Call me a party pooper, but I’m not as excited about the election results in Hungary as others appear to be. The guy who prevailed was in Victor Orban’s fold until someone treated his woman poorly. And maybe he had become a bit disenchanted with the direction an authoritarian regime is liable to take a country.

From what PBS was reporting last night, the new victor knows his way around politics and “did what he had to do” to win. He knew which buttons to push, which people to spend time schmoozing. This to me doesn’t equate to a new day for the people of Hungary who, based on video of post-election rallies, were over the moon with happiness that Orban was ousted. They best reel it in until Peter Magyar proves to everyone that he means what he says about a return to democratic rule and undoing the damage Orban has wrought.

We know a thing or two about someone who promises whatever he thinks voters want to hear, but then reveals he had no intention of delivering, and in fact was and is nothing but a pretender whose only superpower is lying his ass off.

So, how is this gonna work, exactly? How is a naval blockade of a portion of the Strait of Hormuz, along with Iranian ports, not going to trigger further violence and add to the tension that already exists in that part of the world? Not to mention affecting the entire planet’s economy even more than it already has, and not to mention putting our soldiers and sailors in harm’s way.

Trumpworld obviously miscalculated when it comes to the consequences of saying yes to Bibi. And now we’ve apparently reached a point where the brain rot that is Trump and Hegseth and the rest have decided to just step in and rule the Strait. Just like that, cue the finger snap? We have to use all that military and naval build-up for something, right? When is our military going to start questioning the orders coming from this collective brain freeze?

Many, I imagine, are wondering how this all doesn’t fall apart. Trump must be really feeling the heat from the whole Epstein thing– especially now that Melania appears to have gone rogue.

This is what happens when people are hired to come in and just break things.  

Must See TV last night was watching the Artemis 2 astronauts maneuver their Orion spacecraft into the proper attitude for reentry and then seeing them splash down in the Pacific, off the coast near San Diego.

It is a somewhat tense period, when you know they’re hurtling back into the atmosphere at 25,000 miles per hour—15,000 feet per second—hoping the heatshield does it job as they encounter temps around 5000 degrees F. There was a 6-minute blackout when the networks had to fill airtime, and everyone waited for confirmation that all was well. It came on cue, and we eventually watched as the drogue chutes deployed first, then the mains, and the capsule drifted to a soft touchdown, after having traveled beyond the moon and back.

It’s astonishing what we can do when we put our minds to something.

It’s time for The Masters golf tournament. “A tradition like no other,” goes the byline. It is often a great tournament to watch, since Augusta National is a beautiful course, all decked out with blooming azaleas and Amen Corner, and the players themselves rise to the occasion and play some great golf. For the casual observer, it might all seem like so much hokum, unduly refined, steeped in more tradition and reverence than any golf tournament deserves.

A few things surprise me about the event– a four-day pass, if one is lucky enough to secure one via a lottery, is only $140. But the secondary market, i.e. resale value for such a coveted ticket, is through the roof, the highest margin of any sport– thousands of dollars. Concessions are remarkably inexpensive– sandwiches at $1.50, some at $3, a beer for $5. Souvenirs are sold only on site, no e-commerce. So if one is lucky enough to get in, the costs for certain items aren’t at all steep. All that being said, the clientele for this tournament includes a high percentage of high income movers and shakers who fly in on private jets and pay $10,000 a day for access to their own facilities that include food, beverages, a separate souvenir shop, and other perks.

The people who attend are never referred to as “fans,” but rather “patrons.” They are the guests of Augusta National and are treated as such. It is said that once you find a spot to sit, you can leave your chair for hours, come back, and it will be empty, waiting for you.

It takes an army of volunteers and staff to pull this off every year– from groundskeepers to security to vendors. The course itself conceals a network of underground electrical and mechanical technology, and the famed bloom of azaleas behind the 12th green is intentionally managed to be at its height during tournament week.

Despite its checkered history with regard to admission of non-white and female members, Augusta National puts on its best face for The Masters– a unique event, with its own traditions that people appear to appreciate and honor, year after year.

At some point, many wake up to the deception.

The motivation, for example, for heading back to the moon isn’t as much about the indomitable human spirit as it is a fear of placing second to a political and cultural rival– China, or maybe Russia.

The verbal combativeness, misdirection, and creepily slanted patriotic vomit spilling from Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, J.D. Vance, Fox News, Newsmax and the rest isn’t really about loving America and doing what’s in the best interest of most Americans as much as it is emotional blackmail and gaslighting and subversive efforts to bring the country to its knees—all in order to secure a consolidation of power, white privilege, and a ghastly, dystopian restoration of “Christian” values.

Donald Trump, I imagine, has been only too happy about the seeming fact that enough of us are still acting like we were born yesterday. Enough of us are still eating out of his hand, still viewing him as a refreshing, even messianic, take-no-prisoners straight talker who bad-mouths people who support heinous programs like SNAP and Social Security and school lunches and solar energy and scientific research that leads to vaccines and other life-saving innovations.

The Republican party is full of smooth-talking word gymnasts and groupies who can influence outcomes and distract and confuse and deceive, who don’t think twice about lying and doing whatever they can to get us to doubt our own intentions and second-guess America’s goodness, or disparage it as pie-in-the-sky idealism.

It may be the most insidious aspect of this anomalous, aberrant occurrence we’ve come to know as the Trump years: that lying is acceptable, having grown so commonplace as to be mistaken for authenticity.

May we live to see a renaissance of the concept of consensus, and a rebirth of trust born of genuinely honorable intentions.