The Chaos The Majority Wanted
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-and-the-collapse-of-the-old-order-policy-politics-eb2fe178
In her recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal on February 1, Peggy Noonan makes several critical observations about what has changed in America in the last two weeks.
First, probably for the first time in ages, everyone knows who the President of The United States is and has some idea of what he is trying to do. This sounds like it isn’t news. But, it is. Here’s what Peggy had to say:
“No modern president has achieved this level of complete cultural saturation. It gives him power in this ill-educated, broken-up, low-attention-span country. You remember “Jaywalking,” Jay Leno’s comedy bit in which he’d ask people on the street, “Who was Abe Lincoln?” (“A singer?”) When was the American Revolution? “Um, 1970?” We haven’t become more historically literate.”
Regrettably, the Leno series demonstrated how ignorant most Americans are about history and current events. They are not ignorant about President Trump. They understand what he is trying to do because he speaks in their language and they like what he is saying and the way he says it.
Second, he seems to be taking a wrecking ball to the Executive Branch of the government and then putting unqualified people in key positions in that government. It is likely that most Americans think this is just fine if not long overdue. Trump has been particularly destructive to the current leadership of the Justice Department and to those who prosecuted him. He believes in getting even. So do most Americans.
Noonan goes on to say this:
“Has it hurt his popularity? No. People back boldness when they think a lot has gone wrong and needs righting. They’d expect a certain amount of mayhem. And with Mr. Trump, chaos is baked in.”
As long as the world stays as it is and there are no domestic crises, Mr. Trump can go on being a bully in a China shop. The trouble starts when that relative tranquility is interrupted as it always is.
The military and the Pentagon that supports it cannot be chaotic in their response to a Chinese attempt to capture Taiwan. Yet the United States is in absolutely no position to defeat the Chinese should this aggression take place. The war in Ukraine that Trump was going to end overnight goes on and does so poorly for the Ukrainians. Russia continues to push toward Europe. There really is no proposal for the next day after the six-week cease fire in Gaza. And the price of eggs keeps rising and bird flu keeps spreading. 67 Americans have contracted the disease. What’s the plan if that becomes 67,000?
And this very day (2/3/2025), the price I paid for gas jumped 20 cents per gallon.
Mr. Trump, unlike many of his Cabinet appointees in front of Congressional committees, always seems to have an answer for everything. So does his confrontational press secretary.
I get that many Americans wanted Trump to take an axe to the federal bureaucracy including the FBI, the Justice Department and the CDC, but what happens when we need those very people and Trump has fired them all?
Then what?
