The Logic Behind Trump’s Illogic

The Logic Behind Trump’s Illogic

Trump rants, makes up “facts” to support his illogical conclusions, nominates clearly unqualified individuals who are readily confirmed by his Stepford wives in the Senate, embraces unworkable foreign policies and rails against science and scientists – cutting federal support to them even for life-saving research. Who are the winners here? Who gains? Despite signs of the onset of dementia that brought Biden down hard, Trump’s rants boast unprovable statements, anti-science/elitists in the swamp, and generally support the malaise infecting middle America. Despite assurances from the Fed and Democrats, average Americans know the economy they face every day is both unstable and is pushing them past sustainability. The winners are obvious: big powerful incumbents who defy regulation, find consumer advocates pesky insects to profits and have no interest in paying for the ravages of change they have caused.

As egg prices soar, as commodities join housing on the unaffordable list, average Americans are watching their world and their assumptions crumble beneath their feet. Trump’s assault on the “deep state” resonates with an electorate that is looking for simple solutions to massive problems. They may intuitively understand that climate change is slowly eroding their quality of life, but they find solace in MAGA denials or marginalization.

They accept the bona fides of a billionaire (who else knows how to implement corporate efficiencies in government?) and are willing to overlook the self-dealing and deregulation of American business that goes with it. That the primary vector behind cost-cutting, freely admitted by House Speaker Mike Johnson, is the support to avoid having the proposed tax cut to the rich without increasing the deficit (the poor can pay for it with cuts to federal programs supporting them). $400M order for a fleet of vehicles that precisely match the unique aspects of the Tesla Cyber Truck? $15 billion in recent deals to Trump-owned companies?

Perhaps Trump outsources budgetary cuts to Elon Musk, because he has no clue how to manage such massive reductions himself. Trump brags how he brought Putin to the negotiating table over Ukraine because of his “relationship” with that international criminal. That his spokespeople on point, like DOD head Pete Hegseth – touting Moscow’s requirements – repeating that Ukraine with have to live with territorial concessions to Russia and give up hopes of joining NATO. But how did Trump move Putin to negotiate now? Sure, Moscow released an errant, tourist schoolteacher, but was that just Putin being nice? It seems that the willingness to negotiate (on Moscow’s terms) with Ukraine - that teacher release - was conditioned on our releasing a much bigger fish.

“The deal Donald Trump brokered with Russia to release American school teacher Marc Fogel on Tuesday [9/10] was, in fact, a prisoner swap—even though the president had tried to suggest otherwise… The Russian man freed in the deal is Alexander Vinnik , 45, who stands accused of laundering billions through the digital currency exchange website he ran, an unnamed U.S. official told The New York Times on Wednesday [2/12].” The DailyBeast.com, February 11th.

Indeed, as fast as Russia and China leak conspiracy theories showing the “massive waste and corruption” within US agencies, never with any evidence, there are a cadre of Russian apologists and self-appointed spokespeople – led by Tucker Carlson, a most reliable disseminator of Russian and Chinese propaganda. Trump and Musk often point to such unsubstantiated statements to justify Trump’s outsourcing of fundamental federal governance to Musk’s unelected DOGE.

But Trump’s “shoot from the hip” rants, such as his White House remarks on February 12th, are nothing more than interesting but wholly fabricated statements, as quoted by the February 12th Raw Story: “‘When you look at the kind of money, billions and billions of dollars being thrown away illegally.…’ Trump blamed, without providing evidence, airplane manufacturer Boeing for some fraud… ‘You know, Boeing, we're not happy with the service we're getting in terms of those planes,’ he ranted. ‘Look at — take a look at the Gerald Ford, the aircraft carrier, the Ford. It was supposed to cost $3 billion. It ends up costing like $18 billion.’

“‘And they have all magnetic elevators to lift up 25 planes at a time, 20 planes at a time,’ Trump continued. ‘And instead of using hydraulics, like on tractors that can handle anything from hurricanes to lightning to anything, they use magnets.’” First, Boeing is hardly the primary contractor building carriers, and there hasn’t been a US carrier built for anything near $3 billion for decades. Trump himself signed defense bills authorizing this new, expensive level of carriers. The use of magnetic systems are the new standard for catapult launches, more reliable and easier to maintain than the old hydraulic systems, and those elevators are currently only used to transport munitions from below deck. Want more?

RFK, Jr is our new HHS Secretary, and science has always been his nemesis. Co-Presidents Musk and Trump have cut grants for necessary scientific research like never before. “The most comprehensive sally, of course, is the administration’s drastic and abrupt cut in funding by the National Institutes of Health… On Feb. 7, the NIH announced that its payments for “indirect” research costs, which sometimes come to 60% or more of grants’ direct costs, would be cut to 15%, a cutback of billions of dollars from the budgets of leading academic institutions… The cuts were to go into effect three days later, leaving grant recipients thunderstruck. Indirect costs include overhead costs of maintaining buildings housing labs and general administration expenses.

“On the surface, these attacks make no practical sense. They can only erode America’s standing as a paragon of leading-edge science; the CDC is a source of indispensable information about disease outbreaks, and the NIH the world’s largest funding source for biomedical research — ‘the greatest engine of biomedical research ever created,’ in the words of oncologist and veteran pseudoscience debunker David Gorski. Whether the NIH can retain that distinction is now in question…

“The notion that the NIH cuts would strike hardest at blue-state institutions didn’t survive its first contact with reality. The truth is that academic centers in red states may be even more dependent on indirect funding than the rich institutions targeted by the NIH tweet… Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) immediately went public with an appeal that the NIH turn to a ‘targeted approach’ on the cutbacks ‘in order to not hinder life-saving, groundbreaking research at high-achieving institutions like those in Alabama.’” Michael Hiltzik, LA Times, February 13th.

Simply, if you deny rising a pandemic or simply do not report them, business can continue without encumbrance or interruption. If you deny climate change, all those limitations on fossil fuels make no sense. If you pretend toxicity in our food chain does not exist (like microplastics), you do not have to advance programs to limit and control it… all of which would cost business billions. In the end, unless and until there is local red state rebellion against these inane federal policies, Musk and Trump win. Big business wins. Everybody else loses. But at least the government is dealing with eliminating woke (whatever that is), making America a Christian nation, and siding with Russia that you can conquer any nation you believe you need.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you live in this parallel universe, prepare to suffer or die in the real one you live in!