Trump, the next AG, and reality

Pam Bondi is out as Attorney General.

Maybe the only people surprised by this are gamblers who wagered that Bondi would be canned before Kristi Noem. It could have gone either way. (Those betting on Pete Hegseth are still frustrated, though his day will come.)

I have no sympathy for Bondi. She, like every toadie in Trump's orbit, sought to work for him. Anyone with an ounce of sense and a scintilla of integrity steers clear of Trump because to all appearances he is a terrible boss: petulant, loyal only to himself, erratic, cruel, corrupt, and incapable of accepting reality. The only reason to accept a political appointment from him is because the money and connections you could make while the grift lasts would make the grief worthwhile. And the grief will come. It always comes, because his delusional demands eventually collide with reality. When that happens, he will order you to reconcile the two. You will fail. He will can you. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I don't know who the next A.G. will be. I only know that there are plenty of grifters-in-waiting lusting after the chance to enrich themselves at the public's expense (and at the cost of their own reputations). Such grifters are the only ones willing to pretend they can bend reality to suit the cruddiest of bosses.

It's the stupidity, stupid

Political strategist James Carville famously coined "It's the economy, stupid" as the slogan for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. For the current administration, it seems that slogan has nutated into "It's the stupidity, stupid".

Look, I don't mean to make Trump supporters mad, or even to make them feel sad. It's just that it's not possible to assess Trump's presidency, in either term, without picking up on instances of stupid behavior and stupid decision-making. And before you protest that every president does stupid things (which is true), it's the depth of the stupidity in Trump's case that is so troubling.

The latest and most egregiously stupid act on Trump's part was his commencement of war on Iran. How do I know it was stupid? Because to this day, nearly two weeks after the ordnance started flying, the administration still hasn't settled on one solid explanation for why we attacked. If you're a Trump supporter, tally up what you've heard.

Iran was a week away from a nuclear weapon! (I thought last year's Trump-ordered missile strikes eliminated their program, per Trump's own boasting.)

Iran was planning to attack us! (Haven't gotten any proof of that, and neither have the members of Congress who've been given classified briefings by administration officials.)

The ayatollah and his regime are terrible people who massacred thousands of their own people! (True enough, but oppressive leaders who massacre lots of their own people are, lamentably, not rare. Why now, and why Iran?)

Israel forced our hand! (Really? Really? You're saying that Benjamin Netanyahu can play the current administration like a cheap fiddle? You want us to see you as patsies?)

Given all the above lame (indeed, quadriplegic) excuses for sending U.S. troops into harm's way, I really shouldn't be surprised that this same president and administration were left dumbstruck that Iran responded with, among other things, a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Per an Atlantic piece by Phillips Payson O’Brien:

Astonishingly, President Trump and his aides were caught unprepared when Iran, under air assault from the United States and Israel, retaliated by targeting shipping in the Persian Gulf region and specifically through the Strait of Hormuz. Military planners have pointed out for decades that the waterway—through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes—is highly vulnerable to Iranian assault. But the Trump administration acknowledged in classified briefings, CNN reported last night, that it did not make provisions for a closure because officials assumed that such a move would hurt Iran more than the United States.

In its failure to anticipate Iran’s reaction, the administration ignored a dynamic that former Defense Secretary James Mattis, a first-term Trump appointee, was fond of pointing out: Once hostilities begin, “the enemy gets a vote.” U.S. leaders have drastically underestimated the Iranian regime’s ability to survive, adjust, and strike back. Just two weeks into a war that began at a time of the president’s choosing, the U.S. appears uncertain about what to do next.

This administration's M.O. has been on display since day 1. It is transparently impatient with what it considers dithering, which includes the kind of careful, deliberative approach that most administrations take when contemplating big decisions and big actions, especially those requiring military action. Yet if you give a damn about the lives of those you command, you must do the hard work of planning.

Maybe crying, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" is exhilarating for Hegseth and Trump. But whatever their feelings or their motives, they have no goddamned business being anywhere near the chain of command because they have no fucking sense of responsibility for how they wield their power. These developmentally arrested men cosplaying at war have contempt for prudence or caution, as especially stupid men so often do.

Not planning for an eminently possible and totally foreseeable bad outcome is unbelievably stupid. Yet that's exactly what this arrogant administration did, led by its unbelievably arrogant president. What's worse is that this administration will neither recognize nor feel shame for its stupidity, because the president lacks empathy and humility and will not permit his toadies/accomplices to express either: he considers them weaknesses.

The depth of this administration's grotesque stupidity in attacking Iran is beyond obvious. If you deny that, how long can you keep your better judgment at bay? How long can you contort yourself into a pretzel to justify what cannot be justified, to excuse what cannot be excused?

The game hasn't changed

Gregory Bovino, the bullying CBP turd who led the grotesque assault on Minneapolis, has been sent packing. He'll now spend his remaining days trying to intimidate people at California's border with Mexico. (Sorry to the folks in southern CA.) Mango Mussolini's "border czar", Tom Homan, is taking Bovino's place.

Some have cheered this change, and on one level I can see why: Bovino has behaved like a villain in a C-grade movie, designed to piss off the audience enough that the otherwise uninteresting hero looks good by comparison.

The trouble — besides the fact that this isn't a movie — is that this change is purely cosmetic. The starting quarterback has been sent to the showers and the cheerleaders, like Kristi Noem, have been muzzled (for now), but the coach, Stephen Miller, and the owner, our domestic Dear Leader, haven't changed the game plan. They still want to rule with impunity and without being challenged, even rhetorically.

And Bovino might have been in charge of the occupying force, but he didn't personally and singlehandedly brutalize or kill people in Minneapolis, or anywhere else. No, he had thousands of federal goons to do the dirty work alongside him.

Those goons remain in Minneapolis. Other goons are in Maine, and Memphis, and in dozens or hundreds of other locations. Most of them are as poorly trained and badly supervised as those in Minneapolis.

Exactly one of the main players in this brutal campaign has departed. The rest stand ready to resume it as soon as the heat dies down. And by "heat", I mean the public uneasiness of Congressional Repubicans, who detest having to answer questions about blood shed by Trump's brownshirts.

So we need to keep the heat on those Republicans, by continuing to publicize the sickening, indefensible abuses by this lawless administration's shock troops. We need to awaken everyone who's sleeping through current events. We need to arouse the dormant consciences of Mango Mussolini's supporters, or at least those whose hearts haven't shriveled.

It's not over. It has barely begun.