WITH TRUMP IN POWER AGAIN WE WILL GET CREATORS, DESTROYERS AND A WHOLE LOTTA LIES
TRUMP’S CABINET PICKS ARE EITHER CREATORS OR DESTROYERS
The creators want to make America the best country for corporate empire building and cutting edge tech. Trump is promising to gut government regulations which could free up entrepreneurial development and make the ultra rich empire builders in the business world like Musk and Bezos and many other mega wealthy guys even richer and more powerful. They got him elected so he will help them in return. What do they want? As close to free rein as possible. Concerns about danger or safety are often the reason that government regulates businesses. The “creators” want to limit regulations which hinder them from rapid and low cost expansion.
When it comes to financial institutions and creating opportunity for empire builders including AI development, Trump seems to be choosing capable and competent people. That’s a good thing overall. But there is a downside. Read on.
MEET THE CREATORS
The Creators are concentrated on Trump’s economic team, including Treasury nominee Scott Bessent, a hedge-fund veteran with Wall Street cred.
- Trump wants to spur economic growth via lower taxes and pro-business policies. Howard Lutnick — chair & CEO of the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, and co-chair of Trump’s transition — was named to a souped-up version of Commerce secretary, as leader of Trump’s tariff and trade agenda. Kevin Hassett, who’ll be director of the National Economic Council — in Trump I, he chaired the Council of Economic Advisers — is popular on the Hill. Trump’s trade representative will be Jamieson Greer, who was chief of staff to Robert Lighthizer — the pro-tariff, China-hawk trade representative in Trump I.
- Trump needs a massive surge in energy production, and greater capacity in adjacent businesses. His pick for Interior secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, will also chair a new National Energy Council, with purview over “ALL forms of American Energy.” Joining him on the council will be his choice for Energy secretary, Chris Wright, a Denver-based energy entrepreneur and fracking proponent.
- Trump needs to juice the AI boom to super-boost growth — and provide more wiggle room for other economic policies. He’s creating the new role of AI and crypto czar for David Sacks, who became a tech-bro hero.
The downside with these creators is that they aren’t committed to helping Americans have better lives. That’s not their desired goal and they don’t have to worry about re-election because they were not elected. They are all about having better lives for themselves and getting government to leave them alone when it comes to their business ventures. Will these business leaders protect Americans from harm if they are not forced to do so by government regulation? We are going to find out. But one thing is certain: Trump is about to make our country even more of an oligarchy than it already was. We are becoming a Kleptocracy- like Russia.
MEET THE DESTROYERS
The Destroyers are the more controversial picks — they are being chosen to disrupt existing institutions, and act on Trump’s anger and grievances. [Axios]
When it comes to his personal vendettas, his deep seated need for revenge and retribution, Trump is choosing people who will obey him when he gives orders even if the orders are not legal, people like
- Kash Patel to lead the FBI. Trump wants to make the FBI an arm of his personal revenge force. Patel has vowed to shut down the intelligence section of the FBI which is the sector that helps us prevent the next 9/11 and other terrorist plots spawned by Americans or foreigners.
- Trump wants Pete Hegseth as head of the military. Hegseth was a Fox News weekend host. He has no experience leading ANYTHING. Trump picks him to lead our armed forces?!
- Trump wants Tulsi Gabbard as head of national intelligence. Gabbard has been an apologist for Putin and Assad and was anti-vaccine during the pandemic when it came to members of the military getting inoculated. Tulsi Gabbard, has been credibly accused of amplifying Russian propaganda and would come to the job having never worked in the intelligence world or served on a congressional intelligence committee.
- And then there is Robert F Kennedy Jr. who is Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services. He has been anti-vaccine in the past but denies that now. He is against fluoride being added to the water which has been hailed as one of the most successful actions of our government in the past to prevent tooth decay. He wants to shift the focus of HHS to preventable disease and removing harmful additives that are in our highly processed food. Hey, that sounds hopeful. But he is a mixed bag because some of his ideas are not grounded in well-researched factual, scientific information.
Many of Trump’s cabinet choices are people who know next to nothing about the government org they are being chosen to lead. That’s probably on purpose. They will be following Trump’s directives. The less they know, the better from Trump’s perspective. Their job will be to deconstruct the government entity they are leading and follow his orders even if the orders might be illegal.
DOGE
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have created something called DOGE (Dept of Governmental Efficiency) which is outside of the government. The goal is to find ways to radically gut government programs that are expensive in order to free up funds. Government waste is a real problem but Elon and Vivek do not know the ins and outs of government programs they are likely to try to gut. What is on the chopping block?
Given that there is a certain amount of funding that cannot be touched, if there are going to be massive cuts, the programs that would need to be cut would probably need to include Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Administration, the ACA. These are some of the most expensive programs our federal government undertakes to help Americans have sustainable lives. These programs are part of a social safety net that literally affects the ability of millions of Americans to stay alive, including millions of Trump supporters.
In short, even though Trump is putting some people with good judgement in roles that bolster American business success, for the federal government to have enough money to provide support for these new ventures and avoid massively adding to our debt, it will likely necessitate reduction in the social safety net. This is probably not what the Trump voters envisioned when they elected him to a second term.
TRUMP’S GOVERNMENT IS SHAPING UP TO BE A KLEPTOCRACY AND KAKISTOCRACY
- What is a Kleptocracy? It’s a government that is opportunistic and where the people in charge deliberately work to enrich themselves and use their wealth to perpetuate their power.
- What is a Kakistocracy? A government run by the worst, least qualified, and/or most corrupt people.
There have always been bad guys in government. Bad guys in government come in a lot of different varieties. Some are well meaning but inept. Some are corrupt and out for themselves. Some are deranged and crazy. Guess what! We are in for all of these forms of unqualified people who will be running Trump’s coming administration. Many of Trump’s cabinet picks have not been chosen because they are competent and capable. They have been chosen for their willingness to burn stuff down and follow Trump’s orders.
Sometimes countries are both inept and corrupt. A country run by thieves and goons. Looks like that’s what is on the way for us in America.
And what’s also coming are more and more lies.
THE WAY TRUMP PLAYS THE GAME- GO ALL IN ON THE ALTERNATE REALITY
Trump is motivated by a powerful, relentless internal drive to be in control of the narrative and his image. He MUST be seen as the top dog. It is not clear whether he is fully out of touch with reality, suffering from dementia, or trying to set up the best position from which to make a deal, but it is clear that he will reinvent and try to reengineer the truth to fulfill his need for domination and control. Trump reshapes reality to suit himself and his narrative. This is very dangerous.
An example of this is the way Trump targeted Hunter Biden and Joe Biden when Joe Biden was running to be president. Trump wanted to be able to say that the Bidens were as corrupt as he is. Trump tried to get Zelenskyy to make up a phony reason to investigate the Bidens. Even when Trump got caught and exposed and then impeached, Trump did not give up on his desire for revisionist history. He continued to target Hunter Biden and his laptop. Trump also enlisted his cadre of goons and sycophants to help him which he does whenever he is trying to hound someone. People who are trying to get on his good side join in the effort to attack his “enemies”.
Instead of following factual leads that open up avenues of investigation, as investigators know they should do and what they in fact do when there is a legitimate investigation, investigators (who know better!), start with the conclusion that Trump demands of them and try to appease Trump by hunting for evidence to support the conclusion he wants. Trump then uses every tool in his toolbox to drive his narrative, which includes conservative media and his online supporters. How many times did we hear about the Biden crime family?! This narrative was part of the Republican effort to smear Joe Biden which was driven by Trump’s desire to paint Biden as corrupt and criminal which would level the playing field since he, Trump, was being indicted and prosecuted for his wrongdoing in criminal and civil courts.
Over and over and over again the Republicans insisted, without evidence, that the Bidens were corrupt. After an extensive investigation nothing was found other than Hunter Biden’s sad, messed up life while he was on drugs and failure to admit he was on drugs when he bought a gun (something that no other person would have been charged with unless the gun had been used in a crime- in the case of Hunter Biden, the gun was thrown away and never used by Hunter Biden.) Have you heard Trump or Fox or other rightwing media apologize for lying about Joe and Hunter Biden? No. Of course not. Trump got the next best thing to evidence of wrongdoing– he got innuendo about the Bidens doing bad stuff. Did you even hear about the end of the Republican probe that delivered nothing? Probably not.
Here is what happened:
Former FBI informant pleads guilty to lying about phony bribery scheme involving the Bidens: A former FBI informant pleaded guilty today to lying about a phony bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden and his son Hunter that became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress. Alexander Smirnov entered his plea to a felony charge in connection with the bogus story, along with a tax evasion charge stemming from a separate indictment accusing him of concealing millions of dollars of income. Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said. [POLITICO Nightly 12/17/24]
The GOP House impeachment inquiry alleges that Biden committed impeachable offenses, but when it comes to saying what he did that deserves impeachment there is no evidence or facts, only innuendo and insinuation. Unlike Trump’s two impeachments which were built on factual evidence of wrongdoing, the Biden impeachment inquiry was a retaliatory use of impeachment. In short, the MAGAs weaponized impeachment to punish the Democrats for impeaching Trump. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what-happened-to-the-biden-impeachment
What also happened is that when Biden dropped out of the race, the need to slime Biden disappeared as well. Trump and the MAGAs set their sights on other attacks.
WE ARE GONNA GET A WHOLE LOTTA LIES IF IT HELPS TRUMP’S POLITICAL AGENGA
Behavior is on a continuum. People are who they are. Trump’s reaction to the New Years Eve truck attack in New Orleans by an American citizen who was radicalized by ISIS and who has a foreign sounding name, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was predictable. He lied about it along with Fox News and Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, to make the attack into an issue about the border which has been part of Trump’s assault on the Democrats.
Federal law enforcement officials have identified an Army veteran, who was born in the United States, as the sole person responsible for the Jan. 1 terrorist attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people and injured many more. But some Republican politicians and social media posts have wrongly claimed or suggested that the attack was the result of illegal immigration.
An inaccurate report the morning of Jan. 1 from Fox News led some, including President-elect Donald Trump, to suggest a link to immigration at the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Even after Fox News had corrected its report, Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson continued to make statements suggesting an unsupported connection between the attack and illegal immigration. [Factcheck.org]
When it comes to the financial world and entrepreneurial ventures we can expect to hear factual information because the truth and reality are essential for good judgement and clear, thoughtful decision-making. But when it comes to anything that Trump is trying to attack for his own benefit, we will get lies and mis and dis information as Trump tries his level best to shape what is happening into the alternate reality he wants. This time Trump has the full support of MAGA Republicans who have been cowed into submission.
There is still one place that is a fact based universe: our courts of law. An attorney who lies under oath can be punished for lying. Rudy Guiliani learned about that the hard way. He has been disbarred in New York and Washington, DC for lying to the court under oath about the 2020 election. Once again Trump skates while his toadies take the hit. Expect more of the same in the next Trump iteration, only this time, Trump has more power and support from wealthy allies who just bought Trump the presidency.