School, sang in the choir all through high school, etc. Our lessons every week were about character and how to live your life according to Christian principles. I still remember the eight character traits that were embedded in our Sunday School curriculum: faith, truth, courage, vision, magnanimity, sportsmanship, service, and sympathy.
One of the Bible verses that was often verbalized, was “turning the other cheek.” My mother pulled that card often, whenever I was angry and wanting to strike out, at whomever had “wronged me.” It’s from the Sermon on the Mount, which (note to Christian Nationalists) is fundamental to the Christian religion.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” ~Matthew 5:38-40
I suppose because of my upbringing, I was utterly god-smacked, when I was watching the news in 2021 and heard a clip from a speech that Donald Trump, Jr. was making at the Turning Point USA gathering in Phoenix:
“We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference — I understand the mentality — but it’s gotten us nothing. Okay? It’s gotten us nothing.”
Clearly, he didn’t have the same upbringing, that I had. But I think it highlights, who his father is and how he operates.
For #FOTUS, it’s all about revenge and retribution: you hit me, I hit you back; eye for eye. (I do love Gandhi’s quote: An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.)
Trump learned his behavior from his father and also from his mentor Roy Cohn. Even Melania said during the first presidential campaign, “when you attack Donald, he will punch back 10 times harder." That was Cohn's modus operandi for many years before he taught it to Trump.
Five years ago, Republican senators acquitted then-president Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial. Trump immediately vowed retaliation against those who tried to hold him accountable before the law for his actions. “It’s payback time. He has an enemies list that is growing by the day.”
“Weak people get revenge, strong people forgive, and intelligent people ignore.”
~Albert Einstein
Donald Trump acts tough and plays the strongman, but I agree with Einstein. It’s weak people that get revenge. A friend sent me this essay, which describes Trump as a “weak strongman.” It’s well worth reading. The Weak Strongman
Trump plays a strongman on television, and he is a talented performer. But the strength consists solely of the submissiveness of his audience. His performance arouses a dream of passivity: Trump will fix it, Trump will get rid of our problems, and then we will be free. And of course that kind of Nosferatu charisma is a kind of strength, but not one that can be brought to bear to solve any problems, and not one that matters in the world at large. Or rather: it matters only negatively. As soon as Trump meets someone with a better dictator act, like Putin, he submits. But he can only enable Putin.
I think the only thing we have seen these last four weeks has been Donald Trump’s payback time and his weakness. The sad thing is, his payback is hurting the wrong people and his revenge tour isn’t slowing down.
“The world cannot be dismissed by the weak strongman. As a strongman, he destroys the norms, laws, and alliances that held back war. As a weakling, he invites it.”
So much for payback time.
"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." ~Confucius
Thought for the day in honor of his birthday…
“It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct he is bound eventually to be right.” ~George Kennan
What I read every day…
Quote of the day:
“When you have Pete Hegseth negotiating and giving away the American and Western position or the Ukrainian position before you even sit down with Vladimir Putin, that's not even ideology. That's just incompetence.”
~David Brooks
What I’m reading today…
How Mitch McConnell Blew America’s Best Chance to Stop Trump
For a few weeks in January and February 2021, McConnell held a unique power to stop Trump, once and for all. That was the brief time when McConnell seriously considered voting to convict Trump on an impeachment charge relating to his role in the January 6 insurrection. Had he done so, and had he used his peerless vote-whipping prowess to scrounge up the nine additional Republicans necessary to convict the then disgraced ex-president, Trump could have been constitutionally barred from ever again holding “any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.” His vengeful quest to return to power could have died in its infancy.
Can We Please Stop Calling These People Populists?
What’s going on here is not a working-class revolt against the elites. All I see is one section of the educated elite going after another section of the educated elite. This is like a civil war in a fancy prep school in which the sleazy kids are going after the pretentious kids. Look at who is running this administration. The president is an Ivy League-educated real estate developer. The vice president is an Ivy League-educated former venture capitalist. Elon Musk, the emperor of DOGE, is an Ivy League-educated billionaire…And here’s the crucial fact about many of them. Many of them are not pro-conservative; they are anti-left. There’s a big difference. They do not focus on building and reforming the civic institutions that conservatives believe are crucial to any healthy society. They focus on tearing down whatever institutions the left occupies.
Who’s Running the Defense Department?
Americans might wonder what all of this performative inanity has to do with arming, training, feeding, and housing the most powerful military in the world, or how any of this showmanship makes the United States safer and more capable of deterring its enemies and fighting for its interests. But Hegseth, like most of Donald Trump’s other nominees, knows that his job is not to administer a department but to carry out Trump’s cultural and political vendettas.
Order to Drop Adams Case Prompts Resignations in New York and Washington
The agency’s justification for dropping the case was explicitly political. The No. 2 official, Emil Bove III, argued that the investigation would prevent Mr. Adams from fully cooperating with Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown. Mr. Bove made a point of saying that Washington officials had not evaluated the strength of the evidence or the legal theory behind the case. Trump DOJ Is Explicitly Political in Dropping Case Against Mayor Adams
There’s a Term for What Trump and Musk Are Doing: How regime change happens in America
Although Trump and Musk insist they are fighting fraud, they have not yet provided evidence for their sweeping claims. Although they demand transparency, Musk conceals his own conflicts of interest. Although they do say they want efficiency, Musk has made no attempt to professionally audit or even understand many of the programs being cut. Although they say they want to cut costs, the programs they are attacking represent a tiny fraction of the U.S. budget. The only thing these policies will certainly do, and are clearly designed to do, is alter the behavior and values of the civil service…. What precisely replaces the civil-service ethos remains unclear. Christian nationalists want a religious state to replace our secular one. Tech authoritarians want a dictatorship of engineers, led by a monarchical CEO. Musk and Trump might prefer an oligarchy that serves their business interests. Already, DOGE has attacked at least 11 federal agencies that were embroiled in regulatory fights with Musk’s companies or were investigating them for potential violations of laws on workplace safety, workers’ rights, and consumer protection.
US retail sales post biggest drop in nearly two years
U.S. retail sales dropped by the most in nearly two years in January, likely weighed down by frigid temperatures, wildfires and motor vehicle shortages, suggesting a sharp slowdown in economic growth early in the first quarter.
Despite this onslaught of gaslighting, aggression and attacks on facts, don’t assume we are powerless to respond. Beyond the growing body of lawsuits that slow the constitutional violations, we need to seek reliable independent sources of information and knowledge.
Trump’s cuts hit red states, triggering GOP pushback
A growing number of GOP lawmakers are trying to intervene with the Trump administration and are weighing legislation to circumvent the changes. But with the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Management and Budget moving at a rapid clip and flouting federal law to carve up the government, the lawmakers face monumental challenges in getting the White House to spare their constituents from the ax.
The Erasing of American Science
Nearly every scientist I spoke with for this story told me that they expect national health to decline under the new administration’s leadership. Attempts to defund science on the whole could affect work across fields, throttling drug discovery, clinical trials, climate adaptation, and more… By deleting data and imposing restrictions on the ways in which new data can be collected, the government has also set a worrying new standard for its reach into American research. DOGE’s war on “waste” looks suspiciously like a war on science.
Elon Musk’s DOGE launched its website. It was hacked within days
The DOGE website is still very much a work in progress. The “Savings” tab of the page currently reads “Receipts coming soon, no later than Valentine’s day 💘” (And yes, the emoji is part of the government website message.)
Trump Is Starving the National Endowment for Democracy
NED’s dismantling would be far more than a cost-cutting measure. It would symbolize a major change in U.S. foreign policy, undercutting the notion that democratic ideals foster U.S. global strength and influence. Instead, the Trump administration would be signaling that it no longer believes that promoting democracy around the globe is in the national interest.
NC Senate approves bill to cut healthcare costs by curbing government mandates
The North Carolina Senate approved Senate Bill 24 Wednesday evening, a measure aimed at curbing the state’s high healthcare costs by requiring any new government health insurance mandate to be offset by the repeal of an existing one.
What I am watching…
“Countries have friends. …We leaned on the Europeans during the Cold War by basing missiles there, by basing bases there. We have friendships. When 9/11 happens, the Europeans are there for us. And you rely on these friendships just as you would in life. And the Trump administration does not have friendships. They have bullying relationships. And for J.D. Vance to meet with the head of the AfD and not the prime minister of Germany is kind of appalling.”
“Missing the larger picture…”