Trump is Already Trying to Crush Us. His Success Depends on Us.
Let's talk about tactics and power...
Matt Gaetz. Tulsi Gabbard. RFK, Jr. Kristi Noam. Elon Musk. Vivek Ramaswamy. These are the most disturbing names on Trump’s list of nominees and appointees. I am willing to bet big that most of the people reading this, as well as a good portion of the liberal/left, not only know more about these people than Trump supporters and right-wingers, but are more likely to know who they are.
RFK, Jr., sure, household name for the politically inclined, medically paranoid, and the world’s brainworm population. His hardcore followers know his theories, the average Trump voter? Even MAGAs will struggle to tell you more than Trump told them about the guy. Elon Musk: We know the apartheid child for Tesla’s abysmal labor practices, Space X’s government welfare grabs, wrecking Twitter, use of disinformation, status in the “manosphere,” and non-stop trolling. For the Trump voter, Musk is the “Richest Man Alive,” a guy who likes electric cars, runs Twitter, and jumps around a lot.
Tulsi Gabbard and Kristi Noam? Trump voter says: Pretty ladies that are on Fox. One used to be a Democrat. The other is a governor from one of the Dakotas. Put them side by side and ask a Trump voter to pick who is who and most will fail.
We know Matt Gaetz, but outside people who live in Florida, feast on a lot of right-wing media, or have teenage daughters to protect from older men, Gaetz is just another ugly big head. And Ramaswamy? “I don’t know.” “Yeah, remember that Indian guy who was at the debates?” “Is he Cherokee?” “No, the other kind of Indian.” “I don’t know. I didn’t watch the debates.”
But we know who he is. We know all the accusations against Gaetz. Same with his politics (or outrages). Noam and Gabbard aren’t interchangeable “pretty ladies,” but uniquely wretched characters in their own right. One is an “aunt” who kills puppies. The other is a cult member who is into conspiracy theory. And, so it goes.
Do not for a second think that the Trump camp does not know who knows what about the bug house above. They also know how much we know about the less identifiable, “more respectable” murder of corrupt crows and corporate cronies. Of course they do. They poll people on this stuff. They read other people’s polls. They know exactly what the public thinks about their “team,” in detail.
They also excel at trolling, targeted trolling, button-pushing, baiting, and distracting. They want to inflame us, to get us so worked up that we spit and sputter. That is what Trump and his crew have been doing to the liberal/left for nearly a decade, and it’s worked, so why stop now?
Another reliable Trump tactic: Framing. Trump’s people are excellent at framing. We know framing best as “framing the debate,” which is presenting a subject in a specific way so that you not only control the narrative, but influence how the debate is conducted. In this case, Trump is framing all his nominees as appointees, implying that all his choices are fait accompli. Trump wants us to believe that when he takes office his cabinet will be what he says it will be because he says that what it will be.
We don’t have to believe this bullshit for Trump’s framing to be effective. We only have to fear that what Trump wants will come true, that his cabinet comes complete with brainworms, the Senate ducks advice and consent, and/or the Senate rubber stamps his choices. Thus, in our minds, the nominees become de facto appointments, we lock into “Trump as Super Villian” …again, and we give up or dull our fight, and surrender our rights.
Trump wants us to believe that what he says goes, without question, without opposition – even though “what Trump wants us to believe” nothing more than “what Trump wants us to believe.” Trump doesn’t control the world. He doesn’t rule the country. And he certainly doesn’t control the narrative or the debate…unless we allow him to do so.
Ever since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, conservative Republicans have had a boner for the Unitary Executive Theory (UET), the idea that the president has sole control over the presidency and is subject to very few, if any, checks and balances. Over the decades, UET bounces in and out of fashion and the pattern is pretty predictable. When a Republican is president, Republicans push UET hard. When Democrats are president, UET talk disappears.
Reagan was big on UET. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney loved it even more. Trump, of course, loves it so much he wants to marry it, so now Republicans are back with UET, this time with some support from the Supreme Court. And, through framing, they are priming us to believe that the theory is more than a theory, that it is the law. It is not.
Our system, no matter how crappy and corrupt, is one of three co-equal branches of government: The legislative, the executive, and the judicial. The legislature makes the laws. The executive applies and enforces the laws. The judiciary interprets the laws and monitors their application and enforcement. Each branch has a different set of powers, but none of them have more power than the others. These checks are in place not to make government “inefficient” – as critics say – but to keep one branch – specifically the executive – from lording over the others.
The Founders did not want a King of America and the created the Constitution to reflect that. Still, throughout our history, each branch has tried to assert more power than they possess. And with every attempt there has been some kind of legal-sounding justification or theory. But because these power grabs have no legal basis and because those who have power are very protective of their power, attempts by one branch to rise above the others are snuffed by the other two branches, not always immediately but always, and sometimes by citizens.
This battle between the branches is consistent, even when it seems like the branches are all on the same sides – and they might be on certain issues, but not on the issue of their power. During Trump’s first term, Trump had two very powerful people in the legislative branch who, despite being in opposition, were aligned on making sure that the legislature ceded no power to the executive. Both Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell are students and lovers of power. Both understand power and the power that they have (had). Both know how to weld power, though they do so differently and for different reasons. Both fought, in their own way, to make sure that Trump understood that he was not all-powerful.
During Trump’s term, though the Supreme Court was stacked to the right by Trump, SCOTUS did not side with him on every case, and on cases they did, there often were caveats. On issues such as abortion, government enforcement of regulations, and even the unitary executive, the decisions that we dread didn’t come from or were led by Trump, but a 40+ year conservative movement which has been intensely focused on the judiciary. Trump can talk about who owes him what, but the justices know that they owe nobody shit…and that is not going to change.
Legally, all this power stuff is rooted in our Constitution, but psychologically, I’d say it is in our nature. We are a species that is very concerned with power. Some of us obsess over it, either in trying to accumulate and horde it or wanting to fracture and distribute it. Others are very wary of power and power relationships. Even those who go-along are sensitive to power and how it affects them in relationships, at school, and on the job. That apolitical, self-employed plumber you know might not give a crap who the president is or how much power he has, but try to blunt the plumber’s power by telling them what to do, when he can work, where he can work, and how he can work? Not gonna have, not going to give up personal power. Same goes with Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Hakim Jeffries, and hopefully John Thune.
Trump’s people do not want you to know any of what I wrote above and for one reason: It fucks up their plan to build Trump up as more than a man with tiny hands. They want us to believe that Fecal Midas is the worst super villain of all time, an undefeatable force backed by the Injustice League, one that can’t be stopped because Trump is the Rasputin master of 5-D chess who can make rats dance to his sweet, sexy siren song and turn whining into wine. Every single thing he wants, he will get, including turning nominees into appointees and assigning appointees (Musk, Ramaswamy) powers that they do not legally have – that is what Trump’s people want us to believe, because when we do and when we give up, what they want us to believe becomes true.
During Trump’s first four years, the framing fight was fierce, but only because so many on the liberal/left took Trump’s bait. Remember all the worry wasted on gaslighting? Master of Mind Control Donald Trump was turning us all into his mental wards! He’d already duped his supporters and now he was going after us. “Oh my, oh me! The dead walk the angry sea! Vampire lesbos are after me! I'm coming unhinged, weak in the knees! I'm floating away from reality!”
That kind of thinking was worse than dead weight. Reality: Trump was and is a bad liar with a stupid rap, a rap that simply regurgitated the complaints of his fans. That’s much easier to fight than the idea that Trump is voodooing us into submission, which means not just fighting Trump but also those who are pushing this nonsense, people who are supposed to be on our side! We cannot let that happen again.
Assert control, tune out the noise, suspend the fear, step back, breathe and think things through. I read, observe, challenge, find connections and explain things: That is all I do. Perhaps putting things into words is a “special talent,” but calming down enough to game things out isn’t. It is something we do every day and at times where the immediate stakes are far higher and way less abstract than the power of the presidency. We do it when we drive a car, when we interact at work, when we try to navigate our relationships. In most of those situations, we are very clear about our power and how we use and misuse it. How we approach politics is no different. Recognize your power, find it, and own it.