APRIL 26, 2025 – Anyone familiar with carpentry knows the adage, “Measure twice, cut once.” Based on personal experience, I’ve amended this to, “Measure thrice, cut once,” supplemented by, “When you measure, make sure the numbers on the tape measure are right-side up to your point of view so that you measure fractions to the correct side of the nearest whole number.”
When King Midas slashed through one federal agency after another (is he done yet?), I don’t think he bothered to measure once, let alone twice or thrice. In fact, I know so: remember back in February when he took to the stage at CPAC wielding a chainsaw? The title I imagined under the image was, “Measure Not; Cut a Lot.”
There has been no moderation in Musk’s chainsaw approach to reducing the size of the federal gov’m’nt. It certainly can’t be reasonably described as tentative or . . . “conservative.” “Extreme” and “radical” are far more accurate. The person who engages in extreme and radical action, can be fairly labeled an “extremist” and “radical” just as the people who applaud the extremist radicals are themselves, extremist radicals.
All other actions by the current regime have been extreme and radical: the deportations; threats leveled at law firms and academic institutions; disregard for egregious security breaches at the highest levels; trashing our allies and complimenting our adversaries; threatening the takeover of Greenland, the Canal Zone, even Canada; insistence on renaming the Gulf of Mexico; the wild and crazy yo-yo approach to tariffs; war on DEI. None of these acts is an exercise in moderation or incrementalism. Each of them is extreme and radical—whether you embrace them or are shun them.
All of which take me back to the tactical theme broadcast ad nauseam over the past all-too-many years via MAGA megaphones. That theme was simple; so simple that every Republican pundit, commentator, candidate, officeholder, surrogate, apologist and sycophant—no matter how poor at memorization—could work the words into a comment on any political comment. The words, used to describe the political enemy—anyone who was anywhere on the broad Democratic spectrum—were “extreme radical leftist.” No doubt the words originated with Trump, who has an extraordinary gift for trash talk, however deficient he is in (a) baseline knowledge of the world; (b) understanding of policy; (c) respect for democratic principles and the rule of law; (d) analytical skills; (e) intellectual curiosity; (f) intelligence quotient; (g) emotional quotient; (h) applicable experience; (i) respect for expertise; (j) ability to size up people; (k) ability to lead and inspire; and (l) character, temperament, and disposition that any reasonable person should desire in a national leader.
But as I noted at the outset, everyone who sought to curry favor with the most unsavory person ever to stand for and be elected president, picked up on the “extremist radical leftist” language. Before long, the damning words were tattooed onto the forehead of every Democrat in the land.
“Leftist” was never defined, but it didn’t have to be, given that it was preceded by words pregnant with negative connotations. By sheer repetition, “left” was rendered guilty by association with “extremist” and “radical.”
Rarely, however, did I hear a Democrat or defender of Democrats hurl the trash talk descriptors back at Republicans. I never heard a Dem call a Rep, an “extremist radical rightist.” But given the extreme and radical moves by Musk and Trump, those actions should be called out as such. Moreover, the fascist and authoritarian thrust of Musk’s chainsaw and Trump’s EOs, placement must also be recognized.
In short, the time is way overdue for calling a spade a spade: the present regime—its principals, enablers and supporters—must be called and called out for what they are: “extreme radical rightists,” or more concisely, “dangerous.”
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
