Do Not Weep for Me

President-Elect Donald Trump’s announcements this week of appointments for his Administration have demonstrated a previously evident but now openly flagrant contempt for – and possibly hatred of – the principles America has stood by and for over the last two hundred-plus years.  We will reap the whirlwind.  Even Mr. Trump’s most reasonable selection, U.S. FL Sen. Marco Rubio, who is qualified to be U.S. Secretary of State, has made it clear by his nauseating bootlicking to Mr. Trump that he will be no more than a lapdog for the incoming President’s whims.  Stephen Miller, named Deputy White House Chief of Staff, declared at the New York City Trump Rally in the last days of the campaign that “America is for America and Americans only.”  (I’ll leave it to you to characterize that one; I will note that it has been suggested in the Jewish publication, Forward, that Mr. Miller’s declaration was an echo of the “Germans for Germans only” slogan “which the Nazis used to separate out (and slaughter) Poles, Jews and other undesirables.”  Tom Horman, whom Mr. Trump has named as “Border Czar,” will soon be caging migrants.  I think one can be confident that while SD Gov. Kristi Noem is head of Homeland Security, any dog seeking to enter the country illegally will be shot.  Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been named co-heads of a new “Department of Government Efficiency” – transparently an organizational device that will be used to rid the federal bureaucracy of all of those not perceived as abjectly loyal to Mr. Trump and the MAGA movement.  (This is a Trump proposal that does surprise me a bit in one respect.  It’s not that Mr. Musk is getting a prominent role in the upcoming Administration – since he’s collected a car, a spaceship, and a social media site, he certainly has room in his garage for a President — but if this new Department’s “Efficiency” initiatives result in delay of Social Security checks to Trump voters, they will notice, no matter how much propaganda the alt-right media feeds them.) 

Even then, the President-Elect was just getting warmed up.  I admit that I found it so absurd that I actually laughed when I heard that Mr. Trump had named Pete Hegseth, a Fox News Host, as his choice to be Secretary of Defense.  I’m no longer laughing; I wasn’t then aware of numerous reports I’ve since seen that he has called liberals, “domestic enemies.”  The pick that has generally created the most shock is Mr. Trump’s choice of U.S. FL Rep. Matt Gaetz – he who has been investigated for sex trafficking and was as of the time his nomination was announced the subject of a U.S. House of Representatives Ethics inquiry – to become the next Attorney General, a post from which one might reasonably assume he will pursue former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, U.S. CA Sen-Elect Adam Schiff, and others Mr. Trump has called “enemies within” America.  But … we’re still not done.  Mr. Trump has named former U.S. HI Rep. Tulsi Gabbard — who has been referred to by a Russian commentator on Russian state television as “our girlfriend”— to become Director of National Intelligence.  Russian President Vladimir Putin arguably literally couldn’t have selected any American as Intelligence head better suited to his purposes. 

With every succeeding pick, Mr. Trump has ever more arrogantly demonstrated his intent to institute an autocratic regime aligned with other autocratic regimes (at least, Caucasian autocratic regimes).  Not even I – and no one who reads these notes would call me, “Mr. Sunny” — thought he would move this dramatically, at least this early.

Ominously but predictably, I have seen reports that representatives of the upcoming Administration are making arrangements for erection of huge tent encampments outside our major cities, purportedly intended for the housing illegal immigrants prior to their deportation.  I expect that this will be the only way in which these encampments are employed … for a while.

The majority of voting Americans are going to get what they voted for, although a significant segment of them might well soon decide that it wasn’t really what they wanted.  As I said in a note posted here about a month ago:  “[If Mr. Trump wins the election], [a]t some point [thereafter], some of the citizens who vote for Mr. Trump this November will say, ‘This is wrong.  This is too much.  I never intended this.’  By that time, it will be too late.  In this context, the shame will be on them, not on him; he has made his designs perfectly plain [Emphasis in Original].”  Now – although Mr. Trump hasn’t even yet assumed the presidency, and whether or not such segment realizes it yet – it is indeed too late.

One of the most arresting images I have seen since Mr. Trump was declared the victor in last week’s election is a sketch of Lady Liberty, seated, bent over, her face in her hands.  Because I am now well into my Medicare-eligible years, these days I frequently find myself considering events not from the perspective of how they will affect TLOML’s and my generation, but how they will affect our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren (assuming that we ultimately have some 😉 ) and their generations.  As I looked at that sketch of Lady Liberty, these words came to mind – perhaps blasphemous, but reflective of my sentiment:

“But Jesus turning to them said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; but weep for yourselves and for your children.’”

• Luke 23:28