Last month's presidential election was a disappointment, to say the least. Ever since then, it's felt as if the air has just been slowly leaking out of the opposition. Much of the mainstream media seems to be attempting to change course and curry favor with the new administration, while Democratic officials appear to be in shock. In some ways, it's reminiscent of the lead-up to the Iraq war in 2003, with quiet resignation taking the place of the febrile excitement that characterized the push to rally around the flag. People just seem enervated and spiritless. Sometimes it's hard to remember why we fight when it all seems so futile.
Well, I think the opposition is about to get its mojo back.
For the last month, all we saw (to the extent we were even paying attention, which many of us couldn't bring ourselves to do) was the news telling us about what Trump is doing, who he's nominating and what he's planning. And that's all bad! In fact, it's worse than many of us thought it would be. But all that has a sense of unreality because Trump himself, for the first time in years, has been scarce. It's been reported that he was completely exhausted at the end of the campaign, which is to be expected for a man pushing 80 years old. So he was happy to spend the last month holding court down at Mar-a-Lago with his new best bud, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, and basking in the adoration of his fans and sycophants. He has not been in front of us and that absence has led to the sense of ennui among the opposition. Unless he's out there in front of the cameras, I think many people understandably put him at the back of their minds and forget how crazy it is that such a man is going to be the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. Again.
In the last few days, he emerged from his Florida lair and flew to Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame. And it all came flooding back:
This is my normal very normal handshake 😂 pic.twitter.com/wuhNyq1nEg
— Luke Zaleski (@ZaleskiLuke) December 7, 2024
I don't think anyone really knows why Trump shook hands with French President Emmanuel Macron that way, but it's just weird. So is the fact that instead of bringing his wife, Trump brought along his new BFF, Musk, whom he apparently can't be without even for a minute. At some point just before the ceremony, Musk walked up to Trump, who was seated with the dignitaries. They had words and then Trump, appearing annoyed, pointed at Musk, who retreated back to the seat he was assigned.
Here’s what must have really happened. Mrs. Marcon was sitting between Jill Biden and Trump. Musk must have tried to sit to Trump’s left, which was reserved for President Macron. There’s even signage on the chair. So Trump directed Musk to make himself scarce.😂 pic.twitter.com/aTMOS6ofPi
— Hey, Dave! (@davegreenidge57) December 8, 2024
Why is it that these scenes only happen when Donald Trump is on the world stage? He makes a fool of himself and the country everywhere he goes.
While it was a relief not to have to see or hear him for the last month, that also made it easier to chalk up the horror of his campaign rhetoric to the heat of the moment and his desire to win at any cost. His appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday put any such thoughts to rest. He's just as angry, vengeful and deranged as he was on the campaign trail. In a wide-ranging interview, Trump defended his tariff scheme, saying that he doesn't believe it will cost consumers more, but can't guarantee that they won't. Insufferably blathering on about his supposedly historic first term's massive economic success, he said:
I think they’re beautiful. It’s going to make us rich. We’re subsidizing Canada to the tune of over $100 billion a year. We’re subsidizing Mexico for almost $300 billion. We shouldn’t be — why are we subsidizing these countries? If we’re going to subsidize them, let them become a state.
That is absurd. The U.S. is not "subsidizing" Canada or Mexico and this trolling about them becoming a state is simply insulting. He also told Welker that after he spoke with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and threatened her with a 25% tariff, that somehow had immediate effects:
[W]ithin 10 minutes after that phone call, we noticed that the people coming across the border, the southern border having to do with Mexico, there was at a trickle. Just a trickle. In fact, I called the border. See, unlike my opponent, I do call the border a lot. And I said, "How’s the border looking today?" They said, "There’s nobody here." They couldn’t believe it.
He "called the border"? What's its phone number? Is there a central switchboard or something? And the "invasion" stopped within 10 minutes of his threat to impose tariffs? Were all the potential migrants vaporized? That he believes anyone would swallow such an absurd fantasy is delusional.
That was the tip of the iceberg. Trump also said he thought the entire Jan. 6 House committee should be put in jail. He insisted he would leave it up to his designated FBI director, Kash Patel, and Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi to decide whether his enemies should be prosecuted, so I suppose we can always hope they weren't watching TV on Sunday morning. He also says he will likely pardon all the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, unless it turns out some were actually antifa or FBI plants.
Trump said he plans to end birthright citizenship on the first day, and that U.S. citizens whose family members are undocumented immigrants can be deported with them. He claimed that the Biden administration allowed 13,000 murders into the country — that statistic actually represents the past 40 years — and that he thinks Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should look into whether vaccines cause autism. (They don't.) There is so much more.
But even writing that brief synopsis amounts to sanewashing Trump. The best thing you can do is either watch the whole interview, which is painful, or read the transcript, which is simply mind-boggling. He literally makes no sense half the time and the rest of the time he's filibustering, lying, bullying and deflecting. It's nothing new, but it's worse than it was before.
He's mentally a complete mess and it's fair to speculate that there's a reason Musk is stuck to his side like superglue these days. Is Musk his Rasputin? Perhaps it would be smarter for "Meet the Press" to interview him, instead of this man who has completely lost the thread.
Once the country sees Trump take office as president again, I suspect that the disconsolate lethargy so many have been feeling will lift and we'll see some energy return to the opposition. At least, I certainly hope so. Hiding our heads in the sand isn't going to make him go away.
