Narcissist and His Ego Save College Sports, Again

Again demonstrating a capacity for oafishly inserting himself across multiple theaters, President Grifty McGrievance issued an executive order last week aimed at college athletics. You might have missed it, what with the moon mission, the U.S. “excursion” into Iran, disrupted global markets, belligerent and profane calls to re-open the Strait of Hormuz, turfing his Attorney General, and attending a Supreme Court hearing that he hopes will result in the elimination of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. In short, a busy week. 

This week’s drama pushed it even further into the background. Titled “Urgent National Action to Save College Sports,” the order mixes high-minded claims about the need for a fix along with some specific measures. The order came almost a month after Trump convened a White House roundtable to discuss the issues around the current system. The two-hour confab included several dozen sports and political figures under the auspices of “Somebody Needs to Do Something.” 

Trump issued an order last July, titled “Saving College Sports,” addressing some of the same issues and the need for reform, though none of the measures from that order were implemented or even made a dent in the conversation. Asked at the March get-together what would be different about a new executive order, he replied that it would be more comprehensive and detailed. 

That’s debatable, but the new EO speaks to the transfer process and eligibility, payments to athletes for name, image and likeness, and raises the specter of financial penalties for schools that don’t comply with the rules. Athletes would have five years to complete four years of eligibility, a rollback to the old system. They would be permitted a one-time transfer with immediate eligibility. A second transfer would require an athlete to sit out competition for a year, though an athlete who completed a four-year graduate degree would be permitted immediate eligibility after a transfer. 

The new order also would end NIL collectives, the donor-backed organizations that mushroomed after players were allowed to be paid. However, many of those collectives have wound down or phased out after the House vs. NCAA settlement that permitted schools to directly pay athletes up to $20.5 million, a move that has stressed and stretched athletic budgets. 

Schools have begun to find a way around that and supplement athlete pay by outside deals with media rights outfits and separate companies. The new order also comes with the possibility of withholding Federal funds for schools that don’t adhere to the rules, a favored Trump administration tactic that’s been used in the battle against diversity initiatives and supposed discrimination. Here, it’s again worth noting that an executive order is often a recommendation with government letterhead. It’s not a law, it doesn’t replace a law, it doesn’t provide an antitrust exemption – a big ask on the NCAA wish list – and it’s not immune to court challenges. 

President Cranky Pants admitted as much at the March meeting, where he toggled between discussion of issues and gripes about “radical” judges who upended the good old days and those awful Democrats who won’t pass any legislation he endorses. “I’d like to go exactly back to what we had and ram it through a court,” he said that day. 

That said, there is bipartisan desire for reform and guidelines that would provide stability, both in terms of player movement and finances, though there is broad disagreement on how to get there. Old guard advocates continue to look longingly at the questionably named SCORE Act (Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements), which pre-empts state laws surrounding NIL payments in favor of a national system, provides the NCAA limited antitrust protection against lawsuits, and prevents college athletes from being classified as employees. The legislation has worked its way through Congressional committees and might pass a tight House of Representatives vote strictly along partisan lines. But the measure is likely DOA in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes and has zero Democrat buy-in. 

Democrats don’t want to roll back the freedoms and compensation that athletes have won, and many believe they are due, nor do they want to cede control back to the NCAA. The rub with Trump Saves College Sports, Part Deux is that courts have already ruled several measures illegal. For example, a Federal judge ruled that the NCAA’s old one-time transfer policy was restrictive, and the Dept. of Justice and the NCAA settled on a system that essentially gave athletes free agency. 

And good luck enforcing, or even defining, the order’s call for “a prohibition on improper financial activities regarding student-athletes, including collectives or other entities or methods used to facilitate third-party, pay-for-play payments.” One passage in the new EO is particularly galling, a kind of tutorial in gaslighting and hypocrisy disguised as well-meaning and crucial. It reads: Absent a comprehensive national solution, therefore, the escalating financial demands to succeed in football and basketball combined with the significantly loosened rules governing eligibility, transfers, and pay-for-play schemes may force curtailment of women’s and Olympics sports, and may even jeopardize the overall financial well-being of universities with which the Federal Government has important financial relationships. Universities are important defense research contractors for the Department of War, important medical research contractors for the Department of Health and Human Services, and important scientific research contractors for the National Science Foundation. The health of the university system is integral to the Federal Government’s basic functioning. 

Yessiree, science and research are so vital to society that the Trump administration has spent the past fifteen months slashing budgets and gutting departments in those areas, as well as bullying schools and agencies that don’t conform to their standards. A snapshot: approximately fourteen percent of STEM Ph.D.s in the Federal workforce, more than 10,000 people, left or were laid off since Trump took office, according to Science magazine. The Centers for Disease Control has lost 25 percent of its workforce and faces a 41-percent cut in the latest budget proposal. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is in line for a $1.6-billion whack from its $6-billion budget, targeting climate research and what the administration refers to as “Green New Scam” programs. 

Trump last year asked that lawmakers cut spending on science programs at NASA in half (though legislators left much of the funding in place). He recently asked for a $5 billion budget cut to the National Institute of Health. The National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency would see their budgets cut by 50 percent if Trump’s 2027 budget proposal is approved. Budget cuts to USAID meant that Johns Hopkins University lost $800 million in grants targeted for health programs, and approximately 7,800 science-related grants across multiple sectors were cut. 

It’s hard not to conclude that Trump’s latest foray into college athletics is anything more than another episode of performative grandstanding by a jabbering fossil who believes he’s entitled to govern by decree and force of personality, whose moves are dictated by whim and whatever and whoever crosses his path at any given moment. He’s the light and the heat in his own solar system, and thanks to 77 million of our fellow voters all of us get burned.

Depends What You Mean by 'Save'

The headline on the White House, ahem, “fact sheet” reads: “President Donald J. Trump Saves College Sports.” Whew. Glad that’s taken care of. Obviously, the man’s talents aren’t limited to immigration, trade policy and foreign affairs. 

President “I Alone Can Fix It” last week signed an executive order that aims to provide stability to a college athletic landscape roiled by legal challenges, greater freedom of movement and athlete compensation, increasing disparities in revenue streams for various schools and conferences, and a leadership vacuum at the top. The order includes lofty rhetoric about preserving opportunities for college athletes, protecting women’s and non-revenue or so-called “Olympic” sports, and the unique value of college athletics. 

It’s also characteristically lazy – short on details and implementation and enforcement – with a touch of threats and a Trump aggrandizement kicker at the end. It’s like many of his previous 175 EOs. He gives an order, praises its wisdom and himself, and dares anyone to challenge it. The EO also prohibits “pay-for-play” measures to athletes from schools, while still permitting athletes to make money from third-party endorsement deals. It directs the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify the employment status of student-athletes, which under the current administration is less likely to classify them as employees or permit collective bargaining. It also instructs the Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission to figure ways to re-establish governance back to the NCAA and conferences, and away from state legislatures and courts. 

You’re correct if you view this as part of an NCAA wish list, as the governing body has been cuffed around by various courts for years while clinging to outdated amateurism standards that are untenable, ethically and legally. Trump’s executive order cannot provide an antitrust exemption – another line on the NCAA wish list – nor can it make a law or override state laws. Only Congress can do that. What the order can do is move the needle and help generate momentum. 

The NCAA has lobbied for Federal intervention for some time, which brings us to something called the SCORE Act. That piece of proposed legislation would grant the NCAA and conferences antitrust exemption, prevent athletes from being classified as employees, override current Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) laws, and return most governing power to conferences and the NCAA. The bill passed through two Congressional committees last week – the furthest any college athletics bill has ever progressed – on strictly partisan lines; all Republican approval, zero Democrat votes. It could come up for a full vote when Congress reconvenes. It might pass the GOP-controlled House, where bills need only a simple majority. 

The Senate, however, has a 60-vote threshold for such legislation, which means that seven Democrats must cross over for passage, a dim proposition. In addition to Democrat opposition to the bill, attorneys general for the states of Ohio, Florida, New York, Tennessee and the District of Columbia sent a letter to committee chairs and multiple ranking members of Congress, which reads in part: “The SCORE Act … will not redress the persistent power imbalance between the NCAA and student-athletes. To the contrary, it risks enshrining in federal law the same lack of accountability — to antitrust laws, to the States, and to student-athletes themselves — that the Supreme Court and numerous lower federal courts have found to be indefensible. Simply put, the SCORE Act consolidates too much power in the hands of the NCAA. The NCAA is a cartel that has consistently abused its monopolistic control even in the absence of a legislative blank check to do so.” 

The Big Dumb Orange Guy fancies himself a sportsman, though for him the appeal is conquest and adulation rather than respectful competition. He’s an avid, if unscrupulous, golfer (do enjoy the Commander-in-Cheat caught on video at Turnberry this week in the video below) with courses around the world. He was part of start-up USFL ownership and was famously shut out when he tried to bluster his way into the NFL. He attends various sporting events, making himself part of the show. He has a talent for exploiting disorder, an ego that convinces him that he’s the smartest and most capable guy in the room, and a position that confers gargantuan status and influence, all of which play to the unsettled world of present day college athletics. He met with Nick Saban in May and had several conversations with a gent named Cody Campbell, a multi-billionaire and Texas Tech booster who has some ideas about how to settle the present chaos and benefit everyone. He talked up the idea of a commission to address issues, but that seems to be on hold while legislation is on the table. After the SCORE Act cleared the committees, he signed his order the next day. 

There’s reasonable skepticism that Trump’s order and his yammering about preserving and protecting college athletics are anything but power plays. It isn’t lost on people that he has picked fights with universities and withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal funding over supposed failures to curb antisemitism and to scrub diversity initiatives. He’s a champion of higher education, provided institutions bend the knee and conform to his and his minions’ vision. No telling how this plays out. Executive orders are sometimes merely weighty recommendations. They can be challenged in court and changed by future administrations. Traditionalists and reformers in this debate agree on little, but both believe that there should be a framework that settles some of the chaos and uncertainty. Banking on durable, enforceable proposals from the Disruptor-in-Chief wouldn’t appear to be the way to bet.

zPSA: Donald Trump is Fucking Up

Elected Democrats have been doing a piss-poor job communicating to the American people despite the political gifts handed to them lately.  Their first instinct is always to pussy-foot around an issue, both-sides it a little bit to avoid offending anyone, and use 5,000 words when five would do.  They're also afraid of sounding crass, or being assholes, and if they ever swore it wouldn't sound authentic.

For example, Hakeem Jefferies recently offered the opinion that “Tariffs, when properly utilized, have a role to play in trying to make sure that you have a competitive environment for our workers and our businesses.  That’s not what’s going on right now. This is a reckless economic sledgehammer that Donald Trump and compliant Republicans in the Congress are taking to the economy, and the American people are being hurt enough.”

"Utilized"?  Really?  Who talks like that?  "I utilized some toilet paper to blow my nose because we're all out of Kleenex.  Good thing we had the TP otherwise I would have utilized my finger."  Sounds perfectly normal and relatable.  And more importantly, why is he providing cover for Trump's tariffs?  Why couldn't he just say "Trump's tariffs ruined the economy"?

Everyone who reads G:TB knows that I have an inordinate fondness for Cory Booker, but did he really have to talk for 25 hours to draw attention to DJ Trump's stupidity?  He couldn't boil it down to maybe 25 minutes?  Does anyone know what Booker actually said?  I don't.

Trump is fucking up and someone needs to call him out in a way that resonates with people who were stupid enough to vote for Trump in the first place.

You know what this moment calls for?  Someone who can swear and be crass authentically, for whom being an asshole comes naturally.  Like Chris Christie, only not a big fat slob who sold out to Trump and did a 180 only after being dumped from Trumpworld.

I think the Democrats need to cut an ad with someone well-known and well-respected from outside the world of politics and run it throughout the NBA playoffs.  It needs to use short, pithy sentences.  It needs to be overly reductive and devoid of nuance so that Trump and his supporters need to babble like Democrats to try to explain it away.  The ad's point needs to be clear even if you can't hear it because you're watching in a sports bar.  It should feature someone who has represented America on the world stage, who achieved major wins, and who has fucked up epically.  This person could then say "I have represented our country on the world stage.  I know a lot about winning, and I know about fucking up.  I'm here to tell you: Trump is fucking up."  And that's the theme.  Four words.  Trump is fucking up.  Bleep the "fucking" if you have to but don't blur the speaker's mouth.

Then really quickly have them say something like "The Trump tariffs tanked the stock market.  Since he took office the market is down about 9%.  That means Trump's tariffs took one out of every eleven dollars in your savings.  Trump is fucking up."  Run video of Trump talking on one side of the screen while the stock ticker plummets on the other.

They could also say "Trump promised to deport illegal aliens.  But his own lawyers admitted that they accidentally deported the wrong guy.  So the illegals are still here and the wrong guys are in El Salvador.  Trump is fucking up."  At the same time, run video of Kristi Noem rocking her ICE cap, flak vest and Daytona.

Then they conclude with "I know a lot about winning and this isn't it.  Trump is fucking up."

My first thought was Michael Phelps.  He represented the US at the Olympics, he won more than anyone ever, and he got into a bit of a jam with a bong.  So when he says "I have represented our country on the world stage.  I know a lot about winning, and I know about fucking up," the ad would run a picture of him on an Olympic podium with the flag, then a picture of him with a shitload of medals, then the photo of him and the bong.  

Everyone knows Phelps.  Many people like him, or at least respect him.  I don't think anyone hates him.  Apparently he dislikes Trump and he strikes me as having some assholery in him, but I don't know how authentically he swears.  This seems like a good option though.

My next thought was Tiger Woods.  When he says "I have represented our country on the world stage.  I know a lot about winning, and I know about fucking up," the ad would run a picture of him holding the Ryder Cup, then a bunch of iconic pictures of him with trophies and/or fist-pumping, then ... well, there are probably a lot of fucking up photos to choose from but I'll just go with his mugshot.

But Tiger is friends with Trump so he wouldn't go for this.

I was stuck after Tiger.  I ruminated and finally struck on an amazing idea.  You know who can take on a raging asshole from Queens?  Another raging asshole from Queens, one who famously swears and acts badly but won a lot and who put representing America above almost everything else. 

Like John fucking McEnroe.  Johnny Mac viewed representing the US in Davis Cup play as a holy grail and he did more for the US Davis Cup team than just about anyone.  He won 77 titles on the tour including seven majors.  And he was famously thrown out of the Australian Open for cursing out an umpire.

Everyone knows him, I think he's generally respected, and he likes to smoke weed and shit on Trump.

And he has a great story about how his father, also named John McEnroe, sent Trump a letter in 2015 and Trump thought it was from the tennis star.

Anyway, I'm sure there are plenty of other candidates to star in my PSA.  I invite you to nominate some in the comments.  But please hurry because the Democrats can't get out of their own way.

Economics and the Second Amendment - Redux 2025

I'm pulling a Grover Cleveland with one of my better G:TB posts because it's particularly relevant these days.  DJ Trump, who also pulled a Grover Cleveland, is not at all Gheorghe and does not read G:TB--if he did he would know that tariffs act as a tax and wouldn't have screwed up our 401(k)s.  I have Marls and Jamboni drafting a complaint right now, let us know if you want in.

DJ Trump recently announced that he will impose tariffs of 25% and 10% on imported steel and aluminum, respectively. The Dow dropped 350 points in response. Naturally, I plan to sue the President.

This isn't my idea--he had it first. Back in December 2017, Trump twat the following in response to a 350 point drop in the Dow:

People who lost money when the Stock Market went down 350 points based on the False and Dishonest reporting of Brian Ross of @ABC News (he has been suspended), should consider hiring a lawyer and suing ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused - many millions of dollars!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

I'm not sure what the exact cause of action against the President would be. Surely not negligence. If the President can't be guilty of obstructing justice how should I expect to be made whole for acts of mere Executive stupidity?

I think my best claim is infringement of my Second Amendment rights. Let me explain.

I went to arguably the most conservative law school in the country. Before classes started I was encouraged to read "Principles of Economics" by N. Gregory Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush. I actually enjoyed the book and I dredged it up for this post.

Here's how Mankiw explains tariffs:

The increased price of foreign goods under the tariff allows domestic firms to increase their price, thus resulting in overproduction. The increased price also results in underconsumption. Consumers (i.e., everyone who isn't involved with the manufacture of steel and who isn't the government) loses the benefit of quandrangle C, D, E, and F. This because the government reaps rectangle E and manufacturers take trapezoid C. If your eyes haven't glazed over at this point, you realize that the entire market--everyone involved in this situation--loses the benefit of triangles D and F. Thus triangles D and F are a deadweight loss--absent the tariff, D and F would have been consumer surplus. Instead no one had D and F. Thus the tariff acts as a tax. And these triangles are the direct result of the aforementioned overproduction/underconsumption. This jumped out at me 15 years ago. Seriously, look at my notes in the margin.

This is important because conservatives abhor deadweight loss--when Kudlow, Laffer and Moore are against an economic policy you know it isn't conservative. And if that doesn't convince you, the fact that Democrats and unions support the tariffs should.

I personally dislike the tariffs because as Mankiw explains "When a country allows trade and becomes an importer of a good, domestic consumers of the good are better off, and domestic producers of the good are worse off. Trade raises the economic well-being of a nation in the sense that the gains of the winners exceed the losses of the losses of the losers."

Does that last sentence sound familiar? It probably does. Conservatives always say that the government shouldn't pick winners and losers. Here's what Paul Ryan has to say about this:

Elites in Washington should NOT be picking winners & losers—that’s a recipe for a closed economy—for cronyism.https://t.co/AcHJfVRwTE

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) July 28, 2016

Of course, Ryan also applauded Trump's move that helped keep Carrier's plant in Wisconsin. Cronyism indeed!

Anyway, the upshot of this tariff is that it will cost more to manufacture things that are made out of steel (and aluminum). This added cost will, of course, be passed along to the consumer. So expect to see an increase in the price of appliances, silverware, steel-belted radial tires, beer cans, cans of beer, cars and car parts, BBQ grills, BBQ grilling utensils, wire, pots and pans, foil, golf clubs, patio furniture, fencing, fencing swords, plumbing supplies, building supplies, nails, screws, brads, tacks, nuts, bolts, washers, garbage cans, bicycles, ladders, window frames, and mattress springs.

And things like guns and bullet shells. The President's steel tariff is really a tax on guns and bullets, making it more expensive for me to exercise my god-given Second Amendment right to bear arms. "Shall not be infringed" goddammit! I'm suing! And while I'm at it I'm going to claw back the money I lost in my 401(k) just like Trump said I should three months ago.

A Quarter Billion Dollars Can Change Your Mind

Remember Trump's lengthy diatribe during the 2024 campaign about how stupid electric vehicles are, the one that started out with cars, drifted into tanks, meandered into boats and sharks, and wound up hitting on a truck driver?  This one:

That was December 4, 2024, a little over three months ago.  On March 11, 2025, Trump bought a Tesla and did an infomercial for it in the White House driveway:

What prompted the change?  A newfound commitment to the environment?  A sudden rush of interest in new technology?  A change of heart regarding the Green New Deal?  Or maybe it was the $260 billion Elon Musk donated to his campaign?

I'm not saying Trump is for sale, but his taste in cars is lightyears behind Biden's.  Remember this?

All The President's Book Sellers

Once again, primo Washington D.C., political snoop Bob Woodward pestered folks in his Rolodex in pursuit of a book. And once again, reasonable people might wonder: WTF? 

CNN obtained an advance copy of Woodward’s forthcoming tree killer, War, a peek behind the curtains at our current leaders as they dealt with conflicts around the globe. The book follows Woodward’s standard m.o. of remarkable access and scrupulous reporting from inside the rooms where discussions occurred and decisions made. He conducted hundreds of hours of interviews, and accounts come from aides and confidants and may come from the principals themselves, under cover of anonymity or confirmed in what’s referred to in the reporting biz as “on background.” 

There are descriptions of salty, unvarnished language that President Joe Biden used in reference to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian president Vladimir Putin. That’s more salacious than substantial, as both men could prompt priests to spout off like dock workers. More concerning is the revelation that former president Donald Trump quietly sent COVID testing machines to Putin for his personal use during the height of the pandemic, when such tests were difficult to come by, and has had multiple conversations with Vladdy since leaving the Oval Office. 

Trump’s admiration of Putin is no secret, or at least his regard for a guy who calls all the shots, turfs opponents with impunity and isn’t bound by pesky details such as co-equal branches of government and laws. Woodward is a legend and, at 81, remains nominally an associate editor at the Washington Post, where he made his bones fifty years ago with the Watergate scandal. But most of his efforts for the past forty years have been directed toward books about presidents and the D.C. political elite. Again, it’s fair to ask where Woodward’s priorities lay, reporting news or book sales? 

As the site’s media grump, I’ve hoe’d this row before. In a previous book, Rage, he reported conversations with Trump in which the Prez admitted that he was informed of the potential seriousness of COVID in early 2020, but intentionally downplayed and dismissed the virus, hoping that it would dissipate by fall because he didn’t want it to tank the economy or hurt his re-election chances. As tens of thousands died that summer and many more were affected, Woodward sat on those conversations and left them in book galleys for later release, when releasing them might have affected policy and saved lives. 

Four years later, credible reporting says that Trump extended a favor to an adversary who’d like nothing better than for America to chase its tail and leave him to his autocratic f*ckery. This isn’t historians Michael Beschloss or Douglas Brinkley digging through archives and personal correspondence to paint a picture years later. It’s not even Woodward protecting the identity of his famous Watergate source, Deep Throat, until after he died. It’s current, real-time actions by a man running for president for the third time, the standard bearer for the Republican Party. 

Granted, sending virus tests to Moscow doesn’t rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors or even make the top 10 of the Orange Oaf’s acts and remarks that should be disqualifying. It is, however, part of the bigger picture, and I’d argue that the public has the right to know. What folks choose to do with that knowledge is their choice, but I’m generally in favor of more, not less, information. One might argue that the book’s Oct. 15 release date means that Woodward’s reporting about Trump hits the public sphere before the election, so that voters may factor it into their choices. Or, that it isn’t important enough to change anyone’s mind. But again, the nature of reporting includes elements of timing and immediacy. Woodward almost certainly learned of, or confirmed, Trump’s actions months ago. 

Books such as his require lengthy fact checking, as well as the legal and liability car wash. Perhaps that would have been early enough to affect the conversation and nomination process. He has said of the potential conflict between daily journalism and book reporting, that if he unearthed significant news that “the paper comes first.” That metric suggests that he didn’t think Trump’s largesse toward Putin merited mention before the book dropped. 

Woodward is painstakingly neutral in his books; he often explains that he prefers to describe events or quote people, and let readers make up their own minds. Deciding what and what not to publish, however, is a choice that reporters and editors make every day. Most of those choices don’t involve former presidents and presidential candidates. Most of those reporters aren’t Bob Freakin’ Woodward, who has the luxury of access as well as one of the nation’s most powerful daily platforms at his disposal. To not use it and instead to hoard information for books released at opportune times feeds into the mercenary lean of everyday life and feels less than helpful to the citizenry, something Watergate-era Bob Woodward might have had a few thoughts about.

Gheorghemas Interlude: Journalismism

The calendar hasn’t flipped yet and already we have a candidate for Gassiest Journalism of 2024. Being a presidential election year, there will be no shortage of entries, but The Atlantic will be tough to beat. 

The venerable, respected magazine’s January-February issue shipped, and its cover theme is “If Trump Wins.” It features essays from two dozen staff writers on various topics related to the Orange Oaf’s possible re-election. There’s indisputable quality up and down the lineup – David Frum, Anne Applebaum, Adam Serwer, Barton Gellman, Caitlin Dickerson, Sarah Zhang to name a few – but it’s easy to view it as massive overkill, a journalistic vanity project geared toward reporters and commentators, policy wonks and true believers. 

Despite the mag’s longstanding motto, “Of No Party or Clique,” they’re preaching to the choir, for the most part, and unlikely to change a single mind. And twenty-four essays will wear out supporters and even the most loyal readers. It’s like a 6½-hour Scorsese movie. 

Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg attempts to make a case for the package and the decision to go all-in, pointing out Trump’s position as prohibitive GOP frontrunner, his recent inflammatory rhetoric, and ideas floated by supporters that a good deal of what he supposedly stands for is un-American. “Which is why we felt it necessary to share with our readers our collective understanding of what could take place in a second Trump term,” Goldberg writes. “I encourage you to read all of the articles in this special issue carefully (though perhaps not in one sitting, for reasons of mental hygiene). Our team of brilliant writers makes a convincingly dispositive case that both Trump and Trumpism pose an existential threat to America and to the ideas that animate it. The country survived the first Trump term, though not without sustaining serious damage. A second term, if there is one, will be much worse.” 

I don’t disagree with Goldberg’s argument, but given that mags, newspapers, publications, websites, blogs should want to attract readers, it strikes me that the case against Trump could be distilled down to five or six more digestible points: preventing a White House built upon revenge and retribution, and by extension authoritarian structure; U.S. isolation and abandonment of allies; stacking of judiciary; grift and the Oval Office becoming a personal ATM; stripping down various Federal government agencies and erosion of citizen protections. Maybe one or two more. 

Some of the separate essay topics in the issue could be folded into larger points: climate change; misogyny; China; science; abortion; disinformation; the military; America’s character. I’ll give the Big Hats the benefit of the doubt that the issue springs from sincere motives and concern. Though it’s also worth considering that the saturation approach was an attempt to separate themselves from the slow drip of piecemeal reporting about a possible second Trump term, that they wanted to present a one-stop shop of “Yikes!” and “Can you believe this effin’ guy?” 

Unintentionally, it also represents a level of haughty and an indirect dig at the present state of journalism. Publications everywhere are turfing staff, The Atlantic included, and the implied message is: You can’t cover stuff the way you used to? Well, we can have 24 people riff on one topic if ‘We’ decide it’s important enough. Knock yourself out, Sparky. If folks read and heed, then the effort was valuable. If The Atlantic’s work launches other outlets to do their own reporting, that’s a win, as well. But presentation matters. Overwhelming the audience can be as detrimental as silence.

Book. Worms.

As the site’s media grump, I’m about up to here with national reporters gathering vital information on our

leaders and our systems, and stowing it for months awaiting some blockbuster book release. The latest addition to the library is from a pair of New York Times reporters, Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns. Their upcoming book, “This Will Not Pass,” is a deep dive into the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s actions during his last days in office, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and the early days of the Biden administration. 

It’s undoubtedly well reported and sourced, and it’s already caused ripples within Republican circles. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that sections in which he was reported to call on the President to resign after Jan. 6 and was critical of Trump were false. After which audio was leaked of him saying exactly that. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell reportedly told advisors post-Jan. 6 that “the Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” referring to Trump’s second impeachment trial, and “if this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.” After which McConnell and most of his Republican colleagues voted not to impeach. 

Look, I’m guessing that Martin and Burns didn’t get information in real time. It likely took months to gather documentation and to verify from sources. But they certainly knew about it long before the book’s pub date. And I’d argue that they should have reported what they could ASAP. It’s not only their job, but their duty – to citizens and to the republic at large. 

This wasn’t some insider policy debate that the principals are trying to massage, or an innocent what-I-saw-at-the-White House travelogue. This was a president trying to subvert a free and fair election and to remain in power, enabled by one of the nation’s two major political parties. You report that when you know it, not when you have 400 pages of material. Hell, the book subtitle spells out its importance: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future. 

Burns and Martin have plenty of company. ABC national correspondent Jonathan Karl’s “Betrayal” came out late last year. In it, he quoted Attorney General Bill Barr that Trump’s repeated claims of election fraud were “bullshit.” Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker co-wrote two books, “A Very Stable Genius” and “I Alone Can Fix It,” the latter about Trump’s final year in office after he sat down with them for an interview at Mar-a-Lago. 

And then there’s Bob Woodward, the Post editor and investigative Hall of Famer who’s written three books about Trump, two himself and the most recent, “Peril,” with fellow Post reporter Robert Costa about the 2020 election, Jan. 6 and the Biden inauguration. I’ve banged on Woodward in this space, when
his book “Rage” came out in the fall of 2020. Trump admitted that he knew COVID was far more serious than he let on during the winter and early spring of 2020, but downplayed the severity because he didn’t want it to hurt him politically or tank financial markets. Once COVID death tolls began to spike, Woodward could have reported what he knew and perhaps affected pandemic response decisions and potentially saved lives. Instead, he sat on the information until the book came out. 

It isn’t as if Trump lies, dysfunction and competence are revelations. There was plenty of daily reporting in the past five years. I’m under no illusion that any of it will change minds. Most of us have reached conclusions about Trump and the present state of our politics. But anything that further opens the curtain to the words and actions of our leaders is not only valuable but necessary. The nation’s framers thought enough of a free press to preserve it in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The press should hold up its end of the bargain, and not just to make a buck from a book.

Gheorghemas Interlude: I Still Love the South Park Guys Very Very Much

I have loved the South Park guys since their first episode aired. I loved their back story, including how they finally started getting in to Hollywood parties, and their goal at these parties was to fart on a celebrity and have the other capture the moment in a photograph. 

They did a deep-fake video of Trump that they released today. It's not brilliant, but it is funny and sorta immature. Hopefully, it will  irritate the people we like least these days. 

Trumpty Trump Advises Us All To Just Grab 'Em In The Biscuits

Digital Underground was a relatively popular hiphop group in the late 1980's. Their most popular song was "The Humpty Dance" in which group "member" Humpty Hump stated "I'm the one who said just grab 'em in the biscuits!" which was a reference to another song on the same album, "Doowutchyalike" in which Humpty Hump implored women thusly: "Homegirls, for once, forget you got class, see a guy you like: just grab 'em in the biscuits!" I refer to Humpty as a "member" of DU because he was Shock G's alter ego--he put on a fake nose, spoke in a fake voice, and adopted the personality of a nerdy lecher.

About 25 years later, presidential candidate DJ Trump got into hot water when video footage surfaced of him encouraging the nephew of former president George H.W. Bush that, upon seeing beautiful women, he should grab 'em in the biscuits, albeit less euphemistically. There was immediate hue and cry from the fifth estate.

DJ Trump's wife Melania rushed to his aid with a press release, stating that the man in the video is not the man she knows, that this nerdy lecher Trumpty Trump character in the video is merely one of DJ Trump's alter egos and that the real DJ Trump is worthy of leading the free world. This was one of the first, if not the first, public statements from Melania after giving a speech in which she bit lines from one of Michelle Obama's speeches--once Melania's status as a sucka MC was discovered she went underground.

In a stunning turn of events, Republicans holding elected federal offices felt that Trumpty Trump's advice to Lil Bush was unbecoming of a presidential candidate. In a moment of tremendous courage, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) withdrew his support for DJ Trump, noting that he cannot look his 15-year-old daughter in the eye and tell her what Trumpty Trump said. Seriously, he said "My wife and I, we have a 15-year-old daughter, and if I can’t look her in the eye and tell her these things, I can’t endorse this person." Here's the video.



I guess this means that Rep. Chaffetz can look his daughter in the eye and tell her that Mexicans are rapists; that Gonzalo Curiel is not qualified to judge non-Hispanics because he is of Mexican ancestry; that we should discriminate against immigrants based on their race, religion, or nation of origin; that we should ban Muslims from entering the country; that it's presidential to discuss the size of one's penis; that Saddam Hussein was and Vladimir Putin is strong and effective leaders; that John McCain isn't a hero for his service; that Muslim Gold Star parents don't deserve respect.

Predictably, many Republicans are now walking away from DJ Trump and his Trumpty Trump character. What a bunch of buffoons. After all the atrocities DJ Trump spit on the mic, they expect me to believe that this new misogyny in a litany of woman-hating quotes is the final bridge too far? Of course it isn't. If Trump had a snowball's chance against Hillary they'd still be standing with him. Now that he's tanked in the polls and the debate they're jumping ship at the first opportunity.

I detest the Bush and potential Clinton dynasties. I am disgusted by the idea that the past five presidencies could be held by only three families. It runs against the Founders' intent and common sense--what's the likelihood that four of the best qualified people to be president are contained in two generations of two families? I probably would have voted for any reasonable Republican candidate who didn't run on a platform involving "more guns and more god" as a plank.

Instead I'm voting Democrat on the entire ticket. The top of the ticket is deeply flawed but greatly preferable to the alternative, and the rest of the slate cannot possibly have less integrity than the clowns on the other side of the aisle in Washington.

Hopefully DJ Trump and his Trumpty Trump shtick will fade into relative obscurity like Shock G and Humpty Hump. But I wouldn't count on it.

Gheorghe Explains the Election: Trump's VP Pick

It's a foregone conclusion that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee come November. This is surprising at first blush, but not so much when you look at his closest competitors.



Also surprising at first blush was Chris Christie's decision to endorse Trump. Shortly before he dropped out of the race, Christie used the Marls voice to mockingly impersonate Trump.



Pundits have posited that Christie made this move with the hopes of getting the vice presidential nod. I don't see that happening.

Picking a vice president is difficult. For example, about 25 years ago a man named Bush was running for president as a Republican. At the time the GOP was perceived as being less than welcoming to minorities, so he apparently considered making Colin Powell his veep. Chris Rock explained why he didn't--someone would try to kill Bush so that Powell would be the first black president. So instead he went with Dan Quayle, probably because no one on earth would kill Bush to put Quayle in the big seat. Parenthetically, despite being a remarkably reasonable pick for president, Bush lost to someone named Clinton largely because an upstart billionaire lunatic with no elected experience decided to make a self-funded run for the presidency. It was a completely different world back then.

Although Christie isn't wildly popular, most rational people would prefer a President Christie over a President Trump. So if Christie got the veep nod, then politicians from both sides of the aisle would do anything they could to impeach The Donald. Trump knows this (he's running his campaign on some next-level reality TV competition three-steps-ahead shit) so his VP pick will be even less appealing than he is, but will still bring in some extra votes that Trump doesn't already have. Who might that be?

1. Sarah Palin

She already endorsed Trump and will help get some of the Cruz/Tea Party/maniac vote that Trump doesn't already have. She has that whole mavericky outsider thing going on and could theoretically help remediate Trump's image with women. No one would do anything to kill or depose Trump so that Palin could move up--that's a frying-pan-to-fire situation. Her downside is that she already destroyed a GOP nominee's campaign.

2. David Duke

No one will kill Trump to put Duke in charge. A Trump/Duke ticket would lock up 99.999% of the racist/xenophobe vote, practically guaranteeing that most if not all of Cruz's and Rubio's anti-immigrant base will vote Trump. A Trump/Duke ticket would also repulse all of the non-white vote, as well as all voters with humanity and conscience. Seems like a longshot but then again, nothing makes sense this election cycle.

3. Arnold Schwarzanegger

This isn't an outlandish choice. He ran two successful campaigns as a liberal-ish Republican in a blue state. He governed one of the largest economies in the world. He might be an even bigger celebrity than Trump and he has a devoted following of fans that will bring in votes. Having Schwarzanegger on the ticket might help rational conservatives reconcile the reasonableness of an otherwise unreasonable vote for Trump.

Arnold cannot be president because he was born in Austria so if Trump is out then Paul Ryan would be the Prez. This might seem to cut against Arnold (Geoff would try to snuff Trump in an instant in this scenario), but when you think more it makes total sense. If someone were going to try to assassinate the president, wouldn't you want The Terminator there to protect him? They made like three or four movies on this exact topic where he successfully repelled time-traveling liquid metal monsters to save Edward Furlong! He's perfectly fit to shield The Donald. Sure, some of the more ignorant racist voters would look at the last five letters of Schwarzanegger's name and refuse to vote for him, but how many ignorant racists who are unfamiliar with the Governator can there be?

4. Jim Dolan/Fred Wilpon/Dan Snyder/Donald Sterling

A repugnant inexperienced billionaire president could protect his job by backing himself up with an even more repugnant and inexperienced billionaire vice president. Dolan, Wilpon, Snyder and Sterling have solid track records of atrocious spending and terrible management/decision-making. No one wants them in charge of something as irrelevant as a sports franchise let alone the country. But any one of these four mopes would bring in a lot of votes, perhaps counter-intuitively. If you're a fan of any of their franchises, would you rather have them screwing up your team or screwing up the Trump administration (which will be screwed up no matter the veep selection)? These guys have legs. Snyder and Sterling might be Trump's first options given their enlightened views on race.

5. Stacey Dash

How many famously conservative black women are there? She would provide a modicum of cover on Trump's racist and sexist shortcomings, and she's remarkably photogenic. Damon Dash could be Secretary of Commerce.

6. Dan Quayle

It worked for G.H.W. Bush in 1988.

Any of the foregoing make more sense than a Vice President Christie in terms of getting more votes and for protecting Trump's back. I predict instead that Trump puts Christie up for Justice Scalia's seat and after confirmation he morphs into a law-and-order version of Justice Souter.

And none of it will matter when former Trump endorsee/billionaire Mitt Romney runs as a self-funded independent candidate.

Gheorghe Explains the Election: Presidents' Day Edition

I don't follow sports much these days. I feel like I've seen the same story (or what is now called a "narrative") over and over. The huge rivalry, the huge underdog, the young lion reaching for some record, the old lion looking for one more title, the struggle for historical greatness, the pall of historical collapse. It just doesn't interest me much anymore. And the outcome of any event, no matter how "big," has no real impact on my life. Which is why I now watch politics as a form of sport.

So, on Saturday, instead of watching a bunch of young men half my age dunk basketballs in allegedly novel but actually derivative ways, I watched a bunch of middle-aged guys roughly 10% to 50% older than me debate political issues in actually novel but allegedly conservative (and thus allegedly derivative) ways. I concluded that politics and sports are essentially the same in that general truisms generally do not hold true.

For example, the NFL is allegedly an offensively driven game but teams with top defenses continue to play in and/or win the Super Bowl. Similarly, conventional wisdom says that small-market baseball teams can't do well, despite the fact that four of the last five World Series featured Kansas City or St. Louis (and mid-market Detroit was in the fifth). If we go back 10 years, small-market teams made the Series seven times (St. Louis thrice, KC twice, and Colorado and Tampa once each). So the things that sports pundits say often don't translate to on-field results. Simply put, things don't have to make sense in sports. That's why they play the games--to see who'll win.



Along the same lines, politics doesn't have to make sense. That's why they hold elections--to see who'll win.

For example, Mitt Romney was lambasted in the 2012 primaries (i.e., just four years ago) because he made a metric shitton of money at Bain Captial. Remember this photo?

Romney's success was viewed as a negative--he allegedly was such a ruthless businessman that he shouldn't be president. And remember when his wealth was crass?

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By contrast, Trump voters choose him because he has a reputation for sharp business practices. A seemingly reasonable NH voter was shown on TV saying "You can't deny that Donald Trump is a successful businessman" as justification for his primary vote. Trump flaunts his four corporate bankruptcies as evidence of his business acumen, despite the fact that his creditors (i.e., people to whom he owed money such as vendors and employees) doubtlessly got screwed out of what he owed them. Remarkably, on Saturday Trump said he would close various loopholes of fraud and abuse in the welfare system. I guess it's ok for Trump to use a system to his advantage but others should not.

And according to my bankruptcy expert (zwoman), Trump abused the bankruptcy system by buying under-performing companies and immediately throwing them into chapter 11, thereby sticking his creditors and employees with the bulk of the companies' debts. Trump then got to reorganize the companies and have a fresh start.

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Inconsistencies further abound with Trump. Two debates ago he said that Bill Clinton's infidelity was "fair game" against Hillary. Apparently she enabled Bill to take all those third-party beejays. Of course, Trump cheated on his first wife with Marla Maples, with whom he had a child out of wedlock but eventually married and then divorced, but not before mercilessly hitting on Princess Diana (with no luck). Trump, like Bill Clinton, is 69 years old. Trump's current wife is 45. Monica Lewinsky is 42. Make of that what you will.

Even weirder stuff happened on Saturday. While arguing about who has a more ruthless stance on deporting illegal Latin American immigrants, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both sons of Latin American immigrants who at one time may or may not have had ruthless stances on deportation, devolved into a separate argument over their respective Spanish language skills. At one point Cruz actually started yelling at Rubio in Spanish. I don't know what he said, but I doubt that performance helped him much with voters who want to deport Spanish speakers (i.e., much of Cruz's base). I suspect we'll see that replayed in some slimy attack ad in the near future.

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Also weird: the debate started with every candidate stating that President Obama should not nominate someone to the Supreme Court after Justice Scalia's death and thus advocating for some abridgment of the President's power despite the fact that (1) they are all running for President and (2) Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution says that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... judges of the Supreme Court ...." This was remarkably remarkable given that the candidates all praised Justice Scalia's originalism, textualism and conservatism. Jeb! even went so far as to say "Look, I'm an Article II guy but ..." thus acknowledging that this whole line of demagoguery runs counter to the text of the Constitution.

Yet also weird: previous presidential candidates like Howard Dean (the scream) and Joe Biden (multitudes) were deemed too unhinged and, well, unpresidential to be president. But on Saturday most of the candidates tried to put on the worst possible display of deportment they could manage. Even patrician Jeb! started getting gully. Kasich remained above the fray but he's still a goober.

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Still weird: Trump committed apostasy by shredding a former President of his alleged party. I've never seen that before on either side. Sure, he was trying to use the transitive property to shit on Jeb! by shitting on W, but even mere transitive shits on party Presidents are verboten. This act of GOP treason allowed Jeb! to mount his high horse and ride it around the stage while highlighting his royal family in counterpoise to Trump's crassness. This further led to an alley-oop to Rubio, who managed to praise W without praising Jeb! while still shitting on Hillary, all in one sentence. It was great theater. Trump also called for W to be impeached despite the fact that W is no longer President and thus ineligible for impeachment. Later still, Jeb! admitted that W shouldn't have used eminent domain to build a stadium for the Texas Rangers. All in all a bad night for W.

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Continued shitting weirdness: Trump also shat at Lindsey Graham, probably because Graham endorsed Jeb!. This makes less than zero sense in front of a South Carolina crowd, and they booed him. As usual he said that these booers were all Jeb!'s donors. Which makes sense, right? If you back Jeb! and someone attacks him, you boo the attacker. In Trump's (and Trump voters') bizarre view of the world, these Jeb! and Graham fans are "special interests" while Trump's crew is not. But why aren't they? Their interests appear to be separate and apart from other voters', so why aren't they "special"? I'll never get this.

Beyond weird: Obama was dismissed by the GOP in 2008 as too inexperienced to be President. He was "just a community organizer" with only three years of experience in the Senate and almost eight years in the Illinois State Senate, and that supposedly wasn't enough experience to be Commander-in-Chief. This GOP election cycle features two candidates who have never held elected office, 44-year old and 45-year-old Senators with five and three years of Senate experience respectively, a former two-term governor who hasn't held any office in nine years, and John Kasich. Three of the six do not hold an advanced degree. Only Rubio and Cruz have a J.D. Confusingly, the more novice candidates are touting their lack of political experience as an asset, and Republican voters are picking up what they're putting down. I have no explanation.

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I convinced zwoman to watch the debate with me--it was an excuse to drink some of the awesome beer TR gave me and make snarky comments so she relented. She's one of the smartest people I know, an exceptional lawyer, a fun drunk, and a lover of booze and pointed wit. She hasn't followed the Republican race at all because no matter its outcome she'll vote for the Democrat. I had to explain who some of the candidates were and she still can't wrap her head around how Ben Carson got in the running, let alone got any votes, and this lead to a discussion about how the ability to separate conjoined twins can possibly translate to leading the free world.

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After the debate ended she looked at me and said "That was a lot more fun that I thought it would be" which is also what she said after our first romantic interlude many years ago. She then added "I can't believe one of those buffoons is going to get a shot at being president!" I replied "Yes. The only people on that stage who weren't lying were Bush, Carson, and maybe Kasich. Carson is a dope and Kasich is a dork." To which she said "That's my impression too. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I really hope Jeb[!] wins the nomination. Wait ... so we'll have another Clinton-Bush election?!? That's the best outcome?!? What just happened?!?!?"

Somewhere Mitt Romney is drinking a glass of warm milk and wondering where he screwed up. Election 2016 y'all!

Gheorghe Explains the Election with a Caption This!

Two recurring features colliding! Caption this while explaining the election!!

Explaining Trump

A wise (if sometimes politically misguided) observer of the American political scene posted something last week about the (to many) befuddling rise of Donald Trump as a GOP Presidential candidate.

It's easy to write Trump off as a joke, the logical, comical conclusion to 50 years of a party sublimating its once-principled conservatism of ideas in the name of power-first purity tests. But to do that means we don't have to try to deal with the issues that underlie his rise. And this feels like a moment that calls for a deeper understanding. Why do nearly a quarter of Republican voters support someone that appears to non-believers as a cartoonish buffoon? Trump, unquestionably a lout, is a reaction to something. His ascent, even if it may be temporary, does have meaning, and there are lessons to be learned in the effort to comprehend it.

Drew Magary, who's gone from dick-and-poop-joke Deadspin artiste to a mainstream commentator (with an eye for dick and poop jokes) in what feels like the blink of an eye, wrote a piece for GQ this week on the Trump phenomenon. He went to Oskaloosa, Iowa to see a Trump rally in person. His reporting strikes a powerful chord:

"Well, Trump is here to fix all that losing. And here is where my brief jag of mildly effusive praise for Donald Trump must come to an end, because the grim undercurrent of his rise is SHAME. After all, if you believe we must make America great again, then you must also believe that America, at the present moment, sucks. And pretty much everyone at the Trump picnic believed that America sucks. When I asked a group of Trump supporters outside if they were proud of America, they all laughed with derision.  Of course they weren’t proud of America. Of course this nation is a shithole. One voter named Corey told me he hoped Trump would help America “get back to the way it was,” a refrain I heard from a lot of people, as if the country was a rock band that had changed its sound. Backing Trump means acknowledging that you live in a world of failure, and that your last best hope is the Music Man moseying into town."

As hard as this is to admit, because it implicates me directly, East Coast suburban knowledge professionals with college educations (a description that covers the vast majority of this blog's staff and readership) haven't ever walked a mile in the shoes of the denizens of depressed post-manufacturing towns like Oskaloosa, Iowa.

At its core, this is about change. Human beings don't do change very well. Change management is a thriving industry and subject of academic inquiry. We fear change so much, our institutions are willing to pay to learn how to manage it.  Any material change brings with it apprehension. I just bought a new car, and I've been driving like a grandmother for the last few days as I adjust to the bigger dimensions and longer stopping distance. But change that forces humans to reexamine their most foundational beliefs is terrifying. For dozens of reasons - technical, economic, cultural, demographic, etc - our country and our world are changing at a dizzying pace. There are millions of Americans for whom that change represents dislocation, loss of opportunity, and the rise of the other.

From a purely economic perspective, the unemployment rate for college graduates is half that of those who only completed high school. Trump's strong (insane?) anti-immigrant rhetoric resonates with a constituency that feels increasingly exposed in a global economy that values traditional labor very differently than it once did.

Culturally, think for a minute about what the last ten years have wrought. Gay marriage is legal, across the land. We have a black President, with a white mom, and Kenyan relatives. Nearly ten states have decriminalized marijuana. 63% of Americans are non-Hispanic whites, down from 75% in 2000 (and on the way to less than 50% by 2050). As many Americans watched a women's soccer game as did college football's playoffs, for fuck's sake. (2005 guy just said, 'Wait, there's a college football playoff? The future is awesome!)

The world is different, but the same. Things are more moderner than before. Bigger and yet smaller. It's computers. San Dimas High School Football Rules!

Wait, sorry. Got lost in a Wyld Stallyns riff there for a second. The world is a shitload different, and it's happened (and is happening) pell mell. I worry about the future, about whether I'll have enough money for retirement, for sending my kids to college. And I make a very good living. I can't begin to understand the pressures felt by a father of two kids who's marginally employed, and his skills are no longer in demand because the plant was closed and the jobs shipped to Mexico. I'm worried about budgeting for my trip to Walt Disney World. He's worried about whether or not his kid's gonna have Christmas, and in many cases, he's looking for someone to blame, because he's a human, and that's what we do.

And there but for the grace of God, go all of us.

My point, at the end of this rambling, is an echo of a Chris Rock bit about domestic violence (embroiled as our media is in the deconstruction of Trump's flippant misogyny, I recognize that this particular allegory might be construed as a bit, well, ill-timed). In the aftermath of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, Rock said, "So you gotta look at OJ's situation. He's paying $25,000 a month in alimony, got another man driving around in his car and fucking his wife in a house he's still paying the mortgage on. Now I'm not saying he should have killed her... but I understand."



Which takes us back to the theory posited at the beginning of this post. The world is an infinitely complex place. None of us understands it fully. People who find themselves in the midst of disruptive change don't want to hear about complexity, or nuance. They want to be told in confident tones that there are simple answers. Hell, we all want that. There's a deep vein of uncertainty in this country, and Trump has tapped into it. He's not going to win the nomination, but whoever does (in both parties) would do well to think about how to serve those that feel the changes taking place in our society are leaving them behind.

I'm not saying Donald Trump is right, or anything less than an embarrassment.

But I understand.

I bet President Obama reads G:TB

President Obama has a very Gheorghean approach to Donald Trump: he doesn't take The Donald too seriously.