Tom Cochrun /Light Breezes: X-America- It's feeding time.

X-AMERICA-IT’S FEEDING TIME

Giving him a month to launch seemed fair, but we’ve seen enough. Seems like 6 months, doesn’t it, since the retread raised the curtain on his new reality show, an hallucinogenic cartoon tragedy. Sad, but it’s real. The USA has become X-America.

The Presidential avatar Trumpty Dumpty, and the billionaire buddies are undertaking a chop shop take down of two centuries of federalism; congressionally written laws, regulations, balance of power-three branches of government all under threat as the MAGAt’s begin greasing the skids to write themselves fat checks. Fewer guidelines on business, no oversight of contracts and legalities and we are on the road to a fat cat capitalism that compelled Teddy Roosevelt, the 26^th President, to say enough is enough to his wealthy Republican party.

He called it the “Square Deal” busting trusts, enacting corporate law and creating consumer protection, essentially the mirror opposite of what the 21^st Century Republicans and number 47 is doing. Let’s call Dumpty’s the “Raw Deal” with lots of red meat for the meat heads.

The clown car cabinet is moving in to read the cue cards as they trash the government agencies they won in the “kiss his royal Hiney” audition. Tech geek teens with no security clearance are hacking government computers as unauthorized agents of a fabricated non authorized DOGE, a would-be Gestapo, screws around with finances, operating and administrative systems and sensitive data. Already government employees are noticing breaches of security in their personal information and financial records. Who’s next?. Thank you DOGE.

That should be frightening to you. It is illegal. It is a breach of the complex eco-system of the federal government, a living experiment in self-rule. But there are a couple of other side shows that reveal how awful this administration is.

The retread, weaving and vamping as bemuses himself, decides he wants a new beach for the next Trumpty Dumpty resort in sunny Gaza, summarily dismissing the people who own the land and who once lived there before it became the scene of war crimes committed by Hamas and the Israeli Defense forces using X-America made bombs. I don’t think there has been a moment in history where a President declares we are “taking” a nation, sending the people fleeing so he can build “a beautiful resort.” There’s yet another signal of how stupid they are.

The dried out macho jive artist known as Pete the pole dancer pretending to be a Secretary of Defense brought many of us to battle stations when he pimped for Trumpty Dumpty who in turn had been pimping for Russia’s Putin. Right there on camera, before the entire world, he played one of the weakest, self-destructive, negotiating leads ever! More disgustingly he showed X-America’s true colors by abandoning Ukraine and ruling out NATO. Slick Pete may have thought he was truly as slick as his hair, but his entire performance and demeanor on the stage with world statesmen looked like that of junior college debater in a league of diplomats.

#47 may have convinced TV viewers he was a mogul, but he is an amateur at statecraft. Let’s not forget what those who served him in his first debacle said, a “fucking idiot” according to his first Secretary of State. Have you noticed how world leaders are now referring to the US as the “Trump Administration.” Normally nations refer to each other as nations, using the name. Now the shorthand is the Trump administration which is diplomatic code meaning the bunko artist with the metastacized ego is back.

Are there reforms to government that are in order? Absolutely. Does the person elected by the majority of voters deserve a chance to run his own program? Absolutely. Have Democrats and the previous administration been true to our ideals and accepted the election as fair? Absolutely, unlike Dumpty who sulked and lied for 4 years, after leading an insurrection and who plotted revenge including the release of criminals who attacked police officers.

The “raw deal” is here but there is a glimmer of hope. This nation has for almost 250 years wrestled with itself, its own spotty history, the rising and falling of our worst desires and our better angels. There have been other louts, liars, corrupt, venal and maybe even evil men in the office and in congress, Trumpty Dumpty is not the first. All of those X-Americans who supported him and who are not surprised or shocked by his actions prove that today’s America is full of people who are not paying attention or are listening only to propaganda. Or they don’t know history or never studied civics. Or they are stupid. Some just may be venal, which is becoming epidemic.

But there is evidence some of those, who for their own reasons, voted for Dumpty are now feigning surprise or shock. What did I say about paying attention? So, to the 838 Billion dollar savant in the room. Years ago I wrote glowingly about the brilliance of Elon Musk. He is a visionary, a smart assembler of scientists, a man with a drive. In the early days he was focused on making new things happen. Since then he’s been struck by “celebrity,” has amassed a posse of sycophants and hangers on and has begun to dabble in power. Well, it’s more than dabbling now. Because of his money, his tech and communications influence, he is probably more than any other individual and group responsible for Dumpty’s election. He’s eminently more intelligent than #47 who was a TV performer, and a fraudulent and bankrupt real estate hustler. He's richer Dumpty. But Mr. Musk is out of his element in the deep history of statecraft, governance and the tricky, complex and arduous work of keeping a federal government, a democratic republic, an experiment in self-government, alive. He has no experience. No skill like that.

It is not a business, it is the people’s business. It is not the chairman and ceo dictating policy to a board, it is the will of the people working, even painstakingly and frustratingly slow, through a time-honored process of election, legislation, compromise and a value for the greater good of all. It’s hard, does not always work smoothly, rises and falls based on the character and skill of those to whom we entrust the levers of government. Musk has a right to be frustrated. All of us are frustrated by levels of bureaucracy and pockets of inefficiency. But he has no right to turn hackers loose on ripping out systems. He has no moral claim to summarily dismiss entire levels of civil service. He is boneheaded naïve and stupid to undermine human life and increase human suffering. That is abhorrently true in the case of US AID.

Musk was not elected, has not been vetted by the advice and counsel of the legislative branch, has helped to fire or shut down the Inspector Generals who were there to make sure no one robs the people, bends government to his favor. It is a fact he does not have the power and authority to do what he is doing. Advise the president yes, he can do that, but he’s become the puppet master. Dumpty is again the stooge. Putin has played Dumpty as a stooge for 10 years, Musk is playing him now. We the people, are on the short end of the stick. We the people elected this retread failure. Elections have consequence.

It's show time in X-America. Episode one is feeding time. Watch the rich get richer. Watch the consumer prices when Dumpty does his best William McKinley with tariffs. Watch the damage that petulant amateurs can do, as the right wing zealot cabal behind 2025 play their meticulously crafted evil plan to destroy the American federal government. There’s still a play by the people, for the people. But you have to pay attention.