Sasha Abramsky: The Moral Hollowing-Out of the United States

Kind of a chaotic mix of reasonable concerns and bad arguments, it seems to me.

I tend to share Abramsky's concerns about e.g. the firing of federal workers and the big meeting of military brass and the rants by Hegseth and Trump--even if I'm somewhat inclined to agree about e.g. the anti-woke initiative.

   The subroutine about the USA somehow lacking moral authority to speak on nuclear weapons because we dropped the bombs on Japan is just dumb. That argument shows up on the left quite a bit.

   Obviously I am concerned about violations of Posse Comitatus.

   I don't understand the rationale for firing federal workers sent home during the shutdown. Abramsky does seem to be right that they seem to be treated as hostages.

   OTOH, Democrats seem--at least sometimes--to think that one reason not to shrink the government is that it will put these federal workers out of a job. That seems like a pretty bad argument: if the government is employing unnecessary workers, it should let them go--even if that is bad for those workers. Though this can be done in more humane ways, and ought to be.

   Honestly, I sort of just don't understand what's going on anymore.

   Often it just seems that we're stuck between a Democratic party that has just gone off the rails, and a President who is generally right to oppose that party...but who just can't seem to do it in a calm and reasonable way.

   And, of course: just can't keep his big, incoherent mouth shut.

   Things would be significantly better without the running Trumpian commentary. His words are often worse than his actions.

   Like a majority of voters, I judged that Trumpian chaos was worth it in order to undo some of the damage recently done by the woke Dems--and, of course, to block them from doing more of it in a Harris/Walz administration. But I also knew that Trump would do his own kind of damage. I also thought that the Trumpian chaos would likely put the Dems in a position to win in '28...if they moved back sufficiently far toward the center. But it seemed to me that it was worth it for four years of undoing Democrat damage.

   One bright spot in all this: Trump can't serve another term.

   Though, of course, he'll make like he's going to try, just to troll the blue team.

   And that will cause more chaos.

   

   Bleh, I hate everything.