Dervish Underground: 2025

Friday, February 7, 2025

State of the Onion

Lawsuits are being filed all over the country to challenge Trump's erratic policies. There has already been some success. For example, a Federal Judge in Maryland has blocked Trump's Birthright Citizenship order (there is an article on that case in the NYT).

The next four years will be a bonanza for lawyers. Trump will be challenged in the courts as well as in Congress, by some of the states (the "states rights" politics of the MAGA crowd is a two-edged sword), and in the streets. The separation of powers and the competition between governmental branches and agencies for control of their own destinies will hamstring the Trump Administration for the duration of his term.

And, of course, there is his own stupidity. Issuing Orders to agencies of the Executive Branch of the Federal government that he is, at the same time, gutting (e.g., the U.S. Department of Education) is almost comical.

If Trump's first term was a tragedy (though a rather poor one), his second term is shaping up to be quite the farce. And it's only early February. Wait until he and Musk start spitting at each other (I give them 6 months).

There are approximately 3 million people employed by the Federal government, making it the 15th largest employer in the nation. Bureaucrats, being what they are, will slow down and sometimes even subvert the wheels of government.

Government inefficiency is now, and has always been, a guarantor of human liberty.

None of this is to say that Trump will not do some real damage during his time in office. Much of it, however, will be reparable.

And then there is Max Weber's great insight about history as the record of unintended consequences. Trump and his enablers think they've got this. Remarkably, many people who claim to oppose him think he's got this too. But they give him far too much credit. There are simply too many moving parts in a country like ours for anyone--least of all a gang obviously limited in knowledge and intelligence--to exert the sort of control necessary to make America "great" in the way Trump envisions (and I use that word loosely).

So instead of capitulating to the Administration's threats and bombast, think of ways that you, personally, might be able to throw a wrench in the gears.

Read Jim Scott: Even the weak have weapons.