The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Terry Bracy
Hillary is right. It takes a village to raise children — and to ruin a democracy!
To achieve that, Trump’s apparent goal, he must depend first upon a cabinet of yes-men and women, a sub-cabinet of right-wing apparatchiks who fill in the blanks for uninformed bosses, a supplicant Congress more interested in money and publicity than legislation, and a Supreme Court determined to protect the power of white Americans above all else. This village is underwritten by a thousand new billionaires whose attachment to the country goes as far as their bank accounts. For them, President Trump is the vehicle they will ride to his political grave. They have already arranged an after-party, which will be hosted by Vice President Vance, for whom they bought a spot on the Republican ticket.
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I can’t help but conclude that Project Fury is less about Iran’s nuclear threat than its oil. Same with the attack on Venezuela. In the run-up to the 2024 election, Trump invited the leaders of Big Oil to Mar-a-Lago and told them to raise $1 billion for his campaign and, if elected, he would support anything they wanted. The first payoff came when the reelected president’s Energy Department canceled contracts advancing wind farms and reversed initiatives to electrify auto fleets.
Whether or not that pledge landed us in the Middle East is known only to Trump, but it is certainly a factor. The Iranian regime is a malign and destabilizing menace, and there are powerful reasons I want to see it displaced. Unfortunately, short of bluster and magical thinking, the Trump administration has demonstrated no insight into how this aim might be achieved. It is one thing when governments make the wrong choices in attempts to solve problems. Many cite President Johnson’s decisions on Vietnam. Even more believe that President George W. Bush made a tragic mistake going after Saddam Hussein and Iraq in response to the 9/11 attacks. Count me in both groups. Nonetheless, Johnson and Bush were responding to events they did not initiate. Not so with Trump, who started a fight he can’t end.
The case against the Trump government goes far beyond the war. It is hard to find a single department in the twenty-three that hasn’t done damage to the people they are promised to serve. Whether the record small farm bankruptcies courtesy of Agriculture, the tariffs managed by Commerce, the decimation by Energy of clean power programs, the termination of Education staff and programs, destruction of protected lands by Interior, or the failure of the Department of Transportation to pursue auto and airline safety — in all of these areas the case can be made that Trump and his helpers are blowing up the greatest village of democracy ever constructed.
The most immediate rebuilding will have to occur at the essential departments of Defense, Health and Human Services and Justice.
Most important is the Justice Department, which has fallen into the hands of cronies and crooks who have made a mockery of the law they are supposed to enforce. Its most visible efforts have been to provide legal cover for a president who sells pardons and seeks to jail his critics.
Next is the Department of Health and Human Services, currently led by a guy determined to undermine many of the greatest advances in medical science. If Secretary Kennedy were in office during the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines might not have been developed, causing the deaths of millions more. Kennedy has put in charge of America’s public health a group of cult members who supported his own failed presidential campaign.
Third is the Department of Defense, whose most immediate crisis is that it is being led by a chest-pounding buffoon. Once he is gone, leaders can get busy both modernizing and cost-cutting. The U.S. now spends more on the military than the next 10 powers combined, including China and Russia; and in the age of modern warfare, we see minor powers like Iran and Ukraine use cheap, easily built weapons like drones to defeat sophisticated missiles that cost millions. In keeping with MAGA’s return to the past, Trump is insisting on building a new generation of battleships, which were dated naval weapons in the 1940s.
The country President Trump and his acolytes are building is really a Potemkin village designed to distract its people while the bandits rob the bank. I’m betting they won’t get away with it.
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Terry Bracy has served as a political adviser, campaign manager, congressional aide, sub-Cabinet official, board member and as an adviser to presidents.
