Elias's comparison is the one worth sitting with. When Bill Clinton briefly boarded Loretta Lynch's plane on a Phoenix tarmac in 2016 and they talked about grandchildren and golf - no documented request, no documented outcome, a conversation - the media treated it as a scandal that required weeks of coverage. Trump stood at a podium in Pennsylvania, described personally calling a federal prosecutor to investigate an election while his preferred candidate was losing, and the Pennsylvania federal prosecutor was sitting in the audience being publicly thanked. Elias: none of the reporters present found this worthy of a question.
The normalization that allows that to happen is not benign. When the president describes using the federal prosecution apparatus to intervene in a state election and it registers as a moment of rally color rather than a constitutional question, the mechanism that would otherwise produce accountability has been eroded. That erosion is itself the story underneath the story.
Every Trump debacle follows the same 13 steps. The reflecting pool fiasco is just one of the lower stakes versions of it.
1. Devise unnecessary spectacle
2. Disregard expertise
3. Bypass normal procedures
4. Declare victory too early (bonus if done by AI-slop post)
5. Spend way more than estimated
6. Ignore the haters
7. Realize it is not going well
8. Bypass normal procedures once again
9. Allege conspiracy and sabotage
10. Redeclare victory
11. More blaming
12. Losing interest
13. Pretend it never happened, and move on to the next thing
The White House looks like shit.. The East Wing has been bulldozed. The lawns looks like they were used for a Demolition Derby. The Kennedy Center is under a tarp. The Reflection Pond is disgusting and fenced off. Trump has turned the Capitol into a shithole.
If you watched the Obama Presidential Center opening, the World Cup, and the Knicks parade yesterday afternoon - and nothing else - you could actually see the America we're supposed to be at age 250.
True story.
Dear younger voters who went for Trump in β24, watch the speeches of Prez & Michelle Obama & Mamdani today then compare it to Trump speaking at the White House this afternoon. Ask yourself what kinda world you wanna live in & what real leadership looks like. Then get involved.
Trump was able to quickly put together $300 billion in recovery money for Iran after he decided to bomb it.
He stood in Swannanoa NC not far from my house in October 2024 and said heβd build back bigger, better, more beautiful, and faster than Biden after Hurricane Helene inflicted $60 billion in damage in the Blue Ridge . . . and then he went MIA.
Imagine if @realDonaldTrump cared as much about rebuilding Western North Carolina for Americans as he does about rebuilding Iran for Iranians.
Unless you're an brain-wormed partisan, "Iran is an evil regime," "this preventive war was stupid and should never have been launched," and "this peace deal is a US humiliation" are three perfectly true things you should be able to believe at the same time.
People here claim I advised U.S. generals poorly. (I never advised them at all.) But never in my career in national defense did the United States ever lose a war to one of our worst enemies in just four months and then completely capitulate on every major issue.
Donald Trumpβs handpicked candidate Mike Collins is a notorious bigot, antisemite, and extremist currently under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars. Collins, who is only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman, voted to double health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians, for the Iran War, and for the Trump tariffs.
Middle East analysts say Trump's deal with Iran is a humiliating defeat for the United States. A guy who shits himself in public and thinks windmills cause cancer says it's an amazing foreign policy triumph. For busy Americans, it can be hard to know who to trust.
Doctor say that vaccines are one of the greatest breakthroughs in medical history. A nepo baby who snorts cocaine off toilet seats, bathes in raw sewage, and takes raccoon penises home for βfurther studyβ says they cause autism. For busy parents, it can be hard to know who to trust.