D.E.I. lives—Demolition, Evil and Incompetence drive blundering Trumpworld belligerence
What sets apart MAGA Trumpism is not only its electoral success but its unnerving, endless commitment to destruction. We’re talking the Putin of domestic politics. The “enemies” we now know far exceed the media but the essence of Constitutional government: checks and balances that honor sovereign legacies. To allow any one of the three branches—executive, legislative or judicial—to run roughshod, commandeering the entire system, violates the ultimate value of government of, by and for the people. If power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, there must be equally forceful uprisings whenever absolutism rears its head.
Clearly, the functional state is hardly the only target. By denying the health of Mother Earth, slashing attempts to offset climate change, causing global misery (without USAID), plus long-standing medical, science, health, and cultural advances, DOGE demolition takes down critical offsets by the media, courts, law firms, arts centers, and universities perceived as “woke.” This is slash and burn radicalism with an unlimited expanse, dismantling not only key agencies on which health and welfare depend, but battering humane values, the “sinews of civilization” per David Brooks:
Constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, legal systems to peacefully settle disputes, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit and advance the glories of our way of life. These institutions make our lives sweet, loving and creative, rather than nasty, brutish and short.
“Sweet, loving and creative” mocks Trump’s insatiable, corrupt quests to be deemed worthy, plus MAGA rage against what sages call “civilization,” when rational, moral citizens sanctify the “better angels of our nature.” If aggrieved voters are so outraged by the summation of American civilization, they should call for a Constitutional Convention to rethink the system. Or create their own entity. Instead, MAGA wages open war from the inside to gnaw away at what saves all life from being “nasty, brutish and short.” Sabotage and subversion from within, hypocritically called redemption of greatness, is the cowardly default. Institutional destruction clueless about replacement is not reform but destruction for its own sake, a war by a minority that scorns what the majority built over centuries. Burn it all down crushes good reform.
To lawlessly barrage the rights and gifts of all our past, whether from raw power-mongering, manipulation, or stupidity, strikes at the heart of democratic sovereignty—shaking the whole by exploding the foundations. Conspicuous by having not one serious, legislative reform proposal. Being “anti-woke” is not in the end being for anything capable of debate. Since this besieged country is a world power, a dishonest war against stability rocks humanity. When that country also refuses any legitimate input from loyal allies, let alone “checks and balances” on global problems, whether climate, resource usage, immigration or militarism, then the earthquake spans the globe, civilized or not.
The key looming question isn’t whether MAGA Trump will cheer on every unworkable, unpopular idea gushing from the leader’s head, but how the structures of civilization counteract the invasion within. Gross failures, shenanigans, dishonesties, or nitwit amateurs with wrongheaded models are not self-defeating (yet), nor impeded by intense pressure from terrible approval numbers, frustrated courts, or do-nothing Congress. For how long will this fulmination of rampaging, take-no-prisoners philistines hold the reigns of control? Credit MAGA for seizing power, but not at all the resulting scorecard: Destruction 10, Creation zero. Identify one positive outcome from this nightmare “honeymoon”—unless deconstructing agencies count.
Yes, think “culture wars” globally
In fact, the notion of “culture wars” in its widest sense captures the arrogance and magnitude of MAGA. Trumpers obviously endorse Thomas Hobbes’ carnage school of political necessity: human nature in a state of nature is driven by selfish, predatory, animal instincts, forcing a domineering social contract for protection. For Hobbes, that justifies an all-powerful monarch to control civic order by repressing individualism, dissent and opposition. Because human nature is corrupt, an “infallible” strongman is the predictable solution to erratic vagaries in our species. This top-down hierarchy model stands opposite to our enlightened (if compromised) origins, acknowledging that co-operation, consensus and compromise best answer the might-makes-right, law of the jungle chaos.
In high destructive mode, MAGA Trump scorns guaranteed rights within a civilized structure, like Constitutional jurisprudence. Trump wants a stripped-down structure that won’t interfere with his unchallengeable strongman rule. Good, messy, “civilized” government is for MAGA a nasty, rigged amalgam of suspect regulations, laws and precedents. Not only is this theory of government radically anti-democratic (voters aren’t wise enough to favor the common good over private selfishness), but freely condones power, violence and cruelty to intimidate, then oppress anything viewed as opposition. That’s why open debate is a waste of time, as MAGA’s “stable genius” knows in advance how best to do everything. Behold the circular logic: the “dictator for a day” as democratic savior of freedom.
The great Trump/Hobbes contradiction is to insist citizens must first forego freedoms to be redeemed. Citizen rights (or license to do whatever one wants) belong only to a self-declared elect of divinely-ordained elite, namely white, Protestant, conservative, propertied, often male inhabitants. Yes, tribal like the Founding Fathers, but dramatically different about religious rigidity, lacking their liberal education, wisdom and solid commitment to Age of Enlightenment values. Founders defied minority, cultist, theological autocracy.
Civilization on the line
To return to David Brooks, a conservative Never Trumper:
Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit—learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice. . . This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.
Few would argue with Brooks’ urgency about the unified coalition required against the MAGA “assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to:”
It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.
For me, the vanguard of opposition begins with the Sanders/AOC rallies against oligarchy, building strength to force enough key Republican senators to join the uprising or get trampled by majorities in purple states who declare “enough is more than enough.” Start off by making it civilization vs oligarchy. However dark the clouds—and the malicious storms—I’d like to think there’s sufficient collective and institutional integrity to defeat an incompetent, wayward, criminal, loudmouth TV reality show host. It’s not as if this increasingly senile “unstable genius” has the wherewithal to pull off dictatorship, no easy task.
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