Rex Huppke writes for USA Today.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a minute. President-elect Donald Trump has started appointing screwballs for important government positions, making plans for immigrant detention camps and leaning, authoritarian-style, on Republicans in Congress to obliterate check and balances?
Are you telling me the man who said he was going to do all these crazy things is actually going to do all these crazy things? What the heck?
I was told by many Trump supporters that he’s a showman who talks tough, but when he gets into office again he’ll govern like a sensible conservative, just like he didn’t do the first time around.
I am shocked to see Trump do exactly what he told people he’d do
And now I find the next president is, in fact, going to let a certifiable nutball like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild” on American health and medicine? I mean, when Trump said he was going to let Kennedy “go wild” on American health and medicine, I assumed he was kidding around. And besides, I was mad that eggs are expensive.
But now it looks like vaccines are going to become optional and Americans will be told the best way to protect against infectious diseases is to put a clove of garlic in your ear and avoid processed foods.
I am shocked – shocked, I tell you! – that a presidential candidate who spoke in run-on sentences that sounded like they were written by a dumb version of Jack Kerouac on a Benzedrine bender might have actually been telling the truth about his intentions.
Trump is letting Elon Musk run the country, because of course he is
Trump has appointed unelected billionaire weirdo Elon Musk to a fake department he claims will slash-and-burn the federal government in the name of imagined efficiency. And since nobody on Trump’s transition team apparently knows what “efficiency” means, Musk can’t do it alone, so Trump paired him with another wealthy weirdo, Vivek Ramaswamy, who talks like he should be selling Veg-O-Matics on late-night TV infomercials.
I mean, just because Trump has spoken highly of Ramaswamy and had Musk more-or-less by his side since before the election, saying he would put Musk in charge of government efficiency, I never expected that…ohhhh, OK, this is starting to make sense now.
So I guess when Trump said he’d do lots of crazy stuff he was being serious
Apparently Trump DID mean all the noodle-brained things he said over and over and over again during the campaign. Things that included being a dictator, but just for the first day of his administration. And rounding up millions upon millions of immigrants and stashing them in detention camps. And punishing his political enemies, and giving police officers greater immunity protection, and implementing massive tariffs and pardoning the convicted Jan. 6 attackers.
I guess I just thought him saying those things, and the media reporting on those things, and pundits warning that Trump will definitely do the things he keeps saying he’s going to do…well, like I said, eggs were expensive, and I figured, “Nah, he’s not gonna do all that.”
Boy do I have expensive eggs on my face.
This guy’s gonna do all that and a whole lot more.
Anyone shocked by what Trump’s doing just wasn’t paying attention
But don’t worry, I won’t complain about it now. The last thing I need is Attorney General Matt Gaetz coming after me.
And besides, I’ve got to stock up on garlic cloves to keep my family safe from infectious diseases before Trump’s tariffs make garlic unaffordable. Of course that might not matter once Musk and Ramaswamy do away with the Department of the Treasury and force all of us to use cryptocurrency and go broke.
It’s strange how all the things we were explicitly told would happen are now going to happen. It really makes you think.
Or at least wish you had done so sooner.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It seems, if the plan was to tell that truth and then, for months, firehose it “with lies, obscenities, insults, cruelty to children, “false” accusations, monster helpers, a polluted stream of consciousness, sharks, and picturesque locker-room observations, the truth disappeared under the nation’s psychic fireworks, which is all he has to offer anyway, so it worked. CBK
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I know that many people will suffer under Trump who don’t deserve it. I am empathetic.
But his voters have yet to realize that these appointments and policies will do nothing for them. If they’re lucky. There’s a dark side of my personality that hopes he does everything he said he would do and thy are adversely affected.
These appointments are designed to limit government effectiveness intentionally. I’ve more than a few Trump cultists who truly need government services. I’m eager to watch how thy will be conned. Again.
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For starters, Trump’s tariffs will raise prices, not lower them.
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Limiting government effectiveness can be a good thing when the government is run by a nut.
My fond hopes for the Trump administration:
1.At least 4 of the 53 Republican senators will vote against his worst cabinet and SCOTUS nominations, and any outlandish legislation.
2.At least 10 out of the [presumably] 221 House Representatives will vote against outlandish legislation.
3.Trump will have both House and Senate so tied up in revenge investigations they’ll have little chance to even draw up let alone vote on outlandish legislation.
4.Trump’s appointees, even the most obsequious, will find themselves continually fired and replaced, just like the previous bunch.
5.Any outlandish legislation that does get passed will be unable to be implemented due to the depleted number of employees and continually changing cabinet heads.
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Ginny, that’s a hopeful scenario. Guardrails! Republicans who are tethered to the mainstream.
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factually from one engaged with these same federal officers or their agents, BS!
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As a real American who served his nation, Democrats conspiracies and idealism have been cultist as exemplified by their support for our enemies prior to both world wars and in Obama’s and Biden’s financing of our event, Iran killed or injured my comrades in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. If this is not left wing cultism that ignored reality, then it is better classified as treason. Propaganda by left wing media was only exceeded in their lies about their weaponization of our government against political opposition that we who know and live by federal laws and regulations that were deliberately abused by these historical fascists. If as an American let alone a man in fling your duty while these anti-Trumpers back home who have destroyed what we fought and sacrificed to protect and preserve, then I am truly a cultist, called patriots by any other name.
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We were a republic if we could have kept it.
If we’re “lucky,” Trump won’t be any worse than Viktor Orban. That’s still pretty bad and includes writing a new constitution for Hungary. Frankly, IF Trump becomes the dictator he said he wants to be, I suspect future historians may wish the assassination attempt had been successful, just as they wish such attempts had been on Hitler. I mean here we are ALREADY discussing detention camps! We may be heading into what will be a very dark period in our history.
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I share your concerns. I think we are heading into a deeply disturbing period in our history.
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we are heading out of dangerous times. Only the intellectually deaf and blind cannot see the nation and the world as it truly is. But that is the difference of being book smart versus being a professional engaged after school in the real world.
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Democratic supporters ignore their history of supporting fascism and our enemies prior to our world wars. As a Republic, not a Democracy, the last two of their administrations attempted to degrade if not destroy was threatened by. Like Rome, it is these ignorant mobs that always cause the decline in Republics for handouts from their corrupt leaders.
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TRUMP’S OBLIGATION: CREATE CHAOS IN AMERICA
Newsweek reports that Putin’s personal intelligence aide, Nikolai Patrushev, declared that Trump has “obligations” to Putin that Trump is now “obliged to fulfill.”
Trump’s choosing outrageous people like Gaetz, Kennedy, and Hegseth is just Trump fulfilling his obligations to Putin by carrying out Putin’s plan to make America’s government and our military forces dysfunctional, giving Putin all the opportunity he needs to achieve his military and political goals in Ukraine, in the Republic of Georgia, and in Syria while America is in CHAOS.
THE QUESTION IS — Are there enough members of Congress who have the backbone and the love of America to stand up to Trump, to not allow “recess appointments” of Trump’s hand-picked Putin heads of our government departments?
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are there enough rational Democrats to see past more propaganda and lies, and see the absolute Russian collusion Hillary as Senator had had with Russia in her Boeing and Uranium One deals while in office? What idiot other than those in no positions of public trust or access to classified information would fall for such nonsense; but those whose party supported Germany prior to both world wars?
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I finally figured out what the malignant narcist, sociopath, lifelong cheat, serial liar and convicted rapist, fraud and felon, who became a traitor on January 5, 2021 [ I think he was a traitor long before that date but that’s the official date for history], meant by “I’ll only be a dictator on day one.”
After day one Trump goes on tour holding hate-rallies where he gets to talk nonsense and love for Hanible Lector for 90 minutes or longer to audiences that can’t leave and have to cheer on cue, while his unelected junta rules the country following Trump’s game plan Project 2025.
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Yes as Trump was criminalized by you and your mob of intellectually challenged fascist supporters whose own leaders were rapist, Russian partners, and financers of our venues while funded by foreign interests. The weaponization of government and deliberate bastardizing of our laws and regulations by Democratic Party supporters are the reason Americans put a leader back into office. As a vet of two wars I call this response bold faced lies by those who put not only my comrades and I at risk, but our citizens and children lives and future as well.
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Sorry Rex. Don’t know who you claim you talked with. But no one who Round II voted for DJT. Thought he’ll govern like a sensible conservative. They might have cast a Write-In for Liz Cheney. But if they voted for DJT, they did so with an appetite for his infectious pathology. Now maybe this is Rex trying to carefully cast himself as a stand-up guy on USA Today but the piece simply does not work. Who is he lecturing? No one. This is empty posturing. Even the citizens who chose not to vote, knew an enemy of democracy when they saw one on the ballot.
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literary window dressing that hides another case of left wing denial that this individual and peers are not mainstream Americans.
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Trump is so uneducated (I won’t say dumb) that whenever he encounters someone who actually is educated & intelligent, he will defer to them & eat up whatever they tell him that sounds smart & is therefore impressive to him. But of course, he will take credit for anything good that comes out of that person’s ideas. That’s how he got as far as he did in the business world. If he actually had to apply for a job & interview & be trained for that job, he would be laughed out of that business. Sad!
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aside from my global engineering career and retired military officer past of two wars, and 147 IQ, your ignorance about his military schooling and nation’s best business school proves who the real ignorant idiot is – you !
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And now the “he’ll govern like a sensible conservative” has chosen for our CDC Director. The FL GOPee Medical Doctor who led the charge on Terri Schiavo’s Family. Terri was the brain-damaged Florida woman whose family attempted to remove her feeding tubes & end her life.
Grandstanding Congressman Dr Dave Weldon called the life support removal a “grave injustice.” In 2005 to asked to personally review her case. Terri’s husband Michael fought the interventions by Congress and said that his wife would not have wanted to be kept alive artificially.
“Trump picks former congressman Dave Weldon of Florida to lead CDC The medical doctor has been a vocal critic of the agency, especially its vaccine program.” WAPO 11/23/24
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As a retired military officer of two wars, now a global engineer, I find Tex Huppke a rather bombastic and rather ignorant fake journalist whose knowledge of our judicial system and laws and federal classified material policies and regulations is zero. Trump as a rapists is a lie as much if what this radical left wing nut and his political persuasion is a threat to my comrades and I who served this nation while his leaders funded Iran. But what does one expect from an intellect of a low IQ, a useless degree and a character that is indicative of what those whose service to this country is below 10%. Who elected a two-time rapist as President Clinton? Who supported a party who armed Germany and celebrated a U-Boat Captain in the White House; and later, marched under Nazi banners but Democrats. What state statute of limitations for an alleged crime is a national exception along with a NDA nullified by Rex’s political conspirator peers in New York? If one takes the word of a pornography star turned whore, then electing a call girl like Harris poses no problem as Rex seems to ignore. But reality escapes this anti-Trumper moron as in how families have suffered while the world spirals to global war that this coward dodged his duty as a man let alone American that exemplifies his low character in terms of his own unpatriotic and unprofessional career in volumes of true journalistic crimes that degrades truth if not his personal nature. Trump’s the-election proves you cannot propagandize Americans into abandoning common sense and their very roots of who we truly are. And as a disabled vet, I call out Rex Huppke a liar.
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as in the first campaign and now, post-ejection, the left wing violence abstracts continue to be downplayed by Democrats and their foreign interests – a repeat of the Reagan years when we real Americans who served this nation ended the Evil Empire socialists that today’s Democrats revitalized as they did prior to World War II marching under Nazis banners in their rallies. Not just as a real man, real American, but as a majority of Americans, the anti-Trump zealots here are the fringe, not the norm of what this country stands for. My war injuries along with citizens attacked if not killed as a result of this left wing sickness, these same political drones need to remind themselves why they and theirs can state such blind comments – We the People vice you the mob.
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by the way for those who think Trump is an exception in the world, take a look at the Italian leader as her policies have mirrored Trumps.
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Yes, I’m old enough to remember when fascist leaders came to power in a wave. It was the 1930s.
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For those old enough to remember fascism as it took foot in Italy and Germany, remember the Democratic party rallies in NYC using the Nazis flag and the attempts by them that later was derailed.
Socialism leads to an oligarchy mostly not of the best of us, but the worst of us.
If one looks at this past decade of attacks by any party on another, Democrats lead the way.
As a minority in a Republic, it is time to worrying about the worst of us and concentrate on the rest of us – leadership should be proven before running for any public office,
America’s greatest weapon is our independence, not assimilation into the New Word Order Progressives claim.
And even Bernie Sanders claims ranging from health care to world policies are not what one enjoys (hic!) overseas. My son left England (being schooled in the British International School System that demands excellence not conformity) after 8.5 years and despite 45% of his paychecks going to the government for their socialized systems, he got nothing back after he left unlike we enjoy here in America when you change jobs. But his income he controlled went up by that same amount of 40% and now more.
Walking one’s talk before expecting others to follow is something voters should be suing as a metric for voting for any leader such as Hollywood and its fringe groups of a lifestyle that is as much fantasy as the lives they act out to portray but never actually live as.
America has its flaws but we the people control when government goes awry and elect directly our Presidents unlike other western nations even the two other true Republics, of France and Italy.
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I hope your children are recruited by your beloved illegal criminal gangs as in NYC for crime if not sex and labor that your leaders, media and you ignore. Sanctuary cities fly in the face of law and order if not your cries against crime by political opposition.
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threats against our newly elected leaders and their cabinets complement those of our foreign enemies that we who are in positions of public trust and clearances see as both true threats to our Republic. Sorry, but you and your former leaders are not what Americans and free loving people share as values.
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