Political analysts’ heads are spinning as they report on one budget cut, then another, then another and another in a seemingly unending stream that’s the verbal equivalent of a blur.
They speculate as to what could possibly be behind what the administration is doing; there seems to be no rhyme nor reason. Why on earth would they cut funds for tracking infectious diseases, providing mental health services, administering vaccinations, or even just generating accurate weather reports?
Or why would Trump want to eliminate entire departments that provide essential services to millions?
It seems to make no sense. No sense at all. Journalists are getting whiplash just trying to keep up, not to mention attempting to explain it.
Look, it’s really simple. The thought process is merely this:
Can we make a profit from it? If so, let’s take it over and squeeze it dry.
No profit to be had? Then kill it.
That’s it. It’s no more complicated than that.
It makes perfect sense – as long as you have no sense of conscience, integrity or humanity. That’s Trump to a tee. If the term “hostile takeover” means anything to you, you should be on familiar ground.
Imagine a patient on the operating table. Or, better yet, a dying man in the desert being picked apart by vultures.
(Actually, to compare Musk and Trump to vultures is unfair… to vultures. Unless they’re very hungry and haven’t eaten in a while, vultures will normally wait until their prey is dead, or very close to it.)
Trump and Musk are tearing the body (your government) apart while the patient is very much alive – keeping what they want for themselves and their pals, and tossing away everything else.
USAA, NOAA, The CDC, The IRS, the Education Department – all these and many, many more exist to serve you, the general populace. And all are funded by your tax dollars – not directly, but indirectly through budgets passed by Congress.
That how government works. But in the eyes of Trump and his corporate raider pals who are now running the show, organizations like these just represent your money going to somebody other than them. None of these government departments have any money-making potential – as profit centers, they’re useless.
So kill them.
On the other hand, Social Security, Medicare and the Post Office are all funded by what Americans pay into them – directly. So there’s real money to be made. Hence the strategy is to damage them so they can be privatized at bargain-basement prices, and then the corporate raiders can step in, take them over and make a killing.
Also keep in mind that with the “regulatory state” a thing of the past – meaning there’s no longer any government to tell them what they can or can’t do – the sky’s the limit when it comes to soaking the American people for all they’re worth.
At the same time, Trump is also “proving” to America that government doesn’t work by appointing the most incompetent, corrupt, malicious people he can think of. What better proof can you have that you can’t trust the government than a Secretary of Health and Human Services who’s a vaccine denier and whose recommendation to use Vitamin A against measles isn’t preventing measles at all, but is instead causing liver damage to kids?
That’s just one of many, many examples. What day is it today?
I mean, it couldn’t be simpler. So why isn’t the media contextualizing all this so that Americans can see the big picture? Beats me. Yes, it’s always fraught to speculate on what might be going on in the minds of others, but in this case, you’d have to be a freakin’ idiot not to understand what’s going on… and why.
So instead of the knee-jerk, “both sides-ism,” hand-wringing, sports-style reporting from the media, how about some straight talk about how America is being disemboweled and its carcass being picked clean right before our very eyes? How about explaining not just the “what,” but the “whos” and the “whys” – information that might help people to understand what’s really going on?
Wake up, America. And media: get your shit together, stop reporting on trivial bullshit and do your damn job.
If it’s not already too late.
