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