Americans were supposed to be stunned by the opening salvo of Donald Trump’s second term. In fact, his aides and allies took pains to describe his initial flurry of executive activity as “shock and awe,” reviving an analogy to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when American troops pounded Saddam Hussein’s army with a fusillade of ordinance as they charged through to Baghdad. And in much the same way that President George W. Bush believed he was cowing America’s enemies with an overwhelming display of military might, Trump believes he is pounding his domestic political enemies into submission. Trump also believes, I imagine, that he and his acolytes will be greeted as liberators.
It is possible that flooding the zone — another metaphor made popular by Trump’s ascendance — in this way will disorient the president’s opponents. But the other way to think about this shotgun approach to undermining the federal government is that it is galvanizing them. Consider the administration’s targets: the entire federal work force, the F.B.I., the intelligence services, and anyone who has a direct interest in a rational, consistent and nonpartisan federal bureaucracy.
Perhaps they will slink away in defeat, or perhaps they’ll attempt to fight back using whatever tools they have. Some appointees have filed lawsuits contesting their dismissals. And then there’s the extent to which anger at these maneuvers have kindled, in some Democrats at least, the fires of resistance. On Tuesday, for example, a large group of congressional Democrats were joined by ordinary Americans demanding to know why Elon Musk has been allowed to ransack the Treasury Department and other government agencies.
Two weeks ago, the Democratic Party seemed prepared to just give Trump what he wanted in Congress. Now, there’s a real chance that Democrats will try to slow business in the Senate to a halt and may even refuse to negotiate on a budget deal and the debt ceiling. If Democrats aren’t thinking about this, then they should be. There’s no reason to negotiate with a White House and a Republican Party that don’t believe they are bound by congressional spending. If nothing else, as long as Musk can “delete” entire federal agencies, there’s no reason to treat an agreement as anything other than a suggestion.
As for the analogy to the Iraq war, my colleague Michelle Goldberg notes that the White House is pursuing something analogous to the “de-Baathification” pursued by the Coalition Provisional Authority during the American occupation of Iraq. JD Vance even called for a literal de-Baathification of the federal government while speaking on a right-wing podcast in 2021, telling his host that, should Trump return to the White House, he should “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”
This is exactly what the administration has tried to do, recruiting young ideologues to purge the civil service of nonpartisan bureaucrats. Of course, as Goldberg writes, “The de-Baathification that Vance wanted to emulate is widely seen as a disaster that contributed to the deadly chaos and instability that followed America’s invasion.”
It seems very possible that in taking a wrecking ball to the federal bureaucracy and unconstitutionally slashing programs, employees and entire agencies, Trump and Musk may spark a catastrophe that neither they nor their allies can contain. At the very least, and if we take Musk’s stewardship of X as an example, we will be left with a degraded federal government that is much less efficient than what came before, where Americans who depend on federal benefits are potentially left without.
More ominously, given Musk’s apparent control of the federal payments system — which was temporarily suspended Saturday morning by a federal judge — we may be entering a world in which Trump’s political appointees have the ability to unilaterally end funding for anyone or anything they deem, inefficient, unproductive or insufficiently loyal to the president. And in that world, where Trump is essentially a personalist autocrat, the Constitution is little more than a piece of paper.
There is one other way in which you can use the second Iraq war to understand the present state of things in American politics. We are told that there is a shift underway to a conservative cultural atmosphere of deference to and accommodation with the MAGA movement. But this isn’t some amorphous transformation in the ether; it is the result of individuals making deliberate choices about how to exist in the current political environment. Powerful individuals and institutions in the news media, business and politics are choosing to align themselves with what they believe to be a new order.
Viewed as an active choice and not a passive evolution, this “vibe shift” looks quite a lot like the war fever of 2002 and 2003, when political and cultural elites decided that they had more to gain through submission and accommodation than they did with criticism and resistance.
“A man cannot believe that he is about to be destroyed,” observed the Soviet author Vasily Grossman. “The soil of hope — a hope that was senseless and sometimes dishonest and despicable — gave birth to a pathetic obedience that was often equally despicable.”
What I Wrote
My column this week was on the immense constitutional crisis that is Musk and his so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency:
If Trump, Musk and their allies — like Russell Vought, the president’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget and a vocal advocate of an autocratic “radical constitutionalism” that treats the president as an elected despot — succeed, the question of American politics won’t be if they’ll win the next election, but whether the Constitution as we know it is still in effect.
And on the latest episode of my podcast with John Ganz, we discussed the film “Air Force One.”
Now Reading
Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith on Trump’s executive orders, for the Executive Functions newsletter:
If this is the theory behind the executive orders — and again, we are speculating here based on the views of one hugely influential Trump adviser — then the orders are not merely setting up Supreme Court test cases. They are, rather, bombarding the court with a wave of legal challenges about the proper scope of Article II (among many legal issues) with the aim of provoking a confrontation over the legitimacy of the existing legal order, at least with regard to Article II, and perhaps more broadly. And the administration might be planning to dare the court to say “no” with threats of noncompliance.
Nathan Tankus on why it’s so dangerous that Musk has had access to the Treasury payments system, for the Notes on the Crisis newsletter:
There is nothing more important on the entire planet than getting Elon Musk and DOGE out of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service and allowing career civil service employees to run the Treasury’s internal payments system without capricious and self-serving interference from billionaires and their allies. This effort must fail if we are to safeguard any semblance of due process and lawfulness in the executive branch.
Jonathan M. Katz on the American prison at Guantánamo, for Dissent:
The role that Guantánamo played was to make the idea seem possible of a “black hole” beyond the reach of morality and the law, where America’s most dangerous enemies were being thrown, never to be seen again.
Madiba K. Dennie on what Democrats can learn from Mitch McConnell, for Balls and Strikes:
McConnell would never do these things, because he understands that judgeships are political business. A long-term commitment to building the judiciary you want is critical for winning or protecting political victories, too. And that future must be built with all available tools, no matter how inconsistent with “norms” those tools might be.
Elizabeth Popp Berman on what Musk and Trump could do with their control over payments, for Liberal Currents:
One can imagine even more dire scenarios, depending on Supreme Court decisions and the administration’s willingness to ignore the law entirely. In an extreme, but far from unimaginable, example, Trump might retaliate against blue states who refuse to take directives from ICE by turning off Social Security payments to their residents until they comply. This is far beyond the bounds of law, but until now it has also been a practical impossibility. Operational control of the federal payments system would, for the first time, make it a technical possibility.
Photo of the Week
A mural I saw in Memphis not long before the election.
Now Eating: New Orleans-Style Red Beans and Rice
One of my favorite meals, period. The main modifications I make to this recipe is I use a smoked turkey sausage and I replace the ham hocks with a smoked turkey wing. You get all of the flavor and a little less of the fat. I have never once had pickled pork rind on hand — or even seen it at the store — and so instead you should give your beans a good glug of apple cider vinegar at the end. Serve with cooked white rice (Carolina Gold if you can get it). Recipe comes from Serious Eats.
Ingredients
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1 pound (450g) red kidney beans
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Kosher salt
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1 tablespoon (15ml) vegetable oil or lard
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1 pound (about 450g) cooked andouille sausage, cut into ½-inch disks
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1 large onion, finely chopped (about 12 ounces; 340g)
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1 green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped (about 8 ounces; 225g)
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4 ribs celery, finely chopped (about 8 ounces; 225g)
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4 medium cloves garlic, minced
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½ teaspoon to 1 tablespoon (3 to 15g) ground cayenne pepper (depending on how hot you like it)
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1 teaspoon (about 4g) ground sage
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Freshly ground black pepper
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1 smoked ham hock (optional)
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8 ounces (225g) pickled pork shoulder or rind (optional; see note)
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4 sprigs fresh thyme
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3 bay leaves
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Hot sauce, such as Crystal or Frank’s, to taste
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Cooked white rice, for serving
Directions
Place beans in a large bowl and cover with 6 cups (1.5 liters) cold water. Add 2 tablespoons (30 grams) kosher salt and stir until dissolved. Set aside at room temperature for 8 to 16 hours. Drain and rinse.
In a large Dutch oven, heat oil or lard over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add andouille and cook, stirring, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add onion, bell pepper, and celery. Season with salt and cook, stirring, until vegetables have softened and are just starting to brown around the edges, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Add cayenne pepper, sage, and a generous 10 to 12 grinds of fresh black pepper. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add beans, along with enough water to cover by about 2 inches (roughly 6 to 8 cups), ham hock, thyme, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil and reduce to a bare simmer. Cover and cook until beans are completely tender, 1½ to 2½ hours. (Older beans can take longer.)
Remove lid and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid has thickened and turned creamy, about 20 minutes. If the pot starts to look dry before the stew turns creamy, add a cup of water and continue simmering. Repeat as necessary until desired level of creaminess is achieved. Discard bay leaves and thyme stems. Season to taste with hot sauce, cider vinegar, and more salt and pepper. For best texture, let cool and refrigerate overnight. Reheat the next day, adding a little water to loosen to desired consistency. Serve red beans over steamed white rice.
The post It’s No Secret What Trump and His Allies Mean When They Talk About ‘Shock and Awe’ appeared first on New York Times.
