MONDAY: The crazy culture of crazy misstatement!

MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2026

This is the culture we've chosen: In a colloquy for the New York Times, David French makes an accurate statement about certain kinds of legal liability:

‘Kristi Noem Needs to Go.’ Three Columnists on ICE in Minneapolis.

[...]

David French: We are witnessing the total breakdown of any meaningful system of accountability for federal officials. The combination of President Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons, his ongoing campaign of pardoning friends and allies, his politicized prosecutions and now his administration’s assurances that federal officers have immunity are creating a new legal reality in the United States. The national government is becoming functionally lawless, and the legal system is struggling to contain his corruption.

That assessment may be basically accurate. On the other hand, the sheer lunacy of the administration's reaction to the latest fatal shooting seems to have taken us to a societal breaking point.

Over the weekend, the sheer lunacy of instant statements by Noem and Bovino and Miller and Bessent seems to have been so undeniable that even a highly permissive society is no longer inclined to deny the obvious. 

At present, it looks like Noem is the figure who may be shown the door. But the culture of absurd statement was widespread within the administration this weekend, and it was so transparently ugly and inane that denial and avoidance have suddenly disappeared.

The culture of lunatic MAGA misstatement has suddenly been met with widespread disfavor. Let us say this about that:

The culture of lunatic TrumpWorld misstatement got its start with four years of birtherism performed by then-Citizen Trump on the Fox News Channel. That said, what's the most sacred crazy statement of them all? 

Everybody knows what it is! The president's defining lunacy goes exactly like this:

The 2020 presidential election was stolen. It was rigged!

He has said it and said it and said it and said it. Even more than five years later, he continues to say it with numbing regularity. 

He has never tried to provide a serious attempt at evidence in support of this poisonous claim. Also, you've never seen an American reporter ask him why he keeps saying this—and you've never seen a major news org announce, through its editorial policy or through the conduct of its news division, that this is a form of lunacy which simply cannot be tolerated for one freaking minute more.

No reporter has ever asked him in person. No news org has ever posed that obvious question through a written public transmission.

In that and in a hundred other ways, major members of the MAGA elite may have come to feel that the craziest attack on the opposition, or the craziest defense of the MAGA tribe, is likely to be the most productive type of attack or defense. 

The game has been played that way for a very long time. The lunatic statements offered this weekend—assassin in search of a massacre, domestic terrorist—seem to have taken us over some previously unknown line:

The Wall Street Journal has said it doesn't make sense. So has the New York Post!

No one has ever stood up and asked the president why he behaves in the way he does. Also, as we've often noted, no one has dared to ask if some sort of "personality disorder" might start to explain the highly erratic behavior he persistently displays. 

(That said, you don't have to seek the cause of persistent misconduct to say that the persistent misconduct must stop.)

The president's ludicrous misstatements have long been his calling card. That behavior is matched by the mainstream press corps' unwavering cowardice / deference / avoidance. 

The president's behavior is completely unacceptable! No news org has ever said it. Over the weekend, lunatic conduct by Noem and Bovino and Miller and Bessent seems to have, if only temporarily, taken us past some red line.