What I'm reading today... January 21, 2025
Only 1,460 days to go...
Well, I got through yesterday … that’s the beauty of tuning out the television and not looking at my phone. I kept my blood pressure steady and had a great time playing bridge.
My sister watched some of the inauguration and wanted to share with me what happened. I couldn’t listen for very long … it was just too depressing. The thought that #FOTUS has released the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper thugs makes me nauseous… but apparently this is what the Trump Voters wanted… #ShameOnTrumpVoters
“These pardons suggest that if you commit acts of violence, as long as you do so on behalf of a politically powerful person you may be able to escape consequences. They undermine — and are a blow to — the sacrifice of all the officers who put themselves in the face of harm to protect democracy on Jan. 6.” ~ Alexis Loeb, a former federal prosecutor who supervised many riot cases
A little piece of trivia shared with no comment: On January 19, 1953, 44 million viewers tuned in to watch Lucy and Ricky welcome Little Ricky into the world on the TV show I Love Lucy. This was the equivalent to 72 percent of American households. The episode beat the viewing figures of Eisenhower’s presidential inauguration the next day, which attracted only 29 million viewers.
What I’m reading today….
What Will It Feels Different Than 8 Years Ago
The true test of an expatriate is holding down a job, learning a language, paying taxes, passing a local driving test, negotiating the culture, truckling to unbudgeable authority…There is also an existential, parasitical, rootless quality to being an expatriate, which can be dizzying: You are both somebody and nobody, often merely a spectator. I always felt in my bones that wherever I went, I was an alien.
Standing Up to Donald Trump’s Fear Tactics
America’s leaders and institutions must remain undeterred. They will need to show courage and resilience in the face of Mr. Trump’s efforts as they continue to play their unique roles in our democracy. Vigilance is everything: If institutions surrender to the fear and coercion — by bending the knee or by rationalizing that the next right actions aren’t worth the fight, stress or risk — they not only embolden future abuses; they are also complicit in undermining their own power and influence.
Trump tests limits of presidential power with Day 1 barrage
Within hours of taking office, Trump dared the courts, Congress and his fragmented opposition to stand in the way of what could be his most enduring legacy: a radical expansion of presidential power….There, Trump signed a barrage of executive orders, announced that Canada and Mexico are likely to face 25% tariffs beginning Feb. 1, and pardoned roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants. Trump also commuted the sentences of 14 Oath Keepers and Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy— an extraordinary act of clemency for far-right extremists who sought to overthrow the government on Jan. 6.
Trump Grants Sweeping Clemency to All Jan. 6 Rioters
Beyond the effect the pardons and commutations will have on the lives of those who received them, they also served Trump’s mission of rewriting the history of Jan. 6. Throughout his presidential campaign and after he won the election, he has tried repeatedly to play down the violent nature of the Capitol attack and reframe it, falsely, as a “day of love.” Trump’s actions were in essence his boldest moves yet in seeking to recast his supporters — and himself — as the victims, not the perpetrators, of Jan. 6. By granting clemency to the members of a mob that used physical violence to stop the democratic process in its tracks, Trump gave the imprimatur of the presidency to the rioters’ claims that they were not properly prosecuted criminal defendants, but rather unfairly persecuted political prisoners.
Over the next few years, MAGA leaders will launch attack after attack, perpetrate outrage after outrage, commit injustice after injustice with the goal of keeping us disoriented, demoralized, and demobilized. Rather than exhausting ourselves reacting to each new indignity, we must expose the throughline between attacks and remain consistent and determined. We do that by telling a single, clear story about who we are, what our opposition intends, why they scapegoat, and how we build power to defeat them.
Heather Cox Richardson - Letters from an American - January 20
Walter Schaub, former head of the Office of Government Ethics under Trump in his first administration, who left after criticizing Trump’s unwillingness to divest himself of his businesses, wrote to CNN: “America voted for corruption, and that’s what Trump is delivering…. Trump’s corruption and naked profiteering is so open, extreme and pervasive this time around that to comment on any one aspect of it would be to lose the forest for the trees. The very idea of government ethics is now a smoldering crater.”
It’s Trump’s Messy, Dangerous World Now
The president, as commander in chief, has the power and responsibility to determine America’s future security. If he is careless with that awesome power, the United States could very well find itself in another world war. But if the president understands his power he can provide strong leadership and build alliances that steer the world out of war. The key to peace is strength, and the key to strength is leadership.
Civil servants brace for a second Trump presidency
This pressure is real: During Trump’s first presidency, a number of federal civil servants I talked to described their mental health declining, and declining morale, productivity and innovation at work. Among a sizable proportion of the people I spoke with, the pressures at work became too much; about a quarter of those I spoke with quit during the first Trump administration.
The Gilded Age of Trump Begins Now
Historically, presidents have used their inaugural addresses to pivot from the blue-sky promises of the campaign trail to the more sober language of governing. Rather than dwell on campaign vows they may struggle to keep, they reach for gauzy and unifying language. This, however, is not Trump’s forte... the world already knows what four years of a Trump presidency looks like. Serenity, peace, and predictability were not the hallmarks of his first term, and they are unlikely to describe the second any better.
Factchecking Trump’s inauguration speech, from inflation to healthcare
Trump claimed that the US experienced “record inflation” that he said was caused by “massive overspending and escalating energy prices”. The facts: US inflation peaked at a four-decade high in summer 2022, when it was 9.1%. But the highest inflation rate in the country was 23.7% in June 1920. The most recent data shows that as of December inflation had fallen to 2.9%.
From the standpoint of January 2021, when Trump was forced out of office in disgrace following a failed coup attempt, yesterday’s events are unthinkable. But as we learned the hard way, voters have short memories and are extremely susceptible to disinformation and manipulation. As a result, a man who never should’ve been near the White House in the first place is getting a second chance to leave America in the ditch.
Quote of the day:
“At some level, we have to accept that America is not the nation we thought it was. Americans are not the people we hoped they were. After all we have been through as a nation in 250 years, we find we have not learned, or grown, or matured, as much as we thought. The ‘laboratory of democracy,’ the nation that welcomed the ‘tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breath free,’ the nation that gave the world the ‘greatest generation’ who destroyed Naziism, Fascism, and made America the champion of human freedom, that nation freely chose Donald Trump… Many of the values most cherished by liberal democracy are under assault, both here and around the world. There is no certain future for American democracy and liberal values as we know them.” ~ Bill Svelmoe