by Rick Wilson
This includes wild departures from conservative ideology, fiscal reality, American tradition, common sense, and the established models of physics. The elevator-drop sensation when Trump screws the pooch in the press has left Republicans numb, shell-shocked, and sleepless. It’s why time seems to dilate in the age of Trump; a month is a week and a week is a year and jesus christ what did he just tweet?
Stage 2. So Stupid, It Burns
Republicans in Congress, Trump’s media allies, and his more intelligent supporters instantly feel a pain akin to being set on fire and then dunked in acid. In Trump’s Cabinet set-piece meetings, you can always see the grim looks on their faces the moment he steps in it. Their downcast eyes lock on the White House notepads placed on the table before them. The suddenly rigid postures and thousand-yard stares of Republican leaders in these moments are inadvertently hilarious.
You can almost hear the mental gears turning, grinding out rationalizations and excuses to reconfigure whatever batshit lunacy just sprang from his brow like Bad Idea Athena. You can watch them mortgaging one more fraction of their dignity and sanity as the man they praise as the Perfectly Normal and Totally Not Insane Best President Ever Who Unlike All the Losers Before Him Is Making America Great Again has done the impossible by lowering the bar a few more notches.
Stage 3. “But Her Emails”
His media myrmidons recognize that he’s done it again and know their next 48 hours will be spent crafting a series of high-wire, hot-take absurdities in defense of the indefensible. These stories almost always include a portfolio of excuses for this president as someone who “isn’t a traditional politician” and “is new at this.” They defend it as “Trump being Trump” and unleash a wave of epic whataboutism. The land echoes with cries of “But Obama!” and “But Hillary!”
You can count on Trump-right rodeo clowns like Sean Hannity to dredge up old favorites from their fantasy catalog. “Why isn’t Robert Mueller investigating Bill Clinton’s love child?” “Were Hillary and Huma Abedin secretly gay-married by George Soros?” “Tonight, Sebastian Gorka will join us to rip the lid off the secret mosque Barack Obama had built under the Rose Garden!”
These appeals to raw partisan tribalism work in our current political climate and the lurid, fanciful horrors described by Trump’s defenders start to snap MAGA voters and votaries back into line. Why, without Trump’s straight talk and disruptive nature, we’d be hip deep in Antifa supersoldiers, ISIS terrorists, pedophiles, and MS-13 gangbangers! Only Donald’s force of will is holding back an invasion of wily Chinese and rapey Mexicans and stopping the local shawarma stand operator from detonating his bomb vest.
A casual listener or reader would think Kenyan communist Muslim sleeper agent Barack Hussssssein Obama is still in office. From these breathless stories, it would be easy to imagine President Hillary Clinton is running roughshod over the land in her attempt to impose sharia-compliant cultural Marxism (Don’t ask. They don’t know what it means either), all while opening a chain of pedo-friendly pizza restaurants.
Stage 4. Magical Rationalization
When all else fails, it’s time to go for the magical thinking defenses of Trump. “You just don’t get him, man.” “He’s a dealmaker, not a politician.” “Trump’s got this.” “He’s playing 47-dimensional quantum chess, RINO.” “So much winning!” It’s a living, breathing embodiment of the Emperor’s New Clothes, except his followers never get to the crux of the parable.
They race to frame Trump’s absurdities into some kind of explicable fact pattern, to find some secret, subtle strategy where none exists. The idea that Trump always has some deeply considered game plan, some rationale for every action, some hidden endgame in mind is, of course, ludicrous, but it doesn’t stop this defense from being run through the Trump-friendly media channels on the far right on an almost daily basis.
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times wrote a fabulous piece about the ultimate Trump conspiracy. “The Conspiracy Theory That Says Trump Is a Genius” beautifully captures this odd element of the Trump cult’s magical rationalization. His supporters believe in their hearts that Trump is a deep thinker, a master planner, a strategist nonpareil. This late-stage element of defending Trump is wearing increasingly thin. Reality is, as they say, a heartless bitch.
Stage 5. Waiting to Exhale
In this stage, the scope of the latest political pratfall is clear, and even his allies have to face reality. They start to quietly pick up the pieces, redacting, patching, revising, and extending remarks and deploying all the other tools of the political janitorial staff. After Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, or desperate, terrified White House staff have cleaned up his mess enough to walk around without wearing Wellies and Trumpsplained his more crazy assertions, more intelligent Trump supporters heave a quiet sigh of relief and recognize they’ve dodged one more bullet.
Then a delicious amnesia sets in, and the cycle repeats itself. Trump springs some rhetorical turd on them, leaving his followers surprised when his next political disaster, policy malapropism, or self-inflicted wound embarrasses them and the nation. Loving Donald Trump somehow prevents them from believing it can ever happen again and that Trump won’t do the same thing in a day or two on some new issue or some new crisis. Lucy always pulls the football away at the last second. The Scorpion always bites the Frog.
By now they should know quite well that Donald Trump has only the most tenuous appreciation for the power of the office of the president. They should know he is both uneducated and uneducable. Trump is no fan of briefings that don’t come in graphic-novel form or of knowing the specifics of legislation or policy proposals. They should know he is malleable, crass, and dishonest, and that all he cares about is serving his swolt ego.
The fact they still act surprised and go right back into the five-stage pattern speaks volumes about how far they’ve fallen, and how little they care.
THE POLITICAL COSTS OF KISSING TRUMP’S ASS
Why does Trump kill all that he touches? In part because he requires every man and woman in his orbit to destroy themselves to remain in his good graces. He requires every person near him to constantly stoke the mighty bonfire of his narcissism and to ramp up the praise until it butts into pure idolatry. It isn’t enough for Trump to have support; he breaks down every relationship into its most protean form.
All politicians are inclined to some degree of narcissism. It’s a necessary offset to the endless small indignities. All politicians, no matter their public image, are needy bitches. Donald Trump takes that hunger, that constant, gnawing desire for love, affirmation, and praise to a level unknown in American political history. One doesn’t become president without a healthy ego, but no president has been more obsessed with being the center of attention and praise. It’s a sick addiction and a driver for so many of his pathologies.
He also requires a degree of moral and ideological flexibility where nothing that came before matters. Nothing today can be expected to persist. Everything Trump says is mutable, subject to instantaneous revision, no matter the political cost to those defending him. Virtually every Republican elected official has learned that Trump is a man of moods, of ephemeral interests, and with little regard for the record. For Trump, the past isn’t prologue; it simply doesn’t exist. Nothing he says, does, or promises is real for longer than his gnat-like attention span can hold it in his wee brain.
I’ve been around DC and American politics quite a while now, far longer than the average bear. I’m struck over and over again how little sense of dignity and self-preservation today’s DC Republicans have.
Yes, Trump blew up the old rules, but there’s only one thing you have in politics at the end of the day, and that’s your reputation. How you behave, what you do, who you work with and for, all still matter, even in the reign of King Donald the Mad. Are we still back in the days of the more genteel Bush 41 era? Of course not, but imagining a Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 demanding the kind of abnegation Trump requires is impossible.
Do the “good guys” working for Trump understand this? We may never know. They steadfastly refuse even to consider that enabling Trump doesn’t keep the rabid wolves like Bannon out; it just releases Trump to act on his id. In doing so, it widens the gap between Republicans and the rest of America dramatically. No, Paul Ryan isn’t a skirt-chasing, Putin-philic, lavishly corrupt scumbag. Mitch McConnell isn’t a pussy-grabbing, porn-star-screwing maniac. (Get that image out of your head, I dare you.) Even so, the stench and politically radioactive ichor of Trump covers them and every other Republican.
The perception grew from reality; Ryan and his cohorts will, in fact, defend any outrage. This vicious cycle gave Trump a sense that no line is too far, no outrage is too grand, no lie is too egregious. He didn’t learn that the rule of law and the Constitution bind even the mighty powers of the president; he learned Dad and Mom were at the beach house and left the car keys and a credit card on the kitchen table. Where were the people who would put country over party? Nowhere in Congress, that’s certain.
What you can find in Congress is any number of Republicans willing to trash-talk the president off the record. GOP members I’ve spoken to in the past year and a half have repeatedly told me they loathe and fear this president. One member told me, “You know that scene in The Hunt for Red October where the guy torpedoes his own submarine? ‘You fool! You’ve killed us all!’ That’s him.” Another member, writes the Resurgent’s Erick Erickson, said he sees Trump as “an evil, really fucking stupid Forrest Gump.” These aren’t the purple-state squishes of Trump fans’ imaginations. These are—or, at least, were—rock-ribbed, red-state, red-meat conservatives.
That Trump continues to receive praise from them instead of condemnation, and cheers instead of catcalls is an element of his disastrous first year in office. It’s an endorsement of his shock-jock leadership style and a permanent mark against the one group of men and women who could have stopped that behavior and yet utterly refused to take responsibility for doing so.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Republicans could embarrass themselves more thoroughly than they already have, but Donald Trump will drag them down time and again, no matter what they believe about him. He is the eternal Loki, a trickster god drawn to, listening only to what Edgar Allan Poe calls “The Imp of the Perverse.”
It’s become a bit exhausting reminding them that the world doesn’t have to be this way. Over and over they touch the hot stove, ignore the angry howls from their constituents, and continue to defend the indefensible.
What to Expect When You’re Working for Trump
(A Tragedy in Five Acts)
– ACT III –
No sooner have you settled into your comfortable office and begun to Make America Great Again than you notice that Donald Trump’s ardor has cooled, his praise has become mere tolerance, and your glory suddenly tastes a bit sour. Watching him in action, you quickly learn one thing about this king’s mercurial moods and white-hot temper: it’s best to turn the praise and ostentatious displays of loyalty up to eleven every day.
You notice that the president isn’t just a one-way street but that he also demands that his allies do things that aren’t, you know, appropriate. He doesn’t care about the statutes or those ethics rules that were designed for the unwashed little people. He wants his wishes fulfilled, tout de suite. You saw his incandescent rage after Jeff Sessions recused himself over the Russia investigation—you quickly correct yourself: witch hunt—and you don’t want to ever be on the receiving end of those tweets.
In the meantime, life is good. There’s no adult supervision. You’re in charge of your fiefdom. Sure, you could order a conference table from Ikea, but why not have one that requires a hundred acres of pristine rain forest lumber be cut down and built by an army of slave labor instead? If you’re going to MAGA, don’t you deserve a security detail large enough to overthrow a third-world nation?
While it’s fun blowing through traffic with lights flashing and sirens blaring, except for all the small liberties, you really have almost no actual power. There’s rarely an actual agenda or program from the White House. Mostly, you’re chasing the rabbit of the president’s daily whims and interests. Some days he’ll announce a policy solidly in your department’s ambit via tweet. You won’t know it’s coming. The White House staff won’t know it’s coming. Like a plague, it just appears, sudden and deadly.
From the lowest Hill staffer to the most isolated GS-9 in the bureaucratic hinterlands, no one in Washington likes that. Washington hates surprises, disorder, and things outside the lanes and traditions. As a cabinet member or senior aide, it makes your hackles rise, but what can you do? Sure, you’ll keep tweaking the regulatory stuff and going through the Kabuki dance with Congress, but you know you’re mostly along for the ride.
Right about this time is when you start quietly asking friends, “Is leaving after a year okay? Or is it eighteen months?”
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RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL
AMERICAN EVANGELICALS SOLD THEMSELVES TO Trump for 40 pieces of silver. A degenerate, unrepentant man who represents everything evangelicals have railed against for generations bought their loyalty for nearly nothing. It remains one of the most remarkable aspects of the campaign of 2016 and of the presidency of Donald Trump.
Trump’s personal depravity isn’t a secret. His amoral, deeply vainglorious nature isn’t hidden under the proverbial bushel; it is the sum of his entire character. His religious beliefs and ties are, at their very best, loose. One author describes Trump’s faith as “nonchalant Christianity.”
In Iowa, Trump said, “When I drink my little wine . . . and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed. I think in terms of ‘Let’s go on and let’s make it right.’ ”1
I’m not entirely sure which doctrinal strain of Christianity that represents, but I believe it emerges from the First Church of Greed, Manhattan Synod. Trump’s only faith is in himself, and his only God is Mammon. His obsession with money and the trappings of wealth don’t exactly scream out that this is a guy who will pass through the eye of a needle, but perhaps I’m just not up on my Prosperity Gospel.
I know many evangelicals. No, I’m not doing the “my black friend” for the God Squad. I mean it. I know a lot of evangelicals. I’m not one, but many I know are some of the most good-hearted people you could ever hope to meet. They live their faith, do good works, give generously to their communities both in time and tithing. They once had standards and applied them to their politics. I didn’t always agree with those standards, but they had them.
Until 2016. That was the year political and professional evangelicals went off the cliff with a candidate who was a walking, talking, porn-star-screwing offense to their every belief. Suddenly, nothing mattered. The TV pastor class of Jerry Falwell Jrs. were out building their own version of the golden calf statue the moment Trump slithered into their megachurches. I’m not enough of a biblical scholar to give you the perfect reference, but something about the road to Hell being broad and smooth comes to mind.
Sure, there were hints in the political ecosystem that not all the members of the God Squad were, shall we say, living their beliefs. During a statewide primary election a few years back, a prominent evangelical said of my candidate, “Well, I know he’s 100% pro-life, but he’s not very vocal about it.” This guy’s favored candidate in the race had two restraining orders against him and was so far to the right that he was utterly unelectable, but—it’s a miracle!—had generously donated to the construction fund for said evangelical’s megachurch.
Another prominent evangelical leader’s conduct with his multiple girlfriends over the past two decades led to his having the nickname “The Strangler.” One evangelical who frequently rails against the sin of gay marriage may have a pretty young thing for a wife, but she lacks the one physical aspect that truly makes him see the face of God, whi
ch is to say, a penis. I know people, and church people do love to talk, Proverbs 11:13 aside.
It should have been a preview, but all of a sudden, Donald Trump came along and washed away all the prior disqualifiers. All the things evangelicals had said for generations that made a candidate anathema were suddenly just fine.
Let’s review, shall we?
Many evangelicals told me that casinos and the venal, sinful atmosphere they create are deeply corrupting moral influences. Apparently not. Donald didn’t run his casinos with even the thin veneer of the family friendliness of modern Vegas. The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City was a humid, grim dump fleecing seniors of their Social Security, just like Jesus preached in the Gospel of Skeeze. It looked, felt, and smelled like a strip club–cum–low-stakes roadside casino. Every surface was sticky, and you did not want to know why. I can’t recall which book of the Bible says, “Thou shalt take Granny’s Social Security check and collect it for the lord’s slot machines.”
I was taught that divorce was a calamitous social evil, and to be avoided at all costs. Apparently not. I mean, Trump has only had two of them so far, both caused by rampant adultery, but MAGA, right? Is that from the Book of Gorsuch? I think it might be.
Fucking—pardon me, dating porn stars while your wife is pregnant and then paying them hush money is frowned upon in modern Christianity, yes? Apparently naming the right court nominees expiates that particular sin in the eyes of the God Squad. Oh, he did it more than once? Well, forgiveness is next to Trumpishness when it comes to evangelicals handing out moral mulligans.
