Heading into the 2025 disaster of the Trump II era

The somewhat low numbers of voters for Harris are actually not low. Enough people showed up because it was an important election. Harris got more votes than Trump did in 2016 where he only won by the electoral college. He got 62,984,828.

The low information voters showed up in good numbers, even though the total voters were about the same as 2016 and earlier national elections. They got to decide who the president is based on "I'm somewhat worse off than I was in 2020 and I have no idea about the economy, really." They do not quite understand inflation. Young voters do not recall inflation in their lives and the rest sort of forget what happened in 2008 or the Reagan era. We had inflation. My first mortgage was at 13% under Reagan. What happens after inflation is that the wages slowly creep up so that you can keep the economy running. The voter does not notice that.  The prices NEVER come down except some goods that had an issue (eggs...bird flu) or because production was low in the pandemic.

And here we are. Trump has taken this message (a win by some 1% but not getting over 50% of the votes) as a mandate from the masses. A good portion of young males voted also to bring down "government excess." Any benefits to seniors or any other group and all that regulation was seen as bad. They even saw vaccines as some evil thing the elites invented. None of them recall the vaccinations they got as a kid.

The young males showed up to vote for one thing: Trump. Nothing else on the ballot mattered. Perhaps it sounded cool and strong that this tired old man was going to be dictator for one day.

Who knew? Trump has to write his own constitution

 Get someone out there with a legal pad. Here are the instructions. Trump will bring the Sharpie.

Michael Lewis gives us a preview of Trump's second term

                                  

The election is over. We will probably never get full clarity on everything related to the electorate. Biden, who led the country for four years, was perceived as weak. Quite clearly the majority of voters choose on a gut feel basis. "I feel that Biden is to blame for my own situation."

Trump's next moves had already been announced to those who follow news and politics. Project 2025 lists everything the right wing wants to do. It might not have been very clear to the voters that Trump intends to dismantle a large part of the so-called "administrative state." The heads of the cabinets under him are chosen precisely to stop all the so called waste. New ones are chosen for the positions to minimize excessive government rules. A number of these cabinets are not mentioned in the constitution. George Bush and Jimmy Carter both added one cabinet level. According to the news, tens of thousands of civil servants in those cabinet institutions will be replaced by party supporters. Bureaucrats are not be trusted. Bureaucrats working under the Treasury Department are more difficult to replace. In addition, the head of the central bank cannot be changed. Its leader would not change until the election year 2026.

Our government has almost three million employees. The right-wing's dissatisfaction with civil servants came to the fore already at the beginning of 2017. Michael Lewis had time to study the bureaucrats in 2018 during Trump's training term. Trump's ideas were guided by Steve Bannon, and their solution was not to appoint secretaries at all. For a long time, the departments were managed by deputy directors.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration manages a wide range of activities. The agency under the Department of Commerce is responsible for shipping, weather, space programs and related projects. The Weather Bureau operates under it and feeds weather forecasts to every television station. Airlines and the FAA also need weather information for the safety of airplanes.

NOAA got Barry Myers as its chief. He owned the AccuWeather channel and was a lawyer by training. Under him, the government's free weather service began to be restricted so that AccuWeather and other commercial channels would get more customers and advertising revenue. The danger was that citizens would not get accurate information about hurricanes and tornadoes. In addition to weather reporting  NOAA had 12,000 employees, whose work Myers could not manage because he was not technically competent.

According to Lewis, accusations of state keeping us in the dark are largely baseless. Each department had websites where you could find out about drugs, pollution, climate change, crime, etc. Many agencies had consumer oriented pages that helped you plan your safety and health. Now, according to Trump's order, information referring to climate change was removed from the public at all websites. FEMA information from disaster areas was removed. Negative feedback with consumers about banking was removed as was any safety in our investments. It was pointless for the citizen to search for free information about any security issue. When the data was removed, it supported Trump's and the right's view that the state is doing nothing. Disasters kept coming, so why have FEMA?

At the very beginning of the book, the Department of Energy, DOE, is described. The staff prepared for the new manager's arrival with folders and presentations and organizing meetings. Everything was ready. At the other end was only a lobbyist hired by Trump who specialized in fossil fuels. A person named Thomas Pyle eventually entered the discussion. He prepared a survey on the use of coal and the staff's opinions on the use of coal as energy. Based on that, a large number of senior DOE employees were removed before Trump took office. Rick Perry was appointed secretary. He wanted to end the whole DOE, and served as head for three years. The DOE budget was probably a fourth earmarked for the treatment of old nuclear waste. It was now enough to keep the waste in a safe place and secure. Other energy projects were Solyndra, an energy project with solar panels that failed. The department still had 100,000 people working across the country. The secretary never tried to find out what his department was doing. Lewis lists quite thoroughly what the DOE continued to do without leadership. Perry's "deputy" John J. MacWilliams ran the facility. With those forces, risks were reduced, for example, in the electricity distribution network. That was the fifth risk on Lewis's list, which also included the uranium needed for Iran's nuclear reactor.

We can expect those same leaders in the cabinets in 2025. They are there mainly to dismantle the department they themselves run. If some risks still need to be managed, the usage of money must be kept to a minimum and the problems must be left to the next president to deal with.

A somewhat more recent book by Lewis is The Premonition: A Pandemic Story. It covers the first year of the pandemic. The future of vaccination is now somewhat uncertain, but you can still get vaccines if you pay for them yourself. Pandemics, on the other hand, largely remain under the control of the state. The book gives a very good picture of that, California as an example. But of course we are a country, so failure of some states will allow pandemics to last longer.

Looking ahead, Musk and Ramaswamy (who have no power) propose to get rid or 75% of the federal work force, with the IRS, FBI, ATF etc. completely disappearing.

The Lewis book outlines a lot of necessary departements, which are there for our safety. Is there something we cans slash safely for four years, at least? Yes, research. Medical research, drug research in colleges, many types of chemistry (think Lithium batteries) and countless practical fields are funded by the USA. Graduate student scholarships to do research. All that can be scrapped. Industry does not invent new chemical reactions, for example (many can't be patented, they are there for common good). All that will need to be scrapped for now. And in the long run we will not be the leader in innovation anymore. China will be. They will also do many types of public constuction. We can't build the Hoover Dams that the future technology will need.

The Federal Government

The government is seen as a bunch of people out there...in DC...trying to run our lives. The Democrats are seen as elites. The Republicans also were seen as largely controlled by corporations.

This all changed with Trump. He pointed mostly to regulations. But also to the behaviors that changed on the part of MAGA supporters. The rules of the game. Now it is perfectly OK to point to foreigners as someone to reject, throw out. Even women are to return to a lesser role. MAGA voters are finally able to say just exactly what they think. All topics that they label woke and connect to the federal government. In practice it was mostly fairness in hiring that the feds carried out.

The hatred of federal government has always been there, but MAGA folk can now say they want to reduce it to basically nothing. Government is nothing but waste. Too much regulation!

To achieve this, they voted for Trump. Many showed up to vote for one line of the ballot: president. The down ballot stuff is just....polticians, issues, regular poltics. They do not care so much about that. Let my local people vote in whoever and run things in my states. Let's keep the feds out of it.

I posted a little thing at one of our congressmen's Facebook page. He is in a purple district.

I said: 

Would you like to have the "elected back 2026" award? You will need to stop Trump from repealing the ACA and Elon from cutting my SS by 30%. You and 10 others in blue districts.

Trumpster said:

hahaha your a moron

That is as eloquent as Trumpsters get.

There was some thought in the post below that:

Quit patting yourself on the back. It's time to clean up our Government and cut it down. You've had no problem spending money we didn't have. Now its time to clean house .

The congressman has a hard time. He needs to see when Trumpism is waning. At that time he can talk regular issues. He can look like supporting some benefits. But also look like a frugal Republican, the old time Republican from our state.


As far as the MAGA folk go, they will actually not learn much from the next 2 or 4 years. The government does a lot of invisible stuff for citizens. The benefits are not obvious. Think of it as the oxygen mask in the airplane. It's up there, probably. I have never seen one come down. But it will save your life if the air plane undergoes a number of dangerous events. And it can still fly you to the nearest airport.

Or you can compare the government to ecology. If you remove a species from a habitat, the effects will be seen a few steps up or down the food chain. We can't kill all mosquitos for example. The effects of the animals also relate to the vegetation. So the governmnet is like that. A complex invisible hand. Just like Capitalism is, on the "free" side.

WHAT WILL WE SEE IN 2025?

Pretty much the same as in 2016, but much worse. Michael Lewis went through the important cabinet postitions in this book in 2018. The guy that owns AccuWeather got to run the Weather Bureau. The dpartment of energy is not just about drilling. It covers nuclear reactors and nuclear waste and so on. I'm re-reading it now.

Welcome to Trump World

 

Decisions Decisions

I came to this college town and state capitol to retire. It is a good size city for culture. Compared to my native Finland, it is the size of Tampere. I had been here a year, then Trump happened. largely an agricultural state, it has tended to be conservative, but mostly in the penny pinching sense on public spending. Abortion was an issue and the voters just fixed it to 12 weeks, forever.

What I am now thinking is that the state has gone too far into Trumpism. They can use a lot of low wage workers in agriculture and food industry. But that was not on their mind when they voted Trump in by 60%. In 2020 there seemed to be some hesitancy. They went 58% Trump and 39% Biden. My county went about 50/50. It was the same in 2016, 58% Trump.

The 2016 election can maybe be excused. They have always voted republican. Now we have Project 2025. The idea of getting rid of the administrative state is clearly there. I am guessing half of the 60% Trump supporters would know of it and approve it.

The pandemic did nothing, people continued working in meat packing plants and dying of covid. Our governor tried to block statitics reaching the public from the counties with meat packing plants. That was not enough mismanagement to change elections, for example to 50% Trump and 50% Biden in the next election. They ignored it. "Too much regulation, masks were awful."

Rural people seem to isolate themselves and disregard a good part of poltics. Hospitals and healthcare is a state level issue. The state has failed to provide rural healthcare. They did not expect any federal aid in that. So they vote mostly on cultural values.

The Democrats have always backed the farm bill, they must know that.

Religion does come into politics strongly. I won't discuss details here.

Overall, it seems I have a very condescending view of my state's voters. It is. Not only that, Trump was the con man and they were the mark. The idea of the foreigners invading the USA is easy to convince. Just use the right video clips on Fox News. But beyond that, convincing 60% of my state that cutting taxes for billionaires will produce a good economy is quite a stretch. That takes some skill. If the election is just a casual event in their lives, that is just as bad. It should take a little more effort than making your weekly shopping list. Young males were apparently easily fooled by Trump and the likes of Joe Rogan. Here the comaprison is that they put as much thought into voting as in buying a new TV. Politics is just not part of their life. Other than watching the occasional Joe Rogan.

Just a very brief note to Democrats: if the election is with someone like Trump running, the policies are nothing. There were issues, sure, abortion and Trump's foreigners. But the Democrat needs to test out their speaking manner and approach to low information voters next time. Those voters are hard to get interested in politcs at all. But now they felt they had a complaint. Many were young enough to never have had a major inflation to deal with. Test focus groups next time. When we have a whole year to run a campaign. Now we had some 100 days.

The voting in my state is mostly based on rurals watching Fox News. Let's take a quick off topic view of the national picture:

Masses of people…young men, Latinos, wannabe libertarians, incels, Joe Rogan fans…are not interested in politics. The president is just a guy that seems to lead the country but what he does is not all that clear. Something vaguely like West Wing. So these people have to make some bond with the presidential candidate on some weak evidence. Trump dancing to YMCA, Kamala with "understand the assignment," AOC and her cheerful leading of progressive ideas. Left, right…not a big deal. They relate to the candidate the same as to an entertainer.

I have good relations with people I interact with, and I did not get the idea that I am poisoning their blood. But I really can't tolerate the fact they think newcomers would do that.

I have lived in eight states. Jobs dictated three of them. This time I have options. I relly can't afford to live on the coasts, but other options are open.

Where will we go? Medical care will be a primary factor. Our state is small. The penny pinching philosophy does not add any state level health coverage. For the poor, our governor tried to block Medicaid expansion. We forced him with a referendum (our state is not totally hopeless!). They are all national plans and the Obamacare choise is one company, if you are 60-65. I am on Medicare, which will weaken for two years at least. I would be looking at the state healthcare rules and in general the safety net they have put up. Nearby there are states with bigger populations that have better safety nets to survive the Trump II term. It will not be Missouri for sure, already tried that. 

We rather carefully chose a city we were familiar with and where we can function with one car. We have even gone to a football game several times on bikes. It will be difficult to match the plus sides of the city with another one. It should not be more "republican" than the 50%. Basically there is just one. The one where my wife and I both went to grad school. it is quite possible that our present city will return to the pre-Trump state in four years. But will the country?

2024 Election

I have not got much support for my idea, but here goes. In this Internet age, we have completely lost patience. Many voters grew up with internet in most of their life. The result will be that we will have a string of presidents seving ONE TERM. Not two consecutive terms.

The media are definitely reaching voters. They knew of all the polling. States with a Democratic majority in most elections had low turnout as they knew Harris would win. California is still counting. It may be that both candidates get about 72 million votes in the end.

There were groups that seemed to react merely by gut feeling. Young black or Latino males in Michigan voted for the alpha male. Similar voters were able to vote for Biden 2020. It's easier to be the alpha male....if you are a male. And the abortion issue that should have won the election for Harris appears to have done nothing. Trump actually gained women voters. Threre the pro-life movement appears to be still quite stong.

But from those groups, abortion made little difference to white women (Guardian) :

The excitement to defeat Trump was definitely there in 2020. Looking at Pennsylvania.

Then in 2024 it was Trump that got almost the same number as Biden got in 2020. It cannot be the same 3.4 million that voted for Biden and now Trump, it just looks comical. The shift was some 100 000 voters. So even though Michigan was maybe doable for Harris (if she had had a whole year to campaign) this PA group of shifting voters was again decisive. NBC profiled Latino voters. They seemed to just want to blindly believe in a Trump economy to come. The black voters cannot be blamed, but it is odd that Biden had the huge turnout. He even won Georgia with a large percentage of black voters.

It may be noted that Harris was not just a woman but a vice president. Typically they do not do well, having sometimes spent almost eight years almost invisible to the general public.

Prediction for 2028: they will run a male governor.

LOOKING FORWARD

It's one thing to think about us (Mike Johnson is out to wipe out all that remains of the New Deal, let alone Biden deals), but we also have to consider Ukraine. This may get resolved. And Putin may get some property without losing face. Trump and Vance claim the Nobel Peace Prize.

Then what? We have to fight to preserve what we have left of democracy. Then we need to think of 2028. Morning Joe was trashing the Democratic Party this morning. We have to abandon all wokism, presumably climate issues etc. Because we can't talk to the working man anymore. Well, that is all nonsense. We can keep all the policies, trans gender and all. We are a coalition. It has cat ladies and many single issue groups. No, we need a GUY. And I mentioned governors. We have one. Tim Walz will do it, he will joke and make fun of the failures of Trumpism and the frail old man that Trump will be. Or Vance running Trumpism. No wokism needs to be dumped. No need to talk about those issues so much. There are economy issues and a little more of the inclusiveness we have tried. And Walz can repeat one of Kamala's messages: Trump's party is one of hatred. We need to end that.

 Bring farmers on board. We help them as much as the GOP ever did. And..if Walz is not what the primaries want, then bring an actual Democratic Farmer on board. John Tester.

From my social media I am getting a lot of fear. Trump will do a lot of damage in two years. But as he is not in terribly good health, we will see him decline by year two. There is really nobody to take over him that has long term support. Yes, I am disappointed at the GOP since January 6th. But there is still hope. A lot of the worst will hit us this January. We will see what can be done.

It's time

 

We are going to win this. About 273-275 for Harris. Any way we can. It could even go this way.

Nov 6th:
Well, it did not go that way. PA was supposed to end up with small edge for one or the other and a recount. It did not go that way. The upper Midwest should all have gone about this way. Harris had the disadvantages of 1. being a woman 2. being a part of the Biden administration, which blue collar workers had grown to hate.

Finally, some satire from my firend Kari:

How can Trump do those things that all the Democrat presidents could not?

 As we get closer to the election more and more of the low information voters are coming out. These Elon fan boys are now Trump voters. They seem to have no idea how government works. And do not care.

Others are coming out and saying "it's not going to be so bad." After all, how can Trump do those things that all the Democrat presidents could not?

It's simple. None of the departments and none of the so called administrative state are required by the Constitution. It might be a little difficult to dismantle the Treasury. But for the most part the departments are strictly there so the president does not have to run every government function. If the DOE is not needed, then scrap it. If the EPA is bad...not even a cabinet level department...scrap it. All these things require is a presidential order. There is no budget required to eliminate a department. A building left to be auctioned off.

There are in fact laws that set up departments like the DEA. They do get funding, normally. But it is entirely up to the Trump appointed head of the EPA (could be an oil executive under Trump) whether to enforce the laws. One of the objections to environmental matters is that to enforce the rules and to sue polluters, you still have to go to court. Both sides paying the lawyers. A link to EPA laws:

https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/laws-and-executive-orders

If an authority over some matter comes up, the Supreme Court will rule that the federal government has no authority over this matter. It could could be the US Fish and Wildlife Service or some similar agency.

No Democrat ever proposed to scrap the federal governmnet and run a bare bones operation. Make money and run a military would be all that is required. Trump can round up the immigrants with his army if that is his plan. Use army funds to house the camps. Pull out military bases from the entire world.

Voting guide

For your undecided friends and relatives. The man is not well. He is not fit to be president of any country. If he quits, you get Vance. Who is not quite human.

 

It may take some effort for them to see who Trump is. Mostly a fake.

If they are still "I just don't know about Kamala..." remind them of their duty to the country:

Finally, a word on polls from Jeff: