Links: 25/2/25

Politics: 

I think the two grimmest surprises about the second Trump presidency is the combination of the breakneck speed at which it is dismantling democracy paired with the fact that this dismantling is being executed by a kakistocracy (a government of the least qualified). 

This week has brought the biggest shift in US foreign policy since WW2. Pete Hegseth, US Defence Secretary, declared that Europe would have to be responsible for its own security (putting in question NATO's Collective Defense obligations) including funding Ukraine. Vice President Vance claimed the biggest threat facing Europe is suppression of freedom of speech and met with Germany's AfD leader after his speech, a party that Elon Musk has also loudly supported during its campaign for the 2025 federal election (it ended up with 20.8% of the vote coming in second behind the Christian Democrats). The most obvious expression of the US shift has been its shift towards supporting Russia: "The US has sided with Russia to oppose a United Nations vote condemning the war on Ukraine on the third anniversary of the illegal invasion.", is supporting peace negotiations that exclude Ukraine, Trump has called the Ukrainian President a "dictator" and has claimed that Ukraine is responsible for the war. The backdrop to this is negotiations about a rare earth minerals deal between Ukraine and the US in exchange for security assurances.

 

Internally, it has only taken a few weeks for the Trump administration to attack LGBTQI+ communities, give Elon Musk's DOGE free reign over a series of apparently random and potentially dangerous (and AI powered) cuts to government departments, and ramp up the deportation of migrants, including to Guantanamo Bay. Mother Jones published an article today detailing a new "lavender scare" in US Government departments ("In the US Department of Agriculture, multiple people have been asked to report the names of LGBTQ employee resource group leaders to higher-ranking officials"). An early executive order has ended funding for gender-affirming care for children under 19, and order that is currently being fought in court by individual states and organisations representing families and doctors. Trump has fired leading figures in the military including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff. Forbes summarises other cuts to departments here, including mass firings in the Federal Aviation Administration responsible for aviation safety. I think beyond the horrible consequences that this all has for Americans, there is a genuine chance that right-wing extremist politicians in other polities will be licking their lips at the prospect of repeating this if they come to power in their respective countries.