John characterizes the current socio-political storm in Washington as being a massive push to "get rid of all this shit & go back to what is real."
I would say that's an accurate characterization.
But why wouldn't he -- wouldn't everyone -- embrace that kind of effort wholeheartedly?
Don't we all, wouldn't any rational individual, absolutely endorse every effort to rid ourselves of 'shit' (especially deep-state, Pogo-esque swamp-like shit) in a concerted attempt to return to what is real?
So the question is not whether or not the Administration should do what John says they're doing (as in 'Get rid of all this shit and go back to what is real') -- indeed, they should. Rather the question is 'What is this 'shit' they're getting rid of...and what is the 'real' we're trying to recover.
But isn't the answer obvious???
Men can't become women; women can't become men. That is real. Would we not all wish to stop the play-pretend in which pathetic, 67 year old men who wear dresses, require us to treat them like 'the first woman to be named Assistant Secretary for Health'? Would we not categorically say children should not be allowed, enabled, or encouraged to attempt to 'transition' when we know -- in the real world -- that changing sex is an absolute impossibility and genital mutilation is forever?
The purpose of the Defense Department is to deter war & ensure our nation's security. We do that by having the best damned military force on the planet. Everything else (and I quite literally mean EVERYTHING else) is a far, far distant second. I read an essay the other day in which someone was bemoaning the tidal shift in DoD thinking, saying that they no longer seemed to value female soldiers who spent their careers advocating for more and more female representation in the upper ranks. But isn't that the exact kind of tertiary 'shit' that obscures and detracts from the primary mission? We don't need gender advocates in-service; we need warriors.
Go down the list.... look at what USAID has been doing! Not at the generic, what does their Values & Mission statement say they're supposed to do...but look at what they've actually done: where the money was spent and what it was spent to 'accomplish'. 10K employees and $40B in appropriations: how has that benefitted the nation? Is there a better way to spend $40B??
Look at the DoEducation...and the poison that they have poured -- for generations -- into the ears of teachers and students alike. 4K employees with a budget of $238B....and after almost 50 years of operation what that 'investment' has produced is an Idiocracy: Johnny & Susie now can't read, can't write, can't do arithmetic, and don't know who Abraham Lincoln was, or when, or what he even did. Flush it all and start fresh.
The list is massive.
Glenn says that Trump & Co. is 'moving fast and breaking things'. But they're not -- not really. The things they're 'breaking' and attempting to toss aside have been broken for generations. The organizations and institutions that we have put in place to do X,Y&Z no longer even care about XY&Z. Their primary concern is survival & blob-like growth. As Oscar Wilde put it, "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." That's all, folks! To toss that into the waste bin is to break nothing but to free, potentially, everything.
As for the so-called incompetence of the Trump-named Cabinet Heads.... deep experience in the deep state trains those so experienced only in how to negotiate the Kafkaesque maze of the very same deep state which gave them their positions. Leadership is rarely a function of long-seniority and much more a function of vision, communication, and will. It is to their advantage that the Bondi's and Hegseth's and Bongino's and Patel's of the Trump administration have NOT been dunked in decades of bureaucratic slime; new brooms sweep clean.
How much knowledge do you have about the bureaucratic slime that you presume to exist? I'm just wondering.
As for me, I haven't seen the slime and I don't presuppose it exists. I've never had a government job, but I did do some trail work in a national forest on two occasions, where I was assisted by national forest service employees. I'm also acquainted with several Peace Corps volunteers and other people who are familiar with what USAID does. In other words, I have a little firsthand experience but not too much knowledge.
However, based on my experience as a US citizen, I can by default assume that an employee of the US government is there to serve, and that I have a right to be served. In my travels abroad, I have encountered many countries whose citizens do not share that opinion of their government, and I think their opinion is justified.
Because I am very familiar with large computer systems and the teams that maintain them, I tend to think of government organizations in the same terms. These large legacy systems require a lot of skill and care to maintain. If care is not taken, they have to rebuilt from scratch, and that is a huge (10x or 100x), expensive, time-consuming effort. And these "2nd systems" often fail to achieve their goal.
I liken the effort by Musk and his team to that of replacing the large crew of an aircraft carrier with a small team of astronauts.
A lot of what you wrote is related to gender and I assume to the "woke left". I think that concerns about these should be separated from your concerns about bureaucratic slime. In my view, the woke left is largely a generational revolution. The post-boomer generations are finally getting out from under the thumb of the boomers, making the boomers very uncomfortable.
But I pre-suppose absolutely nothing. There is no question that massive bureaucracies breed massive amounts of bureaucratic slime. They can't do otherwise. The larger the bureaucracy, the more Kafkaesque the slime. And the largest bureaucracy in the country is the one which serves the government (federal, state, local).
But honestly every bureaucracy is much the same (whether we're talking about GE, Ford, Google, P&G, you name it) : a large collection of strangely named functions filled with people who are very busy doing something that connects to something else, done by someone else, which itself connects to something else again...that, in the end, has very little to do with the primary function the Organization is designed to perform. As Sowell describes it: "You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing."
I presume you've been to the DMV? Have worked, perhaps, with the IRS...or the Social Security Administration....or Medicare/Medicaid....the Post Office....the Property Tax people....the Education Establishment.... FEMA....Homeland Security...the list is endless.
"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.[Pournelle's law of Bureaucracy]
As for Gender Politics... actually, a small portion of what I wrote is focused on Gender Politics, (which is very definitely an outgrowth of Woke), but it's been given leverage, presence, and momentum by the very bureaucracies that we're here discussing.
I liken the effort of DOGE to that of the professional Help Teams who work with hoarders.... the only real solution -- as painful as it will be -- is to go in, throw 90% of it...clean-up & start fresh. Anything else is a waste.
"Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned." Milton Friedman
I unsubscribed, but came back to see how the Presidency was being assessed. Hegseth replaced a Black 4-star general. A Black Air Force general was replaced by a white general who needs a waiver to be Chair of the Joint Chiefs. Haitians accused of eating pets and the DC plane crash blamed on DEI.
We will see if Republicans can pass a budget. Democrats should let Republicans implode. The only Blacks benefiting from Trump are a handful of Black athletes and celebrities.
I'd like to know from anyone who is a defender of Trump how exactly it makes good sense to fire hundreds of people involved with maintianing the US nuclear stock;pile on one day and then start scrambling to rehire them on the next. What about that says "good management by people who know what they are doing"?
Is it "Trump Derangment Syndrome" to think that federal employees that the Trump Adminsitration itself deems important should not be fired?
When faced with an overwhelming task... that being the streamlining of the bureaucratic behemoth which is the federal government and it's 3M employees, scattered across the world, in hundreds of organizations spending trillions of dollars....the only real approach is radical & sudden surgery.
You make quick judgements based on the data available knowing absolutely that some of those decisions will be proven to be wrong. And -- when proven wrong -- you back-up a bit, correct the mistake, and quickly move on.
Any other approach will be mired in the Incrementalist Swamp.
It's the same exact way you deal with Hoarders....or with any other major disaster. The difference being, this living/breathing disaster was created, deliberately, over generations by generally well-meaning individuals who got lost in the swamp.
As for what those particular individuals did or were responsible for doing.... do you know? does anyone know out here outside the government know? The statements issued by the Department of Energy contradict the statements issued by 3 managers at the NNSA. Who was really right? How do we know? What criteria did DOGE use when they identified those job descriptions (assuming it was DOGE that made that determination)...and what criteria was applied to say they should come back? None of us, at this point, really know.
What we do know is that the NNSA employs about 2600 federal workers and 65K contract workers and spends a budget of about $22B. Are you so convinced there's no waste? no mismanagement? no fat? no inefficiencies involved in any of the operations those 67K people are doing? no costs that can be saved out of that $22B???
I would normally agree with you, Glenn. The first few months, even years, are just as much a reflection of the previous POTUS than sitting POTUS. However, this is a guy who promised to fix inflation and such on day 1. This is a guy, when asked why Biden's job numbers were so much better than his, said "I created them all". He was handed solid economic numbers and so far has made them worse. This is a guy that contributed to the debt moreso than any POTUS in history, and now is "concerned" about it. No, he's not concerned about the debt. It's all about redistribution of wealth to his liking. I'm all for trimming waste, fraud, and abuse, but have zero confidence we'll be the benefactors.
Remember, 49% of those that voted, and 32% of eligible voters, went with Trump. They voted for a variety of reasons. The idea that "America has spoken" about any specific issue is nonsense. Criticism much quicker than normal is warranted.
"He’s got a litany of things he promised voters he would change"
Trump also disavowed association with Project2025. In fact, Trump said lots of contradictory things. Which of the litany of things that Trump said were promises and which were falsehoods? This was unknowable to most voters; so there cannot be a mandate. I can only conclude that most votes for Trump were votes for "change".
Now, as Yair Rosenberg wrote: "With every policy he implements and offhand remark he makes, Trump is falsifying the imaginary versions of himself that inspired many of his supporters."
That said, Trump won and should be given a chance, but only within lawful bounds.
By the way, the oft-repeated idea that Trump received a majority of votes is wrong: Trump received 49.8% of the popular vote. Harris 48.3% Other 1.9%. In fact, more eligible voters (36%) did not vote than voted for Trump (32%). Harris (31%), Other (1.5%)
Actually, I think it more appropriate to word it this way: "With every policy he implements and offhand remark he makes, Trump is falsifying the imaginary versions of himself that inspired many of his detractors."
I am not a detractor. I supported him for his solid support for Israel, his opposition to the viciously destructive racialized bigotry of DEI, his support for energy sanity for a change, and a thwarting of the apocalyptic climate fanaticism, his defense of free speech, his ending of lawfare (except for the Adams decision, a mistake). So far, his EOs, his choices for Energy, EPA and Interior, his choice of Stefanik for the UN, Rubio at State, etc. are all pretty much consistent with the "versions of himself" he presented during the campaign.
Trump pushed several DEI (Didn’t Earn It) white people in important positions. A Fox News weekend host replaced a Black 4-star general as the head of DOD. A White 3-star general who needs a waiver because the white guy does not meet the job qualifications replaces a fully qualified 4-star general as Chair of the Joint Chiefs. White Affirmative Action.
I thought most people voted for higher paying jobs (or at least better economic prospects for themselves), lower prices, and the overall boom time feeling (stimulus checks for example) of his first administration. The one message that he was consistent on during his campaign was that the country would thrive economically under him again if he was reelected. Biden was boring and people felt under pressure financially in a way that didn't under Trump.
During the election campaign, DJT said they were going to do audits before cutting. If they were interested in cutting waste, fraud and abuse why was their first action to fire inspector generals? Break some eggs? How about people dying from lack of food and medicine? How about mistakenly firing experts working on nuclear weapons? How about scientists working on bird flu? There are many serious issues, and to dismiss them as "breaking eggs" is irresponsible.
Ideology tends to blind people. Many people have been complaining about waste, fraud and abuse in government for decades. If they were serious about it, I would think they would have by now a detailed, specific list. But they don't, because they are not serious. They think any cut is a good cut, without considering the consequences probably because they a blinded by ideology.
And the problem is not limited to the blind cutting staff and spending. There are also concerns about legalities and international alliances. Recently discussed by Professors Francis Fukuyama and Larry Diamond of Stanford and the Hoover Institution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNlsql_N2Fg
I absolutely feel relief. The lawfare was a bridge too far. The anti-Trump effort went far, far beyond acceptable limits. The ugly underbelly of American politics that I preferred thinking did not exist.
Lawfare?!? If Kamala had organized fraudulent electors and tried to use them as a pretense to break the ECA and overturn the election you would be calling for her head. But if Trump does it then any attempt to call him to account is lawfare, eh?
An attempt to call him to account in the proper way, via impeachment, was tried. It failed, in part because of how self-defeating the Democrats were in the way they framed the impeachment charges. In any case, that's it. Long gone in the past.
There’s nothing ‘improper’ about the cases Jack Smith laid out. Throwing around the term ‘lawfare’ is just a lazy attempt to sweep these charges under the rug. Trump broke the law and should be in jail.
The world has moved on. Let's talk about the decision the Seahawks made in 2015 to pass the ball from the 1 yd. line with 26 seconds on the clock. It's equally as pertinent and much more interesting.
Lawfare is the use of legal systems and institutions to damage or delegitimize an opponent. It is every kind of wrong it's possible to be....and the interval from 2016 to today is filled to overflowing with examples of its use against Trump. Do we really need to count them all?
C'mon now.
So why do you think they didn't run Marshawn Lynch when the man was basically unstoppable that season?
lol. Cute analogy, but if you’re allowed to whine about “lawfare” from as far back as 2016 then I can complain about a miscarriage of justice that occurred 4 months ago.
But let’s talk about lawfare. I could be persuaded that the NY hush money case was lawfare. Don’t get me wrong: Trump is guilty. But that case only moved forward because Trump was the defendant. I’d prefer if the law were consistently applied, regardless of who is involved.
Let’s not pretend this is one-sided though: Trump ran on locking Hillary up. The gun charges that Hunter Biden was convicted of aren’t typically prosecuted. Kash Patel has an enemies list prepared as he takes the reins at the FBI. Trump and Elon are both constantly suing people. There’s plenty of lawfare coming from the right.
But however many frivolous lawsuits you identify, it doesn’t excuse Trump’s actions around the 2020 election. He lied about ballot fraud, ginned up his own fraudulent electors, pressured Pence to overturn the vote, and sent protesters to block the certification of the election. It’s absolutely indefensible, which is why people simply try to dismiss it by claiming “lawfare” or saying “the world has moved on”. Just pathetic attempts to avoid dealing with the facts.
From the perspective of many of us (especially, I think, those of us not living in America), the feeling is that the US under Trump is a kind of terrifying Jenga tower. I’m Australian, and every morning when I read the news it feels like another few blocks have been added overnight.
I hope you’re right Glenn about premature consternation. And I appreciate your podcast because it helps me understand how Republican voters feel and think.
If you're Australian, I think you should be paying more attention to the "Jenga Tower" of insane and mounting antisemitism in your country. From my perspective, as you put it, it looks to be a lot taller and more "terrifying" a tower than whatever it is that terrifies you about Trump.
For sure, antisemitism, growing right now in Australia and around the world, is horrifying.
But in your comment, you write that antisemitism "looks to be a lot more "terrifying" a tower than whatever it is that terrifies you about Trump". The implication here seems to be that my concerns about Trump are overblown and a bit silly. *This* is what is hard for me to understand. What could possibly be terrifying about Trump, right? I mean, just in the last three days he has stated he's above the rule of Law, that he is essentially the rule of Law, not to mention lies that the Ukraine invaded Russia, and Zelensky is a dictator with no popular support.
I guess I find it weird that pro-Trumpers seem not to even acknowledge there's at least the potential for things to get a little... dictator-y.
Whenever the gov't wants more invasive power with no checks or oversight, the advocates always roll out the "if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" BS.
Well...if they have done nothing wrong, then why are they worried about an audit?
Actually John himself says to Glenn, admits, that "I have Trump Derangement Syndrome and I shouldn't be your sparring partner in this." He continues and obscures the meaning of that declaration by then saying, "Frankly, I have a hard time feeling like my problem with the idea of this man at the helm of this country is me getting my knickers in a twist.' Saying in other words, 'I have TDS but I have a hard time accepting that TDS is the reason why I dislike Trump (and everything he does) so much.'
Of course it is a self-defeating argument
So if there is a labeling problem here, it would seem to start with John....who then oddly enough, goes on to himself label a collection of the Trump cabinet nominees as 'incompetent' -- which would seem to be, to your point, just another ad hominem attack.
Underlying the entire issue, of course: what does it take to be recognized as a so-called 'competent' Cabinet appointee? Certainly not previous experience as a Cabinet member (those people are very few and far between)... nor would we say deep experience in the bureaucratic state that the President is seeking to deeply revamp is needed because that kind of experience is exactly the kind of thing that prevents deep revamping. McNamara had a reputation (for awhile anyway) as a remarkable DoD Secretary -- serving for 8 years under 2 presidents. He had an MBA from Harvard and worked in the Office of Statistical Control for the Air Force analyzing bomber efficiency. Did that make him 'competent' to lead?
During his interview with Kennedy, McNamara told Kennedy that he didn't know anything about government, to which Kennedy replied: "We can learn our jobs together. I don't know how to be president either."
So what does that make John's accusation of incompetence? Right? Wrong? Ad Hominem? A symptom of TDS?
As you said, it adds no value or depth to the dialogue
You’re comparing Hegseth to McNamara?!? You conveniently left out the fact that McNamara was at Ford for 15 years, eventually working his way up to the role of President. He had SIGNIFICANT experience managing a large organization prior to running the DoD.
Compare that to Hegseth who… did what? Ran a small charity very poorly? Hegseth is COMICALLY unqualified for this position. Where did you hear about this McNamara/Hegseth comparison? You can’t have actually researched this and thought “yeah, this’ll prove my point”.
No, I'm not comparing Hegseth to Bobby M.... I'm simply asking what does it take to be considered a 'competent' Cabinet appointee. If McNamara 'qualifies' by being a bombing stat analyst for LeMay for 3 years during the war, I'd say Hegseth qualifies by 12 years of service, with some portion of it being actual combat experience.
As for Mac's Ford tenure as a supposed Whiz Kid at GM (anointed by Ford himself) who was the driving force behind the Ford Falcon .... are you suggesting managing the DoD is the same as nominally managing Ford for 3 months (Nov. 60 - Jan. 61)?
In fact the point is entirely moot. Bobby M. turned out to be a lousy DoD head (he'd also been offered the Treasury position, btw), responsible for much of the mess which was Vietnam.
Again, the point is ... the so-called 'competence' of Cabinet appointees is entirely subjective and entirely debatable. In the end the question is not the 'competence' indicated by a resume....but rather the performance the individual actually delivers. In that, I suspect that Hegseth's performance will be better than McNamara's. It'd be hard to be worse.
You're intentionally downplaying McNamara's experience. He had 15 years worth of management experience at Ford. Boiling this down to "nominally managing Ford for 3 months" is dishonest.
But here's the crux of the issue: If Hegseth's qualifications are the bar we set to run the DoD then you can find millions of people to fill the role. There are only a handful of people who meet the bar set by McNamara, Esper, or ANY of the past DoD heads. Hegseth is a joke.
But you seem to think that qualifications don't matter. It's impossible to discern how someone might perform ahead of time, right? This is a bit funny because I assume you're the type to scream about meritocracy whenever there's a DEI hire, but we can set merit aside if Trump wants to nominate a TV news anchor to run the DoD. 😂
McWhorter is indeed the poster child for this moral preening crowd. He is an insecure man trying to protect himself from being dirtied by association with Trump, whom his colleagues and associates abhor as a vulgar barbarian.
A fascinating question...
John characterizes the current socio-political storm in Washington as being a massive push to "get rid of all this shit & go back to what is real."
I would say that's an accurate characterization.
But why wouldn't he -- wouldn't everyone -- embrace that kind of effort wholeheartedly?
Don't we all, wouldn't any rational individual, absolutely endorse every effort to rid ourselves of 'shit' (especially deep-state, Pogo-esque swamp-like shit) in a concerted attempt to return to what is real?
So the question is not whether or not the Administration should do what John says they're doing (as in 'Get rid of all this shit and go back to what is real') -- indeed, they should. Rather the question is 'What is this 'shit' they're getting rid of...and what is the 'real' we're trying to recover.
But isn't the answer obvious???
Men can't become women; women can't become men. That is real. Would we not all wish to stop the play-pretend in which pathetic, 67 year old men who wear dresses, require us to treat them like 'the first woman to be named Assistant Secretary for Health'? Would we not categorically say children should not be allowed, enabled, or encouraged to attempt to 'transition' when we know -- in the real world -- that changing sex is an absolute impossibility and genital mutilation is forever?
The purpose of the Defense Department is to deter war & ensure our nation's security. We do that by having the best damned military force on the planet. Everything else (and I quite literally mean EVERYTHING else) is a far, far distant second. I read an essay the other day in which someone was bemoaning the tidal shift in DoD thinking, saying that they no longer seemed to value female soldiers who spent their careers advocating for more and more female representation in the upper ranks. But isn't that the exact kind of tertiary 'shit' that obscures and detracts from the primary mission? We don't need gender advocates in-service; we need warriors.
Go down the list.... look at what USAID has been doing! Not at the generic, what does their Values & Mission statement say they're supposed to do...but look at what they've actually done: where the money was spent and what it was spent to 'accomplish'. 10K employees and $40B in appropriations: how has that benefitted the nation? Is there a better way to spend $40B??
Look at the DoEducation...and the poison that they have poured -- for generations -- into the ears of teachers and students alike. 4K employees with a budget of $238B....and after almost 50 years of operation what that 'investment' has produced is an Idiocracy: Johnny & Susie now can't read, can't write, can't do arithmetic, and don't know who Abraham Lincoln was, or when, or what he even did. Flush it all and start fresh.
The list is massive.
Glenn says that Trump & Co. is 'moving fast and breaking things'. But they're not -- not really. The things they're 'breaking' and attempting to toss aside have been broken for generations. The organizations and institutions that we have put in place to do X,Y&Z no longer even care about XY&Z. Their primary concern is survival & blob-like growth. As Oscar Wilde put it, "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." That's all, folks! To toss that into the waste bin is to break nothing but to free, potentially, everything.
As for the so-called incompetence of the Trump-named Cabinet Heads.... deep experience in the deep state trains those so experienced only in how to negotiate the Kafkaesque maze of the very same deep state which gave them their positions. Leadership is rarely a function of long-seniority and much more a function of vision, communication, and will. It is to their advantage that the Bondi's and Hegseth's and Bongino's and Patel's of the Trump administration have NOT been dunked in decades of bureaucratic slime; new brooms sweep clean.
How much knowledge do you have about the bureaucratic slime that you presume to exist? I'm just wondering.
As for me, I haven't seen the slime and I don't presuppose it exists. I've never had a government job, but I did do some trail work in a national forest on two occasions, where I was assisted by national forest service employees. I'm also acquainted with several Peace Corps volunteers and other people who are familiar with what USAID does. In other words, I have a little firsthand experience but not too much knowledge.
However, based on my experience as a US citizen, I can by default assume that an employee of the US government is there to serve, and that I have a right to be served. In my travels abroad, I have encountered many countries whose citizens do not share that opinion of their government, and I think their opinion is justified.
Because I am very familiar with large computer systems and the teams that maintain them, I tend to think of government organizations in the same terms. These large legacy systems require a lot of skill and care to maintain. If care is not taken, they have to rebuilt from scratch, and that is a huge (10x or 100x), expensive, time-consuming effort. And these "2nd systems" often fail to achieve their goal.
I liken the effort by Musk and his team to that of replacing the large crew of an aircraft carrier with a small team of astronauts.
A lot of what you wrote is related to gender and I assume to the "woke left". I think that concerns about these should be separated from your concerns about bureaucratic slime. In my view, the woke left is largely a generational revolution. The post-boomer generations are finally getting out from under the thumb of the boomers, making the boomers very uncomfortable.
Good question.
But I pre-suppose absolutely nothing. There is no question that massive bureaucracies breed massive amounts of bureaucratic slime. They can't do otherwise. The larger the bureaucracy, the more Kafkaesque the slime. And the largest bureaucracy in the country is the one which serves the government (federal, state, local).
But honestly every bureaucracy is much the same (whether we're talking about GE, Ford, Google, P&G, you name it) : a large collection of strangely named functions filled with people who are very busy doing something that connects to something else, done by someone else, which itself connects to something else again...that, in the end, has very little to do with the primary function the Organization is designed to perform. As Sowell describes it: "You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing."
I presume you've been to the DMV? Have worked, perhaps, with the IRS...or the Social Security Administration....or Medicare/Medicaid....the Post Office....the Property Tax people....the Education Establishment.... FEMA....Homeland Security...the list is endless.
"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.[Pournelle's law of Bureaucracy]
As for Gender Politics... actually, a small portion of what I wrote is focused on Gender Politics, (which is very definitely an outgrowth of Woke), but it's been given leverage, presence, and momentum by the very bureaucracies that we're here discussing.
I liken the effort of DOGE to that of the professional Help Teams who work with hoarders.... the only real solution -- as painful as it will be -- is to go in, throw 90% of it...clean-up & start fresh. Anything else is a waste.
"Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned." Milton Friedman
I unsubscribed, but came back to see how the Presidency was being assessed. Hegseth replaced a Black 4-star general. A Black Air Force general was replaced by a white general who needs a waiver to be Chair of the Joint Chiefs. Haitians accused of eating pets and the DC plane crash blamed on DEI.
We will see if Republicans can pass a budget. Democrats should let Republicans implode. The only Blacks benefiting from Trump are a handful of Black athletes and celebrities.
I'd like to know from anyone who is a defender of Trump how exactly it makes good sense to fire hundreds of people involved with maintianing the US nuclear stock;pile on one day and then start scrambling to rehire them on the next. What about that says "good management by people who know what they are doing"?
Is it "Trump Derangment Syndrome" to think that federal employees that the Trump Adminsitration itself deems important should not be fired?
When faced with an overwhelming task... that being the streamlining of the bureaucratic behemoth which is the federal government and it's 3M employees, scattered across the world, in hundreds of organizations spending trillions of dollars....the only real approach is radical & sudden surgery.
You make quick judgements based on the data available knowing absolutely that some of those decisions will be proven to be wrong. And -- when proven wrong -- you back-up a bit, correct the mistake, and quickly move on.
Any other approach will be mired in the Incrementalist Swamp.
It's the same exact way you deal with Hoarders....or with any other major disaster. The difference being, this living/breathing disaster was created, deliberately, over generations by generally well-meaning individuals who got lost in the swamp.
As for what those particular individuals did or were responsible for doing.... do you know? does anyone know out here outside the government know? The statements issued by the Department of Energy contradict the statements issued by 3 managers at the NNSA. Who was really right? How do we know? What criteria did DOGE use when they identified those job descriptions (assuming it was DOGE that made that determination)...and what criteria was applied to say they should come back? None of us, at this point, really know.
What we do know is that the NNSA employs about 2600 federal workers and 65K contract workers and spends a budget of about $22B. Are you so convinced there's no waste? no mismanagement? no fat? no inefficiencies involved in any of the operations those 67K people are doing? no costs that can be saved out of that $22B???
I can''t find what John was quoting on Twitter (x). Does someone have the link for that?
https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1890831570535055759
Search for "Trump retweets Napoleon"
What he posted to X is:
"He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
I would normally agree with you, Glenn. The first few months, even years, are just as much a reflection of the previous POTUS than sitting POTUS. However, this is a guy who promised to fix inflation and such on day 1. This is a guy, when asked why Biden's job numbers were so much better than his, said "I created them all". He was handed solid economic numbers and so far has made them worse. This is a guy that contributed to the debt moreso than any POTUS in history, and now is "concerned" about it. No, he's not concerned about the debt. It's all about redistribution of wealth to his liking. I'm all for trimming waste, fraud, and abuse, but have zero confidence we'll be the benefactors.
Remember, 49% of those that voted, and 32% of eligible voters, went with Trump. They voted for a variety of reasons. The idea that "America has spoken" about any specific issue is nonsense. Criticism much quicker than normal is warranted.
"He’s got a litany of things he promised voters he would change"
Trump also disavowed association with Project2025. In fact, Trump said lots of contradictory things. Which of the litany of things that Trump said were promises and which were falsehoods? This was unknowable to most voters; so there cannot be a mandate. I can only conclude that most votes for Trump were votes for "change".
Now, as Yair Rosenberg wrote: "With every policy he implements and offhand remark he makes, Trump is falsifying the imaginary versions of himself that inspired many of his supporters."
That said, Trump won and should be given a chance, but only within lawful bounds.
By the way, the oft-repeated idea that Trump received a majority of votes is wrong: Trump received 49.8% of the popular vote. Harris 48.3% Other 1.9%. In fact, more eligible voters (36%) did not vote than voted for Trump (32%). Harris (31%), Other (1.5%)
There's neither mandate nor majority.
Actually, I think it more appropriate to word it this way: "With every policy he implements and offhand remark he makes, Trump is falsifying the imaginary versions of himself that inspired many of his detractors."
I am not a detractor. I supported him for his solid support for Israel, his opposition to the viciously destructive racialized bigotry of DEI, his support for energy sanity for a change, and a thwarting of the apocalyptic climate fanaticism, his defense of free speech, his ending of lawfare (except for the Adams decision, a mistake). So far, his EOs, his choices for Energy, EPA and Interior, his choice of Stefanik for the UN, Rubio at State, etc. are all pretty much consistent with the "versions of himself" he presented during the campaign.
Trump pushed several DEI (Didn’t Earn It) white people in important positions. A Fox News weekend host replaced a Black 4-star general as the head of DOD. A White 3-star general who needs a waiver because the white guy does not meet the job qualifications replaces a fully qualified 4-star general as Chair of the Joint Chiefs. White Affirmative Action.
'Fully Qualified'???
https://americanmind.org/salvo/president-trump-was-right-to-fire-c-q-brown/
If that's what it takes to be 'qualified', God save us.
To a Conservative any Black person with a good job is DEI
General Brown’s replacement requires a waiver because he does not qualify for the job.
Please keep going, I find Conservative responses amusing.
You display cult member behavior.
I thought most people voted for higher paying jobs (or at least better economic prospects for themselves), lower prices, and the overall boom time feeling (stimulus checks for example) of his first administration. The one message that he was consistent on during his campaign was that the country would thrive economically under him again if he was reelected. Biden was boring and people felt under pressure financially in a way that didn't under Trump.
During the election campaign, DJT said they were going to do audits before cutting. If they were interested in cutting waste, fraud and abuse why was their first action to fire inspector generals? Break some eggs? How about people dying from lack of food and medicine? How about mistakenly firing experts working on nuclear weapons? How about scientists working on bird flu? There are many serious issues, and to dismiss them as "breaking eggs" is irresponsible.
Ideology tends to blind people. Many people have been complaining about waste, fraud and abuse in government for decades. If they were serious about it, I would think they would have by now a detailed, specific list. But they don't, because they are not serious. They think any cut is a good cut, without considering the consequences probably because they a blinded by ideology.
And the problem is not limited to the blind cutting staff and spending. There are also concerns about legalities and international alliances. Recently discussed by Professors Francis Fukuyama and Larry Diamond of Stanford and the Hoover Institution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNlsql_N2Fg
This is all so utterly silly it is beyond belief. Panic? Some of us feel relief.
I absolutely feel relief. The lawfare was a bridge too far. The anti-Trump effort went far, far beyond acceptable limits. The ugly underbelly of American politics that I preferred thinking did not exist.
Lawfare?!? If Kamala had organized fraudulent electors and tried to use them as a pretense to break the ECA and overturn the election you would be calling for her head. But if Trump does it then any attempt to call him to account is lawfare, eh?
An attempt to call him to account in the proper way, via impeachment, was tried. It failed, in part because of how self-defeating the Democrats were in the way they framed the impeachment charges. In any case, that's it. Long gone in the past.
There’s nothing ‘improper’ about the cases Jack Smith laid out. Throwing around the term ‘lawfare’ is just a lazy attempt to sweep these charges under the rug. Trump broke the law and should be in jail.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda.... waste of a debate.
The world has moved on. Let's talk about the decision the Seahawks made in 2015 to pass the ball from the 1 yd. line with 26 seconds on the clock. It's equally as pertinent and much more interesting.
Lawfare is the use of legal systems and institutions to damage or delegitimize an opponent. It is every kind of wrong it's possible to be....and the interval from 2016 to today is filled to overflowing with examples of its use against Trump. Do we really need to count them all?
C'mon now.
So why do you think they didn't run Marshawn Lynch when the man was basically unstoppable that season?
lol. Cute analogy, but if you’re allowed to whine about “lawfare” from as far back as 2016 then I can complain about a miscarriage of justice that occurred 4 months ago.
But let’s talk about lawfare. I could be persuaded that the NY hush money case was lawfare. Don’t get me wrong: Trump is guilty. But that case only moved forward because Trump was the defendant. I’d prefer if the law were consistently applied, regardless of who is involved.
Let’s not pretend this is one-sided though: Trump ran on locking Hillary up. The gun charges that Hunter Biden was convicted of aren’t typically prosecuted. Kash Patel has an enemies list prepared as he takes the reins at the FBI. Trump and Elon are both constantly suing people. There’s plenty of lawfare coming from the right.
But however many frivolous lawsuits you identify, it doesn’t excuse Trump’s actions around the 2020 election. He lied about ballot fraud, ginned up his own fraudulent electors, pressured Pence to overturn the vote, and sent protesters to block the certification of the election. It’s absolutely indefensible, which is why people simply try to dismiss it by claiming “lawfare” or saying “the world has moved on”. Just pathetic attempts to avoid dealing with the facts.
Save yourself the time
lol. I replied to the wrong thread. My bad.
From the perspective of many of us (especially, I think, those of us not living in America), the feeling is that the US under Trump is a kind of terrifying Jenga tower. I’m Australian, and every morning when I read the news it feels like another few blocks have been added overnight.
I hope you’re right Glenn about premature consternation. And I appreciate your podcast because it helps me understand how Republican voters feel and think.
If you're Australian, I think you should be paying more attention to the "Jenga Tower" of insane and mounting antisemitism in your country. From my perspective, as you put it, it looks to be a lot taller and more "terrifying" a tower than whatever it is that terrifies you about Trump.
For sure, antisemitism, growing right now in Australia and around the world, is horrifying.
But in your comment, you write that antisemitism "looks to be a lot more "terrifying" a tower than whatever it is that terrifies you about Trump". The implication here seems to be that my concerns about Trump are overblown and a bit silly. *This* is what is hard for me to understand. What could possibly be terrifying about Trump, right? I mean, just in the last three days he has stated he's above the rule of Law, that he is essentially the rule of Law, not to mention lies that the Ukraine invaded Russia, and Zelensky is a dictator with no popular support.
I guess I find it weird that pro-Trumpers seem not to even acknowledge there's at least the potential for things to get a little... dictator-y.
Whenever the gov't wants more invasive power with no checks or oversight, the advocates always roll out the "if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" BS.
Well...if they have done nothing wrong, then why are they worried about an audit?
Ol' BLM Johnny has the TDS fever.
John McWhorter definitely has some TDS but he has never been a BLM supporter.
I have never used this term before but John has TDS. He could be the poster child.
What exactly is deranged about John’s opinion of Trump?
Indeed. Labelling someone as having 'TDS' is an ad hominem attack that adds no value or depth to the dialogue.
Actually John himself says to Glenn, admits, that "I have Trump Derangement Syndrome and I shouldn't be your sparring partner in this." He continues and obscures the meaning of that declaration by then saying, "Frankly, I have a hard time feeling like my problem with the idea of this man at the helm of this country is me getting my knickers in a twist.' Saying in other words, 'I have TDS but I have a hard time accepting that TDS is the reason why I dislike Trump (and everything he does) so much.'
Of course it is a self-defeating argument
So if there is a labeling problem here, it would seem to start with John....who then oddly enough, goes on to himself label a collection of the Trump cabinet nominees as 'incompetent' -- which would seem to be, to your point, just another ad hominem attack.
Underlying the entire issue, of course: what does it take to be recognized as a so-called 'competent' Cabinet appointee? Certainly not previous experience as a Cabinet member (those people are very few and far between)... nor would we say deep experience in the bureaucratic state that the President is seeking to deeply revamp is needed because that kind of experience is exactly the kind of thing that prevents deep revamping. McNamara had a reputation (for awhile anyway) as a remarkable DoD Secretary -- serving for 8 years under 2 presidents. He had an MBA from Harvard and worked in the Office of Statistical Control for the Air Force analyzing bomber efficiency. Did that make him 'competent' to lead?
During his interview with Kennedy, McNamara told Kennedy that he didn't know anything about government, to which Kennedy replied: "We can learn our jobs together. I don't know how to be president either."
So what does that make John's accusation of incompetence? Right? Wrong? Ad Hominem? A symptom of TDS?
As you said, it adds no value or depth to the dialogue
You’re comparing Hegseth to McNamara?!? You conveniently left out the fact that McNamara was at Ford for 15 years, eventually working his way up to the role of President. He had SIGNIFICANT experience managing a large organization prior to running the DoD.
Compare that to Hegseth who… did what? Ran a small charity very poorly? Hegseth is COMICALLY unqualified for this position. Where did you hear about this McNamara/Hegseth comparison? You can’t have actually researched this and thought “yeah, this’ll prove my point”.
No, I'm not comparing Hegseth to Bobby M.... I'm simply asking what does it take to be considered a 'competent' Cabinet appointee. If McNamara 'qualifies' by being a bombing stat analyst for LeMay for 3 years during the war, I'd say Hegseth qualifies by 12 years of service, with some portion of it being actual combat experience.
As for Mac's Ford tenure as a supposed Whiz Kid at GM (anointed by Ford himself) who was the driving force behind the Ford Falcon .... are you suggesting managing the DoD is the same as nominally managing Ford for 3 months (Nov. 60 - Jan. 61)?
In fact the point is entirely moot. Bobby M. turned out to be a lousy DoD head (he'd also been offered the Treasury position, btw), responsible for much of the mess which was Vietnam.
Again, the point is ... the so-called 'competence' of Cabinet appointees is entirely subjective and entirely debatable. In the end the question is not the 'competence' indicated by a resume....but rather the performance the individual actually delivers. In that, I suspect that Hegseth's performance will be better than McNamara's. It'd be hard to be worse.
You're intentionally downplaying McNamara's experience. He had 15 years worth of management experience at Ford. Boiling this down to "nominally managing Ford for 3 months" is dishonest.
But here's the crux of the issue: If Hegseth's qualifications are the bar we set to run the DoD then you can find millions of people to fill the role. There are only a handful of people who meet the bar set by McNamara, Esper, or ANY of the past DoD heads. Hegseth is a joke.
But you seem to think that qualifications don't matter. It's impossible to discern how someone might perform ahead of time, right? This is a bit funny because I assume you're the type to scream about meritocracy whenever there's a DEI hire, but we can set merit aside if Trump wants to nominate a TV news anchor to run the DoD. 😂
McWhorter is indeed the poster child for this moral preening crowd. He is an insecure man trying to protect himself from being dirtied by association with Trump, whom his colleagues and associates abhor as a vulgar barbarian.
Trump is a vulgar barbarian who places incompetent people in important positions.