We Live in the Dumbest Times
Plus, a defense of Al Green.
In an increasingly hostile world of great power competition, itās nice to know that in Pete Hegseth we finally have a secretary of defense focused on the important things: purging military web databases of thousands of images featuring women, minorities, and anything else that smacks, to the right-wing palate, of DEI.
The crowning achievement, per the AP: āIn some cases, photos seemed to be flagged for removal simply because their file included the word āgay,ā including service members with that last name and an image of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.ā Happy Friday.
A Good Day in Dumb News
by Andrew Egger
Every day is stupid now, but not all stupid days are created equal. Some days are darkly energizing. You want to shout from the rooftops: Look at all the damage these malevolent, clueless jerks are doing! Other days, when the stupidity feels less evil than pointless, are enervating: Youād rather just log off and take a nap. You have to remind yourself: These are actually the good stupid days. Youād rather these than the others.
Yesterday was of the latter category. Markets had been sagging for days over Donald Trumpās inexplicable trade war with Mexico and Canada, and he had plainly been looking for an off-ramp. Mexico was giving him an easy one: President Claudia Sheinbaum had held off on imposing retaliatory tariffs before this weekend and was taking pains not to say anything that would ruffle Trumpās feathers.
Canada, by contrast, was meeting fire with fireāimposing immediate retaliatory tariffs and threatening worse. And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was punching back hard against Trumpās rhetoric about making Canada the 51st U.S. state.
So on Thursday, when Trump praised Sheinbaum, denounced Trudeau, and announced he was delaying most tariff hikes on Mexico for another month, the moral seemed clear: Even under the most insane circumstances, flattery works. Until a few hours laterāwhen Trump quietly pushed back tariffs on Canada as well.
What did it all mean? Who was it all for? Who knows! Just a few days of pointless value-destroying market chaos, begun at whim, ended at whim. Tune in April 2 and weāll do the whole thing over again.
Then there was DOGE. Elon Muskās arson brigade, as we never tire of telling you, has been stepping on rake after rake recently, and Trump finally seemed to decide yesterday that the time had come to yank the chain. During a cabinet meeting this morningāat which Musk was again presentāTrump told his agency heads that they, not Musk, had ultimate authority over staffing. Meanwhile, he again signaled that his favor was shifting: āAs the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the āscalpelā rather than the āhatchet.āā (Or, one assumes, the chainsaw.)
A significant development, it seemed! Until a few hours laterāwhen he undercut it completely in Oval Office remarks to reporters: āElon and the group are going to be watching them. If they can cut, itās better. And if they donāt cut, then Elon will do the cutting.ā
Itās unlikely, of course, that any of this will hurt Trump with his core constituency: The president is blessed with a deeply credulous base that is perfectly willing to chalk up all flip-flops, swerves, and flailings as the 4D chess moves of a master negotiator.
But the rest of us should take comfort in it, even as we worry that we get actively dumber just reading about it. In some crucial ways, Trump is on a pitch clock: The longer he flounders, the less markets trust him and the less popular he becomes. And the less markets trust him and the less popular he becomes, the more he will stress about how to reverse those trendsāwhich only makes him more indecisive, leading to more whiplash-inducing stories like the ones we saw yesterday. Itās a vicious cycle, the upshot of which is that he gets worse at making America and the world worse in a timely way. Itās a good start.
Donāt Chastise Al GreenāChannel Him
by Bill Kristol
Early this morning I was trying to decide: Should I write about the latest examples of the Trump administrationās extraordinary assault on the rule of law, its most recent acts of cruelty toward immigrants, the reckless damage itās doing to our civil service, or the betrayal of the brave people of Ukraine on behalf of Vladimir Putin?
It all felt too much; all too infuriating for a cool, calm, and collected 600 words.
And then my mind drifted to someone who wasnāt embarrassed to show this week that he was infuriatedāRep. Al Green, Democrat of Texas.
It was the 77-year-old Green, a ten-term member of the House, who stood up and interrupted President Trumpās address to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday night. When Trump said that voters in the 2024 election had given him a mandate to slash the federal government, Green rose from his seat near the front of the chamber, and, waving his cane for emphasis, shouted that the president had āno mandate to cut Medicaid . . . no mandate.ā
The speaker of the House asked Green to sit down and respect decorum. Green showed no sign of obeying that request. So the speaker ordered the sergeant at arms to remove him from the floor. Green left peacefully.
Some Democratic members and liberal commentators were unhappy with Green. It was inappropriate! It was disrespectful! In any case it was politically unwise and counter-productive! What would those sensitive swing voters think?
Really? Was it that inappropriate, given all that Trump has been doing? Would Al Green truly cost Democrats a single swing voter twenty months from now? Iām doubtful.
Let me go further. Am I alone in feeling that it was good to see some fervent conviction and righteous indignation? Am I the only person who was actually kind of happy to see, in a sea of Democrats waving little paddles with lame messages, someone literally standing up to Trump?
Afterwards, Green was unapologetic. He told reporters, āI was making it clear to the president that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid. I have people who are very fearful. These are poor people, and they have only Medicaid in their lives when it comes to their health care.ā
The next day Green elaborated:
Iām not angry with the speaker. Iām not angry with the officers. Iām not upset with the members who are going to bring the motions or resolution to sanction. . . . I did it from my heart, and I will suffer whatever the consequences are. But truthfully, I would do it again.
On Thursday, the Republican-controlled House voted to censure Green. After the vote, as a censure resolution requires, the congressman stood in the well of the House chamber while Speaker Mike Johnson read the resolution to him.
In a show of solidarity, dozens of Democratic members joined Green in the well and sang āWe Shall Overcome.ā Speaker Johnson told them to stop and to clear the well. The Democrats ignored Johnsonās request, and he recessed the House.
I donāt think Green will be or should be the dominant voice or the future leader of the Democratic party. But I couldnāt help being impressed that he did what he did. I couldnāt help admiring him for what he did. I couldnāt help being moved watching the video of him and his colleagues singing.
And I couldnāt help thinking, We shall overcome this, someday.
Quick Hits
ABORTION DRUGS IN THE MAIL: During last yearās election, when Democrats had a clear advantage over Republicans on abortion messaging, Donald Trump repeatedly pledged that he would not restrict access to abortion pills if elected. But during yesterdayās confirmation hearing for Dr. Marty Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration, Republican senators urged Trumpās nominee to review a Biden-area policy permitting the drug mifepristone to be prescribed through the mail. Makary sounded open to the idea.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) described the FDAās former, long-standing requirement that the pills be dispensed in person as āthe pre-political protocol.ā Under Biden, the FDA first temporarily permitted mail access for abortion drugs as a pandemic measure, then made the change permanent as the Supreme Court was considering whether to end Roe v. Wade.
āI do think it makes sense to review the totality of the data and ongoing data,ā a seemingly sympathetic Makary said. āI know personally of OB doctors who prefer to insistāthough they have the option to prescribe otherwiseābut they choose to insist that mifepristone be taken, when necessary, in their office as they observe the person taking it. I think their concern there is that if this drug is in the wrong hands it could be used for coercion.ā
TRUST ME, ITāS A GOOD DEAL: A key friction in Trump-era diplomacy so far: Trump prefers bilateral negotiations with adversaries; our allies resent being frozen out of the process. Last month, it was Ukraine; this week, per Axios, itās Israel:
Israelās concerns over the Trump administrationās secret negotiations with Hamas erupted in a contentious call Tuesday between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuās right-hand man and the U.S. official leading the talks. . . . When Trump aides sounded out Israeli officials about the possibility of engaging directly with Hamas, the Israelis advised them not to do itāparticularly not without preconditions. Israel found out through other channels that the U.S. was moving forward anyway.
On the substance of the Gaza war, Trump has paired relentless anti-Hamas rhetoric and saber-rattling with wild flights of fantasyāpromising the United States would take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into the āRiviera of the Middle East,ā sharing bizarre AI-generated video of himself and Elon Musk relaxing in the pool of a Trump Tower Gaza. Israelās government has been publicly grateful for Trumpās support, but seemingly fearsānot without reasonāthe president will forge ahead with some truly crackpot ādealā without their input.
Meanwhile, we canāt help but wonder what the Republican reaction would have been if, say, Joe Biden were to have cut Israel out of diplomatic talks with Hamas.
AUDIENCE OF ONE: The Department of Homeland Securityās $200 million ad campaign thanking President Donald Trump for āsecuring our borderā and warning migrants who are in the country illegally to āleave nowā has aired in major media markets around the country. According to data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact, DHS has placed six-figure ad buys in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix, Miami, San Francisco, and Chicago.
But there was also a small but curious expenditure buried in AdImpactās data: DHS also spent $30,000 to air the ads in West Palm Beach from February 25 through March 5. Palm Beach County has had some ICE activity under Trump. But itās been relatively modest. The more likely explanation for that expense: Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago club that weekend. And as everyoneāincluding the leadership at DHS knowsāTrump likes watching TV.
The $30k is a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of the agencyās ad budget. But itās yet another data point of how Trump officials will go out of their wayāand even spend taxpayer moneyāto suck up to the president. That it comes as the Trump administration is ostensibly on a crusade to cut government spending at every corner is just a cherry on top.
Then again, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Noemās hands may have been tied here. After all, we know Trump was really into the idea. At last monthās Conservative Political Action Conference, Noem told the gathering that Trump explicitly said he wanted her face in the ads and wanted her to āthank me for closing the border.ā
āLauren Egan
Cheap Shots
The great American delusion is that this is all temporary. That if Convicted Felon Trump somehow steps down, is dragged out kicking and screaming, or finally succumbs to the gravitational collapse of his own malignant ego, the damage he has done to this country can simply be undone. This idea that the world will sit patiently, waiting for us to regain our senses, eager to return to the status quo. That is a fantasy.
This is not a four-year problem. This is not a bad presidency that can be patched up with a few summits and some reassuring press conferences. This is a tectonic shift in global power, a fundamental recalibration of alliances, and an irreversible degradation of Americaās standing in the world, and we deserve every bit of it.
Every tariff tantrum, every reckless diplomatic insult, every day of policy by impulse strengthens the incentives for nations to decouple from the United States. Mexico and Canada will not simply āforgive and forgetā after being used as political punching bags every time Trump didn't get his McDonald's on time. They are going to forge new supply chains, deepen partnerships with Europe and Asia, and ensuring that their economies no longer hinge on the whims of an American president who governs like a YouTube conspiracy theorist live-streaming from a basement.
The larger world is doing the same. Europe is accelerating efforts to move beyond U.S. financial dominance. Asian markets are increasingly orienting toward China, which, for all its faults, at least offers predictability. The Gulf states are trading oil in currencies other than the dollar. The global economic order that once revolved around American stability is restructuring itself in real-time, no longer built on the assumption that the U.S. is a responsible, functional actor. Because it is not.
Even if, by some miracle, the American economy recovers from DOGE (Destroying Our Growing Economy), even if the stock market stabilizes, even if someday we see a resurgence of domestic production, the broader world will not simply revert to treating the U.S. as the indispensable center of global commerce. Those who have learned to survive without us will see no reason to return. The world does not stop for the flailing of a dying empire.
We are watching the United States incinerate its own global standingānot in some inevitable act of decline, not as the consequence of an external force beyond our control, but because we handed the keys to a petulant fraud who governs with all the foresight of a man huffing spray paint in a locked garage. Because we let a spoiled, bloated bully vandalize decades of economic stability for the fleeting thrill of his own petty, performative tantrums.
The delusion was that alliances, institutions, and trust were indestructibleāthat no matter how recklessly we swung the sledgehammer, the foundation would hold. That credibility was a bottomless well, that our partners would always come back, that Americaās dominance was written into the stars.
But the truth is colder, harsher and attached to reality. The U.S. will never be what it was, and it shouldnāt be. The world is moving onānot out of malice, not out of impatience, but out of self-preservation. We have proven ourselves unworthy of trust, too unstable to depend on, too consumed by our own arrogance to recognize that the fire we set is now burning the ground beneath our feet.
For generations, America branded itself as the irreplaceable heart of global commerce, the axis around which everything else turned. History does not owe us that role, and now, as the world quietly and methodically builds a future without us, we are left staring at the wreckage, realizing far too late: We were never indispensable at all.
Re Al Green - agree. And really annoyed that any Dems voted to censure. The issue is real. Truth to tell the margin of victory was hardly a mandate for anything. And Green is right to bring it up as the president delivers the biggest bunch of bullshit.