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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months ago

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M. Wuerker: Politico

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 21, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 22, 2025

These days, I keep coming back to the quotation recorded by journalist Ron Suskind in a New York Times Magazine article in 2004. A senior advisor to President George W. Bush told Suskind that people like Suskind lived in “the reality-based community”: they believed people could find solutions based on their observations and careful study of discernible reality. But, the aide continued, such a worldview was obsolete. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore…. We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

In 2004 that quotation seemed a reflection on how members of an administration hoped to shape the globe and public perceptions of their actions. Twenty-one years later, it seems we are seeing what happens when members of an administration believe they can shape not just perceptions but reality itself, and discover that reality is stubborn.

After news broke last night that the Pentagon was preparing a top-secret presentation for billionaire Elon Musk on plans for fighting a potential war with China, members of the administration denied that Musk’s visit to the Pentagon would include such a meeting. This morning, Musk posted on social media that the “leakers” “will be found.” “I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT,” he posted.

Aside from appearing to confirm the story—one can’t “leak” a false story—Sophia Cai, Danny Nguyen, Daniel Payne, Amy MacKinnon, and Eli Stokols of Politico suggest that Musk’s threat has backfired. “We are public servants, not Elon’s servants,” one Food and Drug Administration employee told the reporters, adding, “[t]he public deserves to know how dysfunctional, destructive, and deceptive all of this has been and continues to be.”

A senior Federal Aviation Administration official said, referring to Musk, “He IS A LEAKER. When you put hard drives on data systems at government agencies you are creating the biggest security breaches we have seen in years and years. Possibly ever.” A Department of Agriculture staffer said: “If the Biden administration or Obama had acted like this, no one would have tolerated it. The Trump administration doesn’t get a pass.”

Those angry at Musk and the cuts his Department of Government Efficiency team has made to the government have demonstrated their anger by launching a grassroots movement called “TeslaTakedown” that protests peacefully at Tesla dealerships. Law enforcement officers and experts in domestic extremism say they have found no evidence that acts of vandalism against cars, charging stations, and dealerships—there have been at least ten such instances—are coordinated.

Trump tried to shore up the brand with a sales pitch for Teslas at the White House on March 11, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday urged the Fox News Channel audience to buy Tesla stock, an endorsement that violated federal ethics rules but did nothing to prop up the stock price.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi called vandalism of Teslas “domestic terrorism,” and today President Donald Trump insisted that the vandalism of Tesla products is far more serious than the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol when rioters tried to stop the counting of electoral votes and thus overturn the will of American voters. Trump issued a blanket pardon for those rioters, including those convicted of violence against law enforcement officers, but today he posted about Tesla vandals on social media: “I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!”

At the Social Security Administration, acting commissioner Leland Dudek is threatening to shut down the agency in response to the temporary restraining order issued yesterday by U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander. In that order, Hollander noted that the “Department of Government Efficiency” was “essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” and “never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE Team needs unlimited access to SSA’s entire record systems.”

She prohibited Social Security officials from sharing with DOGE any personally identifiable information (PII) that would make it possible to identify specific individuals. Dudek suggested that Hollander’s order could apply to all SSA employees because the administration has ordered them to cooperate with DOGE. “Everything in this agency is PII,” he said. “Unless I get a clarification, I’ll just start to shut it down. I don’t have much of a choice here.”

Dudek was a mid-level staffer at SSA until he won his position atop the agency by secretly cooperating with DOGE’s demands to review sensitive records after SSA’s head, Michelle King, stood in the way. “I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

SSA oversees Social Security benefits for nearly 70 million people and, according to the agency, was expected to distribute about $1.6 trillion in benefits in 2025. For many people, that check is vital to survival. But billionaire Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick suggested that concerns about a stoppage in checks were overblown. He told billionaire podcast host Chamath Palihapitiya: “Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She just wouldn’t. She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling, and complaining.”

Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, disagreed: “For almost 90 years, Social Security has never missed a paycheck—but 60 days into this administration, Social Security is now on the brink…. Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has proven again that he is in way over his head, compromising the privacy of millions of Americans, shutting down services that senior citizens rely on and planning debilitating layoffs, all in service to Elon Musk’s lies.”

Hollander responded to Dudek’s threat by calling his interpretation of the order “inaccurate” and specifying that SSA employees who are not members of DOGE or working on DOGE’s agenda are not subject to the order. “Moreover, any suggestion that the Order may require the delay or suspension of benefit payments is incorrect.” After Dudek continued to insist that SSA employees and DOGE are intertwined, Hollander issued another clarification tonight, saying that if that is the case, she “was misled by counsel for the government,” who said that just ten people at SSA are working for DOGE.

“More to the point,” she added, “in my earlier letter today…I directed the government to contact [the Court] immediately if there is any need for clarification of the [order]. As I write this letter, it is well after 6:00 p.m. and the government has yet to contact the Court.��

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post observed today that “the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ [is making] the federal government almost comically inefficient.” She wrote that Internal Revenue Service employees line up at shared computers on Mondays to submit their “five things I did last week” emails to DOGE while taxpayer service calls go unanswered. Federal surveyors at the Bureau of Land Management are no longer allowed to buy replacement equipment, so when a shovel breaks they can’t simply replace it; they have to locate a manager authorized to file an official procurement form and order one. Many have had to ignore their actual jobs in order to scrub words from official documents.

After interviewing frustrated civil servants for weeks, Rampell said, she has learned that “routine tasks take longer to complete, grinding down worker productivity,” while DOGE bogs workers down with “meaningless busywork, which sets them up to be punished for neglecting their actual duties.”

“All this talk of warfighter ethos, and our ‘priority’ is making sure there are no three-year-old tweets with the word ‘diversity’ in them,” one Pentagon staffer told Rampell. “Crazy town.”

Administration officials are discovering that their idea of slashing through government might not have adequately considered how actual people might react to that destruction. As constituents erupt with anger, Republican lawmakers are refusing to hold town hall meetings. Yesterday, Representative Harriet Hageman (R-WY) responded to boos and heckling by saying: “It’s so bizarre to me how obsessed you are with federal government…. [Y]our hysteria is just really over the top.” When protesters dressed as chickens to goad Representative James Comer (R-KY) into holding a town hall, he issued a statement: “Congressman Comer does not plan on holding therapy sessions for left-wing activists suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

In place of Republican town halls, Democrats are holding their own packed events in Republican districts. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are on a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour across the country because, as Sanders says, people are “profoundly disgusted with what is going on here in Washington, D.C.”

Today, 11,000 people turned out to hear Sanders and AOC in Republican-led Greeley, Colorado. Another 34,000 turned out in Denver.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Ron Suskind #Letters From an American #Heather Cox Richardson #Senator Bernie Sanders #Representative Alexandria ocasio-Cortez #Tesla #DOGE #coup #fighting oligarchy #Social Security

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bopinion · 2 months ago

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2025 / 13

Aperçu of the week

"Move fast and break things"

(Former motto of Facebook)

Bad News of the Week

"Opposition in the shadow of Trump: Where are the Democrats?" asks the German news medium Tagesschau. That's right. Good question. At least on the eastern side of the Atlantic, nothing can be seen, heard or read. Apparently the state of shock after the lost election is lasting longer than the hellish pace of the firestorm of Donald Trump and his entourage needs to burn society down to rubble.

The Democratic Party in the US is more unpopular than ever before. For the party base, the reason is clear: the timid handling of the Trump government's policies. The party leadership officially believed that the Republicans would disqualify themselves with their nonsense. In the meantime, the realization is gaining the upper hand that the party is simply being washed away by the "flood the zone" actionism of the Trump team. However, the party leadership is clearly not managing a change in strategy. Or doesn't even want it, as can be seen from the unexpectedly uncritical approval of the last budget plan.

This is not just about party politics, but about the sovereign, the people. Anyone who no longer has a political home, who no longer sees any prospects for their personal life with any political provider, will turn away. And not just from their current party, but from politics in general. This leads to a drop in voter turnout. And in this case, that doesn't strengthen the fringes, but the powerful. Trump and his gang would only be right if the annoying population simply stayed out of it and let the top ten thousand do what they want. I actually expect a party that has named itself after democracy to prevent this. But it doesn't look like that, the democrats remain pale.

Small correction: we in Europe did notice something from the Democrats the other day. Namely the "Fighting Oligarchy" tour by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders. Mind you, the former is anything but establishment and the latter isn't even in the party. But I see that the same way as a liberal judge in Wisconsin (Susan Crawford) or an out-of-touch Republican from Wyoming (Liz Cheney): Anyone who takes a stand against the takeover of the U.S. by MAGA-heads and the rich is doing a valuable service to democracy.

Good News of the Week

Once again, things were looking grim for Syria. Initially, there were many positive signs that gave hope that the battered country could find peace after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad. For example, the announcement of the complete destruction of chemical weapons. With the help of the international community and under the supervision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague. The new rulers appeared to make an effort to appear moderate, open and progressive rather than Islamist extremists.

But then shots were fired again. Apparently, armed supporters of the ousted Assad government had attacked security forces in the alevitcoastal province of Latakia. And the interim government responded with a large-scale military operation, in which artillery and tanks were also deployed. With a total of 1,300 casualties in just a few days, it was reminiscent of the days of the civil war. Was the new leadership also to rule by force and not integrate all peoples in the country? That was to be feared.

But the former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa seems to have resisted the temptation. He had promised to form a transitional government that would not only work towards free elections, but would also represent all important groups of the population. A cabinet of 22 ministers has now been appointed. Naturally dominated by al-Sharaa's militia and allied groups. But also with representatives of the Alevis, Druze and Christians. The head of the White Helmets civil defense organization. And a woman. My hope remains alive.

Personal happy moment of the week

Friends made spanakopita, a Greek spinach and feta strudel. Served with a fresh salad, home-smoked bacon and a few bottles of white wine. And the children were out of the house. The perfect recipe for a lovely evening. Thank you.

I couldn't care less...

...about the double standards that apply to US Republicans. When Hillary Clinton, as Democratic Secretary of State, sent official e-mails via a server that may not have met the highest security standards, no information was made public. And yet she should be crucified for it. When J.D. Vance (Vice President), Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Defense), Marco Rubio (Secretary of State), Mike Waltz (National Security Advisor), Tulsi Gabbard (Director of Intelligence) and others exchanged details about the attack on Huthi rebels in Yemen in a chat group on Signal in the unnoticed presence of a journalist, a lot of information - and very little style, see emoji comments - was released to the public. And it's not their fault, but the journalist's. You're almost lost for words.

It's fine with me...

...that the socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is continuing to work on the green transportation revolution. Around 220 of the more than 6,000 streets in Paris are already car-free. In some cases, cars are not allowed to drive near schools in particular. In large parts of the city, the speed limit is 30 km/h. In the city center, there is now a zone where through traffic is prohibited. And there are higher parking fees for heavy cars. And now the citizens of Paris have voted (albeit with a very low turnout) to create 500 new car-free streets. More space for pedestrians and cyclists, less exhaust fumes and noise, more space for greenery and urban life. Exemplary.

As I write this...

...I am still feeling the effects of last weekend's time change. An irritation that always lasts as long for me as a veritable jet lag on another continent. But now it's summertime. Or spring for a start. It's light for longer in the evenings and it's getting mild. I'm already looking forward to my first trip to the beer garden.

Post Scriptum

Diversity, equality, inclusion: a social catastrophe for the 47th US executive branch. Which sees this as systematic discrimination against white men - of all people. And not only have DEI programs been stopped in all government institutions, it is also being pushed through in the economy. For example, T-Mobile, which is actually German, had to officially confirm the discontinuation of its programs, as otherwise the takeover of the cable network operator Lumos would have been prohibited by the responsible regulatory authority. So much for the free market. And US embassies write to their local suppliers with corresponding questionnaires. For example, a media company has to be told that it should comply with the Trump administration's requirements - after all, the embassy subscribes to its newspaper. Unfortunately, this is no joke.

The impact on US culture is just as radical. After the ban on provocative words - which includes 'climate crisis' and even 'women' - and the removal of "divisive ideologies" from museums - including the history of slavery - the next Big Brother attack on freedom is now underway. A large-scale deletion campaign is underway in US archives to eradicate DEI presence and explicitly directed against women, gays, lesbians or transgender people, minorities, disabled people, etc. With curious side effects. For example, the historic plane that dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 has since been erased. It was named after the pilot's mother. And her name was "Enola Gay". Unfortunately, this is no joke either.

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