If the news from D.C. were a sitcom or movie, we’d be laughing our heads off at Donald Trump’s wacky nominees and the GOP senators who must decide whether to confirm them.
Some would probably follow Texas Congressman Troy Nehls in jumping three feet high and scratching their heads if Trump told them to.
But for those who consider themselves more than the president-elect’s puppets, the gymnastics would be mental, not physical. Could they choke back their disgust and obey Trump without looking like cowardly fools? Or could they – gasp! – defy him and still survive the next primary?
Unfortunately, our government is no laughing matter. As Trump and his enablers keep lobbing bombs at our principles, institutions and norms, it often feels a lot more like the old Space Invaders arcade game.
It was a blockbuster that, no pun intended, broke new ground when it debuted in 1978, but all I remember was that you had to shoot endless hordes of armed invaders before they reached Earth.
They came faster and faster as the game progressed, according to what I found on the internet. Square bunkers provided you some protection, but the invaders could destroy them with repeated shots. And it was game over if even one invader reached the bottom of the screen.
Erosion of the bunkers
Obstacles to invasive autocrats like Trump and his oligarchal allies have weakened over the years. Right-wing courts, especially the highest one, have bludgeoned civil rights, empowered corporations over people and granted sitting presidents permission to do almost anything they want.
Former Trump strategist and recent jailbird Steve Bannon recognized the media as “the real opposition” to the MAGAs’ oppressive agenda. His strategy: “Flood the zone with sh-t.”
The Trump team did just that, lying about everything from President Barack Obama’s birthplace (Hawaii) to which country would pay for a border wall (not Mexico) to the winner of the 2020 election (Joe Biden) to who ultimately pays tariffs on imported goods (we consumers.)
Refuting Trump’s campaign whopper that he knew nothing about Project 2025, the Washington Post reported that several of his nominees’ fingerprints are all over that 900-page extremist manifesto.
One of those, Brendan Carr, is Trump’s proposed Federal Communications Commission chair, and he’s itching to take more stabs at independent media. He wants to repeal rules preventing internet providers from slowing, blocking or prioritizing delivery of select content, and he’d require broadcasters to operate in “the public interest,” whatever the powers that be say that means.
A cast of clowns
Carr at least has an FCC resume. Other Trump picks, like Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Kristi Noem and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have raised eyebrows, not confidence.
As a Florida congressman, Gaetz was known as a bomb thrower, and he did the country a favor by withdrawing as the attorney general nominee. The New York Times reported that he didn’t have enough GOP votes to head the agency that investigated him for sex trafficking (but didn’t prosecute him).
He says he won’t claim the House seat he was re-elected to. If he did, he’d face the Ethics Committee’s probe into allegations (which he’s denied) of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, taking improper gifts, dispensing special favors and obstructing investigations of his behavior.
Well, that’s one down but many to go. We don’t know, for example, whether enough GOP senators will balk at Gabbard, a Russian mouthpiece, for national intelligence director; Noem, who’s best known for shooting her dog, for homeland security secretary; or anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. for health and human services secretary.
Debating their qualifications or lack thereof is pointless, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch wrote. Trump’s main purpose in creating a “clown government” is to “turn the fiction that a U.S. president is a king into his reality … our reality.”
But we don’t have to fall for that con. No matter how Trump crows about his mandate, updated figures showed on Friday afternoon that 50.1% of the electorate voted against him.
Unlike the Space Invaders hero, we believers in democracy and freedom for all aren’t overwhelmingly outnumbered. Nor is our country as red as Trump’s 58% Electoral College victory makes it look.
We just have to resist the flood of sh-t and stay afloat.
Subscribe to Coal Region Canary
Get email updates from Coal Region Canary by becoming a subscriber today. Just enter your email address below to get started!Support Coal Region Canary
Like our reporting and want to support truly local news in Schuylkill County? Your small donations help. For as little as $5, your contribution will allow us to cover more news that directly affects you. Consider donating today by hitting the big yellow button below ...