What's Tony Thinking

A Skeptic’s Lament

I’m conflicted. One voice in my head is saying, “Your every post should be about the awful, terrible and illegal things Trump, Musk and those spineless Republicans are doing!”

A second voice answers, “Well, there seem to be quite a few other people doing that already. Besides, this may not be what your readers need from you . . . nor what you need from you.”

Somewhere in there yet another voice struggles to get a word in edge-wise. I call it “the voice of a Sound Skepticism.” “Excuse me, but I’d like to speak,” Voice # 3 says. “It appears to me that an awful lot of people have their minds already and firmly made up, as in ‘closed.’ Judgment made, side-chosen, “my people” embraced, impervious to contrary evidence or to hearing any other views.”

I have lodged that very complaint (impervious to fact and alternate views) against Trump’s supporters on multiple occasions. Apparently, there isn’t a thing he says or does that can or will alter their cult-like agreement. But I wonder, living as I do in a blue-bubble, if something similar might fairly be said of the other side as well?

For example, I saw the headline in the NYT this week that shouted alarm. “At Oval Office, Musk Makes Broad Claims of Fraud Without Proof.” “Typical,” I thought, “of that crowd. Broad-brush indictments without any evidence.” And, besides, why doesn’t the fact that Musk has 12 children by four different mothers bother at least some of my evangelical Christian friends?

And yet as Nellie Bowles points out in her TGIF column at The Free Press, “But. . . but the government itself estimated fraud at $233–$521 billion a year even before Musk took shadow office. So there is technically proof?” She goes on to cite a report that came out during the Biden Administration with evidence for Musk’s assertion. The NYT story itself acknowledged the report deeper in their article. Bowles included a graph from that report indicating “Waste, Fraud and Abuse” for each federal department as a percent of total budget, e.g. Treasury: 23.8, Veterans Affairs: 10.33, and so on.

Nellie concludes with her trademark snark, imagining the rejoinders she will get, “Oh, $521 billion is nothing. Stop shaming the government! What it does with half a trillion dollars is its business.”

Another example. The new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, has raised worries and hackles with program cuts. Zeldin did so saying,

“One of my very top priorities at EPA is to be an excellent steward of your hard-earned tax dollars. There will be zero tolerance of any waste and abuse. We will review every penny that has gone out the door. The days of irresponsibly shoveling boat loads of cash to far-left, activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over.”

During the last administration I sat in on an invitation-only meeting with the Biden-appointed EPA Director for the Western Region. The “Inflation Reduction Act” had just been passed and EPA Director was elated, nearly beside himself, at all the money he now had to “get out the door as fast as possible.” He used the same word as Zeldin, “shovel.” “The main thing,” he said, “is to get all of it — and it’s a lot — shoveled out the door before the next election.” Get it? So as to insure they are voting for us.

Someone in the audience asked him, “What systems are in place to monitor the spending and insure it is all being properly used?” The response was something on the order of “we haven’t gotten to that yet.” Nor it did not appear that doing so was high on any priority list.

I could go on in this vein for other current hot-button issues like cuts to USAID, the promiscuous use of executive orders, deportations, biological men housed in women’s prisons and the decision to no longer mint penny coins. Two, or more, sides on each one.

So where does that leave me and the various voices rattling around inside my head?

It leaves me skeptical of group-think, whether the group is left or right, red or blue, liberal or conservative. It leaves me still reading the New York Times, but with a grain of salt. It leaves me reading things like The Free Press, Weekly Dish (Andrew Sullivan), and The Dispatch Newsletter, none of which are down-the-line on one side or the other. All criticize Trump freely (the latter two early “Never-Trumpers”), while also approving his actions at times.

Other thoughts: I’ve heard some say, “Everyone is taking all this lying down.” I don’t think that’s quite true. There are law-suits everywhere, some of which have already and, correctly, blocked Trump’s “orders,” e.g. “birthright citizenship,” and others contesting the DOGE tactics and legitimacy. After his cabinet appointments are installed and go to work, expect a landslide of lawsuits.

What I worry about most is 1) will the Trump administration defy court decisions that go against them, and what will happen if/ when they do, and 2) the supine position of Congress, it’s loss of institutional integrity or capacity to function as an independent and co-equal branch of government. Cases in point: confirming Hegseth, Gabbard and Kennedy.

And 3) I worry that so many incredibly wealthy people are in positions of great power, some elected, some appointed. It is easy for those insulated by their wealth, and living in a vastly different reality than most of us, to be clueless and indifferent to people that are vulnerable.

So I live with the conflict within, and the conflict without. I live with the voices jousting inside my head. And I try to exercise what I pray is a sound skepticism.

Oh, by the way, Happy Valentine’s Day!