Surely we must be in hell: March 19, 2025. Official White House photo via Wikimedia Commons. Click here for high-resolution version.
The news of late has been so surreal that it feels like living in a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, set in a fascist America from which there is No Exit. How the hell do we get out of this place?
A lifelong criminal, con man, and creep of the highest order struts on the world stage like a king, dispensing commands to hellify the world. Half the population, eager and true-believing citizens of hell, are so depraved that they see this king as God’s agent on earth, even as he hastens to light their little lives, too, on fire. The other half of us see what is happening, stunned, bewildered, and near paralyzed by the spectacle of it.
In this hell, freedom is the right to dominate and exploit. Truth is whatever serves the king. Virtue means doing whatever the king wants done. Empathy is toxic. Justice is retribution and persecution. Fairness is at the top of the list of things that must be reversed because fairness can no longer be allowed. Any act of fairness is a crack in hell’s foundation.
In philosophy and literature, there is a well developed idea that this world is hell (even before Donald Trump came along). Arthur Schopenhauer wrote, “For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it.”
Time after time people like me have bought into hopes that this criminal, con man, and creep would be neutralized and brought to justice. Time after time he has slithered out of it, not least because there are so many who are afraid of him or who long for a piece of the perks and power in a hellified world — hell’s courtiers, sold souls, connoisseurs of the practice of domination, exploitation, and cruelty.
A new hope?
The Epstein scandal gets more interesting every day. Dare we hope that it will be the Epstein scandal that finally causes hell to freeze over? This morning, the New Republic has this piece by Alex Shepherd: Is This the Turning Point of Trump’s Presidency? It’s early yet, but the Epstein story has all the makings of a defining scandal that could grind Republican rule to a halt.
It’s asking a lot of MAGA fools to comprehend that reality is pretty much a complete reversal of all the lies they have believed. A thousand smoking guns pointed right at their tiny brains may not be enough. We can only hope.
Meanwhile, even if Trump manages to slither out of this, the subversive beauty of the truth trying to come out, while the king and his court struggle to keep the scam going, is a sight to see.
The media and some of the punditry, bless their timid little hearts, are ganging up now to come up with scoops that fry Trump’s ass in the grease of his own guilt. Here’s an example of a good one this morning, from Midas Touch. The link is below.
A screen shot from the video at Midas Touch.
Its interesting that Murdoch allowed the WSJ story to run, or at least I assume he gave the green light. Given the inevitable retaliation from Trump I assume the WSJ is copper-bottomed and can corroborate the story, which leads me to think that the weird birthday card from Trump to Epstein is real. The bigger question is will Murdoch capitulate over the storey, like so many other institutions ? Although I can see Trump doing some dodgy deal with Ghislaine Maxwell (who I just learnt is the daughter of the disgraced media tycoon and fraudster Robert Maxwell) and have her testify in his favour in return for commuting her life sentence. She’ll probably be visiting Mar-a-Lago before long, she would fit in well there.
Hi Chenda: Some of the leaks are very interesting. For example, in the NYT story about Bondi telling Trump that he is in the Epstein files, it’s attributed to “three people with knowledge of the exchange.” This could not be second-hand information, or the NYT wouldn’t run with it. It would have to be someone in the White House.
It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to speculate that there are people in the White House who want to see Trump destroyed and that the purpose of the leak was to show that Trump knows he’s in the Epstein files. If a conspiracy to destroy evidence, or some other cover-up crime, comes to light, then that’s pretty damning. As for such a conspiracy, it’s hard for me to believe that even Bondi, Blanche, Bongino, or Patel would take such a risk for Trump. Too many people know, including, apparently, the 1,000 FBI agents assigned to flag Trump’s name in the Epstein files.
What I hope we’re seeing is a coordinated movement behind the scenes to take Trump down. This doesn’t even have to be someone who hates Trump who is on the side of justice. It could just as easily be someone who hopes to gain from Trump being out of the way.
That certainly sounds plausible David. Especially if Trump’s health and cognition keep declining you can imagine plenty of factional infighting between those wanting to succeed him.