Trumpia, that country the Psychopath is trying to create, shows signs already of coming apart as its perpetrators trek further into Nutland. Every day it’s a new outrage. Thursday’s shameful arrest of Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk comes right out of the Russian playbook. Bat-brained Kristi Noem uses human prisoners from El Salvador as props for her video. And of course Hegseth, whose head should roll soon, produced the most lethal shock of all.
The incompetence and contempt the Signal chat showed—for truth, legality, Europe, the frontline fighters—seems finally to be hitting home. Still, the media needs to do much more in reporting the growing outrage and anger of a good chunk of the populace. We see glimmers of this on such sites as The New Republic and offbeat sites like The Daily Beast. Polls show the word is spreading, and the truth will out. Maybe.
Even Bloomberg’s opinion columns are talking about “Watching the End of America.” David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, writes about “the encroaching threat of autocracy that cannot be concealed or encrypted.” He goes on:
In the initial months of Donald Trump’s second Administration, the qualities of malevolence, retribution, and bewildering velocity have obscured somewhat the ineptitude of its principals. . . . You get the sense that we would learn little if we were privy to a twenty-four-hour-a-day live stream of its every private utterance.
The staid Economist is going after Musk, his tantrums, and the powerful competition dogging his businesses. The public, however, will focus less on that than on the overwhelming damage he and his DOGE goons are doing to the country. Musk may be the obvious threat to the Trump autocracy since he is the most visible symbol of the damage it’s doing. But he’s getting competition.
Every one of the dorks Trump appointed to his Cabinet has now entered the public eye by committing one outrage after another to the rule of law. Some of these moves will be more visible and provoking to the public than others. Consider RFK Jr.’s firing of 10,000 HHS employees—and then another 10,000. The effects of this on research, public health and healthcare are simply incalculable but will be felt immediately.
The consequences of all this will affect MAGA supporters and Red states more than others. Not to mention the business community. The repercussions of the Signal chat and the tariffs should bring that home. But the biggest scandal, legally, morally and outrageously, could become the disgrace du jour―the snatching and deporting of foreign-born students.
In the most hypocritical political turnabout of all time, Marco Rubio becomes the biggest Trump enabler of all. And he’s proud of it. He confirmed that the State Department “had revoked 300 student visas—most or all for criticizing Israel or protesting the war in Gaza—but then went further. ‘At some point, I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them, but we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.’”
His rant was designed to generate fear and trembling in the universities and in those students who are rightly offended by the slaughter in Gaza. Forget due process and freedom of speech. If the universities cop out (which is likely but truly unthinkable), finally it will take the news media to recognize their own moral obligation to cover these stories and tell the truth.
John, from paragraph to paragraph, my head is spinning. And you don’t have the space to mention so many other things. Universities with tens of billions in endowment and law firms whose partners making a couple million annually can’t afford to join together and go to court instead of simply caving to a wannabe Il Duce?
Very much agree about the universities. And yes, too many other things to mention. They are carrying out Bannon’s idea, “flood the zone with shit.” Il Duce was smarter than that.