Around this time last year, I predicted that the next four years would feel like an even darker Armando Iannucci production than the Veep we were used to. Specifically, The Death of Stalin, a blistering satire of the skirmish for power after Stalin’s death.

I don’t remotely have the energy to recap all that’s happened since Trump’s second inauguration. I just barely have the stamina to recap December. But some recent lowlights from this administration include:

So we’re actually a little bit ahead of schedule, both on the destruction of the rule of law, and on these ghoulish morons starting to fall apart.

As with any fascist government, cruelty is the operating principle. The same administration that’s presided over a near-collapse of aviation safety and reneged on Biden’s plan to compel airlines to pay for flight delays is now scolding us about not dressing up for air travel. The same president who basically promised bread and circuses cut off SNAP benefits so people couldn’t buy bread, and now offers up the exact circus that multiple YA writers seemed a tad melodramatic for writing in the late 2000s.

The Epstein files seem like the most egregious attempt to control people’s understanding of reality. Because the line has gone, “the files are real and should be released. But they are a hoax. But we have them, they’re on a desk. Not that desk. And they don’t exist and I’m not in them. Fine, here they are, all black bars and one unrelated picture of Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross. They’re all fake, which is why they’re on a government website.”

The overall incompetence doesn’t negate the profound malevolence at work here. They’ve bungled the cover-up, but the cover-up is still of the depth of Trump’s involvement with a notorious accused pedophile. My instinct is to laugh at how bad they are at this, but then I remember what the “this” is.

The 60 Minutes CECOT story stands out to me as a couple of notable milestones in one. For one, it’s the first acknowledgement from noted Substacker and shithead Bari Weiss that the White House’s approval is of paramount importance.2 As predictable as this move was from her, the most successful free speech grifter of her time, it’s worth it to note what a shocking affront to journalism, democracy, and the concept of ethics this behavior is.

At the same time, the Trump administration’s stance on CECOT coverage has shifted dramatically in the past nine months. In March of this year, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem toured CECOT and did a spiritually horrifying photo shoot with prisoners stacked up behind her. Back then, they delighted in showing how inhumane they were. Back then, it was a show of power.

Only it turns out, Americans don’t like this “kidnapping, torturing, and killing” immigration policy. As of October, the majority of Americans believe Trump is “doing too much” with the deportations. Fewer than half approve of his approach to immigration in general. It turns out, there’s only so far brute force can take an administration when it doesn’t have the will of the people. It gets to a point where they have to actually govern.

How cinematically appropriate it is that that point comes right when Vanity Fair exposes the gap between the image they want to project—dominant, cohesive, unapologetic—and who they really are—meager, fractured, and confused. Rather than working on behalf of a president who lays out a clear agenda, these toads have established their fiefdoms on behalf of their own agendas. They don’t trust each other enough to actually hold a coalition.

That goes for Congressional Republicans as well, since it’s clearer every day that Mike “I’m not aware of that” Johnson is losing control of his House members and looking down the barrel of a massive midterm loss.

Amidst all of this malignant chaos, it is actually meaningful that all of them look goofy as hell. They’re obsessed with image craft. But they’re also not remotely careful or attentive to details, hence the devotion to AI-generated slopaganda, gold spray paint, and inkjet printers. They look like the kind of clowns who would forget to make sure a damning exposé doesn’t air in another country, especially not one with a grievance. They look like people who can’t commit to the same grift. They look weak, because they are weak.

Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this essay, please feed Al Gore’s Rhythm by liking and sharing it!