Like they didn't have enough ways to hurt you
Announcement that Homeland Security is spending $20 million
on electrified gloves – cleverly called G.L.O.V.E. – for border agents
essentially to send electrified pain on demand to any recalcitrant migrant or
loud-mouthed protester they encounter can only emerge from an authoritarian’s fertile imagination.
What exactly is the problem that requires taser-like gloves
for masked agents running around in camouflage? Does the government truly
believe that instant electric shock on citizens upset that the mass deportation
program is out of control is a useful response? How about training or some
restraint on ICE agent encounters with protestors altogether?
Somehow, the White House offers a constant rollout of
program changes to ballyhoo its agenda, but in practical sense do something
other than the announced purpose.
Donald Trump, who knows nothing about science and medicine,
announced a change of childhood vaccine schedule recommendations, insisting
that breaking up shots for measles, mumps and rubella will result in health
benefits – at the very time when his administration’s vaccine hesitancy is
helping to spreading measles thought eliminated decades ago. To make matters
worse, he adds in misinformation about the volumes of liquid contained in
vaccines and suggests that dropping recommendations over which he has no control
will lessen autism, an unproved scientific link.
There are similar issues with announcements about war and
peace (“The Strait is fully open,” says Trump), about inflation, immigration
and election security. Ordering the Postal Service not to deliver mail ballot
applications or the ballots themselves in states not submitting their voter
lists – now blocked by courts – will simply limit voting in a partisan manner
rather than enhance election security. On the same day that War/Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth says there is no food and morale problem on the aircraft
carrier Abraham Lincoln, suddenly there’s a replacement on its way from the
Pacific.
As recent primary election turnout shows, the announcements
are many, but seemingly unpersuasive to a growing crowd of anti-Trump voters
concerned only about who can be the most forceful voices in opposition. Trump
is answering questions no one but him is asking.
The Vanity Projects
We long had felt benumbed by images of knocking down the
White House’s East Wing to make way for Trump’s self-glorifying and gilded
ballroom – to be built with private funds and “not a dime” of taxpayer money.
But now here are the bills for an “emergency” ballroom, some kind of
presidential bunker, a concrete helipad (now being re-laid because the work was
rushed) and a refurbished visitor center coming in at $900 million and oodles
of public tax money stolen from other government processes with no
congressional authority in sight.
Meanwhile, the whole project is in court.
That total doesn’t include the zillions going into regilding
statues around Washington or a gargantuan arch monument to outdo Paris’ Arc de
Triomphe. It doesn’t include the price or legal entanglements of repainting the
Lincoln Center Memorial Pool or the overpriced renovations at the Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts.
Ordering new misdemeanor charges over “vandalism” of the
Reflecting Pools won’t create new evidence for a crime that even the U.S.
Attorney Jeanine Pirro says didn’t happen, and the revisit to slapping Trump’s
name on the Kennedy Center simply draws laughs.
The total certainly doesn’t cover the $1.7 billion estimate
for extending the deployment of National Guard units from 23 states through the
remainder of the Trump term. What is so galling is the finding this week that
while the presence of Guardsmen may be keeping lesser street crime down, there
has been virtually
no impact on violent crimes.
The idea to sell early access to “market-moving” Trump
Social posts before the rest of the world, seemingly institutionalizing insider
trading for Wall Streeters willing to pay $100,000 a month, is not only nutty
but likely illegal. The inventiveness, however, deserves a gold star along with
insisting that a Trump-owned social media outlet is the recognized source for
government news even as Trump wants to insist that the posts need not be seen
as presidential records required to be logged.
Only congressional Republicans fail to see that making these
vanity projects the primary drive for this White House is missing the point of
why we have government at all.
Always, The Spin
Steven Miller, Trump’s go-to guy on immigration and domestic
issues, has said repeatedly that he and colleagues arrived for Trump 2.0 with
bushels of plans and rollbacks already in hand and that the strategy is to
continue to roll them out speedily and with fanfare.
The Heritage Foundation’ Project 2025 has been a blueprint
for reordering government, Elon Musk’s DOGE effort, while seemingly a failure
on its own terms, bulldozed destructive efforts still underway, and JD Vance’s
anti-fraud efforts are a mask for partisan punishment of blue states.
The White House continues to roll out its aims, shading the
practical impact along the way as to mask concerns about ideology or simple
acquisition of power along the way.
Increasingly, however, the announcements are being met with
near-instant legal challenges, all of which start what feel like endless
hearings, trials and appeals. Even when some issues to the Supreme Court, as
with both tariffs and birthright citizenship policies, Trump does not stop
re-inventing the same policies under new legal justification and demanding a
re-hearing before the court for whom he has appointed three justices.
In most cases, Trump could get what he wants done in a more
legally reliable way by going through Congress. But the desire for an
all-powerful presidency won’t allow doing so. The simple reason he declares
everything an “emergency” is so he can bypass rules meant for others.
Trump may have lost 20 consecutive trials about demanding
adherence of voting rules he wants to mandate for state-run elections, but it
does not keep him from issuing yet more, restarting that court cycle.
Of course, we expect that Trump, as all presidents, will try
to spin events and developments to highlight his agenda. We just need to
approach it all with more skepticism.
The issue with whisking Trump from his grifted Air Force One
jet to the original only to wheel him off in a catering truck was not
presidential safety. We can even give Trump and the Secret Service credit for
doing so – though it turns out the CIA had “low confidence” in the reported
threats. But playacting and lying after the fact just suggests that he knew he
was pulling a fast one on Americans, including those left at risk on a decoy
plane.
Trump sees himself as a “president of consequence.” He ought
to act that way.
Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times, Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times and leadership jobs at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team part of several Pulitzers in New York. As an editor, Terry created new approaches in newsrooms, built technological tools and digital media. He pursued efforts to recruit and train minority journalists and in scholarship programs. A resident of Harlem, he volunteers in community storytelling, arts in education programs, tutoring and is an active freelance trombone player.
