Surreal Disarray

Politico has a brilliant piece rounding up the interviews Trump gave to mark his first 100 days in office. Chin up! Only 1,361 days to go.

Entitled “Trump’s dizzying day of interviews“, I was particularly taken by this paragraph:

White House officials said privately there was no broader strategy behind the interviews. GOP strategists and Capitol Hill aides were puzzled by it all. “I have no idea what they view as a successful media hit,” said one senior GOP consultant with close ties to the administration. “He just seemed to go crazy today,” a senior GOP aide said.

He. Just. Seemed. To. Go. Crazy. Today.

That’s comforting.

The Earth Is Doomed

In an unusual development, The Associated Press have published a verbatim transcript of an interview with The Donald. It’s pretty heavy going. I pointed it out to a friend in the US, and he said he would read it before going to bed (since he was working at the time I messaged him). I strongly advised against that. It’s not something I would recommend attempting to read unless you’re in an upright position, and preferably with a strong beverage handy.
Lindy West has written a pretty good piece about it in the Guardian, entitled “100 days of gibberish – Trump has weaponised nonsense”, which I’d also highly recommend. But you really do have to force yourself to read the original. It’s long in words yet bafflingly short on meaning, full of rambling paragraphs that surprise the reader here and there with glimpses of something approaching reality. Not actual reality, of course, but something that might be vaguely related to it.

But most of the time it’s simply extraordinarily unhinged. Not so much an interview as a stream of consciousness, into which a reporter occasionally interjects.

Often times bloggers write pieces that say something along the lines of “I’ve read this so you don’t have to, and here’s a summary”. But you really do need to have a go at taking in the stupefying madness of it yourself. That said, don’t feel bad if you can’t get through it all. There’s not even a prize if you do.

The man is crazy. Deeply, thoroughly, batshit crazy.

Autocracy – Rules for survival

Sorry, been a bit slack this week and haven’t written anything here. Had other writing commitments, and been on holidays.

In the absence of anything from any rogues to read, I highly recommend this excellent piece by Masha Gessen, “Autocracy – Rules for Survival“. It was written a day or so after the US election, but given the executive orders issued in the first week or Trump’s presidency, its message is even more prescient, if such a thing is possible.

Some links for The Day of The Donald

So, the twentieth of January has arrived, and with it the inauguration of Donald Trump, something that many people both within and beyond the USA watch with a sense of foreboding.

Fellow Rogue Louie commented to me recently that given we’re only on this earth for a short period, we should appreciate living through what will surely be a tumultuous era. Indeed, may we live in interesting times, as the old Chinese curse would have it.

So in light of the inauguration, here are a few interesting links regarding Donald and the election for you to ponder.

  1. How a 23-year-old made $1300-per-hour for a fake news masterpiece
  2. I voted for Donald Trump, and I already regret it
  3. Donald Trump has assembled the worst Cabinet in American history
  4. this tweet

Relax. There’s only four years of Trumpocracy to endure.