Who Are These Zealots?

Who are these zealots who sit around thinking up this stuff? (Zealot: fanatically passionate about a cause, such as restricting government’s roles to defending its citizens against foreign threats and invasion and protecting free use of private property, leaving social services and education to charities, willing communities, and private citizens.)

Who are these ideologues who believe scholarships for dreamer kids threaten the rights of native-born students? (Ideologue: a person who strongly advocates for and is deeply committed to a particular system of ideas.) 

Who are these jingoists who believe the role of schools and monuments is to foster uncritical thinking about America’s unblemished behavior and beauty, banishing historic truths about slavery, Japanese internment, treatment of Indigenous tribes. and observance of treaties? (Jingoist: someone who expresses extreme patriotism and believes that one's country is inherently superior and has a right to assert itself forcefully on others.)

Who are these libertarians who believe progressive taxation imposes on individual liberty, penalizes productivity and initiative, and fosters class discord. (Libertarian: a person who believes personal freedom of action, association, and belief comes before all else, including community and commonwealth; who believes government has no right to infringe on utilization of owned property or behavior that does no harm to others.)

Who are these Populists who elevate the wisdom of common folk and disdain or dismiss expertise and elite qualifications. (Popullist: one who caters to the mass population and postures as anti-establishment and anti-elitist (no matter how wealthy they become while doing so.) 

Certainly, Trump does not lay awake at night thinking up these radical ways of tearing down institutions that have well served we Americans for 150 years or more. Who are these zealots, anyway? Well, there’s Russell Vought, head of Office of Management and Budget and chief author of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. He has said that only Christians should hold government positions and has condemned Muslims as anti-Christian. He favors making it easier to fire civil servants, despite The Civil Service Act’s protections against politicization.

There’s Stephen Miller, former Communications Director for segregationist Sen./A.G.Jeff Sessions, and now Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and the United States Homeland Security Adviser. Miller is chief architect of the Muslim Ban and Immigrations' family separation tactic. There’s Doug Burgum, Secretary of Interior, who wants to slash environmental regulations and encourages oil drilling on public lands. There’s Lee Zeldin, a global warming skeptic who wants to roll back climate protection regulations while serving as Director of the Environmental Protection Agency! There’s Paul Dans, Project Director of Project 2025, who believes in loyalty tests for government positions and has amassed a personnel list of “deep state” suspects. There’s Chris Wright (no, not our musical friend Chris Wright, but Sect. of Energy Chris Wright) who believes in energy exports, helped freeze Inflation Reduction Act funds for infrastructure, and opposes subsidies for renewable energy projects. There's RFK, Jr. who believes in scientist conspiracies and folk remedies, and disbelieves data-based evidence on wellness and illness.

And so it goes. Trump has surrounded himself with zealots, radicals who seek to tear down, displace, destroy institutions and legal structures and precedents that have served us well for five generations. These aren’t small-d democrats, neither are they the kind of progressive conservatives I wish we had more of. These are malevolent voices to which Trump gives ear. God deliver us from ideologies, from jingoism, libertarianism, populism, and all the other isms (Fascism, Communism, Socialism, Fundamentalism, Sexism, Authoritarianism, Nationalism, etc., etc.) that seek to cloud the minds of rational humanists.(Yes, I know; rationalism. It takes an exception to make the rule. No one can charge me with perfectionism.)