Trump's daily chaos circus is already back in full force
Yesterday's flood of scandal was a reminder of the past — and a preview of our future.
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Mediate publishing a police report detailing the horrific rape allegation against Pete Hegseth. RFK Jr. apologizing after CNN unearthed comments he made on the radio calling Trump supporters Nazis. Matt Gaetz withdrawing from consideration as attorney general shortly after CNN contacted him for comment about a second allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor.
That was just Thursday morning.
Before the day was out, Trump had landed on a new AG nominee — Pam Bondi, a former impeachment lawyer for Trump best known for nixing an investigation of his business when she was Florida AG, conveniently right after Trump cut her a $25,000 check. That sort of blatant corruption would be a big deal in normal times, but normal times these ain’t.
Yesterday was a jarring reminder of what most days felt like covering the first Trump administration, which I did as a correspondent in DC for ThinkProgress and then Vox. There was never a dull moment, but there was also never one without at least a vague feeling of dread. I still vividly recall the overwhelming sense of relief that washed over me when a disgraced Trump got in that helicopter and finally left the White House for what I thought would be the last time. It was a surreal four years to cut my teeth writing about national politics. Having watching it up close, I knew we were lucky survive it. Voters learned from their mistake, and we would never go down that path again.
Even as Trump laid the groundwork for another presidential run and rolled his way to the Republican nomination, I truly believed America would reject him once and for all at the ballot box this year. I felt that right up until the returns from Georgia started coming in and that familiar hollow feeling returned. The circus was coming back to town, and Americans had put the clowns in charge of everything.
There’s no doubt that compared to Biden, the Trump show is good for scoops and clicks, and the excitement is palpable in some of the copy we’re reading these days about the hot intrigue leaking out of Mar-a-Lago. But it’s important to not lose sight of how much the nonstop absurdity is setting the country back. There’s no universe in which sleazebags like Gaetz and Hegseth should be nominated for top law enforcement and military jobs in the first place, or in which a crank like RFK Jr. should have anything to do with healthcare. We don’t have to live like this. Or at least we didn’t have to.
It’s hard to say that Americans didn’t vote for abusive creeps to run things when Trump is the president-elect. But as we reacclimatize to the zone being flooded with shit on a daily basis, we have to keep in mind that the future is not determined. Trump benefitted from powerful global dynamics this year and was actually on a long electoral losing streak before November 5.
Voters may have been willing to risk it all for slightly lower egg prices, but regardless of what they thought they were doing, they’re getting a chaos machine — and that sort of thing gets exhausting pretty quickly.
If you’re worried about Trump dealing a deathblow to democracy, in a strange way I think the last couple weeks have actually been somewhat reassuring. The Gaetz debacle showed that Trump not only can’t get everything he wants, but remains disorganized and prone to damaging own-goals.
It takes a profound lack of discipline and judgment to burn any political capital on the likes of Gaetz. Trump’s incompetence often got in the way of his authoritarian designs the first time around. The early returns of his transition back to office and the insanity surrounding it indicate he hasn’t changed.
I want to hear from readers
Those are some of my early reflections on the first couple weeks of this post-election period, but I’m curious what readers are thinking.
Are you mildly surprised like I am that Gaetz bowed out so early? Or that Hegseth is hanging in there despite a sexual assault allegation and hush payment he apparently didn’t bother telling the Trump team about until after his nomination was announced? Has anything happened over the past couple weeks that makes you somewhat hopeful for the future, even if the optimism is limited to something like Trump being too dunderheaded to execute his authoritarian designs?
Let me know what’s on your mind in the comments, and we’ll chat about it throughout the weekend.
1. I fear that trump will break the country so badly that we'll never gain footing again, because........
2. Republican senators are complete toadies, and can't say these horrible nominations are DOA.
3. Those voters who don't follow politics and broke +16 pts for trump aren't paying attention now either. Only folks like us, are watching this shitty circus
If only federal law enforcement had been waiting at the other end of that Marine One ride to arrest trump for inciting an attempted coup, maybe we wouldn't be here now. I agree that the shit show is back and this will be the chaos for the coming years. I was surprised by Matt Gaetz quick withdrawal as well, but I remain skeptical that we've seen the last of him in this administration.
I feel the press has grossly underestimated the destruction we are about to watch once he is inaugurated. I believe the mechanisms are in place to do every single thing project 2025 and agenda 47 call for. U think this country has suffered from a huge case of "it can't happen here." It can and it is. I feel like I'm living a real life, political version of the movie "Don't Look Up."