Week 38
By 
They are continuing to accelerate the destruction. Portland provided a bright spot with inflatable frog and furry costumes. It’s hard to look serious when a large frog is twerking at you. (Thanks to Balloon Juice’s Sister Golden Bear for that insight!)
Last night they began to disassemble more of the government. The justification Republicans in Congress give is that they can’t control madman Russell Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget. Trump doesn’t care, and possibly doesn’t know. He has been increasingly incoherent, with a visit to Walter Reed Hospital Friday to assure us that he is in the bestest health ever, getting the COVID shot they have made more difficult for the rest of us to get.
I have avoided a couple of words in my commentary, but I can no longer do that.
Evil is a strong word, in the past much too strong for everyday crooks. But Donald Trump and Russell Vought are evil, others as well. They revel in others’ pain and want to inflict as much as possible. What they particularly hate is people helping each other. They started with USAID, the expression of US care for the poor and injured across the world. It had its practical aspects, too. Famine and disease can lead to war and other kinds of instability. The US is stronger in a world without them.
There are reports that in this latest frenzy of cutting, the Office of Special Education in the Department of Education has been cut. Pretty much all of the CDC, the people who keep us safe from disease, has been cut. Yes, I know this fits into the eugenecist frame, but spare a moment from labeling it to consider the sheer evil of people who want life to be worse for the disabled and for more people to be disabled or die from disease.
Insane is overused as a slur, and friends have argued against its use. But this week, it’s hard to see the people inflicting this destruction as being in anything like a sane state of mind. Hatred burns within them and bubbles over. These are not mentally healthy people.
The cutting also weakens what seems to be their vision for government. As government loses people, it loses capability, and they need capability to make things work. Perhaps they think that education and disease control are not things they need. Perhaps they feel that all they need is a brownshirt force to dispose of immigrants and other undesirables. They have drawn people from other law enforcement branches of the government to do exactly that.
Next Saturday is the No Kings protest, and Republicans are preemptively trying to discount it. People are angry, and it’s hard to see how this weekend won’t make them angrier.
But let’s remember the Portland frog. Calmness goes a long way to discredit their evil and insanity.
Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits. Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.
As usual, keep it to things that have actually happened, not hypotheticals. What is actually happening is bad enough.
Caring for yourself and loved ones is resistance too. Post your pets.
170 more weeks to go. What are you doing?
Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 30, Week 31, Week 32, Week 33, Week 34, Week 35, Week 36, Week 37