Reading Headlines and Tea Leaves
Reading headlines on the current administration, I frame them in context of my own time in local and state public and quasi-public agencies. That aligned with some early stories that assumed/expected a degree of continuity with previous practice and structures. But then “guerilla” DOGE tactics roared in and bent, broke, downsized, and blew such comforting narratives away. And observers segued to attempts to interpret/read tea leaves/pin down what’s really going on. Is this a land/money/data/power grab? A collaborative assault on Constitutional checks and balances? An effort to cut back on regulation of business and industry and environmental protections? An attempt to shift/revise/coopt history and national and international narratives? All of the above, a friend and I recently agreed.
Personality and Power
Behind the headlines, of course, are the men pushing re-set buttons as fast and furiously as they can. Top dog for now is Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff, Project 2025 contributor. In his own words: “I’ve spent my entire life in the conservative movement, since I was a kid in high school, working, dreaming of the day we could have a piece of legislation like what exists right now.” He referred, of course, to the president’s “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB), which he called one of the “great achievements in the history of the conservative movement.” (Josephine Harvey. Stephen Miller Rants at Fox News Viewers in MAGA Bill Meltdown. Daily Beast. July 1, 2025). Aww. We’re witnessing a boy’s dream come true. But reports indicate he started much younger. A former third-grade classmate, sharing a desk, recalled Miller sticking a strip of tape down the middle and telling him to keep his mess on the other side, though he remembered it being far messier across the divide. (John F. Muller. I sat on the other side of Stephen Miller’s First Wall. Politico. June 22, 2018). And family and former associates have voiced befuddlement and horror. How did a kid descended from Jewish immigrants and who came out of a liberal enclave in California become an inside-the-Beltway, ninja culture warrior? (Jean Gurrero. Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda. 2020, reviewed by David Killion. The Loyalist: The cruel world according to Stephen Miller. The Nation. April 25, 2025). Seems that, “Like Trump himself, Miller intuitively grasped that being hated in elite liberal environments was better than being ignored, and that embracing the language and tactics of conservative media offered a means for a strange and argumentative kid to stand out from a crowd of generic achievers and to fast-track his way to influence.” At
on the Other Side of Stephen Miller’s Fi
The Best Revenge?
Not surprising, in these polarized and partisan times, to find ourselves spinning competing conspiracy theories. From outside, administration operatives have “stolen” and hijacked the nation and our shared narrative. From inside, the current reset is a long overdue revolution. And revenge has become the best revenge. Miller, ultimate insider, has “amassed more power than almost anyone else at the White House.” (Josh Dawsey and Rebecca Ballhaus. Stephen Miller’s Fingerprints Are on Everything in Trump’s Second Term. Wall Street Journal. June 20, 2025). “…[H]e has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed.” But leaks from inside indicate he’s unpopular with colleagues: abrasive personality, impatience, open scorn for others’ intelligence, pushing for the most extreme position on every issue (Lauren Sforza. Trump henchman Stephen Miller is hated by many in administration, too. NJ.com. June 2, 2025). And his laser focus on immigration emerges in an “…obsessive drive to purge the country of undocumented immigrants [that] has become so notorious inside…Homeland Security that officials assigned one unlucky staffer to field his constant calls to spare senior figures the daily tongue-lashings…” (Tim Latchem. Insiders Spills on Trump’s Call to ICE Barbie as Protests Raged. Daily Beast. July 11., 2025).
Work Environment? No Adult Supervision
Have to wonder, what it’s like to work in this White House. Can’t imagine the environment’s warm and fuzzy, with Miller ascendent. And is it just me, or does the place seem to leak like the proverbial sieve (on deep background to safeguard jobs and future careers, of course)? The frequency suggests internal dissatisfaction, even concern. And follow-up paranoid “who-dun it” searches for leakers must be extremely uncomfortable. The Musk era (hard to believe it’s only a few short months ago) produced tales of disagreements, shouting matches, even physical conflicts. Picture cage boxing in the halls of power? A recent article referred to “palace intrigue,” another compared to Napoleonic court maneuverings. But I’m thinking more of the Tudors, where favorites could fly high and then fall, sometimes even into “off with their heads” territory. Consider Musk’s trajectory and current threats to cancel his companies’ federal contracts and maybe even deport him. And picture the surrounding cast of junior staffers, young, conservative, careerist, strivers in training, all looking for their chance and unlikely to show mercy if they spot weakness in their “elders.” Does that explain why Trump 2.0 lacks seasoned “adults in the room.” Were none invited, or did they shy away from even trying to ride herd? Knew they’d be disregarded, scoffed at, if they urged caution and restraint, reminded what’s been tried before and didn’t work and why? Point out what could lead to unforeseen and even disastrous consequences.
Cloudy With Resentment and Chaos
Except in very early days, I’ve seen little mention that the election did not indeed create a mandate, since almost half the electorate voted against. But don’t quibble over details. The gloating, often cruel, “boys’ club” tone reminds of a bunch of adolescents turned loose with a new computer game and dragging the country along, like it or not. As per the president, we can get away with anything! But after years of working up and getting worked up over their ideas, implementation has often proven ham-fisted and tone-deaf. Do they see themselves clearing the deck, disregarding what’s come before, rather than borrowing and adapting “best practices” that have actually worked? And lame “alternate truths” storylines can’t stand up to fact checking and real-world phone videos of resistance demonstrations and ICE raids. And then there’s cloud of shrill social-media trash talk, with the president taking the lead, scattering nicknames and superlatives as he goes. Nasty! Stupid! Nastiest! Stupidest! And there are accusations opponents suffer “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” But nicknames cut both ways, and the opposition has taken up Wall Street’s TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). And then there’s the rising Greek chorus of psychologists conducting remote video assessments of his mental capacity and pointing out signs he’s slipping into dementia. Of course, there’s pushback: no, that was Biden and let’s have Congress investigate! To clear my head, I turn to European thinkers who have navigated their own dark and chaotic times early and too often. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche saw the “dynamics of resentment in the erasure of the difference between words and deeds. (quoted in Svetlana Boyem. Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea. University of Chicago Press. 2012). “Resentment provokes dialogue, but it is not about the word of the other or the freedom of the other…Resentment might feed imagination, but it is a paranoid imagination, a form of delusion that imagines the other…only as the other paranoid whose sole raison d’etre is to persecute me. I don’t like the other, it must be his/her fault…builds too many blind alleys and conspiratorial plots.”
End of Empathy and Playing to the Base
Despite the administration’s claims of transparency, “The architecture of resentment…[can become] a refuge from worldly checks and balances, from the gaze of the other that can lay bare the fictitiousness of one’s remembered injuries.” (Boyem). Miller’s abhorrence of immigrants is matched by Russell Vought’s (Office of Management and Budget) animus against federal workers, apparently viewing them as carriers of “deep state” conspiracies. They should “not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want to put them in trauma.” (Will Neal. Trump Official Backpedals as Wild Trauma Plot Exposed. Daily Beast. June 1, 2025). Did he cross his fingers behind his back when he claimed he didn’t mean to be so mean spirited? He calls himself a “Christian Nationalist,” a movement that combines new Calvinism, predestination of the righteous, gospel of wealth, anti-DEI. (Aja Romano. Christian nationalists decided empathy is a sin. Now it’s gone mainstream. Vox. May 22, 2025). Have to wonder if that leaves any room for the Golden Rule.
End of Expertise
Miller’s portfolio has also included “the administration’s broadsides against universities, law firms and even museums.” (Dawsey and Ballhaus). The House of Representatives has approved clawing back previously approved funding from (NPR) National Public Radio and (PBS) Public Broadcasting System. The measure will move on to the Senate. So much for expertise, First Amendment freedom of speech, dissent. Reads like politics of resentment, intended to dumb down public discourse and leave no one with the capacity to talk back, to question, to mount any effective resistance. A few conservatives have not found BBB so beautiful, especially when it comes to Medicaid cuts. And dissent has come from unexpected quarters. Some years back, Lawrence Summers was ousted, at the urging of faculty, for claiming women’s underrepresentation in math and sciences reflects our lack the mental capacity. Ever heard of Marie Curie, the women who discovered CRISPR gene editing tech, etc. etc.? But now, he’s perhaps stepped into the role of an adult not in the room (?), and written a “hardheaded” opposition opinion. That it “will most likely slow growth, risk a financial crisis, exacerbate trade deficits and undermine national security by exhausting the government’s borrowing capacity. This is more than ample reason to regret its passage.” He went on to say, “As more people realize what is coming, there is time to alter these policies before grave damage is done. TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) is a doctrine that should apply well beyond financial markets.” (This Law Made Me Ashamed of My Country. New York Times Opinion. July 8, 2025).
Go Along to Get Along
Some media, law firms, universities have tried going along to get along. But Havard has deployed its vast resources to fight back. Business publications and Murdoch-owned outlets try to normalize, imply there’s not really a problem, except perhaps with the chaotic methods. One such story cautioned against going too far. But what might restraint look like in these days of “alternate truths,” when “It is hard to get Trump supporters to feel alarmed [over the damage], even self-protectively—…the base is still feeling its own special mood of triumphal bitterness: That’ll teach the swamp. They’re enjoying the comeuppance of the Democrats, and the arrival of better policies. They’re justly proud to have a president who actually does things, and is bold. And the Biden era was corrupt, they argue. How touching and antique, how fully RINO to be concerned about forms and traditions that are long gone, and with integrity and the appearance of integrity.” (Peggy Noonan. Broken Windows at the White House. Wall Street Journal Opinion. May 15, 2025).
What’s Normal?
Reaching for perspective, I again turn to eastern European thinkers for more realistic insights into the risks of going along to get along. The Russian Alexei Yurchak coined the term “hypernormalization” to describe civilian experience in the former Soviet Union. “[I]n a society…. where what you are feeling is the disconnect between seeing that systems are failing, that things aren’t working … and yet the institutions and the people in power just are…ignoring it and pretending everything is going to go on the way that it has.” (Adrienne Matei. Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real. The Guardian. May 22, 2025). In this case, the way they want it to go, no questions asked. And “…for reasons including a lack of effective leadership and an inability to imagine how to disrupt the status quo…..people carry on their lives as normal despite systemic dysfunction—give or take a heavy load of fear, dread, denial and dissociation.” (Rahaf Harfoush, digital anthropologist, quoted in Matei). Sounds familiar.
Learning Life Lessons?
Can we hope this crop of young hotshots will learn, be chastened by their own overreach in taking decisions and actions that shake the country and the world? Seems unlikely considering what we know of them and their actions so far. Note signs of Dunning-Kruger Effect. The converse of “Imposter Syndrome,” it recognizes the “double curse of incompetence,…[that] individuals with limited knowledge in a specific area overestimate their abilities and are also unaware of their own incompetence….[so they] are not only performing poorly but are also unlikely to learn and improve because they underestimate the gap between their perceived and actual competence.” (Google AI). And there’s always someone else to blame—Biden, Obama—with psychological projection, “attributing ‘unacceptable’ features to others.” And, with the administration’s notoriously thin skins, it’s back to the attack. And there’s a temptation to various types of brinkmanship. A Vox article drew parallels from recent bombing of Iran’s nuclear program to decisions that drew/lured the US into the 2003 Iraq War (Zack Beauchamp. Three ways Trump’s Iran attack could spin out of control. June 22, 2025). The neo-con “architects” running things back then weren’t so young, but they were arrogant, thought they had all the answers, but had “little to no understanding of the second-order consequences….” I recall watching Dick Cheney, on a Sunday news program, promise a “land-based aircraft carrier “in the middle East. Oh really? Easy and tempting, when you’re on top, to fall into simplistic and self-serving thinking. But, “There was so much they didn’t know, both about…the country and the likely consequences of regime change more broadly, that they failed to grasp just how much of a quagmire the war might become…” And they didn’t bother or care to learn. And now, over 20 years later and counting and despite election promises to pull out, there’s still no clear exit in sight. Think Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby, stuck and can’t get out. So much for looking before you leap.
What Now?
Important to remember that “What makes dysfunction so dangerous is that we might simply learn to live with it.” Consider those go-along articles. But recognizing potential hazards can “give us language – and permission…and clarify[y] the risk of not taking action when we can.” Ursula K. Le Guin, accepting a National Book Award, said, “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words. This world we’ve created is ultimately a choice.” And “It doesn’t have to be like this.” (Matei). I think of Woody Guthrie singing, “This land is your land, this land is my land.” And I remember that the “No Kings” demonstrations drew 5M people, while the president’s self-celebration only drew about 250K. This story is not over.