Why indeed. "There's so much" about this hateful presidency to revile, as Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has poignantly characterized the proper reaction to Trump, why is it so hard for so many elected Democrats to do so with riveting coherence? It's not as though they could miss their mark, since there is, in fact, so much of it.
The abundance itself might be part of Democrats' problem, as it is when attempting to itemize Trump's prodigious hatefulness — and all that comes from it — with written economy. The task might be more impossible than merely problematic. But it's worth an attempt, necessarily through a shotgun approach, which follows. My regret may follow as well.
Trump's firing of nearly 20 inspectors general was "blatantly illegal and incredibly concerning," observed the Campaign Legal Center. His sacking of U.S. attorneys was another norm shattered, while hatefully lawless was Trump's sacking of federal prosecutors who worked for them — their sin, investigating him and his pod people's insurrectionist acts. A mass of dutiful FBI agents he's also trying to fire.
Federal employees engaged in DEI programs at any level are now unemployed, courtesy Trump's disdain and vilification of diversity; his government spending freeze inflicted sprawling chaos on departments and agencies created to help Americans and millions of others abroad; and his billionaire sidekick has taken control of Treasury, the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration — more to come.
At Trump's command and defiance of all humanist logic, federal agencies have removed "more than 8,000 web pages" of information "about vaccines, veterans’ care, hate crimes, diversity and scientific research, among many other topics," reports The Times. The order included "more than 3,000 pages from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, including a thousand research articles."
In working to deny birthright citizenship, a 14th Amendment guarantee but powerfully indicative of his hate, Trump pointedly has set his sites on the U.S. Constitution. Same goes for the matter of TikTok; he unlawfully suspended a congressional act and simply ignored a Supreme Court ruling on it. Constitutional attorney Norm Eisen observed that these Trumpian measures "by no means scratch the surface of his brazen transgressions of the rule of law."
OK, I'm crying "Uncle," for there is "so much" to revile, it's far too much for any commentary to cover in one column. More should be said about "Donald Trump's Cabinet of Revenge," as The New Yorker's Susan Glasser has labeled the hate-driven trio of Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. Also left hanging are Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, a Treasury secretary who hands the vault keys to Elon Musk and a wrestling promoter now running the Department of Education.
And what of Trump's loathsome, likeminded lackey Stephen Miller, a wretched bigot who hates everyone not of his venomous American blood? Or his compatriots in hate, the roughly 1,500 pardoned J6ers? Worthy of more comment than what's here is that among those "day of love" "patriots," as Trump has called them, one has since been shot and killed while resisting arrest; another, sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing a mother of two in a drunk-driving collision; and yet another has been arrested on a federal gun charge.
With these brevities I really do cry uncle. In Trump there's too much hate, vengence and just plain evil capable of encapsulation by a single piece — or by elected Democrats in a single speech or interview. Still, he exercises these traits autocratically, which, as I just did, can be said in one word. And in each condemnatory saying of such could come Democrats' selective encapsulation of Trump's evil.
Why is this so hard? Because they're Democrats, I suppose.
It’s so hard because the last guy in office spent a bunch of time talking about how democracy was at stake, then (roughly speaking) 2/3rds of the voters either voted for autocracy or couldn’t be bothered to show up.
At this point, I can’t say “let it burn” is the wrong thing to do. It’s very much a shitty, hateful and evil thing to do and the fact I’m even considering it as an option makes me want to pitch myself off a cliff, but here I am. I can’t blame the dems. It is hard, getting back up to fight when the majority of the country either hates you or doesn’t give a damn.