2025 to 2028 Trump Presidency 2

[gerontocrat]

Time to start looking at the Trump2.0 Administration

Rule 1 - grovel to the Great leader

https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/6/24289649/big-tech-leaders-donald-trump-presidential-election

All the Big Tech leaders congratulating Donald Trump
 CEOs are coming forward with messages for Trump, even when they’ve butted heads with him in the past.
By Emma Roth, a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

Nov 6, 2024, 6:08 PM GMT

Big Tech leaders from across the industry are lining up to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory in the US presidential election. Trump has butted heads with many of the executives now cozying up to the soon-to-be president, who recently threatened to throw Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in prison and said Google could be broken up because its search results are “rigged.”

Despite these comments (and the conflicts during Trump’s previous presidency), many of the tech CEOs targeted by Trump in the past are now coming forward with statements about his win. Here’s what some of the biggest names in tech are saying:

Apple CEO Tim Cook
“Congratulations President Trump on your victory! We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States continues to lead with and be fueled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
“Congratulations to President Trump on a decisive victory. We have great opportunities ahead of us as a country. Looking forward to working with you and your administration.”

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai
“Congratulations to President @realDonaldTrump on his decisive victory. We are in a golden age of American innovation and are committed to working with his administration to help bring the benefits to everyone.”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
“Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing  @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy
“Congratulations to President-elect @realDonaldTrump on a hard-fought victory. We look forward to working with you and your administration on issues important to our customers, employees, communities, and country.”

Microsoft founder Bill Gates
“Congratulations to President Trump and VP-elect Vance. America is at its strongest when we use ingenuity and innovation to improve lives here in the U.S. and around the world. I hope we can work together now to build a brighter future for everyone.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
“Congratulations President Trump, we’re looking forward to engaging with you and your administration to drive innovation forward that creates new growth and opportunity for the United States and the world.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
“congrats to President Trump. i wish for his huge success in the job. it is critically important that the US maintains its lead in developing AI with democratic values.”

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger
“We congratulate President-Elect Trump and Vice President-Elect Vance on their victory and look forward to working with their administration to advance America’s technology and manufacturing leadership in the world.”

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon
“We congratulate President-elect Trump @realDonaldTrump and Vice President-elect Vance @JDVance and look forward to working with the new Administration and Congress to advance priorities that promote resilience, innovation and competition in America.”

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
“Congratulations President @realDonaldTrump on a resounding victory. We stand ready to work with you and your administration on ways to improve transportation, empower small businesses, and raise the bar for flexible work.”

Who stayed quiet?
Some Big Tech CEOs, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Disney’s Bob Iger, and TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew didn’t post a message for Trump. Netflix co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos also didn’t comment.

[gerontocrat]

2025 to 2028 Trump Presidency - what will Musk be able to do in the Royal Court of Trump to advance project 2025? Perhaps quite a lot, as Trump with an executive like Musk is quite a powerful combination.

Trump already had Fox News (mainstream media) in his pocket and now I assume X (social media) will also be in his pocket. Powerful weapons.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/16/elon-musk-donald-trump-us-election

Elon Musk is not America’s new king. But he might be its new Thomas Cromwell
John Naughton

Trump has chosen Musk and a wannabe titan, Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead a “department of government efficiency” (or “Doge”, after Musk’s favourite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin), thereby putting the two dudes in charge of a concerted effort to slash rules, bureaucracy and spending throughout the federal government. “Together, these two wonderful Americans,” declared their new boss, “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.”

Presumably he was impressed by Musk’s claim that he could cut at least $2 trillion from the government’s $6.8tn budget, and by Ramaswamy’s promise, made during his failed campaign for the Republican nomination, to eliminate the FBI, the Department of Education and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Although this new outfit is called a “department”, it won’t actually be a government agency. If it were, Musk would have innumerable conflicts of interest that would cause legal difficulties if he started slashing the regulators with which he is currently in conflict. These include the Federal Aviation Authority, the National Labor Relations Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Also, last year his various companies had $3bn worth of government contracts from 17 federal agencies. But if he’s “outside” the system, he’ll be freer to slash and burn as he likes.

In 2018, the writer Michael Lewis published The Fifth Risk, a remarkable book examining the implications of Trump’s political appointments in his first term, especially with respect to three government agencies: the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Commerce. The book, Lewis explained, was a product of his own desire to find out what branches of the government that never make the headlines actually do. And he found that what they do largely involves keeping people and society safe.

If Musk’s past behaviour is anything to go by, such concern with safety will cut little ice. After he had been forced by a Delaware court to proceed with his purchase of Twitter, the first thing he did was to fire 6,500 people – about 80% of the staff, by his own reckoning. And those dismissed included people whose job was to moderate content on the platform and keep it relatively “safe”. After they’d gone, the platform was opened to all-comers, which is why it has degenerated into a toxic sewer of anti-woke fanatics, white supremacists, misogynists, conspiracy theorists and other inhabitants of alternative universes. He also tweaked the platform’s algorithms to prioritise his own posts to its 200 million users, thus in effect giving him a broadcast medium for his political views and preferences.

Musk’s strategy, once he decided to back Trump, was to go all-in, much as he did years ago when the production of the Tesla Model 3 was running into trouble and he claimed to have slept in the factory for weeks. He moved to Pennsylvania for the last month of the campaign and was active on the ground every day, energising campaigners and generally raising the campaign’s profile, especially in rural areas.

In other words, he made himself indispensable to Trump, and therein lies what may come to be his problem. Narcissists do not like to be under an obligation to anyone, no matter how useful they have been. Thomas Cromwell made himself indispensable to Henry VIII in the 1530s and – as viewers of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light are soon to discover – ultimately that was not a great career move. History may not repeat itself, but this time, as Mark Twain is supposed to have said, it might just rhyme.

[gerontocrat]

Trump has selected an impressive collection of wrecking balls already. A CanDo WillDo Presidency.

Some will say Hurrah, among them MAGA converts and on the other hand those who wish the worst for the USA.

Others look on with dismay, some who wish better for the USA and others (including most European leaders) who wonder about collateral damage beyond USA shores.

Methinks in the USA the Age of "Creative" Destruction married to Social Darwinism has arrived.
And on this side of the pond the only thing our politicians are likely to do is wring their hands and whimper.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/17/trump-transition-biden

Trump’s shock-and-awe approach to transition is both shocking and awful


This week a flurry of controversial and extremist picks for Trump’s cabinet came at a hectic pace with a level of provocation that made heads spin


Joe Biden and Donald Trump meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC on Wednesday. Photograph: Al Drago/UPI/Rex/Shutterstock

“Welcome back,” Joe Biden told Donald Trump, his predecessor and successor, as the pair shook hands in the Oval Office. For Biden, it was important to show the world that America can still conduct a peaceful transfer of power. “A transition that’s so smooth it’ll be as smooth as it can get,” Trump said.

It was an outward show of permanence and stability. But behind the two men a fire was burning fiercely in the grate. TV comedian Stephen Colbert observed: “I do think it was fitting that they held the meeting in front of a roaring metaphor for the future.”

Trump will not be president for another two months but he is already dominating the Washington agenda again. This week a flurry of controversial and extremist picks for his cabinet and other high-ranking administration positions came at a hectic pace and with a level of provocation that made heads spin.

The choices included a Fox News host, a tech billionaire, an anti-vaccine activist, an alleged apologist for Russia’s Vladimir Putin and a congressman once embroiled in a sex-trafficking investigation. The lineup raised fears of authoritarianism or chaos – or both – once Trump and his allies are back in the Oval Office.

Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, said: “Their entire political brand is shock and awe. Prior to Trump’s re-election it was notional. Now they have the power to execute all of their depravity with the full backing of American government power virtually unchecked. I don’t think the people who voted for Donald Trump, allegedly because of economic angst, have a full appreciation for what that means.”

Trump, who has promised not to be a “dictator” except on “day one”, will enter office with far fewer guardrails and checks on his power than last time. He will return to Washington with a Republican-controlled Congress and a conservative supreme court, containing three justices he appointed, that ruled he is largely immune from prosecution.

He has said of his day one plans: “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.” The immigration issue animated his successful election campaign, often couple with racist rhetoric and falsehoods. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News: “We know that on day one he is going to launch the largest mass deportation of illegal immigrants in American history.”

To make it happen he is bringing back Tom Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during his first administration, as his “border czar”. Homan, 62, has said he will prioritise deporting immigrants illegally in the US who posed safety and security threats as well as those working at job sites.

He will receive zealous ideological backing from Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy. An immigration hardliner, the 39-year-old was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trump’s priority of mass deportations. At a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, he adopted nativist language as he asserted that only Trump would stand up and say “America is for Americans and Americans only.”

Trump also announced that Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, will serve as the next homeland security secretary, responsible for everything from border protection and immigration to disaster response and the Secret Service. Noem, 52, rose to national prominence after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the coronavirus pandemic.

A mass deportation effect could face logistical problems as well as a barrage legal challenges from immigration and human rights activists. But when Trump takes the oath of office on 20 January, his team will be expected to hit the ground running.

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “The world needs to strap in because the first day of the Trump administration has been in the planning for at least a couple of years and so the white papers, the executive orders are already in files and ready to be pulled out.

“We can expect certainly that some of the most radical ideas about curtailing immigration into the United States and then the expelling of unauthorised immigrants within the United States will get a boost from the president making a speech or a press conference followed up with directives to the executive branch. That’ll be off and running day one.”

Jacobs added: “We can also expect a pretty sharp attack on the independence of the judiciary. This is going to be a rupture in the generations-old practice of political independence in terms of the Department of Justice. That’s coming to an end.”

Trump has long said the biggest mistake of his first term was choosing the wrong people. He had arrived in Washington as the first president without prior political and military experience and relied on others for personnel recommendations. He felt frustrated at and betrayed by officials who slow-walked or ignored directives they saw as ill-advised.

Having beaten Vice-President Kamala Harris in the 5 November election, Trump is determined to avoid that mistake second time around. His blitz of announcements this week shows the premium he places on absolute loyalty.

His early to-do list could include imposing sweeping tariffs on imported goods, pardoning supporters involved in the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement, reversing protections for transgender students in schools and fulfilling his campaign promise to end the war between Ukraine and Russia “in a day”.

Some have been relatively mainstream selections reassuring to the political class. They include Susie Wiles, 67, who will be the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff, and Senator Marco Rubio, 53, now in line to become the first Latino in the role of secretary of state. Rubio is seen as a foreign policy hawk who has previously taken a hard line on foes including China, Iran and Cuba.

Elise Stefanik, 40, a Republican congresswoman and staunch Trump supporter, has been named as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. Mike Waltz, 50, a Republican congressman and retired Army Green Beret, is set to be his national security adviser. And John Ratcliffe, 59, a former director of national intelligence, will serve as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

But other picks have almost seemed to be political performance art, designed to goad and outrage Democrats (“owning the libs”) and impose a loyalty test on the Senate Republicans who will have to decide whether to confirm or reject Trump’s cabinet members, judges and ambassadors.

On Tuesday night Trump picked Pete Hegseth as his defence secretary. The 44-year-old is a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend on Rupert Murdoch’s conservative Fox News network and once said he “hasn’t washed hands in 10 years” because “germs are not a real thing”. Hegseth, a military veteran, has opined that women should not serve in combat and expressed disdain for the so-called “woke” policies of Pentagon leaders.


In his recent book, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, Hegseth wrote: “The next president of the United States needs to radically overhaul Pentagon senior leadership to make us ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. Lots of people need to be fired.”

A day later Trump named Tulsi Gabbard, 43, a former Democratic congresswoman and critic of the Biden administration, as his director of national intelligence. Gabbard served in the army national guard for more than two decades, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait. But she secretly met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017 and blamed the US and Nato for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “So far the candidates range from the unserious to the terrifying. Tulsi Gabbard is going to send a shock wave through the intelligence community and not in a good way. I can tell you that her Putin sympathies being rather evident to everyone around her is going to become a major issue. I’m not sure Tulsi Gabbard can be confirmed.”

Perhaps most outlandish, Trump selected Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman and “Make America great again” provocateur, for attorney general. The position of America’s top law enforcement official is potentially central to his plans to carry out mass deportations, pardon January 6 rioters and seek retribution against those who prosecuted him over the past four years.

The decision prompted howls of derision and doubts over whether Gaetz, 42, will receive Senate confirmation. He was once the subject of a justice department investigation into sex-trafficking allegations involving underage girls, although it ended last year with no federal charges against him.

The staunch Trump loyalist was also under scrutiny by the House ethics committee over allegations including sexual misconduct, although that investigation in effect ended on Wednesday when Gaetz resigned from Congress. Republican and Democratic senators on the judiciary committee that would review Gaetz’s nomination are calling for the findings to be made available to them.

Senator Dick Durbin, the Democrat who currently chairs the judiciary committee, said Gaetz “would be a disaster” in part because of Trump’s threat to use the justice department “to seek revenge on his political enemies”. John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, described it as “the worst nomination for a cabinet secretary in American history”.

Then, on Thursday, Trump delivered the coup de grace by saying he will nominate Robert Kennedy Jr, 70, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy is one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in the world. Long advancing the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism, he has said vaccines have caused a “holocaust” and travelled the world spreading false information about the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kennedy, the nephew of President John F Kennedy, has also said he would recommend that water agencies stop adding fluoride to drinking water and made a variety of other claims not backed by science, such as questioning whether HIV causes Aids and suggesting antidepressants lead to school shootings.

Adding to the mix, Trump named Mike Huckabee, 69, as ambassador to Israel. He has rejected a Palestinian homeland in territory occupied by Israel, calling for a so-called “one-state solution”. He has also denied that the West Bank, seized by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 six-day war, is under military occupation.

Meanwhile the tech billionaire Elon Musk, 53, a campaign surrogate and increasingly close ally, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, 39, will lead lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency. Trump said the pair will reduce government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut waste and restructure federal agencies.

Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, defended Trump’s team selection as an effort to bypass the establishment. “Einstein once said, thinking there’ll be a different outcome by doing the same thing over and over again is a sign of insanity,” he said.

“We’ve been told now for decades that the American people think we’re on the wrong track. We keep hiring people who are marginally more off the track a half-inch and we get the same result. Well, Trump is going to move the track by many feet.”

But the rapid-fire onslaught has left many in Washington dazed and confused about the prospect of Trump’s first day in office. Setmayer, co-founder and chief executive of the Seneca Project, a women-led super political action committee, said: “I expect chaos and a series of constitutionally questionable actions exponentially worse than what we saw on day one last time. It’s already started. There will be many of us who said, we warned you.”

She added: “The Trump administration is going to plunge America into a cross between The Hunger Games and The Celebrity Apprentice, unfortunately at great expense to the future of our democracy and the humanity of millions of Americans who will suffer at the hands of this gallery of degenerates. The American electorate fucked around and now they’re going to find out.”

[vox_mundi]

[Freegrass]

Here's a great video from Just Have A Think about what to expect from a Trump presidency. I think he's right that climate investments will continue to happen, just like they did in his first term, but I'm afraid he'll try to open that Alaska oil field again, and slow down progress instead of speeding it up. And like last time, other countries will also not feel pressured anymore to do more for the climate.

[Neven]

Is this a portrayal of the Democrat comeback? First porn star first lady? What's wrong with that? Do you hate strong women? Are you a prude? Shame on you, vox, you Republican bigot.

[Freegrass]

‘A champion of dirty fossil fuels’: Trump names fracking advocate Chris Wright as energy secretary

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/11/18/a-champion-of-dirty-fossil-fuels-trump-names-fracking-advocate-chris-wright-as-energy-secr

Fracking advocate Chris Wright has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change and could give fossil fuels a boost.

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Chris Wright, a campaign donor and fossil fuel executive, to serve as energy secretary in his upcoming, second administration.

CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, Wright is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development, including fracking, a key pillar of Trump’s quest to achieve US “energy dominance” in the global market.

Wright has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change and could give fossil fuels a boost, including quick action to end a year-long pause on natural gas export approvals by the Biden administration.

Frequently criticising what he calls a “top-down” approach to climate by liberal and left-wing groups, Wright has argued that the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight”.

He has never served in government but has written that more fossil fuel production is needed around the globe to lift people out of poverty.

Conservatives say Chris Wright will bring ‘important perspective’

Consideration of Wright to head the administration's energy department won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm.

Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term.

Hamm helped organise an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in April where Trump reportedly asked industry leaders and lobbyists to donate $1 billion (€950 million) to Trump’s campaign, with the expectation that Trump would curtail environmental regulations if reelected.

Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's top lobbying group, said Wright’s experience in the energy sector “gives him an important perspective that will inform his leadership" of the Energy Department.

Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, who is expected to become chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Trump promised bold choices for his Cabinet, and Wright’s nomination delivers.

“He’s an energy innovator who laid the foundation for America’s fracking boom. After four years of America's last energy policy, our country is desperate for a secretary who understands how important American energy is to our economy and our national security,″ Barrasso said.

Who is energy secretary Chris Wright?

Environmental campaigners say the appointment is bad news for the push for green energy in the US.

Jackie Wong, senior vice president for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, called Wright “a champion of dirty fossil fuels" and said his nomination to lead the Energy Department was “a disastrous mistake”.

In 1992, Wright founded Pinnacle Technologies, which helped launch commercial shale gas production through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Fracking has long been criticised for its impact on the environment by poisoning groundwater, damaging natural landscapes and generating noise pollution.

He later served as chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before founding Liberty Resources in 2010.

“The Energy Department should be doing all it can to develop and expand the energy sources of the 21st century, not trying to promote the dirty fuels of the last century," Wong added.

“Given the devastating impacts of climate-fueled disasters, DOE’s core mission of researching and promoting cleaner energy solutions is more important now than ever."

US seeks ‘energy dominance’ around the world

The Energy Department is responsible for advancing energy, environmental and nuclear security of the US.

The agency is in charge of maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons, oversees 17 national research laboratories and approves natural gas exports, as well as ensuring environmental cleanup of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex.

[vox_mundi]

Trump Confirms Plan to Declare National Emergency, Use Military for Mass Deportations
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-confirms-plan-declare-national-emergency-military-mass/story?id=115963448



President-elect Donald Trump on Monday confirmed he would declare a national emergency to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission.

Overnight, Trump responded to a social media post from Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, who said earlier this month there are reports the incoming administration is preparing such a declaration and to use "military assets" to deport the migrants.

“TRUE!!!” Trump wrote.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/113503150672865350

"On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out," he said during a rally at Madison Square Garden in the closing days of the presidential race. "I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible."

Former Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan was named “border czar.”

Homan previously discussed his vision for mass deportations, saying they would first concentrate on expelling criminals and national security threats. He didn’t rule out deporting families together.

Throughout the campaign, Trump vowed to mobilize the National Guard to assist with the deportation effort. Experts told ABC News such a move would mark a fundamental shift for the military, which does not normally engage with domestic law enforcement issues.

At times, Trump went further, suggesting thousands of troops from overseas be moved to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mass deportations could have a broader economic impact by resulting in a loss of tax revenue and labor shortages.

ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz recently reported from California on the impact Trump’s immigration and mass deportations plans could have on the American agriculture industry.

"If you took away my workforce, you wouldn't eat. If you go into the San Joaquin Valley and you start doing what you're saying, it's over. The country will stop, literally stop because the food system won't move," said Manuel Cunha Jr., the president of the Nisei Farmers League.

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Shouting Racial Slurs, Neo-Nazi Marchers Shock Ohio’s Capital
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/us/neo-nazi-march-ohio.html

Ohio officials have denounced a small contingent of neo-Nazis who paraded Saturday afternoon through a Columbus neighborhood – waving flags featuring swastikas and shouting a racist slur – in the latest public demonstration by White nationalists in recent years across the United States.

... The number of events organized or attended by White supremacists in the United States hit a new high last year at 282, the anti-hate Anti-Defamation League reported. Marches and public gatherings of White nationalists or people with Nazi flags have unfolded in recent years in Nashville, New Hampshire, Boston, Arkansas, Virginia, Washington, DC, and Michigan, where flags with swastikas were toted this month outside a community theater performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

[zenith]

mike benz was a corporate lawyer on wall st. and he's worked in government in washington. he has his finger on the pulse.

this is a 27 minute clip.

"Patrick Bet-David and Mike Benz break down the shocking measures allegedly considered by establishment elites to influence the 2024 election. From internet censorship to counterinsurgency tactics, Benz unveils the strategic playbook of those aiming to control the American political landscape."

"Military Coup To Stop Trump" - Mike Benz Exposes Elite's SHOCKING Wargame Plan For 2024 Election

[gerontocrat]

How to define Trump's Government To Be ? Here's one definition....

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/21/trump-administration-kakistocracy

‘Government by the worst’: why people are calling Trump’s new sidekicks a ‘kakistocracy’

The word is trending as Trump makes cabinet picks – but it’s not the first time it’s been used to describe lousy leadership


Nancy Friedman wrote in 2016: ‘You could say that kakistocracy is “government by the shitty”.’ Illustration: Cold War Steve/The Guardian

Matt Gaetz running the justice department. Fox hosts in charge of the Pentagon and transportation. Elon Musk as head of layoffs. And Robert F Kennedy Jr and Dr Oz overseeing the nation’s health.

Some have likened Donald Trump’s administrative picks to a clown car; others are calling our incoming leadership a kakistocracy, or “government by the worst people”, as Merriam-Webster puts it.

The word has been trending online, with a burst in search traffic in recent weeks and a new dedicated subreddit. It’s not the first time Trump has (accidentally) made the term famous; many discovered it in his first term. But the kakistocracy of 2016 looks like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood compared with the president-elect’s new batch of sidekicks.

It’s not the first time a president has popularized the term. Trump would be horrified to know he shares this distinction with several of America’s least-discussed presidents, including Rutherford B Hayes, James Garfield and Chester A Arthur. This trio – somehow forgettable despite the fact that the middle one was assassinated – led the US from the late 1870s to the early 1880s, a period following Reconstruction that saw the expansion of Jim Crow laws and segregation, as well as another election in which the parties clashed over the results. That span saw a surge in the use of the word, as Kelly Wright, assistant professor of language sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, points out based on Oxford English Dictionary data. “Hayes’ term was absolutely being described as a kakistocracy,” she says. (1880 was also a general election year in the UK, another country known for its contributions to the English language. That year, William Gladstone became prime minister for the second time; perhaps his opponents were among those giving the word a boost.)

In fact, as André Spicer wrote in the Guardian in 2018, the term has been around since at least 1644, during the English civil war, when a sermon warned of “a mad kinde of Kakistocracy” looming.

Its roots, of course, go back even further – it’s borrowed from the Greek kakistos, or “worst”, which itself probably comes from the Proto-Indo-European word kakka, meaning “to defecate”.

In other words, as Nancy Friedman wrote at her Substack on language in 2016, “you could say that kakistocracy is ‘government by the shitty’.”

The term resurfaced on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th century. Initially it tended to refer to government by the “unskilled, unknowledgeable and unvirtuous”, rather than the infallible aristocracy, Spicer wrote, but by the 20th century, it referred more to government by the corrupt. Today, Friedman’s definition seems most apt.

"Some of this is about there being a diagnosis, and if there’s a diagnosis, then maybe there’s a treatment"  Nicole Holliday

But why does a word that is rarely used in common speech have such longevity? Nicole Holliday, acting associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, likens the term’s use to identifying a disease: “Some of this is about there being a diagnosis, and if there’s a diagnosis, then maybe there’s a treatment,” she says.

Wright agrees. Those embracing the term, she says, may be thinking: “I didn’t know there was a word for this, and now that I do it helps me understand what’s going on.”

Americans, Holliday says, love labels. “We like having words for things, because then they seem like they’ve been en-thing-ified” – in what sociolinguists call “enregisterment”, kakistocracy becomes an identifiable phenomenon. “Language is social,” Holliday notes, and when we have “conventionalized ways of talking about things, it makes us feel less alone” – especially when other ways of describing the situation feel inadequate.

Of course, it’s not just the modern American left that uses the word; another ex-Fox host, Glenn Beck, used it during the Obama years; Boris Yeltsin also received the distinction. In fact, Wright says, usage has been fairly stable for five centuries.

“We have no real opposite of kakistocracy, because competency is assumed to be the normal order of things,” Holliday says. “It’s not notable that the government is being run by the most competent people, because, indeed, that’s what you think should be happening. It’s only notable when it’s not.”

[zenith]

How to define Trump's Government To Be ? Here's one definition....

you're completely incorrigible. the guardian is part of the state dept./pentagon/cia/nato media propaganda machine. it used to be called operation mockingbird, you've had decades to work it out.

the biden/deep state/blob has us on course for nuclear war and you're playing your stupid partisan games? grow the fuck up. you're an anachronistic old fool and a child all at once. a man child.

the biden/deep state is engaging in unprecedented sabotage during this transfer of power that threatens all of our existince and then there's you... what a gaping asshole.

[The Walrus]

Gaetz has withdrawn his name from consideration for attorney general.  That is one less name on your list.  Others may not be so bad.  Huckabee and Rubio are well-established statesmen.  The jury is still out on Musk.

[DanLittle]

the biden/deep state/blob has us on course for nuclear war and you're playing your stupid partisan games? grow the fuck up. you're an anachronistic old fool and a child all at once. a man child.

Well that's not a very nice thing to say, especially when you're caught up on the other side of the partisan trap.

...what a gaping asshole.

While I disagree with the context and appreciate all the work gerontocrat puts into the ice forum, I did get a kick out of the use of this as an insult.

Unfortunately zenith, slinging personal mud like that over politics makes you seem like the loose butthole.

[LeftyLarry]

Gaetz has withdrawn his name from consideration for attorney general.  That is one less name on your list.  Others may not be so bad.  Huckabee and Rubio are well-established statesmen.  The jury is still out on Musk.

Oh, yea, I’ve seen the new list, what you think of as bad are many guys with the same viewpoint as Gaetz, just no skeletons in their closet and less enemies, I especially the candidate from Missouri , he’s sued the Biden administration many times in the recent past and he knows his stuff.
The goal is to find somebody committed to cleaning up the DOJ which has become a partisan , Leftist cesspool , run by the Swamp, Gaetz was committed to do that but there are others who can probably be more effective , Conservatives with less enemies, Gaetz , leading the group that got rid of McCarthy created too many enemies, he was dead on arrival.

[LeftyLarry]

Gaetz has withdrawn his name from consideration for attorney general.  That is one less name on your list.  Others may not be so bad.  Huckabee and Rubio are well-established statesmen.  The jury is still out on Musk.

Musk and Ramaswamy are not part of the cabinet, they are pretty much free to do what they want in terms of making suggestions to Trump on how to make Government more efficient.

First thing they should do is demand all Government employees come back to the office and no longer work remotely.
That will knock out probably 50,000+ employees right there maybe a lot more and help the Washington DC economy tremendously, small businesses (many of them minority owned) there have not recovered from the Covid fiasco still and the Government there has pretty much 2/3 empty office space.

Next shut down entire agencies and return power to the individual States, we don't need City, State and federal Government bureaucracies running local school systems, let the states handle that themselves with minor oversight when needed. Let's get the power away from the teacher's unions and Democrat party and back into the hands of elected officials and parents.

Billions can be saved and better spent on defense too and then NATO spending won't be so important.

Really though the bottom line is REGULATIONS.
They can show Trump where he can cut regulations and therefore shut down wasteful organizations and wasteful spending.

Many AMericans believe 2 trillion a year can be removed from the budget easily, about 30%.

Yes, I believe and hope that this will cause a much needed recession with low interest rates, followed by an amazing recovery with MAGA the final result.

[gerontocrat]

Trump's Presidency has not started but....

Bloomberg wrote a day ot two ago that Wall Street assumes that Bessent, as Trump's nominee for Treasury Secretary, would moderate Trump's actions on Tariffs. But then Trump wrote that he will impose 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico & Canada and an extra 10% tariff on China.

Will he do it?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/25/trump-mexico-canada-tariffs-border

Trump vows tariffs on Mexico and Canada and deeper tariffs on China

President-elect attacks neighbors over immigration and accuses China over fentanyl entering US

Donald Trump has said that he will sign an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on all products coming in to the United States from Mexico and Canada, and additional tariffs on China, once he becomes US president again.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Trump said the tariffs would remain in place until the two countries clamp down on drugs, particularly fentanyl, and migrants crossing the border illegally.

In a follow-up post, Trump announced that the US “will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America”.

He said that the reason for the additional tariff was China’s failure to curb the number of drugs entering the US. China is a major producer of precursor chemicals that are acquired by drug cartels, including in Mexico, to manufacture fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid.

Perhaps there will be more transparency than one might have expected from the Trump2.0 Administration. Why? Because "Internal rivalries spilled into public view" - That guy Boris looks like he just walked off the set of "The GodFather".

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/25/trump-camp-rivalry-boris-epshteyn

Trump camp rivalries come to fore over efforts to oust top adviser

Boris Epshteyn accused of asking potential administration nominees to pay monthly fee for lobbying president-elect


Boris Epshteyn, adviser to Trump, walks in to a courtroom at Manhattan criminal court in New York, in May 2024. Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/Reuters

Internal rivalries spilled into public view on Monday as Boris Epshteyn, a top adviser to Donald Trump, found himself at the center of an ouster effort over accusations he asked potential administration nominees to pay monthly consulting fees in exchange for lobbying for them to the president-elect.

The maelstrom engulfing Epshteyn suggested that barely 20 days since Trump won the election, the knife-fight culture of the first Trump presidency, where bitter aides took any opportunity to remove rivals, had returned.

Over the weekend, David Warrington, the Trump 2024 campaign’s general counsel, finalized the main conclusions of a review into Epshteyn that found he had unsuccessfully solicited tens of thousands of dollars from potential nominees including Scott Bessent, who has been tapped to be Treasury secretary.

According to the review, one day after Trump met with Bessent for the first time in February, Epshteyn invited him to lunch at a hotel in Palm Beach, where he asked for a monthly retainer of at least $30,000 to promote his name at Mar-a-Lago in case Trump won the election.

Bessent declined and complained to an aide that Epshteyn tried to shake him down. Later, when Epshteyn asked Bessent to invest $10m in a three-by-three basketball league, he declined but told associates Epshteyn would probably give him better access if he had taken up the offer.

The review into Epshteyn, a longtime Trump adviser who has wielded outsized influence with Trump over cabinet picks and positions in key departments, also concluded Epshteyn’s employment and access to Trump should be terminated, according to two people briefed on the findings.

But Epshteyn remained part of Trump’s inner circle as of Monday evening, with Trump riding high on the news that special counsel prosecutors had moved to dismiss the two federal criminal cases against him – a victory he credited to Ephsteyn.

The first person that Trump called when prosecutors withdrew the cases against him was Epshteyn, according to two people with Trump at the time, which occurred just as CNN first reported the existence of the review into Epshteyn’s consultancy scheme.

For the remainder of the day, Epshteyn was on the offensive as his allies dismissed the review as an attempt by Warrington to decapitate Epshteyn after he successfully pushed for Bill McGinley to be the White House counsel, rather than Warrington, who had also been in contention for the role.

Epshteyn’s allies later portrayed the review as a political hit job capitalizing on Epshteyn’s role in pushing for the former congressman Matt Gaetz to get the nomination for attorney general before it sank under the weight of sexual misconduct allegations.

Epshteyn denied the allegations. “I am honored to work for President Trump and with his team,” he said in a statement. “These fake claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from making America great again.”

If the failure of the Gaetz nomination was seen as an opportunity to oust Epshteyn, even in part, it may have been a miscalculation since the original idea to have Gaetz lead the justice department came from Trump himself, according to a person with direct knowledge of that conversation.

One Trump adviser who does not care for Epshteyn speculated on Monday night that his influence was weakened by the allegations. But another Trump adviser suggested Epshteyn may have emerged stronger. “Trump isn’t impressed by a pile-on because that’s what all those prosecutors did to him,” the adviser said.

Epshteyn’s staying power with Trump has remained constant over the years and surprised newcomers to Trump’s orbit. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson have both remarked to associates that they did not understand why Trump placed so much trust in Epshteyn.

The principal reason for that trust in the last two years, according to multiple aides and associates, has been because Trump has regarded him as a major reason for how he sidestepped legal peril during the 2024 campaign.

Epshteyn assembled and oversaw the Trump legal team during the criminal investigations and in the multiple criminal cases, including when Trump found it nearly impossible to find capable lawyers to represent him. “Boris was always right,” Trump is said to have remarked about Epshteyn’s legal strategy.

That endeared him to Trump, who has taken Epshteyn seriously on policy and personnel suggestions, even if they were derided by others on the Trump team. When Trump named his top picks for the leadership of the justice department, they were Trump’s personal lawyers who had all been recruited by Epshteyn.

[Freegrass]

Trump's Presidency has not started but....

Bloomberg wrote a day ot two ago that Wall Street assumes that Bessent, as Trump's nominee for Treasury Secretary, would moderate Trump's actions on Tariffs. But then Trump wrote that he will impose 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico & Canada and an extra 10% tariff on China.

Will he do it?

That would mean blowing up his own United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA. Not sure how that's going to go down in Mexico and Canada. Stock markets are going to plummet.

[Neven]

I listened to this podcast yesterday (it's from 2 weeks ago) and I think it offers an interesting view on the Trump presidency, that doesn't fall into the dumb people partisan trap:

[Chris83]

Donald Trump’s election will likely be seen as a pivotal moment in 21st-century history and possibly beyond. It signals the end of meaningful climate action for decades to come and a definitive fracture in the concept of common ground and shared interests for humanity.
Recent statements from South Pacific nations already echo these concerns.

History books may also need revision. The 1929 economic crisis was often blamed for Hitler's rise to power. Yet in 2024, with America’s economy arguably at its strongest, voters chose to embrace extreme far-right policies, fully aware of the disastrous outcomes of Trump’s previous presidency.

[The Walrus]

Donald Trump’s election will likely be seen as a pivotal moment in 21st-century history and possibly beyond. It signals the end of meaningful climate action for decades to come and a definitive fracture in the concept of common ground and shared interests for humanity.
Recent statements from South Pacific nations already echo these concerns.

History books may also need revision. The 1929 economic crisis was often blamed for Hitler's rise to power. Yet in 2024, with America’s economy arguably at its strongest, voters chose to embrace extreme far-right policies, fully aware of the disastrous outcomes of Trump’s previous presidency.

What disastrous outcome?

[Chris83]

Here’s a brief, non-exhaustive list:

Supreme Court nominations eroded the court's credibility, effectively ending the rule of law in America.
The withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the JCPOA rendered America’s signature worthless on the global stage.
The handling of COVID-19, the refusal to accept election results, and the association with a murky entourage damaged two of America’s greatest assets: its soft power and public image.

The current events and nominations are setting the stage for even greater disasters and failures.
Simply focusing on climate, the approval of four major LNG projects is on the horizon—each one deemed a "climate bomb".

Is actively destroying climate stability a disaster? Some may argue that it's debatable, and some may even argue that it is necessary. Or a great thing !!



   

[The Walrus]

Here’s a brief, non-exhaustive list:

Supreme Court nominations eroded the court's credibility, effectively ending the rule of law in America.
The withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the JCPOA rendered America’s signature worthless on the global stage.
The handling of COVID-19, the refusal to accept election results, and the association with a murky entourage damaged two of America’s greatest assets: its soft power and public image.

The current events and nominations are setting the stage for even greater disasters and failures.
Simply focusing on climate, the approval of four major LNG projects is on the horizon—each one deemed a "climate bomb".

Is actively destroying climate stability a disaster? Some may argue that it's debatable, and some may even argue that it is necessary. Or a great thing !!

So basically it was a disaster for climate action, and nothing else..

[zenith]

here we go again, trump trumping. the united states is the victim and the bully. i wonder if us states will stop bussing illegal migrants to the canadian border so they can cross illegally into canada.

Donald Trump threatens 25% tariff on products from Canada, Mexico
Damaging fee would drive up costs for exporters
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-tariffs-25-canada-mexico-1.7393160

"Donald Trump has levelled his most severe threat against Canada in years, warning that on his first day in office he might impose punishing economic sanctions across North America.

The U.S. president-elect threatened Monday evening to slap a 25 per cent tariff on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico on Jan. 20, 2025, his inauguration day, unless those countries curb the flow of drugs and migrants across their borders.

"This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!" Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

"Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem. We hereby demand that they use this power, and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!"

The warning sent the Canadian dollar diving nearly a cent at one point, before it recovered somewhat.

Such an import fee would incur untold economic damage, driving up costs for Canadian and Mexican goods in their most critical market. ..."

[Bruce Steele]

Well the US has become very dependent on Canada for heavy crude imports to mix with US produced light grades. Without diesel or the heavy distillates needed to produce it our economy will crash. So really Canada is in a very good position to “strike a deal” .
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=62664
If we are really gonna impose a big assed tariff on heavy crude then dear trump will unintentionally crash this beast and maybe our good ally Canada too. What else could Zenith hope for?

[zenith]

canada is already crashing, like europe. this trump presidency could be a good thing as canada, and the other "allies", will be forced to realign away from the united states as it's become so hostile and unreliable.

canada - hewers of wood and drawers of water for empire.

we should start building east west high voltage transmission lines and prepare to shut off the cheap hydro-electric power to the states as well. plenty of other resources and manufactured products we could find other markets for, maybe we'd even have our own defense industry as the empire doesn't like strong neighbours and allies, it wants them reliant and then it can blame them for being weak too.

we'll see what happens, i doubt much good. what really needs to happen is a housing crash, major housing construction and lower wages across the board so we're more competitive internationally, ppp not gdp. we'll have to reinvest in ourselves and become more self sufficient since american globalization is over.

[CalamityCountdown]

I haven't seen anything about whether food and medicine will be excluded from the tariffs. Putting tariffs on all imports would be a disaster. My guess is that there will be lots of carve outs for a variety of products (to the benefit of Tesla and Apple etc.). Also, it seems like there is a high likelihood that the threat of tariffs is a negotiating position. Obviously, we'll know a lot more by mid January.

[zenith]

it's trump so it's a lot of bluff and bluster but at the same time it's not. he's an idiotic wrecking ball and the united states has always been a bully but he'll turn it up to 11. nobody needs this shit. if we had better leadership we'd be charting a new course long term as this current situation is untenable.

of course there's always the threat that the united states would just invade, that's always lurking.

[gerontocrat]

Meanwhile, Europe is having to take Trump Presidency 2 seriously, the most immdiate concern being tariffs and perhaps US multinationals packing their bags and moving their HQ back home.

Eire may be the first in the firing line. Once again the big question is how much of what Trump has said he will do will he do. At the moment it looks like his nominated cabinet is pretty gung-ho about it all.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/25/ireland-prices-corporation-tax-loss-from-trump-policies-at-10bn

Ireland prices corporation tax loss from Trump policies at €10bn

Figure costed for three multinationals repatriating to US after nomination for commerce secretary hits out at Ireland’s tax regime

Lisa O'Carroll in Dublin
Mon 25 Nov 2024 18.33 GMT
Share
Ireland’s prime minister has said the country could lose €10bn (£8.35bn) in corporate tax if just three US multinationals were repatriated to America under a hostile Donald Trump administration.

His remarks come just days after Trump nominated the Wall Street investor Howard Lutnick to lead the Department of Commerce with direct responsibility for trade.

While Trump has already warned he would impose tariffs on EU imports, Lutnick has singled out Ireland for criticism saying “it is nonsense that Ireland of all places runs a trade surplus at our expense”.

Simon Harris said if he was returned as taoiseach in Friday’s general election, he would immediately seek engagement with Trump. He has also proposed an early EU-US trade summit to avert damage in trade ties with the overall European trade bloc.

“If three US companies left Ireland it could cost us €10bn [£8.5bn] in corporation tax,” Harris said on Monday while canvassing in Dundrum, Dublin.

“I’m not pre-empting it, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, I’m not predicting it, but that is the level of risk that our economy is exposed to,” he said.

Ten multinationals account for 60% of Ireland’s corporate tax receipts, with Microsoft, which books some global as well as EU revenues through Ireland, thought to be the single biggest contributor.

Ireland’s goods trade surplus with the US is now a record €35bn with Irish goods exports up by 8% in the first eight months of 2024, boosted by the pharmaceutical and chemical sectors.

Goods exported to the US totalled €45.5bn between January and August, according to the government’s Central Statistics Office, compared with imports of €11bn for the same period.

Harris said he had no reason to believe that Trump was not “serious about pursuing the policies that he has campaigned on”, which includes repatriating jobs and profits that he believes should be homegrown.

He also referenced the Wall Street Journal article on what it said was the “US tax system blows a windfall into Ireland” fuelling savings into not just one but two sovereign wealth funds, including a €14bn windfall in back tax from Apple on the foot of a European court of justice ruling.

“The Wall Street Journal front page gives an indication here” that Trump is intent on action, said Harris.

However, he said Ireland would be prepared and would cope just as it did with “Brexit, Covid [and the] cost of living crisis”.

[zenith]

good. ireland is another country on a suicide path due to the practices of the american empire. they sold out to corporations and the average citizen can't afford to live there anymore. sound familiar?

[FishOutofWater]

What disastrous outcome?

Trump was the meathead who pulled the U.S. out of the disease monitoring facility in Wuhan China, leaving the Chinese to their own devices. Was it a lab leak or Chinese incompetence in managing the initial outbreak of COVID? Or both?

Trump is a fucking moron who's stupidity led to the pandemic.

[The Walrus]

What disastrous outcome?

Trump was the meathead who pulled the U.S. out of the disease monitoring facility in Wuhan China, leaving the Chinese to their own devices. Was it a lab leak or Chinese incompetence in managing the initial outbreak of COVID? Or both?

Trump is a fucking moron who's stupidity led to the pandemic.

Still blaming Trump for the pandemic?  I think your political bias is clouding your reasoning.

[vox_mundi]

US Farm Groups Want Trump to Spare Their Workers from Deportation
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-farm-groups-want-trump-spare-their-workers-deportation-2024-11-25/

WASHINGTON, Nov 25 (Reuters) - U.S. farm industry groups want President-elect Donald Trump to spare their sector from his promise of mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain heavily dependent on immigrants in the United States illegally.

So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump's incoming "border czar" Tom Homan.

Nearly half of the nation's approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as well as many dairy and meatpacking workers.

"They're filling critical roles that many U.S.-born workers are either unable or unwilling to perform," Ortega said.

Agriculture and related industries contributed $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product, or 5.6%, in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

U.S. Representative John Duarte, a Republican and fourth-generation farmer in California's Central Valley, said farms in the area depend on immigrants in the U.S. illegally and that small towns would collapse if those workers were deported.

"We need the certainty, reliability and affordability of a workforce program and programs that are going to allow us to continue to deliver food from the farm to the table,” said John Hollay, director of government relations at the International Fresh Produce Association, which represents produce farmers.

For decades, farm and worker groups have attempted to pass immigration reform that would enable more agricultural workers to stay in the U.S., but the legislation has failed so far.

"There are some very significant business interests that obviously want agricultural labor and need it," he said.

But for farmworkers, the fear of enforcement can create chronic stress, said Mary Jo Dudley, director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, which is training workers to know their rights if confronted by immigration officials.

[gerontocrat]

Although Trump Presidency 2 does not even exist yet, this article tries to get a handle of what it might mean for the US environment; probably not good.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/27/trump-cabinet-picks-climate-change

Climate denial a unifying theme of Trump’s cabinet picks, experts say

Loyalists selected for important roles have offered staunch support to fossil fuels and downplayed climate crisis

Oliver Milman
Wed 27 Nov 2024 11.00 GMT

Donald Trump’s cabinet picks have been eclectic and often controversial but a unifying theme is emerging, experts say, with the US president-elect’s nominees offering staunch support to fossil fuels and either downplaying or denying the climate crisis caused by the burning of these fuels.

Trump ran on promises to eviscerate “green new scam” climate policies and to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas, and his choices to run the major organs of the US government echo such sentiments, particularly his picks relating to the environment, with Lee Zeldin chosen as the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Chris Wright as energy secretary and Doug Burgum as interior secretary.

“With these choices it looks like Project 2025 is back with full force, and it will be the blueprint for the Trump administration 2.0,” said Daniel Esty, an environmental policy expert at Yale University, in reference to the rightwing manifesto that calls for the deletion of environmental and climate protections.

“Some people didn’t think Trump would actually try to execute this but it looks like he really is going to pull back on climate change commitments, against the tide of history.”

A standout nomination is that of Wright, chief executive of the Colorado-based gas drilling company Liberty Energy, who has no government experience but was a major donor to Trump’s campaign and has frequently appeared on Fox News, and various podcasts, to extol the use of fossil fuels.

“There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either,” Wright said in a video posted online last year. He has denied that extreme weather is worsened by rising global temperatures and said that any impacts are “clearly overwhelmed by the benefits of increasing energy consumption”. Wright has opined that “carbon pollution” and even “clean energy” are “nonsense terms” that have been “made up by alarmists”.

Trump has said in a statement that his team will slash “totally unnecessary regulation” and “drive US Energy Dominance, which will drive down Inflation, win the AI arms race with China (and others), and expand American Diplomatic Power to end Wars all across the World”. The statement did not mention the climate crisis or the need to move away from fossil fuels.

Scientists are clear that the human and economic costs of the climate crisis are real, and far outstrip the action required to shift to clean energy. This energy transformation is already under way, with investment in renewables outpacing fossil fuels globally for the first time last year, with solar being installed at three times the capacity rate of gas in the US in 2023.

“He’s the most worrisome of these folks,” Esty said of Wright. “He’s the closest thing there is to a climate denier, which sets him apart from policymakers across the world.” Sean Casten, a Democratic member of Congress, was more pointed: “Chris Wright is a science-denying, self-serving, sanctimonious fracker who consistently puts the wants of energy producers over the needs of American energy consumers.”

Wright’s views will be at home within the Trump administration, however, with several other cabinet picks expressing doubts over established climate science and actions to cut planet-heating emissions. Zeldin, the putative EPA head, said in 2014 he was “not sold yet on the whole argument that we have as serious a problem as other people are” with global heating, adding in 2018 he did not support the Paris climate agreement, which Trump is again expected to withdraw the US from.

Marco Rubio, nominee for secretary of state at a time when the international community is struggling to avert disastrous global heating, previously said he did not accept the climate is changing and while he has modified this view more recently he has criticized policies to lower emissions and “the left’s climate change alarmism”.

Meanwhile, Pete Hesgeth, lined up to be head of the Department of Defense, itself one of the largest polluting entities in the world, has said climate change has become a “religion”. He said in 2019 “it’s all about control for them”, while appearing on Fox News. “That’s why climate change is the perfect enemy. They get to control your life to deal with it no matter what’s happening.”

Another Fox personality, the former Republican congressman Sean Duffy, is primed to be secretary of transportation, despite having no prior experience in an arena that produces more emissions than any other in the US.

Duffy, who in the 1990s appeared in MTV reality shows including The Real World: Boston, pondered this month on Fox: “If you say the climate’s changing, is it coming from CO2 or is it coming from the sun? Why is the climate changing?” The world is heating up because of combusted fossil fuels and deforestation, not the sun.

Even Robert F Kennedy Jr, once a hero to the environmental movement and an advocate for climate action, has shifted his views, attacking “this fixation upon carbon” and endorsing Trump, who has called the climate crisis “a big hoax”. Kennedy, a fierce opponent of vaccines and wind farms, has been nominated to be health secretary.

Burgum, the potential interior secretary, is a moderate compared to these other picks, having accepted that the climate crisis is real and even, as governor of North Dakota, setting a target for the state to be carbon neutral, albeit via unproven carbon-capture technology rather than emissions cuts. He is set to be Trump’s overall energy czar, tasked with driving up fossil fuel production, as well as managing a fifth of the US landmass in his interior role.

“North Dakota governor Doug Burgum is a proven leader and values an all-of-the-above energy approach,” said Heather Reams, president of the center-right Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions group. “Republicans recognize current federal processes are too bureaucratic and oftentimes prevent new energy projects from ever breaking ground.”

Reams added that speeded up permitting under Burgum promises “the opportunity to lessen our reliance on adversarial supply chains, reinvigorate our manufacturing sector, encourage investments and reduce global emissions”.

But Burgum is still a vocal supporter of oil and gas drilling, with his family leasing 200 acres of farmland in North Dakota to energy company Continental Resources, run by another major Trump backer in Harold Hamm. Burgum, along with Hamm, helped set up a Mar-a-Lago dinner between Trump and oil executives in which the president-elect asked for $1bn in campaign donations while vowing to gut environmental regulations if elected.

“I think under his own agenda Burgum would do a fine job, but I think he’s been brought in because of his allegiance to the Project 2025 blueprint,” said Esty.

“Overall, I think we will see a significant pullback in the breathability of air and drinkability of water, in the protections Americans have come to expect. I don’t think Trump will dramatically shift US energy production because we are already producing a lot of oil and gas but he certainly won’t be phasing them out. It’s an administration that will cause damage.”

[zenith]

jesus, the guardian again. do you ever read anything else or are you stuck in 1991? do us all a favour and post graphs of global human population growth and human use of fossil fuels, just for fun.

the corporate democrats aren't against fossil fuels anymore than the corporate "greens" (which includes oil companies) aren't against them so long as they're producing the solar panels, windmills, batteries and electric cars. none of that shit happens without fossil fuels. nothing in industrial civilization happens without them. no steel, plastic, fertilizers, concrete or 8+ billion human bodies wandering the planet.

it's incredible how binary and ideologically captured people are by branding.

the trump administration is quite clearly going to be a disaster on every front given who he's filled his cabinet with. even people that supported him as an agent of change are calling it a disaster. the permanent state that rules the roost regardless who's elected may not even have too many beefs with him this time, we'll see.

[zenith]

how much do you want to bet trump carries on the war policy in ukraine? there are trillions to be made.

The future of critical raw materials: How Ukraine plays a strategic role in global supply chains
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/07/the-future-of-critical-raw-materials-how-ukraine-plays-a-strategic-role-in-global-supply-chains/

- Ukraine holds immense potential as a major global supplier of critical raw materials essential for industries such as defense, high-tech, aerospace, and green energy.

- The Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with China-US competition and other geopolitical risks, has highlighted the need for resilient and diversified supply chains.

- The demand for critical raw materials is expected to surge, driven by the transition to electric vehicles and green energy.

[zenith]

the oil companies know where all the oil is and how finite the fracking plays are. they have their own plans about the timeline they should be exploited so they can transition.

Exxon Pours Cold Water On Trump's "Drill, Baby, Drill" Plans
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/exxon-pours-cold-water-trumps-drill-baby-drill-plans

"Contrary to expectations for a self-defeating flood of new energy production under the second Trump admin, Exxon’s Upstream President Liam Mallon said that oil and gas producers in the US will not raise output significantly in the coming years despite calls from President-Elect Donald Trump to “drill, baby, drill."

“I think a radical change is unlikely because the vast majority, if not everybody, is primarily focused on the economics of what they’re doing,” Mallon said on Tuesday at a conference in London, according to Bloomberg.

Trump is expected to open up federal lands for more oil and gas drilling, in part to execute on Scott Bessent's "3-3-3 plan" which envisions boosting US oil production by an addition 3 million barrels per day (from the current record 13.3 million), but much of the land in the country’s largest oil and gas producing state, Texas, is private. Still, there’s plentiful federal land in neighboring New Mexico which includes the oil- and gas-rich Permian Basin.

“If those rules were substantially changed, you would be able to drill more, assuming you have the quality and met your economic threshold,” Mallon said. “But I don’t think we’re going to see anybody in the drill, baby, drill mode. I really don’t.”

Exxon’s European rival TotalEnergies is also skeptical of Trump’s vow to open US taps.

“Maybe he has a magic recipe to push them to drill like mad,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said at the conference. He cited US producers’ commitment to return cash to shareholders and said “it’s not only decisions by politicians” that drive American output.

The US is pumping more than 13 million barrels of crude a day, exceeding every other nation and up almost 45% in the past decade. With a surplus looming next year, the global oil market is watching to see at what rate American explorers drill new wells. Many of the biggest US operators are taking a long-term approach to production, weighing when to bring certain wells online against their overall inventory. Many have throttled their output to maximize shareholders returns (i.e. higher prices) over total production (higher volumes).

Mallon’s comments mark the second time since the election that the largest US oil company has diverged from Trump’s policies. CEO Darren Woods discouraged the president-elect from withdrawing the US from the Paris climate pact, arguing that it’s better to participate and push for “common sense” carbon-cutting policy.

Mallon reinforced Woods’s recent remarks supporting the US Inflation Reduction Act, which Trump has characterized as Washington’s “green new scam.” Some IRA incentives — including tax credits for capturing carbon, producing hydrogen and making sustainable aviation fuel — are particularly popular with oil companies.

“Our position on the IRA is very good,” Mallon said. “We strongly believe in what it is, what it stands for and the incentives it’s providing.”'

[Rodius]

What disastrous outcome?

Trump was the meathead who pulled the U.S. out of the disease monitoring facility in Wuhan China, leaving the Chinese to their own devices. Was it a lab leak or Chinese incompetence in managing the initial outbreak of COVID? Or both?

Trump is a fucking moron who's stupidity led to the pandemic.

Still blaming Trump for the pandemic?  I think your political bias is clouding your reasoning.

What stretch it is to blame Trump for Covid.

Whatever caused COVID, it was a work in progress for years before Trump was on the scene.

Politics truly blinds people... and I hate defending Trump but bullshit claims need to be called out regardless.

[Rodius]

I am going to make a prediction for the Trump Presidency.
In a few years, this post will mock me but it is fun to do anyway.

1 - Trump will stop the war in Ukraine that requires a redrawing of borders.

2 - Leave NATO

3 - China will become an economic war that will hurt the US a lot. While China will suffer to a degree, they will compensate by widening the web of economic ties with regions like South America.

4 - Double down on the Middle East with an initial focus on Israel. Not sure if Iran will be attacked because the cost to lives would be more than the US will tolerate so there will likely be a ramping up on the fear factor concerning Iran.

5 - I suspect Trump will dismantle agencies like the FBI and CIA and others and consolidate them into one agency. This will be sold as cheap, more efficient and effective. Oddly, this will be true but the reason this is being done is to consolidate power and have a Yes Man in charge. After that, Trump doesnt need to worry about being watched.

6 - Next election Trump will stand down BUT, if possible, he will become Vice President and run the country from the back seat. (The assumption is he is still alive and I think he will be because assholes like him tend to live much longer than they deserve)

[zenith]

trump will need to make it to inauguration day first, then keep breathing afterwards. if he takes on the various three letter agencies his second term could be cut quite short.

i'm not a fan of the neocon frum but on this topic he's quite sensible. trump could easily be the death knell for the american empire as everyone around the world will need to realign to survive.

In Conversation with David Frum: How should Canada understand Trump's 25 percent tariff threat?

[Rodius]

trump will need to make it to inauguration day first, then keep breathing afterwards. if he takes on the various three letter agencies his second term could be cut quite short.

i'm not a fan of the neocon frum but on this topic he's quite sensible. trump could easily be the death knell for the american empire as everyone around the world will need to realign to survive.

In Conversation with David Frum: How should Canada understand Trump's 25 percent tariff threat?

If he dies the prediction doesnt matter... in order for the experiment to work, he needs to live.

If you think he will die (not natural causes although the odds of that is somethign like 50/50) from assassination, then state it.

I made a prediction, it is highly likely to be wrong but that is the nature of them and why they are fun.

Since you know so much about everything, why not put a stake in the ground and test it out for accuracy?

I think he will try to consolidate the three letter agencies, I am fairly sure it is par to of Project 25.
If he does, the odds of assassination goes up.

Come on dude, give you prediction, it will be interesting to test it out later.

[zenith]

it's too chaotic, there are way too many balls in the air but because of that i'm certain it will be a disaster and his make israel great again gang of thieves will completely fail.

i won't be surprised if he's snuffed out and if he's not i won't be surprised if he crashes the economy, which sounds like the plan according to the elon trump recording. it's going to be a gong show.

he'll try to play hard ball with everybody and none of it will work out how he thinks it will. if we survive then the rest of the world will need to realign away from the thug states of america and chart new courses.

nothing's shocking anymore.

[gerontocrat]

"Will he, won't he?" on just about everything. I guess maybe the murk between us and that oddness known as Trump's brain will clear a litttle after 100 days in real executive power - end of April 2025.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/28/sheinbaum-trump-mexico-tariffs

Mexican president claims ‘no potential tariff war’ with US after call with Trump

Sheinbaum says she had cooperative talks with president-elect who threatened 25% tariff against Mexico on Tuesday

José Olivares in New York
Thu 28 Nov 2024 20.23 GMT

Claudia Sheinbaum has said her “very kind” phone conversation with Donald Trump, in which they discussed immigration and fentanyl, means “there will not be a potential tariff war” between the US and Mexico.

The president of Mexico spoke to reporters on Thursday following Trump’s threat earlier in the week to apply a 25% tariff against Mexico and Canada, and an additional 10% tariff against China, when he takes office in January if the countries did not stop all illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling into the US.

Trump, in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, claimed that during the phone call with Sheinbaum she had “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border”.

During her Thursday address Sheinbaum clarified she did not agree to shut down the border.

“Each person has their own way of communicating,” Sheinbaum said. “But I can assure you, I guarantee you, that we never – additionally, we would be incapable of doing so – proposed that we would close the border in the north [of Mexico], or in the south of the United States. It has never been our idea and, of course, we are not in agreement with that.”

She added that the two did not discuss tariffs, but that the conversation with Trump had reassured her that no tit-for-tat tariff battle would be needed in future.

[zenith]

i can't wait to see all the obese americans out in the fields picking crops. lmao.

Trump-Voting Farmers WORRIED Deportations Will Cause DISRUPTION, INFLATION

[Freegrass]

I am going to make a prediction for the Trump Presidency.
In a few years, this post will mock me but it is fun to do anyway.

I already made my prediction.

On day one, he will start to pardon the J6 “hostages” and sign some horrible executive orders.
On day 2 the protests will explode. Things will burn.
That'll trigger Trump to stamp down hard on those “ANTIFA” protests.
Violence will escalate.
And then I think he'll call martial law and use the military to clamp down on those protests.
And then we're close to civil war.
If not civil war, then America will become like Russia, where protest is not allowed anymore.
America will officially be a fascist state,
Run by the billionaire class, who will make themselves untouchable.

Let's hope I'm wrong.

Martial law in the United States refers to times in United States history in which in a region, state, city, or the whole United States was placed under the control of a military body. On a national level, both the US President and the US Congress have the power, within certain constraints, to impose martial law since both can be in charge of the militia. In each state, the governor has the power to impose martial law within the borders of the state.[citation needed] In the United States, martial law has been used in a limited number of circumstances, such as New Orleans during the Battle of New Orleans; after major disasters, such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, or during riots, such as the Omaha race riot of 1919 or the 1920 Lexington riots; local leaders declared martial law to protect themselves from mob violence, such as Nauvoo, Illinois, during the Illinois Mormon War, or Utah during the Utah War; or in response to chaos associated with protests and rioting, such as the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, in Hawaii after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and during the Civil Rights Movement in response to the Cambridge riot of 1963.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_the_United_States

[kassy]

i can't wait to see all the obese americans out in the fields picking crops. lmao.

Or Texas congress members working the field in the sun without breaks! Leading by example...

[gerontocrat]

Here is an article on what the Guardian regards as the key policies and actions to watch during Trump_Presidency_2.

What I find interesting is what is not there.

Judiciary
- 4 years in which to sew up the Supreme Court to the "Conservative" Agends for at least a generation,
- like-minded Federal judges all the way down the line,

Democracy 
- Destruction of guardrails and constraints on Executive Power,
- Politicisation of the Department of Justice

World Bank and IMF
The US dominates these Institutions through shareholdings of about 17% and that they are based in the US. The US Treasury Secretary is the man in charge of US interests. Trump's nominee, Scott Bessent, will be able to push international development in the interests of the USA. Climate Finance?
____________________
The article does looks at deportation, but does not mention the economic impact of losing 11 million workers who do a lot of the dirty jobs. Perhaps BigTech have convinced The Trump Circus that AI and Robotics will take up the slack.

It also considers "drill, baby, drill". But BigOil will only drill if they can sell the oil and gas at a healthy profit. China, to some extent Europe, and some other countries (e.g.Aussie) may well be reducing demand for oil and/or gas in the next few years. Some renewable investments will continue in the US.

The impact of an organised group in destruct mode and the power to do it could be "Shock & Awe".

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/03/what-stake-second-trump-presidency-charts-maps

What’s at stake with a second Trump presidency

The second Donald Trump administration is expected to have a vast impact both domestically and around the world, potentially reshaping everything from the very private – such as abortion access in the US – right through to something as public as the health of the planet itself.

While Trump’s policies and their effects will take time to emerge, we can tell a lot about where things are heading by comparing the status quo to current data trends in six key areas, from migration and war through to climate and vaccine uptake.

‘Drill, baby, drill’ for fossil fuels
Trump is planning a full reversal of Joe Biden’s climate policies, via a swift withdrawal of the US from the Paris climate deal, the downplaying or burying of climate science and the championing of fossil fuel interests.

A primary goal will be to unpick the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate bill that Trump has called the “greatest scam in the history of any country”. A rebate for people to buy electric cars will probably be axed, although as most of the bill’s clean energy spending flows to Republican-held districts Trump may find resistance in Congress to a full repeal of the IRA.

An easier target will be pollution regulations on cars, power plants and factories. Trump is set to shrink the Environmental Protection Agency, usher in industry-friendly policies and replace nonpartisan civil servants with political apparatchiks.

“Drill, baby drill” was a repeated Trump mantra on the campaign trail and Doug Burgum, who will oversee 20% of the US landmass if confirmed as interior secretary, will be tasked with throwing open as much federal land as possible for oil and gas production, including sensitive areas of the Arctic put off-limits by the Biden administration.

No country has extracted as much oil and gas as the US under Biden, yet Trump thinks even more should be done. Alternatives such as wind energy, dismissed as “disgusting” by Trump, will be sidelined and support for communities at home and abroad dealing with climate-driven disasters and air pollution will be demolished.

All of this will result in more greenhouse gases, as much as 4bn tonnes more, than if Trump were not president. The US, and the world, will still move towards cleaner forms of energy and chip away at its emissions, but at a slower pace at a time when urgency is crucial.

Conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East
Trump, who is known for his isolationist tendencies, has claimed he will end the war in Ukraine in “one day” and has repeatedly attempted to block aid packages in Congress.

He has given few details of how such a peace would be achieved, although his vice-president, JD Vance, has set out a plan that critics describe as tantamount to a Russian victory, with Moscow keeping de facto control over Ukrainian territory it occupies now and Ukraine left outside Nato.

The Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine are in the south-east, and include partial control of four regions it illegally “annexed” in 2022, the year of its full-scale invasion.

In an interview with the Guardian in May the Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelesnkyy, told Trump that he risked being tagged as a “loser president” if he allowed Russia to win the war. Zelenskyy added that Vladimir Putin’s track record suggested Moscow would eventually violate any ceasefire deal and push further into Ukraine, making the US president look “very weak”.

Regarding the Middle East, Trump has said he wants the Gaza war to end and has reportedly told Benjamin Netanyahu it should be concluded before he takes office. But the terms on which he would press for an end to the war and what that would mean for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are unclear. At other times Trump has also said Israel should be allowed to “finish the job” in Gaza.

The most immediate consequence of Trump’s win could be the boost given to the annexationist wing of the Israeli far right, with the installation of figures such as the incoming Israeli ambassador, Mike Huckabee, who have been vocal about their beliefs – in defiance of international law – that the occupied West Bank belongs to Israel.

Vaccine collapse
With Trump having nominated the outspoken vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr as the secretary of health and human services, and the Covid “herd immunity” proponent Jay Bhattacharya to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH) biomedical research institution, there are fears that vaccine coverage could continue to erode. Kindergartners in the US are required to receive four vaccines to prevent against communicable disease, but the proportion of immunised children fell again in the last academic year, to below 93% for all reported vaccines. By way of example, the World Health Organization says 95% vaccination coverage for MMR is needed to prevent measles from breaking out.

Vaccine uptake in the US has been following a worrying trend among this age group: rates slid in 30 states in the last academic year, while in 40 states (and DC) exemptions grew. In 14 states, exemptions exceeded 5%: in Idaho, for example, where exemption rates have almost doubled in five years, one in seven kindergarteners started school without proof of vaccination.

Inflation
The cost of eggs and other consumer staples soared during the Biden administration, with “egg-flation” cited as a key factor in Trump’s election victory – though as in other countries, much of the inflation was caused by disruptions to global supply chains caused by Covid lockdowns.

Three-quarters of voters interviewed in exit polls across 10 key states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin) said inflation had caused them either “severe” or “moderate” hardship over the past year: 74% of the former and 51% of the latter voted for Trump.

Although he has pledged to “quickly” lower prices if elected, experts have said that Trump’s campaign promise to impose tariffs on all foreign goods entering the US could push up inflation in the short term while shrinking the size of the economy by reducing work and investment in the longer term.

Many other countries, from competitors such as China to allies such as the UK and EU, are nervously assessing the possible impact of these proposed tariffs, which may result in tit-for-tat retaliatory price hikes on US exports.

‘Mass deportation’
Though the Biden administration was a high point for the number of deportations over the last decade, Trump has vowed to conduct the largest mass deportation operation in US history – not by returning people who have recently crossed the border to claim asylum, but by kicking out millions of people who have built entire lives in the US.

According to a report from the American Immigration Council, there are about 11 million people living in the US without legal documentation. To deport them all would come with significant humanitarian and fiscal costs, and cost at least $315bn, the organisation wrote.

The scale of such a programme would vastly exceed the combined total of removals (deportations made under a formal court order) and returns (such as when an individual voluntarily leaves when apprehended at the border) that took place under the Obama, Biden or first Trump eras.

There were 5m deportations under Obama, from 2009-16; and 2m deportations from 2017-20 under Trump. The Biden administration has deported nearly 5 million people, most through a public health order known as Title 42, which allowed the US to deny people from seeking asylum.

But mass deportation as Trump imagines it would involve not just refusing asylum seekers, but kicking out people who have lived in the country for years, even decades – and in the case of some children their whole lives. It would require forcibly separating people from their families and communities. And operationally it would mean growing the government bureaucracy, not shrinking it – by hiring more personnel, leasing or acquiring facilities to house people, and expanding the immigration court system.

Abortion access
In the recent election, 10 states held referendums on abortion: seven of them chose to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution, while three – Nebraska, Florida and South Dakota – left abortion bans in place. Somewhat paradoxically, millions of voters engaged in “splitting” – choosing to expand local abortion access while also voting for politicians who oppose it.

One of them is Trump himself, who proudly takes credit for overturning Roe v Wade by installing three conservative justices on the supreme court. Although he has claimed many different things about abortion, including sometimes saying he would veto any national ban that Congress may pass, many of his closest people are very clear that they intend to restrict abortion even further.

Project 2025, the controversial policy manifesto – many authors of which are current and former Trump officials – advocates for the federal government to use a 1873 law called the Comstock Act to go after abortion-related medications such as mifepristone. Project 2025 has also called for the government to conduct surveillance on states that allow abortion. The fight over access to abortion and abortion-related care will only grow over the next four years, including through legal challenges.

[LeftyLarry]

Here is an article on what the Guardian regards as the key policies and actions to watch during Trump_Presidency_2.

What I find interesting is what is not there.

Judiciary
- 4 years in which to sew up the Supreme Court to the "Conservative" Agends for at least a generation,
- like-minded Federal judges all the way down the line,

Democracy 
- Destruction of guardrails and constraints on Executive Power,
- Politicisation of the Department of Justice

World Bank and IMF
The US dominates these Institutions through shareholdings of about 17% and that they are based in the US. The US Treasury Secretary is the man in charge of US interests. Trump's nominee, Scott Bessent, will be able to push international development in the interests of the USA. Climate Finance?
____________________
The article does looks at deportation, but does not mention the economic impact of losing 11 million workers who do a lot of the dirty jobs. Perhaps BigTech have convinced The Trump Circus that AI and Robotics will take up the slack.

It also considers "drill, baby, drill". But BigOil will only drill if they can sell the oil and gas at a healthy profit. China, to some extent Europe, and some other countries (e.g.Aussie) may well be reducing demand for oil and/or gas in the next few years. Some renewable investments will continue in the US.

The impact of an organised group in destruct mode and the power to do it could be "Shock & Awe".

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/03/what-stake-second-trump-presidency-charts-maps

What’s at stake with a second Trump presidency

The second Donald Trump administration is expected to have a vast impact both domestically and around the world, potentially reshaping everything from the very private – such as abortion access in the US – right through to something as public as the health of the planet itself.

While Trump’s policies and their effects will take time to emerge, we can tell a lot about where things are heading by comparing the status quo to current data trends in six key areas, from migration and war through to climate and vaccine uptake.

‘Drill, baby, drill’ for fossil fuels
Trump is planning a full reversal of Joe Biden’s climate policies, via a swift withdrawal of the US from the Paris climate deal, the downplaying or burying of climate science and the championing of fossil fuel interests.

A primary goal will be to unpick the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate bill that Trump has called the “greatest scam in the history of any country”. A rebate for people to buy electric cars will probably be axed, although as most of the bill’s clean energy spending flows to Republican-held districts Trump may find resistance in Congress to a full repeal of the IRA.

An easier target will be pollution regulations on cars, power plants and factories. Trump is set to shrink the Environmental Protection Agency, usher in industry-friendly policies and replace nonpartisan civil servants with political apparatchiks.

“Drill, baby drill” was a repeated Trump mantra on the campaign trail and Doug Burgum, who will oversee 20% of the US landmass if confirmed as interior secretary, will be tasked with throwing open as much federal land as possible for oil and gas production, including sensitive areas of the Arctic put off-limits by the Biden administration.

No country has extracted as much oil and gas as the US under Biden, yet Trump thinks even more should be done. Alternatives such as wind energy, dismissed as “disgusting” by Trump, will be sidelined and support for communities at home and abroad dealing with climate-driven disasters and air pollution will be demolished.

All of this will result in more greenhouse gases, as much as 4bn tonnes more, than if Trump were not president. The US, and the world, will still move towards cleaner forms of energy and chip away at its emissions, but at a slower pace at a time when urgency is crucial.

Conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East
Trump, who is known for his isolationist tendencies, has claimed he will end the war in Ukraine in “one day” and has repeatedly attempted to block aid packages in Congress.

He has given few details of how such a peace would be achieved, although his vice-president, JD Vance, has set out a plan that critics describe as tantamount to a Russian victory, with Moscow keeping de facto control over Ukrainian territory it occupies now and Ukraine left outside Nato.

The Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine are in the south-east, and include partial control of four regions it illegally “annexed” in 2022, the year of its full-scale invasion.

In an interview with the Guardian in May the Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelesnkyy, told Trump that he risked being tagged as a “loser president” if he allowed Russia to win the war. Zelenskyy added that Vladimir Putin’s track record suggested Moscow would eventually violate any ceasefire deal and push further into Ukraine, making the US president look “very weak”.

Regarding the Middle East, Trump has said he wants the Gaza war to end and has reportedly told Benjamin Netanyahu it should be concluded before he takes office. But the terms on which he would press for an end to the war and what that would mean for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are unclear. At other times Trump has also said Israel should be allowed to “finish the job” in Gaza.

The most immediate consequence of Trump’s win could be the boost given to the annexationist wing of the Israeli far right, with the installation of figures such as the incoming Israeli ambassador, Mike Huckabee, who have been vocal about their beliefs – in defiance of international law – that the occupied West Bank belongs to Israel.

Vaccine collapse
With Trump having nominated the outspoken vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr as the secretary of health and human services, and the Covid “herd immunity” proponent Jay Bhattacharya to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH) biomedical research institution, there are fears that vaccine coverage could continue to erode. Kindergartners in the US are required to receive four vaccines to prevent against communicable disease, but the proportion of immunised children fell again in the last academic year, to below 93% for all reported vaccines. By way of example, the World Health Organization says 95% vaccination coverage for MMR is needed to prevent measles from breaking out.

Vaccine uptake in the US has been following a worrying trend among this age group: rates slid in 30 states in the last academic year, while in 40 states (and DC) exemptions grew. In 14 states, exemptions exceeded 5%: in Idaho, for example, where exemption rates have almost doubled in five years, one in seven kindergarteners started school without proof of vaccination.

Inflation
The cost of eggs and other consumer staples soared during the Biden administration, with “egg-flation” cited as a key factor in Trump’s election victory – though as in other countries, much of the inflation was caused by disruptions to global supply chains caused by Covid lockdowns.

Three-quarters of voters interviewed in exit polls across 10 key states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin) said inflation had caused them either “severe” or “moderate” hardship over the past year: 74% of the former and 51% of the latter voted for Trump.

Although he has pledged to “quickly” lower prices if elected, experts have said that Trump’s campaign promise to impose tariffs on all foreign goods entering the US could push up inflation in the short term while shrinking the size of the economy by reducing work and investment in the longer term.

Many other countries, from competitors such as China to allies such as the UK and EU, are nervously assessing the possible impact of these proposed tariffs, which may result in tit-for-tat retaliatory price hikes on US exports.

‘Mass deportation’
Though the Biden administration was a high point for the number of deportations over the last decade, Trump has vowed to conduct the largest mass deportation operation in US history – not by returning people who have recently crossed the border to claim asylum, but by kicking out millions of people who have built entire lives in the US.

According to a report from the American Immigration Council, there are about 11 million people living in the US without legal documentation. To deport them all would come with significant humanitarian and fiscal costs, and cost at least $315bn, the organisation wrote.

The scale of such a programme would vastly exceed the combined total of removals (deportations made under a formal court order) and returns (such as when an individual voluntarily leaves when apprehended at the border) that took place under the Obama, Biden or first Trump eras.

There were 5m deportations under Obama, from 2009-16; and 2m deportations from 2017-20 under Trump. The Biden administration has deported nearly 5 million people, most through a public health order known as Title 42, which allowed the US to deny people from seeking asylum.

But mass deportation as Trump imagines it would involve not just refusing asylum seekers, but kicking out people who have lived in the country for years, even decades – and in the case of some children their whole lives. It would require forcibly separating people from their families and communities. And operationally it would mean growing the government bureaucracy, not shrinking it – by hiring more personnel, leasing or acquiring facilities to house people, and expanding the immigration court system.

Abortion access
In the recent election, 10 states held referendums on abortion: seven of them chose to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution, while three – Nebraska, Florida and South Dakota – left abortion bans in place. Somewhat paradoxically, millions of voters engaged in “splitting” – choosing to expand local abortion access while also voting for politicians who oppose it.

One of them is Trump himself, who proudly takes credit for overturning Roe v Wade by installing three conservative justices on the supreme court. Although he has claimed many different things about abortion, including sometimes saying he would veto any national ban that Congress may pass, many of his closest people are very clear that they intend to restrict abortion even further.

Project 2025, the controversial policy manifesto – many authors of which are current and former Trump officials – advocates for the federal government to use a 1873 law called the Comstock Act to go after abortion-related medications such as mifepristone. Project 2025 has also called for the government to conduct surveillance on states that allow abortion. The fight over access to abortion and abortion-related care will only grow over the next four years, including through legal challenges.

This is all BS Leftist talking points, all except the Israel story, yes, Trump will support America’s most reliable ally for two reasons, 1. Because MAGA supports Israel 100% and 2.  Because Israel is in the right.

I mean nobody  is ending abortion  in America , they are ending later term abortion only and even then women at risk of dying from the pregnancy will still be able to get them late, though 90% of those cases are phony .

As far as removing immigrants, first he will close the borders and stop the drug trade with Mexico and Canada’s help , that is starting as we speak, today MEXICO made the largest FENTANYL bust in their countries history , 1 million pills and both have promised to close the borders to head of the tariffs that will kill their economies.
Then Trump will remove Criminal aliens , huge amounts were let in , murderers, rapists and gang members , along with terrorists.After that we have maybe 1.5 million illegals who lost their asylum cases but disappeared into the country instead of going home .
After that , maybe the single men will be removed and offered the chance to get in line and not jump the queue and wait for a chance to ge in.
Doubt he removes any more than that.

It’s all LEFTIST talking points , not much reality there, except the Israel part.

[gerontocrat]

A meeting between Left Larry and Robert Reich would be quite something.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/06/trump-cabinet-picks-robert-reich

Trump’s cabinet picks aren’t just ‘loyalists’. They’re groveling, subservient yes-men
Robert Reich

All of Trump’s nominees are unprincipled enablers who are unlikely to push back when he makes reckless decisions

Fri 6 Dec 2024 11.00 GMT

The media has it all wrong about Trump’s picks for his administration. The conventional view is they’re “Trump loyalists” whom Trump “recruited”.

Rubbish.

First, they’re not loyalists; they’re subservient hacks.

There’s a crucial difference.

All politicians want their underlings to be loyal, but Trump wants them to be more loyal to him than to the nation, and he demands total subservience without regard to right or wrong.

For the FBI, Trump has picked Kash Patel, who has pledged to prosecute Trump’s political opponents and “come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election”.

Trump’s selection for attorney general, Pam Bondi, has said that when Trump returns to power, “the prosecutors will be prosecuted”.

Moreover, Trump didn’t recruit these people or anybody else. They recruited him.

Every one of his nominees campaigned for these jobs by engaging in conspicuous displays of submission and flattery directed toward Trump.

Elise Stefanik, whom Trump has nominated to be US ambassador to the United Nations, repeatedly boasted that she was the first lawmaker to endorse Trump’s re-election bid.

Before Trump tapped Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security, she sent him a 4ft replica of Mount Rushmore with Trump’s face next to those of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln.

Mike Waltz, whom Trump has picked for national security adviser, supported a move in Congress to rename Washington Dulles international airport the “Donald J Trump international airport”.

Lee Zeldin, whom Trump has picked for EPA administrator, said publicly that the criminal prosecutions of Trump were akin to Putin’s persecution of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Stephen Miller, who will be a Trump White House adviser, said during a Fox News interview that Trump is the “most stylish president” in our lifetimes. “Donald Trump is a style icon!”

Ten of Trump’s picks so far were Fox News hosts or contributors who repeatedly mouthed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen, about January 6 being a “peaceful protest” and about Biden being the force behind Trump’s prosecutions.

Some of Trump’s picks showed up at his criminal trial in Manhattan, where they verbally attacked members of the presiding judge’s family on behalf of Trump, who was under a rule of silence.

Some picks appeared at his campaign rallies, expanding on Trump’s lies and lavishing him with praise.

Many made large donations to Trump’s campaign. Five of his picks so far are billionaires.

All knew that Trump wanted people who would do whatever he asked of them. So they prostrated themselves to show their deference to him.

All knew that Trump liked to be fawned over. So they debased themselves by giving him gushing compliments.

They knew that Trump wanted people lacking an independent moral compass. So they went out of their way to demonstrate they have no integrity by retelling Trump’s lies in public with even more verve and intensity than he displayed when telling them.

Time and again they have performed acts of cringeworthy subservience toward Trump, proving themselves reliable conduits for his scheming vindictiveness.

Trump’s toadies are even less likely to cross him. To the contrary: they’ll egg him on

This is a rare bunch. How many Americans would eagerly repeat to national audiences baldfaced lies spouted by an authoritarian – lies that undermine our democracy? How many Americans would publicly grovel before Trump, making it clear they’ll do whatever he asks of them regardless of consequence?

To be a member of this unique group, one needs to be both colossally ambitious and profoundly insecure, willing to demean oneself to gain Trump’s favor.

Trump didn’t find these people; these people found Trump. And to get in his good graces, they saw to it that he noticed their servile deference, fawning adulation and total submission.

But these people will also bring about Trump’s downfall, and possibly the downfall of America.[/i]

That’s because one of the most important things a president needs is accurate and useful feedback. These are in short supply even in the best of administrations.

People who work for a president are often reluctant to be bearers of bad news. Presidents are typically surrounded by yes-men and -women afraid to say anything that will ruffle powerful feathers.

As a result, presidents can make huge mistakes – invading Iraq and Afghanistan, deregulating Wall Street and then bailing it out when its gambling gets out of hand, pardoning Richard Nixon, waging war in Vietnam.

Trump’s toadies are even less likely to cross him. To the contrary, they’ll egg him on.

The years ahead would be dangerous enough if Trump sought out unprincipled enablers.

The coming years will be even more perilous because unprincipled enablers have sought out Trump.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

[gerontocrat]

Trump Presidency 2 is up and running.....

Some people never learn.

Trump threatens Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs.

So Trudeau trots off to Mar-a-Lago for a grovel. And what is his reward? Donald Trump belittled the leaders of the United States’ closest neighbours, Canada and Mexico, at a Fox awards ceremony, comleted with an audience chant that taunted Canada as the 51st US state.

Claudia Sheinbaum just rung him up. At least she did not travel a few thousand miles to be insulted.

Will any of those who presume to govern us tell him to get lost?


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/06/trump-fox-news-patriot-award

Trump belittles leaders of Canada and Mexico at Fox Nation’s ‘patriot’ awards
Audience also taunted Canada in chant of ‘51’, suggesting northern neighbour should be 51st US state

Fri 6 Dec 2024 17.56 GMT

Donald Trump belittled the leaders of the United States’ closest neighbours, Canada and Mexico, at a Fox awards ceremony intended to celebrate his role as America’s greatest “patriot”.

Two weeks after threatening the two countries with 25% tariffs on their imports for supposedly failing to prevent drugs and migrants from crossing the border, the president-elect took evident pleasure in an audience chant that taunted Canada as the 51st US state.

The chant of “51” came at Thursday night’s Fox Nation’s Patriot of the Year ceremony, held in New York. Trump was given the top award by Sean Hannity, one of the network’s star hosts.

[kassy]

Maybe they should slap on all the tariffs they can. It should help against overconsumption.