This is what I’m dealing with, this morning:
It’s The New York Times, and it’s an essay by someone called Oren Cass, and it would be easy to dismiss him as just a plain damn fool, in the words of my youth. But he’s young—barely out of his 20’s, by the look of his photo. He is, and I quote, “the chief economist at American Compass, a conservative economic think tank, and writes the newsletter Understanding America.”
I’m tempted to ask whether, in addition to understanding America, Mr. Cass understands Donald Trump—but really (and horribly) if you understand America, you understand Trump.
I think we think too much. Cass says, essentially, that we’ve now seen how very effectively Trump destroys things. He’s happy, presumably, that the government has been essentially hobbled. All of our agencies have been gutted, the Education Department no longer exists, the CDC is in turmoil with directors resigning left and right, and the Justice Department has become Trump’s enforcer. Mr. Cass thinks, he hopes, that the rebuilding of the government will begin soon, under the careful and seasoned hand of Donald Trump. That’s what we think will happen. That’s what should happen? But will it?
Has it ever been about anything more than grift and sex? A normal politician has an agenda, which would involve a strategy or a plan. But Trump has no interest in structures, rules, or laws. That’s not where the money is: it’s in the chaos, which can be used to stoke fear. And fear is very much what Trump wants.
I think it’s about sex and about money because yesterday, ten victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell spoke out on Capitol Hill. They spoke out while Trump was doing his show in the Oval Office, this time with the president of….let’s see, Poland!
Or they tried to speak out, but they were drowned out (in the media) by Trump, who had nothing to say about Poland but plenty to say about this “Democratic hoax.” If Trump wants to change the topic, he should stop talking about it. But as for Mr. Cass, and all the other “intellectuals” who know about everything except real life—well, why don’t we summarize it?
The Epstein / Maxwell survivors were drowned out as well by the flyover that Trump had arranged—ostensibly to honor a Polish pilot who died in an airshow. Forget the fact that the Poles, in fact, have a very honorable history of supporting the resistance efforts in World War II. The Poles had a wartime government in London; they also fought alongside the Allies in the Polish Armed Forces, which might have been a plausible justification for a flyover. At any rate, the victims of Epstein had to stop and gaze heavenward, no doubt suppressing cusswords at the same time.
Getting back to Mr. Cass, who was perhaps too young to have endured the first Trump administration—why don’t we stop the abstruse journeys into what we hope is the subtle mind of a political genius, and focus on the much-more-likely?
1. Trump is a moron about anything related to the world or the nation
2. Trump is a genius at sowing chaos
3. Trump loves to fuck (or did)
4. Trump loves to “make deals,” and thinks he’s good at it
5. The Russians, as part of a decades-long strategy, identified a group of people who might be useful to them.
6. Trump was one of those guys
7. The Russians also look for dirt, and while it can be financial, it’s often the oldest story in history—men away from home behaving badly
8. The dirt the Russians have on Trump could be either financial or personal, or it could be both. In addition, the Russians may not have told Trump what they have over him, but are simply letting him sweat
9. They had the dirt, now they had to get him to play. It wasn’t hard to convince Trump to get involved in politics, to run for president. It was how Putin got rich, and have I mentioned that the only gods in Trump’s pantry are sex and money?
10. The first administration was marred by having adults in the room. True, some of them were crooked as hell (Bill Barr springs to mind) but they were adults. Pam Bondi? Pete Hegseth? C’mon…
11.Trump lost the 2020 election, and no adult could ever go work for him again. That was perfect for Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who could then install J. D. Vance (who has done nothing professionally except be Thiel’s lapdog), institute a theocracy / oligarchy, gut the government and strip it of its regulatory power.
12.Trump has been happy to go along, and anyone who needs sneakers, cryptocurrency, watches, or Naugahyde bibles has a wonderful variety of Trump merch
13.Trump is now senile—which Thiel and Musk certainly knew months before the election. They got him elected, they’ll use him to destroy the government, and then they’ll throw him under the bus.
14.The American people have been lied to, yes—but let’s not pretend we’re not culpable. We all saw January 6th, and the Trump administration has been nothing but transparent. For a dishonest man, Trump has been remarkably consistent with following through on plans. Project 2025 was executed perfectly. We’re all set to go. Democracy is out, Trump is in. And for the people who want to hate, that’s just fine.
15.Democracy is over, and it didn’t even last 250 years
Mr. Cass must have a clever, sophisticated worldview, but does Trump? We’ve never gotten him right, because we’ve never been able to see him as he is. He’s a fraud, he’s a moron, and he’s not dangerous. Until, of course, we let him have his way. Every politician has recognized this, and every Republican has caved. And now, as Susan Collins (Republican senator from Maine) says, we’re all living in fear.
With good reason. One of her colleagues got “arrested” and put into handcuffs. The governor of Virginia had his house torched while he was sleeping in it. Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota are shot by assassins posing as cops. The military is “patrolling” the streets of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
The Epstein victims say that they are creating a list, and I think that’s great. I’d like to compile a list, too. And I’d like to start it today, and finish it by tomorrow, at 5 PM. I’d like a list of every American who voted for Trump, who supported Trump, who relished all the pettiness and the retribution.
I’d like a list of all the persons who support President Trump—right now. Yes or no—are you in or out?
I’m not giving myself the option of saying, ‘well, I just didn’t know! I was utterly shocked and horrified when the true nature of Donald Trump’s crimes was revealed.”
Nah.
The Germans knew nothing about the death camps?
Nah, burning flesh stinks.
Alligator Alcatraz was an aberration?
Nah, it was all over the news.
We knew he was a crook, we knew he was dishonest, but we really thought that God had chosen this imperfect vessel to usher in the glorious days of his Second Coming?
Nah.
Wasn’t God, it was Putin.
