The Big Picture
A
Preview of Coming Horrors
We’ve all caught a glimpse of the freak-show lineup Trump’s teeing
up for his next Cabinet and sub-Cabinet circus, so consider this your handy
roadmap to the oncoming avalanche of awful. Picture a twisted sideshow stocked
with amateurs, foxes in every henhouse, sex pests (a favorite Brit phrase),
drug addicts, conspiracy fetishists, card-carrying criminals, and donors so
nakedly venal that even the gunsmiths of Darra Adam Khel would say, “Easy
there, big guy.”
I’m not even covering the intentionally horrific parts of the coming attractions. The drive to impose Project 2025
is a much longer idea. This is just a look at the behavioral side of the show.
Competence,
What’s That?
Sure, a few might know which fork to use and how not to drool on their
briefing papers. But any actual skill is irrelevant in an Administration ruled
by the Orange Id’s whims. In the first term, there was a secret, subtle
competence mafia trying to undermine the crazier ideas. That’s never coming
back.
Just imagine poor Marco Rubio coming to Trump: “Boss, I ended the
Ukraine War!” Trump’s response? “Not without Zelenskyy in a chicken suit,
Marco. Chicken suit or I make Ivanka Secretary of State.”
Don’t forget: Trump hates anyone who upstages him. He’ll sabotage
his own team just to keep the spotlight on him.
And while past presidents at least pretended to have some
pros on the payroll, Trump’s crowd will either be deeply unsuited for their
jobs or actively trying to burn their own agencies to the ground. Think giving
the keys of a McLaren to a guy who’s never driven stick and says, “What’s the
worst that could happen?”
Bad
Behavior & Scandals
Below the Cabinet level, brace yourself for a depraved frat party in the
halls of power. The Heritage bros and the MAGA appointees will be screwing
anything that moves—worse than the usual D.C. “boss fucks skintern” story.
Their role model is a rapist who loathes women, so what do you expect?
Pete
Hegseth at SECDEF, sober and virtuous? Spare me. Kimberly Guilfoyle as
Ambassador to Greece? She’ll set speed records finding local playmates. (“Do I
pick the local goatherd, or a shipping magnate?”) Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? He’s a
walking #MeToo time bomb with a admitted of drug and sex “issues.” This is not
The West Wing; it’s Jersey Shore with security clearances.
Corruption
Conflicts of interest will define many appointments and the polices they
drive. Regulations will become donor enrichment schemes.
As for the DOGE, don’t think “spending cuts”; think “spending
rerouted to Elon and Trump’s pals.” With a functional media, we’d see exposés
daily. Instead, we’ll get a seven-part series on whether Joe Biden was too nice
to Hunter.
Sure, Putin is today’s reigning champion of kleptocracy,
but I think Trump will steer American more in a direction like Mobutu Sese
Seko’s Zaire, but uglier and dumber. Mobutu was a Bond villain stealing
billions while his country collapsed. Trump’s a small-timer by comparison, but
by the end of his term he’ll make every other national rip-off look like
amateurs stealing gum at a bodega.
Conspiracy
& Cruelty
Place your bets now: by the end of the term, textbooks will say Trump won
in 2020. The imaginary demons—caravans, trans people, Soros, BLM, the Frankfurt
School—will star in the daily fear porn. Trump needs to keep the rubes
terrified and obedient. Few Republicans will dare break ranks. They’ll
celebrate kids-in-cages 2.0, embrace show trials, and shred constitutional
norms because that’s the price of staying in the game.
Welcome
to the New Normal
These aren’t accidental picks; they’re a deliberate assault on the
very concept of functional governance. Get ready for a masterclass in what
happens when a President stocks the halls of power with grifters, backstabbers,
conspiracy-loons, and vandals.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Intel and Observations
No
Wray
Speaking of not complying in advance, Chris Wray didn’t have to
quit as head of the FBI. It’s a 10 year gig and he still had time on the clock.
Given that Trump has nominated the revenge-Muppet and leather-trouser
aficionado Trash Patel as the FBI Director.
Wray’s departure makes it more likely that Trump will be able to
get Patel past a leery Senate. I understand Wray not wanting the torture that
James Comey faced -- and the new FBI director will most certainly be called
upon to abuse his office, its power, and the truth - but making it easy to appoint Patel is a tough one to swallow.
Mainstream
media, my ass.
In the fever-swamps of MAGA folklore, there’s a mythical liberal
media behemoth bent on eradicating all that’s holy—God, guns, Jesus, and
Christmas — by Sunday brunch at their local Adrenochrome Cafe.
But let’s spare ourselves the bedtime stories. The actual media
landscape looks like this: Fox News prowls the neighborhood, gobbling up the
audience pie as if it’s the last turkey leg on Thanksgiving.
As the L.A. Times laid out, in November, Rupert Murdoch’s Potemkin Village of rage and resentment scored a
70% share of the cable news audience after Trump’s win. Record-breaking success, based on agitprop, bile, paranoia, and
“fair and balanced” coverage of the imaginary demons Rupert has made billions
promoting.
Let’s face it: The Long March is over. The war on the media is
over. The right won.
While Democrats banked on demographic destiny—assuming young men,
African American men, and Hispanic men would never check the MAGA/Fox box—the
press made a similar, fatal assumption: “Smart people will never watch that
crap.”
Well, guess what, kiddos—turns out plenty of them do. Fox has
shown that the path to profit isn’t paved with truth; mendacious,
self-affirming fear porn is good for shareholder value. If you can’t commit to
the MAGA bit, maybe try to win over their audience? Good luck.
And so CNN, under Jeff Zucker, Chris Licht, and its current
management, started tiptoeing around Trump and his voters, handing airtime to
creatures like the execrable Scott Jennings to offer a “both sides” spin.
Meanwhile, voices willing to call a lie a lie were shown the door.
This may be one of the greatest cons the modern right has ever
pulled. The same crowd that demands the press handle them with kid gloves
gobbles up media that slanders journalists as communist stooges, pedophile
conspirators, propaganda drones, and foot soldiers of some godless,
America-destroying cabal.
And they do it while smirking, knowing they’ve won the only game
that matters in a marketplace where truth is optional and outrage is king. The
rest of us get to watch, horrified yet unsurprised, as the ratings—and the role
of journalism itself—spiral ever downward.
And too many outlets fell for it.
The pregame compliance with Trumpism didn’t start this year. It
started in 2015.
There are still great reporters at MSNBC, CNN, the Washington
Post, and across the media, but more and more it feels like they’re the last
priests of a dying religion.
The
FBI Didn’t Cause January 6th.
It’s a beloved and stupid trope that January 6th was “The Feds”
trying to make Trump look bad. It’s always been a raging lie. Now, the FBI IG
is out with the report on their role in January 6th and MAGA hearts are
breaking. Per Politico:
The long-awaited report from Inspector General
Michael Horowitz also found no evidence that the bureau authorized or
encouraged any illegal behavior by members of the mob who stormed the Capitol
that day in an effort to disrupt Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020
victory.
The
report throws cold water on theories that have become gospel among some
segments of Donald Trump’s supporters, who have accused the FBI of fomenting
violence on Jan. 6 in order to entrap Trump supporters.
Horowitz also found that among the tens of thousands of Trump
supporters who flooded Washington that day, 26 were people who had served as
informants for the FBI. Those informants — known as “confidential human
sources” or CHSs — are not government employees but occasionally provide
intelligence to the bureau.
Don’t worry, though. It’s going to remain an article of MAGA faith that
the insurrection and violence they carried out on behalf of their Dear Leader
was a nefarious FBI plot.