A Musky Odor

 

I offer belated Merry Christmas wishes. And Happy Hanukkah. Also Kwanzaa. Let’s leave National Cookie Day, Ugly Sweater Day, and the hundreds of other December “Days” to those who observe them.

That Christmas fell, as always, on the 25th and, in a rare confluence, Hanukkah began on it, with Kwanzaa only a day later, feels like an event of celestial significance, like a transit of Mercury, planetary conjunctions, or solar and lunar eclipses.

It might remind us to celebrate, every day, the evanescent and improbable gift we’ve been given of life on this fragile, verdant (so far), life-sustaining (for now) planet; but a grain of sand on an infinite, possibly otherwise lifeless desert. And a reminder of humanity’s wasteful, ultimately useless fixations on political, religious, and racial differences.

In this holiday season of joy, reflection, and perspective, it’d be sacrilegious to focus on the tribulations about to befall us when virtual POTUS-elect Elon Musk takes the reigns of governance while PINO-elect Trump fulminates feebly, arguing agency.

But I will.

Because, whereas what goes on down here amounts to naught across the cosmos, affecting nothing beyond our imperiled atmosphere, it matters immeasurably to those of us currently alive and, more importantly, to our progeny.

Honoring the season, I’ll not comment on those who claim to love God more than the rest of us do while offering unwavering support for the most ungodly leaders this country has ever seen. Including those who, like Holy Mike Johnson, flaunt their prayerfulness like a bloody shirt, while showing little concern for our diminishing earthly abundance, respectful stewardship of which their professed religion demands.

Consider Elon Musk, who embodies the worst of what’s to come in a Trump “administration.” Unelected, wealthy beyond imagination, conspiratorial, nasty, undeservedly egotistical, and Nazi-adjacent, having received zero votes and occupying, at best, a filamentous position in government with no legislative role at all, he issued a last-minute warning about an agreed-upon budget bill on which both sides had been working for weeks: “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in two years!” And lied about its contents. Then, when Republicans fell in line like scared children, he tried to blame the potential government shutdown on Democrats.

Trump, it’s said, doesn’t like the implication that Musk is in charge. But, absent Musk’s willingness and ability to spend whatever it takes to defeat its Republican opponents (pocket change, to him), the bill would have passed. Belatedly, Trump chimed in, for appearances.

Whatever this is, it’s not democracy. It’s rule by threat and intimidation. Because Trump defers to the more wealthy and successful, practically unlimited power rests with the world’s richest man. What he wants, he’ll get. As long as he stays out of the way of Trump’s prosecutorial plans, Trump has no reason to stop him, and Congressional Republicans have neither the integrity nor courage.

So why might Musk have been so anxious to kill the bill? It’s been well-publicized that the stripped-down version that finally passed eliminated funding for childhood cancer research and for making cancer drugs and other treatments more accessible. Other than characteristic Republican post-birth, anti-life policies, and to ensure enough spending will be cut to allow his and the oligarch fellowship’s tax cuts, there’s a less well-known reason. Also stripped were limitations on and regulations of investments in China, where Musk has huge holdings in factories and plans for more. That bit of prestidigitation handed him millions.

Plus there were regulations on “deepfakes,” computer-generated images of people saying and doing things that aren’t real. Musk’s more-influential-than-Trump’s social media platform, X/Twitter, is full of that stuff. And it’s a big part of rightwing disinformation campaigns. Another win for him, and for disinformers everywhere. And he isn’t even the most dangerous. But, according to Putin’s Tucker Carlson, anyone voting against Putin’s Tulsi Gabbard is an “enemy of the United States.” 

This is government bent to the will of a few very rich people, with no regard for the people who, deluded and distracted, put them in office. No one expects hardcore Trumpists to be bothered by any of this, and they never will be. For the rest of us, though, it ought to signal a maybe-final call for awakening and resistance.

Nevertheless, Happy New Year. I hope it’ll show I’m wrong about everything.

Fed

 

Today’s lesson is from the Federalist Papers. Open your textbooks to Federalist 76. Quilled by the recently resurrected Alexander Hamilton, it includes the following:

“It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entire branch of the legislature. . . . He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward candidates who had no other merit than being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure. . .”

That, in a florid nutshell, is the rationale for requiring the Senate to investigate and approve or deny a president’s choices for positions of power. Mr. Hamilton must have had exactly the narcissistic, vengeful, self-promoting Trump in mind. (Wrongly, he presumed a human capability of shame.) Not alone among his colleagues, idiocratic Senator Tuberville (R-Alabama) believes Trump should be allowed anyone he chooses, without pesky, Constitution-mandated interference. 

Aware of human imperfections, the Founders almost had it right. But they seem to have assumed that, in aggregate, senators would not suffer the infirmities we see in Trump. That, tasked with evaluating obviously unqualified and dangerous nominees, senators would place duty to protect and defend the Constitution above all else.

In their defense, Our Fathers were surrounded by and were themselves men of good intention, having risked much to create a new nation. If they foresaw a sociopathic individual like Trump as president, they could not have imagined a Senate majority of them.

We’ve referred to Trumpism as oligarchy, plutocracy, kakistocracy, authoritarianism, dictatorship, all of which apply. We see now that the best description is a Mafia-style protection racket. Pay tribute, you’ll be safe. If not, you’ll regret it. As a flock of tech billionaires and media titans knee-walk to Mar-a-Lago, we see it’s working as intended.

Pre-election, Trump said about Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, “We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal he will spend the rest of his life in prison—as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

He’s made similar threats about media people and their organizations. Zuck caved. Bezos caved. Tim Cook caved. The CEO of the LA Times caved. After ABC News caved over the interpretation of New York’s “penil” code (oops! Was that a typo?), Trump filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register for publishing a poll that turned out to be wrong.

It’s the playbook used by all the world’s dictators of whom Trump is a fanboy: an overt, intentional attack on the First Amendment. Knuckling the press is authoritarianism defined. Seeing mainstream media falling in line like sheep is ominous.

Trump is flaunting his Mafiosical methods like a bludgeon. So is his smarter alter-ego Steve Bannon, who said, last week, “... we’re going to get retribution. [Media] need to learn what populist national power is, on the receiving end. I mean investigations, trials, and their incarceration.”

Retribution for what, one might ask. Exercising the Billed rights of American citizens?

What’s remarkable about such abject capitulation is the communal cowardice. Trump – so far, anyway – hasn’t caused Putinesque defenestration of opponents or death by exploding airplanes. He hasn’t yet – far as we know – poisoned anyone or, like NoKo Kim, sent them before firing squads. These groveling genuflectors are wealthy beyond words. They can afford highest-class lawyers. If they chose to, they could take forceful stands for the Constitution and against Trump’s lawlessness.

Bullies aren’t strong. Trump’s power isn’t internal. In a doom loop of ignorance, arrogance, and weakness, it comes from the pusillanimity and prejudice of his voters, convinced to reject America’s fundamental values; from the certainty of their electeds that those voters will preserve their jobs and cashflow if they, the “leaders,” vote with Trump, and dispose of them if they don’t; from those appointees who’ll do Trump’s bidding; and from Congressional greed and cravenness, knowing his nominees will unleash unrestrained, unconstitutional, government terrorization unknown in North America but afraid to stand against it; while Trump gloats, golfs, and goes AWOL from the responsibilities of office.

Maybe enough Republican senators will remember their obligations of office and reject Trump’s most preposterous picks. While we imagine that unlikely outcome, House Republicans are fine with Trump’s plans to prosecute members of the January 6 Committee for doing their constitutional duty. It’s mass surrender by an entire party to America’s greatest threat since the Civil War.

In control for now, Congressional Republicans are the only ones positioned to preserve our constitutional democracy, but they’re too fearful and selfish to do it. Sadly, “The People” are fine with it. 

Comes The Kakistocratic Plutocracy

 

We’re past the point where dactylonomy can account for the billionaires Trump has selected for positions of authority in his impending kakistocracy. Megadonors all, it’s likely they’ll execute the offices they bought to their own benefit, not ours. From this team of benefactors, unprecedented corruption is more likely than not. Role-modeling even as he ascends to Earth’s reportedly most powerful position, Trump keeps hawking eponymous, overpriced junk. The latest is cologne. Grifters gotta grift.

Consider Stephen Feinberg, billionaire investor who’s donated tons to Trump, as Deputy Defense Secretary. He’s invested in several companies that have Defense Department contracts. Then there’s Jared Isaacman, selected as NASA administrator. Described by Trump as an “astronaut” because he bought his way onto a couple of civilian space flights on an Elon Musk Space-X capsule, he has millions in investments in Space-X. It’s a lidless cookie jar.

Topping the list, of course, is Elon himself, the world’s richest humanoid, who spent close to $300 million on the campaigns of Trump and other Republicans. His companies are, collectively, the greatest recipients of government money. We await the scrutiny he and also-billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy will apply to those corporations as they erase $2 trillion from the national budget as promised. What cuts are more likely: your Medicare or Musk’s contracts?

One thing Musk will do for sure is strong-arm any senatorial dissenters from Trump’s proposed collection of incompetents. When Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) pushed back mildly on Trump’s plan to fire FBI Director Wray in order to install subservient, revenge-promising Kash Patel, he heard from front-line right-wing icons like Charlie Kirk, who said, “Senator Rounds, you are up for reelection in 2026. If you vote against any of Trump’s nominees a primary challenge wouldn’t be hard. Just a reminder.” To which Capo di tutti capi Musk added, “Those who oppose reform will lose their primary/election. Period.” He can find another $300 million in his couch cushions. It seems to have worked on Senator Ernst (R-Iowa), too. It’s government by cement overshoes.

Not all of Trump’s picks are billionaires, but they have in common a wealth of inadequacy and/or inexperience: Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and more. Where checks are balanced, none ought to gain Senate approval. However, given the threats and intimidation Republican lawmakers are receiving, and their signature senatorial feebleness, it seems their ascendency is assured.

Also not a billionaire, but more dangerous than any to the lives of every American is Robert F. Kennedy, Junior. As a formerly practicing physician, husband, father, and grandfather, I find his positions on vaccines and other health matters profoundly disturbing. Like Trump – and maybe it’s the attraction – he’s happy to push thoroughly disproven lies. For example, on his festival of untruths and confabulations during his Meet the Press appearance this past weekend, Trump spouted off about Venezuelan gangs taking over Aurora, Colorado, despite its political leaders and police saying it’s untrue. And, because every day is Opposite Day with him, he later announced, pulled from a sunshine-free anatomic locale, that “Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the Popular Vote in future Elections." After which minds surely achieved maximum boggle.

It’s likely Trump knows he’s lying, but because it keeps his voters happy, doesn’t care. With Junior Bobby, though, who can say? Given his years of addiction to various forms of neurophysiological abuse, not to mention his resident brain worm that dined on parts of his brain before dying, of fright, possibly, he may no longer have the brain loci in charge of separating truth from fiction, science from conspiracy.

Whatever the reason, if allowed, as Trump promised, to “go wild,” his beliefs about vaccines, fluoride, disease vectors, and more become policy, there will follow, without doubt, deaths of many Americans. Children, especially. Having Dr. Oz, a Trump-level-charlatan, quacky pusher of bogus medical “remedies,” in charge of Medicare and Medicaid won’t stanch the death flow, either.

Based on Junior’s global history, deaths are predictable. His disinformation campaign about measles vaccines led directly to children dying in Samoa. His conspiratorial insanity about Covid vaccines was equally deadly. And his intention to curtail infectious disease research, given the certainty of another pandemic, is ominous.

If his hiring criteria indicate the disconnected world in which he lives, it’ll be worse than we imagine. The reported interview questions he asks are crazier but no less portentous than Trump’s. 

From his history of business failures as well as how he mishandled Covid-19, we know Trump is a terrible manager: impulsive, distractable, uninterested in details. As long as they’ll advance his announced need for vengeance, and unless they interfere with his golf game, he’ll be letting the aforementioned appointees do as they wish. It bodes ill in more ways than one.

Pardon Me, But...

 

Because I grew up in a family of lawyers, I indicated my intention to become one on college applications. Once there, though, I found myself having more fun in science labs than in libraries. Then, returning home on Christmas break, my mom showed me letters I’d never seen, ones she’d received after my biological father died, unexpectedly, after an operation, ten days before I was born. He was a doctor. They were wonderful letters of sympathy for her and praise of him, from friends, from patients. Several noted that after he died, I was born, as if handed a baton. Also, his name was Sid. I think showing me the letters was premeditated [no pun], since Mom always introduced me to her friends as “Doctor Schwab,”. I’d tell them, “You can just call me Doctor.”

Did it make me a liar, having told colleges I planned to be a lawyer? Or was it a change of mind? Is there no difference? I ask because people are calling President Biden a liar for pardoning his son, after saying he wouldn’t. So, despite initially deciding not to, I will opine, notwithstanding that, compared to the serious significance of serially selecting sinister sycophantic simpletons by Trump, it is but a blip. (What’s not a blip was Biden’s decision to run again. That had real consequences for us all.)

I’ve been asked if, under the same circumstances, I’d have done the same. My answer was yes, if the situation were identical. If I were President of the United States, subject of years of performative, fact-free, ready-for-Fox “investigations” by hypocrites like James Comer and Jim Jordan, and evidence-lacking, no-indictment accusations that mine was a “crime family;” if my son had, after suffering the loss of his mother and siblings, struggled and eventually turned to drugs and alcohol, committed victimless crimes for which he eventually took responsibility, paid what he owed, and, defying the odds of addiction, cleaned himself up; if a plea agreement proportionate to the crimes, one that similar offenders not bearing my name would have been offered, had been reached and then retracted under pressure from a Trumpy US attorney; if it was clear that he’d be pursued endlessly as a surrogate for attacking me; then, yes, I’d have pardoned him.

In doing so, President Biden finally brought the country together. Both sides agree: what he did is indefensible. From the right, it’s unprecedented abuse of power. (I’ll eschew applicable whataboutism.) From the left, though perfectly legal, it flouts the rule of law. Now, no matter what Trump does on the road to imperial power as his heads of agencies round up everyone on his enemies list, neither President Biden nor any Democrat can ever again claim to value democracy. They say. Absent the pardon, Trump and his tools would surely have behaved admirably.

For sure.

Liberal politicians and commentators whose opinions I respect are all but unanimous in their anger at Biden for what he did. Clearly, I’m wrong. So let’s move on.

Let’s consider the implications of Russian state TV host, Vladimir Solovyov saying about Trump’s intended appointments, “What an excellent team is coming along with Trump! ... If they are allowed to get in, they will quickly dismantle America, brick by brick. They are so great!”

That, I offer, has vastly vaster implications for America’s future than pardoning Hunter Biden. More than appointing a mega-donating art collector with no military experience as Navy Secretary. More than choosing Trump-pardoned Daddy Kushner, a convicted felon who served time for tax cheating and other deplorable behavior, to the Kushiest, most food-and-wine-forward of ambassadorships. More than Putin’s favorite defender as DNI. More than a morally deficient talk-show host as SecDef, who might be on his way out, and whose nomination confirms Trump’s hasty, superficial thinking in making his choices.

Latest atop the heap of horrible is Kash Patel, graduate of a low-ranking law school with a high admission rate, as FBI director. It’s the inverse of the boy who cried wolf. Having endlessly and falsely accused President Biden of weaponizing government, in choosing Patel, Trump has erased any doubt of his intention to do just that. Kashing in on right-wing media, Patel has been everywhere, promising to go after every politician, journalist, news station, and government employee who’d not shown similarly slavish devotion to Trump.

Mr. Patel, or, if he’s rejected, the next anti-constitutional genuflector Trump would appoint, will remake Trump’s FBI into the equivalent of Putin’s KGB. Seeing nothing wrong with that, selectively redacting the First Amendment, Republicans of the sort who attend Trump’s rallies will delight, unconcerned about future ramifications.

In South Korea this week, risking arrest or worse, its people rose up to force their president to rescind his declaration of martial law. That’s courageous commitment to democracy. With half of our country clamoring for Trumpian dictatorship, while their media revel in it, it seems unlikely to happen here. That’s indescribably more ominous than a parental pardon.