There’ve Got to be Brigades

MONTPELIER — Keeping up with the shenanigans of the Trump administration is like the old kids’ game of setting three frogs on a table and trying to stop them from jumping. As soon as you think you’ve got one outrage pegged, another pops up in a spot you didn’t expect. Likewise, the reactions of the administrators of the various programs and agencies under attack have varied, from defiance to compliance. We’re a lot like, and about as successful as, Elmer Fudd in his pursuit of Bugs Bunny. It’s hardly a wonder the opposition has been mired in confusion and inchoateness. Minority leader Schumer, unless he’s got something up his sleeve, has been acting like a traveler ruefully complaining about missing a train.

There’s no way that anyone, let alone Donald Trump, can work a four-day week, leave the office Thursday afternoon, and spend a long weekend playing in a golf tournament while at the same time composing, vetting, and printing out and signing so many TV-ready manuscripts of presidential orders. There’ve got to be brigades of similarly ideologically inclined elves and munchkins laboring behind the scenes to produce so many. His passion appears to be batting a tiny white ball around a mowed green field; theirs is the one that worries me.

Now that his team has managed to dismiss, or pressure to resign, so many heads of important domestic agencies that we peasants can only with difficulty keep track of them, he’s gone into foreign relations, in the only way he appears to know how: by enacting and imposing heavy import tariffs intended to stimulate domestic production and convey his sense of victimhood, an important element of his message to his loyal followers. Thus even some uninhabited islands east of Australia that are home to no one but penguins have, thanks to the media, come in for special attention.

If Trump and his minions have been hoping for broader attention, they’ve succeeded. The stock market swoops and swings, reminiscent of the famous film of the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge swaying in the wind just before collapsing, have begun to impress even folks with no investments or understanding of the nuances of the market. The public protests have begun. Vermont’s State House lawn was crowded last weekend by upset people in concert with signs searching for as many different ways as possible to say, “Stop! Enough!” It was all very friendly; but can you imagine an Administration official, say, JD Vance, trying to address that crowd?

Meanwhile, the Senate, possibly chagrined enough at last to react to its initiatives, perquisites, and responsibilities being forcibly usurped, has begun to make noises about taking them back. Without meaning to make light of the phenomenon, it reminds me of nothing else more than a line from Casey at the Bat”: “But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all.” A couple of old-timers are part of the revolt. McConnell and Grassley. We need more like them: senators with nothing to lose.

The courts so far are holding firm. You know they’re doing their job when Dear Leader refers to them (including the ones he appointed) as Marxists, corrupt, and terrible, nasty people. Even the Supreme Court, aware that the “Roberts Court” will be a distinct entity in history books, has apparently been pulling up its socks and in the midst of what might be a crisis for democracy, making occasional reasonable remarks. I suspect that Citizens United lurks in their collective unconscious, just as the Dred Scott decision has hung forever over the Taney Court.

During the first few weeks of the Trump administration, the surprises and outrages, in spite of the ominous campaign promises, came so thick and fast that Washington bureaucracy resembled an ant hill that naughty boys had kicked apart. It still does, wherever the Muskrats come beating on the door. But the opposition’s begun to coalesce. Bernie and AOC are out beating the bushes; Pete Buttigieg posts podcasts from his living room; Tim Walz and Cory Booker are coyly courting candidacy in 2028; and even Barack Obama has finally commented on our situation. The rallies will grow in size and intensity as the weather warms, tariff-induced inflation grows, and job layoffs increase among Trump voters.

All of that is valuable to the minority cause. Far more important will be a true citizens united movement. It needs a leader at least as much as grievances or goals. And if we need a guiding spirit during the coming depression, how about Woody Guthrie? He sang us through the last one.

Willem Lange