Congressional Republicans are more to blame than Donald Trump in dismantling our government and denying the benefits of nearly all Americans. Trump is emotionally dysfunctional. He is one of the 2% of American adults that are sociopaths, and Trump checks all the boxes that mental health professionals’ use to diagnose the condition. He’s incapable of experiencing guilt, shame, remorse, or empathy. He exhibits aggressive behavior and verbally attacks his critics and won’t admit mistakes. He intimidates and threatens to maintain control, disregards rules and laws, has difficulty controlling impulses, acts without considering the consequences and his dreams become his realities and nightmares for others.
Congressional Republicans are rational and know better, but they’ve checked their spines at the door to avoid Trump’s endorsement of a primary challenger financed by Elon Musk, knowingly confirmed the most unqualified and dangerous cabinet nominees in our history, and handed Trump enablers who will condone any decision no matter how pernicious, dangerous and harmful to Americans.
Start with Trump’s tariffs. They risk a recession that Trump could easily mismanage into a depression. We came close during the Great Recession of 2008, but Presidents Bush, Obama and their cabinets of qualified and experienced advisers prevented it from plummeting it into a depression .
Bush and Obama called on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (previously Goldman Sach CEO), Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and NY Fed President Tim Geithner to save us with a bank bailout and an economic stimulus package. They all had experience in US and international monetary policy and were deliberative and capable of dealing with financial reversals.
Trump and his cabinet couldn’t even come close. Trump’s anything but deliberative or experienced about economic or monetary policy. He pardoned the January 6 rioters out of frustration from not being able to developing a consensus on a plan and finally said “F -k it: Release ’em all.”
To get a sense of the challenge Trump would face, look at how the Bush and Obama cabinets saved us. They coordinated the major central banks to announce, then lower, interest rates at the same time. Even China was persuaded to join in.
What would Trump do? First, he’d assure us that the crisis “will disappear like a miracle,” just as he promised during the Covid pandemic. Then he’d blame it on Biden’s DEI policies. Then on other countries that won’t cooperate with him, maybe because they’ve lost all trust and confidence in him. The only capable adviser that’s nearby is Fed Chairman Powell. Quite predictably, after Powell announced the Fed would pause interest rate cuts, in a display of either ignorance and mendacity, Trump defaulted to blaming DEI, posting, “If the Fed had spent less time on DEI, gender ideology, “green” energy, and fake climate change, inflation would never have been a problem.” Congressional Republicans know better, yet they gave him a bunch of sycophants for a cabinet who are fearful of pushing back and incapable of giving effective advice.
Republicans also remember that General Mark Milley, Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had to prevent Trump from misusing the country’s nuclear arsenal during the last month of his first presidency, and had to call the head of China’s military to prevent a crises. There will be no Milley there to stop Trump next time, only Pete Hegseth, the sex-offending, alcoholic, pathetically unqualified Fox News co-host confirmed as Secretary of Defense by Republican Senators. The nuclear risk presented by Trump is real and Republicans know it. They know that Trump is impulsive and makes decisions out of anger at circumstances unrelated to the issue at hand. Yet they confirmed Hegseth who they know will cheer Trump on.
Trump urged House Republicans to pass his “big, beautiful” budget which would cut Medicaid by $880 billion. House Republicans accommodated him by authorizing $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and asking committees to offset the cost with $2 trillion in cuts, which will inevitably hit Medicaid and SNAP, which provides food to low-income families.
The House budget cuts to Medicaid mean that nearly 80 million Americans, including millions of children, would be thrown off their health insurance and nursing homes would have to shut down or lay off workers. Moreover, the tax cuts will increase taxes on the bottom 95% of households while the richest 5% will see their taxes go way down. And don’t be surprised if Trump and Republicans hit Medicare and Social Security, where Trump plans to cut 7,000 jobs.
To cover the lost revenues Trump is cutting financial assistance for farmers, education, health care, anti-poverty programs, housing assistance, disaster relief, medical research, environmental organizations, animal cruelty prevention and more. It’s the same as wiring money from working Americans’ bank accounts to his bank account and the bank accounts of his oligarchs.
In addition to the cuts, Trump and the House Republicans are pushing for a $4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling so Trump can borrow more to cover lost revenues, which will drive our debt to a record $40.2 trillion.
Trump, with the help of his Republican-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is degrading America’s status as a superpower and joining Putin and China’s leader Xi Jinping in supplanting the US-dominated world order with one that gives the three of them the power and leverage to write the rules and bully other countries, including the United States. Don’t default to an oh-that-will-never-happen denial. It’s happening now!
The Sir Thomas More, Arch Bishop of Canterbury, would have two pieces of advice for Republicans: “When a man takes an oath, he’s holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again,” and “it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for your seat in Congress?” It’s not too late for Republicans to find themselves again and recapture their souls by joining Democrats in impeaching Donald Trump.
