Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down
The Roiling Earthquake of Trump II Nominations
Shortly after I moved to California in 2018, I rode through my first round of serious earthquakes. One evening, around the time I was putting my kids to bed, a relatively major one hit as the kids and I were on the stairs.
Not knowing what to do, I simply sat the three of us down. And for about half a minute, we sat there, as our house roiled and cracked and creaked, and the terrifying movement of the earth beneath us scared our dogs to wild barking, and I held my kids close and waited for it be over.
Yesterday, Trump made a series of nothing-short-of-insane nominations to his cabinet and his administration, with more on the horizon, to wit:
A Fox News host with white supremacist tattoos who doesn’t believe in germs or women in the military, picked to run the most powerful military on the planet as Secretary of Defense.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy tapped to run a new Department of Governmental Efficiency– not a just 1984esq title but a snotty-teen-boy-style reference to DOGE coin, which Musk promptly followed up with a promise of great merch and a gaming leaderboard, as if it was all fun and games to burn government to the ground via a new agency that can’t even exist without Congressional approval (but who cares about that!)!
A rumored return of perhaps the most unqualified person in the prior Trump administration, Andrew Whitaker, a former toilet bowl scammer, as Attorney General.
Alina Habba, his relentlessly piss-poor lawyer who has cost Trump half a billion dollars in damages already, but who notably has her own walk-on music at his rallies, as front runner for press secretary.
And while it is true that at least two and maybe four of these would have to survive Senate confirmation, Trump and Elon are pushing for recess appointments, which would remove any oversight of the qualifications of nominees by Congress.
As this all went down, it felt to me, even physically, like the bottom was falling out of the world and the nation, the ground no longer safe to stand on, like I was once again sitting in a stairwell with my arms around my babies, waiting for it to be over, wondering if the house might collapse.
Except this time, it’s just getting started, and there’s no end in sight.
I’ve said a lot in the past week that the thing that may save us from the worst of what Trump has planned is the sheer unbridled incompetence of the people he has nominated. And there is no question that most of his nominees are utterly unqualified for the roles that he plans to give them.
Others, however, are there for very explicit purposes.
Lee Zeldin will destroy the EPA, and doesn’t believe in climate change.
Tom Homan will deport anyone brown, whether they are a US citizen or not, put them in camps, and kill them as a side effect (and maybe on purpose in the long run), and we know this given his prior history at ICE and his full-throated endorsement of family separation.
Stephen Miller will execute on every single violent, white supremacist thought in his sick little mind if given the chance.
And so this is the thing: we have to both prepare for the absolute worst imaginable outcome, and also understand that some of it may not come to pass.
And in the meantime, we have to hold on for dear life to sanity, to the will to fight, to the people we love.
While everything feels unstable and under threat of imminent collapse, I am taking solace in music. Not able to any longer stomach mainstream news, I’ve been listening to a channel on Apple Music called Jazz Chill, which seems to be just the right amount of lyric-less background peace to calm my shattered nerves.
And I’ve been finding space in those who are turning to art as a means of salvation. Like this woman, who last night posted this song. Make note of the leading line.
“Despair is a tool of empire.”
Don’t forget it. Grieve now, feel the fear and allow yourself to recognize it, but don’t sit in it forever.
We’ve got work to do, even as the ground below us shakes, and even if it keeps shaking.
We’re the only hope there is, actually, for an end to it.
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Thank you ECM... this new so called "administration" or whatever it is, is not only an earthquake, but a tsunami of incompetence, inexperience, ego, and vindictiveness. It seems the only attribute is to serve in it is complete fealty and loyalty to a man, not the Constitution. The sentence "Despair is the tool of empire" resonated deeply. Thank you for all you do!
Beautiful piece. I am going to hold on for dear life and protect my family and myself. I will avoid as much negativity as possible. I will sit and wait. Then slowly I will rise up with the other half of the country. Thank you for your inspiration.