Trumped! How to Dismantle a Democracy

[Trollheart]

As America, and the world, faces a second term of the most divisive US President since, well, ever, most of us are frightened, most are bewildered as to how this happened, and some are making plans to exit the country they have up till now called their home. The sad fact is that no matter where you live, this presidency is going to have serious consequences for us all, and impact upon the entire world. Donald Trump is the loosest of cannons, and it isn't stretching credulity all that far to think he may be the man to bring about the destruction of our planet by kicking off a third world war, though we all hope it won't come to, literally, the nuclear option for the man now sitting in the Oval Office. But even if we are able to breathe a sigh of relief in four years' time as he leaves the White House, hopefully never to return, what can't be ignored or denied is that there are going to be sweeping changes made right across the USA, and those changes are for the most part going to impact the rest of the world. From foreign policy to defence, from federal hiring to climate change, um, changes, and from the economy to education, I fear and truly believe that the USA is going to look a whole lot different in 2029 to the one we see - and in which some of us live - today.

I'm as surprised as anyone - and equally not surprised - to find Trump taking the White House again, but as I've said in various threads, I blame this not so much on the American people, on the voters (though they of course have put him where he is now) but on the other party, the so-called liberal party, or if you will, and can stand such black-and-white concepts, the good guys. Yeah, the Democrats, who insisted on keeping a doddering old man in the running to be their candidate for the next four years, and then finally, when it looked like the screen had been peeked behind and nothing seen to be there, pivoted and presented a younger, female candidate, who really seemed to be nothing that new, a Hilary Clintonesque "more of the same" choice, and so people, as they always do, voted with their feet (which must have been rather difficult in the polling booths!) and told the Democrats where they could stick their pale imitation of Joe Biden. Unfortunately, the only other choice was Trump, and it's fair to say the man won by a landslide, no need this time to massage the figures. The truth, never a friend to Trump, was on his side, as we'll see when we go back over the election.

Of course, this is his second time in office, but Trump in 2016 - Trump v 1.0, if you will - was a far different animal to the president we are now faced with. Having learned from his mistakes the first time around, he knew what to do, and immediately began a Stalin-like purge of enemies or at least those who did not support him and his policies, stacking the top jobs with yes-men and yes-women, people fanatically loyal to him and him alone, and who would and will rubberstamp all his decisions, and never question orders. In addition, this time he has the House and the Senate behind him; while control over the one is marginal it's still control, and the other is his. So there is really nobody to stand against him, question his edicts or try to gain support to oppose some of his more radical policies. He is, this time out, his sophomore occupancy of the White House, all but a king, and he knows it. So he can really do whatever he wants, and the people who voted for him - at least, those who normally would not have done but felt this time he was the only choice - are surely to have serious regrets about that decision. But it's too late now; as Judge Judy often says, they ate the steak and must now expect to pay for it. The bill is likely to be exorbitant, and credit will not be extended.

This journal, then, is going to be a number of things. Firstly, a sort of diary of what happens each day under Trump's presidency, how events unfold and how the world and America are affected by them. It's also going to be a chronicle of the period, from his attempts to run for a second term, through his presidential campaign and victory, and then on into his presidency. I will of course be adding my own personal thoughts along the way, noting when something personally affects me or my country, and trying to keep up with the news over the next four years. I'll be looking at not just Trump, but the major figures in his administration, other state governors and officials, and anyone else who plays into the story of the second term. I would love to say I won't be writing about riots, demonstrations, job losses, accidents, wars, and a slew of misinformation and disinformation, the further rise of the right and total global upset, but I feel these and many more things are all going to end up being covered as the world enters perhaps the most uncertain period in the twenty-first century since 9/11.

If you believe in a god, say your prayers and ask him or her to keep you and your family safe. It's going to be the bumpiest of rides yet, and nobody truly knows what the next move of the man in the White House is going to be, but one thing is almost certain: it won't be good.

[Trollheart]

Prologue: Forcing the door open again: Trump's second coming

At the end of his term in 2020, Donald Trump was looking a beaten man. A now ex-president with more charges hanging over his head than any before, he faced a raft of civil and criminal cases, some related to his personal life, some to his time in government. All of these are a matter of record, and are now academic as almost all of them have been dropped, so I don't intend to go into them here, but suffice to say that for a long time, it looked not beyond the bounds of possibility that a former US president could end up serving jail time.

A long time. Therein hangs the problem. The glacial progress of the Attorney-General tasked with essentially taking Trump down meant that by the time any real charges were ready to be levied at him, with some small and not very important exceptions, he was already back on the path to power, and any efforts the sitting government under Biden made were going to be largely ineffective. The US allows a man to be president even if he's in jail, which always seems odd to me, in a country that bans convicted felons from even voting, but there it is. So even had the most unlikely of conclusions occurred, and Trump had been sentenced to jail time, technically he could have run the country from his jail cell. In reality, of course, he would never have set foot in a jail, and if he had, the day of his inauguration he would be a free man again, because he has the power and would certainly use it. But no, there was never any real chance that the man who masterminded what became known as the January 6 insurrection attempt would be looking at the world through iron bars, and he knew it. And the Democrats surely knew it. And the public knew it.

So when he made his bid for the presidency in 2024, there was nothing to stop him; in fact, if anything, the pile of cases against him only strengthened his position, as he continually whined that they were politically motivated, calculated to stop him running. And, for once, if only accidentally, he was telling the truth. They were. There's no way around that. Certainly, he deserved the charges levelled against him, but they were without question used as a way to attempt to bar him from doing the unthinkable and running for, and winning, a second term in the White House. Like any good conman, he used his perceived disadvantages to his advantage, turned loss into win, and into the biggest win in US presidential history. If his first election victory was unprecedented, a surprise even to him (didn't he say "It'll be a miracle if we win"?) this has overtaken that by a massive margin, and while it can't be said to be a miracle, it's without doubt the result nobody initially expected, and that most people feared.

Even two assassination attempts (one carried out, but missed the target) failed to stop him and only increased his popularity, making him look more statesman-like and a clear threat to the status quo of the time. Despite hateful rhetoric against gays, trans people, Latinos and of course Mexicans, as well as other minorities, Trump gained the popular vote and seemed to have impressed everyone as the man to vote for. On election night, Trump took 312 electoral votes as opposed to Kamala Harris's 262, making his victory a landslide and leaving his opponent a very poor second. Even before he was installed as the 47th President of the United States, he was busy picking his top men, picks that would have to be confirmed by the Senate, but he controlled that anyway so was unlikely to face any real opposition. Trump's nominees all support his policies, particularly a desire to destroy the DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) policies of the Biden administration, which held that minorities - as seen in America - must hold a certain percentage of all federal jobs. Most of his nominees have little to no experience in their chosen field (or the field he has chosen for them) and many indeed seem dangerously unqualified for the high-profile and important jobs they now hold, but Trump does not seem to care about qualifications. As long as you're loyal to him, that's the only qualification he needs or is interested in.

I've written short profiles, as much as I could find out anyway, of some of these, and will probably transcribe them into this journal, but the sad fact is that these are names we will hear over the next few years, probably in radical and unjustified attacks on those sections of society, those countries or those previous administration policies they - or to be more accurate, their commander-in-chief - do not agree with. The chances of America's still-a-work-in-progress record on civil rights being turned back sixty years or so are not small really, and the idea being floated that the USA will become all but a fascist dictatorship, while perhaps seen by some as hyperbolic, is a real concern. It's one thing if, say, Sierra Leone elects a fascist, quite another when the most powerful country in the world does. It could spell a lot of trouble for us all.

Another serious problem is the man who many consider Trump's real vice-president, even though he has one. Elon Musk is a name known to all, especially those in the world of conspiracy theories, and being a huge financial and technological contributor to Trump's campaign, was rewarded with the made-up post of head of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, which sounds chillingly Orwellian. This department is to be tasked with stripping all federal organisations of non-loyalists; anyone who doesn't toe the line, who opposed Trump (probably also those who did not vote for him), anyone hired under DEI - all of these are to be fired, and Trump and Musk have already set this in motion. This of course leaves thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people now unsure about their future, not wanted or welcome in the job they have probably held for years, and being replaced, if at all, by Trump loyalists. Musk has also been clearly seen brazenly performing the Nazi salute, which, if his appointment and involvement in the government wasn't worrying before, is certainly a matter of grave concern.

So why and how has Trump come back to power, when people have already seen the kind of world he intends to create for them? The simple answer is selfishness; blind self-interest on the part of voters, who only looked at one or two issues that mattered to them on polling day, be it the economy (stupid) or employment, and blinkeredly looked only at those issues on which they thought Trump would help them if in power. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, they asked not what they could do for their country, but wanted to know what their country could do for them. Allied to this of course is the stupidity and blindness of the opposing, at the time ruling party, the Democrats, who didn't see Trump as a serious threat until it was too late, and then ran around like headless chickens trying to prepare a candidate who had barely enough time to check her makeup before being pushed in front of the news cameras to declare her intention to run as the nation's first ever female president, something that was never going to happen in that short span of time. Trump therefore got in to the White House again by relying on the laziness of the Democrats, who again thought they had nothing to worry about, and the self-centred deliberate blindness of the voters, who somehow convinced themselves that he was the better choice, despite the very real evidence of four years under this autocrat already there to be seen.

What do they say? Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it?
They also say, never again.
But they've done it again, and now we all wait to see what price we're all going to have to pay for what has to be seen as a moment of madness which has led to the potential for four years of oppression and fear.

[Trollheart]

Seven days of fire and fury: Trump's first week in office

One of the first things an incoming president does, especially if he's from the opposing party (which I think is almost always the case, but I could be corrected there) is to issue Executive Orders. These are, as you probably already know, edicts the president can sign to implement policies without having to go to congress for authorisation. I don't think there's any actual limit on Executive Orders, but Trump has certainly issued the most of any president on day one.

The first thing he did, almost before his fat arse had hit the seat, as he promised, was to issue a general pardon for almost all of those who took part in the January 6 riots, the attempted insurrection which sought, at his indirect instructions, to stop the certification of the 2020 election in favour of Joe Biden. Those he did not pardon were given commuted sentences. This included those who had engaged in violent behaviour, who had attacked the Capitol's police force, and who had promised violence against his own vice-president. Reaction to these pardons was of course divided, but it's interesting to note that even hardline Republicans and Trumpists like Senator Lindsay Graham thought they sent a bad message and were a mistake.

Police were of course outraged, as were the families of those cops who lost their lives in the assault, saying that their brothers had died for nothing. Reaction from one of the most notorious of the rioters, the awkwardly-named Jake Angeli-Chansley, better known as American Shaman, head of QAnon, was more predictable: "Now I'm gonna go buy some mothafuckin guns!" he wrote. Charming. Also not in a forgiving mood is Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio (one has to wonder how someone who professes a white supremacy agenda has a name that is clearly Spanish/Mexican) who said, on his release "I'm happy that the president's focusing not on retribution and focusing on success, but I will tell you that I'm not going to play by those rules."


Reaction to the blanket pardons was swift.  "It is perhaps on brand that Donald Trump has kicked off his 2nd term with an assault on our democracy, just as he ended his first term," said Lisa Gilbert, the co-president of watchdog group Public Citizen. "This isn't just about degrading the US constitution and the rule of law in theory, his disgraceful actions here send a message that political violence is acceptable, so long as it is in support of him and his pursuit of unchecked power."

And the police said the move will put people at risk, as it's quite clear now that Trump supporters can do as they like, be as violent as they want, and face no punishment whatsoever. "Today is another dark day in American history and a continuation of the stain that January 6 left on our nation. I am infuriated, but not surprised in the slightest. We can't pretend to be shocked because Trump has fulfilled his longstanding promise to pardon the criminals he incited to attack me and my fellow officers," former Capitol police officer Harry Dunn said.

That was, of course, only the beginning. Among an absolute slew of Executive Orders were ones that demanded the repeal of DEI and the "clearing out" of all federal departments, the order that America would only recognise two sexes - male and female duh - thereby cutting or eliminating funding for all trans people including medication, hormone treatments and other important, even lifesaving areas, America's rescinding of the order to protect wildlife habitat in the Arctic and open these up to oil concerns ("Drill, baby, drill!"), the withdrawal from the WHO (World Health Organisation) with whom Trump had clashed over Covid in his first presidency, as well as the withdrawal from the Paris Accords, signalling, as if anyone did not expect it, Trump's contempt for the attempts to control climate change and save the planet, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, declaring a "state of emergency" at the Mexican border so as to allow troops to be drafted in to deal with illegal immigration, designating Mexican cartels as terrorists and removing the right of citizenship from children born in the USA to immigrant parents.

And that's only a small sample! They go on and on, and we will no doubt see their effect in the coming months and years. Of course, abortion was on the agenda, as were trans rights and other things such as removing restrictions on what he called "free speech" - meaning the checks social media companies had been told to put on unsubstantiated claims and mis- and disinformation - and on the development of AI, surely clearing the way for Skynet, which will no doubt be very grateful to the new president. His flurry of Executive Orders mirrors, to me, the temper tantrum of a child who has suddenly been given the power to do what he wants, and growls "Now you'll pay!" In many and very dark ways, the second rise of Donald Trump brings to mind that old episode of The Twilight Zone, "It's a Good Life", where a child has the power to do anything, and the entire town lives in fear of offending or upsetting or disagreeing with him. Welcome to a real-life Peaksville, everyone!

Showing that, to nobody's surprise, the new president is not above using his power to extricate himself from the many sticky situations he had been in, Trump has ensured that any pending cases against him are dropped, was only unable to fire special counsel Jack Smith, who was leading the prosecutions against him, by virtue of the man jumping before being thrown out a window and resigning before the new commander-in-chief took office, and has formed a committee to, um, investigate the January 6 Committee, in an effort, one would assume, to rewrite history and turn the attempted insurrection into some sort of free speech protest, and exonerate, or even elevate himself for his part in that. You can just see the red pens working in again an Orwellian attempt to scrub certain inconvenient events from history, can't you?

The immediate impact of some of his more draconian Executive Orders will be felt far beyond the shores of America. His withdrawal from the WHO and the suspension of all foreign aid means that critical, life-saving work will no longer be able to continue, and people will very literally die as a result of his edict. America has always led the way in medical and humanitarian aid to poorer countries; under the Trump administration, that has stopped with immediate effect, for three months at least, and three months can easily mean the difference between life and death in the so-called developing countries, which we used to call third world countries.
This EO hits out at the weakest in global society: the sick, the old, the poor and the disadvantaged, all groups whom Trump would surely be very happy to do without. Shades, it has to be said, and will again, of Hitler's attempt to euthanise, read, murder, the "undesirable" element of German society - the sick, the weak, the disabled, the mentally unstable. The sort of people we're constantly asked, in advert campaigns of increasing emotional intensity and blackmail, to reach out and help, he has reached out and strangled. A professor of medical health law at Georgetown University has prophesied darkly that Trump may be "sowing the seeds of the next pandemic." I'm sure he'll find some way to blame it on Biden, Obama or Clinton.

The organisation sent a pointed message, not just to Trump but to all Americans when it responded that it "plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world's people, including Americans". The German government said the announcement was "a serious blow to the international fight against global health crises", while Nick Dearden, the director of the Global Justice Now advocacy group, said that just a few years after the worst pandemic in a century, "it should be clear how much we all need a well functioning WHO. We need a body, internationally, which can put healthcare ahead of profits and self-interest," he said. "The WHO once played that role, which is why US elites hate it."

Trump, on the other hand, sees it as a matter of money, which again is no surprise. He said "World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It's not going to happen any more", but really what his beef is, I think, is that the WHO were directly in conflict with him over his botched so-called response to Covid, and with Trump, if you go up against him, and he can, he'll get you, and damn the consequences for anyone or even everyone else. As long as he gets his revenge, as long as he can prove his dick is the biggest, that's all that matters to him.

Dr Pete Baker, deputy director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development thinktank, said the decision to withdraw was "highly regrettable. It undermines global health security and risks progress on critical issues like pandemic preparedness and antimicrobial resistance," he said. "However, it is worth putting the US withdrawal into perspective," he added. "If other member states or philanthropists step up and provide more flexible funding – even if it's less than the US provides – this could help WHO be more agile and focused in delivering its mandate." A bigger threat, Baker said, came from an accompanying withdrawal of US support from attempts to negotiate a pandemic agreement.

"The political support of the US for the global health security architecture is irreplaceable. If this continues, it will seriously hamper the world's efforts to ensure preparedness for future health threats," he said. In perhaps an attempt to capitalise on the sudden anti-US mood globally due to this, and other decisions made by Trump, China stepped up. "The role of the WHO should only be strengthened, not weakened," Guo Jiakun, China's foreign ministry spokesman said. "China will, as always, support the WHO in fulfilling its responsibilities ... and work towards building a shared community of health for humanity."

Trump's way of solving the Gaza War (prior to the ceasefire, but the problem remains) again echo the sentiments of Nazi Germany, ironically this time it's the Jews who are being protected as Trump calls for Gaza to be "cleared out" of Palestinians, and have them "distributed" across the other Arab nations, to leave Gaza for Israeli settlers. His administration has accepted as (excuse the word) gospel the Biblical granting of Palestine to the Israelites, using Christian/Jewish doctrine for the first time as the basis for political policy, and showing that this administration will be even more pro-Israel than the last. He has rescinded sanctions against Jewish protesters who have practiced violence against Palestinians. Their world, already black as night, must look even darker now, with the whole might of the USA firmly against them, no longer pretending to half-support them, and ready, I would imagine, to turn a blind eye should Netanyahu decide the best option was to wipe them all out completely.

One of the cruellest decisions of all has been his immediate cancellation of the flights of refugees bound for America, who now have to stay in their war-torn countries with little recourse unless they can pay human traffickers, who will probably rip them off and allow them to die without a thought, and even if they can secure these dubious "services", they won't be able to get into the US now thanks to the much tighter restrictions and a general air of not just unwelcome but actual hatred against them, so will have to rethink plans as to where, if anywhere, they can go. Most of these families have probably purchased airline tickets, and I doubt Trump will allow the airlines, if they're American or affiliated with America, to issue any refunds. When a man is down, Trump's mantra seems to be, kick him harder and make sure he can't get up.

Some of Trump's orders are no surprise. He of course wishes to expand the remit of the death penalty, trying to make it if not mandatory at least applicable in every state he can, and to extend the range of crimes it can apply to. One "benefit" of this I suppose is that it would help empty the prisons more quickly, another would be that it will reduce the amount of young black men in America as they are fed into the brutal mechanism of the state for perhaps relatively minor crimes. I would not be too surprised if the president tried to expand the meaning of treason to include anyone who speaks ill of him, and had his secret police out watching and listening, similar to a country only a few thousand miles away to the east.

[Trollheart]

Event Log: Week 1-2

Here I'll note any serious events that take place in America - or, perhaps later, the wider world - either as a consequence of, or during, Trump's presidency. To try to be fair, I'm not going to suggest an event that is outside of human control - cyclone, hurricane, new pandemic etc - can be blamed on him or his administration. But I will be noting how it deals with such occurrences. We all know and accept Covid was, to our knowledge, nobody's fault, not even Trump's, but his response - or lack of it - to that pandemic framed the last year of his presidency, so should another occur, or should the US refuse or decline to send humanitarian aid to some disaster outside of America, like say an earthquake in Japan or whatever, then I will be writing about it.

The first major disaster which occurred on his watch was this week, and while it may be rushing to judgement to blame him for it, we can certainly abhor his using of it as a political tool to push his agenda and attack his enemies. A US airliner crashed on approach to Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport when it collided with a US Army Blackhawk helicopter on Thursday, January 31. There were no survivors. Trump immediately made the story all about him, claiming the accident was due to DEI hirings at the airport, and the FAA. He again made baseless claims. "The FAA diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing," Mr Trump said, claiming the FAA wanted people "with severe disabilities, the most underrepresented segment of the workforce, and they want them in and they want them - they can be air traffic controllers." When asked how he could make such a claim when the investigation into the causes of the crash had not even begun, Trump shrugged: "Because I have common sense," he sneered.

Of course, before we get more into his response, let's take a moment to think of the people who lost their lives. 67 people in all - 3 crew and 60 passengers on the Bombardier CRJ-700 jet and 4 crew in the Blackhawk - including children and young people on their way home from an ice-skating event. Also on board and killed were two Russian ice-skaters, married couple Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who were previous world champions. The FAA pointed to a shortage of air traffic controllers, leading to the ones they have being forced to work longer hours and more shifts, but President Trump, perhaps dialling back his rhetoric a little in the face of reaction from aviation experts and disability advocate groups, made a statement which will, mostly likely, be the hallmark of his administration over the next four years: "We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas." The thing is, anyone can have an idea or an opinion; that doesn't make it fact, not until it's proven to be so. But one thing we have learned from Trump's first term is that the truth gets bent, shaped and twisted into any shape he wants, and sometimes ignored altogether.

In the initial flood of recriminations from the new president aimed at his opponents, to some extent the grief of the families and loved ones of those who died have been lost. I haven't seen any list of the dead (though in fairness, that's not usually the case, but I think some names do get released) and even though there were prominent Russian citizens on the airliner, Putin does not seem to be making any noise about the fact that they were killed in an accident on American soil. Had this accident occurred a few weeks ago, I think you can be sure he would have been making all sorts of threats, accusing the USA of orchestrating the crash and demanding Russian investigators be sent in to conduct their own examination. But though he may think himself the world's hard man, it looks as if Putin recognises that there's a wild animal even crazier than him in the cage, and he is wary of upsetting or challenging it. In his first term, Trump was basically Putin's mate; now that he has returned to the White House, he has signalled unequivocally that Putin is out of favour with him, and I think the Russian president is worried he has lost a major ally, perhaps the best ally he could have had. So he's staying quiet, and, one might even say, submissive to the bigger lion in the cage.

While it would be unfair to blame Trump for a tragedy that occurred only a week into his presidency, it can't be ignored that he very quickly stripped the FAA of staff, firing the director and instigating a hiring freeze of air traffic controllers when what was desperately needed was more, and also purged most of the staff from the aviation safety committee, so if blame lies anywhere it looks like it stands to be shared, both by the outgoing and incoming administrations. It certainly seems unlikely in the extreme that, as Trump - again, baselessly and without a shred of evidence - claimed, the FAA were hiring people with mental problems and who were completely unskilled. I mean, that sort of thing just doesn't happen. If it did, we'd be looking at surely at least one accident a week, if not more.

The investigation is now underway, but as a federal body, even the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Bureau) is under the knife of the new administration, and anyone who comes up with evidence to support a reason for the accident that doesn't fall in line with the president's wild accusation of DEI incompetence, is likely to be fired and replaced with someone who will toe that line. So whether or not we'll ever know, or whether the truth will come out is very doubtful. From now on, reports will say what Trump wants them to say, the truth a very poor second.

As for the families of the bereaved? Who is looking after their interests? Again, as I say, they seem to have been lost among the flurry and rush to judgement that has once more put the new commander-in-chief centre stage, where he loves to be, and from which it is unlikely anyone will be able to move him. I wouldn't be too surprised if those relatives were to receive clandestine visits from the FBI or Secret Service, advising them not to make a fuss, to agree with whatever the Party line is going to be, as otherwise embarrassing details and secrets about those who died may suddenly find their way into the newspapers and blog sites and onto the right-leaning TV news, whether true or not.

Tariff Trade Terror: Trump raises the stakes

I'm no economist, but if one country can raise tariffs on their imports then so can another, so to my mind Trump's massive 25% on goods imported from Canada and Mexico (and 10% on goods from China) can be offset if these countries, as they surely will, tax American goods the same amount, or more. Someone once said there are no winners in a nuclear war, and similarly it's been said there are no winners in a trade war, but the ones who suffer most in the latter are inevitably the customers on both sides, the people who voted for the government that imposed the tariffs. Like I say, economics is not my strong suit, so I don't know all the ins and outs, but people vastly more intelligent than me, and who know about these things, reckon that all Trump is going to achieve is making life harder for his own people. Again, unless there's some sort of popular revolution and he's ousted from the White House, that's not really going to bother him, certainly not in a way it may have bothered him during his first term. But the American people are going to hurt.

He even admitted this today, when he said "Will there be some pain? Yes, maybe (and maybe not!) But we will Make America Great Again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid."  What exactly he thinks will be "worth it" is debatable; the American public - and, to be fair, not just them, but taxpayers everywhere - don't really care about long term benefits if it deprives them of cash in their wallet, eats into their bank balance or means they have to pay more for the essentials. The tide of opinion could very swiftly turn against Trump when people are queuing up for groceries that are either too expensive or just can't be imported into the country anymore, or when they're complaining about the price of gas, or energy, or housing. Doubtless, he'll try to deflect blame onto any handy scapegoat, from Biden and the Democrats to the woke liberal media and from immigrants to trans people, but in the end it's unlikely anyone will care: unless they've left their brain in for cleaning, they'll know that the higher prices they're paying result from their president's determination to play trade chicken with other countries.

Canada and Mexico have already hit back, with Justin Trudeau appealing to the American people to realise that the tariffs "will raise costs for you, including food at the grocery store, gas at the pump. They will impede your access to an affordable supply of vital goods" while Mexico ominously said they are working on a "plan B", details of which have not yet been released, though the word is that pork, cheese, fresh produce, aluminium and steel are all on the list, with tariffs ranging from 5% to 20%. The amount of goods bought by America and Mexico from each are similar, with America importing 475 billion dollars while their southern neighbour only import 322 billion; this shows that tariffs levied by Mexico at America would actually hurt the giant nation more, and adding in Canada's retaliatory threat of placing 25% on electronic products, sports equipment, fruit juice, beer, wine, whisky and clothing, and the USA could be in big trouble financially. And that's before China gets involved.

Europe is on the Trump radar too, with the new president saying he will "definitely" target the European Union, whining that there, too, America is being ripped off (though as usual he provided no details nor statistics to back this up). Whether in Trump's mind that includes the UK as part of Europe or not, I don't know, but if he feels Britain too is "ripping off America", he certainly won't be slow to impose tariffs on them.

[Trollheart]

With us or against us: Trump's territorial grabs

Even before he took office - and long before even his campaign - Trump had the idea to buy Greenland, believing, for reasons best known to himself, that it, like the Moon in The Simpsons was described as being, belonged to America. When the Danish government, whose colony Greenland is, laughed at him he shut up. But since winning the election he has come back, tougher and less compromising, demanding Greenland be handed over. He now has threatened to use military force to take it, or at any rate, has not ruled out its use. What was seen as a very poor joke a few years ago has developed into something to be taken very seriously now, as Denmark and Greenland come together to consider the ramifications of an incipient invasion by the USA, a forcible annexation, Putin-like, of their country. Why he wants the small island nation is clear: there are untapped reserves of oil and gas there, and where there's oil you'll find America, though they're usually a little more subtle about it, like claiming the country's leader have weapons of mass destruction, or are harbouring terrorists, that kind of thing. This is the first time I can remember when America threatened invasion of a country at which it was not at war since the Iraq invasion of 2003.

Trump also seems to believe that Canada's independence should be at an end, and wishes to "bring them into the fold as the 51st state." Nobody in Canada wants this - though presumably certain far right and extremist groups there would be delighted to be annexed by the new president, whose morals (hah) and values (double hah) tie in with their own, but these factions are very much in the minority. Should there be some sort of toppling of the government, and a rise to power of a far right one, then the question might be less fraught with horror, but as it is Justin Trudeau has no intention of allowing his country to be subsumed into the USA. How both these belligerent land grab attempts play out, how serious Trump is and how he'll greet the negative responses, we'll have to wait and see. As for Mexico? The last thing Trump wants - and the last thing Mexico wants, too - is his poor southern relation joining the United States, so much so that he has ordered that the Gulf of Mexico be changed to be renamed the Gulf of America. Whether he goes the whole hog and changes New Mexico to Old America remains to be seen.

[Trollheart]

Building on the bones of the dead: Trump's ghastly plan for Gaza

They used to say a week is a long time in politics, but when Trump is involved, change that to a day. It's bloody exhausting keeping up with the man and his crazy policies, so I'm doing what I can but this might fall behind. Our current topic of concern is of course his insane announcement that Gaza will be ceded to the USA by Israel, all Palestinians will be removed - forcibly or going voluntarily, he doesn't care - and Trump will turn Gaza into a lavish holiday resort, which he has touted as "The Riviera of the Middle East." Right. Well, there are just so many problems with that plan - apart from the simple moral and human ones - that rather like Howard Hughes's famous white elephant The "Spruce Goose", it will never fly. Critical to Trump's plan is the agreement of the surrounding Arab states, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, none of whom are going to allow their own people to be exiled from Gaza to allow their old enemies the Jews take over. I read a report yesterday that said (how accurate this is or not I don't know) that the devastation in Gaza is so bad that it will take 21 years to remove all the rubble from the Israel bombardments, so even if somehow the plan did go ahead, well, it would be 2076 before building could begin, and by then Trump will well have booked his ticket to Hell. Whether his sons would go ahead with their late tyrant father's plan or not is another thing.

But also consider the kind of people who might, at some point, book in to The Trump Gaza Hotel? Of course there are many people in the world without morals or shame, most of them using money and influence and power to overcome these, but the stigma that would be attached to staying in this forced resettlement area would, I think, be similar to those attending a hotel in Sun City at the height of apartheid, or even someone building a hotel on the ruins of Dachau or something. One thing people with more money than sense or decency care about is their bottom line, and how they are viewed by the public at large; if protests began after say, I don't know, pick a wealthy person at random, say Rupert Murdoch, stayed there, how would his stocks and shares fare? Wouldn't his reputation be likely to tank? Or take a music star - again, not suggesting they would, but just to pick one at random who isn't Bono - Ariana Grande. Let's say she stayed there. Would her fans not turn against her? The specifics are not important. The point I'm making is that anyone who would legitimise Trump's landgrab by staying in his hotel would risk alienating everyone they know, and destroying their public image.

So even if it did get built - eventually - I think there would be few takers for its, presumably exceptionally expensive, rooms. Netanyahu will be dead before they can break ground, but I'm sure there would be flocks of Israelis interested, apart from them though, few others. And then would it not become a target for the likes of Hamas, even ISIS or Al Qaeda? In revenge for the deportation of their Arab brothers, surely all mujahideen would band together to bomb the place, carry out shootings, kidnappings, all the sort of things you expect from terrorist groups/freedom fighters? Unless Trump is prepared to have the area occupied by ground troops, set up a military base - and even if he does - nobody who stayed there would feel safe, nor should they.

But as I read today, even without this "grand project" ever seeing the light of day, by its mere proposal, Trump has signalled quite clearly that the USA under his administration doesn't give a fuck about Palestinians, and has opened the country up to the threat of new terror attacks. It forges even closer links with the war criminal Israeli leader, and all but destroys any chance of a two-state solution to the crisis in the Middle East that has been going on now for over seventy years. It dismantles the US's policy in the Middle East and pushes the region closer to an all-out war, gives Netanyahu the chance he has wanted to restart the Gaza war, and risks the exceptionally fragile truce crumbling like a house of cards in a desert wind.

Trump has somewhat backtracked on his proposal today, confirming there would be "no need" for US troops to deploy to Gaza, claiming that Israel would "give" the area to the USA, but even he seems to be accepting that, if the plan was serious and not just another bunch of reactionary hyperbole spouted by the man whose mouth should really be registered as a lethal and offensive weapon, that he went too far, and despite his usual crap as he contends that "everyone loves" the plan, it's going to have to be ditched, unless he plans kicking off a full-scale war across the region, and we have to believe that even he is not that crazy.

Okay, we have to hope.

[Trollheart]

Tariffs: just another empty Trump hand?

To quote the great Kenny Rogers, you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, and it seems Trump's latest gamble was, mostly, just that. In the posts above I wrote about his intention to raise tariffs on Canadian, Mexican and Chinese imports. Now it seems - at the eleventh hour - he has backed down on at least two of these proposals, as Mexico agree to send 10,000 troops to tbe border to guard against the flow of illegal drugs (and, presumably, though it's not made clear, immigrants) while Canada's punishment has also been "paused", though what the details are behind that we have not been told. As for China? So far, nothing further has been mentioned, and while the new president has also threatened the EU with tariffs - and they have indicated they will respond in kind if he does - so far, again, it seems to be all talk and bluster.

The general consensus is that Trump had and has no intention of actually kicking off a trade war, knowing how detrimental to his country it will turn out to be, and that he was only using these threats as a way of forcing Mexico and Canada at least to the negotiating table. Whether that works with far more belligerent and powerful China remains to be seen, but exactly as everyone expected, Trump is treating the presidency like any other business negotiation, and he knows that he who holds the cards makes the deal. He also knows that in any such deal, you start from a position of strength and bargain your opponent down. Threats are useless if they're empty, or seen to be - thus MAD - but when you have a maverick like the US president making them, they may be empty but you can never quite take the chance. An appropriate theme for his presidency, both based on his first term and what we've seen so far of his second, could be "That's so crazy it might just work." The problem is, there are other crazy leaders in this world, and Trump is just arrogant enough to push the wrong person.

Or, to return to Rogers again, can we hope that he knows when to walk away, when to run? Like all things Trump, nobody knows and only time will tell. But right now he's sitting in the Oval Office gambling not with chips or money, as such, but with the future peace and stability, not only of the USA, but the world. Let's hope he realises soon this isn't just a game, and that the stakes are far too high for any more bluffing. One of these days, someone's gonna call him, and he had better hope he has the winning hand when that happens, or he'll lose everything.

And if he loses, we all lose.

[Trollheart]

As we all know, for evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing. However, evil also cannot triumph if similarly evil men do not assist; the man in power cannot do everything himself. And so it is with Trump: he had to place people he trusted in power, people he knew would carry out his orders without question. Whatever happens over the next four years, these men and women must share some of the blame for what America will become. And so here I present to you the key figures in the new Trump administration, which I have rather unoriginally called


While normally, a US president's right-hand man is his vice president, we haven't heard as much about J.D. Vance as we did about, say, Mike Pence, though I'm sure he'll play his part. But to most people, the real power behind the throne is another billionaire, one of the richest men in the world, an out-and-out fascist and surely someone hoping to bring the AI apocalyse about, the sooner the better.


Name: Elon Musk (but you can call him Your Imperial Majesty)
Age: 53
Position: Head of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency)
Previous Experience: Zee-ro
Historic Interest: Not entirely sure, but I doubt the world's richest man has ever served in a US government administration before.

What do I need to tell you about Musky? A far-right, reactionary demagogue, Covid-denier, anti-vaxxer and the richest man on the planet, the man who ruined Twitter for other men and didn't even have the decency to pay its cab fare home (I mean, fucking X? Come on, you unimaginative cunt! I hated it, but they spent years putting that platform together and you just shit all over it!) and a man who epitomises the title of a Jame Bond movie. Yes, for Mrs. Musk's clever little boy, who will soon run the planet, TWINE is a good motto, but that's okay, because if the world is not enough, he has space at his command too.

Yes, the man who has all but but a copyright on the Final Frontier and denied access to any but the super-super-super-add-a-few-supers-rich, he is single-handedly ensuring that the only people who will ever see space are those whose bank balance is, well, astronomical. Soon to be Emperor of Mars, and the sooner the better, but before he departs on his mystical journey, there's work to do. Why travel all that way when there's a perfectly good planet to fuck up right here? And soon, we'll all be his slaves. Wait for the "innovative" new Muskdroids, who will enforce his - sorry sorry I do mean Trump's, yes of course that's what I mean, how silly of me - edicts all across the globe and turn Earth into one giant slave farm.

Well, maybe that's being a bit too hyperbolic.

Knowing Musk, there'll be two slave farms, one for white people and one for everyone else. Anyway, all praise the man after whom and before whom nobody else has been named (what kind of name is Elon anyway? Sounds like a budget airline or a software company specialising in cyber security) who is now in charge of "streamlining" the US Government departments, read, firing anyone he doesn't deem necessary. Just wait till he expands his programme worldwide, and gets rid of all non-essential personnel on the planet. Well I'm fucked anyway.

And if I see that as the premise of a dystopian science fiction movie any time, I'm sure as hell gonna sue!

[Trollheart]

And he'll be helped by this guy (look I know it's both of them in the picture, but I had to take this one: doesn't he look like some sort of Indian vampire about to take a bite out of you? Very appropriate, I would think)

Name: Vivek Ramaswamy
Age: 39
Position: Commissioner of DOGE
Previous Experience: None
Historic Interest: Again I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but first Indian to hold such a high-ranking post?
Trump says: "Together, these two wonderful Americans [him and Musk] will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies. I look forward to Elon and Vivek making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all Americans."

Luckily, this man has no special interests to protect. I mean, when has Big Pharma ever threatened the economy? Naturally, the man is a bigot and a Covid-denier, calling it "Covid-ism" - whatever the fuck that is: did anyone want Covid? Arsehole. Oh and he also decries "climate-ism" (hopefully he gets swept away in the next big hurricane) and "gender ideology". Sounds like a nice guy. And with a name like Vivek, and with no offence to any Indians, doesn't he sound even more like a vampire? Which is what, it looks, like he's going to be as he savages the environment, probably begging the crumbs from his lord and master's table as Musk chows down on climate change, renewable energy and protection of the planet. Yum!

He's had no political career, but it is interesting - and galling - to hear that before he even graduated from law school he was worth 15 million, due to his interests in biotech, finance and of course pharmaceutical industries. So just the man to fire people who may be making not minimum wage but hardly coining it in, working in smaller federal government departments soon to be either ruthlessly cut back or even eliminated altogether.

Nice to see he has the common touch though, describing as a "victimless crime" the pushing of the price of a life-saving drug through the roof. He descibes himself as "anti-woke" and apparently has no issues destroying the environment in the pursuit of profit. He said his company would "do whatever allows them to be most successful over the long run without regard to political, social, cultural or environmental agendas."

He ran for the presidential nomination himself, but backed down when Trump snarled at him to get the fuck back in his lane, and couldn't bow and scrape fast enough, throwing his support behind His Orangeness in the hope of no doubt obtaining such a post as he has now been granted. I suppose, with his pharma background, we should be grateful the cunt wasn't given charge of the CDC!

Sigh. It goes on: he's against affirmative action, women's rights, abortion, LGBTQ (calling the whole "movement" a "cult", which is pretty rich when you slavishly follow Trump but however) and - get this - had he been elected to the White House proposed to shut down (not just restructure now, shut down) the Education Department, the FBI, ATF, IRS, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the FDA. To quote another famous and fictional Indian, oh my various gods!

[Trollheart]

Name: Lee Zeldin
Age: 44
Position: Head of EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
Previous Experience: US Congress; failed attempt at Governor for New York
Historic Interest:
Trump says: "Lee, with a very strong legal background, has been a true fighter for America First policies. He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards."

I suppose it goes without saying, but he was a staunch ally of Trump during the Democrats' attempts to get the former president impeached, and was also one of his many yes-men who agreed that the 2020 election had been stolen. I wonder if they ever got it back? Hope they had it insured. I did warn them. What sort of career has he had, in particular that may, or probably may not, qualify him for such a post? Has he advocated for green policies, the elimination of fossil fuels, banning fracking or reducing carbon emissions?

As we say here, has he fuck as like. A vehement opponent of climate change (wonder what less harsh-sounding, less scary word they'll use when Trump is back in power - Global Warming made sense), he has stated his opposition to the Paris Agreement (possibly, though don't quote me, on the basis that anything that comes out of France has to be intrinsically bad - remember "freedom fries"? Give me strength!) and on his having been announced to the post had this to say: "We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water." So clearly he's not one for the electric cars, renewable energy and has never seen Terminator 2!

No friend to women either, he had consistently lobbied for the overturn of Roe v Wade, and even if it had remained, he was digging his heels in and publicly stated "nothing changes in New York". He's a Jew, and while that's not strictly relevant to the post, it does mean he strongly supports Israel in their genocidal war against Gaza and Lebanon, and anyone else who gets the fuck in their way. His military service, if it can be called such, consists of intelligence work which he then ditched to go into the Army Reserve, possibly (though of course I can't confirm this) worried he might actually be sent into a warzone. Like, maybe Jersey.

He is opposed to bail reform (which advocates the removal of the need for cash bail in the less serious cases), looks to be (from my limited reading and skim through his Wiki page) against education for all, didn't mask up or practice social distancing during Covid - though he did get vaccinated: talk about hedging your bets! - and didn't think hospital employees or schoolchildren needed to be vaccinated. I'd say he was one of those who believed Covid was a hoax, or "a flu", but then again he got the shot, so what can you say about that?

He voted against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, wanted to repeal Obamacare, and was and is against same-sex marriage. Once Trump came to power he whined about the FBI investigating his new master while also snarling that they should have continued investigating Hilary Clinton's emails (so no double standard there then) and voted against measures to avert the - seemingly usual - government shutdown in 2018.

[Trollheart]

Name: Tom Homan
Age: 62
Position: Border Czar
Previous Experience: Director of ICE; Police officer
Historic Interest: So far, first Obama appointee to make it into Trump's cabinet.
Trump says: "I have Tom Homan lined up, we have the greatest people: we're bringing back Tom Homan."

This is an interesting one. Now, don't expect me to say this guy is, as it were, the "good Nazi", as Albert Speer tried to paint himself after the fall of Hitler, but he was appointed to his post as head of ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (was ever an acronym more appropriate?) and was the guy who advocated separating immigrant children from their parents! And Obama approved it! Jesus. It's probably due to these hardline views, which dovetail so well with his own, that the president-elect has given him the job instead of firing him. Let's see what else we can find out about him. Just how far up Trump's fat hole has he been, or will he go?

Oay, opposes the policy of sanctuary cities, commented on Fox News, yes, yes, very good. Clearly hates immigrants, another plus. Believes any politicians who support sanctuary cities should be charged with a crime, also asserts that a third of immigrant women get raped coming across the border (no hard evidence I assume). Said this about his experiences on border patrol "So I get there, I'm walking around in the back of a tractor-trailer with 19 dead aliens at my feet, (I fucking KNEW the government was lying to us! Roswell indeed!) including a five-year-old little boy who suffocated in the back of that tractor-trailer. And I had a five year old at the time. I didn't sleep for three days." and signed on for Project 2025.

Anything good about him? Well, other than the quote above, which seems to indicate (or which he wants to seem to indicate) that he kicks out immigrants on an almost merciful basis, he did oppose the invasion of Ukraine, kind of - made some sort of pointless lip service stand or something - and, ah, no. No, that's it. He's going to use an Act passed in 1798 to deport "millions of illegal aliens", saying, no doubt with a cowboy hat on and chewing a cigar, "they ain't seen shit yet." I don't fucking doubt it, you cunt.

[Trollheart]

Name: Kristi Noem
Age: 52
Position: Secretary of DHS (Department of Homeland Security)
Previous Experience: Governor of South Dakota, Congresswoman and Member of the House of Representatives
Historic Interest: First female Governor of South Dakota
Trump says: "Kristi has been very strong on Border Security. She was the first Governor to send National Guard Soldiers to help Texas fight the Biden Border Crisis, and they were sent a total of eight times."

Another Covid-denier, she does seem to at least have earned her position, i.e., not had her family money buy it for her, or special interest lobbies. Seems she comes from farm stock, and worked as an intern on Capitol Hill. I don't say these things to praise her, as such, but there's no point in me making these sketch profiles complete hatchet jobs, so if there's anything good to say about any of these people who will be running the USA - and by extension, much of the free world - for at least the next four years, I won't shy from saying it. I am, when all is said and done, an equal opportunities bastard, and always have been.

My eyes are however drawn to the story of her killing the family dog, (not doge) so that is not going to win her any points with me, but we'll see what the story is when I get there. Right now I'm reading she worked hard and knuckled down, however as usual the masks slips and the true Republican face snarls out. An advocate for increased gun rights, wanted to ban abortion not just in her state but all over the USA, supports offshore oil drilling and apparently doesn't think pollution is such a bad thing, as she blocked the EPA from tightening its controls over coarse particulates, whatever the fuck they are.

She opposes, you'll be simply amazed to hear, Obamacare (gone from day one I would imagine now), hates immigrants (what self-respecting (!) Republican does not?) and thinks stem-cell research is the work of the devil probably. She certainly wants to cut back spending for Veterans (losers or suckers, depending on which of his alleged quotes you wish to use), infrastructure like high-speed rail projects (probably afraid the voters might run her out of town on one) and of course, that old chestnut, the natural enemy of all members of the GOP, that bothersome environment that keeps getting in the way of them making even more money.

She's also against protests, actually enacting legislation to ban or curtail it (obviously only when it doesn't suit her agenda) and characterising it as incitement to riot, is no friend to Native American or other indigenous, First Nation peoples, and is of course not in the least above using her position as governor (and now presumably as DHS Secretary) to benefit her family and skew the law onto their side. Another perfect nomination, then.

Oh, and that story about her killing her dog? As bad as it sounds, and if you're an animal lover like me I don't recommend you read it. Horrible, horrible person.

[Trollheart]

Name: Mike Waltz
Age: 50
Position: National Security Advisor
Previous Experience: Member of the House of Representatives; has served in Afghanistan as a Green Beret; holds the rank of colonel in the US Army; has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal; former security advisor to the White House and Pentagon
Historic Interest:
Trump says: "Mike has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy Agenda and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength."

On the face of it, I guess you'd have to admire the guy, or at least give him credit. He certainly fought for his country (what you think about the justification for those various wars, or the idea of military service in general, will of course colour your perception of that) and received no less than four medals for bravery. He also appears to have been against the Obama-led withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying  "So, are we 15 years in? Yes. Are we in for a lot more fighting, and do we need a long-term strategy to undermine the ideology of Islamic extremism—just like we did fascism and just like we did communism? Yes, we do. Uh, and you know, I think we're in for a long haul, and I think our nation's leadership needs to begin telling the American people, 'I'm sorry, we don't have a choice; we're 15 years into what is going to be a multi-generational war because we're talking about defeating an idea.' It's easy to bomb a tank; very difficult to defeat an idea, and that's exactly what we have to do."

He's no friend of China's, and seems genuinely shocked at their human rights abuses, and has pioneered legislation to ensure no university or college receives funding from China, with the possibility of anyone doing so being fired. It says he was the counterterrorism advisor to "the vice president", but doesn't make clear which one? Since he appears to have served in the House since 2019, presumably we're talking about Pence here? Not sure. He was also on Trump's Covid-19 Task Force, and perhaps rather embarrassingly for such a position tested positive for the virus. No surprise, of course, the way the administration tried to pretend Covid did not exist or was at best a nuisance not worth bothering about.

He of course supported the false contention that Trump won in 2020, and refused to endorse Biden's American Rescue Plan Act, as well as the January 6 Commission. To be fair though, it is hard to argue with his contention that the US withdrew from Afghanistan too soon (though his idea that troops could be there for, um, 100 years, seems a little excessive: talk about your multi-generational wars!), as we've seen what happened there once the Taliban got back into power. A flip-flopper it would seem, he initially supported Ukraine but must have seen which way the east wind was blowing and switched allegiances to tie in with der Fuehrer's orders.

He has at least voted against the right of ICE to detain and remove immigrant children from their parents, but then he's no friend of the LGBTQ community, voting to codify marriage as being between a man and a woman only. Oh no wait, I'm wrong there: he actually voted for the Right to Marriage Act, which proposes that anyone can marry, regardless of gender. Okay then, Trollheart gets it wrong once again. DO NOT stop the presses, this is not news. Yeah but he voted against the PACT Act, which aims to help veterans, and also against the legalisation of cannabis.

His wife also served as homeland security advisor to Trump, and in addition served in the administrations of Bush and Obama and is a combat veteran herself. I have to say, again on the face of it, while he's no angel Waltz seems the best of a bad lot here. Feel free to educate me, my American friends.

[Trollheart]

Name: Pete Hegseth
Age: 44
Position: Secretary of Defence
Previous Experience: None; combat experience yes, but has never been in government and only rose to the rank of major while in service.
Historic Interest: Presumably (correct me if I'm wrong) the first to be elected to such a critically important office without a shred of experience, and the first news commentator to be elected to such an office.
Trump says: "[He's] tough, smart and a true believer in America First".
He says: "The dumbest phrase on planet earth in the military is our diversity is our strength."

[People involved in diversity, equality or inclusion policies] ha[ve] "got to go".

"Either you're in for war fighting and that's it, that's the only litmus test we care about."

"Whatever" [combat standards were in 1995], "let's just make those the standards".

Others say: [His appointment would] "make us less safe and must be rejected. A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense.I lead the Senate military personnel panel. All three of my brothers served in uniform. I respect every one of our servicemembers." (Senator Elizabeth Warren)

[the job] "should not be an entry-level position". (Adam Smith, House Armed Services Committee)



It's probably no surprise - though the Looney Tunes theme does play in my head and can't be ignored - that Trump would appoint of of his fawning acolytes from Fox News, the channel (let's not dignify them by calling them a news outlet, more like the propaganda arm of the  Republican Party) that rubberstamped every word that came out of his, um, well let's say mouth, and turned it into fact, even if there was not a shred of evidence to support that. Trump rewards his followers and punishes those who oppose him, and that's just Trump.

What is incredibly shocking though is that a man who has never had any government experience is being handed the top job at the Department of Defence, the responsibility being put on his shoulders for current and future wars, military expenditure, and the future of America's defence programme. He's had, to be fair, extensive military experience (though much of that was with the National Guard and took place at Guantanamo Bay), and has been decorated several times. He set up and ran a PAC (Political Action Committee) but seems to have spent a large portion of the funds on himself and his family.

He volunteered to be in the National Guard unit assigned to protect the inauguration of Biden, but was removed when it appeared he was actually there to infiltrate the unit, and perhaps, well, who knows what he might have done? He denies such allegations of course. He advocated for, and got, pardon for three US war criminals, accused the Democrats of weaponising Covid, is against the teaching of critical race theory and climate change, and has advocated the bombing of Iran, something, as Secretary of Defence, and with Trump in the chair, he can now do come January. He also wants to fire all "woke" officers; however that gets defined, he will have the power to do that, too. God help America, is all I can say.

[Trollheart]

A New World Order: Manipulate And Gain Ascendancy

From really the earliest days of his first presidency we've known that Trump lives in a world of black and white (and we all know which of them he favours) - for him, there is no middle ground. He's the typical strongman, the fighter who goes into the ring with studs on his gloves and gives no quarter, the man who has torn the pages out of his dictionary that contain words like mercy, compassion, understanding and equality. As I've said before, his first term was a learning curve for him, and has he learned well! He knows now that one of the first things he had to do on taking office was to prosecute his own "Night of the Long Knives", though thankfully not literally. Where Hitler had anyone he felt was a threat to him murdered - including some long time friends and even mentors - Trump simply used the language of his reality show and told them "You're fired!" Anyone who has been in his way, or anyone he deems not loyal enough, has been shown the door. This includes people in high-profile and important jobs such as heads of the FBI, DHS and the Department of Defence. As I've shown - and will continue to show - in the section "Trump's Circle of Evil", qualifications matter nothing to this man. As long as the person can be relied upon to do his master's bidding, the president will appoint them. This of course poses serious questions, such as, if a person in charge of, say, the CIA, has no idea about how to run an intelligence agency, what happens when there's a real intelligence threat? But to Trump, those are questions for another time, if ever.

Appointments are one thing, and many will bring their own particular consequences, no doubt, but now he's reaching beyond the remit of the United States and essentially trying, as the image above notes, to make the world in his own image. And it's a frightening image. I've already written about his insane plans to turn Gaza into a luxury resort, Palestinian-free, and the possibility of his annexing both Canada and Greenland, but now his sights are trained squarely on wartorn Ukraine, and his fury at the temerity of President Zelensky standing up to him - something he's certainly not used to dealing with; both Britain and Ireland seem to be licking the MAGA jackboot - looks likely to result in the country being forced into a peace treaty planned more or less without its president. Trump doesn't particularly care about the war in Ukraine: to quote him from his first term, "that's Europe's problem". What he does care about is the vast amount of mineral reserves the country has, and he wants to get his greedy little hands on them. Zelensky is doing his best not to play ball, but with NATO somewhat stymied without the support of their long time ally, the USA, his options are narrowing further each day. Let's not forget, this is a man who Trump asked to "do him a favour" and find dirt on Hunter Biden during his election campaign in 2016. As in all things, you can be a friend (!) of Trump's today and his deadliest enemy tomorrow. It's all about exigency and personal gain with the man in the Oval Office.

The friendship between Putin and Trump has been well documented, and now that he is back in power that bromance - put on hold during the Biden administration as Trump fought off lawsuit after lawsuit - looks like being rekindled, and could be stronger than ever. It's certainly troubling to think that a sort of handshake deal between the two most powerful men in the world now could lead to other concessions. Are we likely to see the return from the dead of the USSR, as Putin, emboldened and even encouraged by Washington, send his armies into Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and other former Soviet states? While the communist party may be dead, and Putin no part of it, the redrawing of the map of Europe, back to its Cold War state, is not as fantastic an idea as it might seem. After all, give Putin an inch and he'll take a mile, and he's not a man to be held back, especially if there's nobody there to hold him back. What will Europe, the EU, do if he starts adding countries to his new empire? Risk a Third World War? Without, this time, the aid of the United States, perhaps even with the traditional ally of the West on the side of the  Russians?

It's not just the map of the world, though, that Trump wants to reshape. It's the makeup of humanity itself in, if not the world, at least America. His plan to deny critically needed medicines, treatments, therapies and ongoing medical care to trans people and those transitioning, or hoping to, risks the literal rewinding of human history, or at least human gender history, as millions of Americans are forced to revert to their original gender, many of whom may decide life in such a world is not worth living, resulting in mass suicides, which will no doubt be jeered at, cheered and eventually blamed on the victims for "not conforming." Women's rights are slowly being rolled back, too. The overturning of Roe v Wade was just the beginning, as more and more states attempt to pass harsh and draconian anti-abortion laws, and wrest control of their bodies from women all across the country. With the rise of the "disenfranchised white male" surely it can only be a matter of time before females in positions of authority are fired, or laid off, or encouraged, through a system of behaviour, to leave their jobs, tipping the balance even more heavily in favour of the male?

Trump's stand on NATO, all but withdrawing the USA from the organisation, unless it suits him, leaves Europe less well-defended and unable to police and protect as it has been doing. Some might say, and with some justification, that it will also prevent Europe/NATO sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong. There is some truth here, but it stands to reason that no one nation (perhaps the USA and Russia excepted) can stand against any attack alone, and with all its flaws and shortcomings, NATO is still the best we can offer. Whether or not that becomes in time ETO I can't say, but it seems that, at least for the next four years, the idea of relying on the United States to bail us out militarily are gone; now Europe must stand alone, and if anything is indicative of how difficult a task that will be, look no further than that tall narrow building in New York. The history of the United Nations - and the League of Nations before it - is of squabbling, in-fighting, abstention from voting, vetoes and a paralysis of action. In other words, it doesn't work, and it never has. Yes, the UN has done great work in humanitarian aid and peacekeeping, but how many UN resolutions do you know that have actually done anything? No, I'm asking: I want to know. Because all I ever hear is "[insert UN resolution number here] failed to pass" or "was vetoed by" or "did not get the votes needed". If that's how the UN works, one can only imagine how NATO, with all those competing generals, strategies and priorities, is going to, without the big bully in the playground keeping them in line. It's a sad truth that NATO needs the US and without it the organisation is going to struggle to be effective. Sometimes, unfortunately, you need that big swinging dick.

There can be little doubt that however the world may or may not change over the next four years, America is already going through a seismic shift, as violent as any earthquake and as rapid as any hurricane. Already, federal departments across the country have been stripped of their staff, some departments eliminated altogether, without, it seems, any clear idea of whether the jobs lost were in fact necessary. A case in point is the Weather Service, which helps predict the rise and path of meteorological phenomena such as tornadoes, storms and those ever-popular hurricanes. It will be interesting to see how that plays out when the next big one hits. But not to worry, Mr. President, if it's anything like Katrina, it'll only be black people that get killed and lose their homes, and who cares about them, right?