Trump's "Shock And Awe" Month
Look through the smoke and chaos and drama. He's blundering and flailing.
The words “shock and awe” describe the first month of the second Trump administration pretty well, it seems to me. It’s been a blitzkrieg of executive orders, mass firings, violations of laws and norms, wanton cruelty for the sick, destitute, and hungry, and performative administrative chaos as far as the eye can see — all designed to paralyze and stun what’s left of the opposition.
And front and center: a drug-fueled, sleep-addled billionaire, commandeering the Oval Office, offering half-baked political theories, threatening judges with impeachment, tweeting at the pace of an adderall-addicted gamer, and holding press conferences with a toddler on his shoulders, where he tells the world he cannot be trusted to tell the truth. I guess there are some people who find all this deeply impressive. I’m sorry to say that, despite agreeing with some of Trump’s policy planks, I don’t.
Which brings me back to “shock and awe.” You may recall those words were also once used by a previous administration, huffing its own fumes, bent on breaking norms and boldly declaring a new era. We know now, of course, how the Iraq War ended. And it’s beginning to look as if Trump 2.0 will have something like the same result.
Take DOGE. First off: is this what Trump really ran on? Slashing government spending is a Ryan/Romney type of Republicanism, not Trumpism. Trump, like Karl Rove, has never cared about deficits. “I’m the King of Debt,” he once bragged in a rare lapse into honesty. In his first term, Trump ran up the deficit with glee; and in the first 30 days of this term, his spending per day is $4 billion higher than Biden’s was a year ago. Go read Riedl for how Trump is set to bankrupt the US still further.
Speaking of which: next up are massive tax cuts for the wealthy — paid for by huge cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. Just what Trump’s new multiracial working-class coalition wants! In a Fox News poll, only 1 percent of Americans favored “tax reform” as a Trump priority. I doubt “tax cuts” would get even that.
More to the point, Musk is doing nothing serious to actually cut the deficit. Of course he isn’t: 90 percent of government spending is outside his remit. And where does this guy cut? A program, PEPFAR, that is a rare example of a hugely successful, cost-efficient program; and an entity, the CFPB, which was the only thing that empowered the little guy against big financial corporations after 2008. Populism reborn! Please.
Worse, Musk has cut and fired first, often illegally, and asked questions after — which leaves everything vulnerable to being reversed as soon as the courts weigh in. Has he uncovered rampant fraud, as he and Trump insist? None they’ve shown us. Is the goal to get a case to SCOTUS to affirm the executive’s control of the purse? Maybe. But meantime, many of the EOs are simply and easily being reversed by the courts.
As for that “power of the purse”? Does Vought really think that Kavanaugh or Roberts is about to turn the Congress into the equivalent of Putin’s rubber-stamp Duma? The same Kavanaugh who previously ruled that “even the President does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend” funds appropriated by Congress? The same Roberts who ruled that “no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse”? Let’s just say that I doubt even this Court will assent to a Claremonster’s view of the American presidency. Which means that all this law-breaking is for naught in the long-term. It’s chaos leading to failure.
Imagine what they might have done. Trump could have announced that Musk and his minions were going in to audit the federal government. Within a few months, they’d bring a report, outlining every insane piece of waste or DEI excess or fraud they could find. Trump would then urge Congress to vote on these reforms. Win, win, win. It’s a great idea to shake up the joint with an outsider! But nah. They are busy ensuring that any cuts they make are brutal, dumb, and destined to expire.
Immigration? As of now, we’ve seen no major change since Biden’s executive order restoring control. The border is extremely quiet. Deportations? The pace of arrests is up but still only around a third of the levels Trump promised. Give him time, of course, but so far: underwhelming. Foreign policy? A man who pledged to keep the US from getting into quagmires abroad now wants the US to take over — checks notes — Gaza, ethnically cleanse its inhabitants, and give it all to Jared and his friends to make money. He also wants to invade and occupy ... Greenland! In talking to Russia, he has begun by blessing Putin’s conquered territories in Eastern Ukraine in advance — for nothing in return. What a negotiator!
And remember the other issue that won him major support: inflation. It ticked up this month, with the average wholesale price of eggs reaching an all-time high of $8 a dozen. It will get worse: Trump is pursuing lower interest rates from the Fed and higher tariffs everywhere: a recipe for super-charging inflation. “The layers of intellectual confusion here are hard to parse,” notes the Wall Street Journal, with uncharacteristic understatement. What happens to Trump’s support when inflation takes off again?
Trump is on firmer ground with his efforts to leverage the federal government’s ubiquitous funding to curtail DEI’s race and sex discrimination. But even here, he is larding up the public record with comments that absolutely reflect his own animus and bigotry — especially against trans people — which will give opponents some chance to fight back in the courts. He didn’t have to do this. There are good, non-transphobic arguments for fairness in sports and ethical medicine for children. But a bigot’s gotta bigot, even if it boomerangs on him, as it should.
Trump is also making exactly the same mistake as Biden did. Biden refused to have any enemies to his left, enabling crazies and extremists and fanatics to run riot in his administration. Trump has a no-enemies-to-the-right approach — which means, for example, he is more than happy to rehire a grown man who just a few months ago tweeted “Normalize Indian hate,” “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool," and “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.” If expressing neo-Nazi views does not disqualify you from the Trump team, nothing does.
Then there’s the equivalent of Caligula’s legendary (and probably exaggerated) nomination of his horse for a consulship. That’s RFK Jr, a man who doesn’t believe in vaccines in charge of vaccines; or Tulsi Gabbard, a steward of US intelligence who prefers the KGB to the CIA. Or the insane idea that the president of the United States can just declare that the Gulf of Mexico is now called something else — and then take your press credentials away if you don’t agree.
I guess you could call this frightening. But another word for it is pathetic. Last year, a ton of readers who agreed with me on immigration, DEI, the transing of children, and the need for a more restrained foreign policy asked, in frustration, why I still couldn’t endorse Trump.
I hope that’s clearer now.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a debate with Jon Rauch over the threat of evangelical Christianists and other topics; reader dissents over USAID and other victims of DOGE; listener debate over God and the cosmos; seven notable quotes from the week in news, including two Yglesias Awards for principled views; 20 pieces we recommend on Substack on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break reimagining Star Wars with Jim Carrey; a snowy window from Kazakhstan; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a new subscriber:
I have just kept my old promise to myself. The first thing I did after retiring from my 43-year telecom career was to become a dues-paying Dishhead. Resistance was futile.
From a re-subscriber:
I’ve been following you for a long time — been in and out a few times. Once again, I’m back — and in it to win it. Hopefully some of your sanity will help get me through these really strange times.
Back On The Dishcast: Jon Rauch
Jon and I go way back to the early days of the marriage movement. He’s currently a senior fellow at Brookings and a contributor editor at The Atlantic. He’s the author of many books, including Kindly Inquisitors, The Happiness Curve, and The Constitution of Knowledge — which we discussed on the Dishcast in 2021. His new book is Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on fear-based Christianity, and the growing tolerance of gays by the Mormon Church. That link also takes you to a bunch of commentary on last week’s episode with Ross Douthat on some of the biggest existential questions. Here’s a clip:
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on how America stopped building things, Chris Caldwell on the political revolution in Europe, Nick Denton on China and AI, Francis Collins on faith and science, Ian Buruma on Spinoza, Michael Joseph Gross on muscles, and the great and powerful Mike White, of White Lotus fame. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other emails to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
Dissent Of The Week
A reader responds to last week’s column:
I’m worried that you may have been scammed by X and Musk by your references to USAID programs that X claimed spent substantial sums for uber-woke programs, e.g. “$7.9 Million to teach Sri Lankan journalists non-binary language.” Those might actually be true and outrageous, but an article in today’s NYT — “Falsehoods Fuel the Right-Wing Crusade Against U.S.A.I.D.” — talks about Russian disinformation campaigns making up wild claims about USAID, which Musk and X broadcasted. So I don’t know whether your cited woke programs are true, and because your report was based on a long X list, I am skeptical.
We cherish skeptical readers. And, indeed, we made one factual error in the examples we cited: “$2.1 million to help the BBC ‘value the diversity of Libyan society.” This did not refer to the BBC, as I assumed, but to BBC Media Action — a separate charity supporting overseas journalism. Eight percent of that charity’s funds nonetheless come from USAID.
We hash over each of the other examples we cited, in detail, on the pod page. They hold up, with important caveats. Take “$7.9 Million to teach Sri Lankan journalists non-binary language.” The gender-ideology propaganda did not take up the whole $7.9 million. But, in a sign of just how fanatical the Biden peeps were about spreading critical gender theory across the planet, woke ideology was embedded in USAID’s funded work, just as it was in every government department for four years:
Another aspect of this, of course, is that lecturing Americans on being “genderqueer” is one thing (and has led to deserved blowback). Going into conservative societies and doing the same thing is bound to provoke an even deeper backlash and hurt gay, lesbian, and transgender Sri Lankans. But for the woke, posturing is the point, even if gays, lesbians, and trans people end up worse off.
As always, please keep the dissents coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com. And follow more Dish debate in my Substack Notes feed. For example, I noted this week:
Been browsing X and Bluesky just to test the temperature. X is increasingly race war vids, Elon tweets, and the usual trolls. But there is some debate — even if it’s pretty low-quality. BlueSky has no debate, no diversity of views, just endless left-resistance posturing. Total bubble.
A reader on Notes replied:
I like BlueSky. Lots of good analysis and some pretty funny posts. One can certainly see diversity of views and have debates. Some issues are practically taboo though, like on X. If, for example you thought the [Kendrick Lamar half-time] show was stupid and insulting, you’re going to be called some names and racist.
And another:
Follow me [Becky with the Good Share] on Bluesky for diversity! I’m a Jew who hates antisemitism and a feminist who hates fauxminists (the 3rd wave wasn’t a wave: it was a brilliantly orchestrated backlash), almost as much as I hate misogynists. That makes me Mussolini according to the Blewski© Blocked and Reported metric!
A few movie recs from me:
Great double feature I just watched at home: “September 5” on the coverage of the Munich Olympics and “Munich”, the movie that charts the revenge. Both great in their own right but together conjure an arc of history.
One reply: “Wait, you’re praising a film [Munich] with a Tony Kushner script? Check the thermometer in hell.”
Lastly, an update on the CVS shit-show:
My first refills with Amazon pharmacy: two delivered today on time with 3 months supply each. Heaven.
In The ‘Stacks
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as DOGE damage, Trump’s threat to free speech, and clean energy gains. A few examples:
An inspired move by Hegseth when it comes to the woke re-naming of things.
Loury and McWhorter wonder what a “MAGA Plan for Black Success” looks like.
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com. A reader rec:
Check out PurpleAmerica. He had a few great items last week about how fucked up Dem/liberal messaging is.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month sub if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the VFYW). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. Two weeks ago, the sleuth who submitted the window view from Budapest recalled a memory of the city from 1994:
A Hungarian guy named Mádar, who played drums in Jack’s skronky math-rock band, Ribspreader, shadowed me the whole evening like I owed him money. He didn’t speak English, so I couldn’t confront him. The next day I asked Jack what was up with Mádar. Answer: because Hungary so recently emerged from the Iron Curtain, Western luxuries were scarce and American pop culture artifacts were hard to get. Mádar had been eyeballing my Rollins Band t-shirt, hoping I’d get drunk and pass out so he could gank it. Had I known, I would have given the shirt to him.
So this time around, I brought a replica with me. I know the record store where Mádar works, so we’ll see how this goes.
This week he writes, “It only took 30 years, but Mádar got his shirt”:
See you next Friday.