Everyone knew this was coming; it happens to every lame duck president. But as I have written before many times, it was always going to happen sooner for Donald Trump. He is 79 years old and has been on the political scene now for over 10 years, his past due date is coming. Additionally, as I continually point out, cults of personality are entirely invulnerable right up until they are not, and once one reaches that threshold, it is easier to push snow back into the sky than to keep the bond. It all now converges as the matter between Donald Trump and his once “best friend” Jeffrey Epstein dominates both the news and political cycle. J.D. Vance, Kash Patel, Pamela Bondi, and others all met last night in the White House – it had to be desperate. Because they’re not just fighting to get through the Epstein files scandal, they are pushing back against time. It was always going to happen, but now former Republican political consultant Rick Wilson says that the time is upon us.
According to an essay in Wilson’s Substack account:
Since the cover-up of the Epstein files began a mere month ago (I know…it seems longer), the air has shifted. You can read it in the data. You can smell it in the flop sweat of the White House’s comms operation. You can see it in the failed social posts, the pointless, ChatGPT-generated trolling responses Karoline Leavitt pukes out in the Brady Press Room every day. You can sense the tension on the Fox set every night as they desperately try to get back to the real issues, like Joe Biden’s autopen and the scourge of trans Wiccan pickleball players in the NCAA.
One need only watch Trump and the many “scandals” that he has tried to usher out as a distraction to feel the level of desperation. Whether it involves the “auto-pen” or even resurrecting “Russia, Russia, Russia,” an effort is made to change the subject matter of that evening’s Fox panel. Even Elon Musk is out talking about Trump and Epstein. Nothing has worked. Wilson then notes the same dynamic that I have written about many times:
“Power is rarely lost all at once. It leaks. It drips. And when the dam breaks, everyone upstream suddenly remembers they never liked you in the first place. That moment has arrived. In Washington, the smart guys are whispering in quiet booths in expensive steakhouses, leaving no digital trail. They’re paranoid, but can no longer deny that they need a plan. They’re summoning their imaginations to the moment after Trump. As heretical as this would seem, it’s happening. They’re not just thinking of 2028, but wondering what happens if the end comes sooner, either from natural causes or political calamity.”
Cults are uniquely pernicious in that they are not linear; small things that probably shouldn’t matter in the long run (fat ankles) suddenly do, and in ways that no one anticipated. It really isn’t that unlike a spell in that once broken, cannot be resummoned. Wilson says that the spell is broken and we are seeing it happen before our eyes and what is going on behind the scenes.
“Something broke a month ago, and as Trump’s flailing continues, so does the whispering, the plotting, the scenario planning. Washington politicians and lobbyists are fundamentally herd animals, ungulates in good suits, carefully drinking from the watering hole while watching for a shift in the wind, a subtle clue of the approach of predators. They’re nervous. They’re sniffing the wind, ambition and terror mixed in their minds.”
Yes, a lot of this was absolutely inevitable with Trump entering office as a lame duck but most thought that it would last through the 2026 election at the very least. Now, though, the sharks are circling. It connotes the old Wall Street maxim; “Don’t panic. But if you do panic, panic first.” They are all sniffing around to see who should “panic first.” Oh, and they are also jostling for position.
“The 2028 aspirants, from J.D. Vance on down, have suddenly realized that winning a 2028 primary isn’t simply about being ‘who’s the most like King Donald’ but also preparing a limited hang-out of elliptical criticism,” he added. “They’re on the phone with donors, pretending they’d never run but just wanted to catch up, dancing an elephantine Kabuki to be ready for either an immediate collapse of the dam or the slow misery of a long Trumpian goodbye.”
It is the possibility of an immediate collapse that has brought this on, that’s the one “new thing” that has happened over the course of a month. Up to the point that the Epstein matter broke, Trump had enjoyed relatively high approvals (by his standards). Now, though, he is plummeting.
And then there is the economy. We have seen evidence of Trump’s desperation in the way he fired the commisioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Trump knows that he might well even be able to survive the Epstein matter if the economy is really good. But the economy isn’t really good, indeed – it’s getting worse. If the economy continues to slow, and now we have the tariffs to factor in, look for Trump to get even less room with respect to the Epstein issue.
Yes, the GOP is now looking around at each other, wondering who might be “next” because it looks like the one here now is past his sell-by-date. By the way, as you all know, the closer it looks to be that “it’s inevitable” the more the people who think they are next will be likely to maybe push the matter a bit.
It is definitely getting more interesting.
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Dementia D is sliding towards from being caught out ‘embarrassed’ to being a total lame duck ‘bankrupt’ in more ways than one – personally, legally, morally, ethically, religiously. One is not bankrupt, these ways, until it happens, and when it does happens, there’s an almost sudden, audible, and reverberating ‘fatal snap’.
The warning signs are there, as all concerned and knowing can sense, see, wish and expect the inevitable ‘fatal snap’ to happen. The warning signs are due to the accusatorial smoke generated from the spot fires of truth, lit by the kindling of real world evidence, along with the offenders reptilian reactions, use of thought terminating cliches, and loaded language. All exercised by the accused to befuddle, deflect and deny as he ducks, weaves, and spits with a forked tongue, whilst being assisted by a panicking posse of MAGA/GOP poodles. As you state above “… the sharks are circling. It connotes the old Wall Street maxim; “Don’t panic. But if you do panic, panic first.”…” Yes, somethings in the air. Perhaps it’s the acrid smell of singing teflon that’s “… because it looks like the one here now is past his sell-by-date…”
I hope your assessment is correct. And while Wilson is no longer plugged in to the GOP machine I hope the subtle clues he says are there have substance to them. What I see as the problem is this:
After Jan.6 Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger took the courageous step of falling on their swords. Kinzinger wasn’t all that well known but Cheney was GOP royalty back then. I vehemently disagree with her views on damned near everything but she was as hard-core conservative as they come. Had McConnell fallen on HIS sword and told his caucus to do what they knew to be the right thing when it came time to vote on the second impeachment the nightmare we are now experiencing would have been over. But he didn’t.
Many of us including many non-MAGA Republicans knew Trump would run again and that he’d get the nomination. Still, we reasonably assumed he’d lose again. However in the years out of office he re-wrote the narrative in a lot of minds, and more effectively than we realized. I was stunned to learn that for all the energy Harris established and support she was marshaling and trying to solidify that at NO point did her own internal polling show her as having overtaken Trump. With more time she might have been able to do so but we’ll never know.
Now, with SCOTUS having given him a blank check it will take more than just two or even three GOPers falling on their swords to end the Trump/MAGA nightmare. It will I fear take several times that if not more. Given how out of control his rage and the combination of his desire for retribution and the tools he has (unlike any American before him) to get it I just don’t see a set of prominent/powerful (in their own right) Republicans that numbers in the double digits will to collectively go on the attack. To fall on their swords and sacrifice themselves for the common good.
And that’s what it will take. A significant number of GOPers with actual power to “attack” all at once. Everyone is looking for OTHERS to do what they themselves don’t have the courage to do. I honestly think if there’s a strategy it’s to subtly, without leaving fingerprints ramp up the pressure on Trump to the point where he literally has a major heart attack or stroke. He is after all clearly someone for whom that seems more than a little possible. That’s their hope. But, as the guy tells the big boss in Deepwater Horizon “Hope ain’t a strategy.”
Surely one and all can see the turd for what it is and get a whiff of what’s in the air, and the reasons behind it all. Eventually one hopes there comes a point in time where the reality of it all is addressed, and treated in a way that’s beneficial to the country, its people and its democratic institutions. That is, this carbuncle and its cancer is winkled out, sloughed off, and tossed onto a pyre that befits this rancid canker.