As an independent, I'm disappointed at the lockstep occurring. However, there was a Principles First convention last week for the disenchanted Republicans, if only attracting about 1,200 attendees. Although no real game plan of action was formulated, I found the convention encouraging.
Trump publicly made the cabinet subservient to Musk on Wednesday, by asking any cabinet member with an issue to speak up then and there, in front of the media. Musk is now established as the ramrod or foreman of Trump's Team. Loyalty remains the absolute requirement for the new Grand Old Party.
Wow, if you dislike lockstep you must really be upset with the Congressional democrats, who have been voting as such for easily over a decade.
ReplyDeleteMost recently, they even managed to stay in lockstep behind a mentally impaired president for four whole years, keeping the charade going up until January of this year to shield the American public from knowing who was actually making the decisions. Remember, even when they dumped that president as their representative for the NEXT four years, none of them suggested removing him for the rest of his first term, and to this day don’t seem the slightest bit interested in investigating who was really running the country in the last administration.
Funny though, I don’t remember reading the articles here about THAT lockstep though. Maybe next week we’ll be treated to a week’s worth of articles about the DEMOCRAT lockstep problem.
Such balance would be what I’d expect to come from a true independent, especially a conservative one.
2;58 Just saved me some time. I agree fully. Philosophically, the Dems are wider than Republicans. But when push come to shove they vote in lockstep. They never had to beg wayward members for their votes.
DeleteI'm old enough to remember a time when people gave an incoming president a 100-day "honeymoon" as far as criticism while he implemented the agenda that the people had just voted on. By my count, Trump is about at Day 38.
ReplyDeleteI also remember that it took Ronald Reagan, who was elected after the disastrous four-year term of Jimmy Carter, 18 months for the country to start seeing the positive effects of Reagan's policies. Reagan had to turn a much smaller government into the right direction than Trump does.
Now I realize that Trump is going right after the government funding that was meant to undermine his agenda and fund democrat front groups, but why don't we all take a breath and give Trump a little bit of time to fix the multiple disasters left behind by Joe Biden and whoever was actually running the country for the democrats over the last four years?
People voted for Trump to change things, not to maintain the status quo and then hand it off to the next guy in four years. This is what it looks like when you try to change something that's grown to almost $7 TRILLION DOLLARS, like federal spending has.
I say Trump is off to a good start delivering on what he promised. Others might disagree. But none of us has enough information to pass definitive judgment on what the outcome will be. Let's all take a breath.
You’ve made it clear you did not vote for Trump. No problem there. You also seem to see Musk as some sort of usurper of the presidency. That’s a bit of a stretch.
ReplyDeleteAs for loyalty to Trump, I prefer to think of this as loyalty to a CAUSE. If I were President, I would expect nothing less from the team I chose to be closest to me.
With all due respect to you and the blog (and with a bit of humor) I can assure you, neither I, nor any of his Cabinet will be voting for Trump in 2028!
anon@2:58: As the D's and R's have their petition signing parties this week, I remember gathering all the petitions to run, twice, by myself....that and 18 years of this blog make me a true independent conservative.
ReplyDeleteanon@6:19: As for a honeymoon, Trump's been in office and running for office since 2016...he promised this and that on day 1
anon@6:20: Let's hope Trump doesn't try and run in 2028! As for the cabinet, that one of problems. Kennedy dismissed the unvaccinated child's measles death as "normal", while in reality it was the first death in over a decade. Vaccinations rates are going down in Lehigh Valley. Kennedy being appointed head of Health is ridiculous, his approval by the Senate was ridiculous. Partisanship at its worse.
anons@anon: This blog will be moving away from anonymous comments.
6:20 here. I can assure you, if anonymous posting is removed I will no longer contribute here. There are many worthy reasons why ‘somewhat known’ individuals with expertise in a variety of areas chose to avoid publicity in this jungle that now surrounds us. Besides, it’s the message provided that deserves attention, not the generous contributor of the thought.
DeleteJust begin unjustified censorship like that other local blog, and persons like me will slowly remove ourselves from this space.
The google handle need not be your actual name, it can be a pseudonym, but it would provide you more ownership than 6:20 here. BTW, when registering for the google handle, your actual identity remains unknown to the blogger(s).
DeleteWell the MAGA republican have had a good teacher, Pelosi and other democrats have destroyed internal opposition, by withholding funding or even scandal, it was very dangerous to jump the ship, Joe Manchin is a good example.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the mentioned republicans are hopeful that they can save the gravy train. A train that is about to go off the track, due to the uniparty corruption.
It is amazing that we see some who see corruption in folks like Brown, Palosky and others, but still believe that Washington is almost saintly.
Washington may be the most corrupt place in the history, it will indeed take unity to have any hope of reform.
Mike, no one is forcing Republicans to do anything. As a Republican activist for over three decades I will attest to the fact that Republican cannot be coerced to do anything they are unwilling to do. Try circulating Republican petitions, it often takes ten to twenty minutes to explain to registered Republicans who each candidate is, what they stand for, I why I believe the candidates deserve to be on the ballot. If you get 5 signatures an hour you're doing great! Republican elected officials are famous for their fierce independence and willingness to go their own way. Presently, the vast majority of Republicans are very pleased with party leadership and the direction the party is taking. This explains the new unity. It is no more complicated than that. By the way, when I ran for the school board in order to cross file I needed to Democrat signatures. A Democrat friend helped me with this. I was astounded by the difference, Dem voters would sign anything, no questions asked. If it was a Democrat petition, bingo, that, was all that mattered. I can also tell you that it was the Democratic Party that told its voters to vote Straight Party and many did. If we had tried that, the office phone would have lit up with irate R's telling us to never tell them what to do again. Trust me, I know!
ReplyDeleteWell its the Democrats own fault. They went totally off the rails after their designated successor to Obama, Hillary Clinton, proved herself to be the most unlikeable woman in politics. That is why Trump won a narrow election victory in 2018.
ReplyDeleteAfter that, with all of their manufactured scandals to try and undermine the first Trump administration, and not really having a viable alternative to Trump in 2020, they managed to get a very deficient Biden into office in a highly questionable election. Then the Democrats proceded to shoot themselves by promoting ajendas so radical only about 20% of the voters could support it.
Now we have Trump II, the MAGA canidate, who procedes to bring in Elon Musk, who only surfaced late in the election cycle and he begins to put a chainsaw into most federal Agencies.
The media is watching the cabinet where Musk is standing up like he is co-president and talking how he is going to save America a Trillion Dollars; how he is going to send out another e-mail that people are going to answer to about the 5 things they did this week, and then Trump goes around the table and says, "Does everybody like Elon", and all the cabinet secretaries ohhh and ahhh.
There is that type of ludicrous performance the press loves, not reporting that some of the cabinet secrataries are Trump ideolouges, or totally unqulified for their jobs like Hegseth, who has to pay off women to keep his scandals out of the press, and a vice-president, Vance, who hates Europe and NATO and othe secrataries who are serving under the threat of being fired if they don't agree 100% with Trump and the media really doesn't cover that because it is not as interesting as the circus we saw performing.
As an American, this is petrifying. I think that we are entering a new era in the United States and I would very much like to keep the NATO alliance and our friends around the world who we trade with and have friendly relations with, not being based on the premise of what they can do for us economically, which is what Trump's foreign policy seems to be based upon.
MAGA
7:43 - A few comments on your post:
DeleteAny President will of course surround himself with people who agree with him. That is the purpose of his cabinet - to implement the President’s agenda across their departments.
Similarly, any bureaucrats that feel they can or should undermine or ignore the President’s agenda should expect to be fired. They certainly weren’t elected to anything, and anyone trying to form a “resistance” within the government is putting themselves above the will of the people as expressed in our elections. They need to be impartial and do as they are told.
Neither Vance or Trump hates Europe or even NATO. Rather, they believe that Europe should live up to their obligations under the NATO agreement. They also don’t believe that the US should participate in or pay for wars that are not in the interest of the US. To me, that’s hardly controversial.
RGR
Trump’s first term first cabinet were all respected Republican leaders in their field’s. These cabinet members are not. The earlier cabinet members stayed until they were berated publicly, or disagreed with Trump and then they left. This group, lacking real credibility, will brainlessly carry out Trump’s bidding, since loyalty is more important than capabilities. These are people who have sold their souls. Did you notice Rubio squirm in his seat at the meeting yesterday as they all pledged their allegiance to Trump? And then there’s Musk, who doesn’t take a cabinet meeting seriously. Dressed like an adolescent on his way to class he didn’t respect the group enough to take his baseball cap off for the meeting (no matter what is printed on the cap).
DeleteI fail to see the utility of criticizing every move Trump makes. The past election was either Trump or Harris. That’s it. The implication of keeping all of this up suggests “We would have been better off electing Harris. Really?
DeletePerhaps, by trying to impede Trump, someone who is not running for re-election, you are proving how wise you were, well before time to realize whatever benefits to our nation and its people Trump will most surely develop.
Why not just convince Harris to run again?
9:43: Spare me your aspersions about the Cabinet’s “credibility”.
DeleteI’d take Rubio over Clinton (Bhenghazi) or John Kerry (James Taylor as a response to the terrorist attack in France) as Secretary of State any day.
I’d also take Hegseth as Secretary of Defense over Austin (DEI in the armed services; botched Afghanistan withdrawal) or any other SecDef over the past 20 years that allowed us to remain in endless “Forever Wars” and then left for cushy jobs in the defense industry.
Musk has already found BILLIONS in waste in just over 30 days as a temporary advisor, which is more than any democrat has found in their entire terms in office. So Musk can dress however he wants as he works towards his goal of finding a TRILLION.
I realize that you don’t like Trump’s policies and are desperate to stop a return to sanity, but your maligning of Trump’s cabinet picks and advisors is just plain stupid.
RGR
RGR@12:49: Trump's picks and advisors certainly merit comment..I would have preferred it in the senate, but we're entitled to armchair discussion. Controversial Dr. Oz could have satisfied Trump's need to annoy, and yet put someone with a science/medical background as head of the department. Instead we got picks that remind me of the Chance in Being There, a movie with Peter Sellers.
ReplyDeleteOff topic and on a much more depressing note, I just read that according to a Gallup poll, 60% of democrats have an unfavorable view of Israel. It’s the first time that a major political party in the US has had an unfavorable view of Israel in a Gallup poll, with the question being asked since 1989.
ReplyDeleteWhere do I even start with that? By reminding people that they’re our only democratic ally in the Mideast? By pointing out the Hamas-led atrocities of October 7, 2023 directed at civilians, including women and babies? By reminding democrats of the horrors of the Holocaust?
Despite the fact that I disagree with democrats on most political issues, I like to believe that they’re still decent people. But this is literally good vs. evil. Maybe there simply is no redemption for the democrats (at least 60% of them).
RGR