Freefall of May or Maybe or Might Not or What If or Perhaps
In the United States,
Congress, the president and the courts
are supposed to keep an eye on one another
— to stop any one branch of government from
becoming too powerful.
President Trump is showing us
what happens when those checks and balances break down.
The courts may still intervene,
as a judge did yesterday to halt Trump’s offer
to pay federal employees to quit.
The courts might not reverse every action;
several U.S.A.I.D. programs have already stopped
dispensing food and medicine abroad, for lack of funds.
But the courts could stop Trump from taking similar actions in the future.
Maybe the conservative Supreme Court would hold the White House to account.
More than 10,000 people work for U.S.A.I.D.
The Trump administration plans to keep only about 290.
U.S.A.I.D. funded medical research around the world.
Trump’s shutdown has left scores of people
with experimental drugs and devices
in their bodies,
with no access to care.
…another scenario: What if Trump ignores the courts?
Before he was vice president, JD Vance suggested
that Trump should do that if the court blocked efforts
to remake the federal government.
“Stand before the country and say:
‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it,’”
Vance said, referring to an apocryphal Andrew Jackson quote.
Perhaps Trump is already flirting with that kind of defiance.
Some federal loans and grants remain frozen
despite court orders against Trump’s freeze.
–The New York Times, The Morning, February 7, 2025
Absolutely there’s a tune suited to our condition: our terrifying absence of day to day resistance, to the rolling dismemberment of our institutions. Riders On The Storm by The Doors 1971
3 thoughts on “Freefall of May or Maybe or Might Not or What If or Perhaps”
There are millions of people who will cheer on the Trumpists’ decisions to disenfranchise the poor, the sick, and the general world population, all in the name of keeping more money for the wealthy in this country (even though most of those doing the cheering will see no benefit whatsoever). It’s not that these people have an inability to feel empathy, but their empathy is limited to those who are within their own circle. If a neighbor is suffering, they may well reach out to help, but if it is darker skinned person 8,000 miles away, that nameless, faceless person, they should just suck it up. The Trumpists’ ability to feel empathy at that point is nonexistent, in fact many of these same people believe we would be better off if those foreigners just died, cleansing the world of their ilk.
The real tragedy, aside from watching millions around the world suffer, is that the Trumpist does not have the wherewithal to understand that we are in a global terrarium, where what happens 8,000 miles away happens here as well. We saw this with the COVID outbreak and with the global economy sliding all over the place. As Marshall McLuhan famously stated, we live in a global village. The era of the isolated tribe died many years ago and what impacts one people, impacts us all. This is so obvious as to seem like it doesn’t even merit mentioning, yet here we are, mired in a horrific mess created by psychotic members of a cult of greed and power. Stupidity and ignorance reign supreme and we reap what we sow.
I think Tobin has phrased it well. Unfortunate for our country, I must agree. Right now I can hardly stomach any of the related news. There is a small part of me that says why bother, ‘It’ is nearly bulletproof. In this I know we must fight against his psychotic tyranny. It appears we can only hope and pray karma intervenes soon.
Karma? Like waiting for Godot. Or the second coming. The future is up to us, solely up to us.