All Right, That's Enough

     Most people agree that Washington, D.C. is a semi-evil clown circus, or at least the parts that the fed.gov lurks in are.  They start to disagree when you get down to details -- this Administration or that one, one party more than another, and somehow it's almost never their guy or gal, just a prime clown or three and a hand-wavy bunch of "them."

     This general notion of buffoonery, wickedness and performative showpersonship gets applied with a high degree of freakoutery when control of Congress and/or the Presidency passes from one party to the other.*  Maybe that's as it should be.  Maybe with only two parties having a chance to frob (see Usage Notes at the link) around with the levers of power, a degree of viewing-with-alarm is useful in the same way as a product-safety team trying to figure out all the ways a thing can go wrong.

     But it becomes tiresome, and never more so when speculation soars to third and fourth-order effects: If nominee W is confirmed for office X and if they proceed to remove department Y and rule Z, then....  Whoa, nelly!  One worry at a time.

     Some -- in my opinion, most -- of Mr. Trump's nominees are underqualified and overconfident, which is never a good combination.  Many of the things they might do, outlined in Agenda 47 or Project 2025, would negatively affect U. S. citizens and residents, and I'm opposed to those things.  But they have not done them yet; they have not reached a position from which they would be able to do them yet, and there is no certainty that they will.

     There are probably awful times coming.  We have never before elected a President who swore vengeance as a big part of his campaign (not that any previous holders of that office were plaster saints).  But it has not happened yet and diving too deep into they-mights and what-ifs will only get in the way.  2025's House and Senate will be even more delicately balanced than 2024's, and those contentious, deliberative bodies can be counted on to do what they do best and were intended to do: contend and deliberate.  In public.  Loudly.

     Pop some popcorn.  The first couple of months will be interesting.  Yes, things could get pretty bad, but the roller-coaster is already clicking up the hill and there's no getting out until the end of the ride.  Might as well take each climb and swoop down as they come.
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* I'd love to tell you the United States is a multiparty democracy, mentioning the Greens, Libertarians, New Whigs and so on, with a nod to the handful of fiercely independent members of Congress, but as a practical matter, it ain't.  The little-party guys essentially never make it to the center ring and the Is all pick a party to caucus with.  If you want to get anything done, you'll have to choose the party that makes you hold your nose the least, and try to coax or shove them in the direction you want to go.