Trump and Musk are about to do Social Security what Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Fitzsimmons did to the Teamsters’ pension fund. But not to worry, the Republicans will wring their hands for you, if only on those rare occasions when they’re not busy licking Trump’s boots or praising Musk’s moral clarity. And the Democrats? Well, I hear they’ll be glad to help you look under the couch cushions, but only after you guarantee them 50% of what you find.
Belaboring the Obvious
A MAGA Bestiary
Cruelty, venality, mendacity, sanctimony, ambition, and greed. Also self-delusion. Also ignorance.
Greg Abbott
Samuel Alito
Steve Bannon
William Barr
Maria Bartiromo
Lauren Boebert
Pam Bondi
Don Bongino
Dan Caine
Tucker Carlson
Kenneth Chesebro
Tom Cotton
Ted Cruz
Paul Dans
Ron DeSantis
John Eastman
Tulsi Gabbard
Newt Gingrich
Rudy Giuliani
Neil Gorsuch
Paul Gosar
Lindsey Graham
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Alina Habba
Sean Hannity
Josh Hawley
Pete Hegseth
Kay Ivey
Mike Johnson
Jim Jordan
Brett Kavanaugh
Robert Kennedy Junior
Jared Kushner
Karoline Leavitt
Brad Little
Nancy Mace
Mitch McConnell
John McEntee
Linda McMahon
Christopher Miller
Katie Miller
Stephen Miller
Stephen Moore
Elon Musk
Peter Navarro
Kristi Noem
Bill O’Reilly
Mehmet Oz
Kash Patel
Mike Pence
Vivek Ramaswamy
John Ratcliffe
Tate Reeves
John Roberts
Kevin Roberts
Marco Rubio
Rick Scott
Jeff Sessions
Roger Severino
Roger Stone
Enrique Tarrio
Clarence Thomas
Ginni Thomas
Donald Trump
Donald Trump Jr.
Eric Trump
Ivanka Trump
Lara Trump
Melania Trump
Tiffany Trump
Tommy Tuberville
J.D. Vance
Russell Vought
Ryan Walters
A Quasi-biblical Revelation
I’ve never been in any doubt about the depth of Donald Trump’s depravity, but I’m familiar enough with German history to understand why half the country voted for him, and why our titans of industry rushed to provide him with the means to fulfill his vile ambitions. I am surprised, though, at some of the people I’m belatedly finding in the miles-long line of fools waiting to kiss his ass.
It’s not just the hypocritical gasbags who’ve been lecturing us for decades about ethics, morality, courage, manliness, and the sanctity of free enterprise. Everyone knows that commoditized list of virtues by heart, and all of us know at least one person who’s made a career out of preaching from it. It’s not as shocking to me as it should be to see them now suddenly burning their own books, scrubbing their own mottoes off the walls, and looking down at their shoes when I ask them why.
No, the people who’ve surprised me are those I’d come to know as decent, compassionate, human beings, who now refuse to defend the defenseless, who turn away now from those in the greatest need with a shrug, with platitudes, with lectures about choosing one’s fights, with supposedly sage advice that one must be patient, that this too shall pass. This won’t do, this won’t do at all. If we want to keep calling the United States the Land Of the Free and the Home Of the Brave without being consumed by shame, this temporizing, compromising, agreeing that black is white, that President Zelenskyy should wear a suit when invited to lick the tyrant’s boots—all this nonsense will have to go. We need to do better. A whole lot better.
Unbidden Bits—February 28, 2025
So now there can be no doubt whatsoever that we’ve finally found a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Mos Eisley spaceport—1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump and Vance in full cry—it’s impossible to imagine a more vile, dishonorable display than they put on today in attacking a man whose mere presence as a supplicant rather than an honored guest is itself enough to shame them. This is a day which will live even longer in infamy than December 7, 1941.
Prolegomenon For a Future De-Nazification
Against the day we know will come, when genuine justice can once again be served, let us make sure we remember the names of every one of Musk’s script kiddies, every recipient of Trump’s January 6 pardons, every member of every Texas or Florida governor’s rat squad, every fake elector put up by Republicans for the 2020 election, every member of every right-wing militia or lawless county sheriff’s posse comitatus, and every member of the U.S. Supreme Court who voted with the majority in Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. If we are ever to restore what the Constitution once promised us—to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity—we will need them to answer publicly and completely for what they’ve attempted to do to our country.
How It’s Going
Politics as usual hasn’t been as usual lately as it used to be. Were he still among the living, even our 20th century Nostradamus, Mr. Orwell, might be surprised to learn that Oceania has finally and definitively lost its war with Eurasia, and is presently hiding the rump of itself under the skirts of a demented real estate developer with delusions of grandeur. Definitely not the Big Brother Mr. Orwell promised us, this one, although the red hat rubes hardly seem to have noticed. Eastasia, meanwhile, is licking its chops, oblivious to its own vulnerabilities, doing its unctuous best to look as inscrutable as western racists expect.
A couple of degrees more of global warming, a nuclear exchange or two between idiot regimes, and even Elon Musk and his sycophant armies might find themselves roasting rats-on-a-stick over burning rubber tires somewhere where angels fear to tread. That, my fellow deeply concerned citizens of the First World, is actually how it’s going, and you didn’t even have to sit through a commercial to hear about it.
Shame on You, Apple
If you were really what you claim to be, this is how Apple Maps would respond to Trump’s egomania:

Equivalencies

What we might get if we were to draw comparisons the way the Washington Post or New York Times does. Too bad their digital editions can’t be used to wrap fish in, or line the bottoms of bird cages.
Im Westen Nichts Neues
Judging by the chaos engendered by our Orange Furor’s decree cutting off all aid to everybody everywhere, it’s a good thing our cut-rate Nazis weren’t trying to invade France. And will somebody please tell Stephen Miller that even if he shaves his head, squints malevolently, and shouts a lot, people will still know he’s a Jew, and will still find a Jewish Goebbels unseemly.
How It Happened
The DNC wants to know how it happened, by which they mean how it happened to them. Someone—I no longer remember who—once said that after 1968, the Democratic Party finally succeeded in locking its entire left wing in a windowless room, then spent the next 40 years booby trapping all the exits. Ironically, it was a Democrat who once told us that those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. He was another kind of Democrat, though, and anyway he was talking about somebody else.
Nancy Pelosi thinks it happened because men in her party aren’t cunning enough. She may be on to something.
Joe Biden thinks it happened because the Democratic Party wasn’t Joe Biden enough. Enough said about that.
AOC tried everything she could think of to keep it from happening, including reluctantly acting the part of a loyal apparatchik in party conferences. To no avail, as is now clear even to her.
David Frum says he knows how it happened, but rather unconvincingly ignores the fact that he was in the room when it was being planned.
Donald Trump thinks it happened because he’s the bonfire of all the vanities. Not quite all the vanities, though, as will soon become abundantly clear.
Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks it happened because stupid is not only stronger than smart, it’s also more patient. She’s wrong, yet on the scale of a single human lifetime, it’s gonna be impossible to prove to her or to anyone else exactly how wrong she is.
How do I think it happened? You don’t want to know.