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Dear Progressive Reader,
Donald Trump continues to announce controversial appointments for cabinet posts and other jobs in his administration. While many news outlets have commented ([link removed]) on the key qualification for these choices (loyalty to Trump) and others have noted ([link removed]) that fact that many have a common past experience (being hosts on Fox television programs), fewer have noted the other unifying item—lack of any experience in managing anything at all.
In Wisconsin, during the administration of Scott Walker, the renowned ([link removed]) union-busting governor from 2011-2019, was particularly notable for his destruction of state agencies by pushing out anyone with any knowledge of how to run them. Numerous former state employees in various agencies have related to me stories of empty offices and the loss of institutional knowledge during the Walker years. In early in 2011, Walker replaced ([link removed]) the longtime Department of Commerce with a new entity—the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC). The announced goal of the new department was to create opportunities for business and “job creation” in a state that Walker had proclaimed ([link removed]) was “Open for Business.” The result was anything but stellar. As Matthew DeFour
reported ([link removed]) in 2015, “The agency assumed fewer than half of the economic development programs Commerce operated, hired a mix of longtime civil servants plus new managers with experience in the private sector, and reported to a board made up of lawmakers and volunteers from the business community and headed by Walker.”
Trump, it appears, is taking a page from the Walker playbook, choosing appointees with no knowledge or experience in the agencies they will manage, in order to destroy things ([link removed]) and blow stuff up in Washington. As former Georgia Democratic Congressmember Carolyn Bourdeaux writes ([link removed]) in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “No one is going to want the destruction that the former president promises to bring. Just look at his record.” During his first term, the former President engaged in a constant shell game ([link removed]) of changing agency heads and advisers, often removing people just as they were beginning to learn
how the departments they were in charge of actually operated. The loss of institutional knowledge, and the continual appointment of partisan leaders in critical agencies and departments led to, among other things, hundreds of thousands ([link removed](20)32545-9/abstract) of unnecessary deaths of people before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. As Bill Lueders meticulously documented ([link removed]) in The Progressive, Trump continually botched the government’s handling of the pandemic through funding cuts, mismanagement, and out-right disinformation. This time around, even without a global pandemic, we can expect similar attacks ([link removed]) on science, knowledge, and expertise.
This week on our website, Armando Ibarra provides ([link removed]) an analysis of the Latinx vote for (and against) Trump; Bill Blum looks at ([link removed]) the ways the Trump campaign used hate to gain votes; and Nyki Duda examines ([link removed]) the impacts of the spate racist text messages sent in the wake of the election. Plus, Mike Ervin analyzes ([link removed]) the ways the new President could attack Medicaid funding; Rann Miller exposes ([link removed]) the dark side of state takeovers of public schools; and David Helvarg addresses
([link removed]) the dangers faced by the world’s oceans during a Trump presidency. Also, Joe George reviews ([link removed]) the new film Lead and Copper, about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan; Jeff Bryant highlights ([link removed]) some victories for public schools in the recent election; and Nikki Marín Baena pens an op-ed ([link removed]) on preparing to confront the mass deportations that Trump and his team have promised will begin on “day one.”
Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S. - The new 2025 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now available. You can order one online and have it mailed to you. Don’t miss a minute of the “hidden history” of 2025. Just go to indiepublishers.shop ([link removed]) , and while you are there, checkout some of our other great offerings as well. There is still time to get your items delivered for the holidays.
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