Calm Down! It's Worse Than You Think!

[cahwyguy]

Folks: With the start of the term of Trmp, the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Distrust) machines have been running full bore. I’d like to urge people to calm down, and encourage people to get past the hyperbole, and to learn the facts of what is actually being done. It is simultaneously not as bad as is being made out to be, and is worse than you might think. As with everything Trmp, the noise and the swirl of what he does often sucks the oxygen out of the room, and serves to hide even more nefarious and significant items.

So, let’s take a deep breath, and go through some recent items and see what is really happening. This is a distillation of a number of recent posts on FB; I’m doing it as a blog simply because I can’t stand the artificial character limits of Bksy, X, and similar services. It also collects some thoughts that have been swirling around my head.

First, let’s look at some of the hyperbole that’s swirling in the ether:

• Male and Female. Regarding the EO about the government only recognizing Male and Female (and the fact that they wrote the EO wrong, referring to conception): Remember that a number of states once tried to legislate π to be 3. That didn’t work: You can’t legislate nature. Be authentically you, and do your best to ignore the government friction. It will eventually pass, and you are strong enough to outlast it. Always remember that Diplomacy is the art of saying “Nice, doggie” until you can find a big enough stick. They may think they have won, but nature will always win out.
• What Do You Mean I’m Following Trmp? There’s a big furor on FB about people who suddenly discover they are following Trmp, and believe it is some form of Zuck-Conspiracy. It isn’t. It is what happens during the transfer of an administration. The old administration’s accounts are archived, new accounts are created for the new administration (POTUS, FLOTUS, VPOTUS, WH, etc.), and most importantly, the followers and friends of the old administration’s accounts are copied to the new accounts as a starting point. That’s what happened. You likely followed Biden’s POTUS account, and that transferred over. Simply unfollow, and block if you wish. BTW: If you are worried: Go to your profile. Click on Friends. Then click on Following. Review the list of who you are following, and prune appropriately.
• Birthright Citizenship. This is an example of the excess I’ve seen on MSNBC, and here on ‘da webs: Trmp is trying to overturn the 14th Amendment. Here I urge folks to read things more carefully. The 14th says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Trmp is trying to reinterpret the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”, which has normally been held to apply children of ambassadors and such, in a very different way. He’s trying to say it applies to children of undocumented folks, or folks here on tourist or short-term visas where the other parent isn’t a citizen. It also wasn’t effective immediately. That likely won’t fly with the courts, and remember that I said the courts are going to be our most effective avenue of attack. But what he is doing is more nefarious, and is not attempting to ignore the amendment completely.
• Prescription Drug Prices. There are posts going around claiming the Trmp’s EO rescinding Biden’s EO on Prescription Drug Prices undoes the cheap insulin and medicare drug out of pocket caps. That’s not true. Those were part of the Inflation Reduction Act, and EO’s cannot override laws. Read this Reddit chain of discussion. It notes that the primary impact is to halt development of cost-reduction models to reduce drug costs. Without the implementation of new models focused on reducing costs, Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries might continue to face high out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs, possibly affecting access to certain medications. But it doesn’t change the law. Snopes goes into this in more detail.

And while everyone is up in arms about the above (and don’t forget all of his attacks on immigration, which were expected), a number of significant things have been below the RADAR, but are very significant:

• Artificial Intelligence. One of Trmp’s first EOs rescinded a bunch of Biden’s EOs — one of which was the EO that put guardrails on the use of AI. The next day, he announced a new AI initiative, which his buddy Musk is pissed about. This may be one of the most dangerous under-the-radar things, as AI can be really misused. Biden’s order required developers of AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security, the economy, public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the U.S. government, in line with the Defense Production Act, before they were released to the public. The order also directed agencies to set standards for that testing and address related chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and cybersecurity risks. Biden’s order came as U.S. lawmakers have failed to pass legislation setting guardrails for AI development.
• Cybersecurity. Not only did Trmp pardon the founder of Silk Road, a drug and cybercrime locus, but he cleaned out the DHS Cyber Review Board. This will delay an ongoing CSRB investigation into the Salt Typhoon hacks, which involved a wide-ranging Chinese infiltration into a number of telecom providers in the U.S. and around the world. Trmp is also effectively killing the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which is related to privacy issues.
• Water in California. Trmp is also overhauling water rules in California. He issued a memo that memo calls on the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of the Interior to develop a new plan within 90 days “to route more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state for use by the people there who desperately need a reliable water supply.” Trump apparently is asking his agencies to override the latest version of the water delivery rules, years in the making, that the Biden administration, with the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, announced in December. Trmp thinks this would have helped in LA’s fires, even though the local reservoirs were already at capacity.

Are there things to be worried about, and that are perhaps worth hyperbole? Sure. There’s the fact that Trmp stylizes himself as a King and wants the trappings and the power. The courts will help fight back on that. There are his moves to end DEI, and even more so, to set aside anything in the government that ensures there will be no discrimination (including EOs that go back to Lyndon Johnson). If we had progressed enough that those initiatives weren’t necessary, that would be one thing. But with the rise of Whte Nationalist groups, emboldened by the pardons, expressing a desire for retribution and planning to bring back their groups, there is reason for fear. There are the broader impacts his moves will have beyond the government, such as restrictions he will place on government contractors. There is the clear discrimination that his administration will bring to the marginalized members of society.

Trmp’s MO is to distract us with the meaningless outrage, preventing us from organizing and pushing back in the areas where it really matters. PAY ATTENTION. Remember that we are the fact checkers. We should be checking everything, even the outrage and memes on our side, so that we can focus our outrage, power, and funds where it matters and is most effective. It is up to us to keep our focus on the fight for the next two years, when we can build the case that we must retake Congress to check Trmp.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as Calm Down! It's Worse Than You Think! by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.