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.

People involved with the HHS appointment and a bunch of Trump insiders have started to push the "vaccines are not safe" propaganda already. Link:

https://www.threads.net/@renee.diresta/post/DCx1RwFRgDz?xmt=AQGzZoVQnWipmw_l5HFYJzPur_eD9XluA9TwGIVY_9_vJw

The expected trend:

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.

At first it will look like the Trump cabinet appointees will just run political depaertments, aimed at advancing Trump's causes. Get rid of IRA staff so the wealthy cannot be taxed. But in some departments it will be worse. Congress cannot fire cabinet heads. They can maybe impeach them. But the head of the FBI only reports to DOJ, which also a Trump appointee. In practice Kash Patel cannot do wrong. If he does exactly as Trump wishes, witch hunts of Democrats will start immediately. The Republican Senate will also take part in this. 

Homeland Security reports to the White House. Hopefully the department will still keep us safe from terrorism while Patel is dismantling the FBI and burning all of Trump's papers from Mar a Lago.