Where they spend their se-molians / Just to watch those cre-olians /
Skippin', hippin′, doin' the uptown lowdown. (Chick Webb!)
The week was strange; full as it was of horrible Trump shit -- with Tubby selling out Ukraine, defending his Saudi murderer buddy, calling a female journo “piggy,” threatening to execute members of Congress for reminding the troops not to do war crimes and getting his fans to send them death threats (and boy, how that list would have looked to a time traveler from, oh, last year, huh?) -- it ended with Trump playing pattycake with the man he once portrayed as a “communist” menace, Zohran Mamdani, like he was his long-lost son, one he was relieved to have around instead of Don Jr. and Eric.
The most obvious reason for the Mamdani coochy-coo was… the rest of the week, which had made Trump look like an unhinged monster to everyone -- not just us wise guys but independents and squish Republicans too, appealing only to his small, rabid base. Oh, and there was Epstein -- nobody buys his bullshit about welcoming the release of the files, and nobody expects them to be delivered intact, either. It was not only lose-lose, it was lose-lose-lose-loseloselose whooo whooo like a runaway train of loserdom.
So what’s the play? Hitch his fat caboose to a genuinely popular politician! Trump knows the GOP is as popular as cancer and that Mamdani’s an undersold stock -- that is, while he won his election convincingly and proved dynamite in interviews and public appearances, the loathed Republicans are blind to his appeal and the centrist dipshit Democrats act embarrassed by it. Ezra Klein says instead of Mamdani, the Dem future is -- I shit you not -- Josh Shapiro! It’s like they want to lose! Whereas Trump would throw Vance, Noem, Rubio, and everyone else under a hundred busses to win.
If we were to psychoanalyze -- something I’m loath to do, as I barely consider Trump human -- I’d say Trump sees himself in Mamdani -- that is, he sees a political outsider (right) who is hated by the establishment (right) and is a natural on camera (right) and just happens to run a cheerful-inclusive con on the rubes rather than Trump’s own mean-psychopathic one. (I expect he’s wrong there, but monsters like Trump always think everyone’s as crooked as they are.)
His smarm offensive seems to be working for him already -- apostate Marge Taylor Greene is quitting Congress, no doubt to podcast and maybe do an exercise show. I think it was Atrios who said that most of our top politicians aren't really interested in politics and actually want to do talk shows. It's an absurd enough motivation for the collapse of democracy -- which, I remind you, has yet to be arrested. Maybe Tubby and his tribe thinks if they do an occasional sunny good-news stunt we'll forget they're still invading cites and arresting and trying to kill (and sometimes successfully killing) innocent people. Wonder how many people that works on? Not enough, I hope.
Do I have a ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN freebie for you? YES -- a visit with the rightwing Catholic boys in the “rectory,” Bill Bennett, Bill Barr, Boof Kavanaugh, and Ross Douthat, as they ponder what to do about the damn doorty socialist Pope! Enjoy! (If you want more, subscribe -- it’s cheap!)
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