Part of me wants to just put this election and the unbelievable loss by Kamala Harris behind me, or at least until I know I can or must do something. Maybe I’ll take a vacation from news media. Focus on doing things I love, be with those who love me. It’s just so much to accept, too much to bear.

 

But his actions so far, in choosing his cabinet, administrative, and advisory positions and proposing policies might be too disturbing to ignore, hopefully too disturbing to come to fruition. He’s chosen a cabinet aimed to give him total power and undermine legitimate agency functions. People like:

Matt Gaetz, who is a subject of a House Ethics Investigation, for sex-trafficking and other accused crimes, for Attorney General.

Stephen Miller a white nationalist and creator of the policy to take young children from their immigrant parents during DT’s first term of office, as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.

Lee Zeldin, who questions the reality of climate change and promises to favor big oil and big business over environmental protection, to head the EPA.

Elon Musk, world’s richest man, a megadonor to DT’s campaign, and as Public Citizen reports, a beneficiary of government contracts while 3 of his companies are under investigation for civil and criminal charges, was picked to co-lead a proposed Department of Government Efficiency, to gut federal regulations and slash spending. His partner would be Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech billionaire. Shocking.

 

Heather Cox Richardson reported the DT transition team floated the idea that he could sign an executive order creating a board of retired senior military personnel to review high-ranking officers and recommend removing any they deemed unfit for leadership. Vivian Salama, Nancy A. Youssef, and Lara Seligman reported in the Wall Street Journal that such a board would enable Trump to purge the military of the generals whom he considered insufficiently loyal to him, so he would have total control over the military.

 

Thankfully, the GOP in the House of Representatives just failed to pass, for now, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act which would have granted the secretary of the Treasury Department unilateral authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit deemed to be a “terrorist supporting organization.” It would have enabled the DT administration to revoke the non-profit status of any organization deemed to be supporting terrorism, even without proof, and stifle dissent in the US. That’s a relief. I will still have to take some time for vacations from the news.

 

Remember the Shock Doctrine, the economic and political strategy observed by Naomi Klein in her groundbreaking book published in 2008? The doctrine explained what she called “disaster capitalism,” or the exploitation and manipulation of disasters, natural and human-made, so people misperceive their own interests and accept policies they never would have accepted otherwise. It feels like the Shock Doctrine has won⎼ for the moment.

 

DT has constantly shocked us, by repeatedly inciting fear of illegal immigrants, of crime on the streets when the reality was an historic reduction in crime. Of an economy supposedly in freefall that was actually in recovery. Shocked too many of us to believe those delivering the message, reporting on or trying to prosecute him for his crimes, were the criminals. He accused Democrats of weaponizing the DOJ in order to free up a lane for him to weaponize it, as he tried to do multiple times in his first term, and promises to do in his second⎼ by imprisoning all those who oppose him. He shocked us with outrageous, even bizarre, often misogynist or racist, demented tirades and threats. It appears his motive, besides simply spreading his crazy hate, was to keep us off balance and fearful….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.