Category History

A new hope

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…the Legislative Branch fulfilled a critical role as the representative of the American citizens in debating and passing laws as well as serving as a watchdog (along with the Judicial Branch) over the Executive Branch of government. But in recent years the MAGA Empire has not only beaten down the Rebels to take effective control of all the branches of government, it has all but neutered any principled opposition to the Emperor from within its own ranks. The most recent election results have been taken as a sign for members of the legislature to stand down from their obligations to represent the interests of their constituents, and of the law. Many of the conservative political and thought leaders who notably called out the deficiencies of the candidate in 2016 have over the years bent the knee/kissed the ring/bowed to the inevitable. Damn few have spoken out publicly against the illegalities and constitutional excesses of TFG, apparently for fear of losing their own offices and power.

The nation does not broadly approve of what this president has done in five months back in office: “Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped to an all-time low, according to Newsweek’s latest poll tracker. The tracker shows that 43 percent of Americans currently approve of Trump’s performance, while 53 percent disapprove—giving him a net approval rating of -10 points.” Tariffs that threaten to destabilize the economy, a budget proposal that if approved would add massively to the national debt in order to finance extending tax cuts for the wealthiest while cutting government services for the poorest Americans, broad and ill-considered firings of tens of thousands of government workers, lawless and warrantless seizures and incarceration of immigrants — those both with and without legal authority to be present in this country — and none of it with even an official request to Congress, much less with explicit Congressional approval (beyond the assumed acquiescence of its silence). Opposition has come by way of requests to the courts from the private sector: Democrats in Congress don’t have the votes to stop anything, and Republicans eager to protect their own feathered nests seem not to have the courage to even ask a question for fear of being labelled a lunatic or a hater of America.

Until today, in what I choose to see as a sign of things to come. Perchance, a new hope.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced “he will not seek reelection next year, an abrupt announcement that came one day after he staked out his opposition to President Donald Trump’s tax breaks and spending cuts package because of its reductions to health care programs.” And thus neutralizing this president’s lazy threat to “primary” him in 2026.

It could also make Tillis a wild card in a party where few lawmakers are willing to risk Trump’s wrath by opposing his agenda or actions. Trump had already been threatening him with a primary challenge.

“In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Tillis said in a lengthy statement.

Tillis, who would have been up for a third term, said he was proud of his career in public service but acknowledged the difficult political environment for those who buck their party and go it alone.

“I look forward to having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit and representing the great people of North Carolina to the best of my ability,” Tillis said in a statement.

Tillis’ full statement is posted here.

Thom Tilllis is not a darling of the liberals with a long history of bravely standing up to TFG; he’s a moderate Republican from a conservative state who has a history of supporting a lot of what this president has proposed. But not everything, not when he feels a proposal is bad for his state…which is exactly what a United States Senator is supposed to do, even if a president who doesn’t respect any difference of opinion threatens to light the villagers’ torches and end the political career of anyone who dares to deviate from his party line.

I’m not saying I expect to see a long line start forming with dozens of members of Congress bravely stating their fundamental, moral and constitutional opposition to one dumb thing or another that this president wants to do and putting their political careers on the line. Although, it would only take a few in both the House and the Senate to rob the Republicans of their rubber stamp majorities and open the possibility of actual negotiations that could lead to better and more reasonable laws than what the Imperial Senate seems bent on passing now. And maybe, in the process, blunting the momentum of the steamroller-in-chief’s efforts to remake America in his own image before the midterm elections of 2026, when the party in power would, traditionally, lose members in both houses of Congress.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and surely there are more than a few Republicans in Congress now who (privately) are both ready for the comfortable retirement they’ve prepared for and dreamed of, and tired of compromising their personal integrity and historical reputation to support an emperor that we all know has no clothes. Maybe all they need is a little encouragement to save their people and restore freedom to the galaxy.

I love a parade, but not this

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

I did not attend Saturday’s military parade in Washington, D.C, or even watch it on TV or watch the news coverage of it. I was hoping it would be a dud, that most people wouldn’t be interested in TFG’s self-indulgent display…turns out, that may be exactly what happened. Charles P. Pierce attended in person, and he wrote down some thoughts that have been published in Esquire including “I have never experienced such a joyless, lifeless, and sterile mass event in my entire life.”

I remember when parades used to be fun—bands, bunting, some big Army boom-booms for the kids to cheer over, every high school bandmaster doing their best Robert Preston cosplay. I remember when they were ceremonies of communal joy. You could mark your calendar by them. Homecoming parades. Veterans Day, which was Armistice Day when I was very young. Macy’s and Gimbel’s and Hudson’s on TV every Thanksgiving and the Rose Parade on TV for New Year’s. Memorial Day. The Fourth of July. All of them were supposed to honor something or someone, provided you could see past the cotton candy.

And then there was this leaden spectacle on Saturday, June 14.

(snip)

Grim-faced soldiers, marching past half-empty grandstands, many of them obviously wanting to be somewhere else. No bands. Little bunting. Just piped-in rock music and MAGA hats. If this truly was meant to honor the 250 years of the United States Army, all we got was an endless procession of uniformed troops looking like they’d prefer to have been at Valley Forge. The president, sitting on the reviewing stand in that weird, forward-leaning attitude that he has, rarely smiling, a skunk at his own garden party. Scores of people being funneled through cattle-runs of metal grates just for a chance to sit on the lawn of the Washington Monument and listen to bad music and speeches so dull and listless that they’d have made Demosthenes get out of the business and open an olive oil stand. I think there probably was more good feeling and genuine emotion when they took Jack Kennedy out to Arlington for the last time.

(snip)

A lot of the people waiting in line were watching on their phones, watching the coverage of the No Kings marches all around the country. Now, those were parades—laughter and singing and chanting and people in goofy costumes and exotic hair-colors, thousands of them, big cities and small towns. The streets were jammed with people celebrating the hope that this Grand Guignol period of our national life will pass one day. There was no hope in the streets of Washington. Just tanks and cannons and soldiers marching in dead-eyed cadence.

Just a taste; there’s more and it’d be worth your while to give it a read.

Things I think that I think you should think too

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

It isn’t any wonder that people are confused, thanks to the ongoing gratuitous lying of TFG, and the lazy characterizations of and headlines about the news of the day. There are so many examples from which to choose, here’s a recent one that’s got me annoyed.

Five years ago amid the protests over the murder of George Floyd there came a movement to end the tributes being paid to those who committed treason by taking up arms against the United States of America during the Civil War. This started with opposition to statues and other monuments to the memory of Confederate war “heroes” across the country — mainly in the states of the former Confederacy, of course — and grew to reconsidering the naming of a number of U.S. military installations, vessels and related facilities which honored the likes of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, the Battle of Chancellorsville and many more. (I wrote about my experience in this matter ten years ago.) Over the veto of President TFG, Congress created what was known as the Naming Commission — known in that way because its full name, I swear to God, was The Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America — with the mandate “to create a list of military assets with names associated with the Confederate States of America and recommendations for their removal.” In January 2023 the Department of Defense leadership ordered the Pentagon bureaucracy to execute the commission’s recommended name changes.

The changes themselves generated protests. Some, like a retired Army lieutenant colonel of my acquaintance, objected to the mothballing of the familiar names of places that they felt had created their own important history, despite the character of the men for whom they were named; I get that. But the real disheartening response was from the very many people who disagreed with ending the veneration of heroes of the Lost Cause, or who dishonestly argued that the change was meant to “change history.” No, the change was meant to stop honoring people who were never worthy of the honor, people who in fact were enemies of America.

Now, along comes a president who has clearly demonstrated, over and over again in the first five months of his second term in office, that he doesn’t believe any laws or other actions of the United States Congress apply to him — a position the Supreme Court has given him some reason to believe. He also (mistakenly) believes himself the cleverest little boy in class, and of course he lies as easily and as routinely as he breathes. In a speech this week, which prompted a renewal of concerns about his improper politicization of the U.S. military, he said “he would restore the names of all Army bases that were named for Confederate generals but were ordered changed by Congress in the waning days of his first administration.” Except, of course, he isn’t doing that at all.

In a statement, the Army said it would “take immediate action” to restore the old names of the bases originally honoring Confederates, but the base names would instead honor other American soldiers with similar names and initials.

For example, Fort Eisenhower in Georgia, honoring President Dwight D. Eisenhower — who led the D-Day landings during World War II — would revert to the name Fort Gordon, once honoring John Brown Gordon, the Confederate slave owner and suspected Ku Klux Klan member. This time around, however, the Army said the base would instead honor Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, who fought in the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.

The Army is acknowledging reality here, stating that the “new” names just so happen to match the previous names but actually honor other people and not the Confederates who are no relation to the new honorees.

Mr. Trump, however, contradicted that explanation in his announcement, at one point saying that the Army would be “restoring” the name of one Army base in Virginia — Fort Gregg-Adams — to “Fort Robert E. Lee,” previously named for the commander of the Confederate army. The Army said in its statement that the base would be renamed to honor Pvt. Fitz Lee, a member of the all-Black Buffalo Soldiers who was awarded a Medal of Honor after serving in the Spanish-American War.

The president lied, contradicting his own Pentagon. He did it, I believe, to curry favor with those people who didn’t want the names of the traitors removed from the bases in the first place, by telling them he was undoing what Congress and the Biden Administration had done. This is just a late example of something I’ve said about him for years: he will say anything, whatever he wants to be true in that moment, with no regard for its actual truth or even if it contradicts something he himself said previously. None of that matters to him. When it comes to anything he says, I find it helpful to remember, as was suggested some years ago (sorry, can’t remember by who), that he’s behaving as he always has: he’s a real estate developer hyping his latest project, and all that matters is closing the deal.

What I also find so very annoying in this case is how The New York Times presented the story I quoted from just now: the headline is “Trump Says Army Bases Will Revert to Confederate Names” and the subhead is “The move would reverse a yearslong effort to remove names and symbols honoring the Confederacy from the military.” Not “President Pulls a Fast One, Tricks Gullible Followers Into Thinking He Stood Up To The Woke Mob And Returned Glory To White Supremacists” followed by “Bait-and-switch inserts new honorees with same names as dishonored Confederates to make MAGA mob think they beat the libs again.”

I know that everyone gets it, intellectually, that our president is full of it. We all knew that last November, but he won anyway. Still, how come we seem to have to relearn the lesson day after day after day? I believe most people, including me, still start by hearing “the president” say something and think, hmm, that’s interesting, or terrific, or stupid or illegal, but our default reaction to Trump anytime his lips are moving should be, no, that’s not right. Honest reporters of the news do a pretty good job pointing out his “errors” but they must respond to such a tsunami of crap that the constant corrections can blend into the background noise.

On a related issue, I think it’s just wrong that anyone credit Trump himself for coming up with the ideas for the many rotten things being done by our government in his name. He’s not stupid, but he’s not educated enough about how the government works to have figured out how to short-circuit it, to sabotage it, to subvert our national ethos. Those ideas are coming from the smart, educated, devious and subversive supplicants in MAGA nation and the Christian nationalist world who are and have been using Trump as a figurehead to undermine our democracy and turn (or return) America into the nation of white Christians they believe it was and should be again. Maybe we can talk more about that another day.

Petard, hoist away

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Clown-show fascism describes a regime marked simultaneously by hubristic and defiant assaults on the democratic and constitutional order on the one hand and, on the other, a nearly laughable incompetence in just about every other area of the regime’s activity.

Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, April 28, 2025

We can disagree about the goals of any president. In the before times, we all had some point of departure with what every president wanted to do. It was expected, frankly: any honest observer of and thinker about political issues disagreed with the current administration on something, even when it was a president you had voted for (or even a president you worked for!). That’s one reason why the slavish, Stepford Wives-ish acceptance of every grunt and string of incipid cliches out of TFG by MAGA nation is so hard for me to accept.

But whether or not we agree with the goals of a president, or the means by which he or she tries to accomplish them, we all should demand a president who respects the Constitution and the laws and who doesn’t make things worse while trying to implement his plans. And, as is the case with this president, is not blatantly using his office to enrich himself in so many ways “like you’ve never seen before.” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank makes a strong case that “Across the executive branch, in agency after agency, it’s amateur hour under the Trump administration.” The unnerving of the world economy; the chaos at the Pentagon; the threat to Harvard that was sent by mistake; the deportation that was a mistake but we’re powerless to correct it so shut up you federal judges; the firing of thousands of government workers with no plan to pick up the workload — all these and more, and the cruelty inherent in so much of it, have made the whole world nervous about what he might do next.

And let’s not forget the hypocrisy so prominently displayed but never acknowledged at almost every step. Most obvious, at least to me, is the mountain of executive orders. Has this president even tried to get Congress to pass laws to do what he wants? (A Congress he controls, by the way.) I don’t think so. Many self-described conservatives have for years railed any time a Democratic executive implements policies through executive order, screaming about the abuse of power. In this case, both before and during his first term of office, the man who threw a clot over Barack Obama’s use of executive orders

“The country wasn’t based on executive orders,” Trump said at a South Carolina campaign stop in February 2016. “Right now, Obama goes around signing executive orders. He can’t even get along with the Democrats, and he goes around signing all these executive orders. It’s a basic disaster. You can’t do it.”

has proudly done the same thing, but to a greater extent: Fox News reports (yes, that Fox News) that Trump has signed 135 executive orders so far in his second term, smashing the previous record of 99 by Franklin Roosevelt as he began implementing the New Deal. Trump doesn’t want to govern America, he wants to rule it. He wants to issue orders, edicts, diktats, whims-on-paper, and have his wishes carried out…no need to bother the Legislative Branch. (Don’t get me started on Congress’ abdication of its responsibilities.)

Will we get to a point where those who’ve drunk Trump’s Kool-Aid start to see the real world? Maybe: current polling indicates Trump’s approval rating at the end of his first 100 days — 39% — is lower than any president in 80 years, even beating his own record from 2017. Strong majorities believe his economic policies will cause a recession soon, that his administration is trying to avoid complying with court orders, doesn’t respect the rule of law and is going too far to expand presidential powers. As should be expected, “83% of Republicans said they approve of Trump’s work in office, while 93% of Democrats and 60% of independents said they disapprove.” Also to be expected, Trump’s reaction to his poor showing in the polls is to…call for an investigation of the pollsters for election fraud. (Election fraud? There’s no election.) Remember, nothing bad is ever his fault, there’s always some bad person trying to hurt him. So unfair.

What are we to do? Well, you know me — always looking for the positive. I found some in this column in The Guardian in which the foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall expresses confidence that Trump will fall victim to himself. (Remember: “I alone can fix it.”)

Policy failures and personal misconduct do not usually collapse a presidency. The US constitution is inflexible: incompetence is protected; cupidity has a fixed term. Trump is in power until 2029 unless impeached – third time lucky? – for “high crimes and misdemeanors”, or else deemed unfit under section 4 of the 25th amendment.

(snip)

This fight has moral and ethical aspects, too – and, given this is the US, prayer is a powerful weapon in the hands of those who would slay evil-doers. Of the seven deadly sins – vainglory or pride, greed or covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth – Trump is comprehensively, mortally guilty. In Isaiah (13,11), the Lord gives fair warning: “I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant and humiliate the insolence of tyrants.” God knows, maybe he’ll listen. Miracles do happen.

Of all the tools in the tyrant-toppling toolbox, none are so potentially decisive as those supplied by Trump’s own stupidity. Most people understand how worthless a surrender monkey “peace deal” is that rewards Putin and betrays Ukraine. Does Trump seriously believe his support for mass murder in Gaza, threats to attack Iran and reckless bombing of Yemen will end the Middle East conflict and win him a Nobel peace prize?

And then there’s his greed – the blatant, shameless money-grubbing that has already brought accusations of insider trading, oligarchic kleptocracy, and myriad conflicts of interest unpoliced by the 17 government oversight watchdogs Trump capriciously fired. His relatives and businesses are again pursuing foreign sweetheart deals. Corruption on this scale cannot pass unchallenged indefinitely. Avarice alone may be Trump’s undoing.

All this points to one conclusion: as a tyrant, let alone as president, Trump is actually pretty useless – and as his failures, frustrations and fantasies multiply, he will grow ever more dangerously unstable. Trump’s biggest enemy is Trump. Those who would save the US and themselves – at home and abroad – must employ all democratic means to contain, deter, defang and depose him. But right now, the best, brightest hope is that, drowning in hubris, Trump will destroy himself.

So keep a good thought. Meanwhile, we’ll have to put up with one of the most annoying aspects of anything that has to do with you know who: his insistence on being the center of attention in all things. As Tomasky puts it today in The New Republic:

Even the gross incompetencies take us into treacherous territory because they contribute to making this all about one man, the man who must be in front of the cameras every day. He doesn’t have policies so much as he has urges, which he must announce to the world on a constant basis in a desperate plea that we keep him front of mind at all times. Some of those urges are cruel; some of them are a joke. What unites them is that they make the story entirely about him.

That is not how it’s supposed to work in democracies. Which we still are, for now, as we reach this 100-day mark. Only 1,361 to go.

It ain’t over unless we let it be

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

The tariff fetishist is starting a trade war with our friends and our foes, and it’s going to mean higher prices for you and me, just as predicted by all sane economists. But he says he “couldn’t care less.”

The leader of the free world is trashing his country’s friendly relations with neighbors and threatening a new era of manifest destiny that is forcing some world leaders to publicly acknowledge they cannot trust America to be a loyal friend and ally. (But TFG suddenly changes his tune when one of them calls him on it.)

The chief of the executive branch of government authorized what amounts to a group of consultants to fire government employees and carry out cuts to government budgets, none of which has been authorized by the legislative branch which is suddenly incapable of protecting its own lawful perogatives. The action is sloppily conceived and largely illegal, and being sold to the public as fulfillment of a campaign promise to lower the cost of government…with hopes it will also clear financial objections to a planned upcoming extension of tax cuts for wealthy Americans. (And today he attacked unions representing federal employees.)

The champion of law and order is allowing the illegal kidnapping of people from American streets and having them held in secret, people whose “crime” was lawfully expressing an opinion contrary to the president’s or appearing to be an undesirable. And the guy who has never shut up about the alleged “weaponization” of the U.S. Justice Department by his political enemies to persecute him has installed an acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who is accused of threatening his political opponents and supports the president’s ludicrous calls to impeach judges who rule against questionable Trump policies. And, the president has brazenly used government authority to intimidate lawyers and law firms from daring to oppose his actions or represent anyone who does. Or who has at any time in the past. (The highly-respected conservative jurist Michael Luttig believes Trump will ultimately lose his legal fight against the courts; long-time federal trial attorney and columnist Sabrina Haake hopes the chief justice gets a chance to get specific about what presidential actions don’t qualify for immunity.)

The man who harshly criticized a previous president’s use of executive orders as a “power grab” is doing all this through an unprecedented wave of executive orders that is apparently not a power grab at all. Dan Balz sees it as evidence of Trump’s desire to rule rather than to govern: he can’t be bothered waiting for a Congress (that is already controlled by the party he controls) to pass laws when he can act as king and simply issue edicts.

Is all of this part of the MAGA plan? Is all of this what those Americans wanted to have happen, or expected to happen, when they re-elected him? For many of us who did not vote for him, there is a tendency to feel some level of helplessness, which I think is at least part of the administration’s intent with the non-stop pace of activity. But Timothy Noah reminds us that we don’t have to give up.

Surveying this Boschian hellscape, many good people will despair. Yes, Trump is much more dangerous than he was during his first term (which was harrowing enough). He’s more giddily reckless about impounding funds, shutting down agencies, disobeying court orders, and using the government to punish political enemies. But if you allow yourself to tune out this ugliness, you might as well have voted for the man. The president is counting on such demoralization.

(snip)

How can ordinary citizens fight back? To scout the best approaches, I canvassed activists, lawyers, scholars, politicians, and union leaders for advice. Some of what they suggest will lie beyond your abilities, expertise, financial resources, or sense of personal safety—in which case, choose something you can do. Just about everyone I spoke to emphasized that there is no silver bullet—no single arena, not even the courtroom, where Trump’s illegal power grab can be stopped. “There’s no messiah” who will “sweep in and make everything better,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. That’s up to you and me. The good news is there are a lot of us.

Indeed, there may be even more than we can know just yet. Because Trump isn’t careful about whose interests he acts against, Resistance 2.0 has potential to evolve into a bipartisan movement. “Successful authoritarian regimes determine what their winning coalition is,” observed Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the resistance nonprofit Indivisible, “and then they work very hard to keep that coalition together.” Trump lacks such discipline, and as a result he frequently screws over natural allies.

Trump alienates the military by installing as defense secretary Pete Hegseth, a boozer and womanizer who called an officer of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps a “jagoff” and, after he was confirmed, fired the top JAG officers in the Air Force, Army, and Navy. Trump alienates Big Pharma by installing as health and human services secretary a recovering heroin addict, womanizer, and (according to his cousin Caroline Kennedy) “predator” who less than two years ago said, “There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” As HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommends treating measles with cod liver oil and letting bird flu spread unchecked through poultry flocks. Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says, “I’m not worried about inflation,” and “access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream.” Trump, meanwhile, terrorizes Wall Street with market-killing tariffs and stray threats not to honor the national debt.

No matter who joins this fight, it won’t be won next week, or next month. Barring impeachment and removal, Trump will be president for four long years, and not even his allies expect him to become less authoritarian and kleptocratic. So pace yourself. But the sooner you join in, the more effectively we can limit the damage.

The article goes on to outline a number of ways that each of us can do something, the best each of us can, to be part of the resistance, from protests to lawsuits to just staying informed. Don’t give up: the fight isn’t over.