YOU MEAN THE ECONOMY ISN'T BETTER NOW THAT WE PUNISHED THE SCAPEGOAT?

For his podcast yesterday, Greg Sargent of The New Republic interviewed Will Saletan of The Bulwark. Here's Saletan trying to understand President Trump's poor poll numbers:

Saletan: ... So Greg, earlier you were reading from Trump’s Truth Social post where he talks about... complains about not getting credit for what he’s done on the economy. The other issue where he has complained a lot lately about not getting credit is immigration. He said, “I want to talk about immigration, but my staff won’t let me. They say, ‘Nobody cares about it.’” So the problem for Trump is that he did cut off people coming across the border. And instead of getting credit for that, Americans are like, Okay, what’s the next problem? That went away.

So he’s not getting the affirmative credit that he used to get from people who were really pissed off about that issue. But instead, what’s happening is the ICE raids are triggering all the negative reaction. Americans are seeing what it looks like when you send masked people out to pick people off the street in vans and take them away and ship them to foreign torture prisons, right? And this is not what they had in mind.

What Trump said in his speech in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, on Tusday was this:

Ten months ago, we inherited the worst border in the history of the world and now we have the strongest border in the history of our country. We've never had a border this -- And people don't talk about -- you notice, they don't talk about it. When I ran -- when I was running it was the biggest thing. And before I was running, that's all they talked about, the border, the border, the border and now I fixed it, nobody wants to talk about it. Even my people, they say, sir, don't put it in your speech.

Why, because nobody cares about the border. You fix -- No, but you know how bad that is? Because they forget what you did.

This is actually a riff Trump used in his 2024 campaign speeches -- see, for instance, this January 2024 speech in Las Vagas, or a March speech in Ohio. In those speeches, Trump said he closed the border so thoroughly in his first term that he was told nobody wanted to talk about it during the 2020 campaign, but in 2024 it was an issue again. Now he's grumpy because, he says, he's done such a great job no one wants to talk about it again.

But that's not how presidential accomplishments usually work. In 2012, Barack Obama fans had no problem cheering on the assertion that General Motors was alive and bin Laden was dead. So why the gloom about Trump's actions on immigration?

On the subject of the economy, we know why no one wants to give Trump credit: because the economy sucks. The Trump lament Sargent quotes earlier in the interview is from a Truth Social post:

When will I get credit for having created, with No Inflation, perhaps the Greatest Economy in the History of our Country? When will people understand what is happening? When will Polls reflect the Greatness of America at this point in time, and how bad it was just one year ago?

He won't get credit, obviously, because the economy is awful. But why isn't the immigration crackdown making more people happy, when polls predicted strong support for a crackdown?

Maybe it's because the administration's tactics are brutal and disruptive -- but it could also be because many Americans thought that a crackdown on immigrants would be a key component of an economic turnaround. I think many of them thought they'd feel richer and less economically stressed as a result of the arrests and deportations.

According to the right's anti-immigration narrative, the targeted immigrants are all criminals and parasites. The ones who aren't rapists, psycho killers, and drug kingpins are bloodsuckers living on welfare (and getting benefits citizens don't get). But the administration's arrests have focused on workers; they're taking place at Home Depots, not welfare offices. I think many Americans thought a wave of deportations would improve the economic conditions of ordinary citizens automatically, because they've been told for years that all these people do is take, take, take. For reasons they don't understand, it's not working out that way.

Trump will keep promising paradise on earth as a result of his policies, and most voters will continue to be disappointed. Sadly, he might still retain the loyalty of 40% of the voting public, judging from the polls. But his simple redemies aren't working, and everyone else knows it now.

ANOTHER OPTION YOU COULD HAVE EXERCISED WAS SHUTTING THE FUCK UP

Two members of the House who are hoping to win statewide elections next year are introducing bills clearly meant to impress voters in the tough primaries they're facing. Guess which of these House members is being fragged by members of her own party? I'll give you a hint: One is a Democrat and one is a Republican.

The Republican is Nancy Mace, who wants to be governor of South Carolina and appears to be in a tough fight for the Republican nomination. She went to Fox News (of course) to announce her bill:

A new bill could see part of the national capital renamed after slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, introduced three months after his assassination.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., is introducing legislation to rename the area that until recently had been known as Black Lives Matter Plaza, she first told Fox News Digital.

"Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization that wants to defund the police and take your speech away," Mace argued. "And what I want to do on the three-month anniversary of Charlie Kirk's political assassination is celebrate him and the First Amendment and freedom of speech by renaming the plaza after him."

(Yes, she signed on to the Jeffrey Epstein discharge petition when most Republicans wouldn't, but "Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization"? Seriously? I think we can all put away our "Nancy Mace, Welcome to the Resistance" signs.)

Mace is one of four candidates who appear to be in contention for the gubernatorial nomination, yet I don't see any of the others questioning her decision to do this. Nor do I see any fellow House members attacking her, even though they'd have a point if they said their caucus has more important things to think about right now, like the looming crisis in healthcare affordability, which at least a handful of Republicans would like to address.

But, of course, praising Charlie Kirk and attacking Black Lives Matter is excellent politics in the GOP, and probably won't hurt Mace if she makes it to the general election, even though her state is more than 25% Black.

On the other hand, fellow Democrats are attacking Michigan congresswoman Haley Stevens, who's running for a Senate seat, because of this:

One of Democrats' most fraught internal fights of the year resurfaced Wednesday after Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) introduced articles of impeachment against HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

... House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told Axios he hasn't taken a look at Stevens' measure, adding: "You know what I'm focused on? Making sure that the American people don't have their health care ripped away from them."

... "Do the math," said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), who told Axios he has had constituents suggest "we impeach every [Cabinet] secretary."

Said a senior House Democrat: "None of these folks have come to us to figure out what's the comms plan, how do we organize members around it, how do we get some Republicans to do it?"

... "You can't swing a cat without hitting an impeachable offense in this administration, but having that amount to anything productive and be a good use of our time in this Congress is a totally different question," said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.).

"It's just deeply distracting and unproductive to make that our priority in this moment. ... Enjoy your media cycle."

Stevens is not my favorite Democrat in the Michigan Senate primary. She's much less progressive than her main opponents, state senator Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed, a Bernie-ite former public health official, and thus is Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand's preferred candidate. But it should be the official position of the Democratic Party that Kennedy is unfit to serve and deserves impeachment. Every Democrat should co-sponsor this resolution, even if it's going nowhere, just to send a message.

I understand why so many people in D.C. are afraid to take Kennedy on: they think he brings with him a genuinely swing-y voting bloc of quackery-curious suburban voters. But a respect for human life requires decent people to take sides. Did I mention that measles is running rampant in South Carolina right now? In a better world, Nancy Mace would co-sponsor the Stevens impeachment resolution.

I understand that many Democrats think impeachment demands are pointless and futile. But if you're a Democrat who believes this and a reporter asks you for a comment, make the choice not to attack a fellow Democrat. Don't give Axios the opportunity to run an "Infighting Erupts" headline while the Daily Wire says, "House Dem Files Articles Of Impeachment Against RFK Jr. And Even Her Own Party Is Trashing Her." Just shut the fuck up.

TRUMP DIDN'T REALLY GO OFF SCRIPT LAST NIGHT

We're being told that President Trump deviated from his script last night in a public appearance in Pennsylvania. The New York Times reports:

President Trump on Tuesday night gave the first of a series of speeches intended to alleviate Americans’ concerns about the cost of living, but spent most of the time mocking the term “affordability” and insisting that Americans were doing better than they had ever done before....

Mr. Trump was supposed to focus entirely on the economy, but he often ignored the script flashing before him and returned over and over again to his favorite targets.

He attacked transgender Americans, repeatedly blamed Mr. Biden for inflation and illegal immigration — “he’s a sleepy son-of-a-bitch who destroyed our country,” he said — and roused the crowd by demanding that Representative Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat, leave the country.

... When Mr. Trump introduced [Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent, he did not talk about Mr. Bessent’s economic initiatives, but instead said, to applause, “He is in charge of the investigation of Somalia and the billions of dollars they have robbed” from Minnesota.

“If they don’t go to jail, Scott Bessent is toast!” he later told the Treasury secretary, laughing....

He raised the possibility — without evidence — that Mr. Biden signed the appointments of members of the Federal Reserve board with an autopen, suggesting that he may argue that they are not legally in their posts.

“I’m hearing that the autopen could have signed maybe all four, but maybe a couple of them. We’ll take two,” he said to muted applause.

The attacks on Omar and other immigrants were vile:

He earned raucous cheers from his supporters as he spoke of “reverse migration” and trumpeted what he called a “permanent pause” on immigration from “hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries.”

Soon after, a member of the crowd yelled out a crude term that Mr. Trump used during his first administration to disparage Haiti and some nations in Africa. The president laughed.

“I didn’t say ‘shithole,’ you did!” Mr. Trump replied with a grin....

During his xenophobic tirade, Mr. Trump made little distinction between unauthorized migrants and those who followed all the correct procedures to enter the country and eventually become American citizens. He described Somali immigrants as lazy, murderous and “garbage,” and said the home countries of many immigrants were “filthy, dirty, disgusting.”

He singled out Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, referring to her hijab as “the little turban.” He again called for her to be deported, and the crowd responded by chanting, “Send her back.”

Trump's team sent him out to reassure voters about the economy. They prepared a speech for him on the economy. Trump said a lot of things that weren't in his advisers' script -- but they were in his script, the one he keeps in his head, the one that's endeared him to his base for a decade. The question is whether this approach will still work for him when so many Americans are either long-term Trump-haters or occasional supporters who are becoming disillusioned.

Whether or not the flimflam still works, I think we should recognize that it is flimflam. Trump isn't just a guy with dementia and diminished impulse control shouting racist insults when he's supposed to be talking about grocery prices. He's a guy who's long had an intuitive understanding of how to use scapegoating and bigotry to win over millions of voters. He knows that his people, at least, will fall for all these distractions, and many of them will conclude that he's still a good president even if he's not doing anything to make it easier to pay their bills, because he hates the people they hate.

In mid-November, when the government shutdown was ending, I said that Trump's poll numbers had probably bottomed out, at least for the time being, and would probably rise soon. Sadly, I was right. At the time, Trump's net job approval was -16.1% in Nate Silver's polling average; he's at -12.2% now. Trump was at -13.4% at Real Clear Polling then; he's at -8.9% now. Trump is probably just shoring up his base, but I think many people believe the base would flee him next, and that's not happening. It might happen when healthcare sticker shock kicks in, when companies begin passing more tariff costs on to consumers, and when we're in a ground war in Venezuela, but it's not happening yet.

Trump's current uptick in the polls might not help his party -- his numbers are better but they're still bad, and Democrats are winning or overperforming in elections that don't feature Trump on the ballot. Yesterday, a Democrat won a Georgia state legislative race in a district Trump won in 2024 by 13 points. A Democrat also won the race to become Miami's mayor for the first time in 30 years.

But Trump is shoring up support for ... himself, which is what matters to him. He's distracting economically struggling base voters with hate, and he's telling those voters that the people responsible for those economic struggles are the people they hate. It will make them like him more than any dry policy speech would, and he knows that. (Actually doing something about affordability would, I guess, be out of the question.)

Trump may be in a state of physical and mental decline, but he's forgotten more about being a bullshit artist than most of us have ever known, and he still retains a great deal of ability to apply that bullshitting superpower.

POLITICO'S TRUMP INTERVIEW: SANEWASHING IN REAL TIME

A year ago, media critics were lamenting the way the press "sanewashes" Donald Trump. He'd respond to a question with a long, meandering, digression-filled monologue, or he'd post a half-mad rant on Truth Social, like this ...

I have reached an agreement with the Radical Left Democrats for a Debate with Comrade Kamala Harris. It will be Broadcast Live on ABC FAKE NEWS, by far the nastiest and most unfair newscaster in the business, on Tuesday, September 10th, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Rules will be the same as the last CNN Debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone except, perhaps, Crooked Joe Biden. The Debate will be “stand up,” and Candidates cannot bring notes, or “cheat sheets.” We have also been given assurance by ABC that this will be a “fair and equitable” Debate, and that neither side will be given the questions in advance (No Donna Brazile!). Harris would not agree to the FoxNews Debate on September 4th, but that date will be held open in case she changes her mind or, Flip Flops, as she has done on every single one of her long held and cherished policy beliefs. A possible third Debate, which would go to NBC FAKE NEWS, has not been agreed to by the Radical Left. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

... and the press would blanch it until it came out sane:

CNN described that rambling, insult-laden, conspiracy-riddled wall of text ... by writing, “Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced he has ‘reached an agreement’ to participate in a September 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, noting that ‘the rules will be the same as the last CNN debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone.’”

Does that really capture what Trump posted?

This form of sanewashing happens after the fact: Trump goes off half-cocked and the press makes his pronouncements appear bland and reasonable. But there's another form of sanewashing that's done in real time. It happens when interviewers allow outrageously false or offensive statements to slide without even minimal fact-checking or follow-up. Many people in politics benefit from the American media's reluctance to insist on truthfulness, but no one benefits more than Trump.

I raise this issue because I was just reading the transcript of a new Trump interview by Politico's Dasha Burns (free to read here). Burns clearly wants to get through her prepared list of questions and doesn't want to allow even a momentary questioning of Trump's non-facts to slow her progress. So she begins by asking about the prospects for a settlement of the war between Russia and Ukraine. After some back-and-forth, Trump says:

I ... I settled eight wars, and this ... I would’ve said this is the ninth. This would’ve been the easiest one, I would’ve said, or one of the easier ones. I mean, I settled one ... one that was going on for 36 years. Uh, I settled Pakistan and India. I settled so many wars. I’m very proud of it. And I do it pretty routinely, pretty easily. It’s not hard for me to do. It’s what I do. I make deals. Uh, this one is tough. One of the reasons is the level of hatred between Putin and Zelenskyy is tremendous.

Trump hasn't "settled so many wars" -- of the eight he claims to have settled, most either weren't wars or haven't been settled. And it's not just that Trump "would've said" settling the Russia-Ukraine war was easy -- he literally said on more than one occasion that he'd settle the war in 24 hours.

Burns doesn't pause to correct him here or challenge him on the facts. And so the "eight wars" lie, in particular, is allowed to stand as undisputed.

Trump makes his usual claim that there wouldn't have been a Russia-Ukraine war if he'd been reelected in 2020. Eventually he wends his way to election trutherism -- and that goes unchallenged as well:

Trump: You know, think of it, if our election wasn’t rigged ... there was a rigged election. Now everyone knows it. It’s gonna come out over the next couple of months, too, loud and clear ’cause we have all the information and everything. But if the election wasn’t rigged [and stolen], uh, you wouldn’t even be talking about Ukraine right now.

Burns simply moves on:

Burns: The resounding consensus in Europe right now is that they want to keep supporting Ukraine until they can win this war.

And so Trump gets away with the big lie again.

Soon, Burns asks Trump about his administration's newly released national security strategy. She wants answers to specific questions -- will America intervene in the internal politics of European nations? will the U.S. intervene in European elections? -- and in order to get her answers, she lets Trump unleash a volley of anti-immigrant racism and says nothing:

Burns: Well, you ... your administration just released a new national security strategy that sent shockwaves throughout Europe. The strategy says a key pillar of American foreign policy should be “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.” How much should European leaders prepare for your administration to ... to push to reshape the continent’s politics?

Trump: Well, Europe is a different place.

Burns: What do you mean by that?

Trump: And if it keeps going the way it’s going, Europe will not be ... in my opinion, uh, many of those countries will not be viable countries any longer. Their immigration policy is a disaster. What they’re doing with immigration is a disaster. Uh, we had a disaster coming, but I was able to stop it. You know, we have no people coming through our borders now, zero, seven months. I mean, who would believe zero? We went from millions of people — in some cases, millions of people a month — but millions of people to no people.

Burns: That’s not what Europe looks like.

Trump: The opposite. Yeah. Uh ... uh, no. Europe, they’re coming in from all parts of the world. Not just the Middle East, they’re coming in from the Congo, tremendous numbers of people coming from the Congo. And even worse, they’re coming from prisons of the Congo and many other countries. And for some reason, they want to be politically correct, which actually, I think is the opposite of politically correct. But they want to be politically correct, and they don’t want to send ’em back to where they came from.

And Europe is ... uh, if you take a look at Paris, it’s a much different place. I loved Paris. Uh, it’s a much different place than it was. If you take a look at London, you have a mayor named Khan. He’s a horrible mayor. He’s an incompetent mayor, but he’s a horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor. I think he’s done a terrible job. London’s a different place. I love London. I love London. And I hate to see it happen. You know, my roots are in Europe, as you know.

Burns: Right. Right.

Trump: And ... and I hate to see that happen. This is one of the great places in the world, and they’re allowing people just to come in and ... unchecked, unvetted.

There were never "millions of people a month" crossing the U.S. border (the highest number of monthly encounters under Biden was 370,883). And Europe is, of course, not "allowing people just to come in and ... unchecked, unvetted." But Burns just moves on to her next question, which eventually leads to one of Trump's most (calculatedly) batshit pronouncements:

Burns: So how involved are you going to get? I mean, could we see you getting involved in European elections, for example?

Trump: I want to run the United States. I don’t want to run Europe. I’m involved in Europe very much. Uh ...

Burns: Might you endorse candidates?

Trump: NATO calls me Daddy.

This gets no response from Burns.

Trump repeatedly denounces immigration, in America and Europe, but later, in a conversation about the possibility of war with Venezuela, he says:

Trump: Well, one goal is I want the people of Venezuela to be treated well. I want the people of Venezuela, many of whom live in the United States, to be respected. I mean, they were tremendous to me. They voted for me 94 percent or something. I mean, it’s incredible. I own a big, uh, project, Doral. It’s a great place, Doral Country Club.

Burns: Been there.

Trump: Yeah. And it’s a, you know, very large, uh, place, beautiful place, right in the middle of they call it Little Venezuela. And I got to know the Venezuelan people very well because, uh, that I’ve owned it for a long time. And they’re unbelievable people. The area is such a successful area. Everybody is successful. It’s amazing. They say if a house is for sale for more than three days, there’s something wrong. I mean, a house ... if somebody wants to sell their house, they sell it in just a matter of moments. People love the area. And I got to know the people well. They’re incredible people. And they were treated horribly by Maduro.

In response to this, Burns -- a Ukrainian immigrant herself -- bestirs herself:

Burns: And are those the kind of immigrants that you do want to see in America?

Good question. Throughout the interview, Trump essentially says that America and Europe should have no immigration whatsoever, yet he praises Venezuelan immigrants in America because Venezuelan-Americans vote for him. (In fact, a plurality of Venezuelans in Florida voted for Kamala Harris, though a surprising number voted for Trump.)

Trump's response leads him to an unrelated lie -- which Burns never challenges.

Trump: Uh, well, they ... well, they certainly contrib ... yeah, I want to see people ... yeah, I want to see people that contribute. I don’t want to see Somalia. I don’t want to see a woman that, you know, marries her brother to get in and then becomes a congressman and does nothing but complain. All she does is complain, complain, complain, and yet her country’s a mess. You know, it’s, uh, one of the worst in the world. Uh, let her go back, fix up her own country.

Burns: Uh, I ...

Trump: So ...

Burns: ... yeah.

Snopes, The New York Times, and other outlets have found no evidence that Representative Ilhan Omar ever married her brother. But the right loves this rumor, and Burns lets it slide. She also never challenges Trump on the notion that America shouldn't accept immigrants or refugees from countries from poorly functioning governments, even though millions of us trace our ancestry to immigrants from nations that were failing to provide a good life for their citizens. (And what about those Venezuelans? Why doesn't Trump think they should go back and fix up their own country? Obviously it's because he thinks they all voted for him.)

Burns also allows Trump to defend his boat bombings by saying, "And we save 25,000 people every time we knock out a boat. On average, they kill 25,000 Americans." There have been 22 boat strikes involving 23 vessels. If each boat strike saved 25,000 lives, that would be a total of 575,000 lives saved. But, in fact, the worst year from overdoses in America was 2022, in which there were 110,900 overdose deaths. To Burns's credit, she notes that the boats weren't carrying fentanyl, the drug that leads to the most overdose deaths in America, and notes, that it probably wasn't heading to the U.S. But Trump waves this off, and Burns abandons that line of questioning.

That's only a sample of what Burns could have challenged in this interview. I understand that Burns wouldn't have been allowed to continue the interview if she'd pushed Trump too forcefully. But Politico didn't have to publish the transcript without annotation.

In fact, Politico chose to provide one fact clarification in the transcript. It involves Politico itself:

Burns: Can you rule out an American ground invasion ...

Trump: I don’t want to ...

Burns: ... in Venezuela?

Trump: ... rule in or out. I don’t talk about it. Why would I talk to you, an extremely unfriendly publication, if you want to call it POLITICO, that got $8 million from Obama to keep it afloat, why would I do that? (Editor’s note: Trump appears to be referring to POLITICO Pro subscriptions that the Trump administration canceled earlier this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to trim government spending. POLITICO received no government grants or subsidies.)

If Politico could provide this fact-check, it could have provided more fact-checks. But lying is considered part of Trump's brand, so it just isn't done. And that's sanewashing. But it's how we do political journalism in America.

The best political interviewers in Britain and Europe treat questioning like a point in tennis - you keep hitting until the exchange is resolved. Nearly all American interviewers treat a question like a penalty kick in soccer - you have one shot, and if the interviewee deflects, that's it.

— Steve M. (@stevemnomoremister.bsky.social) December 7, 2025 at 10:36 PM

THE MAINSTREAMING OF NICK FUENTES IS STANDARD-ISSUE GOP NICHE MARKETING

Rolling Stone reports:

From the story (free to read here):

Just a few weeks ago, the Republican Party was ripping itself apart as factions moved to either distance themselves from Nick Fuentes, the 27-year-old white nationalist streamer, or to loudly announce they would never bow to the woke mob demanding they disavow the openly racist, proudly misogynist, Holocaust-denying Hitler fanboy.

The outrage cycle is apparently over now, and Fuentes has come out on top: Instead of being sidelined by the uproar that erupted after his appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show in October, Fuentes is now being courted by some of conservative media’s biggest names. Last week he appeared on Alex Jones’ Infowars and Steven Crowder’s podcast “Louder With Crowder.” On Monday he’s scheduled to sit down with Piers Morgan, for his YouTube show “Uncensored.” ...

There was a moment, a few weeks ago, when the GOP appeared poised to unite in a stand against him....

But a funny thing happened next: The leaders of the Republican Party shrugged the whole thing off. “You can’t tell him who to interview,” Trump finally said of Carlson in November, after weeks of silence on the subject. “If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes — I don’t know much about him — but if he wants to do it, get the word out. Let him, you know, people have to decide.”

It's odd that this appears the same day that the front page of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post looks like this:

(Story here.)

This seems ... inconsistent, but I think it's just the Republican Party doing what it normally does: marketing several different messages to niche audiences.

Back in February -- when some Republicans were praising the sex criminal/online influencer Andrew Tate while others were denouncing him -- I recalled an earlier era of GOP niche marketing:

Remember when some Republicans couldn't stop talking about their certainty that Barack Obama had a fake birth certificate and was actually born in Kenya? That was birtherism. Many Republicans, including Donald Trump, eagerly adopted it in 2011 and 2012. Other Republicans, including 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, rejected it. And then there were GOP responses that could be sorted into other categories, as Adam Serwer noted at the time:

Ironic Post-birtherism: Making humorous or ironic references to the idea that the president was not born in the United States as an attempt to signal solidarity with or otherwise placate those who genuinely believe the president was not born in the United States. Examples: Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Raul Labrador.

Pseudo-birtherism: An umbrella term that encompasses all the various modes of belief that involve embracing fictional elements of the president's background, from the belief that he is a secret Muslim to the idea that he was raised in Kenya. Includes highbrow forms of birtherism like the "Kenyan anti-colonialism" thesis and theories that his name was legally changed to "Barry Soetero," as well as the idea that Obama's "real father" was one of the handful of random black celebrities you can name off the top of your head. Examples: Newt Gingrich, Andrew C. McCarthy.

This allowed voters to pick any response to birtherism that seemed correct to them, in the belief that that response represented the real Republican Party. Conspiracy-minded voters could embrace undiluted birtherism. Romney Republicans could tell themselves that the party rejected crackpottery. And people in the middle could tell themselves that Obama might not be lying about his place of birth, but he sure acts like a left-winger from the less developed world, doesn't he? Please note that all of the responses led to support for the Republican Party.

Later, there were the various niches surrounding the 2020 election:

Trump's 2020 election lie worked the same way. Some people believed crazy theories about fake ballots made from Chinese bamboo and electronic vote rigging by means of satellites directed from the U.S. embassy in Rome (or the Vatican). Others said that the baroque conspiracy theories were a bit much, but the Deep State sure did suppress that Hunter Biden story in 2020, wouldn't you say?

It all works this way:

Extreme, irrational, dangerous ideas are allowed to flourish on the right. "Mainstream" Republicans might reject these ideas, but they show up in communications channels that abut or overlap with "mainstream" GOP communications channels. The really extreme stuff leads gullible people to the GOP, while mainstream Republicans can reassure more sophisticated voters that the party isn't really like that. It's win-win for Republicans.

That's what's happening with Fuentes -- although, as I noted in February,

Inevitably, there's extremism creep. When COVID vaccines were first approved, then-president Trump boasted about them, and every governor in America, Republican as well as Democrat, embraced them -- yes, even Ron DeSantis. But the party became increasingly anti-vaccine, the way it became increasingly birtherist and conspiratorial about the 2020 election.

Extremism creep in this case means a party that becomes more and more anti-Semitic. That's probably inevitable. But the "official" party will continue to sell itself as the anti-anti-Semitic party even as it increasingly embraces anti-Semitism -- and the mixed message will reassure the normies (especially because the mainstream media will eagerly retransmit the mainstream party's reassurances). The GOP will never be portrayed in the press as a party that's gone completely to the Nazi side, just as it's still portrayed as a party that operates in the reality-based world on other topics. It won't be seen as a party of haters, cranks, and conspiratorialists, even when it obviously is precisely that.

In the future, the message the party will continue to send to voters worried about anti-Semitism is that the libs are the real Jew-haters, even if Jew-haters are beginning to dominate the GOP. And that will be the conventional wisdom.

IF TRUMP IS LOSING IT, DOES THAT EVEN MATTER?

The New Republic's Jason Linkins asks:

Linkins comes to the familiar conclusion:

The president is fully checked out because he’s old, enfeebled, and his brain is slowly turning into pasta e fagioli.

But he adds a twist: The administration is lawless and brutal because Trump is in decline.

At least I think that's what Linkins is saying. Quoting a recent Atlantic article about Trump's increasing disengagement, Linkins writes:

The vacuum Trump is leaving in the White House needs to be filled, and it’s being filled by “enablers” rather than people who might “[moderate] some of his more extreme impulses.” Or, as someone less committed to euphemism euthanasia might put it, it’s being filled by utter ghouls: a Pentagon head who’s in over his head and spiraling out as he commits war crimes, a Health and Human Services secretary who’s bringing Lysenkoism back, an FBI director crashing out because no one brought him a cool jacket to wear—and all the rest hopped up on völkisch nationalism, pulling Black people out of their cars in Minneapolis and warring with Sabrina Carpenter.

Comparing this administration to the previous one, which was led by a president whose aging process got far more attention, Linkins writes:

Those who served in Biden’s inner circle aren’t going to be remembered fondly, but no matter how enfeebled the president was, the country did not have the same problem we do now. The Biden White House wasn’t packed stem to stern with people dedicated to looting the country, terrorizing children, turning masked goons out onto the streets of American cities, or using the Department of Homeland Security’s social media presence to—as administration sources told Zeteo—“intentionally use popular music from vocally anti-Trump performing artists in order to trigger a negative response from a famous liberal and provide further amplification of neo-Confederate memes.”

Linkins seems to be suggesting that all this is happening because Trump is in decline. But is it? I'm not certain that's what he's saying because, quoting The Atlantic, he refers to these people as "enablers." If they're Trump's enablers, that means they aren't running wild because a feeble president can't stop them -- it means they're doing precisely what he wants them to do. Which is it?

I think it's the latter. I don't know the precise extent of Trump's mental and physical impairments, but I think if they could be magically cured, his White House would be doing exactly what it's doing now.

This is the administration he wanted eight years ago: a Justice Department that acts like his personal legal team, a thuggish crew of racists and anti-immigrant extremists, a team largely plucked from right-wing TV and dedicated to his aggrandizement. He might be sleeping through what they're doing, but they're doing what he wants.

And while they're alienating the rest of America, they're doing what the MAGA base wants. If Trump were to die tonight, I suspect that President Vance would keep nearly all of his policies in place -- the tariffs would probably be diminished or abandoned, and Vance might do a better job than Trump of pretending to take affordability seriously, but the ICE raids and the boat bombings and the sucking up to Vladimir Putin and the European far right would continue uninterrupted. There might be fewer pardons of white-collar criminals, but the crypto and AI industries would still be allowed to do whatever they want. Vance might not talk about windmills, but he'd put his thumb on the scale for fossil fuels. And the social media shitposting would, if anything, worsen.

The press will maintain its double standard on aging presidents for two reasons. One is obvious: The press has been browbeaten by GOP ref-workers for decades and is much more reluctant to criticize Republicans than Democrats. Mainstream journalists have operated for years on the assumption that if a Trump utterance seems bizarre or inappropriate to them, it's because they're elitist liberals who don't understand Trump's plainspoken, elemental connection to Real Americans.

But the other reason is that when Trump is awake, he can seem tireless. Linkins quotes a Guardian story in which a Johns Hopkins Medical School professor says that Trump "really has trouble completing a thought." But when Biden seemed to have trouble completing a thought, his voice dropped to a whisper and his words trailed off into silence. Trump just keeps talking. Here's The Washington Post on Trump's appearance yesterday at an event connected to the Kennedy Center, where performers will be honored tonight in a ceremony hosted by Sylvester Stallone:

In his 37-minute remarks, Trump mused about the Kennedy Center’s renovations, Stallone’s career, the New England Patriots, the UFC fight set to be staged at the White House next year, his recent golf outing with renowned golfer Gary Player, crime in American cities and the Biden administration’s policies, among other topics.

He just talks, and it usually makes some kind of sense, even though his pronouncements are often based on lies and misinformation (but it's misiniformation millions of Fox viewers also believe). Trump's energy might derive from multiple Diet Cokes or Adderall, or he might simply be invigorated whenever a captive audience allows him to indulge his obsessions. But the result is that he seems more vigorous than Biden did. Even his sexist and racist outbursts seem vigorous. And that's why the press corps won't put him in the same category as Biden.

In any case, this is the presidency Trump wanted when he first ran. If he doesn't finish his term, I don't think very much will change between now and January 2029.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE STORY THAT EXPLAINS GOP SUPPORT FOR RFK JR.

You've just received a box. You're told that if you press a button on the box, you'll be given a million dollars, but someone you don't know will die. Do you press the button?

We're all familiar with this question. It inspired a 1970 short story by Richard Matheson called "Button, Button," which became an episode of The Twilight Zone when the series was revived in the 1980s, and was also the basis of a 2009 film called The Box.

I think it explains why Republicans who know better have allowed Robert Kennedy Jr. to do so much damage to public health in America. I'm thinking of people like Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who, as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, cast the deciding vote in Kennedy's favor when Kennedy was under consideration as health and human services secretary. Now Cassidy claims to be upset because Kennedy's minions have voted to roll back hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for newborns.

I agree with everything you say here my former congressional colleague. And I also blame you for everything you say here. Bcuz you had the power to stop this dangerous quack. And you caved. Shame on you.

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— Joe Walsh (@walshfreedom.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 1:10 PM

Why did Cassidy and so many other Republicans roll over for this former Democrat whose principal goals had nothing to do with the core MAGA agenda? For that matter, why did Donald Trump seek Kennedy's endorsement during the 2024 presidential campaign and incorporate Kennedy's flaky and dangerous ideas into his own movement?

Think of Kennedy as the box. Many of the voters who flocked to Kennedy during his run for president weren't MAGA, and were demographically very different from MAGA voters. Quite a few were upscale suburbanites who'd developed an interest in alternative, quackish health ideas. Trump sided with Kennedy in order to win over Kennedy's voting bloc. The rest of the GOP went along. For them, the Kennedy voting bloc was the million dollars.

Many of them understood that empowering Kennedy would have terrible public health consequences. But congressional Republicans, including Cassidy, wagered that the people who'll suffer and die as a result of Kennedy's choices will be people they don't know. So they pressed the Kennedy button.

Many of the moral choices made by Republicans follow this formula. Republicans back unlimited access to AR-15s because being absolutist on guns brings them a bloc of committed voters; they assume that the resulting violence won't affect them or their friends and family, that the schools their children and grandchildren attend will never be shot up. Republicans win voters by being anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion, even though I'm sure many of them aren't personally absolutist on this subject; they assume they and their friends and relatives can be quietly or surreptitiously LGBTQ and can quietly or surreptitiously obtain reproductive care if they need it, and only people they don't know will suffer. The ones who understand that climate change is real think they can personally move away from its worst effects of climate change; others will suffer, but they'll be showered with campaign cash from fossil fuel billionaires. And so on.

The Republican Party includes a lot of true believers on all these issues, of course. On vaccines, Trump has been an occasional skeptic, and many Republicans are skeptical as well. But the Republicans who are just going along for the ride are doing so because they assume the button won't harm anyone they know.

And this is how some of them feel about Trump himself. They know the damage he's doing, but they assume it won't hurt them or anyone they care about. People they don't know will die or be hurt, but the votes will continue to come their way. Those votes are the million dollars, and while Trump might be the most dangerous button of all, they'll press it eagerly.

ONE WEIRD TRICK DEMOCRATS COULD USE TO MAKE TRUMP'S NARCISSISM HUMILIATING

There are more important stories right now, but I want to focus on this one:

National parks change prioritizes Trump birthday over days honoring Black people

The Donald Trump administration has changed which holidays qualify for free entrance to national parks, removing two holidays celebrating Black people and adding the president’s birthday....

Now, visitors to the 116 parks that charge entrance fees will no longer get in for free on MLK Day or on Juneteenth.... They will, however, on Trump’s June 14 birthday, which was added to the list this year....

Other free entrance days in 2026 include Presidents Day (Washington’s Birthday), Memorial Day, Independence Day weekend, the 110th birthday of the National Park Service, Constitution Day, Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday and Veterans Day.

This is obviously a story about Trump's deep and lifelong anti-Black racism -- but it's also a story about his boundless egomania. He sometimes appears to be the most narcissistic person who's ever lived.

This story appeared shortly after your tax dollars were used to position letters in place changing the United States Institute of Peace to the Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace.

there you have it

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— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) December 3, 2025 at 10:52 PM

Yesterday, the building hosted a signing ceremony for an agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which Trump sold as a peace settlement, even though the fighting is still going on. Trump slept through part of the signing. On Tuesday, Trump also slept through parts of a meeting in which Cabinet secretaries took turns praising him.

Today Trump will receive the so-called FIFA Peace Prize, an award invented by international soccer's governing body in order to curry favor with Trump, who remains butthurt because he's never received a Nobel Peace Prize.

And that's just one week of Trumpian narcissism.

Regular readers of this blog know the approach to Trump I recommend for Democrats: attack him on every serious issue ... and attack him on trivial issues (yes, even "distractions" like threatening Greenland or renaming the Gulf of Mexico) if what he's doing is very unpopular. I think Trump's narcissism falls in the latter category. I believe Democrats should try to start a conversation about Trump's egomania whenever the opportunity seems to arise, asking how much time and money are spent flattering the president, who seems to believe that we live in the United States of Trump.

Of course, the same Democrats and Democratic consultants who say that the party shouldn't use big words like "oligarchy" would probably say the same thing if party members began talking about Trump's "narcissism" or "egomania." I think those are perfectly ordinary words that nearly everyone understands -- but if multi-syllable words are deemed a problem, never fear: Democrats could talk about this using two simple one-syllable words.

Self-love.

Imagine Gavin Newsom posting a fake Trump press release announcing the creation of a new Cabinet-level Department of Self-Love, with President Trump naming himself as America's first Secretary of Self-Love. Or imagine Jasmine Crockett or AOC mocking Trump's self-love on television.

I think Democrats should mention the examples of self-love that I listed above, as well as others (like the Trump banners hanging from federal buildings). They should demand hearings on the consequences of Trump's self-love, with an air of seriousness -- they should never break character and reveal that they get the joke. Ideally, they'd say all this in dead earnest, or with barely suppressed laughter.

It's hard to imagine Democrats doing this -- but wouldn't it be hilarious if the words "Trump" abnd "self-love" became inextricably linked in Americans' minds?

Maybe this is juvenile -- but hey, it's 2025. Whatever works.

IF BARI WEISS SINCERELY BELIEVES THAT PRO-GOP EXTREMISTS ARE MAINSTREAM, SHE'S ANOTHER OUT-OF-TOUCH COASTAL ELITIST

A couple of weeks ago, Bari Weiss explained her "vision" for CBS News:

Bari Weiss says she wants to use her new perch at CBS News to “redraw the lines of what falls in the 40 yards of acceptable debate” in American political and cultural life. She says the aim is to sideline voices like Hasan Piker, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, and elevate… pic.twitter.com/hfbM4gOwcN

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 25, 2025

The New Republic's Alex Shephard wrote:

For Weiss, the decline of the American media is best exemplified by the rise of Nick Fuentes (a Nazi), Andrew Tate (a virulent misogynist), and Hasan Piker (a leftist streamer who pushes universal health care while playing video games). For what it’s worth, she is sitting next to Ben Shapiro while she says all of this....

“Those people don’t actually represent our values, and they don’t think that they represent the values or the worldview of the vast majority of Americans,” Weiss says, growing more passionate. “This is an opportunity to speak for the 75 percent, for the people on the center-left and the center-right that still believe in equality of opportunity, that still believe passionately in the American project, that still believe in all of the things that everyone in this room believes in: liberty and freedom and individual responsibility and, on a basic level, the right to know what is exactly going on in the world. Not the world as propagandists and ideologues imagine it to be, but what’s actually going on in the world.”

... The example of a “center-left” and “center-right” discussion she cites? That’s right, it’s a Free Press–sponsored debate over gun control between former NRA head Dana Loesch and nightmare Thanksgiving guest Alan Dershowitz.

You probably assume that Weiss is cynically attempting to redefine Fox News conservatism as centrism -- but I wonder if she actually believes her own nonsense. She's distancing herself from Carlson, Tate, and Fuentes. She may sincerely think of Dershowitz as the kind of Democrat who says, "My party left me!" She might actually believe that conservatism minus Nazis, proud homophobes, and rape apologists is centrism.

In other words, she might actually believe that she's appealing to the middle with this upcoming event:

Bari Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, is scheduled to moderate a network town hall event with Erika Kirk, the widow of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk....

The event will air on 13 December at 8pm and will focus on “grief, faith, politics, and more”, according to internal marketing materials.

Maybe she's just doing what she appears to be doing: trying to make CBS News the first well-financed competitor to Fox, all while hoping she'll get the chance to do the same at CNN if Larry and David Ellison buy its parent company and hand control of the news channel to her.

But Weiss is a coastal elitist, and many coastal elitists -- Ezra Klein, for instance -- fell for the notion that Charlie Kirk was a widely beloved, massively popular figure before his death. Many mainstream media figures responded to Donald Trump's 2016 victory (despite his popular-vote loss) by concluding that the entire country is MAGA apart from a few small, out-of-touch liberal enclaves. The GOP's midterm losses in 2018, Trump's own loss in 2020, and Democrats' decent showing in the 2022 midterms didn't disabuse these left-centrist elitists of their belief in a fully MAGA America, and Trump's victory in 2024 (by one and a half points) persuaded them that the country had undergone a permanent realignment -- a belief they're only now beginning to shake, as Democrats win (or overperform in) election after election.

Weiss -- who attended Columbia University, lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and is married to a woman -- might still believe that everyone in America who lives more than fifty miles from an ocean is a Trump-loving, Kirk-deifying zealot. But Kirk was never the massively popular, universally beloved figure right-wing propagandists and gullible centrists tell us he was. Here's some polling YouGov did just after his death:

Barely half the country was familiar with Kirk when he died. And as subsequent YouGov polling has made clear, he was far from universally loved:

YouGov says, "Popularity is the % of people who have a positive opinion on a topic." For Kirk, that number is 25%. And he's more disliked than liked.

If Weiss is trying to manufacture consent, I get it, and she's a menace. But I think she might believe her own BS, which means she's in an elitist media bubble and she's a menace.

THE ANTI-TRUMP BACKLASH IS BIG, BUT IT COULD BE A LOT BIGGER

I thought the hype might be real. I thought frustration with the status quo might give Democrat Aftyn Benn a win, or at least a photo finish, in yesterday's special congressional election in Tennessee's 7th district, where Donald Trump won by 22 points last year.

It didn't happen. The Republican candidate, Matt Van Epps, won by 9. That's very good news for Democrats -- a 13-point swing since 2024 is huge -- but it isn't better news than Democrats got on Election Day and in other special elections this year. In The New York Times, Nate Cohn tells us that the numbers suggest a typical power swing in 2026 and 2028, not a massive realignment:

... the winning party in the last five presidential elections has gone on to lose each of the next five midterms — and four of the next five presidential elections.

... the backlash against Mr. Trump and simmering dissatisfaction has yielded a familiar political landscape:

* Mr. Trump’s approval rating is at 41 percent; on average, the prior five presidential winners were at 42 percent at this point in their terms.

* The Democrats lead by about five points in the early generic midterm polls; on average, the party out of power led by four points at this stage after the last five elections.

* The Democrats ran about eight points better in the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia than those states’ lean with respect to the country in the last election; on average, the party out of power ran seven points ahead in New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races without incumbents.

There's only one data point that seems unusual:

* Democrats have run 17 points better in special congressional elections than those districts’ lean in the last election; on average, the party out of power ran six points ahead over the last two decades. This lopsided Democratic advantage at least partly reflects the party’s edge in low-turnout elections, but that will still help the party fare well in the relatively low-turnout midterms.

What this suggests is that Democrats should do well in the next election cycle or two. Republicans and the gatekeepers of conventional wisdom agree on this: Politico's headline is "GOP Frets ‘Dangerous’ Result in Tennessee." A few quotes from that story:

“Tonight is a sign that 2026 is going to be a bitch of an election cycle,” said one House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Republicans can survive if we play team and the Trump administration officials play smart. Neither is certain.” ...

“I’m glad we won. But the GOP should not ignore the Virginia, New Jersey and Tennessee elections,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is retiring from his swingy Omaha-based district, said. “We must reach swing voters. America wants some normalcy.” ...

“It was too close,” said one House GOP leadership aide, who was also granted anonymity to candidly discuss the race.

But the numbers aren't pointing to a transformative change in American politics -- a wipeout that consigns the GOP, or at least the Donald Trump/Stephen Miller/Russell Vought/Mike Johnson GOP, to the dustbin of history, and opens the door for truth and reconciliation commissions, Nuremberg-style trials, and significant progressive change. None of that seems likely right now. What seems likely is a fairly ordinary party swing.

A recap of tonight's special election in TN-07 (plus a WAY-TOO-EARLY model of the 2026 midterms). A swing of 13 points would put Dems over 250 seats in the U.S. House. A more reasonable scenario—say, D+6—still gives them the House, and maybe the Senate. www.gelliottmorris.com/p/what-the-s...

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— G Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris.com) December 2, 2025 at 10:56 PM

We know that Republicans pursue transformative agendas even after close wins -- see 2000, 2016, and 2024. Democrats don't. Maybe that will change if Democrats manage a trifecta in 2028 -- but that's a tall order because Republican dominance in small rural states gives the GOP a Senate advantage.

But will Republicans continue to sink? Jamelle Bouie seems to think so.

a thing to ask yourself re: the GOP's electoral position is what could happen over the next year that could *improve* its position? and what could trump do, plausibly, that might *boost* his numbers with the public?

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) December 2, 2025 at 9:44 PM

if you struggle to answer either then you have a good sense of how fucked the republicans are right now

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) December 2, 2025 at 9:44 PM

The one thing President Trump could do is accept defeat when, as seems likely, the Supreme Court's Republicans do the bidding of their corporate masters and rule that Trump can't impose tariffs using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. As I've noted a few times, Trump will be able to reinstate most of the tariffs under the terms of other laws that aren't at issue in this Supreme Court case. If he takes the loss and gives up on the tariffs, he'll improve his party's chances in future elections. But I assume he has so much emotional investment in tariffs that he'll reinstate them and wait to be sued again.

Trump and congressional Republicans really might make life in America so awful that Republican electoral losses in the future will be far worse than projected. The loss of Obamacare subsidies for 2026, which seems all but inevitable now, could be a transformative event, as could an AI crash in the financial markets. But for now, I think we're looking at normal politics, not an upheaval.

(And although Trump doesn't seem to be trying to prevent free and fair elections yet -- probably because his ego won't let him admit that his party is hurting -- that could change if the 2026 numbers look really bad for the GOP.)

*****

One last point I want to make: I see that there's some debate over whether the progressive Aftyn Behn was the right candidate for her district.

Despite @aftynbehn.bsky.social generating real excitement with an authentic progressive anti-corruption message and getting closer than anyone in #TN7, *experts* are already dropping predictable “a centrist would’ve done better” takes - as though that hasn’t been tried here many times.

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) December 3, 2025 at 8:02 AM

I don't believe that the 13-point swing happened exclusively because Behn ran a progressive campaign that excited voters. I think the major reason it happened is that there's more interest in voting for Democrats of all stripes than there was in 2024. Progressive campaigns inspire some voters -- Zohran Mamdani's campaign was extraordinary, and Behn's campaign clearly created some excitement -- but they also inspire backlash. (Mamdani didn't win by double digits. Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill did.)

If you wanted to build the ideal Democratic candidate in a lab, I suspect you'd want to create someone who sounds like a transformative progressive (to motivate progressive voters) but also projects a belief in normie-ness and incrementalism. What you'd create, in other words, is Barack Obama in 2008. It's no surprise that he won the largest victory of any presidential candidate in this century.

I'm sorry this is the case. I'd like to believe that more progressive candidates can win huge victories. I just don't see it. I think America needs transformative change, and I think unashamed progressives can win elections outside super-liberal enclaves -- New York City isn't as left-wing as you think -- but I think the excitement advantage is at least partly offset by normie voters' fear of radicalism. I wish it were as easy to elect a left-wing radical in America as it is to elect a right-wing radical, but that's not the country we live in.

WHAT I'D BE SAYING ABOUT THE BOAT STRIKES IF I WERE A TRUMP CRITIC IN CONGRESS

I know we're all focused on the legality of the September 2 "double tap" strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. But because I think many Americans don't care what harm comes to brown people who appear to be smuggling drugs that are killing Americans in large numbers, I wonder if the most effective line of attack on this undeclared war is to question its legality.

I keep thinking about a paragraph that appeared in a Washington Post story yesterday:

Still, the Defense Department has privately acknowledged to lawmakers that nearly all of the strikes have targeted suspected shipments of cocaine — rather than fentanyl, the leading cause of U.S. overdose deaths. Moreover, most of the narcotics moved through the Caribbean are headed toward Europe and Western Africa rather than the United States.

Yes, we should talk about legality -- America shouldn't be run by proud war criminals. But let's also start asking: Are we putting American servicemembers in harm's way to prevent shipments of drugs to other countries? I thought the policy of this administration was "America First." And given the fact that fentanyl is the drug that's doing the most harm to America, do we have any evidence whatsoever that we're targeting shippers of fentanyl?

The paragraph quoted above links to an earlier Washington Post story that raises serious questions about the purpose of these boat attacks. (I'm continuing to treat reporting from the Post as reliable because the news side of the paper is still clearly a serious journalistic enterprise. It hasn't followed the opinion section into right-wing hackery.) First, it's not clear that their real purpose of the attacks is to stop the flow of drugs:

The military strikes ... [have] brought U.S. forces into striking distance of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro....

“When I saw [an internal document on the strikes],” a senior U.S. national security official said, “I immediately thought, ‘This isn’t about terrorists. This is about Venezuela and regime change.’ But there was no information about what it was really about.”

We're clearly headed for a war with Venezuela -- another war for oil. Many Americans, especially young men, voted for Trump last year in the belief that he'd be less likely than Kamala Harris to embroil us in a forever war. Across the political spectrum, ordinary Americans want to avoid another war for oil. Why not talk more about that?

And if these are strikes aimed at the drug trade, it's not the drug trade that does the most harm to America.

... records and interviews with 20 people familiar with the route or the strikes, including current and former U.S. and international officials, contradict the administration’s claims. The [targeted] passage, they said, is not ordinarily used to traffic synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, present in 69 percent of drug overdose deaths last year. Nor are the drugs typically headed for the United States.

Trinidad and Tobago, a Caribbean nation more than 1,000 miles south and 1,200 miles east of Miami, is both a destination market for marijuana and a transshipment point for South American cocaine bound for West Africa and Europe, according to U.S. officials, Trinidadian police and independent analysts. The fentanyl seized in the U.S., in contrast, is typically manufactured in Mexico using precursors from China and smuggled in through the land border, most often by U.S. citizens....

Most of the South American cocaine bound for North America flows through the Pacific, but some does depart Venezuela through the Caribbean, according to U.S. officials and analysts who track drug routes. Much of it courses overland through the western states of Zulia and Falcón before shipping northward to Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic. Some travels by air, departing clandestine airstrips in Maracaibo or Apure state for Central America and onward to Mexico and the United States.

It’s less common, investigators say, to ship U.S.-bound cocaine from the northeastern state of Sucre across the narrow Bocas del Dragón channel to Trinidad — the route the administration has targeted. Trinidad is used far more frequently as a gateway to Europe....

One recently retired senior Trinidadian police official, asked whether Sucre traffickers were bringing drugs intended for the United States, chuckled.

“Why would they use Trinidad and Tobago to transport drugs to the United States, when you have Colombia and Mexico and all of these other places that are closer?”

So are we really launching these strikes in order to stop opioids from coming into America? And if not, what are we really doing and why are we doing it?

THE BENIGN EXPLANATION FOR TRUMP'S MRI REMARKS ISN'T GREAT FOR HIM EITHER

AP won the internet yesterday with this snarky headline:

Trump says he’ll release MRI results but doesn’t know what part of his body was scanned

AP reports:

President Donald Trump said he’ll release the results of his MRI test that he received in October.

“If you want to have it released, I’ll release it,” the Republican president said Sunday during an exchange with reporters as he traveled back to Washington from Florida.

He said the results of the MRI were “perfect.”

... Trump added Sunday that he has “no idea” on what part of his body he got the MRI.

“It was just an MRI,” he said. “What part of the body? It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and I aced it.”

Here's a fuller version of that last quote. Trump was nasty to the reporter who asked him the specifics of the MRI. (The reporter was a woman, of course -- Trump hates female reporters who ask him unflattering questions.)

“What part of your body was the MRI looking at?” the reporter asked

“I have no idea, it was just an MRI- what part of the body?" Trump fired back. "It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and I aced it — I got perfect part, which you would be incapable of doing! Goodnight, everybody. You, too!”

Many people assume that if he denied it was a brain MRI, then that's exactly what it must have been.

"If Trump denies they did a MRI of his brain, then it sounds like they did a MRI of his brain," opined Bluesky user Zobear....

"If you had an MRI and didn’t know what it was taken for, it definitely was the brain," agreed Bluesky user bd-nola....

"Tell us you had a brain MRI without saying you had a brain MRI," said comedian Hayden Black.

"Trump’s reply to what the MRI scanned being 'it’s not the brain' is a dead giveaway it was definitely the brain," observed Bluesky user kbethany.

But I have a confession to make: I had an MRI in 2022 and I didn't remember what part of the body it was for until I looked it up this morning.

I'm a fairly healthy 66-year-old who had good employer-based medical coverage three years ago and now have Medicare (traditional) and a good Medicare supplement. So I get attentive medical care. I'm being monitored for a few conditions that aren't life-threatening or significantly life-impairing, but the doctors want to make sure they don't get worse. My memory was that the MRI was for one of those conditions, which was focused below the neck. It was for another condition below the neck.

So maybe I have dementia too! But I don't think so. I'm not a brilliant thinker, but I come here every day and write these posts and I think they're a sign that my brain is working fine. No doctor has ever asked me to take that cognitive test Trump talks about incessantly.

Obviously, Trump's doctors give him that test. They must be monitoring something -- maybe the aftereffects of a stroke or mini-stroke? I'm sure they think he's at risk of dementia -- his father had it.

But it's possible that he's getting so much medical care, for so many conditions, that he genuinely can't remember why he had the MRI, despite having a perfectly adequate memory. (He certainly has a high-functioning memory when it comes to grudges.)

We've seen the hand bruise and the swollen ankles and the stumbles. We've seen the naps. We know that the White House has acknowledged that Trump suffers from chronic venous insufficiency. And we know he's been talking about heaven a lot, which suggests that his health isn't great and he's sharp enough to understand that.

Regular readers know that I don't think Trump has dementia -- mild cognitive impairment, maybe, but not dementia, at least for now. (MCI can lead to dementia, but doesn't always.) On the other hand, I think Trump's physical health could be quite bad. This doesn't mean he's on the verge of death -- doctors can keep people in poor health alive and more or less functional for a long time -- but it could mean his body is more at risk of failure than his mind.