Tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com

Since Election Day I think many of us have hoped that somehow, some way The world will stop turning and January 20th won’t come this year. Then we and the rest of the world won’t have to deal with what will almost certainly be the worst leadership in human history.

But here it comes. I doubt any are ready, no matter what yo have done to prepare. Our government is about to be turned upside down as America puts a convicted criminal in charge of the apparatus that is supposed to determine who is a legitimate citizen and who are felons. Or as the old saying goes: the inmates are in control of the asylum.

This week I have vacillated between hope that it won’t be so bad; that somehow the immediate shock will turn into immediate resistance. But the other side of that vacillation is that it will be as bad or even worse than expected. Plus there is the question about whether we the people will ever be told any of the reality that is going on.

As most of us know, controlling ‘news’ – that is propagandizing information – is one of the most critical weapons that authoritarian governments will employ. Since much of the main stream press works on the right wing side of the road, we have already seen how they perpetuated the lie that the economy was bad even at a time when Biden’s strategies will be leaving the next administration with one of the most robust economies ever.

It will be amazing how the press will suddenly acknowledge the robust economy following Monday. But they will be giving credit where it doesn’t belong – to the new administration. From there on it may be hard to find economic reality reported in the main stream. 

The next administration rode a wave of lies into power. Keeping that power will require continuing disinformation. More than ever being a good citizen will require critical thinking skills. Such skills are not in abundance in the USA these days. Keeping critical thinking at bay will be one of the main strategies of the coming oligarchy.

The constitution is set up with its divergence of powers among 3 branches such that no one branch could aggregate power unto themselves. And even inside that diversification, the US Senate was set up so they could be a place where fires of the moment could be cooled.

However, this senate has abrogated their duties to stop an out of control executive. Under Trump we can expect them to be reporting for orders. We already see them showing off their new functionality during the senate confirmation hearings for the appointees. The confirmation hearings became more of an exercise in stroking candidates than in trying to collect information.

Perhaps one of the most pitiful examples of this was Iowa’s own Joni Ernst who has curried an image of a tough military person deeply concerned with women in the military and the sexual coercion in the military for women. The nominee, Pete Hegseth has had many stories of him attacking women. The stage was set for a showdown concerning Hegseth’s past and Ernst’s pet issue.

But by the time, Ernst had changed he mind and an expected showdown became a stroking for perhaps one of the least qualified cabinet pick ever. The whole MAGA bunch of MAGA senators were set up to do one thing – stroke the nominee and curry favor with the Don as mafiosa did on TV decades ago.

I use the term Don because as I watched bits and pieces of the confirmation hearings it reminded me of the Mafia hearings in the 1950s as witness after witness took the 5th amendment right to avoid answering self-incriminating questions. Watching Pam Bondi – the nominee for Attorney General – made me think how well she would have fit in to that group.

Buckle up folks the ride is about to get really bumpy. Even for folks like you and I who know it is coming it will be rough. Economist Paul Krugman in an interview with Greg Sergeant of the New Republic  noted that those who may be most affected are the worker or small business person who voted for trump:

Sargent: It’s funny, we often talk about Trump’s working-class base and his working-class white voter base and so forth, but there’s also a fairly large MAGA contingent represented by small business people, people who operate small manufacturing concerns and so forth. He just seems to have no concern for them at all. Aren’t those people that type of Trump supporter, the reactionary small business person? Aren’t those people going to get brutally scammed by tariffs here?

Krugman: A lot of people are going to get brutally scammed. Those are his most fervent supporters. It is, in fact, probably the local business elites are the most fervent MAGA types out there, more so even than the working class, but that doesn’t mean that Trump cares about their interests. Small business people are the people that he’s all through his life hired as contractors and then not pay, right? Scamming people like that is what his whole life has been around.

Tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com