The president is MIA
The president’s digital accounts have issued a burst of AI garbage this week that are, of course, well beyond Donald Trump’s digital abilities. And by the way, where is he while this is going on?
Although President Donald J. Trump has not appeared in public since Tuesday, his social media account has been posting up a storm. Just three weeks ago, administration officials were insisting that Democrats were responsible for hateful political speech. Trump’s account last night posted images of prominent Democrats, including former President Joe Biden, with the heading “THE PARTY OF HATE, EVIL, AND SATAN.” It went on to say: “The Democratic Party is Dead! They have no leadership! [N]o message! [N]o hope! [T]heir only message for America is to hate Trump!”
Steve Benen of Maddowblog asks, “What is it that the president wants people to do when he pushes such a message?”
Then there is the “Don’t Fear the Reaper” clip you’ve likely seen featuring OMB Director Russell Vought as the Grim Reaper coming for your jobs, etc.
HCR continues:
Veterans of the U.S. national security community posting as The Steady State noted that “a president posting a video depicting his opponents as prey for the Grim Reaper and zombies outside the ‘unemployment office’ is the opposite of what we expect in a healthy democracy.”
Russell Vought is not an elected official. He is best known for his contributions to Project 2025, a plan for gutting the U.S. government and installing a theocratic dictatorship. Project 2025 was so unpopular when it came to light last summer—only 4% of voters who knew about it wanted to see it enacted—that Trump insisted he had nothing to do with it. Trolling the American people with the idea that Congress has no power and Russell Vought is running the government to destroy it is an odd choice for a president who is already deeply unpopular.
This assumes that the video was Trump’s choice. After Trump’s performance in Quantico on Monday, he’s not been seen in public in days. So it’s a fair question who is running the Trump Show. Especially considering that Trump is more interested in golfing, strutting like a banty rooster, and in self-aggrandizing spectacle than in actually doing the work of governing.
It’s seemed for some time that ideologues like Vought and Stephen Miller are really running the show with help from the Trump White House comms team.
Political Wire reports:
“The Treasury Department is considering producing a one-dollar coin featuring President Donald Trump to commemorate the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence next year,” Politico reports.
“The draft design of the coin, which was overseen by the Office of the U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach, features Trump’s profile on one side of the coin. The opposite side depicts Trump with a clenched fist in front of an American flag alongside the words ‘FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT.’”
Hmmm. By law, that honor only goes to a deceased person.
A friend asks if the Treasury Department knows something we don’t.
Has anyone seen Kevin Kline lately?
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Our friend Susie Madrak is experiencing a cash crunch. She’s looking for whatever help you might lend this week. Making things worse is an insurance settlement delayed on account of paperwork. Plus:
In the meantime, my neurologist suspects I have an obscure lupus-like autoimmune disorder that’s causing all kinds of weird symptoms (for one thing, she says the signals my brain are sending to my feet aren’t making it through and I’m off balance) but first she has to rule out blood cancers, etc. There’s also a lesion on my lung and they want an MRI.
Susie has been posting at Suburban Guerrilla and Crooks & Liars for 20 years. It’s a calling, not a great-paying gig. We need to stick together. Help out Susie if you can.