February 19, 2025

In an earlier “Tracks,” I asked how I was going to live, with energy and principles, through another Trump presidency. I answered by promising myself that I would develop a “portfolio of processes.” Most commonly, a portfolio refers to a collection of financial assets. Money is usually nice, but I meant helpful psychological, social, and cultural assets.

I have a portfolio now, to which I will make additions and subtractions. Like all portfolios, it will evolve. One challenge has been a raw reality. Like others, I anticipated much of what Trump is now doing: In foreign affairs, Trump would be infatuated with Vladimir Putin, the President and dictator of Russia. In domestic affairs, his administration would be dependent upon the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. (Of course, Trump lied about his awareness of this design for his second presidency during the 2024 campaign.) The leadership of the Department of Justice would want to transform DOJ into Trump’s personal law firm— on taxpayers’ money.

Yet, and here’s the painful rub, I did not sharply enough foresee other events.  Among the most important would be the co-presidency of Elon Musk and the arrogance of his rampages through our democracy. He is everywhere, visor of a black MAGA hat pulled down, small son carted around the corridors and rooms of power, huge fortune flashed as a threat to any Republicans wavering in loyalty to King Donald; baby band of youthful “Muskrats” given access to government records, no matter how private they might be. Why should these brats know about my Social Security or Medicare payments?

The co-presidency of Musk is one laser-lit sign of how quickly the corruption of the Trump administration took hold. America is now an oligarchy, where the rich have power and rewards— if loyal to their bestower.  [i] Musk and the Muskrats not only have access to government records. They are reshaping and “deleting” agencies and employees, even if Musk has a huge interest in their work. One not-so fun fact: Musk’s company, SpaceX, has $15.4 Billion in federal contracts.[ii]

The rot, both foreseen and unforeseen, self-multiplies. The Congressional Republicans? Supine. I write my Congressperson, Nick LaLota. He is on the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives. So far, I have not heard a whimper about the Executive Branch eviscerating Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the House the power of the purse. Today (February 19, 2025), some Senators are publicly questioning Trump’s cruel betrayal of Ukraine. At last, but for how long? How strongly? How effectively?

In response, feelings of anger and outrage are emotional common sense. Some of my fellow citizens, I understand, are in contrast thrilled to bits.  However, in my portfolio, constant anger and outrage are harmful. Recently, I listened to a conversation between Bill T. Jones, the dancer and choreographer, and Judith Butler, the philosopher, both of them cultural luminaries. [iii] They warned their audience that the source of our anger could captivate us and capture our attention. Being angry at Trump and Trump World consistently would become our identity. We would then become dependent on them for it. If this were to happen, Trump and Trump World would hold us in thrall. 

To avoid this danger, one must feel the range of human emotions. I find it helpful to write down my feelings under a rubric new to me, “This is what it feels like to experience a coup, an autocrat seizing power in a democracy.”  Anger is there, of course. Fear and anxiety are also there, of course. A feeling of helplessness is also there, of course. I try to fuse them into a steely resolve to be as clear-eyed as possible.

Watch, for example, in these plump-palmed transactional times, to see who gets exemptions from a slashing of federal funds. 

Watch, too— with care and compassion and the capacity for protest— the sheer human costs of the Trump/Musk slashing and burning. The February 20, 2025 issue of my local paper, The Suffolk Times, tells of some of these costs. A local poultry industry, in business since 1908, “abruptly closed due to an outbreak of bird flu.” It must “cull” 99,000 animals and lay off most of its staff. Normally, the industry could turn to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for help, but the Trump administration has both fired staff and “clamped down” on information there.  (p.6)

A letter, “Purge is hurting families,” tells of a career public servant. She and her wife have recently “welcomed a new baby.” The day after giving birth, while on maternity leave, she was fired. The couple also have a four-year old son. (p. 7) 

These human costs will grow and grow. 

Being as clear-eyed as possible is a central activity in the constant seeking of truths that I can test and trust. This is traditionally hard enough, but now we must all constantly wash our minds free from the dirt of propaganda, lies, and misinformation. Elon Musk and X are only part of these dirt-machines. I read and listen to,  with gratitude, a variety of people, but l like several columns on Substack: Joyce Vance, the legal analyst; the Contrarian, a feisty newcomer that has joined with Vance in publishing The Democracy Index; The Bulwark, where I find smart voices with whom I once quarreled in easier times; and recently, Olivia Troye, who was on the staff of Mike Pence when he was Vice President and who is now a perceptive commentator on national security and foreign affairs.

Grounding these activities are a community of family and friends. In contemporary American political gab-gab, “kitchen table issues” usually means a family’s economic concerns. But a “kitchen table,” more expansively, means the place where friends and family gather to talk about anything and everything; where they laugh and weep, celebrate and mourn; hope and despair; praise righteous protestors and curse dangerous appointments. At the kitchen table we feed both babies and the shaky elderly. Here affection and love go too deep for deals and transactions. Every portfolio is richer and luckier for having a “kitchen table,” no matter how battered the furniture might be.

And art, art is also a necessary part of any portfolio, but enough for now.

Thank you for reading these words.

Network of friends/community

---

[i] Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. New York: Doubleday, 2024, pp. 207. The book, “For the optimists,” deftly and persuasively analyzes the  nature of contemporary autocracies, a drive for both power and money.

[ii] Do read the valuable March/April 2025 issue of Wired.  Material on Musk Money is pp. 12-13.

[iii] Streamed from New York Live Arts, 219 West 19^th Street, New York 10011, February 5, 2025.