1. Special Dark
Someday this will be over.
I can’t tell you how it will resolve, or in which direction. Maybe America sinks into illiberal democracy, like Hungary. Or maybe we roll back the autocratic push and re-establish a stable democracy. But three years from now, or seven years from now, or twelve years from now, this intermediate period will end.
Here’s what I can tell you: If we get lucky enough save democracy, then the people who did this to America—the people who excused, and covered, and enabled Trump’s autocratic attempt—will take it as proof that Trump was never a real danger to begin with.
Look how overwrought you were, they’ll say. You spent a decade telling us that Trump was trying to overturn democracy. But the fact that we don’t live in a dictatorship proves that Trump was normal and that we should never listen to you hysterics.
Our success will be used to discredit us, like a quantum theory of suicide:1 If democracy survives, then that is proof that it was never under threat in the first place.
That’s just something for you to meditate on this holiday season. The people who did this to America will never pay a price. And if we defeat them, our success will be used as an argument against us.
It will be an approximation of our post-COVID experience. The Americans who made it through COVID took their survival as proof that the pandemic was never that serious and the real villains were the people and protocols that saved, and thereby inconvenienced, them.
Merry Christmas.
2. Susie Suzie Suzy
Speaking of people who will never pay a price, Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, sat for a long series of interviews with Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple and holy motherforking shirtballs.