To laugh or to weep, that is the question
Whenever I see polls showing Donald Trump’s approval rating hovering in the mid-30s, I ask myself, how can it be that high? With the help of many corrupt, craven, calculating, callous and criminal enablers, Trump has done to the US what our global adversaries couldn’t do. In less than two years, he’s even managed to degrade and demoralize the armed forces.
In these dog days of August I don’t know whether to laugh or weep.
Trump’s shriveled heart continues to defy the odds and pump blood through his obese body. In private, safe behind closed office doors, many Republicans rue the day they sold their souls, but in public they line up to debase themselves anew. They know that Trump will never admit defeat, error, misjudgment or failure — he can’t — because his entire mythos is built on delusions of infallibility. Thus, his War of Choice against Iran is going perfectly, the American economy is humming, the world respects — and fears — the US as never before, the ballroom/military fortress will be stupendous, the Strait of Hormuz is ours, and so on until Trump draws his last ragged breath.
That a con artist can do such damage to an entire country is astonishing, but not more so than the complicity of American voters in handing the con artist the keys to the kingdom. That was simply juvenile and stupid, inexcusable. Even with the example of Trump’s devastating mismanagement of Covid, 77 million voted for him in 2024. Looking over some of the writing I did in 2023 and in the run-up to the election, all I wanted was a sane chief executive who would respect the rule of law. I had no illusions about Joe Biden, who was too old and intellectually decrepit in 2020, let alone 2024 when he was fading visibly and incapable of defending his own achievements. In that respect, Kamala Harris was a breath of fresh air, albeit a short-lived one. Would Harris have been a successful president? I don’t know. What I do know is that ICE agents wouldn’t be killing Americans in the streets, the East Wing of the White House would still stand, and we wouldn’t be at war with Iran. I also have no doubt that Harris wouldn’t have completely corrupted the Department of Justice or gutted USAID or our public health infrastructure.
Reality is a tough taskmaster. Trump has been remarkably successful at bending reality to his will, but he’s old, fading, flaccid, and reality is punching back. But don’t fear. Don Quixote Trump is destined to continue tilting at reality, with Natalie Harp and Stephen Miller by his side, and Pete Hegseth sitting in the Pentagon staring at a bottle of Jim Beam, and Christian Mikey Johnson searching in vain for his breastplate of iron, and Shady Vance and Marco Rubio dreaming of White House glory. Meanwhile, as clouds of locusts rise and vultures begin to circle, Don Quixote Trump readies himself to pour out his remaining vials of wrath.
