The Death of Reliable Good Government?

Elon and his chainsaw are destroying the social contract along with the federal government departments they're disemboweling.

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The tragedy of the January 29 collision in Washington, D.C. has been overshadowed in the last month by the intentional chaos created by Felon47 and his merry band of unqualified lackeys. In normal times (whatever that means), the investigations of an air disaster of this scope would still be featured in newscasts and grabbing front page headlines. But journalists and broadcasters have instead spent the last several weeks chasing after one self-inflicted metaphorical train wreck to another.

In the exceedingly rare instances when these air tragedies occur, we’ve been able to rely on the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate and determine the cause(s) of such incidents in an unbiased manner, and to make recommendations and changes, if appropriate, for avoiding similar occurrences in the future.

But immediately after the crash, well before any investigation had even begun, Felon47 thought that his “common sense” could instantaneously supersede the NTSB’s investigation, blaming the crash on DEI. Remember, this is the same “common sense” that has resulted in multiple bankruptcies, 34 felony convictions (and counting), findings of sexual assault, an insurrection intended to stop the functioning of our government, and his ongoing capitulation to the world’s dictators. (That’s all still true, no matter how much he tries to erase his own history.)

His campaign sales pitch — aside from the cruel, deep-seated racism of his anti-immigrant tactics — was all about shrinking the federal government and he went straight to work on that from day one of his administration.

Felon47 and his cronies created a boogeyman of an outsized federal government as the primary cause of any and all of the nation’s ills. But instead of a rational, methodical approach to solve this supposed looming problem, Felon47, along with his unelected ketamine-fueled sidekick, have been proceeding since day one to hack up the critical day-to-day functions of our government with a no-longer-metaphorical chainsaw.

Their cavalier attitude toward the very people that keep our nation functioning is mind-bogglingly ignorant. There are only two possibilities for their recklessness: either they have no idea of the value of our federal government departments and their employees, or they do understand the value and are intentionally undermining the way we function.

There are innumerable functions of our federal government that are virtually invisible when they’re operating properly, so we tend to take them for granted. We only notice them in their absence. For example:

• Tens of thousands of planes take off and land safely every day, and passengers arrive at their destinations. That would be impossible without the Federal Aviation Administration, part of the Department of Transportation. We have thousands of miles of interstate highways to drive on, including tens of thousands of bridges and tunnels. We have interstate rail service that enables the transport of goods in efficient ways. All of this is thanks to the DOT.

• When you put your savings in a bank, it’s going to be there when you want to take it out, even if the bank goes under. This protection is provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, an agency of the federal government.

• Electricity flows into your home. You have heat in the winter and cooling in the summer. There’s gasoline at the gas station and there are electric charging stations available as an alternative. The consistency of that is attributable, in large part, to our Department of Energy.

• You have a 40-hour work week and you work in safe working conditions. Your children don’t work in sweat shops. You can thank the Department of Labor and it’s agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

• Perhaps you have a retired parent or grandparent who has worked their entire life and has made payments to Social Security, with the understanding that they’ll receive Social Security benefits when you retire. Maybe there is someone you know or who is in your family who is disabled. You work for your entire adult life and you make regular payments to Social Security, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) if you become disabled. The Department of Treasury currently boasts an unbroken record of scheduled payments — so far.

• If someone in your community commits a crime, the government is there to investigate the crime and to prosecute and punish the offenders. For federal crimes, we rely on the Department of Justice. (Like all mob bosses, Felon47 especially despises this one.) It’s tempting but erroneous to oversimplify the work of the DOJ. The responsibilities of their 115,000 employees span agencies like the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, INTERPOL, the Civil Rights Division, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

• Maybe you’re planning a trip to “Old Faithful” with your kids this summer. Possibly a road trip to the Grand Canyon is on your bucket list. Perhaps you’ve dreamed of doing some camping or rock climbing at Yosemite. The employees of Department of the Interior make all that possible.

I list these functions not to stoke fear — there’s enough of that floating around already — but rather to voice appreciation for the work that our federal workers do. Our 3,000,000+ federal employees work quietly day after day, year after year, and we get to live lives of some degree of certainty and security as a result.

Yet all of these departments and many others are at risk of elimination as the result of Felon47’s willy-nilly downsizing efforts. In his meandering, falsehood-rich speech before Congress earlier this week, Felon47 promised us that we ain’t seen nothin’ yet, and Congressional Republicans couldn’t leap to their feet fast enough to flaunt their fawning obeisance.

It remains to be seen whether we’ll have a functioning government by July 4th. Let’s hope there’s something left to celebrate.