A possible title if Sergio Leone directed a film about Trump’s first weeks in office. Who knows? Clint Eastwood might even agree to star.
The Stupid
The U. S. Bureau of Reclamation’s water pumps in Northern California were temporarily down for routine maintenance. When the maintenance was finished, the feds turned the pumps back on.
This is how the gibbons in Trump’s brain interpreted these benign events.
Trump: “The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!”
Somehow the collection of tissue that passes for a brain in that man connected it all to the mysterious “valve” that if just turned on would release “the massive amounts of water available to Los Angeles,” a valve that had mysteriously been turned off by nasty Democrats, leading to the Pacific Palisades fire.
Can we lay aside the burden of being the adults in the room for a moment and just say out loud that this is an enormously stupid human being?
And, of course, point out that stupidity tends to “trickle down” much more definitively than do dollars.
To wit.
Karoline Leavitt, the latest Fox News clone to interpret the Great Man’s mind to the White House press corps, defending the administration’s nearly universal freeze on foreign aid: “The White House budget office found that there was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza. That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. That’s what this pause is focused on.”
The gibbons in Trump’s brain took up the challenge. The Stable Genius added a few incites of his own. That $50 million package of prophylactics was being sent to Gaza “to buy condoms for Hamas.” I think I’m beginning to understand why Hamas manages to recruit so many young men. Ah well, at least they’re careful.
Another gibbon hurled a fresh banana. Sure enough, it stuck to the wall of that amazing brain. “You know what’s happened to them?” Trump added, “They’ve used them as a method of making bombs. How about that?”
How about that indeed?! I invite you to imagine the scene. First off, how big a pile does $50 million worth of condoms make? Then, down in the tunnels, a young Hamas militant comes up with the idea. “Hey fellas, remember that scene in Saving Private Ryan where they filled socks with TNT and got them to stick to the sides of tanks? How much TNT could we get in one of these babies? Hmm. Now, how can we make them sticky?”
The Incompetent
No need to belabor this aspect of the first week, as it is on public display constantly. It’s the Muslim ban redux. One ill-conceived plan after another shot down by the courts. A freeze on all manner of federal spending which leads to 24 hours of chaos and polite questions even from Republicans.
Jeff Landry, Republican governor of Louisiana, struggling to find a nice way to say “Would you idiots get your act together”: “We urge OMB to develop a responsible runway to untangle us from any unnecessary and egregious policies without jeopardizing the financial stability of the state.” One wonders how long they word smithed that request.
Or the bullying of Colombia and Mexico and the rest of Latin America, as in How to turn an entire continent against you. Or How to get Latin America to embrace China.
Poor Karoline Leavitt again: “Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again.”
You keep using that word. I do not think you know what it means. I don’t think that’s respect you’re seeing.
Or the following rationale for removing transgender soldiers from the military, soldiers willing to die for their country.
Trump order: “Identifying as a gender that is inconsistent with one’s biological sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
Meanwhile, the person now in charge of all these soldiers who are committed to honor, truth, and discipline in their personal lives is an alcoholic rapist, wife abuser, serial liar, and public moron. Makes perfect sense.
The Ugly
Contemplate all of the following, the devastation inflicted on real human beings, the trashing of our standing in the world as a beacon of hope. But, you know, they have dark skin, and MAGA world doesn’t approve of their lifestyle.
The Trump administration halted the distribution of HIV medications purchased through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and froze funding for global health programs. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, was started by George W. Bush and is credited with saving over 25 million lives since it began.
Clinics in low-income countries have been instructed to stop disbursing lifesaving drugs already in stock, and PEPFAR’s data systems have been taken offline. The freeze affects treatment for HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis, leaving millions of patients without care and disrupting critical global health programs. The administration also suspended technical support to health ministries and aid organizations abroad.
Other results of the freeze in foreign aid.
Stops work battling a deadly Marburg outbreak in Tanzania and a wide outbreak of a mpox variant killing children in west Africa before it spreads further.
Stops monitoring of bird flu in 49 countries, a disease which already killed an American on home soil.
Stops critical work to eradicate polio.
Stops >$1B in corporate drug donations and coordination eradicating tropical diseases like river blindness, elephantiasis, and others on the verge of elimination in whole regions.
Stops medicines, supplies, systems building, staff support aiding >90 million women and children to get low-cost vaccinations, prenatal care, safe childbirth, contraception, and other basic lifesaving health needs.
Stops direct services for 6.5 million orphans, vulnerable children, and their caregivers affected by HIV in 23 countries.
Stops donated drug supplies keeping 20 million people living with HIV alive.
And here at home.
Trump stopped new funding and outward communications for health research, which means no new clinical trials for cancer — which can be a patient’s last hope — and no new research on rare diseases.
Victoria Seewaldt, chair of population sciences at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center: “This is like a meteor just crashed into all of our cancer centers and research areas.”
A global health expert with Johns Hopkins University: “We’re talking about whether someone can afford to go to the doctor. In some cases, a difference of six months or a year is a difference between them living and seeing their grandchildren, or not.
But, you know, somewhere someone is getting a free condom.
And, of course, there is the attack on families and children. At schools.
Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY): “This is just so heartless. By targeting schools for immigration enforcement, this administration is destroying that sense of safety. This is not just policy—it’s cruelty, plain and simple. They say they’re targeting dangerous criminals, but let’s be honest: Who in a classroom is a criminal? Who among the parents dropping their kids off in school is a murderer or a rapist? There is no evidence to back up this claim.”
Baltimore teacher: “In 2017, I felt a certain amount of protection by staying in the light. In a way, it protected you. But I don’t feel that way this time, because Trump is being extraordinarily vindictive. It’s the most appalling, gut-wrenching thing as an educator that I can imagine. I have a hard time conceiving it—how can anyone think this is valuable?”
Trump’s freeze also halted school lunch programs for impoverished kids. Georgia Republican Rich McCormick, perhaps auditioning for a role in a Dickens’ film, noted that “those indolent kids need to go get jobs instead of spong[ing] off the government.”
Yes, the courts might block much of this, but don’t let that ever take the focus off the fact that this is what Trump and MAGA world want. This stupidity. This incompetence. And this awful ugliness.
Here’s the good news. Trump’s approval rating stands at 45%. That’s already down two points from just one week ago.
Democrats and decent humans everywhere have one job now. Keep driving that number down. Drive it into the basement. Drive it down until only the worst of the MAGA cultists are left supporting this awful man.
Keep the focus on the human tragedies. Do that, and the midterms will be a Democratic sweep…