There’s enough good stuff in this article that I may just use parts of it across multiple posts in the next few days.
On Trump’s Escalating Madness, Epstein, Compromise And The Unsustainable Path He Has Chosen
It often feels like Betty Cracker speaks for me, putting into words what I am thinking about current events but haven’t really been able to sort through completely. (Thanks, Betty!)
Today, it’s Simon Rosenberg. I probably spent two hours this morning cruising through substacks, etc and there wasn’t a thing I thought I could bear to write about.
Today’s post is a more of a collection of notes rather than a coherent essay as we all try to asses where we are now after Trump’s terrible August of spiraling madness and physical decline.
I think Trump’s disappearance last week was a significant event, and suggests that he is having significant physical and/or cognitive challenges. As we’ve discussed Trump had not taken a vacation all summer – an odd thing for such an old man in such a demanding job – which I’ve felt was a sign of disquiet and worry in his mind, a desperate need to reverse his declining poll numbers and growing sense that his government is failing, to somehow make Epstein and his horrible past disappear, of the shock of two buddies, Elon and Putin, turning on him. Rather than being a slow month to rest and reset ( as JD Vance viewed it), Trump manically attacked August – the wild, impulsive and destructive tariffs; the red carpet for Putin; the occupation of DC; the firing of the heads of the BLS and DIA and a Fed governor; Kennedy’s medieval assault on our public health; the escalating campaign to steal Congressional seats and make our elections bend the knee to him; the venal harassment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia; a new effort to illegally and unconstitutionally wrest control of federal spending away from Congress; the dark middle of the night loading of young children to traffic them to Guatemala, Uganda or god knows where else…..
Then he just disappeared without any explanation of where he had gone. No “vacation” – which would have been deserved and welcome – no a few days golfing. Just gone. Off camera for a week. After his manic and reckless August it was a bit of a shocker, and does suggest that his health problems – evident to the eye, unable to be AI-ed away – are far more serious than they admit. Then there was this bit of palace infrequent – Vance saying he was fired up and ready to go if anything happened to Trump….
I did rather like the Esquire headline: Trump’s not dead, but it sounds like Vance wouldn’t mind if he were.
Yes, it’s horrifying to see it all laid out like that, but it’s reminding me of a conversation I had with someone while I was still at the University. It started out with “I feel stressed but I don’t really know why” and then mentioned this one thing, and another thing, and another thing, and before I knew it, I had laid out 5 or 7 things that were going on, I hadn’t put it all together until I started rambling, and then I felt much better somehow because of course a person would be really stressed with all that going on!
Anyway, reading this from Simon Rosenberg helped in the same way. Forget about it, Jake. It’s crazy town.
Every day.
