It’s both sad and infuriating that such a large segment of our population is just fine with the way the current administration is administrating. Is this approval the result of so badly wanting something to be done about perceived over-government that the illegal, inhumane and ignorant means of changing it, so clearly out of bounds, are just fine?
That segment of the population put a person in charge who is a frank extortionist, a person who is devoid of empathy, a grifter of the first water, and an hourly liar. When he’s not utterly violating law, he is sidestepping it with the vast help of willing enablers whose own scruples long ago ceased existence, if ever they had them.
The patent attitude of just not caring about what the law prescribes has permeated the Supreme Court, especially among the sycophants the current occupant appointed to the court in his first “administration.” How that attitude completely clouds the legislative branch is even more shocking. Never has Congress been so in thrall to the executive branch. Past Congresses, even those of a president’s own party, have operated without fear or trembling and have stood their ground as co-equal branches of the federal government. This Congress hasn’t had the energy even to roll over and play dead; it’s come into power specifically to be inert.
The result is a surrendering of power to an individual of unparalleled public venality, one who has taken full personal advantage of his position to obscenely and illegally enrich himself and his family without fear of punishment. He uses the machinery of the government and of the military to exact revenge on his enemies. He openly extorts our universities using a bald-faced pretext ginned up by his Congressional lackeys. He forgives the criminals who, based on very strong evidence, were readily convicted by juries of their peers for participating in an attack on our democracy in his name and at his behest. He encourages and approves of the destruction of our public health system by a certifiable anti-scientific nut case. He allows a South African delinquent to decimate our government and the services it provides without reference to the requirements of the law. He doesn’t merely test boundaries. He ignores them.
Our hope at the moment is the lower courts, which are, in most instances, staring the current occupant and his minions down, issuing important injunctions and rulings against the current occupant’s outrages. There is that.
But let’s get back to the people who approve of what’s happening. Are they brothers and sisters of the rural farmers I’ve known who instinctively hate all government? Are they the descendants of those who so willingly approved of the contempt for government of such figures as Will Rogers and H.L. Mencken? Did they fail their high school Civics classes, or avoid such classes and any other attempt at civic education?
We’re told by our editorialists and experts that the disaffected voters who put the bloated beast in office felt “unheard,” felt “left out,” felt “left behind.” And we’re told that the Democrats failed even to ask them about those problems, or to recognize them.
But, you see, the Democrats did ask the right questions. They did listen. They did empathize. What they did not do was to crassly take advantage of the unease and dismay and cynically parrot back to the disaffected what they were saying. What they did not do is to promise to right all the wrongs, even ones that didn’t actually exist. The Democrats did not use that supposed pervasive dismay as a launching pad for a personal revenge agenda.
The Democrats are faulted for making things more complicated than they are; for seeing the problems they heard about as complex, requiring sophisticated and difficult to enact remedies. Supposedly, things needed simple answers.
Articulation of real programs is important. Explanation of the problems those programs would address is a necessity. None of that is easily reduced to pat formulas – unless a candidate is so amoral that he’d recite a series of reductionist formulas to win election, having no intention of following through on the solutions, never mind of addressing them at all.
Did those voters get conned? Are they happy that they’ve been had? Are they perfectly fine with the idea that the ends, no matter what they are, justify the means, no matter how wrong they are? Or are they not paying attention to what they wrought? Did they merely react reflexively and vote for a venal, amoral felon who cares not a whit about them?
It’s a mystery. That so many people could be so unaware of possible consequences, so willing to spawn major uncaring behavior so far outside the law, is mind-numbing. Personally? I have no patience for and am not willing to forgive such arrant stupidity. What we have here is unparalleled voter misfeasance. It’s time we stopped making excuses for their misbegotten choice. It’s not on us for “not listening” or for any such error. It’s on them for failing in their responsibilities. The “price of eggs” was no excuse, as subsequent months have proven. Just wait for the price of everything to skyrocket. Tariffs? You asked for them. That’s on you too.
Edmund J. McDevitt
©September 2025