Every day, it feels like we move a bit closer to disaster of one sort or another.

No one is minding the store.

Most in positions of responsibility and authority are operating out of an abundance of ineptitude, incapable of tending to reality, hired because of their loyalty to a big-mouthed egomaniac and not necessarily because they know anything about their jobs.

We’re constantly dealing with the batshit craziness of it all, aghast at the excuse making, the lying, the administration-wide incompetence, and the blatant, unchecked self-interest.

Most days, the country appears to be running on autopilot, on muscle memory. There are lots of moving parts, after all. But it’s starting to feel like, shortly, various chickens will be coming home to roost—the greed, the short-sightedness, the mismanaged economy, the testosterone-fueled distractions some call military operations, the mystifying refusal to acknowledge that our environment is sick. The racism. The paranoia. It’s all gonna come crashing down.

Maybe that’s why Donald is pushing so hard for his ballroom. He really feels like he needs to take up residence in what’s being built underneath it. Sounds like we should let him. He’ll need a place to hide after the blue wave.

Then maybe nature will take its course, and our fearless leader will follow in the footsteps of one of his heroes, sans Eva. Maybe Natalie will have the good sense not to follow him in there.

Of all the posts I’ve written in the last year or two, a healthy percentage have been ones based on the daily writing prompt. Overall, though, I’d venture that most of the others are somehow related to Donald Trump or his administration.

I’m not fascinated with the guy, or the motley crew that populates his inner circle. I’d say it’s more a fixation, a revulsion thing, more reactive than a function of curiosity or genuine interest.

In the beginning, after the election of 2016, there was a period of disbelief and then a long stretch of WTF. Since November of 2024, it’s been more WTF but also this unshakeable feeling of astonishment, almost stunned disbelief, that so many people were convinced enough to vote him into office a second time. They couldn’t listen to him or look at him and come away thinking, “Nah, not this time.” Instead it was, again, “Yup, give me some of that.”

They bought into the victim schtick, the whole manufactured fear and “dark times in America” ruse, and the “only I can fix it” BS. They apparently believed in him even after he made all the promises and proceeded to keep few of them—other than the ones about immigration and tariffs.

His coarseness and ignorance are selling points, somehow giving him the air of an “everyman,” even as he and his children and in-laws exist in rarified air and grift to their hearts’ content, on our dime. What’s worse is that so many either like Project 2025 and where it is taking us, or they refuse to look closer and learn what this manifesto actually means for the country.

Apologies for letting this guy get in my head, but I feel like this is my contribution to the resistance—constant scrutiny and trying to find the words that plum the depths of my revulsion for such a lying sack of shit and the vermin riding his coattails.

Increasingly, Trump seems like a foil, rambling on about grass, plugging Scott’s Miracle-Gro, singing the praises of the fine granite or marble or whatever it is they’re using on the new helipad. Meanwhile, Project 2025 continues to inform the ranks, Iran is a quagmire, construction can resume on the ballroom/bunker, thanks to a stay from the Supreme Court, the cost of living is high, people are getting sick from diseases and maladies that need not enjoy the resurgence they’re currently experiencing.

And who knows what they’re up to regarding the midterm elections? Trump appears not to care about them, but from what various pundits are saying, the people around Trump are a bit more concerned and are wondering why he isn’t.

Maybe he doesn’t care because the fix is in and enough is being done already to sabotage things. Or maybe he sees a blue wave on the horizon and he’s putting all his eggs in the bunker basket, with a plan to barricade himself and direct the attendant civil unrest after he gives word to his goon squads to wreak havoc and sow some chaos.

Or maybe he and Mitch McConnell are planning a play date, if Natalie approves. Who knows?

It pays to be watching him and the inner circle like a hawk.

Imagine how much attention is paid to making sure the distractions keep on coming. I’m surprised there isn’t a DOGE-like effort to refresh the daily list of ways Trump and the rest can lead us down the next rabbit hole while they burn another bridge or sabotage the next agency that’s been doing necessary work but suddenly finds itself somehow irrelevant and too costly to fund.

Silly me. There’s already a blueprint for that.