The red, black, and blue headline articles on HUFFPOST above convey much of what I planned to write about today. As I wrote in my title, Trump is going to do, or try to do, some things what will enrage half the nation. Not only will this engender outrage among the millions of people who voted for Kamala, some who did so reluctantly because they were voting against Trump, but it will lead to many lawsuits. Some of these will end up in the Supreme Court which is considered by at least half the country as being not only in the bag for him but corrupt.
Some of what he intends to do will have an immediate effect. Examples of these will be his day one appointments or announcements. He could cement his critics view about Aileen Cannon being his tool by appointing her as Attorney General. He could announce that he has cut a deal with Putin for him to end the war in Ukraine by stopping all American aide and starting the process of pulling out of NATO.
I expect that we will hear soon, possibly today, a broad outline of what he calls his "day one" plan. I expect he will talk about his campaign promises and how he will make good on them.
It will take varying periods of time for these to be fuel for the dumpster fire I expect his administration to turn into. If he follows though on his tariff plan, for example, it will take months for this to result in the cost of everyday items to increase.
Likewise, elimination of departments, Education and the two departments dealing with weather, this will take more time to have an effect on everyday people. If Trump actually follows through on his saying he might give RFK Jr. the authority to formulate health policy he might as well eliminate the The United States Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA. Again, the trickle down consequences for ordinary Americans will take time to be felt.
If Trump makes good on the Project 2025 plan to make as many positions in the federal goverment dependent on passing a loyalty test to Trump thousands of experts in many fields would lose their jobs.
Consider this (from USA Today)
Project 2025 calls for a major overhaul of the Justice Department, including a "vast expansion" of political appointees in the Civil Rights Division and the FBI.
Trump has similarly said he would bend the Justice Department to serve him politically – "If I happen to be president and I see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, I say, 'Go down and indict them,'" he told Univision in an interview last year. John Kelly, his former chief of staff, said Trump often described "constant and obsessive" ideas of using the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service to target his enemies.
Should Trump follow with this plan I would expect mass resignations. His cult may applaud this but, again, what will the rest of the nation think?
We also don't know what the leadership in the military will do if Trump tries illegally to invoke the Insurrection Act (read article) and use American solders on American soil.
We could have a mass exodus of dedicated and talented Americans who leave their jobs voluntarily or involuntarily.
If all of these people lose their jobs they and their families will suffer economic hardship and members of their communities will feel for them.
Trump's war against the LGBTQ+ community, his hysterical rhetoric and lies about forced child sex change and saying he'll make sure no schools will get federal funds if they teach anything about gender preferences will lead to most of Hollywood joining to vociferously condemn him. Not that it matters except to him, but he'll never get a true A lister to perform for him.
Much of what Trump will do depends, as I wrote in my brief blog yesterday, on his need to get revenge against his enemies. If he decides to order the Justice Department to not only go after Hunter Biden but also after President Biden he will look to many people like a vindictive tyrant. While his cult will cheer him on with this we don't know if others who voted for him want to see him go after an 81 or 82 year old man who will have graciously attended his inauguation. Trump was the first president in 150 years not to attend his successor's inauguration chosing instead to stay at Mar-a-Lago.
I doubt Trump minds being called a tyrant. To him this characterization is probably a point of pride. However, I am quite sure he doesn't like being called a petty tyrant. Look this up in Google News (here) He's already been called this many times. The more his tyranny looks petty the worse it is for his image among people who voted for him but weren't the hardcore Trumpers who want him to be both a tyrant and petty.
We don't know whether it will be a match, several matches, or spontaneous combustion that will start the dumpster fire. I am sure it will something or a combination of things we know Trump intends to do.
A dumpster fire begins as very small, but unless the fire department arrives in time it can get out of control. With Trump there's no fire department. If there was it would be in the form of the Supreme Court or Congress. There's no superpumper fire engine that can put out the conflagration his dumpster fire could ignite.
The country wouldn't literally burn. It would be American democracy that would go up in flames. This only could be stopped if things got so bad that in two years both the House and Senate ended up in Democratic Party control with enough Republicans in the Senate to have the 6o seats needed to convict Trump if he's impeached by the House.
If this was successful then they would have J.D. Vance to deal with.
Addendum on a personal note:
I live in a continuing care retirement community in a liberal suburb of Portland, Oregon. Many of the residents here, almost all of whom are politically progressive, have taken to wearing generic name tags. I had my own made to reflect how I was feeling. The first used as a background Salvadore Dali's painting The Persistence of Memory (see Wiki article).
Then as the election approached with the polls neck and neck I had another one made with the figure from Edvard Munch's "The Scream" (see Wiki).
Thinking Kamala might win I had yet a third one made with another Dali painting, Le Sommeil (Sleep) which you can read about here. Here's the excerpt that resonates with me:
Freudian theories, however, extends beyond just a consideration of the unconscious. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle by Freud, the renowned psychologist proposed a theory, Thanatos, or 'Death Instinct', in which he suggests that all animals, including humans, try to prolong their life by defending all threats of death that are inappropriate to their particular species. In humans, this is manifest as aggression if the threat is external and self-destruction when directed at the self. The counterpart to Thanatos is Eros in which an individual life moves towards a 'natural' death. Le Sommeil seems to suggest that tension, the head in a catatonic state supported by a series of crutches.
Now I am not sure which one I will be wearing. Perhaps I will alternate.
(Click below to enlarge)
