I know. Sorry. But this isn’t really about The President as much as it is his entire government, so this doesn’t count as Trump Derangement Syndrome. More like Derangement, period.

Ai states: “The Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE) is a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a task overestimate their own competence and ability to do the task…this occurs because the less-skilled a person is, the less they possess the meta-cognitive ability to recognize their own incompetence.”

Pregnant Pause.

DKE was discussed in Trump’s first term, but back then he turned to established experts and administrators to fill the leadership slots in his administration. He fired most of them later, but not our point, here. This term he appointed cronies, sycophants, and Fox personalities to the leadership positions, often nominating someone just to piss off the democratic opposition. What he learned from the first term is he needed to appoint people dumber than him to run the government so he could tell them what to do. All of them. And they’d do it. He don’t need no stinking experts (sic) disagreeing with him. Ask RFK. The net result has been astounding.

DOGE “saved” tons of money. Programs and whole departments were cut, people were fired, and contracts cancelled. The Administration has been, is now, and will be sued until the cows come home*. But since nothing matters to the new administration but the Conservative Supreme Court, courts, judges, and legal actions in courts all across the country are simply the opening salvo of a legal war Trump knows his Supremes will help him win. Money, money, money, for lawyers, lawyers, lawyers.

In the meantime, the down-line ramifications of “The Doge Savings” (TDS??), means farmers, rural citizens, the poor, and anyone NOT rich are seeing services cancelled, important research ended, and entire communities thrown into chaos as properly legislated federal funding is “clawed back” to be used someplace else? Who knew all this would happen? The Heads of The Departments who fawn over Trump at their televised meetings? Ignorance is bliss.

Entire government departments are run, now, by people who have never run organizations so big and complex. Health and Human Services adjusts vaccination schedules for children in the middle of a measles outbreak. FEMA cuts funding and employees as floods and fires devastate red AND blue states. And the TDS appears to be used to send back ANY immigrant, not just the worst of the worst.

We shouldn’t be worried about DEMOCRACY as much as we should be worried about the entire country’s way of life. Farmers and small businesses, rural hospitals, cheap labor, food supplies, all in jeopardy due to this administration and DKE. Search how many times they have quietly backtracked on employee firings, program funding, and department missions. Waste??? You betcha.

Enough. If the US was your business, you’d trim the fat, not throw out the meat and bones. You’d look for savings that don’t threaten services, programs, and lives. You might even study and learn to understand the long-term effects of programs, instead of the immediate, short-term mirage-like savings. But that’s because you are smart enough to know you need help, you don’t know it all.

In another three months fecal matter is going to impact the air-mover and we’d better be ready. Personally. On our own. Our DKE government will not know enough to help. Or care.

• As an old farm boy, I know what it means “when the cows come home”, which they always did. But Ai says: “it is an idiom meaning for a very long time, often with the implication something will be lengthy, tedious, or even pointless.” Huh. Pertinent?