The Petulant Child Administration
This is what happens when you don't have adults in the room.
Note: This piece started out as one of my “Quick Hitters” but pretty quickly grew into a full essay. Apparently, there was even more childish bullshit than I originally appreciated.
Donald Trump is and always has been a petulant child. Going back far before his political career, what little I noticed from him consisted of his presence on social media, specifically his poorly structured all-caps ranting against others. His ancient online beef with Rosie O’Donnell was one of the first times I really saw what a douchebag he was1 and he has gotten no better with age.
After stumbling into the presidency, his immaturity was amplified, there was no escaping it. His severe aversion to facts, his all-caps tweeting at all hours, his incessant, stupid, and churlish nicknames for his enemies, it all became just part and parcel of what our political arena had become. For a while it just faded into the background, it was just who he was.
Now that the nation is saddled with T2.0, the frivolousness has seemingly spread to the entire administration2 and this has been on full display over the last few days.
Lies of the Union
First, we have this gem on the official White House website:
Let’s just set aside the fact that science has used mice as lab animals for decades and that this does not mean they are trying to “make mice transgender”. The fact that the highlighted paragraph exists and is now part of the Presidential Record is mind-blowing.
International Relations
Over the weekend we were treated to Shadow President Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio taking to TwiX to beef with Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski over Starlink.
Sunday's exchange started when Musk posted that Starlink was the "backbone of the Ukrainian army" and that "their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off".
Sikorski then responded:
"Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year," Sikorski wrote. "The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers."
Lil Marco jumps into the fray, claiming that Sikorski was:
"just making things up... no-one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink".
"And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now," he added.3
No one has made any threats Marco? Maybe scroll up a bit…
Musk finished up with:
"Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink," he wrote.
That is some top-level statecraft my friends.
The Richest Child in the World
The addition of Elon Musk to the administration has resulted in widespread chaos, uncertainty, and an unprecedented amount of unelected control being placed into the hands of one man. That this man is (allegedly) addicted to ketamine would be a grave concern in normal times. That this (allegedly) addicted person has seemingly unfettered control over the financial handles of the government, along with access to some of the most sensitive personal data of Americans is unconscionable. And yet, here we are.
At the risk of downplaying the seriousness of what Musk and the DogePups are illegally doing with our data, we must address his penchant for acting like a man-baby, often very publicly.
During the first weekend of T2.0 Musk eviscerated USAID, abruptly cutting off foreign aid across the globe, throwing Americans serving abroad into chaos, and likely resulting in actual humans dying. Musk first claimed, without explanation or evidence, on TwiX4 that the agency was a “criminal organization” and “It needs to die”. He also tweeted out that he was “feeding USAID into a wood chipper”. Again, this is how he casually discusses not only ending people’s careers, but quite literally causing people to die. It’s fucking disgusting.
I could (and will, eventually) write a whole piece about our unelected Shadow President, but that’s enough about Elon for today.
Victimization, Professionalized
JD Vance is an asshole. I mean, he is many other things, but I have come to believe that his role in T2.0 is Official Internet Asshole. Apparently, JD feels that being Official Asshole should come with no consequences, and he was very distressed when he tried to “walk his 3-year-old daughter”5 around his Cincinnati neighborhood. There were some folks in this public space who did not appreciate Vance’s recent support of Russia nor his ambush of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in the Oval a couple of Fridays ago. They exercised their First Amendment rights, letting him know about it. From a distance. Because, you know, Secret Service and all that.
Vance took to TwiX to fret about this horrid treatment he and his 3-year-old were forced to endure:
“Today while walking my 3-year-old daughter a group of ‘Slava Ukraini’ protesters followed us around and shouted as my daughter grew increasingly anxious and scared,” Vance wrote on X.
“I decided to speak with the protesters in the hopes that I could trade a few minutes of conversation for them leaving my toddler alone. (Nearly all of them agreed.),” he continued.
“It was a mostly respectful conversation, but if you’re chasing a 3-year-old as part of a political protest, you’re a shit person,” he added.
Don’t get me wrong, if this was a heated exchange with a child present, I could understand being upset in the moment. Thing is, well, I will just post video of the back and forth and let you make the call:
Additionally, Vance seems to forget things he has said in the past. Even when they were part of a pretty significant confrontation, also about children, only last month.
Vance came to the (online) defense of one of the DogePups, Marko Elez, who had resigned when racist statements attributed to him surfaced, including posting “Normalize Indian Hate” on one of his (since deleted) social media channels. Democratic House Representative Ro Khanna, who is of Indian descent, took issue with Vance’s support of Elez, and their exchange got testy (emphasis added):
Vance, who is married to an Indian American, replied to Musk’s poll and wrote, “Here’s my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life. We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) replied to Vance, “Are you going to tell him to apologize for saying “Normalize Indian hate” before this rehire? Just asking for the sake of both of our kids.”
Vance replied, “For the sake of both of our kids? Grow up. Racist trolls on the internet, while offensive, don’t threaten my kids. You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes. A culture that encourages congressmen to act like whiny children.”
Vance added, “I cannot overstate how much I loathe this emotional blackmail pretending to be concern. My kids, god willing, will be risk takers. They won’t think constantly about whether a flippant comment or a wrong viewpoint will follow them around for the rest of their lives.”
Racist trolls on the internet don’t threaten Vance’s kids, but some middle-aged folks with legit concerns apparently do. Also, Vance’s kids, God willing, will be risk takers. As long as that risk does not involve being asked simple questions in a calm environment during a Sunday morning walk.
Like I said, asshole.
Take Care and Stay Strong
I mean, I live in Connecticut. I have known that he is shitty, as do all folks up here. I had just never really paid attention to it until the feud with O’Donnell.
Of course, it may just be that being a petulant child is simply a prerequisite to join this Admin. Along with the Loyalty Oath, obvs.
Again with the “you better say thank you” bullshit, which seems to be a mantra for T2.0.
I would provide screenshots of these tweets, but TwiX is down. Again. So sad. Between this and his Spaceships blowing up, maybe Elon needs to stop playing government and go back to work?
I mean, we know he’s prolly racist. But to treat your own Indian-American spawn as if they were a family pet?
it's just a nice long list of people i'd rather not know existed