Monthly Archives: February 2025

DOGE is a disaster

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As we’re now a month into the Trump administration, we’re seeing the fruition of Project 2025 dreams. Elon Musk is taking both a figurative and literal chainsaw to the federal government.

This half trillionaire man-child has come into the government and acted as if Trump and Musk have a mandate to make dramatic changes to the US Government. That, instead of winning with a small majority, they assume they won by a landslide. They didn’t. Most Americans do not want what Elon is selling to us.

The Fork in the Road email was likely illegal, for a number of reason. As outlined by Legal Eagle in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PT848djz4jA?si=fjj-uv3pU-vxjBRK

The firings are likely to cause mini recessions across the US as large number of people are suddenly unemployed. All in the name of reducing the size of the federal government. However, the job cuts have been done in such a sloppy way that many agencies are trying to rehire people they’ve fired.

This will make us less safe. We are firing flight controllers, which will negatively impact small and regional airports the most, but will lead to issues at our main hubs too. The goal, of course is privatization. That’s been a clear goal of republicans for decades. Privatizing an organization like the FAA is not a good idea. A consistent overarching regulatory regime is good for our airlines. It’s also unclear how Musk/Trump would privatize the FAA. Would they fracture it by state, would they just make it a single company.

How would states respond? Would some of them decide they need to have some sort of statewide institution to address the gap left by the FAA? Would we see significant deviations between the west coast and the south?

Piecemeal regulation like this causes issues with car manufacturers. As they are basically being driven by the most stringent regulations, mostly California. Would Boeing and Airbus find themselves under a similar sort of policy regime? Would Trump then try to kill the state’s ability to do this? Which they’ve tried to roll back California’s regulatory regime around emissions.

Many of these changes are illegal too. As Legal Eagle explains above. We need to take the legality of these issues seriously. We are a country of rule of law, even if the history of that application has been rather uneven.

We are the most powerful nation in the world and we have always had countries looking to the US to emulate our behavior. DOGE is certainly going to be emulated in other countries with dictators. We will see then, that the US media will broadly report how despotic those leaders are. We need to apply that mirror to ourselves.

DOGE is part of a dictatorship. Trump is in the middle of a bureaucratic coup. We need to fight it however we can. Call your Senators, Representatives, both Federal and State. Donate to organizations dedicated to fighting this. If you can, protest.

You aren’t impotent right now. You can fight back.

Book Review: The Myth of American Idealism

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I just wrapped up the Myth of American Idealism: How US Foreign Policy Endangers the World, by Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson. It’s been a while since I read a book by Chomsky. I heard about this one through an interview with Sam Seder of the Majority Report and Nathan Robinson a few days ago (mid Feb 2025). This book is apparently hot off the presses. Despite that they weren’t able to adequately discuss the Israeli invasion of Gaza, only the history leading up to it. It seems they finished that section just days before the October 7th attack.

As always Chomsky offers an interesting counter view to the mainstream press and often the view American historians. I think these views are important, as they can provide clear eyed discussions on what the US is doing at home and abroad. I think as Americans we need that. We need someone to pick us up and put us in the position of the outsider. We need to look at what our country does with the same critical lens our Press analyzes our national enemies.

Much of this book was relatively new to me. Or rather, I was aware of the events happening or that they had happened, but not to the extend described. Chomsky and Robinson constrain their review of US history to, mostly, the past 50 years, so shortly after Vietnam. However, to understand the US post Vietnam, you need to understand the Vietnam war and to understand that you need to go back at least to World War II.

As I said in my short the other day, History didn’t start on October 7th. Decisions made by one President influence and constrain the available options for the next President. Regardless of party, there is more often a likelihood of the next President will continue existing US policies. There are a variety of reasons for this, which is outlined in the book, including that even if the specific action was illegal, it’s already been done, so it’s unlikely to lead to repercussions. If the action is stopped, it may lead to a constraint on Presidential power and that would be unacceptable for the US President.

One thing that I had always wondered, since I was a teenager, is why the US sphere of direct influence, the countries in the western hemisphere are in such horrible states. This book answers it. It is US policy for these countries to be in the states they are. We have overthrown or supported the overthrow of a majority of South American countries. We have supported militaries and far right groups that support US business interests. We do not support New Deal based politics in the global south. Because that may mean providing more for the people of that country and less to the United States.

Chomsky and Robinson highlight cases in Nicaragua, Chile, Guatemala, Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, and more. They describe in specific details what intervention we did. What sort of regime we supported, which includes Pinochet, which made me nauseous to read. Hell, we supported the Khmer Rouge until it wasn’t politically convenient any longer. The Khmer Rouge. Just despicable.

We, Americans, mostly White Americans, need to look at these choices head on. We need to understand what our country is doing in our name. We need to say, “No. I do not want to bomb those countries. No I do not support demanding 50% of mineral rights from Ukraine.”

Many US leaders do not want us to feel shame in our history. They do not want us to feel shame, because that shame will lead to anger and anger will lead to action. I do not feel shame over what the US has done. I feel angry. I never supported these actions. I never wanted the state to do these things. I protested against them. We should be angry. The US is a destabilizing force in the world. We need to reckon with that and make a decision on what we should do about that. We should be angry. Be Angry. Do something.

Note: Some links will be affiliate likes to Bookshop.org