Some folks asked for my Twitter thread the other day about Betsy DeVos and the array of unqualified cabinet members to be somewhere more easily shareable, so here it is.
Share as you see fit.
(Storify link here if you’d prefer to read it that way.)
Apple-Obsessed Author Fella
Andrew T says:
I hope this Trumpism doesn’t spill over to Canada. I’m a little worried, given that Kevin O’Leary jumped in the Conservative leadership race a few days ago. There are many clips from Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank to use in attack ads against him if need be, but hopefully it doesn’t come to that.
January 19, 2017 — 10:48 AM
JenniferShelby says:
At least we’ll have had a few years of seeing Trumpism in action before O’Leary has a chance to be elected …
January 19, 2017 — 11:53 AM
Andrew T says:
True that, but I’d prefer he doesn’t win the leadership race in the first place. A new leader will be elected May 27, too little time to see the effect of Trumpism and thus convince the party to avoid a similar mistake here.
January 19, 2017 — 12:58 PM
deborahleighwrites says:
Anybody who’s ever studied Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal) knows it is VERY possible for a government to swing an axe on purpose and do whatever damage it can until the pendulum swings in the other direction. It was embarrassingly obvious that the Plessy court knew what it decided would one day be dismantled (as it was, by Brown v. Board of Ed.), but you can tell it thought, “Hey, by the time another court comes along and undoes the damage, people of color will have been left too far behind to quickly recover.” And…no bank loans, no property rights, no right to vote, etc, ETC. (far too much to list here) for 60 more years, and we know what happened. Imagine if everybody had had the identical access from 1896 (when Plessy was decided). Much of the junk we went through as a country in the latter half of the 20th century would have been long done. I’m simplifying–this is a comment on a blog post–but the constant exposure to one another would have changed the trajectory.
So, yes, Trump et al. know precisely what they’re doing.
January 19, 2017 — 11:42 AM
deborahleighwrites says:
One more point. Chuck said:
Money is motive. Industry. Wealth. Class warfare. Short term gains but that’s what they care about. The now, not the later.
I agree and would add ego and narcissism. Throughout history, moments like this are driven by small humans who not only fear a disappearance of their purported way of life, but who believe that that disappearance somehow means they were inadequate. Otherwise, they would have thrived, goes their thinking. It’s either/or. Your success means I must have failed. Gotta undo that. Gotta invalidate that. Gotta erase it. The narcissism tells them that how they feel about themselves matters most, thus giving them permission to misbehave terribly and wreck everybody else. We’ve all felt bad. They believe they get to act on it to the detriment of others.
Thanks, Chuck.
P.S. These posts help with writing. They keep our juices and our thoughts flowing. We get riled, remember that we enjoy expression through writing. Two-fer.
January 19, 2017 — 11:55 AM
priscillaking says:
Y’know, I can think of a lot of Tea Parties that never got off the ground (‘cos all the “members” had heard was the “party” part, lol) and some that fell apart, but I couldn’t think of a Tea Party that had succeeded in giving us a bad leader…until I thought of The Donald Himself.
I’m not aware that he’s ever publicly identified as a Tea Party, but I’m sure he’s felt “Taxed Enough Already.” And in the sense that he’s already a well known tax fraud, divorcee, bully, and jerk, at least, to some extent he’s already a bad leader, or leader in bad directions.
How badly will he disappoint actual conservatives and libertarians? Well, he can’t disappoint the ones I know because we never backed him in the first place.
How badly will he disappoint the tax-and-spend RINOs? *Mercy*.
How badly will he disappoint Bill Clinton and BC’s handlers? *Mercy, ***Lord***!*
But I’m trying to quit posting #NeverTrump , #BankruptcyBillionnaire, etc.; those who have a little faith left in our country and/or its government need to pull together and try, insofar as in us lieth, to steer the spoiler candidate as far out of the wrong direction as possible. And our chances are better if we can stop hating on him all the time…whether we’ve been hating on him from the left, the right, or even from one of those other countries that love to kibitz on U.S. presidential elections.
Just a thought for the NeverTrump Democrats who have yet to comment here…
January 19, 2017 — 2:50 PM
Stacy Hackenberg says:
Keep speaking truth to power, Chuck. We need every voice we can muster.
January 19, 2017 — 4:39 PM
mlhe says:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/devos-says-she-wants-her-salary-as-education-secretary-to-be-1/2017/01/17/31e346ce-dd15-11e6-8902-610fe486791c_video.html
What? Is she that bad at math?
January 19, 2017 — 5:15 PM
decayingorbits says:
You’d be surprised at how unaware your typical political appointee is with a lot of things fundamental to their job. I’ve worked with them for the past 15 years, and as of the end of the work day yesterday, my organization has 50+ fewer of them. All of those slots will eventually be refilled with appointees from the new administration. many will come to the job informed and interested. Many will not. The career civil service is what keeps organizations like the education department running on the rails, in spite of who the engineer is. They’re the bulwark against uninformed ideologues. If you are really worried about the kind of damage that can be done to the government, you should be railing against attempts by Congress to roll back civil service protections.
January 20, 2017 — 6:20 AM