“Last week, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a Trump ally, introduced legislation authorizing “private American citizens and their businesses” to confiscate boats and other alleged property of drug cartels.”
No kidding! Talk like a pirate is only one day a year. Privateering is everyday.
Trump's messages on "Truth Social" (great name for a propaganda machine: write hateful stuff, send it to all, hope that if many people take it over they'll start believing that it must be true) are so utterly childish.
He's writing "The Failing NYT" for more than a decade now. It's still thriving. As he knows.
And if he were NOT one of those Epstein "Sleazebags", why did Congress and the courts have to FORCE him to release the Epstein files that he promised to release on day one?
Trump’s total hypocrisy comes through in his Christmas messages. The "official" Christmas message implies that Trump is a true Christian who sincerely believes the message of Christmas. This is a living lie! The "unofficial" president's message is the "real Trump Christmas message". It's full of hate, vengeance, lies and malice. It's typical Trump and reflects his true feelings about Christmas, goodwill, compassion or humanity. He has none of those characteristics!
All GOP voters know that it's a lie. They read both messages together in a very different way than we do, namely filtered through the GOP's neofascist propaganda. Then the message becomes: the WORLD is "full of hate, vengeance, lies and malice", and anyone who claims that REAL moral values exist is even worse than Trump, because that's lying even more than what he does...
International Boomers will long for the USA of old...but as time goes on, the Gen Z kids around the world will only remember the USA as the Trump years...their whole lives will be shaped through this lens. It will take decades to turn it around. ETTD
Will: "This isn’t the foreign policy many of Trump’s voters wanted. They thought “America First” meant staying home. Instead, Trump has gone abroad to seize land and treasure. He’s a pirate. And being a pirate is all fun and games until somebody loses an island."
Perhaps, but his voters will get onboard with the foreign policy instead of increasing the risk of experiencing cognitive dissonance.
His voters have been brainwashed by the neocon propaganda machine called Fox that the GOP created deliberately for this purpose, 25 years ago.
Now, their entire media ecosystem repeats the same lies, so they hear it from the people at work, their family members, the members of their church community etc.
Neocons believed that it would be enough to be able to make people vote for their neoliberal, anti-New Deal bills.
They didn't take the fact into account that the neofascist wing of the GOP would take over the party just like they took it over with G. W. Bush, and that thanks to the neocon propaganda machine, fascism would be installed in the US.
All that just for less and less taxes for the wealthiest...
Neoconservatism created its Fox Entertainment machine in 1996. Neoconservatism was founded in the 1970s. Neoliberalism, as a reaction against the New Deal, in the 1940s.
Neoliberal founder Milton Friedman was a key Reagan advisor. That's when neoliberalism managed to fully take over the GOP.
Today, the neofascist GOP is the logical consequence of that movement, since Friedman already said the exact same thing that Peter Thiel repeats today and Vance was hired to achieve: "capitalism and democracy are incompatible".
That being said... great King quote. Couldn't be more true.
The GOP was spreading propaganda well before Fox Noise. Fox Noise and right wing talk radio just spread it faster and wider than right wing print media.
Yes, of course, but Fox was a huge turning point. We shouldn't underestimate how much thinking and planning went into it.
Example: in 1976, one of the main founders of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol (yep, Bill's father...) wrote an op-ed in the WSJ entitled "The Stupid Party". That's what Stuart Mill had called conservative parties. Kristol decides to wear it as a badge.
In the article, he argues that indeed, conservatism vitally depends on people voting with their gut feeling to win elections. He literally writes that whenever "intellectuals" enter the "public debate", conservative parties cannot but lose elections. So, he concludes, in a "healthy society", intellectuals HAVE to stay "at the margins".
So the GOP post WWII went from fearing that the New Deal would install Soviet-like anti-capitalist dictatorship (neoliberalism fear) to believing that with enough lies and outrage, ordinary citizens may vote against democratic "socialism" (neoconservatism) to believing that dictatorship IS the only solution since no propaganda machine will be powerful enough to convince a majority of citizens to freely give up their political power and rights.
Before Fox, the US has no major media outlet explicitly designed to spread lies and outrage 24/7, and designed to try to make people vote for neoliberalism and against their own interests.
After 25 years of Fox, those neocons inside the GOP who believed that installing neoliberalism through democratic means became a minority, and the anti-democracy neoliberals (= today's Republican neofascists) took over the party.
The Bulwark consists of sobered up pro-democracy neocons. Are they truly willing to support the New Deal now, however, or do they still believe in fooling people enough to keep a democratic system in place all while imposing neoliberalism? That's what isn't clear to me yet.
His voters exist in their media ecosystem and reconfirm the Trumplican line to each other. They won’t brook outside sources of information. Their feelings won’t accept your facts, and if they want your opinion, they’ll give it to you. Never has America had such a great President as Trump, just ask him.
That's what successful propaganda does: not only does it brainwash people to believe entirely false things, it ALSO makes them stop fact-checking and thinking for themselves, to instead automatically discard any info that contradicts what they were told to believe.
What is typical for FASCIST propaganda, on top of this, is a specific anthropology, namely the installation of the cynical (and demonstrably false) belief that human nature is NOT "created equal". There are the 99% mediocre people who, left to their own devices, will always do the wrong thing, and then the 1% superior human beings, who HAVE to be those who govern and dictate their wishes to everyone else.
GOP voters today believe that there are NO real moral values, that "homo homini lupus" as Hobbes claimed, namely people are wolves to each other, and we need a superior wolf to keep everyone from killing each other.
I recently discussed with a typical Trump voter. He is convinced that poor people are poor ONLY because they are lazy, and entirely destroying social security will force them to work. He himself grew up poor, feels as if no one ever helped him, and now wants the same for everyone else. AT the same time, he ALSO believes that Trump won't destroy anyone's insurance etc.
Then you have the educated neofascists. Those believe that they themselves are superior to all other Americans, so they know that the neofascist GOP will destroy the New Deal and fully support that idea. Or as neoliberals already claimed: only the wealthiest are "superior". As long as there is a democratic society, "mediocre" people will limit the freedom of the wealthiest to do whatever they want. And those wealthiest are also supposed to know what's best for everyone else...
That's what Musk, Thiel, Vance, Russell Vought, the Heritage Foundation etc. believe.
Conclusion: this is not about Trump. It's about the neofascist GOP and its media ecosystem.
Every time Felon Trump’s handlers run out of projects to amuse him, we get bombing in foreign countries and extortion of foreign countries; this from the “Peace President.” Too bad he doesn’t like coloring books. They could amuse for hours!
I swear Stephen Miller has a prepared list of deplorable acts that he pulls out whenever Trump gets angry. It seems the Broadway show tunes no longer soothe his moods.
“He also exploits war. Two months ago, in a speech to American troops in Japan, he fondly recalled the days when “they used to say, ‘To the victor belong the spoils.’” In more recent wars, he complained, “We’d win, and then we’d leave.” He made it clear that he would restore the doctrine of spoils. “Unlike past administrations, we will not be politically correct,” he told the troops.”
These actions sound like a country on its last economic legs; unable to find new ways to expand and improve our economy without seizing other countries wealth and assets. That spells doom for US innovation over the long-run; especially since we’re seeing research dollars and foreign expertise being discarded!
And while I agree with the preface that Trump is only in It for himself; what’s missing are all the nefarious actors who helped shape Trump’s worldview and agenda.
Trump is not monolithic. He couldn’t succeed without powerful interests standing firmly behind him. The plutocrats only consider him the best President ever; simply because he is easily manipulated, and so corrupt, that the vast and expansive corruption of the oligarchs, seems pale in comparison.
Furthermore, Trump is just the malignant tumor of what this nation has transformed itself into after more than two decades of war, and white collar criminals and politicians evading justice.
Bottom line, when Japan decides to spend $60 billion on a nuclear program, and we see Europe and Asia slowly decoupling themselves from our economic dependence, then you know the West’s strategic partnership is over, and now new alignments are being formed; both economic and strategic, and without US involvement or input.
And this should be what scares us more than Trump: What exactly comes after? IMHO…:)
The other piece of his foreign policy is that it is all in the past. Venezuelan oil won’t have nearly as much salience in a world that is using less and less oil to produce goods. Part of the Chinese investment in green energy and cars etc. is to wean themselves and others off of the oil economy and the dollar that dominates the market. They are getting to the point where their products are not just cheaper, but also technologically better, and we are here trying to intimidate Maduro into leaving the country and taking the oil.
Agreed and well said, but don’t forget that Venezuela is also home to some of the largest colbalt, Nickel, Lithium, as well as gold, silver and real earth element metals critical for advanced AI and battery technology; another reason why we are putting pressure on Canada and Greenland and looking inwards towards dominating the Americas.
In addition to corruption and cruelty, Trump us all about the past. As we age we get nostalgic. People with critical thinking capabilities sigh, look at the present and build toward a better future.
"These actions sound like a country on its last economic legs; unable to find new ways to expand and improve our economy without seizing other countries wealth and assets. That spells doom for US innovation over the long-run; especially since we’re seeing research dollars and foreign expertise being discarded!"
Your statement is so G D spot on!!! We are a nation in rapid decline!
What's really infuriating is that Trump himself never joined the military and he didn't really have anything to do with making America great in the first place, but he's sure down with "receiving the spoils" isn't he?
Pardons: And when you see a shocking twist of someone suddenly going MAGA, check out who they might be close to that needs a pardon. The latest sighting, Nicki Minaj.
I wonder if Trump is aware that he has become a caricature of himself? That Christmas TS message is Exhibit "A". It's like something someone would write as a parody.
“Pardon-seekers have offered some lobbyists close to the president success fees of as much as $6 million if they can close the deal, according to people familiar with the offers.”
If there is a deal to be closed, that is Bribery, which is specifically called out as grounds for Impeachment in Article II, Section 4.
"He’s a pirate. And being a pirate is all fun and games until somebody loses an island."
Did the Felon lose a piece of Epstein's island, too? Is that the ugly secret he is trying so hard to hide, that he had been a co-owner? (Caution, like all good conspiracy theories, I have nothing but theories to back this up ... but it does sound like the Felon, doesn't it?)
Thanks, guys, for putting out a 12/26 Morning Shots!
It’s Blackbeard Friday.
ARRR!!!!!
“Last week, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a Trump ally, introduced legislation authorizing “private American citizens and their businesses” to confiscate boats and other alleged property of drug cartels.”
No kidding! Talk like a pirate is only one day a year. Privateering is everyday.
“And being a pirate is all fun and games until somebody loses an island.”
Or, hopefully, hanged from a yardarm.
100% Will Saletan
Love Will's take on things, as always.
🎵 For I am a Pirate King (yes yes, hurrah for the Pirate King) and it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Pirate King!🎵
Beautiful!
Trump's messages on "Truth Social" (great name for a propaganda machine: write hateful stuff, send it to all, hope that if many people take it over they'll start believing that it must be true) are so utterly childish.
He's writing "The Failing NYT" for more than a decade now. It's still thriving. As he knows.
And if he were NOT one of those Epstein "Sleazebags", why did Congress and the courts have to FORCE him to release the Epstein files that he promised to release on day one?
What a joke.
Trump’s total hypocrisy comes through in his Christmas messages. The "official" Christmas message implies that Trump is a true Christian who sincerely believes the message of Christmas. This is a living lie! The "unofficial" president's message is the "real Trump Christmas message". It's full of hate, vengeance, lies and malice. It's typical Trump and reflects his true feelings about Christmas, goodwill, compassion or humanity. He has none of those characteristics!
All GOP voters know that it's a lie. They read both messages together in a very different way than we do, namely filtered through the GOP's neofascist propaganda. Then the message becomes: the WORLD is "full of hate, vengeance, lies and malice", and anyone who claims that REAL moral values exist is even worse than Trump, because that's lying even more than what he does...
International Boomers will long for the USA of old...but as time goes on, the Gen Z kids around the world will only remember the USA as the Trump years...their whole lives will be shaped through this lens. It will take decades to turn it around. ETTD
That’s a very depressing observation.
Yet a valid one!
God help us all in the fight for the future of our country. I hope and pray it’s not too late.
Will: "This isn’t the foreign policy many of Trump’s voters wanted. They thought “America First” meant staying home. Instead, Trump has gone abroad to seize land and treasure. He’s a pirate. And being a pirate is all fun and games until somebody loses an island."
Perhaps, but his voters will get onboard with the foreign policy instead of increasing the risk of experiencing cognitive dissonance.
His voters have been brainwashed by the neocon propaganda machine called Fox that the GOP created deliberately for this purpose, 25 years ago.
Now, their entire media ecosystem repeats the same lies, so they hear it from the people at work, their family members, the members of their church community etc.
Neocons believed that it would be enough to be able to make people vote for their neoliberal, anti-New Deal bills.
They didn't take the fact into account that the neofascist wing of the GOP would take over the party just like they took it over with G. W. Bush, and that thanks to the neocon propaganda machine, fascism would be installed in the US.
All that just for less and less taxes for the wealthiest...
25 years ago? More like 40+ years ago.
Yep. As Stephen King quipped, it's like the Republican party sat on a dragon's egg for 40 years and were shocked when they hatched a dragon.
Neoconservatism created its Fox Entertainment machine in 1996. Neoconservatism was founded in the 1970s. Neoliberalism, as a reaction against the New Deal, in the 1940s.
Neoliberal founder Milton Friedman was a key Reagan advisor. That's when neoliberalism managed to fully take over the GOP.
Today, the neofascist GOP is the logical consequence of that movement, since Friedman already said the exact same thing that Peter Thiel repeats today and Vance was hired to achieve: "capitalism and democracy are incompatible".
That being said... great King quote. Couldn't be more true.
I just checked. Fox was created in 1996, rather than 2000, as I mistakenly thought.
Still, that's 30 years, not 40+...
The GOP was spreading propaganda well before Fox Noise. Fox Noise and right wing talk radio just spread it faster and wider than right wing print media.
Yes, of course, but Fox was a huge turning point. We shouldn't underestimate how much thinking and planning went into it.
Example: in 1976, one of the main founders of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol (yep, Bill's father...) wrote an op-ed in the WSJ entitled "The Stupid Party". That's what Stuart Mill had called conservative parties. Kristol decides to wear it as a badge.
In the article, he argues that indeed, conservatism vitally depends on people voting with their gut feeling to win elections. He literally writes that whenever "intellectuals" enter the "public debate", conservative parties cannot but lose elections. So, he concludes, in a "healthy society", intellectuals HAVE to stay "at the margins".
So the GOP post WWII went from fearing that the New Deal would install Soviet-like anti-capitalist dictatorship (neoliberalism fear) to believing that with enough lies and outrage, ordinary citizens may vote against democratic "socialism" (neoconservatism) to believing that dictatorship IS the only solution since no propaganda machine will be powerful enough to convince a majority of citizens to freely give up their political power and rights.
Before Fox, the US has no major media outlet explicitly designed to spread lies and outrage 24/7, and designed to try to make people vote for neoliberalism and against their own interests.
After 25 years of Fox, those neocons inside the GOP who believed that installing neoliberalism through democratic means became a minority, and the anti-democracy neoliberals (= today's Republican neofascists) took over the party.
The Bulwark consists of sobered up pro-democracy neocons. Are they truly willing to support the New Deal now, however, or do they still believe in fooling people enough to keep a democratic system in place all while imposing neoliberalism? That's what isn't clear to me yet.
His voters exist in their media ecosystem and reconfirm the Trumplican line to each other. They won’t brook outside sources of information. Their feelings won’t accept your facts, and if they want your opinion, they’ll give it to you. Never has America had such a great President as Trump, just ask him.
That's what successful propaganda does: not only does it brainwash people to believe entirely false things, it ALSO makes them stop fact-checking and thinking for themselves, to instead automatically discard any info that contradicts what they were told to believe.
What is typical for FASCIST propaganda, on top of this, is a specific anthropology, namely the installation of the cynical (and demonstrably false) belief that human nature is NOT "created equal". There are the 99% mediocre people who, left to their own devices, will always do the wrong thing, and then the 1% superior human beings, who HAVE to be those who govern and dictate their wishes to everyone else.
GOP voters today believe that there are NO real moral values, that "homo homini lupus" as Hobbes claimed, namely people are wolves to each other, and we need a superior wolf to keep everyone from killing each other.
I recently discussed with a typical Trump voter. He is convinced that poor people are poor ONLY because they are lazy, and entirely destroying social security will force them to work. He himself grew up poor, feels as if no one ever helped him, and now wants the same for everyone else. AT the same time, he ALSO believes that Trump won't destroy anyone's insurance etc.
Then you have the educated neofascists. Those believe that they themselves are superior to all other Americans, so they know that the neofascist GOP will destroy the New Deal and fully support that idea. Or as neoliberals already claimed: only the wealthiest are "superior". As long as there is a democratic society, "mediocre" people will limit the freedom of the wealthiest to do whatever they want. And those wealthiest are also supposed to know what's best for everyone else...
That's what Musk, Thiel, Vance, Russell Vought, the Heritage Foundation etc. believe.
Conclusion: this is not about Trump. It's about the neofascist GOP and its media ecosystem.
JUST WAIT TILL “HALFKEG” INSTITUTES THE DRAFT!!!? BOYS ONLY! Lots of dead boys, only. I see the ghosts of Viet Nam. I see dead people.
Every time Felon Trump’s handlers run out of projects to amuse him, we get bombing in foreign countries and extortion of foreign countries; this from the “Peace President.” Too bad he doesn’t like coloring books. They could amuse for hours!
I swear Stephen Miller has a prepared list of deplorable acts that he pulls out whenever Trump gets angry. It seems the Broadway show tunes no longer soothe his moods.
Maybe Malignant Miller should try the soundtrack from "Springtime For Hitler"!
Has anyone tried coloring books? Maybe he would like to color Trump Superheroes!
Heck, Trump likes to build things.
Give him LEGO sets.
The only downside would be keeping him from putting the pieces in his mouth...
I struggle to see a downside here…
“He also exploits war. Two months ago, in a speech to American troops in Japan, he fondly recalled the days when “they used to say, ‘To the victor belong the spoils.’” In more recent wars, he complained, “We’d win, and then we’d leave.” He made it clear that he would restore the doctrine of spoils. “Unlike past administrations, we will not be politically correct,” he told the troops.”
These actions sound like a country on its last economic legs; unable to find new ways to expand and improve our economy without seizing other countries wealth and assets. That spells doom for US innovation over the long-run; especially since we’re seeing research dollars and foreign expertise being discarded!
And while I agree with the preface that Trump is only in It for himself; what’s missing are all the nefarious actors who helped shape Trump’s worldview and agenda.
Trump is not monolithic. He couldn’t succeed without powerful interests standing firmly behind him. The plutocrats only consider him the best President ever; simply because he is easily manipulated, and so corrupt, that the vast and expansive corruption of the oligarchs, seems pale in comparison.
Furthermore, Trump is just the malignant tumor of what this nation has transformed itself into after more than two decades of war, and white collar criminals and politicians evading justice.
Bottom line, when Japan decides to spend $60 billion on a nuclear program, and we see Europe and Asia slowly decoupling themselves from our economic dependence, then you know the West’s strategic partnership is over, and now new alignments are being formed; both economic and strategic, and without US involvement or input.
And this should be what scares us more than Trump: What exactly comes after? IMHO…:)
The other piece of his foreign policy is that it is all in the past. Venezuelan oil won’t have nearly as much salience in a world that is using less and less oil to produce goods. Part of the Chinese investment in green energy and cars etc. is to wean themselves and others off of the oil economy and the dollar that dominates the market. They are getting to the point where their products are not just cheaper, but also technologically better, and we are here trying to intimidate Maduro into leaving the country and taking the oil.
Agreed and well said, but don’t forget that Venezuela is also home to some of the largest colbalt, Nickel, Lithium, as well as gold, silver and real earth element metals critical for advanced AI and battery technology; another reason why we are putting pressure on Canada and Greenland and looking inwards towards dominating the Americas.
In addition to corruption and cruelty, Trump us all about the past. As we age we get nostalgic. People with critical thinking capabilities sigh, look at the present and build toward a better future.
"These actions sound like a country on its last economic legs; unable to find new ways to expand and improve our economy without seizing other countries wealth and assets. That spells doom for US innovation over the long-run; especially since we’re seeing research dollars and foreign expertise being discarded!"
Your statement is so G D spot on!!! We are a nation in rapid decline!
What's really infuriating is that Trump himself never joined the military and he didn't really have anything to do with making America great in the first place, but he's sure down with "receiving the spoils" isn't he?
Trump's always gotten ahead by riding on the backs of others.
Always.
Couldn’t put it any better…:)
The uncoupling from the US and loss of moral clarity on the US side is so sad to see. To be hated around the world is a terrible thing.
Agreed, and what scares me is where will we fit in the new world order once this reset is complete? And what will the consequences be?
It is shocking to me how fast this has been. It took so long to create and this rotten Trump Group took it out in no time at all, in comparison.
Pardons: And when you see a shocking twist of someone suddenly going MAGA, check out who they might be close to that needs a pardon. The latest sighting, Nicki Minaj.
I wonder if Trump is aware that he has become a caricature of himself? That Christmas TS message is Exhibit "A". It's like something someone would write as a parody.
Thank you, Will! Always appreciate your crystal clear assessment of the messy madness.
Re: pardons.
“Pardon-seekers have offered some lobbyists close to the president success fees of as much as $6 million if they can close the deal, according to people familiar with the offers.”
If there is a deal to be closed, that is Bribery, which is specifically called out as grounds for Impeachment in Article II, Section 4.
Tom, didn't SCOTUS decide that "gifts" aren't bribery? Or does that only apply to the FFOTUS?
Loved the redacted photo. Perfect touch for THIS 2025 holiday season.
"He’s a pirate. And being a pirate is all fun and games until somebody loses an island."
Did the Felon lose a piece of Epstein's island, too? Is that the ugly secret he is trying so hard to hide, that he had been a co-owner? (Caution, like all good conspiracy theories, I have nothing but theories to back this up ... but it does sound like the Felon, doesn't it?)
Tru_p does not have an island yet. I wonder if the former Epstein property is available?
Letters of marque:
Section 8. Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution allows Congress to grant private citizens the right to seize enemy vessels and their cargo.
Aaaarg!
Congress could give a whole new purpose to the Cajun Navy...
https://www.unitedcajunnavy.org/
Launching an entirely new wave of reality TV:-)
Agree. Trump is a despicable character.
Great piece by Will Saletan, adding focus to the real issues and bringing the receipts. Bravo!
Thanks so much!