“How long,” asks Susan Glasser, “until they are feting this great peacemaker of ours for his victory in the Battle of the Caribbean, at a grand celebration in the Donald J. Trump Ballroom, on the grounds of the Donald J. Trump Executive Complex?”
Don’t give them any ideas.
In case you missed it, Friday witnessed a moment of high absurdity, layered with farce, as Trump was awarded a made-up Peace Prize, a sort of participation trophy kept around to placate sulky-eight-year-olds who threaten tantrums if they don’t get a ribbon.
As a consolation for failing to get a Nobel Prize, and days after he celebrated his campaign of extrajudicial murders, Trump was given the “inaugural FIFA Peace Prize,” which is not a real thing. It’s the kind of thing we used to find in boxes of Cracker Jacks. Trump, naturally, loved it, calling it “one of the great honors of my life.” And, it really was an iconic scene of our Age; as one of the world’s most corrupt sports organizations ceremonially fluffed the Orange God King who absolutely couldn’t wait to put the golden chain around his neck.
Critics were quick to ridicule the “bullshit” award and the groveling grifters at FIFA who concocted the ego-soothing scheme.
**
So, now we can all go back to watching the MAGA porn videos about blowing up boats in the ocean. (Boats apparently headed not to the US, but to Suriname.)
Happy Saturday. Note to readers:
I know that many of you feel overwhelmed by all of the newsletters. There are a lot of claims on your time and your resources. I get it.
More than 90 percent of you read everything we write and post for free — and I want to keep it that way, because you really can’t defend democracy from behind a paywall.
But I want you to know that I am deeply grateful for those of you who have become paid subscribers, because you make it possible for me to stay on this hamster wheel of crazy.
I won’t promise that you won’t disagree with me from time to time, but I will promise you straight, sober, sane, (and snarky) commentary. And I hope to earn your support and convince others that what we do here has some value.
Today’s podcast
In this solo episode, I answer subscriber questions about RFK Jr., the murderous boat strikes, the ranking of stupidity among cabinet members, and how it’s all connected to our children’s education.
We got questions about:
Pete Hegseth and the dumbest members of the Trump cabinet.
Whether ICE is out of control.
The Epstein files.
Mike Johnson’s political lifespan.
And whether Trump is looking like lame duck. (And why that might be scary.)
As a bonus, I also talk about my dogs. Enjoy!
Subscribers can listen to an ad-free version right here… or you can watch on YouTube / Listen (and subscribe) on Apple/ Spotify / iHeart / RSS Feed.
Nota Bene
Must-read by Phil Klay Trump’s Boat Strikes Corrode America’s Soul - The New York Times (Gift link)
The president inhabits a position of moral leadership. When the president and his officials sell their policies, they’re selling a version of what it means to be an American — what should evoke our love and our hate, our disgust and our delight. If all governments rest on opinion, as James Madison thought, then it is this moral shaping of the electorate that gives the president his freedom of action, and that we will still have to reckon with once he is gone.
Amid the swirl of horrors, scandals and accusations, then, it’s worth considering what President Trump and his administration are doing to the soul of the nation — what sort of “fit companions” they’d like to make us. Their behavior during the controversy around a Sept. 2 U.S. military strike on a boat off the coast of Trinidad offers some clarity….
The Trump administration’s celebration of death brings us far from discussions of the law of armed conflict, the constitutionality of the strikes or even the Christian morality that would eventually push Augustine to formulate an early version of just-war theory. We’re in the Colosseum, one brought to us digitally so that we need not leave our homes to hear the cheers of the crowd, to watch the killing done for our entertainment and suffer the same harm that injured Alypius more than 1,600 years ago.
This wounding of the national soul is hard for me to watch. Twenty years ago, I joined the Marine Corps because I thought military service would be an honorable profession. Its honor derives from fighting prowess and adherence to a code of conduct. Military training is about character formation, with virtues taught alongside tactics. But barbaric behavior tarnishes all who wear, or once wore, the uniform, and lust for cruelty turns a noble vocation into mere thuggery. “The real evils in war,” Augustine said, “are love of violence, revengeful cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance, and the lust of power.” Such lusts, he thought, drove the pagan world’s wars. We’d be fools not to suspect that such lusts drive some of us today.
All those MAGA Conspiracy theories? Never Mind. “Pipe bomb suspect told FBI he believed 2020 election conspiracy theories.”
Cole appeared in court Friday, one day after he was charged with leaving pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee in the hours before Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Trump has falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.”
Saturday dogs
Auggie and Eli. Just chilling out.
