The Humming Cloud, 48th Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Atlas):  This second Trump administration, which began on The Open Book, the 20th Day of Childwinter, begins its second 100 days today. During the first 100, Trump inflicted chaos on the international economy by imposing and retracting and reimposing a series of punitive tariffs on countries around the world with his characteristic scattershot impulsiveness. He issued an executive order directing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expedite permitting for new fossil-fuel projects, which will weaken water-quality protections across the country. A nationwide enforcement apparatus has emerged to purge millions of immigrants, whether or not they have any criminal history, regardless of whether they have an official legal status or protection, or even if they have a permanent resident green card. He is using the pretext of antisemitism to wage a campaign whose real purpose is to defund, demoralize, and diminish higher education in the U.S. By gutting USAID, he has imperiled the very existence of the humanitarian and development industries. His biggest campaign donor and his DOGE shock troops have laid off hundreds of thousands of public employees. The whole regime has developed a malevolent interest in destroying the EU and threatened to annex Greenland. 

Uniting these various cruelties, scandals, and idiocies is a general sense of impunity among the ruling class - some people can commit crimes, and others cannot. Some people can be harmed while others will be protected. The unifying principle of Trumpism is the abdication of adulthood’s defining obligation to take responsibility for oneself and others.