Nothing To See Here, Folks — Everything’s Under Control*

This was supposed to be a different blog, but sometimes blogs have a mind of their own. This particular blog co-opted my keyboard and went in a very political direction — something I largely avoided over most of the summer.

As near as I can tell, this blog aims to parse through all the deranged and authoritarian shit that the Trump 2.0 regime has tossed against the wall during its first nine months in office, hoping some of it will stick.

I don’t blame the blog, really. There’s just a whole lotta shit coming out of the White House these days — more than any 12 previous administrations combined. That’s kind of weird, considering that the United States is not at war (I think), and there’s no Great Depression to deal with (I think), or any other civilization-threatening calamity (I think).

You’d never know it by how the current regime is conducting its business, though. Desperate times call for desperate measures. These are not desperate times — not by a long shot — but Trump and his lackeys have decided to take desperate measures, anyway.

Here’s a partial list:

• Sending federal troops to U.S. cities (mostly in Democrat-controlled states) to monitor U.S. citizens. The regime pretends it’s about fighting violent crime, but it’s really just a Chairman Maoish show of military force perpetrated by a guy who dodged military service rather than fight against the Mao-backed forces in Vietnam.
• Profiling brown-skinned people with the aim of rounding them up and sticking them in detention camps with no due process of law.
• Quasi-nationalizing private businesses in a stupid attempt to make the U.S. competitive in industries it hasn’t been competitive in since Trump was a young douchebag cheating on his school exams.
• Threatening universities and media organizations in a naked attempt to force them to abandon their academic and/or journalistic principles and follow the White House script. (And, frankly, a lot of universities and media companies are caving. The chickenshits).
• Firing federal employees and regulators who don’t provide the false data Trump needs to paint a brighter picture of the economy than actually exists.
• Urging Texas lawmakers to gerrymander more Congressional districts as a way of rigging the 2026 midterm elections in favor of Trump’s Republican party. The reason he’s doing this, of course, is because his party is likely to take an ass-whooping in the midterms.

Again, that’s just a partial list. There’s much more – which is just the way Trump & Co. seem to want it.

Their strategy is to break as many things as possible and inject as much chaos as possible in as little time as possible, in a fevered attempt to wear the opposition down, grab more power, and distract everyone from all the negative forces engulfing the White House right now.

And it’s worked, sort of. The mainstream media remains its usual feckless, cowardly self, chasing headlines and clicks instead of doing the kind of journalism that prevents fascism from gaining momentum.

The Democrats, who are supposed to be the opposition party, are moving with all the speed and urgency of a slug on morphine (with the exception of California Gov. Gavin Newsome, who at least is fighting Trump on his own terms).

Even so, I am 100% certain Trump will fail in his attempt to be a despot. The truth has a way of sticking around and outlasting people like Trump. At some point, the truth will land on his fat orange head.

Whether he’ll be around to deal with it is an open question, but we’ll see, we’ll see.

*****

Here’s the thing about Trump and his fascist fever dream: He has the desire to pull it off, but not the ability.

He fancies himself a strong-armed authoritarian figure, and if that were true, he would truly be scary. I mean, if he were Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un or even Xi Jinping, then you could be pretty sure he’d succeed in killing democracy and setting himself up as Dictator for Life. When it comes to keeping the citizenry in line through sheer efficiency and brutality, those are some seriously effective mother*****s.

But Trump is not those guys. He’s a weak, petty, insecure, corrupt, small-minded, thin-skinned old doofus with the attention span of a gnat and no stomach for a real fight. For all of his big talk and bold proclamations, Trump shrinks in the face of leaders like Putin, and has a habit of backing down when the going gets tough.

The only reason Trump has power at all is because a large chunk of American voters are stupid and/or greedy and/or short-sighted and/or racist, whiny, paranoid, hypocritical, delusional, etc. That goes for voters on the right and the left, by the way.

And, there’s this: A lot of Americans don’t really mind a dictatorship. In fact, they kind of like it. I might never have wanted to believe this before — despite plenty of evidence that America was more or less built on oppression — but now I realize it’s the truth. And the truth, they say, will set you free.

But never mind all that.

The important thing to keep in mind is that Trump is essentially a cardboard cutout right now – an increasingly incoherent and unhealthy old geezer being propped up by others to deliver their agenda.

But I don’t think it will work, for the simple reason that Trump has a lot of baggage he’s carrying around beyond his failing health.

For one thing, he’s a historically unpopular president. He has never won a majority of votes and his overall approval ratings are among the worst ever.

Then there’s his deep connection to the Epstein/pedophile/sex trafficking clusterfuck, which won’t go away, no matter how much he wants it to. Even members of his own MAGA tribe have turned against him on this front.

Beyond that, the U.S. economy is more than a little problematic right now. Job growth is weakening, inflation keeps hanging around, and many of Trump’s supporters are getting royally screwed by tariffs and slashed government benefits.

Americans will overlook a lot from their leaders – including locking kids up in detention camps, arresting innocent people for no reason, and siccing the military on its own citizens. But when you start fucking around with their money, they get mad. That’s the one unforgiveable sin.

America is stupid enough to elect lousy people like Trump. But it’s also greedy enough to toss those lousy people out when the bank accounts start heading south. Sadly, that’s what passes for hope these days.

Image: I got it courtesy of Ask Gemini, the AI platform that lets you create your own images. For the one above I simply typed in “Draw a black and white drawing of the White House surrounded by storm clouds,” and it created this handy illustration free from copyright infringement. I smell a whole new future of blog illustrations…..

I originally wanted to put an image of the dictator wanna-be and typed in “Draw an exaggerated Trump caricature with a big fat head.” But then I figured most people don’t want to see him – and frankly, I don’t either. But in case you’re curious, here’s that one:

*Actually, nothing is under control. Trump is senile, and his inner circle is made up of cranks, nutjobs, hucksters and half-wits.