Manufacturing Hysteria

The raw materials are narratives of chaos

Trump’s Amerika as the comrades claim to see it

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* CHAOS *

Since November 5, 2024, it has become the Resistance Left’s go-to word. The Trump presidential transition was said to be in chaos. The Republican-controlled GOP House of Representatives was supposedly in chaos, unable to elect a Speaker. The incoming Trump Administration was allegedly in chaos on day one and every day thereafter. Chaos reigned as President Trump made good on his campaign promises to purge DEI from the federal government and commence the roundup and deportation of illegal aliens with criminal records. The Tuskegee Airmen were being vaporized! American citizens might be deported by ICE! And just yesterday, chaos descended again—when, supposedly, the Trump Administration froze all federal spending.

You will note, however, that despite the typhoon of chaos, things are humming along as usual in the Land of E Pluribus Unum.

At this stage of the Trump Restoration, the Left can only be described as suffering from a collective nervous breakdown. Things are happening that the comrades never imagined would happen. Sacred totems are being toppled left and far left. Postmodern progressivism has been shown to rest upon a foundation of sand. Recent polls show that the Democratic Party’s favorability rating has plummeted to a mere thirty-one percent. All this because President Trump has done something remarkable, indeed unthinkable: Immediately after assuming office, he set about making good on his campaign promises.

True, after a week in office Trump has not yet managed to end the Russo-Ukrainian War or lower the price of eggs. He’s done quite a lot, though: some things good, some things not so good, some things downright bad. But after four years of a moribund presidency, with a stuffed dummy propped up in the front window and a cabal of unelected handlers manipulating the levers of power behind a curtain of lies and gaslighting, the spectacle of an activist presidency is a sight to behold.

Purging the executive branch of government, and particularly the Pentagon, of DEI insanity is most definitely one of the good things: Quite aside from its divisive toxicity, DEI was a colossal waste of time and money. Another good thing is the new policy on immigration and border security—not only long overdue but popular with the fed-up American people. A supplementary executive order takes aim at legal immigrants and aliens resident here on temporary visas who engage in antisemitic activities, such as harassing Jewish students and faculty on university campuses. Such undesirable guests in our country will now be deported. A third good thing is the executive order aiming to end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children—or as progressives prefer to call it, “gender-affirming health care.” A fourth is the executive order cancelling the Biden Administration’s lunatic electric vehicle mandate.

To none of this has the Resistance reacted well. Here on Substack, for instance, the deportation of criminal illegal aliens is being denounced in a truly ludicrous manner. Grab a box of tissues and peruse this cri de coeur:

Who handcuffed the human beings sent on military aircraft without food or water back to Brazil?

Who stripped human beings of basic dignity and their humanity in an exercise of debauched cruelty, aimed at titillating a political mob risen to power on a wave of grievances and resentments that have licensed this despicable abuse in the name of the people of the United States of America?

Well, according to the writer it was that contemporary reincarnation of the SS, the American military, which supposedly has been “stripped of its honor” for following the orders of Führer and Reich Chancellor Trump. From there, the writer goes on to blather about Adolf Eichmann and the Wansee Conference, the Confederate flag, and so on and so forth—all this because a bunch of most unwelcome illegal immigrants with criminal records were being kicked out of the country. Clearly, he was striving to manufacture hysteria by branding a routine, legal deportation as an episode of fascist evil.

For me, reading this despicable screed was like being accosted in a bus station by one of those guys in a trench coat with a stack of tattered pamphlets detailing the sinister plans of the Elders of Zion, the Merchants of Death, or Ming the Merciless.

It’s certainly true that some of Trump’s actions since January 20 have been not so good, or even downright bad. At the head of that list is his blanket pardon of some 1,500 January 6 rioters, which set a terrible precedent. I’m perfectly willing to believe that many of those pardoned had in fact been overcharged and unjustly prosecuted, but among the 1,500 were some genuinely bad actors who deserved no clemency. The many questionable pardons that Biden issued in his final days as president were also deplorable, but that doesn’t excuse what Trump did.

The President has taken other actions that seem legally questionable, such as firing career prosecutors in the Justice Department who assisted Jack Smith with his lawfare campaign. One can understand why Trump wants them gone, but whether he has the power summarily to dismiss them will probably be decided by the courts. The firing of a dozen departmental inspectors general is likely to be settled in court as well.

Trump is also exacting a measure of vengeance on his political enemies. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley, for instance, has had his official portrait removed from the Pentagon. More seriously his security clearance has been revoked, his security detail has been withdrawn, and the DoD’s acting inspector general has been instructed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to conduct a review of his conduct in the closing months of Trump’s first term. This could result in Milley’s reduction in rank from full general (four stars) to lieutenant general (three stars). Such an administrative action is not covered by the presidential pardon that Biden bestowed on the General. Well, that’s what Milley gets for calling Trump a fascist and a “wannabe dictator”—not recommended behavior for a flag officer on active duty. But really, in this and similar cases, the President would have been wiser to let well enough alone.

On the foreign policy front, it’s not at all clear what Trump intends to do. Probably, though, he thinks that he can work his dealmaking magic to settle the Russo-Ukrainian War and bring peace to the Middle East—aspirations that should be viewed with considerable skepticism. V. Putin has already signaled his unwillingness to wheel and deal. He clearly believes that in the long run, Russia has the upper hand because the Trump Administration will not continue American support for Ukraine, and in that he may well be right. Nor is there any plausible scenario for a general Mideast settlement while the issue of the Gaza War remains in doubt. Nothing short of an Israeli victory—that is, the destruction of Hamas— can give Trump a reasonable shot at brokering some sort of peace deal.

No doubt, therefore, there’s some rough sledding ahead for the Trump Administration. Presidential honeymoons have a short shelf life, and many of Trump’s policies and staffing preferences may prove counterproductive. One terrible cabinet pick is the despicable Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Not only is he a kook, a grifter and a rotten human being, but in his Senate hearing yesterday he displayed gross ignorance of two key programs that are administered by HHS, Medicare and Medicaid. Though I’m sure he’d disagree, President Trump would be well served if Kennedy’s nomination went down in flames.

At the moment, however, the Prince of the Golden Escalator has his domestic political enemies on the back foot. They can do little but emote and whip up hysteria with cries of * CHAOS * And what is that, really, but the rationalization of a wish?