Put down the razor, step away from the tub

I know. I know. Everyone on the left is crying in their beers and figuring out who to blame in the Chernobyl that was the 2024 election. The traditional Democratic circular firing squad has formed and when it's over, they'll shoot the wounded as well. Lefties will decry the booboisie that formed the Trump cult and those political pros who make a living stoking our fears from the left side of the ledger will say they knew all along it wouldn't work.

And of course people like Bill Maher who "both-sided" this thing so consistently he could claim vindication whichever way it went.

Yes, President Gramps should have never run again. Yes, they let the border simmer for too long. Yes, you can argue Kamala didn't have time to run a real campaign, should have picked Shapiro, should have distanced herself more from Biden, blah, blah, blah. And of course, there is the despair. According to one source, the top searches post-election were...

• Cost to move to Canada from U.S.
• Can I move to Canada if Trump wins
• How to move to Ireland from U.S.
• Easiest country to move to from U.S.A.
• Jobs in Canada for Americans

As one wag said, I can understand the appeal of Ireland since St. Patrick threw out the snakes instead of letting them form a political party. But, I lived in Wyoming for awhile and don't want to be that cold again. And anyway, Canadians may feel now like they live in an apartment above a meth lab.

But there is a thought I have comforted myself with since the 70's, with Nixon, Carter, Reagan and the like. Now everyone will see that they are as screwed up as you thought the other guys were. They will inevitably get cocky and overplay their hand. And it has already started.

The talk that Democrats are dead forever, the Republican majority is now the wave of the future and nothing can stop us now is underway. I listened to some talk radio the other day, and, for example, Hannity was reciting, as if from flash cards which is his habit, every rough thing Harris said about Trump. While he and others spend time relitigating the campaign, I thought to myself, "Hey guys. Take the win. What will he do next? Talk about that."

And there is a real misunderstanding of where we are now as well. I just finished, against my better judgement, a debate on Facebook with a very conservative guy I knew in Wyoming. They were all over-caffeinated about the idea that Trump will now, at last, "drill, baby, drill." Of course, we have been, and at a greater rate than under Trump. They didn't believe that until shown the figures...

So, amid all the green energy talk, we kept producing more of the dirty stuff. That, let's be honest, is a product of getting your information from only one source. In this case, that source is the guy you like and the toadies who carry his water in the press.

Which is why these maroons still didn't believe it.

Inflation and unemployment are down, as are gas prices. This argument is like the silly memes before the election showing low gasoline prices versus today. It's supply and demand, kids. At the end of the Trump term, we weren't driving to work, school, restaurants or vacations. Low demand begat low prices. That's how capitalism works. In 1970, I was in college and could fill up my crappy English car for .35 a gallon. That is $2.75 now. I filled up last night for $2.46 here in Texas. I'd say we are back to normal.

So, instead of living nostalgically about a trouble free first Trump term, let's talk about the things they are going to do now, and how overreach is inevitable. The President-elect has promised to staff his administration with loyalists. His oldest son, Uday, says that his father doesn't want to hire people who think they know more than him. Inadvertent self-revelation like that is rare. Treasure it. So sycophantic genuflection will be the order of the day, and those who have his ear will decide the future. Like a pillow, Trump takes on the shape of the last thing that sat on him.

For example, will he really put Robert Kennedy Jr. in charge of healthcare? That probably won't get past even an obsequious congress. So he will have to be some unconfirmed appointment, like Jared Kushner bypassing intelligence vetting for a security clearance last time. Kennedy is a lawyer, ostensibly, and a vaccine denier. So, will we make measles great again? Parents have to hope not.

Will we actually round up and deport perhaps 11-million illegal aliens? Number one, how? We don't have the manpower or prison space. Our prisons and jails have a capacity of 1.9 million now. And they are pretty full already. Will there be due process? Will some legal folks with unfortunately Hispanic surnames be caught in this? How do we handle the cost? This congress has made a big show of wanting more fiscal probity in our spending. Will that simply go by the boards when the President demands it? As Molly Ivins once said, "We elect Democrats to give us stuff, and Republicans so we don't have to pay for it."

Then there's Project 2025, the manifesto for "leadership" assembled by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Trump spent the whole campaign distancing himself from it, claiming he didn't read it. I believe that part since he doesn't read anyway, but it was always nonsense since his closest former aids wrote the bloody thing. And what does it prescribe for the coming administration?

One key section of Project 2025 applies to the entire executive branch: Trump’s plan to purge the government of civil servants who aren’t loyal to him.

Justice Department positions are largely career civil servant roles, meaning they are not politically appointed and would likely be recategorized as “Schedule F.” Project 2025 proposes ways for federal prosecutors to intervene in local prosecutors’ cases, allowing federal attorneys to sidestep district attorneys who may choose not to pursue charges.

Under Project 2025’s plan, the federal government would no longer provide funding for education programs. Instead, education would be turned over to the states and funding would be done through education savings accounts, funded by local taxpayers. 

Project 2025 presents a recipe for some substantial, even radical, changes to cherished health care programs including Medicare and Medicaid. The most visible change to Medicare would be a reversal of a signature Biden-era policy shift. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democratic legislation that became law in 2022, the federal government now has the power to negotiate directly with manufacturers over the prices of certain high-cost drugs in Medicare. Project 2025 calls for taking that power away.

Project 2025 calls for changing the structure and financing of Medicaid in ways that would limit federal funding and ease rules for how states run their versions.

Plans laid out in Project 2025 would destroy what little abortion access is left in the U.S. since the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade in 2022. The document seeks to create a national backdoor abortion ban by invoking the Comstock Act — a 150-year-old law that criminalizes sending “obscene” materials in the mail, including anything “intended for producing abortion.”

Project 2025 promises to ring in a dark future for America’s public lands, granting extractive industries near unfettered access to federally managed acres and turning conservation into an afterthought.

The Project 2025 blueprint also promises to upend weather forecasting and climate science by gutting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is the parent agency of the 154-year-old National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. The manifesto describes NOAA as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” and calls for the agency to be “dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.”

Project 2025 proposes making it harder for veterans to obtain disability benefits by reducing the number of medical conditions that service members can claim to qualify for disabled status.

Project 2025’s 900-page Mandate for Leadership fails to propose any solutions for Social Security and says, on page 710, that its proposals for the program could not be “covered here in depth.” Notably, that line was co-authored by economist Stephen Moore, who has advocated to slash and privatize Social Security, once calling it a “Ponzi scheme” and encouraging students to burn their Social Security cards. Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, has also gone on record to say the Mandate for Leadership manifesto is just the basis of their plan and “there are parts of the plan that we will not share with the left.” So for all of us on Social Security, good luck.

I hope the price of eggs goes down because your check likely will.

The part about getting rid of NOAA is directly a result of climate change denial. Whistling past the graveyard is a tried and true technique since Limbaugh told his cult that they didn't need to worry about the ozone layer or climate change. If it's all a hoax, you don't have to get off the couch and do anything. He made Americans comfortable in their lethargy. Thank goodness for the ozone that George H.W. Bush didn't buy into it and signed the Montreal Protocol.

Will Elon Musk actually be in a position to cut $2-trillion from the budget? I don't know about the position, but to do that, as I pointed out in my tedious budget-cutting essay, you would have to virtually eliminate Social Security and Medicare and everything but defense to do it. I suggest you read it since there's is a lot of willful self-delusion about how much you can cut, and Musk's comments are at the top of the list.

Consider what the first Trump term was like and you'll see why my hopes are not dashed with Tuesday's result. The New York Times hit some high points...

01.27.2017: The Muslim ban. In an executive order, Mr. Trump closes the U.S. border to refugees fleeing war in Syria, as well as from several mostly Muslim countries.

01.28.2017: Appoints Steve Bannon, a committed dismantler of the administrative state, to the National Security Council. 

02.15.2017: Abandons a decades-long commitment to a two-state solution in a news conference. Standing next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Trump reverses a long-held position by the United States that any peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians must include a Palestinian state alongside Israel — startling the diplomatic community.

03.04.2017: Claims to have been wiretapped by the U.S. government. In a series of early morning tweets, Mr. Trump makes unsubstantiated claims about being surveilled by the Obama administration during the campaign.

05.09.2017: Fires the F.B.I. director, James Comey, who was leading an investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. 

05.10.2017: Reveals highly classified intelligence to Russian officials. In an Oval Office meeting, Mr. Trump reportedly reveals sufficient information to endanger cooperation with the source of the intelligence, which was about a planned Islamic State operation. “I get great intel,” he boasts to the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. “I have people brief me on great intel every day.”

June 2017: Rages against immigrants, saying those from Haiti all have AIDS. In a meeting with cabinet officials, Mr. Trump ignites over the number of foreigners entering the country under his tenure.

June 2017: Tries to fire the special counsel Robert Mueller over the Russia investigation. 

06.21.2017: Sends his son-in-law to negotiate Middle East peace. 

10.03.2017: Throws paper towels to Puerto Ricans after a deadly hurricane.

12.06.2017: Recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, upending decades of U.S. policy.

12.22.2017: Cuts taxes for corporations and the wealthy, sending the budget deficit skyrocketing. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act costs $1.5 trillion.

Wants more immigrants from Norway instead of “shithole” countries. 

Winter 2018: Reaps financial benefits from a diplomatic crisis in the Persian Gulf. The governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar spend lavishly at Trump’s D.C. hotel while lobbying for the United States’ help resolving a standoff in the region. The Qataris and connected companies spend more than $300,000.

03.14.2018: Brags about making up facts in meetings with foreign leaders. At a private meeting with donors, he recounts telling Canada’s prime minister that the U.S. runs a trade deficit with its northern neighbor, even though Mr. Trump had “no idea” if this was true. (It wasn’t.)

04.15.2018: Flip-flops on sanctions for Russia over its role in Syria’s chemical weapons program. A proposal announced by Nikki Haley is immediately undercut through a phone call to the Russian Embassy.

Spring 2018: Tries to get the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and Mr. Comey. 

Spring 2018: Initiates family separations by executive order. Thousands of migrant children, some of them as young as just a few months old, are taken from their parents, who are detained for crossing the border illegally. The process is disorganized; efforts to reunite families are ongoing.

May 2018: Orders top-secret clearance for Mr. Kushner, over the objections of intelligence officials. Mr. Trump overrules concerns, then claims he had no role in the decision.

May 2018: Closes pandemic preparedness unit. The Trump White House abolishes the position of director for global health security and biodefense in the National Security Council less than two years before the Covid pandemic. Mr. Biden has created a pandemic preparedness unit, but Mr. Trump says he would abolish it again if re-elected.

05.08.2018: Unilaterally pulls out of the Iran nuclear deal. In 2019, after efforts to salvage the deal, Iran resumes high-level uranium enrichment; officials warn it now has enough material to make several nuclear bombs with further enrichment.

06.04.2018: “I have the absolute right to PARDON myself ....” Mr. Trump publicly floats the idea of pardoning himself, something he has reportedly been pondering since 2017. (Constitutional scholars do not agree on whether presidents may pardon themselves.)

Summer 2018: Escalates the trade war with China, which requires billions of dollars to fix the domestic damage. 

07.11.2018: Insults NATO allies. At a meeting of an alliance Mr. Trump has long disparaged, he accuses Germany of being “captive” to Russia and calls U.S. allies “delinquent.” Days later, he calls the European Union a “foe.”

07.16.2018: Sides with Vladimir Putin over American intelligence agencies on Russian election interference.

We could go on and on as the list of nonsense is virtually endless. The first term has been described as 4 years of peace and prosperity and barring the pandemic, which he absolutely bungled, the best of times.

But it wasn't, and when Jim Jordan tries to match wits with Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, who he inevitably will call for circus hearings, it will become the proverbial shit show. In fact the whole clown car of Bannon, Epshteyn, Loomer, Greene, Gosar, Boebert and the MAGA crowd will almost certainly over estimate their mandate and start running with scissors on a daily basis.

If he indeed institutes the tariffs he's talking about and cuts taxes, the deficit will skyrocket and inflation will return from the 2.1% it is now. Lord knows what eggs will cost then.

Bibi Netanyahu can expect a blank check and so, has fired his Defense Minister, the last moderate in his right wing cabinet, and ushered in a new law that can deport the entire family of anyone deemed to be a "terrorist."

For an example of the tone to come, Trump lawyer Mike Davis, who is on the short list for Attorney General, said this about new York Attorney General Letitia James and her trial victory in the Trump case...

“Let me just say this to big Tish James: I dare you to try to continue your lawfare against President Trump in his second term,” Davis said on Benny Johnson’s “Benny Show” podcast. “Because, listen here, sweetheart: We’re not messing around this time, and we will put your fat ass in prison for conspiracy against rights, and I promise you that.”

Davis was described in a recent Politico article...

He calls Democrats “Marxists” and “evil” and has joked — in ways that many others don’t always take jokingly — that he would send journalists and former GOP personalities including George Conway and Tim Miller to “the gulag” and would put migrant kids in “cages.” “My goal,” he once told me, “is for the Supreme Court to dismantle most of the federal government.”

So, in my humble opinion, the probability that these guys will overshoot the landing is pretty high.

Oh, and eggs are $2.16 a dozen at Walmart.