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Trump's Dangerous Attempted Cultural Revolution

Much of the far right in America, particularly the so-called "conservative Christians," hate knowledge, science and experts because objective reality and modern knowledge challenge their Bronze Age fairy tale beliefs.  Moreover, they believe in personal freedom and religious freedom only for themselves - everyone else must conform to their archaic and typically hate based beliefs.   Those who do not conform or who are perceived as looking down on the ignorance and bigotry - or god forbid  see them for the knuckle dragging hypocrites that they are - must be punished.  This mindset also motivates much of MAGA world that despises experts, expertise and knowledge because these people and knowledge highlight how wrong they are in fact. Their cult leader, the Felon, fully embraces this hatred for any one and anything that exposes his lack of intellectual and economic acuity and as we are witnessing seeks revenge on anyone who fails to grovel sufficiently before him.  This goes far beyond tender egos of white "Christian" nationalist who feel threatened by diversity, equity and inclusion because in their zero sum world, if someone else prospers, they feel they have been deprived of what was rightfully theirs.   Project 2025, which the Felon is steadily implementing is permeated with this hate and resentment and seeks to return America to the 1950's when white men were supreme.  A piece by an economist looks at this dangerous effort to turn back time:

I’m in Lisbon, speaking at a conference the Banco de Portugal is holding to commemorate the revolution that brought democracy to Portugal 50 years ago. I worked at the Bank in 1976 and have been a friend of Portugal ever since. And while Portugal has faced many challenges since the Carnation Revolution, all in all its democracy has flourished.

Alas, democracy in my own nation is now under dire threat. 

Donald Trump has been treated very, very badly. At least that’s what he says all the time, and there’s no reason to doubt that it’s how he feels. Hardly a day goes by without an outburst . . . .

Above all, he clearly feels rage toward people who, he imagines, think they’re smarter or better than him.

And he and the movement he leads, composed of people possessed by similar rage, are seeking retribution. Retribution against whom? Yes, they hate wokeness. But three months in, it’s obvious that the MAGA types want revenge not just on their political opponents but on everyone they consider elites — a group that, as they see it, doesn’t include billionaires, but does include college professors, scientists and experts of any kind.

It took no time at all for the Trumpists to move from trying to purge government agencies of DEI to trying to control the content of medical journals.

Don’t try to sanewash what’s happening. It’s evil, but it isn’t calculated evil. That is, it’s not a considered political strategy, with a clear end goal. It’s a visceral response from people who, as Thomas Edsall puts it, are addicted to revenge.

If you want a model for what’s happening to America, think of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. . . . Once you’ve seen the parallel between what MAGA is trying to do and China’s Cultural Revolution, the similarities are everywhere. Maoists sent schoolteachers to do farm labor; Trumpists are talking about putting civil servants to work in factories.

The Cultural Revolution was, of course, a huge disaster for China. It inflicted vast suffering on its targets and also devastated the economy. But the Maoists didn’t care. Revenge was their priority, never mind the effects on GDP.

The Trumpists are surely the same. Their rampage will, if unchecked, have dire economic consequences. Right now we’re all focused on tariff madness, but undermining higher education and crippling scientific research will eventually have even bigger costs. But don’t expect them to care, or even to acknowledge what’s happening. Trump has already declared that the inflation everyone can see with their own eyes is fake news.

There is, however, one big difference between Chairman Mao in 1966 and President Trump in 2025: Trump probably — probably — doesn’t have the cards.

Until a couple of weeks ago, as one institution after another capitulated to Trump’s demands, it was hard to avoid the sickening feeling that American civil society would fold without a fight. But as I said, Trump and his movement are driven by visceral urges, not strategy. And right now it looks as if they overreached.

In different ways, the rendition of innocent people to gulags in El Salvador — don’t call it deportation — and the assault on Harvard seem to have stiffened spines. And the catastrophe of Trump’s economic policy has alienated businesspeople who would otherwise have served as his useful idiots.

America as we know it may yet perish. But at this point we seem to have a chance.

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Pope Francis Dies at 88

Like I suspect most of the world, I was shocked at the news that Pope Francis had died this morning.  Having been raised Roman Catholic, I have very conflicted feelings towards the Church that instilled so much guilt and self-hate in me for decades and which still does not fully accept LGBT individuals.  Indeed, it took a couple years of therapy for he to let go of the poison I had been taught in terms of my sexual orientation. Sadly, much of the Church hierarchy continues to prefer to cling to a handful of  bible passages, many the work of ignorant and uneducated authors, while ignoring the science that confirms that sexual orientation is not a choice and that homosexuality is naturally occurring.  While Francis lessened the stigma towards gays, there was much more that he could have done to end the bigotry and  embrace of ignorance that defines the Church's attitude towards gays.  Now, of course, the big question is who will be his successor and will that individual embrace reactionary positions or continue to make the Church more inclusive and welcoming.  A piece in the New York Times looks at Francis' sometimes contradictory reign. Here are a few highlights:

Pope Francis, who rose from modest means in Argentina to become the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff, who clashed bitterly with traditionalists in his push for a more inclusive Roman Catholic Church, and who spoke out tirelessly for migrants, the marginalized and the health of the planet, died on Monday at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. He was 88.

The pope’s death was announced by the Vatican in a statement on X, a day after Francis appeared in his wheelchair to bless the faithful in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.

Throughout his 12-year papacy, Francis was a change agent, having inherited a Vatican in disarray in 2013 after the stunning resignation of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, a standard-bearer of Roman Catholic conservatism.

Francis steadily steered the church in another direction, restocking its leadership with a diverse array of bishops who shared his pastoral, welcoming approach as he sought to open up the church. Many rank-and-file Catholics approved, believing that the church had become inward-looking and distant from ordinary people.

After some early stumbles, he took strong steps to address a clerical sex abuse crisis that had become an existential threat to the church. He adopted new rules to hold top religious leaders, including bishops, accountable if they committed sexual abuse or covered it up, though he did not impose the level of transparency or civil reporting obligations that many advocates demanded.

In his final years, slowed by a bad knee, intestinal surgery and respiratory ailments that sapped his breath and voice, Francis used a cane and then a wheelchair, seemingly a diminished figure. But that was a misleading impression. He continued to travel widely, focusing on exploited and war-torn parts of Africa, where he excoriated modern-day colonizers and sought peace in South Sudan.

Conservative Catholics accused him of diluting church teachings and never stopped rallying against him. Simmering dissent periodically exploded into view in almost medieval fashion, with talk of schisms and heresy.

But Francis also disappointed many liberals, who hoped that he might introduce progressive policies. His openness to frank discussion gave oxygen to debates about long-taboo subjects, including priestly celibacy, communion for divorced and remarried people, and greater roles for women in the church. While he opened doors to talking about such issues, he tended to balk at making major decisions.

“We are often chained like Peter in the prison of habit,” he said of the church in 2022 in a speech in St. Peter’s Basilica. “Scared by change and tied to the chain of our customs.”

His Christmas speeches to Vatican leaders became reliably blunt lectures about a church weighed down by clericalism — the notion that the “peacock priest” and “airport bishop,” who drop in when convenient, see themselves as superior to their flock and had become out of touch. Clericalism, he contended, lay at the heart of many of the church’s ills, including the child sexual abuse crisis.

On other issues, Francis could make it difficult to understand where he stood. He rejected same-sex marriage yet called on priests to be welcoming to people in nontraditional relationships, such as gay men and lesbians, single parents and unmarried couples who live together.

He supported civil unions for gay couples but approved a Vatican decision to bar priests from blessing them — a decision he later said he regretted, and then reversed.

He called the criminalization of homosexuality “unjust,” but also backed the Vatican’s opposition to a proposed Italian law extending protections to L.G.B.T.Q. people. And when Germany’s bishops overwhelmingly voted to bless gay couples in 2023, the Vatican cracked down with the pope’s approval.

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The Felon: America’s Mad King

Bridgerton fans have seen in the series how as George III became increasingly mentally ill and detached from reality, Queen Charlotte and George III's ministers effective took control of the government and during the last nine years of his reign, his son, the prince of Wales (later George IV) served as regent.  Fast forward to 2025 in America and we are witnessing a mad would be monarchy who frighteningly is surrounded by yes men, third rate cabinet members, and sycophants who only serve to enable the madness and detachment from objective reality, where non-stop lies and untruths and efforts to gaslight the American populace are the daily norm. Much of the MAGA base, feeling empowered to exhibit their worse hatreds and prejudices and "owning the libs", for now continue to cheer on the madness - but what happens when prices rise and the GOP makes devastating cuts to Medicaid upon which many MAGA voters rely is an open question.  Another open question is whether the U.S. Supreme Court will side with the U.S. Constitution and uphold rights to due process and freedom of speech or allow the madness and authoritarianism to continue. A piece in The Atlantic by a former Republican looks at where America finds itself caught in madness, incompetence and outright cruelty. Here age excerpts:

Last Monday [a week ago], Donald Trump, seeking to fortify public support for his massive, across-the-board tariffs, posted: “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!).”

By Wednesday, Trump had caved. His witless, incoherent, and incompetently executed policies—his administration had imposed tariffs on an Australian territory that is home to no people but to many penguins—created a financial panic that risked devastating the American economy and triggering a global recession. Trillions of dollars of stock-market value evaporated in a matter of days.

A man who has spent most of his life, and much of his presidency, gaslighting the public ran into the brick wall of reality. Misinformation, disinformation, bullying, and nasty social-media posts proved ineffective. Stock and bond markets weren’t intimidated by the threats of the aging president.  Trump fought reality, and reality won.

WE’RE FEWER THAN 90 DAYS into Trump’s second term; many more collisions between the president and the real world will come. So what can we expect, based on what we’ve witnessed?

We won’t see qualities from Trump that we haven’t seen before, but we will see them in a more extreme version. He is more impulsive, more vindictive, and more anarchic than in his first term. “He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore,” a White House official familiar with Trump’s thinking told The Washington Post. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f---. He’s going to do what he’s going to do.”

Trump is America’s Mad King.

Compounding the problem is that the president has surrounded himself with men and women who are utterly loyal to him, unwilling to challenge him, and certainly unable to contain him. . . . On top of that, this is an administration filled with third-rate intellects, conspiracy theorists, and misfits. They aren’t qualified to manage Oak Hill, Alabama, or Monowi, Nebraska, let alone the federal government. Their combination of maliciousness and incompetence has produced enormous, dangerous, and in some cases lethal disruptions. Some examples:

• The formula Trump used to calculate his tariffs was not just ill-advised but nonsensical as well.
• In his mania to purge diversity, equity, and inclusion content, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave orders so vague that the Defense Department flagged photos of the Enola Gay for deletion from all websites and social-media posts. (The B-29 bomber that dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was named after the pilot’s mother, Enola Gay Tibbets. One wit on social media said, “Enola Gay will henceforth be known as Enola Straight.”)
• Another order by Hegseth led to the removal of Maya Angelou’s memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library but left copies of Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf, on the bookshelves.
• In an appearance on The Tucker Carlson Show, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy and the lead negotiator tasked with ending the war in Ukraine, was not only effusive in his praise of Russia’s totalitarian leader, Vladimir Putin, but even repeated Kremlin propaganda . . . 

  The Department of Health and Human Services, which is run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, hired a discredited vaccine skeptic to study whether vaccines cause autism. 

  Amid a measles resurgence in the United States, Kennedy is also making unsupported and misleading claims. ProPublica reported that leaders at the CDC ordered staff not to release its assessment linking the spread to areas where many are unvaccinated.

• The National Institutes of Health, the global leader in biomedical research, is getting irreparably damaged by dramatic and reckless cuts being made by people who have no knowledge of the agencies they are gutting.
• Also being decimated is PEPFAR, the global AIDS initiative started by President George W. Bush in 2003, which has saved more than 25 million lives; until the Trump era, it enjoyed strong bipartisan support. PEPFAR is estimated to save 1.6 million lives each year.

This kind of malicious incompetence is evident in almost everything Trump and those in his administration touch. You can be sure, too, that there are many more similar acts of ineptitude we don’t yet know about. And Trump still has more than 1,350 days to go.

THE SECOND TRUMP PRESIDENCY, more even than the first, will be defined by Trump’s authoritarian desires and his ineptitude. It might be that the latter impedes the former; ruthless efficiency can help in the dismantling of democratic institutions, but having an administration filled with freaks and fools can impede that effort and catalyze public disaffection and even resistance.

We’re already seeing that reflected in a handful of election results, in mass protests across the country, in focus groups and public-opinion polls, and in the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index, which provides a snapshot of the U.S. economy’s health. Early this month, we learned that index had hit its second-lowest reading since 1952, dragged down by fears of higher prices and unemployment. Expectations for inflation hit the highest level in 44 years.

But here’s the danger: Vindictive narcissists like Trump hold grudges and harbor resentments, blame everything on someone else, and weaponize information. They have a mean, even sadistic, side, belittling others to feel better about themselves and using, abusing, and discarding people.

So as the second Trump administration careens from one failure to another, as unhappiness with the president rises, as events and reality refuse to bend to his will, he will become darker and crueler and more unstable. His advisers, all of whom are afraid to stand up to him, will enable him. And the MAGA movement, more cult-like than ever, more walled off from reality than ever, will stay with him until the end.

Trump is hardly invincible, and many millions of Americans will not give up without a fight. My hope and expectation is that they will prevail, that America will prevail, but it will come at quite a cost. It didn’t have to be this way. There are 77,302,580 co-authors of this catastrophe. They have left a crimson stain on this Republic.

While I worry about children in MAGA households (for numerous reasons), I hope the adults truly feel some suffering.

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