MAGA update: Reward the rich, screw the rest

Diligently serving the little guy

since Jan. 21, 2025,

or maybe a lot longer than that

ProPublica reports about GOP thinking about cutting social safety net spending to pay for tax cuts for wealthy people and corporations, which are just humble people in need!: 

To Pay for Trump Tax Cuts, House GOP Floats Plan to 

Slash Benefits for the Poor and Working Class

A menu of options being circulated by congressional Republicans also includes new tax cuts for corporations and the ultrawealthy

In order to pay for the cuts, Republicans have started to eye some targets to raise money. Among them: cutting benefits for single mothers and poor people who rely on government health care.

The proposals are included in a menu of tax and spending cut options circulated this month by House Republicans. Whether or not Republicans enact any of the ideas remains to be seen. Some of the potential targets are popular tax breaks and cuts could be politically treacherous. And cutting taxes for the wealthy could risk damaging the populist image that Trump has cultivated.

For the ultrawealthy, the document floats eliminating the federal estate tax, at an estimated cost of $370 billion in revenue for the government over a decade. The tax, which charges a percentage of the value of a person’s fortune after they die, kicks in only for estates worth more than around $14 million.

Among those very few Americans who do get hit with the tax, nearly 30% of the tax is paid by the top 0.1% by income, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center think tank. (Many ultra-wealthy people already largely avoid the tax. Over the years, lawyers and accountants have devised ways to pass fortunes to heirs tax free, often by using complex trust structures, as ProPublica has previously reported.)

Another proposal aims to slash the top tax rate paid by corporations by almost a third.

In Trump’s first term, he brought the top corporate rate down from 35% to 21%, where it’s at now, taking the U.S. from a high rate compared to other OECD nations to about average. The proposed cut to 15% would make the United States’ rate among the lowest of such countries.

To pay for new tax cuts, the House Republicans’ proposal floats a series of potential overhauls of government programs. One major focus is possible cuts to Medicaid, the health care program for people with low incomes that is administered by the states. Medicaid expansion was a key tenet of the Affordable Care Act, passed under President Barack Obama. Many Republican governors initially chose not to take advantage of the new federal subsidies to expand the program. In the intervening years, several states reversed course, and the program has expanded the number of people enrolled in Medicaid by more than 20 million, as of last year.

Other proposals would eliminate tax breaks for families with children. Currently, parents can get a tax credit of up to $2,100 for child care expenses. The House Republican plan floats the elimination of that break. The cut is estimated to save $55 billion over a decade.

Another proposal in the list of options takes aim squarely at parents raising children on their own. The provision would eliminate the “head of household” filing status to collect almost $200 billion more in taxes over a decade from single parents and other adults caring for dependents on their own.

It must be so tempting for MAGA in power. There are just so many ways to transfer wealth and power from the people and the public interest to elite authoritarians. And it will all be justified by insulting lies and drivel like “tax cuts pay for themselves”, “the vast new wealth will gush down, and everyone will be prosperous and happy”, there will be an “investment boom”, and “federal debt will go down because tax revenues will skyrocket”!

Aw, that's adorable,

not deplorable!

Bits: EV update; American authoritarianism & kleptocracy updates

Torque news reports on the likely outcome of DJT's and MAGA's corrupt hostility to electric vehicles: The US’s End To EV Support Will Significantly Strengthen China’s Aggressive Moves To Dominate EV Industry And Assure Their Eventual Ownership Of The Market By The 2030s -- China’s aggressive move to EVs is increasingly moving Chinese EV makers ahead of the rest of the world particularly the US. The US is attempting to cripple this by blocking Chinese sales into the US and using Tariffs to make Chinese goods more expensive. This is likely to fail given the world’s trend to EVs and China’s economy, which rivals and may soon exceed that of the US. Part of how China got here is that the Chinese government aggressively supported their automotive market with financial help and by buying up control of critical EV materials like Rare Earth Minerals.

In recent days other sources, e.g., NPR, reported that European car makers are backing away from EVs. It really does look like China will come to grow and dominate the global EV market. What DJT is doing for his personal gain is both stupid and terribly damaging to America's long-term economy and its global standing.

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Trying to keep up with DJT's authoritarian and kleptocratic actions is like trying to drink out of a fire hose. Inconvenient fact, truth, social tolerance and the rule of law are under constant undeniable, ferocious MAGA attack on multiple fronts. 

The Democracy Docket reports: Trump’s Pick to Lead FBI Refuses to Say Who Won 2020 Election -- On Thursday, Kash Patel — DJT’s nominee to lead the FBI — sat through hours of questioning during his confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate. Throughout the hearing, Patel refused to answer, or sidestepped, a number of questions about his loyalty to Trump, how he’d run the FBI and if he’d use the agency to punish the president’s enemies, as he previously promised.

MAGA thug

That is the lying authoritarian MAGA thug that will run the FBI. The US is gonna degenerate into a corrupt police state.

DJT and most of MAGA are insanely and bitterly hostile to DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives. DJT has already ordered everyone under his control to completely obliterate all vestiges of DEI everywhere in the executive branch. The attacks are baseless and solidly grounded in lies, slanders and crackpot drivel. DJT is blaming the plane crash in Washington DC on DEI, but as usual without a sing shred of evidence to support his MAGA bigotry and racism. Truthout reports: Trump’s Comments on Crash Bring Attention to His Order Ending FAA DEI Policies -- Trump has never provided proof that a single DEI hire “failed to meet established standards,” one expert said

Despite critics who argue that DEI programs compromise standards and efficiency, evidence suggests that when implemented correctly, these initiatives enhance organizational performance without sacrificing competence or safety. That is an inconvenient truth that is being converted into a despicable, bigoted MAGA lie. The NYT reports: Trump Misleads on D.E.I. Policies in Blaming Biden for Plane Crash -- There is no evidence that diversity efforts played a role in the crash, and his statements disregarded his own administration’s hiring policies. -- Even as he acknowledged that he had no evidence, but was instead relying on “common sense,” he suggested that efforts to hire more people with disabilities and diversify the ranks of the F.A.A. were to blame for the accident late Wednesday that killed 67 people.

As we all know, MAGA hates abortion. A House Republican plans to write a national abortion ban law. It has 67 co-sponsors, all of which are House Republicans. The national ban law is H.R.722 — 119th Congress (2025-2026), entitled To implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.

To get that law passed, the Senate would have to get rid of the filibuster. So far, that hasn't happened. Could this be the issue that kills it? Time will tell. Also note that the legal basis cited for the national ban is the equal protection clause of the 14th A. Has anyone told you that DJT and MAGA are inconsistent about the equal protection clause? For issues where equal protection opposes DJT or MAGA dogma, DJT and MAGA hate or simply ignore it, e.g., gender affirming care and DEI. In other situations, like abortion, they love it. There is a pattern of DJT and MAGA selectively applying or opposing equal protection principles, because doing so aligns with their political and ideological goals.

DJT and MAGA have their own brand of wokeism. A NYT opinion by Tom Friedman comments: Trump Is Going Woke -- I understand that Donald Trump was elected to better manage our borders and curb left-wing wokeism. But have no illusions: Trump’s right-wing wokeism — impugning electric vehicles and renewable energy because they don’t conform to MAGA ideology and aren’t manly enough — is as devoid of common sense and not remotely in the national interest as any left-wing cultural wokeism. Most important: If Trump’s all-in-on-fossil-fuels, “drill, baby, drill” rallying cry — at the dawn of this era of artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, batteries and autonomous cars — really becomes our strategy, it will not make America great again. But it will definitely help make China great again. .... China is also not so silly as to treat one form of electricity generation as more conservative, liberal or Maoist than another. In the end, the outputs are all just electrons.

See, it's that darned identity politics stinking the place up again. Identity politics on the left or the right, can be viewed through the lens of "wokeism." Obviously, they are different kinds of wokeism. They manifest differently due to their different ideological underpinnings and goals. The left's version seeks to dismantle systemic inequalities through awareness and activism, falsely criticized by DJT and MAGA as radical leftism and tyrannical socialism. By contrast, the radical right's MAGA version often aims to preserve or reclaim a sense of identity against perceived threats to justify toxic beliefs like White Supremacy, bigotry and Christian theocracy. Some argue that the left's identity politics is a means to an end, aiming for universal justice, but the right's version often treats identity as the end goal, promoting particularism over universalism.

 

And DJT is gonna fix that deplorable

situation by screwing them a lot more!

Another thing that DJY and MAGA elites hate is worker protections. Project 2025 was clear that the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) had to go or at least be neutered. On the first day of a new Trump presidency, Project 2025 calls for the dismissal of Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB General Counsel, who is considered one of the most pro-worker general counsels in recent history. That would significantly neuter the direction of the NLRB's enforcement activities. But DJT has gone well beyond merely firing one NLRB lawyer. 

Reuters reports that he has completely shut down all NLRB activities: 

Trump paralyzes US labor board by firing Democratic members -- DJT fired two Democratic officials at the National Labor Relations Board, a major shakeup that will bring hundreds of cases accusing companies of unlawful labor practices to a standstill and paves the way for Republican control of the agency. Trump removed NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox and General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, both appointees of Democratic former President Joe Biden, from their posts late on Monday, according to an agency spokesman, who said no reason was given. .... The removal of Wilcox, whose term was not set to end until August 2028, is unprecedented and may violate federal labor law. Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the agency's five-member board, said in a statement that she would pursue "all legal avenues" to challenge her firing. .... The board already had two vacancies, so the removal of Wilcox leaves it without a quorum of three members to issue decisions even in routine cases. The board reviews rulings by in-house judges in cases brought by the general counsel. Until it does, those orders cannot be enforced. Hundreds of cases are pending before the board, including ones involving Amazon.com, Tesla, Walmart, Apple, and dozens against Starbucks as it faces a nationwide union campaign.

We can all clearly see where labor protections are going. The NLRB is officially dead. 

As we all know, DJT, MAGA elites, demagogues, tyrants and kleptocrats in power love to whitewash inconvenient history as much as they can get away with. They can get away with a lot. The Daily Dot writes: Trump DOJ scrubs entire Jan. 6 Capitol riot database from the web -- Trump continued his campaign to scrub government websites of content he dislikes. -- The removal of the content comes just days after President Donald Trump pardoned anyone for “offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” Under the Biden administration, the web hub for the Washington, D.C. District Attorney’s Office housed a repository of more than 1,200 Capitol breach cases, which included PDFs of the case filings for each defendant. The office also periodically released data on new arrests and case resolutions, and information about how to provide tips to the FBI. As of Tuesday afternoon, this content was removed. The URL for the case database now leads to a “Page not found” placeholder.

Sadly and frighteningly, Meta/Facebook paid DJT to settle a stunningly frivolous lawsuit that DJT filed against the company. DJT alleging the non-crime of "wrongful censorship." The NYT writes (not paywalled): Meta Agrees to Pay Trump $25 Million to Settle His Lawsuit -- President Trump had sued Meta and other tech firms in 2021, arguing that he had been wrongfully censored by them. -- Meta said on Wednesday that it had agreed to pay President Trump $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit he filed over the suspension of his Facebook and Instagram accounts after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Apparently, Meta had far more to lose by winning than a paltry $25 million payout in losing. 

Lies, crackpottery, authoritarianism &

kleptocracy comin' atcha hard and fast!

Enjoy!

The democratic governance illusion; The déjà vu illusion

 As DJT continues to quickly move the US from a democracy to some form of kleptocratic authoritarian state, some very debatable assertions are being used frequently to justify, deny, distort, self-delude and/or soften the harsh reality and cognitive dissonance of DJT's and MAGA's destructiveness to democracy and its rule of law. Those assertions refer to (i) the will of the people (posted about here yesterday), (ii) the democratic governance, and (iii) the déjà vu (been there, done that and survived) illusions. In my firm opinion, all three assertions are more false than true, and thus illusions. In my opinion, they are obviously more false than true. This post is about the democratic governance, and déjà vu illusions.

The democratic governance illusion

I strongly disagree with a common assertion that so far DJT is simply acting on his campaign promises and is doing it democratically. Jon Stewart recently made this argument in a segment that Comedy Central aired. He argued that the Founding Fathers were to blame, not DJT, because what DJT is doing is legal. 

Is the argument of democratic governance true? Not completely. So far, he keeps some promises and breaks others. He is already breaking laws, e.g., illegally firing inspectors general. He has completely abandoned his promises to make food prices go down and to immediately end the Ukraine war. Those lies were intended to deceive, which deprived deceived people of the power to decide their votes on the basis of fact and truth. That exemplifies the the will of the people illusion in action. He lied about not implementing Project 2025 and he put a key author of P2025, Russell Voight, in charge of OMB. More deception.

Poll data before the election indicated that most voters falsely believed he would govern democratically (~80%), not as an authoritarian.  Obviously opinions on this point vary widely. I see DJT's entire campaign and the entire MAGA wealth and power movement mostly as an illusion that is heavily grounded, maybe ~85%, in demagoguery, lies, slanders, partisan flawed reasoning and unwarranted, irrational emotional manipulation.  

Trump is clear about his intention to concentrate more power in the hands of the presidency, moving away from traditional Republican small-government principles. This includes using executive orders to bypass Congress. He reinstated Schedule F, allowing him to simply fire tens of thousands of federal employees. He intends to replace them with corrupt authoritarian loyalists. This is a significant threat to democratic governance, because it centralizes critical powers within the executive branch, reminiscent of tactics used by elected autocrats like Hungary's Viktor Orbán. There is nothing democratic in that. 

Trump's first term was marked by blatant violation of the constitutional Emoluments Clause. He took money from foreign governments seeking influence. His second term will be even more geared towards self-enrichment, with mechanisms like his Truth Social stock and crypto project being some of the ways to implement a kleptocracy. There is nothing democratic in that. 

So far, some of DJT's major actions in office align with historical patterns of authoritarianism and kleptocracy. Concerns about the direction of American governance under his administration are evidence-based and thus legitimate.

One can and should at politics, including the 2024 elections from a cognitive biology and social behavior point of view, i.e., a human being point of view. From that vantage point, it is pretty easy to see authoritarian and kleptocratic intent in DJT's actions so far. He is governing as a corrupt dictator much more than as a honest democrat. For most people who implicitly believe they are somehow not like other humans, or are above other humans (morally superior, God-chosen, or whatever), maybe ~90% of them will find it hard to impossible to believe this reasoning is valid. Despite skepticism, there is solid evidence that DJT is governing as an authoritarian kleptocrat more than as an honest democrat.

The déjà vu illusion

The last of the three illusions is that although the US may be going to experience some unpleasantness or hard times, we will be OK in the long run. That thinking relies on the fact that in the past, the US has experienced major threats, e.g., the US Civil War, and corrupt, authoritarian political leaders and systems, e.g., (1) authoritarianism in the Jim Crow South and DJT's first term in office, and (2) corruption scandals such as the 1872 Crédit Mobilier Scandal, Gilded Age corruption, and DJT's first term in office. 

One can argue that the US in fact did not come out OK from DJT's first term in office. Things went from bad to worse and now that he is in office a second time, things are going to get worse. Two points are important. First, one cannot ignore or downplay the authoritarian empowerment inherent in the USSC's decision in Trump v. United States in 2024. In that case, the USSC granted presidents unprecedented immunity from criminal acts, laying the foundation for American authoritarianism. Second, and almost equally important, was the 2024 decision in Snyder v. US that federal bribery law applies only to bribes paid or promised before an official act, not to "after-the-fact gratuities."

How can anyone know that this time will be just like all the other times of trouble? They can't. What is new and unique now is the breadth and depth of public acceptance of demagoguery, corruption, lying and overt authoritarian acts such as threatening the press and attacking inconvenient truths, e.g., about global warming, vaccines, and unpleasant American history (racist, bigoted, authoritarian and/or corrupt). The social infrastructure that radical right American kleptocratic authoritarianism has built over the last ~65 years includes deep, widespread public distrust of science, the federal government, the press and history, fact, truth and rationality that is inconvenient to false American kleptocratic authoritarian narratives. This is new.

Also, the déjà vu theory of we'll be OK because we always were OK before (itself a debatable belief) completely fails to account for new, powerful anti-democracy weapons that demagogues, authoritarians and kleptocrats never had access to until the last ~20 years. Those weapons include (1) the internet with toxic social media and huge, aggressive propaganda campaigns, (2) sophisticated demagoguery informed by the latest advances in cognitive biology and social behavior spread by all sources including the internet, and (3) artificial intelligence that (a) has already helped build a vast US (~$150 billion/year) and global attention industry (~$500 billion/year)(the businesses that depend on the resale of human attention) based, and (b) is now being used to build an even more powerful intention industry that aims to replace our will with the will of intruders. 

Demagogues, authoritarians and kleptocrats have full access to all of those new weapons for their use to attack truth, democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties. In my opinion, there just isn't much substance in déjà vu thinking that we'll be OK this time because we always were. This time is different. In my opinion, asserting déjà vu is more illusion than reality.

Q: Are assertions of democratic governance by DJT, and déjà vu reasoning that we will be OK, mostly false, mostly truth, or too complex and uncertain to rationally critique and make predictions from?

Americans are afraid, very afraid.

 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-are-americans-biggest-fears-in-2024-as-the-country-is-becoming-more-afraid-180985339/

Fear is playing a bigger role in American life than at any time in recent history, according to the results of a new survey from Chapman University. Americans are afraid of more things, and they’re more afraid of those things than they have been in the past, the researchers suggest.

At the top of the list of fears in 2024? Corrupt government officials, cyberterrorism and loved ones becoming seriously ill or dying. Other fears include world powers deploying nuclear weapons, terrorist attacks, biological warfare and not having enough money for the future.

(Corrupt government? EGADS, it is gonna get a hell of a lot worse in 2025 in that case)

“This year, all of our top [ten] fears were expressed by more than half of Americans, and many were high throughout the rest of the survey,” says Christopher Bader, a Chapman University sociologist who worked on the survey, in a statement. “This tells me Americans are becoming more afraid in general, about everything.”

What does Snowflake think? He is afraid that the above survey might be right on the money and that Americans might be turning into a nation of ............Snowflakes!