There was some good news today with the announcment that the U.S. Supreme court refused to hear Mark Meadows case claiming he was acting in a official duty when he tried to overturn the Georgia election. Other news (below) shows that their are signs of early chaos in Trumpworld.
There will probably be bits of good news showing that everything isn't coming up roses for Trump in the next weeks but the main good news will come as we see the first signs that Trump's attempt to fulfill his so-called manadate to make over the country into a monarchy/dicatorship will flounder like a storm tossed pirate boat whose ruthless captain and bloodthirsty crew causes it to crash onto rocky shoals of reality.
I anticipate that Trump will roll out his begunned tank of revenge to seek out targets for their numerous cannons (above illustration). It will take awhile for them to open fire. When they do this the real life, real suffering, and real death implications of his policies where the point of what he does is a combination of self-agrandizement, revenge, and cruelty will gradually hit home and disgust more and more of those who voted for him.
Now a week after the election it is apparent that Trump will be engaging in all-out warfare against his enemies and the fires he will start will be the result of cannon fire starting a fiery fury.
I've been reading about some of the backlash already being reporting in Magnificant Magaland where everything isn't coming up milk and honey.
First, considering my deciding to use tank to illustrate this blog, consider that Trump wants a military that is totally loyal to him, the US Constitution and adherence to The Military Code of Justice be damned, selected Pete Hegseth, who is a combat veteran and co-host on the weekend edition of “Fox & Friends,” to be his defense secretary.
How will the generals respond to having this 44 year old former Army captain as the Secretary of Defense?
Subject only to the orders of the president, the secretary of defense is in the chain of command and exercises command and control, for both operational and administrative purposes, over all service branches administered by the Department of Defense. Wikipedia
I guess this is Trump's image of the perfect soldier:
Hegseth has been active in conservative and Republican politics since his days as an undergraduate at Princeton University. In 2016, he emerged as a strong supporter and ally of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy, and served as an occasional advisor to Trump throughout the latter's presidency. He reportedly persuaded Trump to pardon three American soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes related to the shooting of non-combatants in Iraq. Hegseth, who was a platoon leader at Guantanamo Bay during his military service, defended the treatment of inmates detained there
How is it gong tp go over that Trump, as RawStory puts it, "a longtime Donald Trump friend, golf buddy and investor has been named as the new special envoy to the Middle East, Reuters reported Tuesday afternoon, and early reactions on social media noted he's pro-Israel, with one critic openly wondering if he'll facilitate a "water front housing development in Gaza."
There also are a cadre of people who expect favors from Trump who may resent him if they don't get the rewards the think they deserve. They may decide to turn on him in various ways from annoying to to a bit more than bothersome. Consider what a woman scorned like Marjorie Taylor Greene may do if Trump doesn't elevate her to where she believes she deserves to be. As a member of the House she is one of several who were big-time MAGAs who Trump has to be careful of letting them leave their positions. This risks them being replaced by someone less loyal, or Heaven forbid, by a Democrat.
We see that what the future holds will be worse than Trump and his minions throwing metaphorical matches into dumpsters. However, I still think my dumpster blog is worth republishing.
Below is what I wrote the day after he was declared the winner of the election. Instead of a tank festooned with cannons I used AI images of dumpster fires.
As part of his message, Mr. Ramaswamy (working with Elon Musk in the new Dept. of Goverment Efficiency) vowed to help take Mr. Trump’s promise to cut government even further. He proposed immediately eliminating the Education Department, the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service by executive order. He said the federal work force should be cut by 75 percent in a mass layoff. And he said he would slash foreign aid to places like Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Read Nov. 7 blog here:
Trump is going to do, or try to do, some things what will enrage half the nation. It will take time for him to start a full on dumpster fire.
Below are the article links.
The red, black, and blue headline articles on HUFFPOST above convey much of what I planned to write about today. As I wrote in my title, Trump is going to do, or try to do, some things what will enrage half the nation. Not only will this engender outrage among the millions of people who voted for Kamala, some who did so reluctantly because they were voting against Trump, but it will lead to many lawsuits. Some of these will end up in the Supreme Court which is considered by at least half the country as being not only in the bag for him but corrupt.
Some of what he intends to do will have an immediate effect. Examples of these will be his day one appointments or announcements. He could cement his critics view about Aileen Cannon being his tool by appointing her as Attorney General. He could announce that he has cut a deal with Putin for him to end the war in Ukraine by stopping all American aide and starting the process of pulling out of NATO.
I expect that we will hear soon, possibly today, a broad outline of what he calls his "day one" plan. I expect he will talk about his campaign promises and how he will make good on them.
It will take varying periods of time for these to be fuel for the dumpster fire I expect his administration to turn into. If he follows though on his tariff plan, for example, it will take months for this to result in the cost of everyday items to increase.
Likewise, elimination of departments, Education and the two departments dealing with weather, this will take more time to have an effect on everyday people. If Trump actually follows through on his saying he might give RFK Jr. the authority to formulate health policy he might as well eliminate the The United States Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA. Again, the trickle down consequences for ordinary Americans will take time to be felt.
If Trump makes good on the Project 2025 plan to make as many positions in the federal goverment dependent on passing a loyalty test to Trump thousands of experts in many fields would lose their jobs.
Consider this (from USA Today)
Project 2025 calls for a major overhaul of the Justice Department, including a "vast expansion" of political appointees in the Civil Rights Division and the FBI.
Trump has similarly said he would bend the Justice Department to serve him politically – "If I happen to be president and I see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, I say, 'Go down and indict them,'" he told Univision in an interview last year. John Kelly, his former chief of staff, said Trump often described "constant and obsessive" ideas of using the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service to target his enemies.
Should Trump follow with this plan I would expect mass resignations. His cult may applaud this but, again, what will the rest of the nation think?
We also don't know what the leadership in the military will do if Trump tries illegally to invoke the Insurrection Act (read article) and use American solders on American soil.
We could have a mass exodus of dedicated and talented Americans who leave their jobs voluntarily or involuntarily.
If all of these people lose their jobs they and their families will suffer economic hardship and members of their communities will feel for them.
Trump's war against the LGBTQ+ community, his hysterical rhetoric and lies about forced child sex change and saying he'll make sure no schools will get federal funds if they teach anything about gender preferences will lead to most of Hollywood joining to vociferously condemn him. Not that it matters except to him, but he'll never get a true A lister to perform for him.
Much of what Trump will do depends, as I wrote in my brief blog yesterday, on his need to get revenge against his enemies. If he decides to order the Justice Department to not only go after Hunter Biden but also after President Biden he will look to many people like a vindictive tyrant. While his cult will cheer him on with this we don't know if others who voted for him want to see him go after an 81 or 82 year old man who will have graciously attended his inauguation. Trump was the first president in 150 years not to attend his successor's inauguration chosing instead to stay at Mar-a-Lago.
I doubt Trump minds being called a tyrant. To him this characterization is probably a point of pride. However, I am quite sure he doesn't like being called a petty tyrant. Look this up in Google News (here) He's already been called this many times. The more his tyranny looks petty the worse it is for his image among people who voted for him but weren't the hardcore Trumpers who want him to be both a tyrant and petty.
We don't know whether it will be a match, several matches, or spontaneous combustion that will start the dumpster fire. I am sure it will something or a combination of things we know Trump intends to do.
A dumpster fire begins as very small, but unless the fire department arrives in time it can get out of control. With Trump there's no fire department. If there was it would be in the form of the Supreme Court or Congress. There's no superpumper fire engine that can put out the conflagration his dumpster fire could ignite.
The country wouldn't literally burn. It would be American democracy that would go up in flames. This only could be stopped if things got so bad that in two years both the House and Senate ended up in Democratic Party control with enough Republicans in the Senate to have the 6o seats needed to convict Trump if he's impeached by the House.
If this was successful then they would have J.D. Vance to deal with.
Illustrations made by Perchance Photo AI
