Doom Report (Week 65: Actually, "Transformers Angel and the Generic Government Buildings" Would Be a Pretty Cool Band Name)

Sometimes I ask myself: is Trump the result of the failure of the two-party system?  Is it the case that the Republican party is only going along with Trump because they’re facing an existential crisis?  Because, remember: as recently as two years ago, many of the state Republican parties were on the verge of bankruptcy.  Nationwide, in the states which release such data, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by significant margins, peaking in 2021 when there were 35% more Ds than Rs—not to mention that, sometime around 2015, the number of registered independents exceeded the number of Republicans for the first time, making the Repubs a third party in our two-party system.  Can the Republican party survive the inevitable Trump meltdown?  After January 6th, they lost tens of thousands of voters, and this year is set to be the one with the second highest number of Republican Congressional retirements since 1930 (the first? that would be 2018 ... during Trump’s first term).  So, sometimes I look at all that and wonder if the Republicans grabbed onto Trump the way a drowning man will grab onto any piece of wood that floats by ... even those which obviously cannot support their weight.

On the other hand, Brian Tyler Cohen has another theory: Trump just hates Obama.  And, while BTC (somewhat overly generously, in my opinion) frames this as one man hating another, younger, more handsome man, I can’t help but wonder: is it just the racism?  Because the fact that he’s racist isn’t really in question—there’s literally a Wikipedia article entitled “racial views of Donald Trump” (hint: they ain’t good).  From the 1973 DoJ case against Trump Management where the rental agents admitted to marking the paperwork of Black applicants so that they could be summarily denied, to his comments in January of this year that, as a result of the Civil Rights Movement, “White people were very badly treated”—if you know any racists, you’ll easily recognize the behavior.  And, trust me: I’m not here to excuse any racists.  But I have quite a few in my family, so I kind of understand how their brains work.  And, in my experience, they’ve all been told from a very young age that black people (and brown people, and Asian people, and Jewish people, and gay people, and women, and ...) are just not as good as them.  That they are naturally superior, and it’s not the black people’s fault, necessarily—it’s just God’s will, or evolution, or whatever—and being the superior race is just a burden they must all bear.  And when you have that kind of fundamental prejudice baked into your very bones, you will go to extreme lengths to tear down the accomplishments of black people (and brown people and Jewish people and women and ... it must be exhausting, really).  Because if a Black person actually does something better than you could, that shakes your very worldview, your very sense of identity.  This is a threat to your sense of self.  So when people wonder why Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal that Obama made and never bothered to replace it, I don’t wonder: it’s simple.  That was a deal made by a Black man, so it must be terrible.  And he never replaced it with anything because he couldn’t.  Like any sleazy used car salesman, he’s not nearly as slick as he thinks he is, because he “succeeds” by taking credit for successes (even those of other people) and, when he fails, he just lies about it and calls that a success too.  And that’s why we’re currently fighting the stupidest, most unpopular war in our history, and actually losing, and getting screwed over on the price of oil while Trump says we’ve already won (again and again and again) and says we don’t even need the Strait of Hormuz anyway.  Because he can’t stand to be upstaged by someone with more melanin than him.

It’s kind of sad, when you think about it.  And also very, very fucked up.

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Other things you need to know this week:

• Colbert’s Monday monologue includes my biggest belly-laugh of the week.  You should watch the whole thing, but, if you want to skip to the good part, just watch the part where he reports on Trump’s call to Fox “News”‘s Maria Bartiromo.  Then watch it a few more times for maximum joy.

• Best coverage on Trump’s beef with the Pope was from Ronny Chieng on The Daily Show.

• If you want prime coverage on Pete Hegseth quoting Pulp Fiction as the Bible, both Alex Wagner and Stephen Colbert give you some side-by-side comparisons.

• After a couple of weeks of subpar “week in review” segments, Adam Kinzinger is back with another pretty good one.

• The Daily Show’s “In My Opinion” segments have always had some great guests, but the two GOATs remain Charlamagne tha God and Nick Offerman.  This week, Offerman offers some trenchant observations on America’s upcoming 250th birthday celebration.

• Last week I elaborated on why the recent election in Hungary is hopeful.  If you want to get even more insight on that perspective, try Adam Kinzinger or Stacey Abrams.  Contrariwise, if you want to know why your optimism should be tinged with caution, Owen Jones has you covered on that front.

• On this week’s Weekly Show, Jon interviews actor-turned-economist Ben McKenzie about cryptocurrency.  Commissioner Gordon from Gotham seems an unlikely choice to talk about crypto, but he actually has a degree in economics, so it’s not as crazy as it sounds initially, and I actually found him to be pretty articulate on the topic.  He exposes the scams of crypto while still acknowledging the things it can actually be good at, so even though he’s pretty negative on the industry overall, I still found it a pretty balanced discussion.

• On this week’s Some More News, Cody asks the question “So, Donald Trump Can’t Cancel Elections ... Right?”.  The answer, as you might expect, is “right, but ...”  Or, as Cody and the SMN writers put it so eloquently: “It seems like they’ve realized that they can just do things, and by the time the consequences catch up, it’ll be too late.  The tariffs, for example, have been ruled illegal long after Trump implemented them, but the damage is apparently impossible to reverse: all the DOGE cuts, the ICE detentions, all these blatantly illegal and unconstitutional actions that we’re still trying to untangle after the fact.  Meanwhile, people have died and will not un-die.  Not without a tome and some candles, at least.”  Worth thinking about.

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While it’s not strictly hope, sometimes you just watch a thing and have to raise your fist and say, “preach on, brother!”  This week, that comes from Zeteo.  Now, if you know Zeteo, you know that there are four main correspondents.  Founder Mehdi Hasan is the fast talker with the biting wit.  John Harwood is the knowledgeable but unexciting one.  Swin Suebsaeng is the passionate one.  And Prem Thakker is the calm, friendly one.  So when Prem goes off, it’s worth listening to.  On Zeteo’s weekly Q&A this week, Mehdi and Prem discussed Trump’s “doctor” picture—a.k.a. the “Doctor Jesus” image—and it led to this exchange:

Prem: I mean, look, I’ll just say, very quickly:  I’m a spiritual and religious person myself, and I think of—even for those who are not, who are atheist, agnostic, many of them at least carry themselves in such a way that, you know, a lot of their standards is that, no matter what higher power is out there, I believe that if I get to the pearly white gates and they see someone that led a life of good faith, of someone who is earnest and sincere, that that would be enough.  This guy, who purports to be some kind of Christian: the guy’s a tax cheat.  He started his presidential campaign with a tape that showed him saying he wants to grab women by their genitalia.  He’s insulted every community.  He looks at working people—your neighbors—with the most disdain and disgust possible.  He thinks we’re all hogs.  The thing is, is that we are run by a class of pedophilic, rapist, racist, parasitic, bloodthirsty people.  And atop that class is this guy whose legacy will be killing children and covering up files related to the most infamous pedophile on the planet!  And he, he—
Mehdi: Prem, I’ve never seen you this worked up.  I didn’t know Donald Trump made you this—I didn’t know this image would make you so worked up.
Prem: He’s just not going to make it through the pearly white gates.  That’s all I’m saying.  He’s not going to make it through.

And, you know, being one of those atheist/agnostic people myself, and hearing how Evangelicals and Catholics are too often Trump supporters, I sometimes forget how deeply offensive some of this is to genuine people of faith.  When I see Trump posting a picture of himself as Jesus, with 1940s Nurse and Transformers Angel and the Statue of Liberty in New York standing in front of Generic Washington DC Government Building, I’m just laughing at the complete ridiculosity of it all.  But there are people out there who see it and feel like their entire theology is being mocked, and Trump’s furious backpedaling and claiming that it’s supposed to be him as a doctor and only the fake news could think otherwise is not really soothing their outrage.  Nor should it.  They should be incensed, and I’m glad to hear that reaction from even some of Trump’s most ardent supporters.  Maybe he finally crossed a line.  Seems so unlikely, after a decade of never wavering from the full embodiment of the garbage person he’s always been, but, hey: there has to be some limit to what people will put up with, and maybe this is it.  And, while, honestly, I would have been happier if the limit was seeing all the brown people getting killed by ICE or the trans women being brutalized after their illegal transfers into men’s prisons, I’ll take what I can get.

So, I dunno—maybe that’s some hope after all.  In a very small way.