RAGE: Woke One was crazy, AOC has now said!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2026

Our stay in the Little Boxes: We start today, as we often do, with the latest expressions of the madness—rather, of the dueling madnesses—which now threaten the nation and the world. (We're using a colloquial term.)   

Construction first, permission later! As the New York Times reports, work on the Arch will soon begin:  

Trump to Break Ground on Arch Before Getting Approval  

President 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. 

They'll seek permission later! The news report in the Washington Post includes this somewhat subjective point:

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.

Until this year, we didn't know that the space between those two national sites is viewed as an "historically solemn corridor." That said, building will proceed as the clinically nutty sitting president seeks to transform the capital as a tribute to his own greatness.  

The announcement that construction will proceed calls attention to our nation's dueling madnesses:   

First, to the madness of the sitting president, a "madness" which may quite likely be clinical. Also, to the (purely colloquial) madness of a Blue American press corps which refuses to discuss the possibility that something is (clinically) wrong with world's most powerful person.   

At any rate, we start today with the Lincoln Memorial for a particular reason. 

We first went there in the mid- to late-1970s with a group of fifth grade kids from the Baltimore City Schools. We ourselves were something like 27 at the time. ("Just a kid like you.")

It became a seminal day in our life, such as that life has been. It became a seminal day when we read the text of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, which is engraved on one of the memorial's inner walls.  

We recall being stunned by what we read. Included was the text shown below, including one of the most astounding assessments ever produced in English. 

In this passage, Lincoln is speaking about the Civil War—about who was responsible for it, about the price which was being paid for the practice which was its cause. Without wasting much time, the rail-splitter told the world this:

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."   

 Yikes! Lincoln was supposing that God was giving the war to both North and South "as the woe due to those by whom the offense" which caused the war had come!

That was part of what Lincoln had said! Surrounded by (very good) Baltimore kids, we recall our instant reaction. It involved the thought that Abraham Lincoln hadn't been human—that no actual human being had ever expressed such a thought.

We did this too, the rail-splitter said. Knowing the war was about to end, he even added this:   

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.

That was the astounding extent to which he was willing to say, to those on his side:

We did this awful thing too. ("We are not enemies, but friends.")

We still find it hard to believe that a human being ever delivered such an address. We offer this to bridge a gap for us over here in Blue America, in our current situation. 

We refer back to the overview offered by Michelle Goldberg, who we regard as unusually lucid. Dreaming of another civil war, she said that we in Blue America are more abused than abuser at the present time: 

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.     

We agree! In these ongoing days of rage—in the age defined by "The Rage of Trump," supplanting the earlier Rage of Achilles—we agree that Blue America is, on balance, "more abused than abuser."   

Over a broader sweep of time, we'd say that assessment's less obvious. We'd start with the astounding insult delivered in the well-loved song of the liberal 1960s, "Little Boxes."

We liberals loved that song! This was Malvina Reynolds (and Pete Seeger) describing the lesser beings found inside those comically small abodes:

Little Boxes

[...]

And the people in the houses

All went to the university...

And they're all made out of ticky-tacky

And they all look just the same.  

The people "were all made out of ticky-tacky?" Yes, that's what our troubadours sang as we insulted our tribal inferiors.

(To hear Pete Seeger sing it that way, you can just click here. To see him sing it that way in Sweden, you can just click this. Everybody makes mistakes, and that even includes Pete Seeger.)

The little boxes which inspired the song filled the hillsides of Daly City, just south of San Francisco along the Pacific coast. They were, in fact, very small, and they were set quite close together.

The houses did make a remarkable sight. Also, the houses did all look the same.

Uh-oh! Here's the problem:

At the time the song was written, our Aunt Connie lived in one of the Little Boxes with our younger cousin Diane. (Today, they would perhaps be dismissed as Karens.) 

When our family moved from Massachusetts to California in the summer of 1960, the three of us stayed with them in their "little box" until our mother, concluding a whirlwind search, bought a house in San Mateo. 

(For the record, the little boxes were quite likely lower middle-class housing. Their residents hadn't "all gone to the university," as the song rather oddly claimed.)

Unfortunate insults, Blue to Red, are common within our nation's modern history. We Blues aren't always able to see the way our comments sound to the many deplorables who aren't part of our own tribe—the way our sneering may persuade some people to vote the other way. 

Beyond that, our imperfections as a tribe frequently take other forms. At present, the foolishness of various parts of the DSA platform are keeping MAGA hopes alive for November's elections. As they do, they remind us that peculiar assessments can emerge from well-intentioned human beings in every conceivable tribe. No one has perfect insight.

In various ways—President Biden's still unexplained border policy?—we Blues helped send the current president to his current term in the White House. As with every human tribe, this fact can be hard for us in our own tribe to see.  

"Woke One was crazy," AOC has now said. In the future, should we possibly think about speaking up in real time?

THURSDAY: "Lunatic," the headline says!

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.

RAGE: What explains the rage of the right?

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: We thought of a very convincing film...

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.

RAGE: Wehner starts to explain red rage!

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