CSotD: A Welcome Break in the Foolishness
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Well, nobody’s perfekt, and Mother Anderson couldn’t have seen how April Fools Day was going to play out on this continent.
Whether Elon wanted to buy votes or buy friends, he came out of Wisconsin with neither, despite having spent $20 million hoping to put a Republican on the state supreme court and give the party a majority there.
Apparently Wisconsin voters can’t be bought, or, at least, you can’t buy the majority of them, because the nasty TV commercials and all the rampant bribery seemed to motivate a major turnout of voters who showed up not to take the money but to slap down the billionaire.
And it didn’t go smoothly for Republicans at the other end of the Mississippi either. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry had four amendments on the ballot and all four were absolutely crushed by voters. At least Musk came somewhat close, but Landry lost by 2-to-1 margins.
I assumed, in seeing Handelsman’s cartoon, that he made up the part about blaming George Soros, but Landry really did accuse Soros of causing the defeat, which is a mind-boggling example of being not just out of touch but divorced from reality.
It may be that the GOP saw this coming, which would explain why poor Elise Stefanik lost her appointment as UN ambassador in order to keep her relatively safe seat in Congress nailed down.
If the GOP is feeling unsure of their grip, Benson hasn’t been let in on the conversation, since before the elections she declared that being decent and accepting of others will be a losing approach in 2026.
By contrast, Molina points out the shift in Trump’s approach from claiming all deportees are violent criminals to admitting that some are innocent but that he has no intention of bringing those mistaken victims back to the United States. His administration continues to insist that due process takes too long and that non-citizens have no constitutional rights, despite Supreme Court decisions to the contrary. And when he runs out of foreigners?
We’ll see in 2026 whether a majority of Americans approve of snatching innocent people off the street and sending them to El Salvador without a court hearing, but this Saturday’s gatherings may provide a hint in the meantime.
Juxtaposition of the Day
One area in which Trump seems unwilling to change directions is in the trade war he is picking with the rest of the world. As Bok notes, he made tariffs part of his election campaign despite the obvious impact they would have on prices, while Bramhall mocks his latest boast, which is that today will be “Liberation Day.”
It is becoming obvious that Dear Leader is not consciously lying about how tariffs work, but rather is genuinely ignorant of what they are and of their impact, this despite his having permanently harmed farmers with them in his first administration and despite the number of people who have warned him against them this time around.
It would seem a case of bull-headedness except that it fits in with reports that he does not read his briefing papers or pay attention in staff meetings. He’s not stubborn so much as he is invincibly ignorant, and just as he has gone back and forth on tariffs, declaring them one day and lifting them the next, so, too, he has said he doesn’t want American car makers to raise their prices and then said he hopes that they do.
Trying to counter his programs with logic seems pointless, since they aren’t constructed with any.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
There is also little logic or consistency in his attempts to make peace in Ukraine. His outrageous insults to Zelenzkyy have been followed by protestations of respect, while his approach to Putin has varied from taking a strict Russian line to possibly making other demands.
Mohr is hardly the only observer who suspects that Putin is playing him for a fool. Not only did Putin keep Trump waiting while he joked about their upcoming phone call on Russian TV, but moments after promising not to attack Ukrainian energy plants he bombed one.
Trump desperately wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but it should be remembered that, when Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were jointly awarded the prize in 1973, Kissinger accepted his, Le Duc Tho declined his and Saigon fell two years later. There seems little point in repeating the farce.
There also seems little point in expecting a global award for a man who clearly does not care if he alienates the world. Trump’s absurd ambition towards invading Greenland, along with his abandonment of Ukraine, has both frightened and alienated NATO and the rest of Europe, not to mention the non-aligned nations of the rest of the world, who understand that being “non-aligned” still means needing to choose a powerful friend, and that, if you can’t find one who will actively help you, it’s necessary to choose one who will do you the least harm.
The United States is rapidly falling out of either category, and if Trump thinks he’s making friends with Putin or Xi Jinping, he’s like the dweeb who thinks he’s popular but only gets to hang around because his older brother can buy beer.
If anyone thought they could count on the United States, the recent idiocy over military secrets has demonstrated the folly of putting unqualified loyalists in positions of power.
The Signal blunder might well have blown over with an admission of fault and a forced resignation or two, but as administration figures continue to come up with farcical explanations for a mistake no 12-year-old would make, there is little doubt that US forces are lions led by jackals, and that any intelligence agency in the world that wants to know what we’re up to is very likely getting an earful.
November 2026 may offer a sea anchor to slow things down, if the opposition can gain at least a majority in one house of Congress, but rebuilding this mess will take a sustained effort over a much longer time.
But that effort has already begun. No fooling.
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