By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
After an exhausting week of stamping out human decency in his government, Trump spent the weekend taking the Miami golf cure.
I spent it getting over not being confirmed as secretary of Defense. I thought I had a shot; my resumé is on par with Pete Hegseth’s, if not greater. We both served in the military in war zones, but, unlike me, he didn’t receive a Purple Heart. We both provide weekend opination via public media; and whereas mine is mine only, he shares his platform as a mere co-host. In managing huge bureaucracies, we’re identical. What put me out of the running, I think, is that I’m not a problem drinker or a sexual miscreant, both of which are touchstones in the upper echelons of today’s Republican Party.
Choosing Hegseth over me made Trump the only president who’s had two cabinet nominees requiring a vice presidential tiebreak after a 50–50 vote. No other president has had even one. Which says everything about the quality of his choices. For those who believe Democrats’ unanimity in voting no was purely political, votes for the previous SecDef nominees, Democrats and Republicans, were as follows: Lloyd Austin, 93-2; Mark Esper 90-8; James Mattis 98-1. Ashton Carter 93-5; Leon Panetta 100-0. Robert Gates 95-2. The difference: credentials. If not all Republican senators are stupid enough to think Hegseth is qualified (?), only three had the guts to vote no, one of whose cynical hypocrisy put us where we are. It’s shameful and cowardly.
Arriving at the Pentagon, Pete went to work implementing Project Trump 2025; his first communiqué was about ending DEI, because any military member not straight, male, white and Christian is inferior. Then, calling them “dishonorable” and “liars,” he banned trans people who, because they had the courage to be public about who they are, are braver than most; and about whom there’ve been fewer deportment issues than non-trans members. And he announced plans to interview top general officers to see which will kowtow and which won’t. Shoot protestors in the legs.
Beyond turning the military into his domestic enforcers, Trump is eliminating people and programs that would keep him in check. He fired inspectors general of virtually all government agencies. His Department of “Justice” ousted every prosecutor who worked with Jack Smith and will subject them to “investigations,” and it just ended further pursuit of Trump’s crimes. The firing of the IGs was clearly illegal because the law requires 30 days’ notice to Congress. The message: Whatcha gonna do about it?
Same with the TikTok law passed by Congress, signed by President Biden, and confirmed in a rare 9-0 ruling by the Supreme Court. Trump ignored it. Likewise, his demented attempt to rewrite the Constitution by executive order. He’s convinced he’s above the law, which, thanks to congressional pusillanimity and judicial corruption, it turns out he is. Then, because they’d get in his way, he rescinded the ethics rules ordered by President Biden.
In a silent coup, our country has been captured by a group of very wealthy men, Christian nationalists who are anything but Christian, whose aim is to remove from government all institutions that have, till now, protected us from people like them; that stand in the way of unchecked power and unregulated self-enrichment; that let people not like them retain the power of the vote. And they’ve put in place enough judges and justices to clear their path.
It’s been a concerted effort for years. In Trump, they recognized the perfect stooge, one they could convince he’s in charge because he so desperately needs to be; a frontman willing, for his needy gratification, to keep public eyes off what’s happening; to cede the agenda to Project 2025. It’s not Greenland or Panama or Canada. It’s in the backrooms of the White House, into which they’ve charmed and threatened unimaginably rich oligarchs to bankroll their efforts. Trump gives them what they want because they give him what he needs.
Trump was elected by a minority of voters, strategically convinced it was about eggs and immigrants. People who look worshipfully at his self-pity and rejoice as he strikes at the vulnerable, who will include, before long, themselves. When they realize that, it’ll be too late.
It’s hard to accept, to know whether to tune out or scream into the night. Trump has the limelight. For him, vengeance is the goal; that, and validating his neediness. He’s president of people who see the cruelty and love it. And of the string-pullers. The more distracting outrage he engenders, the more he lies and pounds his chest, the more he fools the media into focusing on the hole rather than the donut, the more easily the Project-iles can take down our democracy, all but unreported, brick by brick.
For those who still believe in democracy and kindness, it’s hard to watch and harder to know what to do.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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