It’s hard to believe, but we are lucky to have not yet fully felt the effects of the mismanagement of a presidential administration led largely by incompetents and amateurs.
But we will soon enough.
Protecting children from toxic chemicals seems like one of those things pretty much everyone could get behind. And it was, until Monday, when The New York Times reported that the Environmental Protection Agency was “set to cancel tens of millions of dollars in grants to scientists studying environmental hazards faced by children in rural America, among other health issues.”
That doesn’t seem great, does it? But not to worry, says EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. Speaking Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Zeldin said he “can ‘absolutely’ guarantee Trump administration deregulations won’t have adverse health impacts on people and the environment,” according to a CBS News write-up of the interview.
“We have to both protect the environment and grow the economy,” he said. It was a rare mention of the environment from a guy who has basically turned the EPA into an arm of the oil and gas industry.
Forgive me for being less than reassured by Zeldin, a Republican and former New York congressman who has absolutely no experience in environmental work. Since taking over at the EPA, he has been eagerly at work “Powering the Great American Comeback” by rolling back many of the clean air and water regulations that it is within his power to negate, all to please his boss, who wants to make coal king again.
In fact, the Trump administration has engaged in such a thorough assault on any federal policy having to do with climate change — from flood mitigation to tree planting — that experts are worried about “dire consequences,” as Axios recently put it.
Not all of this may touch you — but some of it inevitably will.
Maybe you’ve heard the internet shorthand FAFO, which — to use the most polite approximation possible — stands for “Mess Around, Find Out,” except that “mess” is another four-letter word. Right now, the Trump administration is very much in the “FA” stage. “FO” is quickly approaching and it is we who are going to pay the price, whether in the form of polluters run amok, understaffed air control towers or a Pentagon led by a shockingly incompetent secretary of defense.
I guess we were warned: “I am your retribution,” Trump told supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2023. Two years later, we have a sense of what that looks like: Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency essentially eliminating the U.S. Agency for International Development without any legal recourse to do so; former Fox News host Pete Hegseth thrusting the Pentagon into “total chaos” and “disarray” — according to an extraordinary op-ed by one of his own former top staffers, John Ullyot; the Department of Justice has been handed over to Attorney General Pam Bondi, who seems to think that her client is Trump himself, not the American people.
Not all of this may touch you — but some of it inevitably will. Maybe it will be the cuts at the Federal Aviation Administration, already understaffed and under enormous strain. Maybe you will need help during a desert hike, only to discover that the National Parks Service no longer has search-and-rescue squads at the ready.
The parents of disabled children are rightly terrified that Trump’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education will leave them without the support they desperately need. The MAGA loyalists now in charge seem to have decided that anyone employed by the federal government prior to Trump’s second inauguration was either a lazy bureaucrat or a member of the so-called deep state, if not both. Meanwhile, Trumpy children’s book author turned FBI director Kash Patel is jetting around to hockey games, where he hangs out with former superstar Wayne Gretzky, and to see his girlfriend in Nashville. I’m glad you’re having a great time on our dime, Kash, but maybe it’s time to give that whole crime-fighting thing a try? The National Institutes of Health has cut some 800 research grants, according to an analysis by Nature. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who heads the Department of Health and Human Services despite having no background in science, could barely bring himself to promote the measles vaccine during an outbreak of the disease in Texas. And even when he did so, the halfhearted advice was followed up with references to totally unproven cures favored by his conspiratorial, anti-vaccine fan base. He and his allies have now launched what is all but certain to be an utterly pointless investigation into the link between the use of vaccines and the prevalence of autism. We have long known that no such link exists. Meanwhile, other critical work — like preparation for the next pandemic — is seemingly put aside. Other critical work — like preparation for the next pandemic — is put aside. And if it feels like irony is dead and every American institution is being senselessly burned to the ground with absolutely nothing replacing it, you might appreciate the knowledge that Trump has also cut classes at the National Firefighter Academy, while also drastically reducing the ability to investigate when firefighters tragically lose their lives in the line of duty. To use another internet term that can’t be spelled out in a family publication, WTF? But, hey, maybe Lee Zeldin and Pete Hegseth are right — what’s been holding this country back is the eggheads who prattle on about a made-up phenomenon called “climate change” and push woke indoctrination propaganda like Maya Angelou’s autobiography. Maybe the cost of our amateur-run government will include a few plane crashes, a bit of arsenic getting into baby formula, a novel bird flu running rampant — all while the economy tanks. That’s a small price to pay for government efficiency.
Alexander Nazaryan
Alexander Nazaryan writes about politics, culture and science. 
