· 7 min read
The tectonic truth is that Donald Trump and Elon Musk could stop their chainsaw rampage through the federal government, foreign alliances, and the US Constitution immediately, and it would take years to undo the cumulative damage they’ve already wrought to democracy, the federal government, and the reputation of the US as a reliable ally.
Then, there is the human cost. Lives are being cut short and made infinitely worse by the precipitous actions of the presidential duo and its administrative and congressional enablers.
With no warning, overseas aid recipients have been suddenly and cruelly denied food and medicines critical to even the meanest existence. With little or no warning, hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being let go and kicked on their way out the door – in the ovewhelming majority of cases, for having done what was asked of them.
Promises made, promises kept – Messrs. President?
With no warning, billions of dollars of “shovel-ready” Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) investments and infrastructure projects under the IIJA (Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act) have been stopped dead in their tracks. They are now mired in the uncertainties of today’s culture wars – risking the hundreds of billions of public and private investments already committed to new power and manufacturing projects, bridges, highways, other parts of the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, and the tens of thousands of new jobs that would be added to the economy by their completion.
Promises made, promises kept – Messrs. President?
Judging from Trump and company’s actions, it’s clear that for (presumably) thoughtful people, Trump's anguine advisors and Elon’s young Muskovites have remarkably little understanding of the interconnectedness of the world around them.
Consider artist Georges Seurat’s painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The method of painting employed by the artist is called pointillism. As the name suggests, it involves a series of dots – jots of paint like the tiles of Byzantium that the mind’s eye blends into a coherent mosaic-like picture.
Hardly random, each dot of color is deliberately chosen and placed to the maximum effect – to shine light and cast shade. And, when the artist is done, each jot has joined another to create a painting of much greater import and stature.
Where the artist sees a picture, Trump and the Muskovites just see a dot – each possibly valuable in itself but much less valuable than if it were strategically placed as part of a greater whole.
Because of their haste and missed understanding, the Muskovites and Trumpsters are making mistakes. They are the kind of mistakes that kill people and threaten the security of the nation and the sustainability of the environment. The tag team of Don and Elon fired nuclear safety engineers and have canceled the lease on the only group monitoring and responding to leaks or other issues at the nation’s lone deep nuclear waste site in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Promises made, promises kept – Messrs. President?
By algorithm, FAA personnel, who are or support air traffic controllers, have been fired. When there are daily reports of increasing plane crashes – including one on the White House’s doorstep – reductions in force seem ill-advised. They undermine the safety and welfare of the nation.
Muskovites and Trumpsters speak of truth, free speech, and their God-given and constitutional right not to wear a mask to limit the spread of contagion while banning books about a freckled little girl who doesn’t like being teased by classmates and limiting – in some cases criminalizing – a woman’s own healthcare decisions.
With all the chest beating of white supremacists, Christian nationals, and other MAGA-minded Trumpsters about the system being weaponized against them, you’d think they’d recognize it in themselves as they do unto others.
Trump has turned words like decency, equality, and integrity into accusations and grounds for dismissal from government positions – no matter how vital or well performed. He’s fired all the inspector generals at the agency and says his administration is the most transparent EVER!
Even if their actions aren’t transparent, their motives are and they do the nation a great injustice.
Trump is crucifying America on an altar of lies, revenge, and the good opinion he has of himself and his buddy Elon – while the Trump-fearing members of a Republican Congress toady to him for fear of being primaried in their next election. Only one Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski (AK), has had the backbone and integrity to call Trump’s and Vance’s attack on Ukrainian President Zelensky what it was – sickening.
Trump’s deliberate disregard or intellectual incapacity to see the relationships among and between things guarantees systemic inefficiency, robbing the nation of the greater potential wealth possible when pieces work together as part of an integrated design.
Promises made, promises kept – Messrs. President?
Trump’s incessant talk about rare earth minerals and their value shows little understanding of their worth as part of 21st-century energy technology. Unless the lump of lithium in your hand is put to some purpose, it’s just a rock.
How can Trump and his advisors fail to understand the value of lithium as a part of electric vehicles and large battery banks for standby electricity generated from solar and wind? Technologies, the commercial value of which he’s willing to cede to China and India.
Trump wants to sell the rare earth minerals but fails to grasp how and where they are used. More EVs, more batteries – what’s so hard to understand? But you have to be willing to look. Whatever else Musk is doing, it’s not increasing government efficiency or the value of the nation’s natural resources.
Promises made, promises kept, Messrs. President?
I would hardly call it good populist governance to fire nearly all of the staff of the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation responsible for administering more than $8 billion in programming to help people lower their energy bills – especially since Trump’s trade actions are likely to lead to higher energy costs for the average American.
What of the Muskovites slashing USAID food assistance programs that fed millions abroad and the products of American farmers those aid dollars bought?
Acting first and saying “oops” later is becoming a habit of the DOGE. According to Politico, “USAID has reinstated contracts for a Georgia company that makes peanut butter paste to keep malnourished children alive.” The CEO of the company that manufactures the product said he was “’thrilled’ to restart sending hundreds of thousands of boxes of the food aid that would have otherwise gone to waste.” Why not think more strategically in the first place?
And what of other programs – the type that bring money into the treasury, despite Trump believing that solar, wind and other clean energy alternatives are as feckless as many of his cabinet secretaries? The right’s culture warriors are fond of pointing to the failed company Solyndra as a poster child of the woke.
Promises made, promises kept, Messrs. President?
Indeed, the Solyndra deal didn't work out. However, the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office (LPO) has an enviable overall record when it comes to its support for clean energy projects. According to Representative Sean Casten (D-IL), the LPO has, to date, “made $34 billion of investments and collected nearly $5 billion in interest income ... the LPO has realized just 3% in losses but earned back five times that number just on the interest income from the remainder of the portfolio.” (Emphasis added)
No “greater good” can come out of the way Trump has allowed Musk and the DOGE pack to “reform” the federal government in hopes of improving its efficiency and effectiveness. As Dan Farber at Berkeley’s Legal Planet has written:
"Trump has marginalized economic analysis and wants to bulldoze environmental science. Thus, we are likely to get policies that are bad for the environment without being cost-justified while ignoring policies whose environmental benefits outweigh economic costs.”
In Trump 1.0, someone always seemed to be around to temper Trump’s extreme desires. Someone able to get him to step back and see beyond his own point to the bigger picture. This time around, the cabinet is bare of possibilities.
The Muskovites are indeed at the gates, can the republic survive? In the end, it will take more than hope and Trump’s promises.
This article is also available on Civil Notion. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.
