What’s An Autocracy without a Cult Following?

 

What’s An Autocracy without a Cult Following?

There are bills pending in Congress to impeach any federal judge who has issued a ruling against a Trump executive order. In defiance of Trump’s most basic campaign pledge to preserve Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, the House passed that Big Beautiful Budget Bill Trump requested, giving the wealthiest Americans very large reductions in their federal taxes, extending and amplifying the soon-to-expire federal corporate tax cut of 2017… while mandating cuts to the above social programs (ostensibly solely to cut “waste and corruption” but in fact to decimate these programs to the bone) of at least $800 billion. And still raise the debt ceiling by $2 trillion.

Co-President Musk suggested a bribe… er one-time stimulus payment… of $5 thousand per taxpayer, representing about 1/70 of the average dollar cut to the rich. You can buy gilded Trump sneakers, Trump NFTs, Trump enhanced Bibles, Trump articles of clothing and even to step into Trump’s cryptocurrency world. In the House, when one Democratic congressman labeled Trump as our “grifter in chief,” there was a move to have him forcibly removed. At GOP town halls across the land, constituents zealously challenged why Elon Musk had so much power, how the President’s policies were disrupting lives in red states and demanding that GOP members of Congress should “Do your job” and not outsource their vote to “whatever Trump wants.”

Writing for the February 26th Wall Street Journal, Katy Stech Ferek and Xavier Martinez write: “Congress didn’t make George Washington’s birthday a federal holiday until 80 years after his death. The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated nearly three score after the Gettysburg Address. Ronald Reagan had been out of office for almost a decade when Congress named D.C.’s National Airport for him… President Trump’s most ardent supporters don’t plan to wait for the commemorations to start.

“A Florida GOP lawmaker wants Trump’s face chiseled into Mount Rushmore. A New York Republican wants to make his birthday—June 14, which also falls on Flag Day—a new federal holiday. Another is proposing to rename one of Washington’s other main travel hubs Donald J. Trump International Airport… Lawmakers of both parties often propose ‘messaging bills’ that have little chance of becoming law to score political points with constituents. But congressional Republicans’ message this session is rare for the volume and limited focus of one category of proposals: unabashed adulation for the 47th president and his agenda, even if some of the bills are more performative than realistic… ‘It’s an opportunity for us to show the country that Congress supports the president,’ said Rep. Andy Ogles (R., Tenn.).”

His adherents and cronies are echoing V-P JD Vance’s suggestion that the President should not accept court orders vitiating or limiting the scope of his executive orders, and there are several injunctions the administration has simply ignored, stepping up trial and appellate courts to consider contempt orders (with fines and criminal sanctions) against Trump officials who openly defy legitimate court orders. The absolute deadline set by a court to require the US to honor its USAID contractual obligations came and went without compliance. All this as Trump’s approval levels plummet under every major recent poll on point.

I have to wonder why an insensitive tech entrepreneur, who has wreaked havoc in every company he has run – inviting a flood of litigation and court-imposed sanctions – is simply assumed to be competent to slice and dice the entire operational system in the US. It seems impossible to purge the notion that government is not run to make a profit… anywhere; it is supposed to be a service and protector to its people. If there is anyone who has proven thorough incompetence to step into a senior position overseeing American governance, I submit that would have to be Elon Musk.

Meanwhile, many of our traditional allies are declaring the United States as either a new enemy or at least no longer a dependable ally. Old conspiracy theories – suggesting Putin has videos of Donald Trump, while visiting Russia in the 1980s and beyond, in seriously compromising sexual situations with planted prostitutes – are resurfacing. More than one foreign legislator, trying to explain Trump’s 180-degree flip from supporting Ukraine to favoring Russia, has suggested Putin went so far as to enlist Trump as a Russian operative. A real “Manchurian Candidate”? Proof? We haven’t seen that… yet. But Putin learned his craft as an operative in the dreaded Soviet-era KGB.

The likely successor German Chancellor, following the February 23rd election, sent this message to the world: “Friedrich Merz did not even wait for the final results in Germany's election before delivering what could well be a defining verdict on U.S. President Donald Trump, consigning Europe's 80-year alliance with the United States to the past.

“The Trump administration does not care about Europe and is aligning with Russia, said Merz, who is on course to become Germany's new leader. The continent, he warned, must urgently strengthen its defenses and potentially even find a replacement for NATO — within months… Merz's comments mark a historic watershed: They reveal how deeply Trump has shaken the political foundations of Europe, which has depended on American security guarantees since 1945.” Politico, February 23rd.

In Canada, a move to boycott American products joined by boos from the fans at the US-Canadian finals (Canada won) at the recent Four Nations Tournament when the US anthem was played, suggested a rising anti-American sentiment, as pointed out in this excerpt from the February 22nd Newsweek: “According to the Leger poll conducted between February 14 and 17, 27 percent of Canadians now consider the U.S. an enemy, while 30 percent still see it as an ally. Another 27 percent view it as neutral. The poll surveyed 1,500 Canadians and 1,000 Americans. It was not assigned a margin of error as it was conducted online… Only 1 percent of Americans told Leger they consider Canada an enemy country, while 56 percent said they view Canada as an ally.

“The poll also shows that a strong majority of Canadians hold an unfavorable view of Donald Trump, with 74 percent expressing disapproval, while only 13 percent view him favorably. Among Conservative supporters, that number rises to 27 percent, compared to just 5 percent of Liberals and 7 percent of NDP voters. Conservatives were also more likely to see the U.S. as an ally (48 percent), whereas only about 20 percent of Liberals and New Democrats agreed. Meanwhile, 37 percent of Liberals, 34 percent of NDP supporters and 47 percent of Bloc Québécois voters consider the U.S. an enemy state.”

Who cares? As Trumpers might express, but for American businesses, these numbers could be deadly for the export market. Traditional American allies, feeling threatened by this America First toxicity, are forming new workaround alliances with those nations feeling similarly betrayed… and are beginning to look to China as a replacement trading partner. Meanwhile, the US stock markets are down, retailers are projecting consumers pulling back on purchases and the overall American economic picture now evokes trepidation where optimism once glimmered. Only the mega-rich seem to have benefitted from this recent spate of executive orders.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while these trends portend a dramatic unraveling of the entire Republican Party, the underlying unraveling of the entire nation may not be as easy to reverse.