There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not reminded of how sad and tragic and ridiculous this all is. Trump is a caricature of malignancy and rage and incompetence. Musk is, hopefully, wondering what he was thinking when he sank all those millions into the campaign—there has to be some sort of upside to all that influence peddling, right?

Maybe Rubio and a few members in Congress are wondering how long they’ll be able to keep up the façade of supporting Trump and this reckless march to the sea, this abandonment of reason in the name of “efficiency” and in search of “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

They’ve depended on a head start and enough Americans keeping their heads in the sand. But have they anticipated the eventual awakening, the realization among the general populous that there never has been a MAGA mandate, and their whole plan is a piece of shit?

A sham. The pipedream of angry misfits and selfish outliers who are the antithesis of patriotic.

Waste, fraud, and abuse? They need look no further than themselves.

At first, it seemed encouraging that Dems were heading into Republican districts and having town hall meetings with people who might have voted for Trump but are now having second thoughts. But anymore it sounds like it’s just more partisan cheerleading and preaching to the choir, i.e. the AOC-Sanders anti-oligarchy tour.

Big crowds, but apparently mostly Democrats who are agitated and motivated—maybe not as much crossover as first reported.

So, most Republicans and disaffected Democrats are still standing their ground, still okay with Trump and Musk and the rest’s dismantling efforts?

He’s angling for a Nobel Peace Prize, which would immediately be entered in the running for the ultimate bad joke.

The way things look, they could reach some half-assed agreement on Ukraine—one which gives Ukraine little—and people at the Nobel foundation or whatever it’s called would be stumbling over themselves to run Trump’s name up the flag pole as someone who heroically broke through and brought the ugliness to a conclusion.

Who knows? Maybe it would be shared with his best bud, Vladimir. That’s when we would know for certain that up is down and the world has gone to hell.

Every day it’s something. Directives are given, declarations made, another EO signed, deals struck, threats made, departments handicapped. Sometimes it’s a late-night decision, or an early-morning tweet– from the toilet, for all we know. But every day, and night, it’s something.

Something new and often outlandish, brash, impulsive, stupid, dangerous, often enough motivated by vengeance and anger, or at the insistence of a diabolical plan hatched by unelected yet influential people whose thinking is off the rails. What the hell is happening?

It’s obviously time to get a grip and come to terms with the fact that Trump and Kevin Roberts and the rest are intending to bring the nation to its knees.

I hope what AOC and Bernie are doing is heartfelt and genuine, though it’s difficult not to watch her and think she’s laying some groundwork for a 2028 run. Anyway, it would seem that public sentiment may be leaning toward dissatisfaction with Herr Trump and his minions. We’ll certainly see how this all plays out, what levels of heel digging, doubling down, and anger Trump can yet sink to.

It’s liable not to be pretty.

Full frontal assault. This is what we’re witnessing. It’s not at all about saving us money, or being more efficient. Besides, “efficiency” sounds like a word pulled directly out of Elon’s ass, or maybe out of some Nazi code word manual, in service of creating that convenient, tongue-in-cheek acronym.

This is the Heritage Foundation and its ilk realizing the long dreamed-of vision for an America they’d prefer to see. Where the rich get richer and hold all the cards, and the rest of us are shmucks who they really couldn’t care less about. It’s certainly not the America the founders envisioned or risked their lives for. Bannon, Vought, Vance, Roberts and the rest most likely treat all that history as so much sentimentality and idealism that have no place in their more “realistic” understanding of human nature.

It seems there will always be people with motives in the sewer, people who give up too easily, who surrender to the usual siren songs of merit and power and money. Same old shit, except now it’s getting personal. It’s happening where it wasn’t supposed to happen.