|
And why it will always fail.
Let’s kill the comforting bedtime story making the rounds
in Washington right now: The “grown-ups” aren’t coming to save us from Donald
Trump. “Bring out the Gimp.” Bless their hearts. But it’s all theater, and the
building’s already on fire. In Trumpworld, the grown-ups - those haunted,
dead-eyed relics of American governance — are few, feeble, and doomed. We’re
watching the same miserable production as last time, only now the curtain’s
on fire and the exits are blocked by goons in MAGA hats. Remember how the
“adults in the room” were supposed to wrangle Trump during his first term?
That worked out about as well as breeding an army of mutant raccoons with
opposable thumbs and giving them each a Glock 17. (No, I’m not breeding an
army of mutant raccoons. Yet.) These days, the “grown-ups” have been whittled down
to a handful of grim-faced handlers like Susie Wiles, who spends her days
trying to keep Donald on task long enough to prevent him from Tweeting World
War III into existence. She’s not doing it for the good of the country—let’s
not kid ourselves. Susie is looking to walk out of the West Wing into a cushy
board seat, not a federal holding cell. But as history (and about a thousand
classified briefings) have shown, what Edgar Allen Poe called “the Imp of the
Perverse” is always perched on Trump’s shoulder, whispering the next dumb,
destructive move. It always wins. The very people Trump despises—“the grown-ups,” the
boring bureaucrats, the lifers who still remember what the Constitution is
for—are the only thing standing between him and complete disaster. He can’t
stand them. Here’s the raw truth: the grown-ups will fail because
they always have, and because Trump is structurally, emotionally, and
spiritually ungovernable. He’s immune to shame, allergic to advice, and
pathologically incapable of learning from experience. He’s a narcissist’s
narcissist, a political Terminator sent from the future to murder American
democracy. He cannot be reasoned with, shamed, or incentivized. Let’s talk specifics: Take Susie Wiles and Scott
Bessent, those weary souls trying to wrangle Trump’s worst instincts like
he’s a feral toddler hopped up on Red Bull. Sure, they’ve managed, at the
margins, to get him to throttle back some of the trade war insanity after
watching the Dow crater and the bond market panic whenever he attacks Jerome
Powell or goes full Weimar on the Federal Reserve. But that’s not adult
supervision. That’s disaster triage—duct-taping the windows as the hurricane
has leveled the town. Beneath the fragile calm, the real carnage is already
done. Trump’s “grown-ups” can’t erase the trillions in wealth torched by his
trade tantrums, or the reputation America torched abroad every time he licks
Vladimir Putin’s boots and sides with war criminals over Ukraine. Some even try positive incentives, as if Trump is a
golden retriever who’ll behave for a Milk-Bone and a pat on the head. It’s
adorable. Every new grown-up thinks, “I can be the one to finally make him
presidential!” Spoiler: You’re not. You’re just the latest chew toy. Susie Wiles, who by D.C. standards is a master operator,
has spent months trying to exile Elon Musk from the court before orders his
incel army to delete the Social Security database or something worse. Elon’s
dance with Trump is winding down, but the damage he’s done will last for
decades. Trump is not a normal human being. You can’t appeal
to his sense of duty, his love of country, or his basic human empathy. Those
features are simply not installed. He is a black hole of need, sucking in
attention and spewing out chaos. No one, not even his closest advisors, can ever
predict which of the voices in his head will be running the show at 3
a.m.—the one who wants to destroy NATO, the one who wants to nuke hurricanes,
or the one who thinks bleach cures COVID. His mind is a funhouse mirror of
grievance, resentment, and late-night cable news agitporn. The few “grown-ups” left are either leaving by the
end of the year, burnt out, or preparing their legal defenses for the
post-Trump reckoning. They’re not steering the ship—they’re frantically
bailing water as Trump drills new holes in the hull. Even if—by some miracle—the grown-ups stopped him
from the trade war right this minute, the damage is structural. The world
knows America is now a casino with a senile pit boss, and the house always
loses. So, let’s retire the myth of the grown-ups saving us.
Trump can’t be contained, managed, or “grown-upped” into decency. He is who
he’s always been: the world’s oldest toddler, a chaos engine in an
ill-fitting suit, still convinced he’s the smartest man in any room he’s
burning down. In the end, the grown-ups always fail because Donald
Trump cannot be saved. |
