Trump World Is Out of Control
Time to get off the golden escalator.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack with USDA employees in Clear Lake, Iowa last year. I’m the second from the left. Everyone of us passed a background check, trained in handling privileged information, and were required to follow the Hatch Act.
When Donald Trump came down that golden escalator in 2015 and announced he was making a run at the presidency, most people thought it was a joke. In hindsight, while definitely a long shot that Trump could be president, that escalator ride was strategic.
If he was going to win the presidency, he was going to need to blow up assumptions and norms and expectations. Well done Donald.
He’s always created a permission structure to allow him to say and do things without consequence. We saw that at work throughout his first term of office, but there were guardrails that, while challenged, held. In his second term, he’s surrounded himself with people to allow him to do anything without consequences. Elected Republicans so far have been all in.
Yesterday, we got a front row seat to the golden escalator version of national security. In the world before the Trumpian Republican party, the idea of all of the national security team, minus the president, communicating real time military operations on unsecured phones over a commercial, unsecured texting application would have been unthinkable.
But here we are. Trump and his team are reshaping our national government to mirror the chaos, bullying, self-serving, unaccountable, and law bending persona of Trump himself. We’re now seeing the full force of the Trump team ignoring the rules and selling a story about the world that is unhinged from history, common sense and decency.
This is intentional. This is strategic. So far this is working. But in the real world there are consequences. Yesterday’s revelation about the text messaging on Signal is an example of the risks to our national security that the Trump world is creating. That group text included at least these members of the administration: White House Chief of Staff, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of the CIA, Director of National Intelligence, Secretary of the Treasury, United States Special Envoy to the Middle East, and other appointees of the Trump team.
That the stock market rebounded the same day as this news broke, is a crazy data point that Trump is successfully blowing up assumptions and norms and expectations. The entire country is now on that golden escalator with Trump spewing toxic untruths and warping reality to fit his vision of the world.
I know something about how security clearances work. The big story here isn’t that a reporter ended up in the group text. The big story is the group text. The big story is the communication that should have been reserved for the highest level of encrypted security and generally shared only in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIV) was shared in a way that was absolutely not secure. That this group was unaware that someone outside their group was in the thread is proof of how truly wreck-less this group of leaders is.
Only in Trump world would anyone buy into the magical thinking that our adversaries weren’t also listening in on this conversation. And if the national security team is sharing actual, real time military actions in this way, imagine how careless they’ve been with much less sensitive but still classified top secret information. China, Russia, organized global cartels, sophisticated global business networks, and our own allies are watching this administration's every move.
So do you still think there is any hope that they haven’t already lost control of the data they’ve mined about all of us from what were once secure data sources? Any interview, any Republican response, any talking points by Democrats about this catastrophic security breach that doesn’t call out this basic fact about the personal information of Americans is caught up in the magical thinking of Trump World.
Let me pause here for a little background on my experience. I’m a farm kid. I’ve never made a lot of money. I’ve never been in the military. I’ve never been in elected office. But I did serve over three years as the Iowa State Executive Director (SED) of the Farm Service Agency at USDA. One of the duties for the Iowa SED is to be in the line of succession to become acting Secretary of Agriculture.
Friends and family thought this was pretty cool. However, I would tell them, “if I’m the acting Secretary of Agriculture, no one is going to care that I am, because something really big and likely bad has happened to all the people serving in the positions ahead of me preventing them from taking on that role.” So while I took this responsibility seriously, I was actually praying that I would never have the experience of serving in that role.
Because in order for the Iowa SED or anyone else outside the National Capital Region to assume the acting role, everyone in the National Capital Region who is in the line of succession has to not be able to become acting Secretary. It doesn’t take much imagination to think of horrible situations that could cause that scenario.
In preparation for one of those really bad days, people serving in positions that were in the line of succession got trained, got security clearances, did exercises, and practiced.
All of this redundancy and planning is known as the Continuity of Operations (COOP) and starts with direction and coordination from the White House. You can see some of the public facing information for USDA’s COOP here.
As an appointee, I depended on career staff to help me fulfill my duties in service to the administration. This happened everyday I was Iowa SED. My team of 640 people, but especially the 14 members of my amazing Iowa leadership team who reported directly to me, helped me understand the laws and regulations that empowered me to do my job.
These rules and regulations also provided guardrails so that I didn’t put anyone, including myself, at risk of being harmed by the actions of the federal government. All federal employees, including appointees, have a list of annual training they have to complete in order to know the rules and in some cases the laws they must follow, for example, training on the Hatch Act, which I will return to below, so make a mental note.
In practicing to be the acting Secretary of Agriculture, I became even more aware of how important those career staff are to the execution of our federal government. This is what bureaucracy looks like: lots of redundancy, lots of chain of command, lots of rules and protocols, and lots and lots of people taking their jobs incredibly seriously.
Once I realized this, my direction to the career staff supporting me in the exercises was to charge them with the operations. My job was to make decisions. Their jobs were to make sure we were following the rules, protocols, and most importantly the law. As an appointee, even if, especially if, I was in the role of Acting Secretary of Agriculture, I needed to make sure I was following the law.
According to the law, if I was in the role of Acting Secretary of Agriculture, I had to have a level of security clearance that would allow me to receive that protected level of information. That’s all I’m going to say about that. My prayers were answered and I never had the opportunity to receive any of that information.
But in being prepared in case I did, I got an education in how to legally protect and share information that needed to remain secure. I assure you, nothing about the security breach about military operations we learned about yesterday followed the law.
If the national security team is running roughshod over these rules, protocols, and law, what expectation should anyone have that rules, protocols, and the law are being followed anywhere by this administration?
Clearly they aren’t. If you think your personal information is still secure within the federal government, you’re delusional. This spectacular failure by the President’s team including his Chief of Staff, the Vice President, and the Secretary of Defense demonstrates that this White House has no regard for the law.
I intentionally left off their names. Because this isn’t the Trump presidency to do with what he wants. This is the office of the President of the United States. POTUS. He serves in that role, but he doesn’t get to do whatever he wants. The appointees serving in the White House, don’t get to do whatever they want.
Except, they are collectively running the government as if they do. Trump has blown up assumptions and norms and expectations.
Cue Elons Musk’s intentional and strategic violation of the Hatch Act. I’ve included the Wikipedia link for a deeper dive into this important law that every federal employee has to follow, with two exceptions; the President and the Vice President. This limits civil service employees from engaging in certain political activity. Here’s a comedic example we dealt with to illustrate the point when I was at USDA. A federal employee can’t wear a MAGA hat while on official duty. Yeah, pretty straight forward.
However, Musk wears a MAGA hat almost every time he’s in the oval office. Musk loves to be “clever” with little inside jokes. So what does wearing the MAGA hat mean? Is he openly defying the Hatch Act?
“The Hatch Act generally applies to employees working in the executive branch of the federal government. The purpose of the Act is to maintain a federal workforce that is free from partisan political influence or coercion,” says a Department of Justice handout.
Is he using the MAGA hat to openly declare he’s not a federal employee and not subject to the Hatch Act? Is he a Federal Contractor and do the rules for Federal Contractors under the Federal Election Commission apply? It seems reasonable that wearing a campaign hat while doing official federal business could be considered a campaign contribution.
Is this a bigger statement about how the White House chooses to enforce the Hatch Act and other laws under the Federal Election Commission? It defies common sense to think that Musk wearing the MAGA hat doesn’t contradict the effort for federal work to be free from partisan political influence or coercion.
What’s clear for everyone to see is that Trump World is trying to reshape the United States in its own image. There is intentionality and strategy to all that they are doing. By flooding the zone with action and challenging everything, all the time, all at once, it creates a situation where there are few consequences for what they say and what they do.
There are only two ways for this to go. Trump continues to take the United States down that golden escalator into a world where there are no consequences for the executive branch violating norms and laws. This is tyranny. Or Trump World comes apart, and we start to rebuild our nation from the wreckage the Trumpian Republicans foisted upon us.
Under either circumstance, Democrats have nothing to lose by fighting. In the first scenario, history tells us there is no appeasement for this level of tyranny. In the second, it’s going to take a massive effort by Americans to pull us back from the brink.
While I’m shocked by Trumpian Republicans, my hair is actually on fire because of the lack of leadership from the Democrats. You’ve got nothing to lose by fighting. Get off the escalator. It’s only going down. Punch back with everything we’ve got to call out the lawlessness and to hold Republicans accountable now.
Trump has the “shidas” touch. That’s where everything he touches turns to shit. If we let him play this game with our nation any longer, we’ll all be swimming in shit. The security breach revealed yesterday of the highest level is the proof that they are ignoring all the norms and rules. They have compromised national security. They have compromised every American’s personal information.
We are living in a delusion. Democrat leaders, businesses, universities, law firms, media companies, and so many other powerful American individuals and institutions are entering into a stance of appeasement as if there is a bottom to the escalator. There isn’t.
You know who understands this, every day Americans. We’re showing up. We’re done with the bullshit.
The donors and party leaders must start investing in the people rising up to reclaim our nation from the Trumpian sycophants who have no regard for the rule of law. If you’re worried about the midterms, here’s a fact for you. If Trump is going to fail, then you need to invest in your team so we get credit for the win and that will secure the victory for American democracy in November 2026. If Trump doesn’t fail, there won’t be a normal midterm election.
We’ve now witnessed the most spectacular failure of national security in my lifetime. This is evidence that Trump and Vance and their entire team of appointees have no regard for following the law. If the strategy of appeasement and caution in reacting continues, it will be one of the most important reasons we all ride that golden escalator to hell.
Thank you. It takes an unbelievably long time for ordinary people of both parties to catch on to what Trump and some of his followers are trying to do. I am very encouraged to see many different kinds of people are not afraid to rise up. I think many do not because all the distractions have left them standing with mouths open and expecting someone else to stop it as they have done in the past. I am especially disappointed in the way Iowans have slipped backwards when once they were a haven for those who came to Iowa after the Vietnam War.
Okay, Matt, let's "cast appeasement and caution to the wind." How do we do this as a "well oiled machine" with all of us working as part of a team that knows what it's mission is and what the steps are for accomplishing it? We need the leader/s. We need the plan. We need the reinforcements to make sure its accomplished. You led 640 people in your last job. Lead us. We are showing up at townhalls but how can we put all our angst to work for us in a synchronized effort to succeed at the polls in 2026--if we can trust a free election then. Don't just tell us what needs to be done lead us. We "everyday Americans" are standing up but we need leaders. You named several in an earlier communication. Can you get them together and together put together a leadership team that has a plan we can give our best to?