(JOURNALISTIC) MADNESS: A nutcase advanced the night assault!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2025

Nobody else said a word: It's hard to capture the madness of what was said last Friday night.

It's hard to capture the madness of the (fully predictable) silence with which that madness was met.

The first madness belongs to Red America; the second madness belongs to us Blues. Camus described the whole fandango in the excerpt from The Plague which we started reprinting last year.

On this morning's Morning Joe, George Conway said that a certain 236-year experiment may be nearing its end. It's hard to capture the madness of the behaviors which occasioned that sensible assessment by Conway.

Also, it's hard to capture the incomprehension of those who say that Conway's assessments hails from the funny farm. in our view, that incomprehension is stunningly deep, but it's also fully human.

(Conway's full presentation can be seen at the Morning Joe site. Click here, then click on this: "George Conway: J.D. Vance is telling us something we should've already known.")

With that, we return to last Friday night, to the latest installment in the night assault. To an imitation of life:

Last Friday night, Greg Gutfeld started his prime time "cable news" show in the normal "Friday night" way. He introduced a panel comprised of four Stepfords. Then he told a few jokes.

The string of jokes began at 10:01 p.m. Mercifully, it was over by 10:06. At that point, it was time for the undisguised madness to start. The madness started like this:

All right! To the monologue!

"To the monologue," he cried. To our ear, it sounded a bit like To the Lighthouse.

By clicking this link, you can see the way the monologue started. Warning—at this point, you can't begin to see the extent of the madness this hireling would offer this night:

GUTFELD (2/7/25): All right! To the monologue!

So the Trump administration laid off nearly all of the USAID agency staff, reducing the number from 10,000 worldwide to just under 300.

I know!

[SCATTERED APPLAUSE]

You're welcome!

But oddly, the USAID beneficiaries abroad don't seem to be the ones complaining. The foreign heads of state are so quiet. And yet it's the NGOs crying over the fact that their yearslong scams might be toast. 

And all of this is happening because DOGE has exposed a pile of programs funded by USAID to foster gender and trans propaganda in foreign countries—countries where such things don't seem to benefit stability. Because nothing will bring a Muslim country together like drag queens reading the Koran to kids.

[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

But that's the point. You have to destroy the world to build a new one where men can watch girls pee in locker rooms. 

That's the way the madness started. Yes, that's what he said. Rather, that's the way the madness—and the night assault—began on this one particular Friday night.

As we've noted in the past, Greg Gutfeld is 60 years old, and he comes from a sunny land. He may believe the things he says. It's possible that he doesn't. 

It's possible that he doesn't. But last Friday night, on his prime time "cable news" program, the astonishing picture he was going to paint started out like that.

His full claim was an imitation of life. It involved intimations of something resembling a madness, even the possibility—though only the possibility—of a clinical "disorder." 

What this fellow would go on to say was also a night assault on the foundations of the alleged American enterprise. Despite the wide reach of his TV show, no one in Blue America was going to say a single word about what he said this night, or about the ardent, stunningly stupid reactions from his array of guests.

What did Gutfeld go on to say? To the extent that he was working from sources, who or what were those sources?

Who were the quartet of Stepfords who took turns agreeing with his presentation? We'll explore all those questions this week, but you've now seen the way he began.

In fairness, he started with a basically accurate statement. Very early that very morning, Reuters had reported this:

Trump administration to keep only 294 USAID staff out of over 10,000 globally, sources say

President Donald Trump's administration plans to keep fewer than 300 staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development out of the agency's worldwide total of more than 10,000, four sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Washington's primary humanitarian aid agency has been a target of a government reorganization program spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, since the Republican president took office on January 20.

The four sources familiar with the plan said only 294 staff at the agency would be allowed to keep their jobs, including only 12 in the Africa bureau and eight in the Asia bureau.

In this report from the previous evening, the Associated Press had reported much the same thing.

The sitting commander, Donald J. Trump, had ordered a massive reduction in the work force at USAID! The statement of this fact produced light applause from the Gutfeld! studio audience. 

As it turned out, that's when the madness started. It started with what seemed to be a set of odd remarks.

According to Gutfeld, Elon Musk and his crew at DOGE had "exposed a pile of programs funded by USAID in foreign countries." Gutfeld seemed to say that these programs had been designed "to foster gender and trans propaganda."

His apparent insinuations went on from there. In these first remarks, the TV host seemed to suggest that USAID had (allegedly) sponsored these (alleged) programs in order to undermine the "stability" of those foreign countries. 

Eventually, it would become clear that that was exactly what the Fox News Channel star was alleging—though the craziness of his full allegation went several light-years past that.

"Nothing will bring a Muslim country together like drag queens reading the Koran to kids," the gentleman said at this point. For the record, he would make no specific claim, at any point, about any such USAID program in any specific country.

"Nothing will bring a Muslim country together like drag queens reading the Koran to kids!" And then, he turned to what would be only one part of his claim. According to Gutfeld, this:

DOGE had exposed a pile of programs funded by USAID to foster gender and trans propaganda in foreign countries. 

Such program don't benefit stability in the countries in question. But that was the point. 

"That was the point," the gentleman said! And then, he added this:

You have to destroy the world to build a new one where men can watch girls pee in locker rooms. 

Is that what USAID has been doing in foreign countries? Has the agency been undermining stability in those countries, with the goal of "building a new world where men can watch girls pee in locker rooms?"

Already, it sounded like that's what he was saying. Trust us—at this point, we haven't begun to approach the full crazy of what this possible nutcase now said.

Soon, four helpmates would take turns affirming the messaging this corporate star had advanced. We'll be saying their names this week, but it won't make a lick of difference.

Full disclosure:

The fellow of whom we speak started out anti-Trump! In this June 2023 profile, the New York Times almost seemed to describe a meeting in which the Fox News Channel's Suzanne Scott told him he'd have to shape up.

We'll try to get to all that this week. Meanwhile, please understand this:

You still don't have the slightest idea how crazy last Friday night got.

Is Gutfeld gripped by some form of mental illness—that is to say, by a "mental disorder?" How about people like Musk and Vance? How about someone like President Trump?

Are such people gripped by some clinically diagnosable "mental disorder?" By tradition, that's a perfectly sensible question. But as with history, so too here:

History is written by the victors. So is the question of who was gripped by a "mental disorder."

Meanwhile, how about us Blues? How about our journalistic and academic elites?

Are we perhaps gripped by a mental disorder as we continue to pretend that none of this has been taking place on the Fox News Channel? As we agree to avert our gaze? As we refuse to report?

In our view, it's just as we have told you. Camus described the syndrome in question in his allegorical novel, La Peste (The Plague). 

Before him, so did Hans Christian Andersen, who described the citizens of a fictional empire who were somehow unable to see what was happening right there before them.

Their emperor had a new suit of clothes! Because we humans aren't built for this line of work, citizens of that mythical empire were unable to see or to speak. 

What did Gutfeld go on to say? How did his helpers respond?

We'll try to cover all that this week. That said, did Norman O. Browm get it right all the way back in the 1960s? Also, was Friday night's TV show part of a "night assault," not unlike the ancient assault which brought an end to sacred Troy?

A manifestly angry fellow launched last Friday's assault. Over here, in Blue America, no one said a word. 

As it has been for decades now, everybody seemed to know that they mustn't see or speak. Are we humans built for this work? Has an experiment failed?

Tomorrow: USAID's domestic plot!