Tag: Trump

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“Well, Karoline, I Think Americans Do Care That Your Boss is a Racist and is Off His Rocker”

Maureen Dowd (N.Y. Times), Trump’s Obama Derangement Syndrome (really good stuff in bold face):

It seems etymologically, metaphysically, geologically and ethically impossible that President Trump could reach a new low. But he has.

Every Friday, when I’m planning my column, I find fresh evidence that the president is unfit for his office. He taunts his foes in crude, creepy ways and tries to tattoo his name on everything.

Late Thursday night, a vile clip appeared on Truth Social, depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle cartoon, to the Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” It was at the end of a video filled with baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The man who pushed the despicable “birther” conspiracy is still at it, using a racist meme from a far-right Pepe-the-frog-loving acolyte.

Like many of Trump’s actions, it was both shocking and predictable.

As The Times reported, Trump has a “history of making degrading remarks about people of color, women and immigrants,” and the Obamas in particular, with “the White House, Labor Department and Homeland Security Department all having promoted posts that echo white supremacist messaging” in his current term.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, offered a pathetic defense for our pathological president: “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters from ‘The Lion King.’ Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”

Well, Karoline, I think Americans do care that your boss is a racist and off his rocker.

“His presidency is enclosed in a bubble wrap of darkness and hatred and resentment,” Rahm Emanuel, who served as Obama’s chief of staff, told me.

Once the White House realized the outrage was real, the post was deleted. Officials blamed a staffer, though you know Trump was in on it. On Wednesday, he said he does “retruth”conspiracy theories himself.

He went so far that even a few Republicans in Congress, looking down the barrel of the midterms, objected.

On X, Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the Senate, called it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.”

Senator Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican who has been increasingly put off by some of Trump’s offensive actions, said on X, “This content was rightfully removed, should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation.”

Trump had a Dostoyevsky-esque moment on Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, when he confessed that his ego would not let him lose the 2020 race.

“You know, they rigged the second election,” he said. “I had to win it, had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would have had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I really have a big ego, though.”

He was admitting that our ginned-up election integrity crisis was simply an exercise in bending the truth to his bottomless vanity. “His ego could not handle the fact that he lost, so he had to pretend there was a voting crisis,” David Axelrod told me. “The world is still paying for that.”

(Trump also confessed to the religious gathering that he gets annoyed when Speaker Mike Johnson asks to pray before meals. Trump dryly noted: “I say, ‘Excuse me? We’re having lunch in the Oval.’”)

After obscenely slapping his name on everything from the Kennedy Center to a gold card for rich aspiring immigrants to warships, and planning a gargantuan triumphal arch and an outsize White House ballroom as reflections of his bloated ego, Trump is now trying to strong-arm Congress into naming more things after him by holding congressionally approved funds hostage.

The administration tried extortion tactics on Chuck Schumer, threatening not to unfreeze billions for a new railroad tunnel under the Hudson River unless he helped rename Penn Station in New York and Washington Dulles International Airport after Trump.

Trump’s dragging his own name and America’s name in the muck. The word “Trump” is an epithet in many circles. But in a bizarre manifestation of insecurity, the president still wants to stamp his moniker everywhere, just as he did when he was a New York businessman prone to bankruptcy.

Trump had another quintessential Trump moment on Tuesday when he lambasted CNN’s Kaitlan Collins for not smiling as she asked him, in light of the latest release of Jeffrey Epstein filth, what he would say to the pedophile’s survivors “who feel like they haven’t gotten justice.”

He told her that it was time to move on — the latest deflection from the fact that he has never come clean about his association with the odious Epstein.

Like a shuddersome image of worms slithering from underneath a rock, a bunch of powerful and formerly respected people in America and beyond have been exposed by the Epstein files.

Many of the ultra-elite who insisted they did not know the truth about Epstein’s depravity have been unmasked as liars. Instead, as The Wall Street Journal wrote, prominent people from Noam Chomsky to Stanley Pottinger to Peter Mandelson to Michael Wolff “actively consoled him, cast him as a victim and in some cases offered advice on how to rehabilitate his image.”

And the shoes keep dropping. CNN reported on Friday that Navy Secretary John Phelan was listed as a passenger on Epstein’s private plane in 2006.

As The Times’s David Fahrenthold told CNN, the louche role of some tech billionaires in the Epstein scandal is particularly chilling because our lives in the coming years will be defined by these billionaires.

Once we saw the lords of the cloud as heroic — young geniuses who would improve our lives. Now, as Fahrenthold said, the personal failings, insecurities and midlife crises of these men are dictating the way they run their companies. We were, he said, “a little bit misplaced in sort of putting our hopes in these folks.”

They are not keeping hope alive.

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The State of the White Evangelical Church

This post follows up on the two immediately preceding posts, titled Authoritarianism, Patriarchy, and Misogyny in the White Evangelical Church and Onward, Christianist Soldiers: Peter Wehner on Vice as Virtue.

I have five observations. 

Context: The Declining White Evangelical Church

The material in these two posts should be read and considered in context: the White evangelical church is leaking like a sieve. The crew that reveled in Trump’s vileness the other day at the National Prayer Breakfast represent a declining population. There are still a lot of them, but not as many as there were a decade ago, when Trump deescalated down the golden escalator.

Southern Baptist Convention membership peaked in 2006, at 16.3 million members. By the time Russell Moore was booted out, in mid-2021, membership had declined to 13.7 million. Subsequent to Moore’s defenestration, the SBC has lost another million members.

These data are consistent with data on overall participation in White evangelical Protestant Churches. In 2006, they were 23 percent of the U.S. adult population; now, it’s 13 percent, or about one quarter of the White population in the United States. 

Why are So Many Evangelicals Abandoning Ship?

A variety of reasons, but clearly some of it is because folks who actually reads the words printed in red in the New Testament and who want to follow Jesus are disgusted by what they have seen in their church.

Who is the Progressive’s Biggest Ally in Combating National Prayer Breakfast-Style Christianism?

Jesus of Nazareth.

How Will White Evangelicals Reconcile the Tension Between Their Culture War Victories Under Trump and Their Economic Losses Due to Tariffs, Inflation, Loss of Job Opportunities, Etc.?

I don’t know, of course, but it’s going to be a non-trivial threat to Trump’s remaining 70%+ approval among the White evangelical crowd.

With Trump’s Deteriorating Mental and Physical Health, Will Significant Numbers of White Evangelicals Decide They Still Want an Authoritarian Messiah, Just Not Trump as Their Authoritarian Messiah?

Anything is possible.

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“Reining In” Trump, and the “Unitary Executive” Theory Versus a Century of Constitutional Interpretation

This post follows up on the one immediately below, which, among other things, addresses George Will’s magisterial thoughts on the unitary executive legal theory of constitutional interpretation. Several thoughts here. 

Why Do We Have Independent Regulatory Agencies?

Beginning with the Interstate Commerce Commission, established in 1887, Congress has created more than 25 independent agencies, chiefly to foster the development of regulatory specialization and expertise, and to provide some degree of insulation from political pressures—including the kinds of political pressures resulting from generous campaign contributions by affected interests. 

Does Legal Precedent Support the Constitutionality of the Independent Regulatory Agencies?

Yes, it does. The leading case is Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, decided by the Supreme Court in 1935. The issue there was essentially identical to the current case, Trump v. Slaughter, argued before the Supreme Court in December, 2025. In each case, the President fired one of the five FTC commissioners, not “for cause,” as required by the Federal Trade Commission Act, but rather because he or she different with the President on political and policy grounds. 

To amplify a little, Mr. Humphrey was a loud-mouthed, obnoxious anti-New Dealer. There was little doubt that President Roosevelt’s decision to fire him violated the FTC Act. Rather, the question was whether the statutory provision that Roosevelt violated was constitutional. The Court ruled nine to zero that yes, the pertinent FTC Act provision was in fact constitutional—and that it was OK to have independent regulatory agencies. 

In the current Trump v. Slaughter case, both sides have elected to rely in general legal issues rather than whatever differences on policy may exist between Commissioner Slaughter and Orange Mussolini. 

On the Face of Things, Should the Court Apply the Stare Decisis Doctrine and Reaffirm the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor Precedent?

Yes. The precedent is long standing and has enjoyed bipartisan support. There is no new or compelling reason to overturn it. 

So, Does That Mean a Supreme Court Decision Favoring Trump Would be Clearly Unlawful?

No, it does not. If you want to know more, I recommend the succinct but helpful discussion in Wikipedia. 

Which Way is the Court Likely to Rule?

For Trump, and against Humphrey’s Executor. 

Is the Court’s Likely Ruling Likely to Lead to Despotism?

No, no more than a ruling for Roosevelt back in 1935 would have led to despotism. 

Is the Court’s Likely Ruling Likely, in the Current Environment, to Facilitate Kleptocracy?

Did God make little green apples? And does it rain in Indianapolis in the summertime?

A point of personal privilege here: Much of my 35 years of practice involved merger work before the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division. The staff was consistently conscientious, though they sometimes made unwise decisions, mostly because of ideological blinders. But the President was not taking bribes to dictate outcomes to the FTC or the Justice Department. And attempts by the parties or their counsel to use political influence, let alone bribery, in particular cases would have been highly counterproductive. 

Now, it’s going to be Katie bar the door. 

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What’s the Haps: Essential Insights About Today’s Politics for Analytical Thinkers

In my opinion, this video has more insightful observations than Carter has Little Liver Pills.

Watch it if you’re interested in understanding what is actually going on. 

David French Channels Dante

And another useful source: yesterday, David French gave us a highly informative tour of the hellscape that is the MAGA mind. Along with that, he also offered thought-provoking historical precedents for our current state of affairs. David French (N.Y. Times): What MAGA Sees in the Minnesota Mirror.

And now some thoughts from me, your humble ink-stained scrivener.

The Supreme Court’s Role in 2026 as the Joker in the Deck and Potential Savior of Donald Trump—from the Perils Posed by Donald Trump

In the video above, Rick Wilson expounds on the consequences of Trump’s erratic and disastrous action regarding his key political issues, immigration and tariffs. But he doesn’t address how the Supreme Court, if it so chooses, could intervene in ways that would help to save Trump’s bacon by helping to save him from himself.

Back on January 15 I wrote Waiting for the Supreme Court Decision on the Tariffs. We’re still waiting, and I stand by what I wrote in that post.

Likewise, the Court, if it so chooses, can rein in Trump’s due process violations in connection with its mass deportation project. 

Apart from the fact that requiring due process will help to save the constitutional republic, it would also, once again, help to save Trump politically from himself. Essentially, for the reasons that Rick Wilson laid out in the video.

And, on a related topic, this morning George Will gets an honorable mention for his WaPo op-ed, With this decision, the Supreme Court can and should rein Trump in: A pending landmark ruling will address the president’s power to fire within the executive branch. George has spoken with some constitutional law scholars, mulled over their views, and now, speaking with his accustomed magisterial tone of voice, pronounces ex cathedra that the Supreme Court ought to rein in Trump by rejecting the “unitary executive” theory of constitutional interpretation. 

Delusions—and Delusions About Delusions

Trump’s mental problems are myriad: sociopathy, constant lying coupled with a total inability to keep his lies straight, an inability to plan, and, among others, a grievously limited political skill set. 

In this witch’s brew of mental illnesses, we tend to discount the signal importance of delusional thinking. For example, Trump really thinks that he can bend the courts to his will in the same way that he has bent the Justice Department and the FBI to his will. 

He should have learned his lesson in 2020, when the courts universally rejected his stolen election delusion.

But he did not learn his less, because he is delusional.

Now, once again, he is ordering his prosecutors to comply with his delusions by initiating a slew of utterly bogus criminal cases. 

The consequences of the inevitable failure of that delusion will be yet another joker in the deck as we continue our hellish journey through 2026.

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Donald Trump Can Be Stopped: Words of Great Wisdom from Jonathan Chait

Jonathan Chait (The Atlantic), Donald Trump Can Be Stopped: The president’s retreat in Minneapolis is a stinging defeat for the national conservatives:

Of the many lessons to be drawn from the administration’s retreat in Minneapolis, the most important is that Donald Trump can be stopped.

He spent his first year acting as though the 2024 election were the last time he would ever have to give a thought to public opinion. Now the myth that Trump is invincible has been exploded.

After federal agents killed Alex Pretti, Trump-administration figures including Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller described the victim as a terrorist, indicating their desire to ignore or intimidate all opposition. But other Republican sources signaled their discomfort, and some called for an investigation—a routine step for a normal presidency, but a daring breach of partisan discipline in an administration that shields itself from accountability and tries to put itself above the law.

During yesterday’s White House briefing, when a reporter asked if Trump shared Miller’s belief that Pretti was a domestic terrorist, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt replied that she hadn’t heard him use that term. Trump also sent out conciliatory messages on social media indicating that he’d had productive talks with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. And he dispatched Tom Homan, the border czar and a more traditional immigration hawk, to replace Gregory Bovino, the commander at large in Minnesota. Bovino has justified his agents’ misconduct with transparent lies.

Trump’s retreat in Minneapolis is a stinging defeat for the national conservatives, the Republican Party’s most nakedly authoritarian faction. The NatCons believe American liberalism cannot be dealt with through normal political methods such as persuasion and compromise. Speakers at the National Conservatism Conference have described the American left as “the enemy within” (Senator Rick Scott of Florida) and “wokeism” as “a cancer that must be eradicated” (Rachel Bovard of the Conservative Partnership Institute). NatCons also maintain that immigration poses a mortal threat to the United States. These two strands of thought are intertwined; NatCons consider immigration a weapon employed consciously by the left to assume permanent power, via manipulating elections and creating government dependency, a conspiracy that can only be reversed through the kind of ferocious operation on display in Minneapolis.

The NatCons, whose ranks include powerful administration figures such as Vice President Vance and Miller as well as members of Congress (such as Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri) and activists (such as Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts), have wielded profound influence. They have rarely, if ever, lost important struggles to steer Trump’s strategy.

For the NatCons, the mass-deportation scheme overseen by Miller is an existential priority. Vance once claimed that immigration levels “would mean we never win, meaning Republicans would never win a national election in this country ever again.” Ten days ago, Miller explained on Fox News that Democrats were resisting ICE in Minneapolis because “this mass-migration scheme is the heart of the Democratic Party’s political power.” Miller sees his crusade not merely as a matter of relieving the burden on public services or raising wages, but as a final chance to stop permanent left-wing tyranny. Thus Miller’s immediate, fervent insistence that Pretti and the other Minnesotan recently killed by federal agents, Renee Good, both deserved their fates, a line the NatCons repeated vociferously through Monday.

The NatCons have attained their sway by positioning themselves as the vanguard of Trumpism in its purist form. Other conservative factions, such as social conservatives, libertarians, and foreign-policy hawks, supported Trump reluctantly in 2016, and backed away after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, hoping Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or some other rival could displace him. The NatCons never flinched in the face of Trump’s failed autogolpe, or any other actions that made other Republicans nervous. They won the loyalty contest—which, in the second Trump administration, is the only currency of influence.

Calls for Trump to stand firmly behind Miller had a desperate yet vague tone. “Leftist protestors who shut down streets, destroy property, refuse lawful orders, and physically assault federal officers cannot be rewarded with veto power over public policy,” beseeched the Manhattan Institute activist Chris Rufo, employing the passive voice. In response to a liberal observing yesterday afternoon on X that Trump was backing down, Will Chamberlain, a national conservative affiliated with numerous right-wing organizations, replied, “This isn’t happening, and it’s very important that it does not happen.”

Nevertheless, it was happening.

The reason it happened is that, although Trump listens to the NatCons, he has no deep grounding in their theories or, for that matter, any theories. The president’s despotism is not ideological but instinctive. He cannot tolerate criticism and he deems any process that embarrasses him, including a critical news story or an election, illegitimate, even criminal.

And while he has embraced a restrictionist immigration agenda, he has vacillated between endorsing mass deportation and allowing exceptions for categories of laborers he considers necessary. As Trump told The Wall Street Journal editorial page before the 2024 election, “I mean, there’s some human questions that get in the way of being perfect, and we have to have the heart, too.” If that has ever occurred to Miller, he has hidden it well.

Whether or not Trump’s intermittent expressions of human feeling for the immigrants his administration has abused is heartfelt, his desire to maintain his political standing most certainly is. Trump appreciates the power of imagery. It does not take a political genius to understand that, if Americans were repulsed by the sight of a Vietnamese man being executed in 1968, an American being shot in the back, facedown on a midwestern street, would not go over much better.

Trump’s capitulation would never have occurred if not for the heroic, disciplined resistance in Minneapolis. Faced with something like an occupying army that was systematicallyflouting the law, the people of Minneapolis thrust its abuse into the public eye, raising the political cost of Miller’s war until enough Republicans decided that they couldn’t bear to pay it.

Political theorists have long debated whether Trump and his movement should be described as fascist. On an intellectual level, the answer depends largely on which definition of fascism you choose (there are several). I have generally resisted the term because the definition I prefer, and the one most Americans probably think of when they hear the term, is not mere political oppression but a form of it so extreme that opposition becomes impossible.

That may be more or less Trump’s aspiration, and possibly our destiny. But this is not a fascist country, at least not yet.

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This is Democracy in Action

Here’s Rachel from last night:

I applaud her analysis and agree with much of it, though I think the optimism is premature. Let’s see what happens today. Let’s see what happens in the coming days on the streets of Minneapolis. Let’s see what happens in Congress with funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

A Signal Achievement

As Rachel emphasizes, Democratic pushback will be responsible for whatever good comes out of this disaster. That said, be it remembered that the Stephen Miller/Kristi Noem/Kash Patel/Greg Bongino team’s clusterfuck represents a signal achievement on their part—and a big reason why things are looking up today.

The progressives are riled up.

Lots of ordinary people are riled up.

Not only that: big business is riled up.

With big business riled up, the Republican empty suit politicians are beginning to speak up. 

Even the Second Amendment wingnuts are fit to be tied, because of the suggestion that folks lawfully carrying a firearm deserve to be mowed down with impunity.

Thank you, Miller, Noem, Patel, Bongino. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

“Trump Will Own This Now”

One of the early morning talking heads pointed out that, with Homan in Minneapolis allegedly reporting directly to Trump—thus, allegedly, bypassing and cutting the Miller/Noem gang—“Trump will personally own whatever happens next in Minneapolis.” 

That sounds right. And I would add this: to get out of this mess with some dignity, Trump would need to be a Washington or a Lincoln or a Roosevelt. 

Trump is not a Washington or a Lincoln or a Roosevelt. Instead, Trump is best compared to Jubilation T. Cornpone.

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And Two More Things on the Greenland Gambit

In the last post, I speculated that today’s Greenland nonsense is a harebrained attempt by Trump to “demonstrate” to the Supreme Court that tariffs are wonderful things, and that he should continue to be able to play with his playthings. 

Two more pieces of evidence point in that direction.

(1) In his speech, he “took military force off the table.” As if to “prove” that whatever success he achieves with his antics will be the result of tariff threats, not the threat of force.

(2) Around 3PM this afternoon, he let it be known that tariffs are no longer necessary because he has the “framework” of a deal on Greenland—a deal reached with someone who has no power to give Greenland away.

So, an artificial tariff-related crisis results on a non-deal deal that he can vaingloriously proclaim to be a famous victory.

So, THERE, Supreme Court! See how well those tariff threats work!

One more question, you ask: What about the fact that he thinks Greenland and Iceland are the same place? What does that have to do with anything?

Answer: it shows that the dementia is advancing.