Blame for the shutdown: Where responsibility really lies

MAGA lies and the Hatch Act 

MAGA demagoguery is in full-blown liar and slander mode about who is responsible for the government shutdown. As expected, MAGA demagoguery tells us it is 100% the Democrats fault. From what I can tell, the MAGA demagogues ' accusations and slanders are being done illegally. It looks to me like Trump's and MAGA's messaging clearly violates the Hatch Act. 

The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity while on duty, in federal facilities, or using government resources. The law defines "political activity" as any activity directed toward the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group. The Act's purposes are to ensure federal programs are administered nonpartisanly, protect employees from political coercion, and ensure merit-based advancement. Given that it is inconvenient, Trump has recently moved to gut enforcement of the law.

Meh, what difference does it make that Trump and MAGA elites break laws any more? For them and their supporters, the rule of law is crap now. A MAGA USSC protects them. Especially for Trump it's all OK because the unitary executive (dictator) did it and because the USSC made him immune from criminal prosecution for his crimes.

The blame game:  The rule of law aside, the NYT reports (not paywalled) that some federal agencies are using their official websites and social media for political attacks after the government shutdown. That's the Hatch Act violation. MAGA federal agencies officially lie when say that Democrats were to blame for the shutdown. That puts legal nonpartisan government bureaucracy into an illegal fight.

Staying disciplined with MAGA talking points as MAGA elites usually do, major federal agencies, including Treasury, Health, State and Agriculture, placed illegal banner messages on their websites and on social media accounts claiming the shutdown was caused by Democrats or the “radical left”. Trump thugs ordered employees at the Labor Department to include a MAGA message in their out-of-office email replies that blames Democratic senators for the shutdown. 

Most employees at the Small Business Administration were working during the shutdown, but some of the ~25% who were furloughed had this out-of-office email response: “I am out of office for the foreseeable future because Senate Democrats voted to block a clean federal funding bill (H.R. 5371), leading to a government shutdown that is preventing the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from serving America’s 36 million small businesses”.

MAGA's partisan lies are aggressive and intrusive. They extend to internal communications. For example, the Department of Education automatically often changed employees' out-of-office email messages to blame "Democrat Senators" for blocking funding legislation. Employees were often unaware of the change. Some employees who changed the lie back to nonpartisan language found them changed back. That is aggressive authoritarian MAGA demagoguery.

We can expect that there will be no significant repercussions for any of the people involved this illegal, misanthropic MAGA sleaze & slander operation.

Analyzing who is mostly responsible for this shutdown

From an evidence, reason and morality point of view, there are multiple reasons to argue and rationally believe that Trump and MAGA elites are at least ~90% responsible for the shutdown.

1. First, MAGA controls congress, the White House and the USSC. That means the GOP has primary responsibility for governing in what MAGA claims to be defending, namely democracy, the rule of law ad civil liberties. MAGA messaging and rank and file voter belief are overwhelmingly pro-democracy, pro-rule of law and pro-civil liberties. A democracy requires reasonable compromise. By refusing to compromise with what Democrats want, primarily protection for Obamacare, MAGA politicians have refused to compromise. Refusal to reasonably compromise is the hallmark of authoritarianism, in this case a Trump dictatorship hiding behind the cynical euphemism the USSC calls the "unitary executive".

2. Second, the rise of Trump and MAGA to power relied heavily on demagoguery in the form of constant, blatant divisive lies, slanders, unwarranted, irrational emotional manipulation,** and knowingly flawed, often crackpot, reasoning. Deceived people who mistakenly put bad people in power do not absolve the bad people in power from moral responsibility to act in the deceived people's best interests. Morality dictates that nearly all of the responsibility lies with those in power.

** For example, unwarranted, unjustified fear and anger mongering, and fomenting of unwarranted, unjustified bigotry, distrust, hate, and false beliefs that MAGA lies are truths.  

3. For most Americans who are actually aware of what is really happening, majority public opinion generally opposes most of what MAGA is doing, i.e., breaking laws, being corrupt, lying all of the time, slandering (calling the Dems tyrants, radicals, socialists, etc.), taking civil liberties away (abortion, voting rights), spewing crackpot conspiracy theories, etc. For nearly all people who believe the MAGA narratives, little to none of that is true in their minds. But they are conned, deceived and not aware of what is really happening. [1]

It is arguably rational, far and balanced to base opinions in a democracy on facts, truths and sound reasoning, while downplaying the opinions of people who are deceived, lying or generally acting in bad faith. In an authoritarian state such as a dictatorship, facts, truths and sound reasoning are mostly irrelevant. The leader(s) does whatever circumstances and their power allows them to get away with. But America isn't yet an authoritarian state. Despite their authoritarianism and corruption, Trump and MAGA still have a profound moral duty to behave like they are in a democracy. Continuing to act otherwise can be seen as treasonous betrayal. That line of reasoning puts blame on Trump and MAGA elites.

Source

An awful lot of people are unsure

Unsure mostly means uninformed

Footnote:

1. It is very important to understand the relevance, power and moral relevance of deceived minds in a democracy. When the authoritarian agenda of Trump, MAGA elites are presented honestly and transparently to Americans, including the goals in Project 2025, they overwhelmingly reject it. Hence the absolute necessity of demagoguery, deceit, lies, slanders and all the rest of MAGA's morally rotted but highly sophisticated and disciplined messaging. MAGA messaging is deep moral rot, but it is highly effective rot.

And MAGA's moral rot messaging is knowing and intentional. Before the 2024 elections Trump actively distanced himself from Project 2025 despite its development by over 140 former Trump administration officials. His assertions that he knows nothing about Project 2025 is strategic denial, not ignorance.

MAGA's road to a unitary executive: Hypocrisy hiding dictatorship

The USSC and MAGA legal experts have adopted the concept of a unitary executive (UE). Constitutional power for the UE comes from a single sentence in the constitution called the vesting clause: The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States. Republican USSC judges and MAGA dogma, e.g., Project 2025, take that to mean there is no limit on the power a president has over the executive branch.

MAGA's staggering but deadly hypocrisy about the US Constitution is pretty simple. when interpreting the constitution, MAGA legal dogma very broadly interprets language that gives the president and the USSC power, but it very narrowly interprets language that gives power to the people or congress. 

Slate and others report that in an unsigned, two-sentence USSC shadow docket decision in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, our Republican MAGA court transferred vast power from congress to our MAGA president. In essence, Trump now has line-item veto power over congressional spending laws via pocket recission.** This decision guts congress' core power. In its only two sentences, the USSC said (1) the plaintiffs probably lacked standing to bring the lawsuit in the 1st place, and (2) "the asserted harms to the Executive's conduct of foreign affairs appear to outweigh the potential harm faced by respondents".

** MAGA's pocket recission in three steps: (1) Trump withhold funds congress mandated, (2) within 45 days before fiscal year end he submits a rescission request to Congress, (3) congress lets the spending expire because, in its usual incompetence or active acquiescence to Trump, it fails or refuses to reject Trump's recission by the deadline, which was Sept. 30.

It is now up to congressional Republicans to go to court and get this USSC decision overturned, which they may or may not choose to do, assuming they even can. Congress may not have either the power or the political courage to go to federal courts to get this reversed.** They probably won't do that because it would make Trump angry and vengeful. Almost all experts see what Trump has done here as illegal. However, since the USSC quietly sanctioned the illegality by shadow docket, the final outcome is unclear. This is very likely a delay tactic to push a final court decision until after the 2026 mid-term elections. 

** To get its power back, congress has to prove that Trump's recission "completely nullified" its vote to pass the law. Trump only whacked a part of the law, not all of it. Therefore, congress just might be SOL on keeping it own core spending power intact. Trump has vast veto power, but not quite absolute. All he has to do is keep some aspects of a law intact so the USSC can allow Trump to have line-item veto power, while hiding behind an argument of incomplete nullification. This is a brilliant, subtle MAGA legal strategy to establish an American dictatorship with Trump as dictator/kleptocrat-in-chief. 

Regardless of how this ultimately plays out, the main point is clear: The USSC, MAGA elites and Trump are all fully behind the idea of giving unfettered UE power to Trump. That makes him a de facto dictator-kleptocrat and the USSC and MAGA elites dictator-kleptocrat supporters.

Note: There are more legal subtleties in this awful story, but that would make this post more complicated and probably TL/DR. But, for the wonks who want to wade through more or all the Qs&As with Pxy this post is based on 👍, here's a link to most of the whole fascinating, terrifying shebang (and this for my SOL comment above). For verbatim fact and nuance checking, I had Pxy comment on most of what I wrote. What I write here is accurate and not vast hyperbole, manipulation or lies.

Qs: Is this post TL/DR and/or TC/DR? Is this not as important as this post says it is?

TC = too complicated because the legal stuff is too complicated or otherwise

American government incompetence is bipartisan

An American businessman operating in China, Kevin Walmsley, sources equipment for US companies. His company is located in the US, but his business deals are sourced mostly in China. In this 9 minute video, Walmsley discusses matters that make clear the staggering incompetence of top US officials and leaders. Apparently, they cannot see the reality of what China is doing and has done in terms of establishing global economic dominance. The US is asleep at the switch and distracted by Trump and MAGA. In his commentary, Walmsley makes little to no distinction between America's two main parties when it comes to incompetence in dealing at least with major international issues.  

At his substack Inside China / Business, Walmsley provides a transcript of his video along with the data charts he uses. Links to the information sources he relies on are given there. Medium-length story made short: Knowingly or not, most or all US political and business leadership is shockingly clueless and unjustifiably complacent. Most or all of the data Walmsley relies on is in the public domain. His reasoning looks to be solidly defensible.

If Walmsley is getting this right, which I believe he very likely is, Trump and MAGA incompetence and corruption are not our only problems. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties as political institutions are catastrophic failures.

Q: Is my assessment of the situation hyperbolic, reasonable, or something else, e.g., not clear based on the evidence presented.

Dangerous Cult Leaders

 

What makes a pathological cult leader?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/spycatcher/201208/dangerous-cult-leaders

Having studied at length the life, teachings, and behaviors of Jim Jones (Jonestown Guyana), David Koresh (Branch Davidians), Stewart Traill (The Church of Bible Understanding), Charles Manson, Shoko Asahara (Aum Shinrikyo), Joseph Di Mambro (The Order of the Solar Temple a.k.a. Ordre du Temple Solaire), Marshall Heff Applewhit (Heaven’s Gate), Bhagwan Rajneesh (Rajneesh Movement), and Warren Jeffs (polygamist leader), I can say that what stands out about these individuals is that they were or are all pathologically narcissistic. They all have or had an over-abundant belief that they were special, that they and they alone had the answers to problems, and that they had to be revered. They demanded perfect loyalty from followers, they overvalued themselves and devalued those around them, they were intolerant of criticism, and above all, they did not like being questioned or challenged. And yet, despite these less-than-charming traits, they had no trouble attracting those who were willing to overlook these features.

When a cult or organizational leader has a preponderance of these traits, then we can anticipate that at some point those who associate with him will likely suffer physically, emotionally, psychologically, or financially. If these traits sound familiar to leaders, groups, sects, or organizations known to you, then expect those who associate with them to live in despair and to suffer, even if they don’t know yet that they will.

And when the leopard starts to eat their faces, remind THEM that they are the ones who chose their cult leader.  😁