Hard to believe, but on June 16th, it will be ten years since Donald J. Trump rolled down that golden escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for US president, setting in motion a disruption in our political life as a nation the likes of which we’ve never seen before (to use one of Trump’s favorite catch phrases). As always, the moment encapsulates the future, crystalizing latent potential into manifestation.
“Investors of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your gains!” – Trumpunist Manifesto
If anyone doubted Donald Trump’s repeated campaign promises in 2024 that, if elected, he would impose sweeping, massive tariffs on foreign imports, all such doubts evaporated on April 2, 2025, when the US President kicked off a global trade war. Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” appears to be working just fine, if the goal was to liberate more cash from Americans’ pocketbooks. With tariffs applied to virtually every country on Earth, even some unpopulated South Pacific islands (but excluding Russia – surprise!), increases in costs from 10% to 49% have roiled global financial markets.
On 18 March 2025, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court John Roberts made a rare statement on the politics of the day, when he waded into a controversy over the deportation of hundreds of undocumented Venezuelan immigrants who had been characterized by the Trump administration as violent, dangerous gang members. The men were apprehended and removed from the country without due process, with no proof of guilt beyond the government’s say-so, then flown to a prison in El Salvador, which was paid to house them indefinitely.
Donald J. Trump’s particular genius for creating chaos and mayhem was on full display in the first month after his second inauguration on 20 January 2025. A flurry of executive orders mandating everything from the end of birthright citizenship (a constitutionally enshrined right which requires an amendment ratified by three-fourths of the states to alter) to the quixotic renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of America” (and would you like Freedom Fries with that?) was just the beginning. Most of the heavy lifting of dismantling the federal government was consigned to Elon Musk and his fabricated Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), who has proceeded to reflexively fire or eliminate thousands of workers with civil service protections and close entire agencies without congressional authority. Freezes on funding, hiring, and dispensing approved funds have rounded out DOGE’s resume.
Nobody elected him to anything, he is ineligible for the high office he apparently holds, his work in restructuring government is unsanctioned, unofficial, and unconstitutional. But Elon Musk has apparently effected a successful takeover of the US government, hostile or otherwise. The head of Donald Trump’s bogus DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk is behaving like a classic Doge, the medieval, autocratic rulers of Venice, arbitrarily cutting staff, stopping funding, and eliminating entire departments at whim.
Monday, 20 January 2025 must have seen some sort of record for presidential pardons. That morning, as among his last official acts, outgoing President Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to a spate of family members, former government officials, the entire staff of the January 6th Committee, and Capitol Police officers who had given testimony in that investigation. I was unable to obtain the exact number, but it must have been in the hundreds, a prophylactic measure to ensure against future prosecution or harassment for people who had committed no crimes, but were likely to be targeted by the incoming administration for their political stance or connection to Biden.
