Federal Government Mayhem: Week Seven of the Stupid Coup

The language might sound similar but the difference between being rational and assuming Trump and Musk are rational is the difference between recognizing what's going on and pretending what's going on is sensible or sort of normal and not a howling rampage of destruction and destabilization that belies all their justifications and much of a future for the federal government of the United States of America. I took a bunch of stuff to the thrift store yesterday afternoon, and my car radio came on and played the PBS News Hour on the short drive over (and I'm putting in that thrift store/car business as an excuse so you know I wouldn't do that intentionally). A reporter phoned it in to an anchor, and they made it sound like maybe the fact the Trump Administration had ordered the Education Department closed "for safety" was maybe because it was really was closed for safety, aka you should credulously accept at face value the thin excuses these criminals throw out, again and again, even while they're obviously intent on mayhem and seething with hate for all things that benefit ordinary people.

The latter is actually a more rational explanation more aligned with the facts, including the fact that they'd told employees to get out by 6pm. Sometimes the truth is outrageous, and you just have to describe it thus, and take the risk that it makes you sound partisan or alarming. If reality has departed from the norms, so should your descriptions of that reality. Also the Trumpists have already said they intend to eliminate the education department, which was widely reported last week, and it would behoove PBS to add some more facts to their auditory syrup, even if it makes said syrup lumpy. I am tired of mainstream media pretending that neutrality and gullibility are the same thing. They need to stop saying this is about efficiency– or as NBC recently put it "cost-cutting efforts"--because the government actually had experts on costs and expenditures and efficiency in place, who were shoved aside or just not noticed by the new kids in town, and the collapse of the US economy will be expensive, for thee and for me if not for them. DOGE was and is deranged Emperor Elon and his juvenile courtiers on a rampage through what they do not understand, not rendering anything more efficient, any more than hitting you over the head with a crowbar makes you more efficient, unless maybe you falling into a coma or dying so they can take all your stuff is the current definition of efficiency. You are definitely cheaper while dead, in that you no longer require anything. And they want a lot of the federal government dead, and their tactics are about as refined as crowbar to cranium.

Speaking of which even those federal workers who haven't lost their jobs must be in a state--terrified, exhausted, anxious, furious, confused, and that must be part of the agenda. How can anyone work in that environment? All those departments with unqualified--and in many cases sleazy nutcase--new bosses must be utterly demoralized and conflicted about whether to obey illicit orders or keep their heads down and try to continue trying to carry out their mission and serve the public. NBC News recovered its capacity to describe reality when Natasha Korecki took on the topic, writing "NBC News spoke with 20 federal employees across agencies. Spanning the country, these workers lost their jobs, watched co-workers lose them or endured what amounted to a Goliath joyously stomping on David. In interviews, federal workers — many of whom are veterans — told of overwhelming stress, personal crises, suicidal ideation, rapid weight loss, prolonged lack of sleep, panic attacks and visiting the emergency room after a mental breakdown."

What is the difference between what Trump is doing and what a hostile foreign power that had taken over would do? I assume a hostile foreign power would be more coherent and consistent, because the flip-flops on tariffs and shutdowns and firings and all the lost court cases and the spectacle of it all is so messy. It's weakening the US's global standing--why should anyone ever trust the US again?--and so maybe it fits in. It is sabotage of a functioning federal government, and they're just starting on social security. And they have put a bullseye on the US Post Office, which they say is not profitable, which is a sign they have no clue what a service is, which is something you pay for and what the government is supposed to provide.

Jamelle Bouie, who's about the best writer left at the New York Times, proposed an explanation or rather just described accurately what so many media people can't bring themselves to say: "considering his assault on virtually every government function that helps ordinary people — suggests another dimension to his revenge tour. It is almost as if he wants to inflict pain not just on a specific set of individuals but on the entire nation as well." America is the woman who dared to leave him; he's the obsessed ex-boyfriend bent on punishing her for daring to consider her needs instead of his. Every interpretation of what's going on as part of some clever agenda underplays the sheer chaotic destruction going on.

But there are some sparkly highlights in this soggy slough of despond, and one is that Trump did a completely lawless little promotion for Tesla that was fun for a few reasons. One is that it's a sign that the Tesla Takedown protests and all the arson and attacks around the world are working because the stock is tanking and the brand is becoming toxic. Sales are down 70% in Germany and not doing well in a whole lot of other places, so this stunt is a sign that they're worried and what we're doing is working. A lot of Musk's wealth is Tesla shares, and he may just be waking up to the fact that it's a retail product and the public has the option of not ever buying it again. But the fun part is that Trump, who incidentally can't drive, is not exactly the ideal salesman for a product hitherto purchased by people who care about the climate. I'm pretty sure he's not going to get lots of MAGA shopping for Tesla and he's not exactly helping more likely customers feel good about the brand, and it's just a sign of how clueless they are that they did this dumb stunt. The fact that the public can undermine Musk's wealth and power may serve as a warning to other oligarchs that their wealth is not independent of the systems we too are part of, and we retain some agency.

That's a bright spot. There are so many dark spots and bloodstains. Someone should start a casualty count page or site for all the people who are dying as a result of the Trump/Musk rampage. The nonprofit news site Pro Publica just reported that as a result of the destruction of USAID, "One million children will go untreated for severe malnutrition, up to 166,000 people will die from malaria and 200,000 more children will be paralyzed by polio over the next decade, the memos estimated. The programs were cut anyway." There is an actual counter for deaths from AIDS at PEPFAR Impact Tracker, which notes the suspension of support for the PEPFAR program "impacts 222,000 people receiving daily HIV medication, 224,000 HIV tests performed daily, and essential services for vulnerable populations." When I looked, it had counted more than 20,000 deaths as a result, so far, including more than 2000 infant deaths. Time Magazine reports that the sudden stop to sharing US intelligence information with Ukraine stranded a bunch of soldiers, who were then killed by the Russian military, so you can add those hundreds of deaths to the tally.

Meanwhile, they have also suspended a fantastic $1 billion win-win program that supported schools feeding kids on stuff local farmers grew, and this will create hungry kids and financially wrecked farmers. In a way the highest purpose of the federal government is to spend money--our money--on us and on things that benefit us, and a lot of things that benefit us benefit us indirectly, like global public health and climate action and education. It's longterm investment in well-being. (We can have the conversation about all the terrible things the federal government spends money on another time.) The Pro Publica article mentioned above gives a superb example of how that works, looking at tuberculosis, which "kills more than 1.25 million people a year and is already the deadliest infectious disease on the planet. New infections are expected to surge by 30% more as a result of the terminations, and disruptions to treatment will cause people to develop drug resistance, making any future treatment options far more difficult and costly, the memo said. That global surge will inevitably lead to more cases in the U.S. USAID staff forecast there would be around 80 additional cases of multi-drug-resistant TB here each year because of the cuts across USAID, the memo added. Even a few dozen cases would cost the U.S. millions in tax dollars; it takes nearly $500,000 on average to treat someone with the most drug-resistant forms of the illness."

Being cheap is expensive, in other words, but only if you care about the longterm consequences of your actions, and they clearly don't. Trump and Musk have decided the purpose of the federal government is to stop collecting taxes--the IRS is being axed--especially from rich people and stop providing services. Stop existing except as a police force to keep down the people who might rise up in their misery against the repression and the outrages. And maybe a military to invade Canada or whatever the gutted military is supposed to do under Pete Hegseth.

Speaking of drunks who have been accused of abusing women, a story that surfaced yesterday is a reminder that this administration pretends it's protecting cis-gender women by attacking trans women and pretends it's protecting Jews by attacking people who speak out about the genocide in Gaza. But if it wasn't obvious enough they don't care about Jews or women, yesterday the New York Times ran a story that opened with this sentence, "The Justice Department’s pardon attorney was dismissed a day after she refused to recommend that the actor Mel Gibson, a prominent supporter of President Trump’s, should have his gun rights restored, according to the attorney and others familiar with the situation." Gibson is a notorious antisemite and misogynist who pled no contest to domestic violence charges, which is how he lost his right to own a gun (the tapes of his abusive phone calls to the victim feature some pretty spectacular racism, and maybe he shouldn't have tried to get a gun through his friend Donald, because then we wouldn't all be delving into why he shouldn't have one and why he's an incredibly disgusting person).

But speaking of trans girls and women, I'm reminded I don't sing Pro Publica's praises enough--it's a nonprofit outfit of top-notch journalists--and it had a story with these two sentences in it, "Now, more federal agencies are pressing down on Maine than there are transgender girls competing in girls’ sports in the state. Only two transgender girls are competing this school year, according to the Maine Principals’ Association." But six federal agencies are after them. If I sound furious it's because I am. Well maybe amped up and exasperated by the failures in the middle--Democratic leadership, legacy media--and the outrages on the right. But I'm not defeated and I won't quit. I know a lot of people are in the same boat--frustrated by the lack of leadership in the Democratic Party (despite individual senators and congresspeople who are in fact standing strong and speaking up, along with Governor Pritzker). And looking for where we can participate in deciding the future of this country or at least stop the mayhem.

I do think a lot is going on, and I also think that not all of it is visible yet. The people complaining that "no one is doing anything" or saying "why are there no protests" are not looking around, because plenty of it is visible, including the big crowds for the Stand Up for Science demonstrations Friday. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are drawing big crowds when they go out and speak, and there have been strong protests across the country, in big cities and small towns. Obviously all this is not enough, but it's a way people are exercising their democracy and opposition muscles and getting ready, ands showing people that we can take a stand, and that if they care they're not alone. It's so far been pretty fractured--this protest for trans rights, that one for Ukraine, and so forth. But maybe it's united by what we're against: them.

The lawsuits continue to tumble forth in all magnificence. Chris Geidner, whose Law Dork newsletter is an excellent source of commentary and interpretation, wrote a rebuke on BlueSky "to the "they won't follow the court orders" people, declaring "First of all, you're wrong! The administration *is* following many of the court orders. What's more, they're showing their understanding of the validity of court orders by seeking stays pending appeal when they lose." Lawyers are writing increasingly furious briefs and going to court to stop lots of stuff. Here's the opening declaration for a case filed this week: "The Order is an affront to the Constitution and our adversarial system of justice. Its plain purpose is to bully those who advocate points of view that the President perceives as adverse to the views of his Administration, whether those views are presented on behalf of paying or pro bono clients. Perkins Coie brings this case reluctantly."

This essay falls into doing something I see a lot of us doing--focusing on the outrages, exclaiming over them, letting them fill up the space of our attention, but I promise to spend more time on more constructive, creative, or at least less predictable topics going forward. But since I wrote it, I'll hit send and wish you all the best and hope you're doing your best to exercise the powers that you have on behalf of the vulnerable and the valuable.