Everyone knows what it’s like when a child learns a new skill or achieves a big goal. “Look, Mom, I rode my bike to the end of the driveway!” “Hey, watch me do a flip!” “I sold a hundred boxes of Girl Scout cookies!”

Children love to be acknowledged for their accomplishments, and parents and grandparents are happy to cheer them on.

We have a president right now who is childlike in wanting affirmation from his faithful followers. When he signs an executive order with his Sharpie, a dutiful photographer records the moment, and documents the resolute expression on the president’s face. His serious scowl says, “This is important work, hard work. Great stuff. Look at me.”

What kind of work? Well, with the stroke of a pen, he renamed Denali as Mt. McKinley and changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, just for nationalistic pride. Google then announced plans to use those names in the future. Gosh, what a surprise! (Not.) The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, is one of the tech moguls who attended Trump’s inauguration.  

The president announced expansionist plans to buy Greenland, make Canada the 51st state, and take over the Panama Canal. Wowza. We are doing such a great job of running our own country, let’s add three more, just because Trump wants to. What a powerful flex of presidential power!

He has outlawed birthright citizenship, established in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ordinarily, changing the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, plus the approval of two-thirds of the states. Sounds tough to get all that done, right? Not for our new leader!

Trump wields tariffs as a diplomatic tool — bullying our North American neighbors Canada and Mexico, as well as Colombia and China. All by himself. No need to take time to work with Congress or anyone else.

What else? Trump has banned transgender athletes playing on girls’ teams. Uh, wait though. How many transgender women play sports? Newsweek quotes an expert who estimated in 2023 that there were about 100 such people in the country, including high school and college sports. One hundred people out of the national population of 335 million. Man, that slaps down that minority, once and for all!  

By executive order, he has withdrawn our nation from international agencies and agreements (the World Health Organization, the 2015 Paris Climate Accord). He has applied sanctions against the International Criminal Court and defunded the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

This is not even counting Trump’s acts of personal revenge: firing anyone in the Department of Justice who worked on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot case; revoking the security clearance of Joe Biden, retired general Mark Milley, and numerous foreign intelligence officials who found evidence of Russian interference with Hunter Biden’s laptop; and removing security details from Anthony Fauci, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.  

Trump is basking in the attention of a nation that is, on the one hand, cheering him on because he’s the best show in town, and on the other hand, horrified.

Meanwhile, Trump’s right-hand man, Elon Musk, is bringing his crew of young hackers into the digital records, websites, data, and operations of at least fourteen government agencies, including the Department of Treasury, the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration, and the United States Agency for International Development.

While Trump soaks up the spotlight and the attention, Musk rummages through the federal government doing — well, it’s not clear what he’s doing. What government services will be cut or eliminated, what taxes will be raised or lowered, who will be fired, who will be affected? Just as important: Who is behind these decisions?  

Trump takes the stage, while behind the scenes Musk takes a wrecking ball to the workings of our federal government.

How is this possible?

One hears a lot of outrage directed at congressional Democrats: What are they doing to stop this? Are they, like the rest of the nation, victims of the “shock and awe” and “flood the zone” strategies of the Trump team? They certainly have been slow to organize opposition — after all, at this writing, Trump has been in office for three weeks.  

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But forget the Democrats. They were never going to be on board the new president’s train anyway. WHAT ABOUT THE REPUBLICANS in Congress?

The Republicans hold narrow majorities in both the House and Senate and they seem as mesmerized as anyone with what is happening in our nation’s capital. They have kissed the presidential ring, made pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, smiled at the cameras, and failed abysmally to represent the American people.  They have abdicated their essential role in the balance of federal powers, seeming content with the scope and pace of Trump’s actions.  

While Trump is content to be a figurehead, mugging for the cameras, unelected individuals are at work changing our government in ways that promise to be radical. Put the blame where it belongs — on the Republicans in Congress — who care more about staying in power, even if they are toothless, than they care about the nation.

— Community Columnist Barbara Mezeske is a retired teacher and resident of Holland. She can be reached at bamezeske@gmail.com.