Mostly Monday Reads: Presidents Day in a Lost Country

“The latest cabinet meetings aren’t televised for a reason. Fear not, our de facto leader is in control as the ethnic cleansing of the country formerly known as the United States roars ahead unabated. The must-see TV drama not being broadcast is Whose Turn Is It to Change the Old Guy’s Diaper?” John Buss, @repeat 1968

Good Day Sky Dancers!

As we stare down the 250th anniversary of the day our country started its journey from monarchy to democracy, we have to take a look at where we’ve landed today and utter some word of disappointment. The headlines today are filled with references to autocracy, and it’s not difficult to see how the MAGA/Trump overreach is playing out.

Politico sums up the current situation like this. “Trump’s second year: Whiplash. Even proposals that don’t ultimately move forward have consequences.” I’d just like a few more adjectives like weird, cruel, and inexplicably unnecessary.

President Donald Trump’s first year back in office was defined by sweeping upheaval that was largely plotted out during his four-year Florida exile. But the president has somehow intensified the volatility in year two with a succession of whiplash-inducing policy swings, several of which have almost immediately withered in the face of Republican opposition and public outcry.

The administration this week finally withdrew the thousands of federal law enforcement officers from Minneapolis, after violent and at times deadly clashes with protesters turned the tide of public opinion against the president’s immigration crackdown.

It came after Trump threatened to decertify Canadian aircraft, a move deemed “unjustified and dangerous” by a Washington-based aerospace trade union that the president soon dropped. Trump said in early January that he’d cap credit card rates at 10 percent, a move that would have upended the banking industry, only to change his mind and ask Congress for legislation.

Also last month, Trump’s administration paused millions in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for state public health infrastructure — only to reverse course roughly 24 hours later.

“The whiplash has real implications,” said Chrissie Juliano, executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, a forum of the leaders of metropolitan health departments. “It’s incredibly disruptive, even if you can get back to continuing the work, you know, two days later.”

The unpredictability of a presidency that prioritizes posting over process and often leaves friends and foes alike guessing whether pronouncements should be taken seriously, literally, or both, remains a feature, not a bug of Trump’s approach to governance. In many matters, especially negotiations with other countries, his mercurial opacity is often an attempt to gain leverage, but his threats seemingly lead just as often to backtracking as blowing things up, be they Iranian missile depots, Venezuelan drug boats or the transatlantic alliance.

The same often holds true for domestic policy. The president has made numerous pronouncements with emphatic declarations on social media, sometimes even suggesting he is governing by fiat in cases where legislation is required. But he has quickly moved on from many of them: a cap on credit card interest rates, 50-year mortgages and, according to a new Financial Times report, possibly even the sweeping tariffs on aluminum and steel that have led to higher costs.

We’re just beginning to explore the depths of depravity that Trump and his buddies will go to just feel powerful and get richer. This is from Robert Reich’s SubStack. “The Squalor of the Epstein Class. Happy Presidents Day!”

Here’s how Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie responded on Sunday, during ABC’s “This Week,” to a question about the Trump regime’s handling of the Epstein files:

“This is about the Epstein class …. They’re billionaires who were friends with these people, and that’s what I’m up against in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump told us that even though he had dinner with these kinds of people, in New York City and West Palm Beach, that he would be transparent. But he’s not. He’s still in with the Epstein class. This is the Epstein administration. And they’re attacking me for trying to get these files released.”

The Epstein Class. Not just the people who cavorted with Jeffrey Epstein or the subset who abused young girls. It’s an interconnected world of hugely rich, prominent, entitled, smug, powerful, self-important (mostly) men. Trump is honorary chairman.

Trump is still sitting on two and a half million files that he and Pam Bondi won’t release. Why? Because they implicate Trump and even more of the Epstein class. The files that have been released so far don’t paint a pretty picture.

Trump appears 1,433 times in the Epstein files so far. His billionaire backers are also members. Elon Musk appears 1,122 times. Howard Lutnick is there. So is Trump-backer Peter Thiel (2,710 times), and Leslie Wexner (565 times). As is Steven Witkoff, now Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s consigliere (1,855 times).

The Epstein Class isn’t limited to Trump donors. Bill Clinton is a member (1,192 times), as is Larry Summers (5,621 times). So are LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (3,769 times), Prince Andrew (1,821 times), Bill Gates (6,385 times), and Steve Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants (429 times).

If not politics, then what connects the members of the Epstein Class? It’s not just riches. Some members are not particularly wealthy, but they’re richly connected. They trade on their prominence, on whom they know and who will return their phone calls.

They exchange inside tips on stocks, on the movements of currencies, on IPOs, on new tax-avoidance mechanisms. On getting into exclusive clubs, reservations at chic restaurants, lush hotels, exotic travel.

Most members of the Epstein Class have seceded into their own small, self-contained world, disconnected from the rest of society. They fly in one other’s private jets. They entertain at one other’s guest houses and villas. Some exchange tips on how to procure certain drugs or kinky sex or valuable works of art. And, of course, how to accumulate more wealth.

Many don’t particularly believe in democracy; Peter Thiel (recall, he appears 2,710 times in the Epstein files) has said he “no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Many are putting their fortunes into electing people who will do their bidding. Hence, they are politically dangerous.

The Epstein Class is the by-product of an economy that emerged over the last two decades, from which this new elite has siphoned off vast amounts of wealth.

It’s an economy that bears almost no resemblance to that of mid-20th-century America. The most valuable companies in this new economy have few workers because they don’t make stuff. They design it. They create ideas. They sell concepts. They move money.

I’ve always argued here and in classes that the biggest economic policies of the Reagan and Bush years were tax cuts that made it more profitable to gamble on financial assets rather than to actually produce goods and services. The changes in tax policies that cut upper brackets, then treated capital gains as a tax slash, and other ridiculous policies mean that money never lands where it can actually do good. It also creates a lot of idle hands and minds.

China is beginning to look more modern, more concerned about actual economic outcomes, and the planet. The U.S. continues to race back to the Gilded Age with hints of the Great Depression years. This is from The Guardian. “The Guardian view on Donald Trump and the climate crisis: the US is in reverse while China ploughs ahead. Editorial. The president’s destructive policies enrich fossil fuel billionaires, while Beijing has bet big on the green transition.”

Devastating wildfires, flooding and winter storms were among the 23 extreme weather and climate-related disasters in the US which cost more than a billion dollars last year – at an estimated total loss of $115bn. The last three years have shattered previous records for such events. Last Wednesday, scientists said that we are closer than ever to the point after which global heating cannot be stopped.

Just one day later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, announced the elimination of the Obama-era endangerment finding which underpins federal climate regulations. Scrapping it is just one part of Mr Trump’s assault on environmental controls and promotion of fossil fuels. But it may be his most consequential. Any fragment of hope may lie in the fact that a president who has called global heating a “hoax” framed this primarily as about deregulation – perhaps because the science is now so widely accepted even in the US.

The administration claimed, without evidence, that Americans would save $1.3tn. Never mind insurance or healthcare costs; a recent report found that US earnings would be 12% higher without the climate crisis. The Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse called the decision “corruption, plain and simple”. In 2024, Mr Trump reportedly urged 20 fossil fuel tycoons to stump up $1bn for his presidential campaign – while vowing to remove controls on the industry.

In the same week as this reckless and destructive US decision, it emerged that China had recorded its 21st month of flat or slightly falling carbon emissions. As Washington tears up environmental regulations, Beijing is extending carbon reporting requirements. China remains the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, though its per capita and cumulative historical emissions are still far behind those of the US. But clean energy drove more than 90% of its investment growth last year.

The Carbon Brief website, which published the emissions analysis, says the numbers suggest that the decline in China’s carbon intensity – emissions per unit of GDP – was below the target set in the last five-year plan, making it hard to meet its commitments under the Paris agreement. The shift in emissions may not prove enduring. There is fear that China’s focus may change; the next five-year plan, due in March, will be key. Some subsidies for renewable power have already been withdrawn. The installation of huge quantities of renewable energy infrastructure has been accompanied by a surge in constructing coal-fired power plants, though the hope is that these are intended primarily as a fallback.

We continue to disregard the actual civilized nations and cavort with the worst of the worst. This is from France24.  “Rubio tells Orban ‘your success is our success’ during Hungary visit ahead of elections. During a visit to Budapest Monday, just weeks before Hungary’s parliamentary elections, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that the nationalist leader’s “success” was a success for the US. An ally of President Donald Trump, who has also maintained ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Orban lags behind the main opposition candidate in opinion polls.” The entire Trump cabinet is feckless, shameless, and incompetent. They are also enabling a backslide in democracy.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed Viktor Orban‘s leadership during a visit to Budapest on Monday, ahead of elections threatening the nationalist prime minister’s hold on power.

Rubio’s visit is the final stage of a whirlwind trip to Europe that also saw him address the Munich Security Conference and visit another right-wing ally, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.

US President Donald Trump has made no secret of his high regard for Orban, saying in a social media post on Friday that the prime minister had produced “phenomenal” results in Hungary.

But Orban, 62, has a fight on his hands for the April 12 legislative elections in Hungary. Polls suggest his Fidesz party is trailing opposition leader Peter Magyar’s TISZA.

“I can say to you with confidence that President Trump is deeply committed to your success because your success is our success,” Rubio said during a joint press conference with Orban after their meeting.

“The president has an extraordinarily close relationship to the prime minister, he does, and it has had tangible benefits,” he said.

Europe’s nations have read the writing on the wall, according to CNN’s Kasie Hunt. “Trump’s damage is done. Democrats – and Europe – are struggling to define what’s next.”

Many of the Democrats who came to the Munich Security Conference this weekend want to be president. But even if one of them can win the White House in 2028, they may find they can no longer claim the title every American president since the 1940s has borne: leader of the free world.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom went on stage to insist his state is more permanent than President Donald Trump. But he acknowledged in an interview with CNN that the leaders he met with believe the damage to the transatlantic alliance is irrevocable.

Progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York came to pitch a left-wing populist foreign policy but made headlines for a massive stumble instead.

A number of Democratic senators hoping to burnish their foreign policy credentials ahead of possible presidential bids found themselves in a painfully awkward moment with the Danish prime minister, as some Democrats tried to smooth over pugnacious remarks Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham made at the start of the meeting that suggested Trump has not given up his designs on Greenland – a semiautonomous territory of Denmark.

And most members of the House of Representatives who planned to attend didn’t come at all after Republican Speaker Mike Johnson pulled the plug on the congressional delegation.

European thought leaders were reduced to offering a brief standing ovation to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose speech was far more conciliatory than the one Vice President JD Vance delivered at the same gathering last year. But Rubio had kicked off his trip telling American reporters: “The old world is gone.” He also left the conference to fly onward to Slovakia and Hungary, two countries led by strongmen sympathetic to Trump.

The conference’s opening remarks from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz crystallized Europe’s new reality in what seems to be rapidly becoming a post-American century.

“A divide has opened up between Europe and the United States,” Merz said Friday. “The United States’ claim to leadership has been challenged, and possibly lost.”

It’s more than just words. Merz has said he held “confidential talks” with France on European nuclear deterrence. It’s a stunning admission there’s no longer unconditional trust that the US will do what needs to be done for its transatlantic allies.

“What I’m hearing now is, even if we are able to repair these relationships, it’s going to take generations before they feel comfortable,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, of Arizona, a possible presidential hopeful who traveled to Munich not long after learning the Trump administration had tried and failed to indict him over a video he made telling troops not to obey illegal orders.

If this continues, the momentum and direction of the world’s political entanglements will change. Who knows what this will mean? This Op Ed piece from MS Now by Anthony L. Fisher discusses Trump and his attempts at an Imperial Presidency. “Libertarians warned about the ‘imperial presidency.’ Too few actually warned about Trump. A recent New York Times op-ed showed the blind spot many libertarians still have for President Donald Trump.”

When I saw the headline “Libertarians Tried to Warn You About Trump” atop a New York Times op-ed last Monday, I thought, “Hmmm, that’s not quite how I remember it.” Adorned with the striking image of the Gadsden flag’s “Don’t Tread on Me” snake about to get curb-stomped by an enormous black jackboot, the piece was written by Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor in chief of the libertarian magazine and website Reason — where I worked as a journalist for roughly six years. (I left shortly after President Donald Trump’s first inauguration.)

Sure enough, upon reading the column, I discovered the headline didn’t accurately reflect Mangu-Ward’s argument. She primarily made the case that libertarians have warned for years — under presidents in both major parties — about the dangers of ever-expanding executive authority, what’s been aptly coined the “Imperial Presidency.” Rather than claiming to have specifically warned “about Trump,” the writer boasted that libertarians had long sounded the alarm over the consolidation of such power — power now being used for nefarious purposes by a president who just happens to be Donald Trump. (The Times later that day amended the headline to the less specific but more honest, “Libertarians: We Told You So.”)

I can’t argue with that. To the extent most self-identified professional libertarians warned about Trump, they warned about the awesome powers that could be abused by a generic authoritarian president from either party.

But Trump is not a hypothetical. He always told us who he was. And there are far fewer of us who took (and continue to hold) the comparatively unpopular view among libertarians and other right-of-center fellow travelers that Trump presented as a uniquely authoritarian, vindictive, racist, corrupt and lawless demagogue — of which there isn’t remotely an analog on the other side of the aisle.

The problem is that, even now that Trump has proven us skeptics right on every one of those counts, too many libertarians continue to position themselves safely in a “pox on both your houses” perch — much too nuanced and enlightened to be dragged into partisan rancor. This position is how your movement ends up conflating the tyranny of overbearing, temporary Covid policies in Democratic-run areas as equal to (or worse than) the tyranny of a secret police force acting without due process for everyone when attempting to arrest suspected illegal immigrants, summarily executing Americans in the street and branding them “domestic terrorists” while their bodies are still warm.

All of these thoughts lead to one logical conclusion. The Midterm elections need to depose him and remove the spineless and the true believers, or whatever this is, from Congress.

Just to let you know, we’re having the most unkind Mardi Gras Celebration that even the police have seen. We seem to have been overrun by spontaneous groups of young men that are behaving a lot like the droogies in A Clockwork Orange. I may write about it on Friday; however, I’m busy listening to my friends’ experiences uptown and around the Quarter right now.

Peace, Love, and Understanding to you all!

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging Lists today?