Absurd? It’s Real!

Terry H. Schwadron

July 17, 2025

As silly as it sounds that loyal MAGA fans are accusing the same Donald Trump who champions conspiracy theories for holding back on Jeffrey Epstein’s possibly non-existent “client list,” the news is filled now with developments astonishing and absurd.

Worse, these developments reflect much about our changing societal values — with few ticking any box we might recognize as morally aspirational.

The Trump administration, for example, has ordered the destruction of starvation-saving foodstuffs — bags of wheat, rice and biscuits — to fully carry out its cuts in foreign humanitarian aid. How letting an estimated 3.3 million die of starvation helps cement an ‘America First’ vision is head-scratching. Not content with letting food rot undelivered, the administration has ordered destruction of warehouses full of live-saving food. Do we need to have political loyalty tests in South Sudan and Gaza to recognize the starving?

Then, in the same week that Elon Musk’s AI product, Grok, drew boos for publishing summaries that reflect its antisemitic bias — including praise for Hitler — the Pentagon picked AI vendors, including Grok. Though it is a somewhat different package of code, the decision comes across as yet another foot-in-mouth move by Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth. Apparently, AI analysis across various mission areas is supposed to enhance the Pentagon’s ability to support warfighters and maintain strategic advantage. It might be an upgrade over Hegseth’s own anemic strategic thinking, but seems pretty thin explanation for including an AI engine fed information from a sea of X users.

Just after House Republicans batted away a second attempt (there will be more) by Democrats to jump on the Epstein unhappiness and force a resolution for disclosure of the files, Speaker Mike Johnson went out of his way to say Attorney General Pam Bondi should release details in the very case he had just whipped his party to reject. So, the Speaker is against a resolution that he personally favors — all against the wishes of Trump. How does this inside-out politics work, exactly? Trump, meanwhile, now calls Republicans who keep talking about the Epstein files as “evil,” even as he insists that Bondi can release more “credible” information. It all underscores the notion that Trump’s usually good political antennae have gone haywire — unless he is simply trying to cover his own associations with Epstein.

At the White House, Trump was waving a copy of a letter that he told a dozen Republican congressmen was a draft to fire Jerome Powell as chair of The Fed — something he has no legal authority to do. In any event, the term for Powell, who has promised to fight an illegal dismissal, runs out in six months or so, prompting the obvious question about the possible gain for another unpleasant public fight. But never mind, 12 hours later, Trump said it was “unlikely” that he would proceed, which is probably good because Powell was a Trump appointee during his first term.

The federal lands around the Grand Canyon are burning with the same wildfire fervor as did California’s fires, but you’re not hearing Trump talk about some perceived failure to rake up forest leaves. Trump and his surrogates continue to argue that no one has been harmed by cutting Medicaid. Vice President JD Vance had to cast a tie-casting vote to get Team Trump’s “recissions” budget cuts to “claw back” money that Congress approved for NPR and PBS and HIV treatment overseas even to the procedural point where it could be debated, even while continuing to preen that his “big beautiful bill,” now approved federal budget, is hugely popular when polls show the opposite.

There’s a new absurdity every hour or so, it seems. It’s not just that Trump and team are erratic or even wrong about the underlying facts. It’s that he is also pushing both his personal view of uncontested power over other branches of government as well as voters, and recognizing an underlying value set of greed and brutality that is fueling what passes as policy.

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