WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2026
Much as we've recently said: We don't expect to be posting again until next week, much as we've recently said. Then again, you never quite know.
In the meantime, we're glad to see the new AMC at Mediaite, making such statements as this.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2026
Where we all are at this point: Who were we kidding? We misjudged the time it would take to complete an alternate project in which we're engaged. (No, it isn't medical.)
We look forward to returning to a version of full services, and we know what our first point of focus is likely to be. We expect to start with our favorite passage from Sandburg's Lincoln: The Prairie Years, the beautifully evocative passage which deliberately mentions the phenomenon known as "healing."
But that won't happen until next Monday. It's just like we told you last week!
Assuming there is a next Monday, of course. From the sitting president this very day, we see such headlines as these:
Trump Rages at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in Wild Moment Before Big UN Speech: ‘You Should Not Be Here!’
(For full report, click here.)
‘Do I Annihilate the Islamic Republic?’ Trump Issues Shocking Threat to Iran in UN Speech
(For full report, click this.)
We've long said this is a dangerous time; societal healing isn't likely to be all that easy. As for the notion of danger, medical specialists went there early on, in the 2017 best-selling book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, edited by the Yale psychiatrist, Dr. Bandy X. Lee.
Such specialists have routinely said that the situation would only get worse. And here we were, this very morning, with Joe Scarborough saying this about the shooting which has now happened in Austin:
‘Don’t Act Shocked!’ Joe Scarborough Throttles House Republican for Trump Deportation 180
Joe Scarborough tore into Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) on Tuesday after the Republican, who recently accused President Donald Trump of having “betrayed” Hispanic voters with his immigration crackdown, shifted the focus to advisers she said were steering the president wrong.
The Morning Joe host argued that Republicans now recoiling from the administration’s deportation push could hardly claim they were blindsided after Trump campaigned explicitly on removing millions of undocumented immigrants.
[...]
He then aimed directly at Salazar, whose South Florida district has put immigration at the center of her reelection fight.
“Let me say it again for the congresswoman in Miami. Donald Trump, just a year and a half ago on the campaign trail, in a speech you certainly must have heard, promised not just deporting the worst of the worst, he promised millions and millions of people being deported, and that it would be a, quote, bloody deportation.”
“And here we are. So please don’t act shocked, stunned, and deeply saddened—because you’re not,” he added.
Trump’s actual remark came at a September 2024 rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin, where he said removing undocumented immigrants would be a “bloody story.” Later that month in Michigan, he separately vowed to begin “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
Thanks to the sometimes invaluable Rev, you can see the transcript of what the candidate said in Wisconsin, along with the videotape of him saying it. Click here, then search on "bloody."
That was only one remark, made on that one day, but it may have suggested the shape of the turmoil to come
Serious mental illness is a human tragedy—and, of course, it's an illness. In this particular case, it also seems to be dangerous. To this day, the press corps has refused to explore the possibility that we're dealing with a dangerous medical problem here.
(It's not clear that it would have mattered had they chosen to come to terms with what sits right before them.)
This is present-day anthropology. It's a look at the skills we humans haven't developed as of this point in time.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2026
...about president's future conduct: Exactly as we told you on Friday, full services will resume some day this very week!
In the meantime, Mediaite, reporting on Axios and the Wall Street Journal, invites us to think about this:
‘Beginning of the End’: Trump Advisers Reportedly Spooked He Will Increasingly ‘Act Out’ as He Loses His Grip on PowerIn a piece titled “Behind the Curtain: Trump’s future foretold,” Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen report that Trump’s closest allies are growing increasingly concerned about how the president will act as his term draws to a close.
“The skeleton key for unlocking Trump’s mind is understanding that he thinks constantly about exercising power, and believes power is a zero-sum game—a winner and a loser,” VandeHei and Allen wrote.
They added, “Trump advisers and confidants describe him as generally in a good mood. But some privately confess he can get too cranky too quickly sometimes and that he’s showing his 80 years on Earth.”
The report comes on the heels of a Wall Street Journal article titled “Wave of Setbacks Leaves Trump Frustrated and Looking for Credit.” That story, as well, painted a picture of an increasingly frustrated president growing more desperate and lashing out.
Is Mediaite overstating the content of these reports? It's strange to see a provocative phrase ("Beginning of the End") adding spice to a headline when the provocative phrase in question doesn't appear in the body of the report.
(Concern that the president might "act out" does appear in the report, but it doesn't appear as a quote from those "Trump advisers.")
Whatever! However you slice it, these reports involve a question we've raised at this site again and again and again. Given the possible mental illness / cognition issues our press corps insists on avoiding, what might the sitting president start deciding to do once the midterm elections have passed?
Even in the Axios quote, Allen and VandeHei go euphemistic with respect to possible cognitive decline.
Euphemistically, they refer to the possibility that the sitting president is "showing his 80 years on Earth.” Our journalists will go to great lengths to avoid discussing the possibility of mental illness and/or cognitive decline.
The high-end press isn't going to drop its avoidance of adult discussion with respect to such possible infirmities. Meanwhile, where might the president's future impulses take us?
That's a second, separate question. Because of the possible danger involved, it might be time to act like grown-ups in crafting our public discussions of same.
Update: As an example of what we're talking about, go ahead and just click here. Please remember our basic rules:
A (serious) mental illness is an illness. Also, as a general matter, people don't choose to be cognitively impaired:
Trump Goes on Bonkers Rant Against Climate Change, Tying It to AI: ‘Nobody Was Dead’
President Donald Trump went on an electronic tirade against climate change, comparing any controversy surrounding it to recent panic that AI “will kill us all.”In a Truth Social post on Monday afternoon, the president denounced the threat of “Global Warming,” saying the name has since been “‘reborn’ to Climate Change.”“The same people that said, ‘We’ll all be dead in twelve years because of Global Warming,’ a name since ‘reborn’ to Climate Change, because the Planet was cooling, not warming, and nobody was dead, are the people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us, that robots are going to attack us, and everything is a DISASTER,” Trump wrote. “This is more of a Hoax than even that of RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, and Climate Change!”
[...]
Moments before, Trump posted another poll that asked his followers for their preferred name for artificial intelligence, days after he announced his intention to change what he called an “inaccurate” and “very ineloquent” moniker.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2026
Such as those services are: On Monday, we expect to return to something resembling normal services, such as those services are.
Meanwhile, here's the headline on a report at Mediaite—a report in which several journalists start talking about apparent mental health and mental illness issues, or at least about cognitive decline, though perhaps only inferentially:
Critics Rip ‘Donnie Dementia’ as Trump Rambles About Sharks and Electrocution at Rose Garden Event
The Atlantic's Tom Nichols is one of those journalists. You can read the full report here.
The headline treats this apparent (and presumably dangerous) problem as a source of mockery and insult. We'll almost surely be returning to this apparent problem when we resume next week.
Meanwhile, here's the start of a separate report in the Washington Post. People, we're just saying:
Trump says Kennedy Center could be ‘ripped down’ without his intervention
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration deserves to have its name recognized at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in exchange for rescuing the financially troubled institution, warning that without his intervention the venue will eventually close and be “ripped down.”
“For us as an administration to want to do that, I think the Trump administration should be recognized,” Trump told reporters while visiting North Carolina to campaign for the Republican Senate nominee. The president said the center would require years of financial support even after a roughly $250 million renovation.
“Frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close,” he said. “It’ll end up being ripped down.”
Trump’s remarks sharpened his position that saving the Kennedy Center hinges on putting his name on the building, a day after he threatened to block its renovation unless the courts allow the institution to do just that.
The report continues from there.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2026
The latest "Deplorables moment?" The president's meltdown seems to be picking up speed. As it does, our journalists still refuse to discuss what seems to be taking place right before everyone's eyes.
If he attacked someone on Fifth Avenue, would even one journalist be willing to go there?
We'll guess that the answer is no. And even as that silence pervades, Blue America can't seem to stop shooting itself in the foot in the manner described below.
Here's CNN's Dana Bash on Inside Politics, introducing Dan Osborn, the Senate candidate Democrats are backing in Nebraska:
BASH (9/16/26): Democrats' hopes of capturing the Senate could come down to independents, like Dan Osborn in Nebraska. The mechanic and union leader is not running as a Democrat, though the Democratic Party is behind his campaign and certainly against Republican Senator Pete Ricketts. Here's why.
When Kamala Harris lost Nebraska by 21 points in 2024, Dan Osborn was on the ballot, and he came within seven points of defeating Senator Deb Fischer. So he decided to run again.
In a sign the race could be even closer this time, a Senate Republican Super PAC just put over $3 million into an ad campaign targeting Osborn. Dan Osborn joins me now.
Osborn could win in Nebraska. If he wins, he'll caucus with the Democrats as an Independent, the way Senators Sanders and King do now.
He was (and is) the Great Democratic Party Hope. But then, along came this unfortunate moment, originally reported by the Omaha World Herald:
BASH (continuing directly): Thank you so much for being here.
I do want to start with news out today in your state, and that is the Omaha World Herald reported on a leaked recording from a private event where you reportedly said this about some of President Trump's voters in Nebraska. Let's listen.
OSBORN (audiotape): Billy Bob in f***** Red Cloud, Nebraska, who lives next door to the f****** Trump store as you pull into town and is waving the Trump flag. He's just, he just— all he knows is he's like on the winning team. It's, it's really that simple. It is.
And, and Trump, and that is why he's been so effective. He's been so effective at taking Billy Bob and his wife Mary Jane or Mary Jo at telling them, "Look, we're winning. You're on the winning team," and that's all they care about because their lives probably suck so f***** bad.
BASH: First of all, just to confirm, is that you saying that?
OSBORN: It sure sounds like me.
Ocborn goes on to explain. It sounds a bit shaky to us:
BASH (continuing directly): Is that what you think of Trump voters?
OSBORN: No, I've talked to—I've talked to Trump voters all across the state. I'm on a 93-county tour right now. I've got 55 counties under my belt. I did over 200 public events in 2024 when Trump was on top of the ticket, and I talked to a lot of Trump voters. And no, that's not it.
What I'm talking about, I'm talking about people are pissed off. People are disenfranchised...
The exchange continues from there. Eventually, Bash says this:
BASH: In this audio, which you said sounds like you, though you use names like Billy Bob and Mary Jane or Mary Jo, you say that they just really want to be on a winning team because their lives suck so much. But the way that you talk here doesn't sound like you—doesn't sound very respectful.
[...]
I mean, there's a lot of talk about this as your "Deplorables" moment.
Or as his "little boxes on the hillside" moment?
(We're assuming that really is him. He never says or suggests that it isn't.)
We still hope Osborn will win and will help Democrats take control of the Senate. But we Blues sometimes have a hard time understanding this part of the way we sometimes tend to see the world. It's one of the ways we lose votes and with those votes, elections.
To listen to the audiotape, you can click here for its inclusion in a CNN report. For the Washington Post's report, click this.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2026
"What, us add to the debt?" For heaven's sake, who are we kidding?
We'll expect to be back to our usual task of saving the world by the start of next week. For today, as the madnesses keep piling up, we'll start by directing you to this report about the latest gong show:
Bessent Straight Up Claims Trump’s $5K Checks Can Go Out Without Adding to the Debt
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wildly insisted on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s proposed $5,000 checks to Americans could be sent out without adding to the national debt.
The president first floated the plan during last week’s Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, promising to send the money if the GOP retains control of Congress in the midterms. He’s said he doesn’t think the checks will require congressional approval and has pointed to tariff revenue and more than $20 trillion in claimed U.S. investment to justify the proposal.
Those figures have been disputed. CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale noted tariff revenue falls far short of the roughly $1.3 trillion estimated cost of the checks, while calling Trump’s $20 trillion investment figure “fiction.”
And so on from there, with videotape provided.
But yes, that basic report seems to be accurate. Yesterday, in a congressional hearing, Bessent seemed to say that he could hand out $1.3 trillion in checks 1) without adding to the annual deficit and therefore 2) without adding to our rapidly growing national debt.
Yes, that seems to be what he said. Yes, he seems to have said it!
We expect to be back Monday morning, perhaps with a new, improved attitude and tone. But just for the record, Jared Bernstein offers this guest essay in today's New York Times:
The National Debt Never Scared Me. It Scares Me.
[...]
For years, I wasn’t an alarmist about the national debt. During the Biden administration, I even criticized those calling for more austere budget policy; I thought that fiscal austerity would do more harm than good.
Our fiscal reality has changed significantly since those days, and so has my stance on public debt. Here’s why:
Bernstein was chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Biden administration. He goes on from there to explain.
As we've noted in the recent past, Bernstein has recently written other such columns, as has Paul Krugman. But it seems that nothing is going to stop the flow of the madnesses from the current administration.
In truth, discussions of policy topics like this barely exist at this point. Our discourse has been swallowed by the serial tabloid lunacies of the sitting president, lunacies whose fairly obvious (medical) origin our scribes agree not to discuss.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026
Psaki, O'Donnell score points: Returning from our own private south of France, we expect to resume light posting tomorrow.
Also, we're looking for a way to adjust the tone and subject matter of this incomparable site—to adopt a new attitude.
In our view, Jen Psaki scored some points last Thursday night. We love the way she used the word "dumb" on that evening's program.
Last night, Lawrence O'Donnell rocked the world, playing tape of Jon Ossoff. We love the way Ossoff kept using the word "crook."
Ossoff is a remarkable talent. To his own substantial credit, Lawrence O'Donnell knows it!
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2026
...on this September 11: We don't expect to be posting again until next week. On this specific September 11, here's the report we'd recommend:
Conservative Fmr. Appeals Court Judge Explains How Republicans Are Trying to ‘Steal’ Midterms in Shocking Column...
A former appeals court judge tore into Republicans in a lengthy piece describing how conservatives are prepping to...steal the upcoming midterm elections.
Michael Luttig, a George H.W. Bush appointee who served as an appeals court judge from 1991 to 2006, unloaded in a piece he penned for The New Republic on Thursday, entitled, “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.”
And so on from there. With respect to the ongoing, current assault on the possibility of the American project, that's the report we'd recommend today.
Here's the link to Luttig's piece in the New Republic. We don't see a paywall blocking the essay by this widely-celebrated, famously conservative former judge.
For what it's worth, Judge Luttig discussed this theory with Ali Velshi on the August 6 edition of The 11th Hour. To see that discussion, you can start by clicking here.
For Judge Luttig's presentation of this thesis at his Substack site, you can simply click this.
We've been hoping that Judge Luttig's presentations would gain a bit more attention in this dangerous, madness-powered time. Maybe his presentation in the New Republic will sprout a pair of wings.
As always, please note this last important point:
The fact that Judge Luttig says it doesn't necessarily make it true.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2026
But also, the president's "mental health:" She appeared last night with Lawrence O'Donnell, but who is Mary Peltola?
Who the heck is Mary Peltola? When it comes to pure Americanism—but also, when it comes to Americanism with a smile—that was a truly beautiful interview.
Before we link you to what was said, this is an overview of the person in question:
Mary Peltola
Mary Sattler Peltola (born August 31, 1973) is an American politician and former tribal judge. She served as the U.S. representative from Alaska's at-large congressional district from 2022 to 2025.
A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as a judge on the Orutsararmiut Native Council's tribal court, was executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Bethel city councillor, and member of the Alaska House of Representatives. As of 2026, Peltola is the most recent Democrat to have won statewide office or held the position in Alaska.
Peltola was first elected to Congress in an August 2022 special election after the death of incumbent Don Young...
Peltola was re-elected to a full term in 2022. She lost re-election in 2024 to Nick Begich III. She is a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2026, challenging incumbent senator Dan Sullivan.
She once "won statewide office in Alaska?" In Alaska, congressperson is a statewide office. Alaska has only one member of Congress. That person serves the whole state.
Come November, Peltola may win one of Alaska's Senate seats. This is also part of who this candidate is:
Born Mary Sattler, Peltola is Yup'ik from the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta in Western Alaska and German-American. She was born in Anchorage on August 31, 1973. Her Yup'ik name is Akalleq (translation. the one who rolled). Her father was Ward Sattler, a German American from Nebraska. He moved to Alaska to be a pilot and teacher. Her mother, Elizabeth "LizAnn" Piicigaq Williams, is Yup'ik from Kwethluk, Alaska.
Mary Sattler grew up with her sister along the Kuskokwim River in the communities of Kwethluk, Tuntutuliak, Platinum, and Bethel. As a Yup'ik child, she began fishing with her father at the age of six. Her uncles taught her how to place nets to catch different kinds of fish.
When she was 12, her father registered a boat in her name and she began fishing independently as a captain at 14. She traveled with her father while he campaigned for Congressman Don Young, later commercially fishing with her father during the summers...
And so on from there. In our view, that is pure Americanism, one of roughly 330 million different examples of same.
("No people are uninteresting," Yevtushenko, in translation, once said.)
Upon reflection, we won't attempt to follow the richness of that overview by transcribing some of what was said during last night's interview with Lawrence. Instead, we'll strongly suggest that you watch MS NOW's videotape of the session.
It runs slightly less than seven minutes, and it's filled with the miracle of Alaska. You'll quickly note that the candidate knows how to smile, a very good way to win votes. She's also concise and quite sharp.
Regarding the ongoing struggles of President Trump, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) appeared with Erin Burnett on Tuesday night. Burnett described the president's weird behavior over the weekend—his weird Truth Social posts.
At that point, she turned to Rep. Garcia. Here's part of what was said:
BURNETT (9/8/26): Out front now, Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia. He's a top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. And I appreciate your time.
So, you know, as I said, this shouldn't be controversial, to just say that this is not okay, to have the president of the United States in this moment spending his time in this way. Are you hearing anything from your Republican colleagues just privately about their concerns about what Trump is doing, about his state of mind, about his focus?
GARCIA: Yes, I mean, look, I think the Republicans in Congress, I mean, many of them, are very concerned that the president continues to, what they believe, tank their chances this November. He's not focused on anything he said he would. A lot of them are concerned about his mental health.
I think that as a country, we should be, one, outraged. It's bizarre behavior. It's unhinged. I'm concerned about the mental health of the president, who is sending out these messages, what, 100 on a certain day. And they are just bizarre things. It's a bunch of slop. It's a bunch of things that insult our allies, things that are not true, and things that no American president should be doing.
It is an embarrassment to the White House, to our country, the way he's treating Canada and our North American allies. It's disrespectful. And we have to now wonder, is—I mean, is Donald Trump fully there? I mean, that's something that a lot of us are actually wondering.
He's falling asleep during meetings. He's saying bizarre things. And it's concerning that he's the president of the United States.
BURNETT: Look, what he's posting is concerning...
Good grief! Garcia specifically cited concerns about the president's "mental health." He did so right out of the gate, two separate times.
After that, he went colloquial, but he continued asking if the president is "fully there."
Burnett seemed to agree, seeming to say that the president's mental health is "concerning." But as you can see from the CNN transcript, she then posed a question about possible political "strategy" on Trump's part, and this highly unusual interchange came to an end.
Robert Garcia gave it a try. The moment quickly ended.
The "journalists" know they mustn't go there. Our "journalists" refuse to discuss what seems to be sitting there right before everyone's eyes.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2026
Isn't it phony to think so: They don't know how to report it, he said.
We're speaking of Lawrence O'Donnell. He said it last night at 10:05, one minute into his opening monologue on his nightly program, The Last Word.
We're willing to give him a B for effort, but what he said just isn't true.
You can see a partial tape of the monologue at the web site of The Last Word. Here's the headline at the site, along with the first thing it shows O'Donnell saying:
Lawrence: What are Trump’s deranged social media posts if not evidence of insanity?
The American news media, understandably, has no idea how to cover a possibly insane president of the United States. That's movie stuff, an insane president.
The American news media has no idea how to cover a president who could be slipping into dementia, as Donald Trump's father did. That headline basically speaks for itself. Below it, you see the way O'Donnell's monologue began.
That headline basically speaks for itself. Below it, you see the way the (partial) videotape of the monologue begins.
What O'Donnell says there is of course absurdly inaccurate. The American news media, including all the other anchors on MS NOW, do in fact know the basic way to cover any topic.
How do you cover any topic? This is what you do:
You interview carefully selected specialists in the given field. In this case, that would mean interviewing carefully selected medical specialists concerning the (fairly obvious) possibility that President Trump 1) is mentally ill in some serious way, or 2) is experiencing some serious degree of cognitive decline.
Perhaps at the direction of MS NOW executives, Lawrence wasn't being truthful as he started last night. In fact, everyone in the media knows how to cover those possibilities, but they've all agreed that they won't ever do it. That includes Wallace and Melber and Hayes and Psaki, the anchors whose programs preceded O'Donnell's on MS NOW last night.
We've shown you where the videotape at the Last Word web site starts. By clicking here, you can see the way the fuller monologue actually started.
The monologue about this topic actually started like this:
O'DONNELL (9/8/26): The corruption and lawbreaking in the Trump regime is on a scale far beyond what we have ever seen before in American history.
But 50 or 100 or two 200 years from now, the story that future historians will no doubt be fascinated by and drawn to more than any other Trump regime story...will probably be what appears to those historians to be the insanity of Donald Trump.
The American news media, understandably, has no idea how to cover a possibly insane president of the United States. That's movie stuff, an insane president.
The American news media has no idea how to cover a president who could be slipping into dementia, as Donald Trump's father did.
That's the fuller way he began. You'll note the convoluted language, in which he simply speculates about what someone else will probably say way off in the future.
You'll also note that, in Lawrence's assessment, even our historians will be taking a dive on this topic for at least the next fifty years. For the record, that's the way today's historians have behaved with respect to many basic parts of the political and journalistic history of the past forty years.
Again, you can watch the entire monologue about the possible insanity simply by clicking here, then by continuing to click. But make no mistake about the corruption:
Something resembling a type of corruption is also found all through "the American news media"—all through the orgs which won't report or discuss the astonishing possibility which is staring us all in the face.
"Understandably," their bosses don't want their news orgs to get sued. The anchors and the reporters enjoy their status and their frequently rather large salaries.
The New York Times isn't reporting the presidential meltdown O'Donnell went on to describe. Quite weirdly, no one at Mediaite has posted the remarkable but fairly obvious assessments Lawrence went on to make.
Everyone is running from this. Lawrence continues to try.
Also this: Lawrence mentioned "Natalie Harp" six times. We're sorry, but she isn't the story here.
To his credit, O'Donnell is trying harder than all the rest with respect to this fairly obvious state of affairs.
The others have agreed to take a dive. That includes the historians.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2026
Reliable information: We've been reliably told that Labor Day weekend is officially over. On the other hand, we'll be off campus until midday—on a mission of national import. though then again possibly not
It seems to us that a certain situation out in the world is perhaps becoming even more clear—so clear that our tribunes may even start to take notice. (Click here, scan in particular for statement by Mary Trump.) But we may not be posting again today, and posting this week may be light.
We'll advise you to click as suggested above. You'll see Mary Trump use a technical term; "decompensating." If we post tomorrow, we'll attempt to explain what that word means in the current context.
As always, the fact that she said what she said doesn't prove that it's right.
Trump to Break Ground on Arch Before Getting ApprovalPresident Trump is breaking ground on his 250-foot-tall triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, even before a federal review panel has approved the project.Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, on Thursday announced plans for the excavation work.“After a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch” he wrote in a social media post...The rush to push ahead with work on the arch follows a familiar pattern for Mr. Trump, who has frequently embarked on large-scale changes to historic properties in Washington without approvals from Congress or anyone else.
Trump officials say work will start on triumphal arch within two weeks[...]The administration plans to build the arch in Memorial Circle, a traffic roundabout tucked inside Washington’s boundaries near Arlington National Cemetery. Trump has said that the arch will honor the nation’s 250th anniversary, vowing that it will be the largest triumphal arch in the world — about 86 feet taller than France’s famed Arc de Triomphe.Historical preservationists, Democratic lawmakers and some Washington residents have opposed the project, calling it an oversize and inappropriate structure that will disrupt the historically solemn corridor between the military cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.
Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1865[...]Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh."If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
If we in the North are forced to pay the ultimate price in life and treasure, no one can say that God's judgments aren't righteous and true forever.
We did this awful thing too. ("We are not enemies, but friends.")
Why Do We Keep Imagining a New Civil War?[...]For at least the last decade, a florid, aggressive contempt has been a constant in our politics. Donald Trump, after all, doesn’t just shower liberal cities and states with insults (and, in a demented A.I. video he posted, with excrement). His presidency has been devoted to punishing the places that didn’t vote for him, including by withholding health care and disaster funding. One of the things his voters have long loved about him is the humiliation and despair he causes their fellow citizens.Many of those Trump partisans are still smarting over Hillary Clinton calling some of them “deplorables.” For decades they’ve been seething at the disrespect they feel emanating from America’s cultural capitals. It seems obvious to me that blue America is more abused than abuser, but that doesn’t really matter; the impossibility of coming to any agreement about the commensurability of our grievances just underlines the toxicity of the relationship.
Little Boxes[...]And the people in the housesAll went to the university...And they're all made out of ticky-tackyAnd they all look just the same.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2026
Mental illness, conjured as insult: There he went again.
For starters, there's no reason to assume that anything the president said was actually accurate—true. There's no reason to assume that the president actually has a friend who is "very obese" but is also "a brilliant guy"—is also "smart, vicious, wild."
Having offered that disclaimer, here was the president, at the White House, going there once again. He was telling his story about the friend who was forced to pay too much for Ozempic.
Blue America has pushed back today. We join the president's rambling presentation in progress:
PRESIDENT TRUMP (9/2/26): ...As an example, the United Kingdom. We had a very, very serious problem.
United Kingdom would pay ten cents for a pill. And we pay two dollars for the same pill—or for the fat drug, as I say.
You know, a friend of mine—very, very heavy. He's a very obese person. I said, "You're an extremely obese person." But he's a brilliant guy. He's a Wall Street guy. He's a brutal, brutal man, but—smart as hell, but he's got a serious weight problem.
And he called me up, and he's from New York—he's one of the top guys on Wall Street. He's begging me—because I've told the story a couple of times—not to mention his name because I'll destroy his reputation. But he's tough as hell and he's smart, vicious, wild. These are the people you have to deal with when you're president.
He used to call me Donny, now he calls me president. He'd say, "Donny." Now he calls me "President." I'm shocked he does that, actually. That shows respect.
But he said, "You know, Mr. President, I was in London, and I paid $86 for Ozempic. And in New York, I pay $1,300 for the same thing."
That's a lot! That's a big difference. And I had it checked out—comes from the same factory, it comes from the same place, and then they have some other fat drugs.
I said, "Are you taking this stuff?"
"Yeah."
I said, "It's not working. You look like shit."
I said it's not working. But he got me going...
To watch this ramble in full, click here for the C-Span videotape. Move ahead to the 28-minute mark. We remind you that mental illness is a human tragedy, as is the loss of cognition.
The president rambled on from there, discussing the cost of various drugs here and in other lands. At Raw Story but also at HuffPost, reports criticized the president for his unusual remarks about his extremely obese, vicious friend.
Again, we know of no reason to assume that any such person exists. But from within the world of Blue American commentary, Aaron Rupar offered this reaction to Acyn's shortened, paraphrased text:
I continue to think the fact the president is a lunatic is the biggest story in politics. Your mileage may vary.
In principle, we agree with what Rupar said. We think the fact that the president may be suffering "obvious cognitive decline," layered atop "decades of untreated psychiatric disorders," is the biggest unreported, undiscussed story in the full range of world affairs.
That said, consider the way Rupar chose to express his assessment. Consider his turn to the use of an insult. Headline included, Raw Story started like this:
'Lunatic': Trump's 'obese friend' rant at White House backfires instantly
President Donald Trump detoured into a bizarre rant about an obese "friend" while speaking at a dinner event he was holding at the Rose Garden on Wednesday.
"A friend of mine is a very obese person," said Trump. "I said, you're an extremely obese person. He's begging me not to mention his name because I'll destroy his reputation. He had some fat drugs. I said: it's not working—you look like (expletive)."
The comment triggered both mockery from commenters on social media, and a bit of speculation on who the friend in question was.
"Checking in on Trump's midterm messaging," said the official account for the liberal platform Meidas Touch.
"I continue to think the fact the president is a lunatic is the biggest story in politics. Your mileage may vary," wrote reporter Aaron Rupar.
"Lunatic," Rupar said. Raw Story went full headline.
For ourselves, we would assume that the president's rambling presentation may fit within the category of "likely cognitive decline." Rupar selected a word associated with mental illness and threw it out as an insult.
At this site, we've long suggested that a significant "mental illness" is an actual illness. We've long suggested that this would be a more intelligent way to discuss such phenomena.
Given our current state of cultural development, the concept still doesn't play that way in our own Blue American world. We think we Blues would get better results if we played it in accord with the shape of medical science.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2026
Wehner sidesteps Trump: Is it possible that the sitting president, in an act of rage, could go ahead and destroy the world?
Almost everything's possible! As concisely reported by Kathryn Wilkens, here's what one medical specialist has now said:
Nobel Prize-Winning Psychiatrist Warns He’s Seeing Signs That Trump Could Drop a Nuke ‘In a Fit of Pique or Rage’
Dr. Henry Abraham, a psychiatrist who shared in the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, warned Wednesday that he is seeing signs President Donald Trump could use a nuclear weapon “in a fit of pique or rage or confusion.”
Abraham received the honor as a member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He was also among 36 physicians who signed an April letter entered into the congressional record calling for Trump’s removal from office, claiming he is mentally unfit to serve.
His comments came on a Wednesday edition of The Dean Obeidallah Show. When asked by host Dean Obeidallah about his April letter and if “anything’s changed,” Abraham responded, “Yeah. If anything, it’s worse.”
As you can see in the videotape included by Wilkens, Dr. Abraham went on to say this:
"We have a system which enfolds the president's health in a shroud of secrecy, which is, under ordinary circumstances, might be indicated. But when a person has sole access to the nuclear armamentaria, it’s crazy, and this is what we’re doing. I think, you know, we’re in even more danger of Donald Trump using a nuclear weapon in a fit of pique or rage or confusion or poor impulse control than ever before. So yes, he’s more dangerous."
Dr. Abraham is 84. As you can see in the videotape, he remains highly articulate. Let's try to be clear ourselves:
Dr. Abraham says we have "a system which enfolds the president's health in a shroud of secrecy." In part, that might be said to include the journalistic agreement, honored by every major news org, according to which concerns about a sitting president's mental health must never be reported and must never be discussed.
"Under ordinary circumstances," Dr. Abraham says, such agreements "might be indicated." But in our current circumstance, a system which maintains secrecy and silence has become "crazy," he says.
The traditional practice is no longer indicated, he says. This has been our way of making that point about the press corps' agreement to maintain silence:
It was always a good journalistic rule—until the time came when it wasn't.
At present, we're whistling past the graveyard. The sitting president's behavior seems to be increasingly strange.
Dr. Abraham is only one medical specialist. He's expressing one person's assessment—his own.
That said, how likely is it that the current sitting president could use a nuclear weapon “in a fit of pique or rage or confusion?"
How likely is it? We don't have the slightest idea. But the "confusion" to which Dr. Abraham refers seems increasingly present, a possible product of what the president's niece has called an "obvious cognitive decline."
Meanwhile, the "rage" to which Dr. Abraham refers—the rage of Trump and Cheung and the rest—has been remarkably constant.
Writing in the Atlantic, former Republican speechwriter Peter Wehner called it "The Wrath of MAGA." He was describing the rage directed at Jon Ossoff (and at a CNN correspondent) in the wake of an insinuation about Trump and the lady with whom he allegedly wants to travel around, inside "their palace."
(To our ear, the insinuation seemed fairly obvious. Other assessments have differed.)
Remarkable acts of tribal rage were visited on the senator, but also on the CNN correspondent. But when Wehner tried to explain the source of the rage, he explained the rage of the president's supporters, not that of the president himself:
The Wrath of MAGA
[...]
So why did MAGA world respond as it did? One explanation is psychological. In 2016, Trump found a constituency already primed for grievance, and taught it to want more. His supporters have kept themselves in a state of frenzy ever since. They need to be perpetually outraged, aggrieved, and insulted. MAGA world has become addicted to the feeling. It delivers a jolt of adrenaline, it provides a feeling of social belonging, and it gives people a sharpened sense of purpose. They see themselves as warriors in a drama of their own construction. They view their opponents—Democrats, progressives, critics of Trump—as personifications of evil. Inflicting pain on their enemies feels good, really good, and it feels just.
Trump is aware of all of this. It’s why, during the 2024 campaign, he spoke directly to his supporters, saying, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”
The attacks on Ossoff are also a response to Trump’s collapsing support and the fracturing MAGA movement. Trump’s supporters need to find a common enemy. The Ossoff comments have given them a chance to lash out, to go on the offensive, and to shake feelings of powerlessness and impending doom. At a time when defending Trump is nearly impossible, attacking his opponents becomes imperative.
Strange! Having recorded the rage which was expressed by Trump himself and by his lieutenants, Wehner went on to offer an explanation for the rage of Trump's "constituency"—for the supposed rage of the president's "supporters."
Having reported the rage of Group A, Wehner went on to explain the alleged rage of Group B.
Without demonstrating that some such rage exists, Wehner went on to say that the explanation for that rage is "psychological."
All in all, that was bungled work—a bit of bungled work from a very good, decent person. Wehner seemed to slip-slide away from Group A. Did the Atlantic have no editor who could spot this logical problem?
We close today with two basic points:
Quite probably, the rage which frequently erupts from the president himself does have a "psychological" origin. In that passage, Wehner became the latest major journalist to sidestep this obvious possibility.
Beyond that, we'll tell you this:
Even now, President Trump has tens of millions of supporters. On a psychological basis, some of them "need to be perpetually outraged, aggrieved, and insulted." On the other hand, a whole lot of them surely don't.
In that passage, it seems to us that Wehner has done what we Blues frequently do. He has lumped all "the others" together, describing them in a way which sounds a bit insulting.
Sadly, the president's supporters have plenty of legitimate objections to the world we Blues inhabit and create. Tomorrow, we'll take a journey down a few of those lanes.
We Blues can be the "abusers" too! We'll even mention sacred Thoreau, composing his most famous text on the shore of Concord's celebrated Ivanka Melania Pond.
Tomorrow: "More abused than abuser?"
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2026
...when we saw Psaki speak with Pat Ryan: The late John Frankenheimer began his career with several remarkable movies. We'll let the leading authority explain:
John Frankenheimer
John Michael Frankenheimer (February 1930 – July 2002) was an American film and television director, known both for his social dramas and his action/suspense pictures. Among his best-known theatrical film credits are Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate (both 1962) [and] Seven Days in May, The Train (both 1964).
And so on from there. We recall being moved by Birdman of Alcatraz down at The Palm, when it came out, back when we were 14. That said, wow:
He had made the complex and brooding Manchurian Candidate when he was barely thirty. And then, just two years later, he made the highly convincing Seven Days in May.
We flashed on that last film just last evening. Once again, the authority explains:
Seven Days in May
Seven Days in May is a 1964 American political thriller film, directed by John Frankenheimer and written by Rod Serling, who adapted Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II's 1962 novel. It is about a military–political cabal's planned takeover of the U.S. government after the president negotiates a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. The film stars Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, and Ava Gardner.
Written by Rod Serling! It even starred Ava Gardner, who had plainly been cast in the Ava Gardner role.
The authority calls it a "political thriller;" you can spot its topic yourself. We'd call it remarkably convincing, and we'd call it a very strong warning for us at this very dangerous time.
But yes! Seven Days in May convincingly shows Burt Lancaster in the role of a charismatic, angry Air Force general who is planning a coup d'etat with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Luckily for the fate of the world, Kirk Douglas was in the film too.
The well-made film remains quite convincing. We thought of this very good movie just last evening as we watched The Briefing with Jen Psaki.
Late in her hour, Psaki interviewed Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Ryan served as a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army from 2004 to 2009. Before his election to Congress in 2022, he served as county executive in New York's Ulster County.
Ryan is quite solid. At this time, he's concerned about what could be on the horizon:
PSAKI (9/1/26): I could answer this myself, but I'm more interested in your thought. I mean, we're six months into this war. It seems like the only person who hasn't been fired is Pete Hegseth. Why do you think that is?
RYAN: This is the question that actually, legit, keeps me up at night, which is why do you keep around a totally incompetent, clueless clown, frankly? And like, there aren't many good reasons to do that. There are some really scary reasons that allude to your question about troops being deployed under the Insurrection Act or, God forbid, around elections.
So that's what really scares me. Not only are we losing this war, which pains me to say that, but we have to be honest that we are. But he's keeping around this guy, I think, for really dangerous, un-American contingencies. And so, we have to just up the pressure now.
Ryan is nobody's dope. Is that why Hegseth remains where he is? "God forbid," for the possibility of having troops deployed in connection with some unnamed year's elections?
Ryan is nobody's dope. We thought of a very convincing "political thriller" as we watched his full session with Psaki.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2026
But first, the rage of Vance: We applaud the news judgment on display in this morning's New York Times.
The report in question appears online, but also in print editions. Yesterday afternoon, we briefly cited this inexcusable, dangerous incident:
Vance Calls El-Sayed ‘Evil’ in No-Holds-Barred Michigan Speech
Vice President JD Vance called Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee and an outspoken critic of Israel, “very, very evil” at a campaign rally near Detroit on Monday and accused him of heightening racial and religious divisions.
“I realize that there’s something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise in the United States of America today,” Mr. Vance said at the event at a warehouse in Sterling Heights hosted by MAGA Inc., President Trump’s super PAC.
Mr. Vance was in Michigan campaigning for former Representative Mike Rogers, Dr. El-Sayed’s Republican opponent in one of the nation’s most hotly contested Senate races this fall. The vice president’s remarks appeared aimed at stoking tensions between Dr. El-Sayed and Michigan’s Jewish community, which the Democrat has been attempting to allay since winning his party’s bitter primary against a pro-Israel opponent in early August.
As you can see, that New York Times headline is actually wrong. Vance didn't call El-Sayed "evil." He went with very, very evil!
(For the Times report, click here.)
“Very, very evil!” With that, you see the (modulated) rage of Vance, utilized in service to some very, very bad judgment.
Dear friends, listen up:
Especially at a time like this, "evil" is a dangerous word when stapled onto a person. Even on Fox News Channel shows, it's very rare to hear that word directly attached to a person.
Why would Vance behave this way? For one possible answer, consider the abusive upbringing Vance describes in his best-selling book from 2016, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.
The "family in crisis" in that book is the family within which Vance was raised. The family he was forced to navigate as a child was deeply, profoundly disordered.
He described his life as a child, and then as a teen, within a family so deeply disordered that the moral exemplar of the family—Vance's maternal grandmother—is best remembered for deliberately setting her husband on fire, with lighter fluid deliberately added, while he tried to sleep off an episode of (once again) having drunk too much.
This is the world in which Vance was forced to grow up! Years back, we said we found it hard to believe that a child subjected to the astounding disorder described in that book could avoid being badly affected.
"And so it did happen like it could have been foreseen...?" The cheerful young man who discussed that book in 2016 turned into the grasping office-seeker in 2024 who spread a story he knew to be false about Haitians eating the dogs and cats of unsuspecting Springfield, Ohio.
It was an astonishing break with the simplest forms of decency. And yesterday, there he stood, in Michigan, displaying extremely bad judgment.
Could yesterday's description of El-Sayed be called the rage of Vance? He tends to speak in modulated tones. You can teach it flat or round.
That said, it's much as Michelle Goldberg recently described:
Expressions of "a florid, aggressive contempt" are now "a constant in our politics." We agree with Goldberg on this additional point:
The bulk of this florid, destructive rage currently comes from the right.
Currently comes from the right! It's the rage of Trump and the rage of Cheung and the rage of those employed beneath them. Or as Peter Wehner describes it in the Atlantic, it's the critter his headline calls "The Wrath of MAGA."
Strikingly, when Jon Ossoff floated an insinuation, that rage (that "wrath") exploded:
The Wrath of MAGA
[...]
The White House tore into Ossoff...
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Ossoff is “a miserable person who hates this country.” He also referred to Ossoff as “Jon Jerkoff” and as “the biggest cuck loser in politics.”
The White House spokesperson Davis Ingle referred to him as a “cringeworthy feminine theater kid” and a “lightweight loser.”
When the CNN reporter Kristen Holmes asked about Ossoff’s comments, the White House Official Rapid Response X account responded by saying, “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive.”
The reference to Holmes' two young children was especially astonishing. That astounding assault from an anonymous White House team moved well beyond previous boundaries.
As we noted yesterday, Wehner omitted the fury which Trump himself directed at Kristen Holmes. But "the Rage Machine was in full operation," Wehner correctly said.
(For the record: Peter Wehner, age 61, was a speechwriter for the three previous Republican presidents. He isn't a liberal squish.)
As is frequently the norm within the Red Rage, sexual insult and attempts at gender insult spewed from the troops in the White House. Ossoff was denounced as "a cuck." His name was changed to "Jerkoff." Inevitably, he was mocked as a feminine kid.
(On Fox, the rage of Gutfeld routinely traffics in sexual / gender insult. It sometimes seems to be the only language he and his panelists know.)
Eventually, Wehner tried to explain where this "Wrath of MAGA" comes from. We'd say he took a halting first step. Here's how his effort began:
WEHNER: So why did MAGA world respond as it did? One explanation is psychological. In 2016, Trump found a constituency already primed for grievance, and taught it to want more. His supporters have kept themselves in a state of frenzy ever since. They need to be perpetually outraged, aggrieved, and insulted. MAGA world has become addicted to the feeling. It delivers a jolt of adrenaline, it provides a feeling of social belonging, and it gives people a sharpened sense of purpose. They see themselves as warriors in a drama of their own construction. They view their opponents—Democrats, progressives, critics of Trump—as personifications of evil. Inflicting pain on their enemies feels good, really good, and it feels just.
Trump is aware of all of this. It’s why, during the 2024 campaign, he spoke directly to his supporters, saying, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”
What explains the current profusion of red rage / fury / wrath? In that passage, Wehner starts to try to explain.
He takes a halting first step. Presumably, the president's rage might spring from one source, the rage of (some of) his supporters from another.
Not all of the president's supporters are locked in a state of red rage. Obviously, not all his supporters view Democrats as "personifications of evil."
But Wehner, the former Republican speechwriter, says that Trump "found a constituency already primed for grievance" back when he first went to the White House.
What might explain that incipient rage? What might explain the president's rage?
What explains "the wrath of MAGA?" In the course of the next two days, we'll flirt with some explanations.
Tomorrow: Sources of (deeply destructive) rage
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2026
...for being compared to a cow: Last night, during Segment 3, Greg Gutfeld once again recited the dumbest, phoniest rationalization in all of human history.
Once again, he was explaining why it didn't matter! Why it didn't matter in the good old days when he was pleasuring himself, night after night, by comparing the women of The Five to elephants, cattle, horses and whales, and occasionally just to "livestock."
He used to do it pretty much every night. Now it's very rare. We're guessing that his corporate owner, for whatever reason, called this little nut into her office and told him he had to stop.
(The cattle comparisons are now. Women still get insulted for allegedly being ugly, or for being displeasing in various ways to this freakish, demented sex god.)
Why was it OK for this corporate tool to express his loathing of women in that pitiful, broken-souled manner? In the midst of one of the dumbest segments ever aired on TV, the termagant offered this theoretic, as he's done several times in the past:
GUTFELD (8/31/26): Not to make this a left-right thing, but I will.
Like, the left calls us horrible names that get us killed—like "Nazi," or they add "phobe" to everything. They put targets on our backs. But they call us "mean" if we will, like, trash talk.
But trash talking doesn't get anyone hurt. Joy Behar isn't going to get killed because I called her fat.
We semi-agree with one part of that.
We don't see a lot of people getting called "Nazis" in our daily rounds. But like many others in Blue America, we think that we Blues have tended to engage in too much name-calling of the type Gutfeld is constantly crying about.
We think it's bad politics for the left, and we think such characterizations routinely tend to be not especially bright. Some such characterizations do strike us as dangerous. That includes the way JD Vance just called a Senate candidate "very evil," and it includes the very dangerous way Gutfeld and his irresponsible guests sometimes enjoy characterizing Dr. Fauci.
Let's be clear about one additional point. People don't typically call this little creep "mean." They much more typically call him "misogynist." It's hard to see why they wouldn't.
Meanwhile, sad! In the course of that foolishness, he pretends that he's simply been calling Joy Behar "fat." That's his way of refusing to describe the actual way he has gone about the daily rounds of insulting Behar and her colleagues.
(Meanwhile, Behar is 83. Does this sick little freak ever stop?)
In closing, yes—he actually said it! This is what he said:
Joy Behar isn't going to get killed because I called her fat.
That's almost surely correct! Almost surely, no one is going to murder someone because someone else called that person fat.
Astoundingly, that has been this little creep's self-justification in recent years. If they don't get killed, it's OK!
For reasons everyone except his bonehead guests understands, his behavior isn't OK. And of course, the ridiculous way he tries to excuse himself makes it clear that he knows that, just like everyone else.
Two final name drops:
Kat Timpf had nothing to say about this bullshit last night. Then again, she never does.
Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott puts this swill on the air. The corporation is making money off this atavistic plea to viewers who don't know better yet.
Sadly, teen-age boys watch this show. So do teenage girls. Young people deserve much better from creepy boys like Gutfeld.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2026
Red rage in a dangerous time: In Wallace Stevens' famous poem, his protagonist "dreams a little, and feels the dark encroachment of that old catastrophe."
Within a totally different context, Michelle Goldberg seems to be imagining the possibility of another American civil war. Because her basic portrait is so well stated, we'll include it here again:
Why Do We Keep Imagining a New Civil War?
[...]
For at least the last decade, a florid, aggressive contempt has been a constant in our politics. Donald Trump, after all, doesn’t just shower liberal cities and states with insults (and, in a demented A.I. video he posted, with excrement). His presidency has been devoted to punishing the places that didn’t vote for him, including by withholding health care and disaster funding. One of the things his voters have long loved about him is the humiliation and despair he causes their fellow citizens.
Many of those Trump partisans are still smarting over Hillary Clinton calling some of them “deplorables.” For decades they’ve been seething at the disrespect they feel emanating from America’s cultural capitals. It seems obvious to me that blue America is more abused than abuser, but that doesn’t really matter; the impossibility of coming to any agreement about the commensurability of our grievances just underlines the toxicity of the relationship.
"The impossibility of coming to any agreement about the commensurability of our grievances just underlines the toxicity of the relationship?"
As an extremely minor criticism, we'd have to say it's hard to fit that language on a bumper sticker. But having said that, it's true:
An aggressive contempt is indeed a constant in today's politics. And we agree that, in this current (ongoing) decade of Trump, Red America has been more the abuser.
We also agree on this point:
When it comes to our two Americas (Red and Blue), the current "toxicity of the relationship" has been driven along, during this era, by the endless stream of "insults" from one major source—by the stream of insults which emanate from the rage of President Trump.
What is the source of the president's rage? We'll guess that that is, in large part, a question for medical specialists. Both his brothers prepped at St,]. Paul. By the end of seventh grade, his behavior was so aggressive, his niece (and others) have reported, that he was shipped off to "reform school."
Was a human tragedy already in place? Of one thing you can be sure—your journalists won't report these unfortunate facts, and they won't speak to medical specialists about what these early manifestations might have meant.
In fairness, the rage of Trump hardly sets him apart within the current world of Red America. As the week proceeds, we'll puzzle about the possible source of so much undisciplined, unrestrained fury.
That said, the rage of Trump has taken us to a place where this country has rarely gone in the past.
As her column proceeds, Goldberg discusses a pair of new novels whose authors seem to be imagining the possibility of a new civil war. It's the fury and rage of Trump which make that state of affairs almost imaginable.
We recently saw that fury acted out in the rages of Trump and Cheung.
On Sunday, August 16, Jon Ossoff made a surprising, somewhat florid remark in which he named one of the president's closest aides. In our view, the general insinuation was fairly obvious. Large sections of Blue America have disagreed with that view.
European literature began with the rage of Achilles—a rage concerning male ownership of kidnapped young women. In the Atlantic, long-time Republican Peter Wehner described the rage of Trump, and of those around him, in reaction to Ossoff's remark, original dual headline included:
The Wrath of MAGA
Those three words—travel with Natalie—sent MAGA world into paroxysms of rage that have yet to subside.
[...]
Natalie [was] a reference to Natalie Harp, the president’s 35-year-old special assistant...
What Trump’s defenders heard in Ossoff’s line was innuendo. The White House tore into Ossoff...
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Ossoff is “a miserable person who hates this country.” He also referred to Ossoff as “Jon Jerkoff” and as “the biggest cuck loser in politics.”
The White House spokesperson Davis Ingle referred to him as a “cringeworthy feminine theater kid” and a “lightweight loser.”
When the CNN reporter Kristen Holmes asked about Ossoff’s comments, the White House Official Rapid Response X account responded by saying, “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive.”
For his part, the president responded to Holmes' question referred to Ossoff as a “Pee-wee Herman look-alike.” The MAGA ecosystem—podcast hosts, radio-talk-show hosts, political commentators, and others—followed suit. The Rage Machine was in full operation.
So it went—so it partially went—when "the [White House] Rage Machine" went into full operation.
Wehner didn't include what eventually happened when the rage of Trump was directed at the CNN correspondent.
She had asked the world's most obvious question. This is the question she asked:
HOLMES (8/17/26): Yesterday, Jon Ossoff said he'd rather travel with your aide, Natalie Harp, and build the ballroom than do your job as president.
What is your response to Jon Ossoff?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: You mean Pee-Wee Herman? Pee-Wee Herman lookalike? No, I would much rather do other things.
What is your response to Jon Ossoff! Holmes had asked the world's most obvious question. Assuming emotional and intellectual competence, the president could have responded in any way he chose.
At that point, he chose to engage in some silly name-calling. Roughly ten minutes later, as Holmes tried to ask a different question, his rage unloaded as shown:
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet. You’re very disrespectful...
Quiet! Who are you with?
HOLMES: I'm with CNN.
TRUMP: Fake news. You’re fake news. You’re a loud, boisterous person. You’re fake news.
Be quiet. Be quiet. You’re a fake reporter, and you report fake news.
In truth, Holmes is neither loud nor boisterous. As noted, she'd started by asking the world's most obvious question.
This was a fairly obvious case of the pot calling the kettle fake. Needless to say, the rage quickly spread. Just to establish a record, here is the initial tweet from the White House entity called "Rapid Response 47:"
RAPID RESPONSE 47 (8/17/26): @KristenhCNN is a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.
@POTUS hosts a hero lifeguard in the Oval Office and she uses it as an opportunity to take a cheap shot about one of President Trump's staffers.
These scumbags are the lowest of the low.
Holmes was now a "scumbag." Idiotic and pitiful as that was, the language soon became even more deranged—more warlike. As noted by Wehner, the rage directed at Holmes now produced this second assault:
RAPID RESPONSE 47: Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive.
Astoundingly, the entities in thrall to this rage had brought the journalist's young children in. This level of rage has rarely emerged from the top of American politics.
For the record, you'll note the ugly, demented sexual content of the instant rage of Cheung:
Cheung quickly turned Senator Ossoff's name into the pitiful "Jerkoff." In the deranged manner of these disordered men, he then called Ossoff a "cuck."
The disordered Davis Ingle followed. According to Ingle, Ossoff was a "feminine theater kid.”
Sexuality has always been hard, dating back to the gruesome war against Troy. That said, no modern nation can expect to survive the current astounding level of unregulated, braindead tribal rage coming from the types of people who serve with the soul-drained and furious Cheung.
Where has this Red rage come from? Eventually, Wehner took a shot at explaining.
Tomorrow: What Wehner said
