Doom Report (Week 48: An Alcoholic's Personality)

This week, Trump gave a rather unhinged “emergency” speech, wherein he lied so often that, as Seth Meyers noted, the poor CNN fact-checker was out-of-breath trying to address them all.  It spurred Christopher Titus to release an extra Armageddon Update which not only addresses that, but also contains a rather touching tribute to Rob Reiner.  Because, you know, another thing Trump did this week was to act like a stereotypical psychopath by pretending other people aren’t real, and/or like a stereotypical old man by ranting in public without really caring who he offends, by claiming that Reiner was murdered because of his “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.  Which is only not victim-blaming because of the technicality of the fact that Reiner wasn’t killed by a fan of Trump.  I mean, I don’t think Reiner’s son is a fan of Trump, although he may want to consider joining up, since he would no doubt get a pardon that way.

And don’t even get me started on the ridiculous “release” of the Epstein Files on Friday.

Other things you need to know this week:

• I’m not sure Adam Kinzinger’s week in review is quite as good as usual, but I’d still recommend you watch it.  It’s only about 10 minutes and has a pretty good summary of most of the week’s news.

• If you want good coverage of the insane Susie Wiles’ Vanity Fair interview, I recommend the Pod Save America video on the topic.  Or, for a quicker, punchier take, try Seth’s “A Closer Look” segment.

• More Perfect Union has a brilliant video on Sam Altman’s “just trust me bro” strategy towards AI (and his other ventures as well).

• If you want to see our fucked up situation through some foreign eyes, I recommend the year-end wrap up of the UK Have I Got News For You.  The best bits of British politics include several amusing digs at our bloviated commander-in-Cheetos.

• Along those lines, Pod Save the UK also has a year-end wrap-up.  This one is less of a clip show and more of a look back on the year’s events.  Less US stuff, but, if you have an interest in the parallel slide into autocracy in the UK, this is a good one to watch.

This week’s SNL cold open was pretty good: as recreations of deranged Trump speeches go, it’s tough to beat James Austin Johnson.  Few others can capture the madcap leaping from subject to subject like he can, and he gives his most unhinged performance to date, to match Trump’s most unhinged speech.  But honestly this week’s “Weekend Update” segment is probably the better one; it’s a sad state of affairs when even SNL is giving us better news that the so-called “traditional” media, but, with CBS already captured and CNN soon to follow, that’s the world we live in.

So it’s tough to feel hopeful at this point in the cycle.  Texas will move forward with its gerrymander, because that’s the Supreme Court we have.  Of course, one possible outcome there is that the Repubs overestimate their recent gains with Latine voters and end up creating a dummymander.  After all, Latines might not be as eager as last time to vote for the party that keeps rounding up all their relatives and disappearing them.  Honestly, the most hopeful development I’ve seen lately is that Miami elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in nearly 30 years, and she (also Miami’s first female mayor ever) won by nearly 20 points.  The hold the Repubs have on the system is fragile, and growing more so by the week.  I don’t expect they’ll go down without a fight, but hopefully it’s a fight we’re all willing to participate in.