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Trump's Trophy: A Message From An Unhappy Old Man

Trump's Trophy: A Message From An Unhappy Old Man

On hallowed military ground, Stars and Stripes whipping in the upstate New York breeze, an old man in a red hat toddled on stage and shared some wisdom.

"He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife," El Presidente said, referring, non sequitur, to the late New York real estate developer Bill Levitt. "But that doesn’t work out too well, I must tell you, a lot of trophy wives, it doesn’t work."

Trump emitted this ramble to a West Point student body that is about 21 percent female. Would “trophy wife” be on their list of career goals yet? Maybe! God only knows what they think their job prospects are in a military currently presided over by an accused roofie rapist, who is on record speaking against women in the military, and an administration that sacked top female military leaders as its first order of trolling-the-libs business.

The West Point trophy wife riff was a tangent off another tangent – about the U.S. military’s job being not to “host drag shows,” but to “dominate any foe, anytime, anyplace.”

There is a certain logic to Trump’s tangents sometimes. Trophy wife. Goals. For both MAGA genders. The transactional relationship ascendant. Everyone has a price. Sugardaddies.com. Young beauty attached to the arm of a rich, powerful old man, pampered in exchange for being value-added in business and politics, submitting occasionally to the desiccated paw.

The freaky gym rat who goes by “Bronze Age Pervert” (eventually outed as poor little rich kid and Ivy league PhD Costin Almariu) blames all Western Hemisphere’s problems on the ascendance of supposedly feminine attributes – encapsulated in what he calls an “obese Mammy” HR overlord policing language – in his bestselling book, Bronze Age Mindset, which calls for the return of Agamemnon, Hercules worship, and widespread slavery.

BAP’s world view, widely shared in Trumpland, assumes that women do not need, want, or naturally exercise agency. It presumes that women are constitutionally, genetically, mentally, physically, in every way, not as capable as men of self-reliance or living with a purpose or a mission beyond childcare. Such creatures, given power and influence, clearly must drag down the rest of society, including the he-men they try to police out of their God-given right to authority.

BAP and his male fans like to refer to the current supposedly egalitarian enforcement system, also labeled by them as “wokeness,” as “the longhouse.” Here is how “L0m3z” (another former online anon, outed as California creative writing instructor turned neo-fascist literature publisher Jonathan Keeperman) defined the term in an article published in the trad-Cath, anti-democratic “First Things” magazine:

More than anything, the Longhouse refers to the remarkable overcorrection of the last two generations toward social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior. ….

As of 2022, women held 52 percent of professional-managerial roles in the U.S. Women earn more than 57 percent of bachelor degrees, 61 percent of master’s degrees, and 54 percent of doctoral degrees. And because they are overrepresented in professions, such as human resource management (73 percent) and compliance officers (57 percent), that determine workplace behavioral norms, they have an outsized influence on professional culture, which itself has an outsized influence on American culture more generally.

Those tiny gains — two percent here, ten percent there …. unacceptable! Think of all the worthy white males with dreams deferred.

BAP and his fans must know that American society is more unequal than ever, and that white men still, by orders of magnitude, run everything from America’s major companies to all of Silicon Valley to the global financial sector to federal and state governments.

But still, women, learn your place.

We are living in a time of Orwellian erasure of women, as Anna Funder recently wrote in Time. Artificial Intelligence is literally hunting for and eradicating government web pages and documents with the word “women.”

This is nothing new. George Orwell himself – and his biographers – managed well to erase the contributions and influence of his accomplished wife, according to a new book, Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, by Funder. (Kate Zambreno’s book Heroines has a more extensive list of modernist writers who used their disappeared wives for literary material.)

At the heart of the anti-feminist effort to convert younger women into trophy wives and nothing other than trophy wives is the notion that a viable route to success – or perhaps the only viable route, in MAGA men’s perception – is to serve rich, powerful men who need assurance that women are playthings with no agency. This model has been held up by Trump and Melania since he first screamed, “Where’s my supermodel?” as she picked her way onstage and said… literally nothing the whole time.

Melania is clearly the trophy Trump was rather wistfully thinking of when he blurted that it sometimes doesn’t work out. The East Wing is supposedly unstaffed for the first time in modern history. She served a political purpose for sure – the “supermodel” on the arm, value-added.

The late Vogue editor Andre Leon Talley said that Melania Trump was “the most exquisitely moisturized” person he’d ever met. “Melania is very moisturized, groomed, lacquered to perfection. She can stand on those 4-inch heels…“

And that’s it.

The top echelon of the MAGA right is packed with women who – like Melania – are openly engaged in transactional relationships. And now, younger MAGA women have lined themselves up with this model. Steve Bannon’s "War Room" White House correspondent Natalie Winters, who is 23 years old, proclaims she is looking forward to leaving her career so she can get down to the work of finding a husband “to be submissive to.”

If they’re not serving the regime in Washington, young women like Winters, who came of age with this look and lifestyle ascendant, are LARPing on social media as never-been-happier Betty Crocker 1950s tradwife influencers. But, in the case of influencers in particular, the joke is kind of on their guys: Follow the money home and see who really wears the pants.

The greatest difference between Gen Z and the Boomer-Gen X-Millennial cohorts is that while younger women may have been taught the lessons of feminism as children – girl power! – the real world in their living memory has not upheld that promise. Younger women don’t remember the very real restrictions that second-wave feminists eradicated, so feminism seems impotent and useless against new challenges. Submission seems like a viable choice.

A lot of this is camp, theater, and shock jock-ing, a new version of the “female chauvinist pigs” Ariel Levy chronicled in her book in the aughts. But in a time of performative erasure of women’s records of achievement, of purposeful diminishment of women’s cultural relevance, and of state power directed at women’s bodily autonomy, surrender really might seem preferable to struggle.

The White House is busy purging transcripts of Trump’s public verbal rambles from its websites, so you must catch him when you can. At West Point, Trump blurted out the unhappy old man’s truth about the trophy-ization of women.

Hopefully, both male and female cadets were listening.

Nina Burleigh is a a journalist, author, documentary producer and adjunct professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She has written eight books including her recently published novel Zero Visibility Possible.

Reprinted with permission from COURIER's American Freakshow

Elon Musk

How Trump Exploited Clever But Clueless (And Needy) Musk

It feels strange talking about the world's richest man, only 53 years old, in the past tense. But that somehow seems appropriate for Elon Musk, who weeks ago was considered Donald Trump's co-president. Now he's clearly falling off that high perch, just as Tesla, his star asset, reports net income cratering by 71 percent.

Musk was undoubtedly a genius building business empires, not only Tesla but also SpaceX. He also owns the former Twitter, now known as X. But though he had certain highly developed faculties, he was not a full person at all.

One struggles to portray Musk as a victim, but it's become undeniable that Trump played him. Trump exploited his wealth, neediness and limited social smarts.

Start with the 2024 campaign. We don't know the monetary rewards Trump might have dangled, but this one-time Trump critic sank over a quarter of a billion dollars into helping the president's reelection. Moments after voters gave Trump a second term, Musk's wealth mushroomed in expectation of a lucrative payback.

But then Trump made Musk the fall guy for his obviously unpopular plan to cannibalize the government workforce. Not only did his "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) strip the public of prized services, but Musk seemed to enjoy inflicting pain on thousands of workers. "The real reason (for their complaints)," he said callously, "is that those who are receiving the waste and fraud wish it to continue."

Trump is famous for skipping out on paybacks. As the chainsaw-waving leader of DOGE, Musk became politically radioactive. And no longer useful, Musk is clearly being shown the door — just as potential Tesla buyers have gone elsewhere for their electric vehicles. Both setbacks because MAGA got him to play patsy, up to and including support for far-right candidates in Germany.

Musk has joined movements advocating for higher birth rates to counter a drop in population. But Musk has taken the notion to weird levels, trying to create a master race modeled on himself. He has spread his sperm to father at least 14 children, via a number of women.

Sure, he can write big checks, but children, boys especially, need involved fathers. Some of the most screwed up kids come from money but suffer from lack of fathering. Musk's plans to gather the mothers and children in a Texas compound and visit them from time to time is as bloodless as it gets.

Why an entrepreneur who helped launch the EV revolution in the United States would work for a man dedicated to frustrating it remains a mystery. Did Musk think he would be spared?

Musk, like Trump, needs to be in the headlines all the time. He'd brag about busting unions if that got attention. Musk wasn't content to quietly enjoy his vast fortune — or enjoy giving some of it away. A dedicated father heading big companies would have used more of his scant free time tending to his offspring.

In the end Musk was conned by a con man. Musk may have been the richest man around, but he was used and is now being stripped of an exalted place in world politics — after doing dirty work that has taken a big toll on his companies. He was hustled by a man who has overseen five business bankruptcies — six if you count Trump Entertainment Resorts, which went bankrupt twice.

Thanks in good part to Musk's money, Trump was put in a position to amass millions in crypto, and engage in more grift and perhaps old-fashioned corruption. And Musk got "poorer."

Musk has an estimated $330 billion left, so no tears for him. But his legend has been sharply marked down. He's now a figure of both hate and ridicule. What a sad combination.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

We May No Longer Be Safe In Our Own Country

We May No Longer Be Safe In Our Own Country

In a couple of months, I am planning a business trip to Europe. I don't scare easy, but despite the fact that I'm an American citizen and have committed no crime, I am worried about what might happen when I attempt to come home.

Will Customs and Border Patrol agents pull me from the customs line as they did to Amir Makled? He's an American citizen, too, a lawyer born and raised in Detroit who was returning from a vacation in the Dominican Republic. But he happens to represent a pro-Palestinian student protester.

CBP detained Makled and demanded access to his phone. CBP can demand to examine your phone or laptop under authority to search for child pornography, drug smuggling, human smuggling and other suspected crimes. Last month, a French scientist was denied entry into the United States because border guards searched his phone and found texts critical of Trump.

The European Commission has just announced that it is issuing burner phones to officials traveling to the United States, a measure usually restricted to countries like China or Russia.

"Well," you may say, "that's a nuisance, not a true threat." That's probably right, not because they respect the Constitution or basic decency, but because if they're going to start arresting Trump critics, they have bigger fish to fry.

And yet, consider that Trump is now openly speculating on sending "home grown," U.S.-citizen criminals to the Salvadoran gulag. At his Oval Office meeting with strongman Nayib Bukele, while beaming at Bukele's refusal to return the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Trump mused about expanding El Salvador's prisons to include American citizens, saying that some of our criminals are just as bad as immigrants and that "I'm all for it."

There are too many layers of outrage here to unpack, but let's just note that even agreeing to send accused (not convicted) illegal aliens to Salvadoran custody violates basic rights. By one estimate, 90% of those deported to El Salvador had no criminal records. Prisoners are held in inhumane conditions, stacked on metal bunks with no bedding 23 1/2 hours per day, subject to torture and summary executions.

Let's also take note of Trump's expansive concept of criminality. Last week, Trump targeted two former officials from his first term, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor.

Krebs, as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, committed the unpardonable sin of affirming that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In a flagrantly Orwellian order, Trump declared that Krebs "falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen."

He then directed the attorney general and other officials to scour the record to see if they can find instances of misconduct. This not only violates the semi-sacred separation between the White House and the Justice Department; it is reminiscent of Joseph Stalin's hatchetman Lavrentiy Beria's dictum: "Show me the man and I will find the crime."

Trump's order on Miles Taylor — who as chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security penned the "anonymous" New York Times piece in the first Trump administration, went even further, accusing Taylor of sowing "chaos and distrust in government" and closing with an accusation of treason.

The prosecutorial power of the state is vast. Even without a conviction, a criminal investigation can upend a person's life and potentially bankrupt them with legal costs. In the Anglo-American tradition, the danger of overweening state power is cabined in many ways: the requirement of a grand jury, the presumption of innocence, the right to trial by jury, the ban on star chambers and many other protections. But these all rest ultimately on the public's sense of what's right.

Back to the airport example. Let's assume that someone in the Trump administration decides to harass me. They could say that I had spread the "false and baseless" claim that the 2020 election was not stolen and therefore sowed "chaos and distrust in government." Or they could allege that I have terrorist ties, as they said about Rumeysa Ozturk, the Turkish grad student who was hustled off the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. What then?

Republican members of Congress, if asked about my detention, would say that "We have to trust the president's instincts." The Wall Street Journal editorial page would say that this is not ideal because just think of what Democrats might do with this power. And the right-wing media would dredge up every critical word I've ever written about Trump to show that, after all, I had it coming.

Would I be able to consult a lawyer? Fortunately, I'm married to one. But I wouldn't be able to count on legal advice from many of the big firms who are doffing their caps to the president.

I love to travel, but I love to return home even more. The sight of the Stars and Stripes at the airport never fails to move me as I proudly line up in the American passport holders lane. The flag meant home — but it also meant decency and ironclad adherence to the law.

Meant.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Donald Trump

Trump's Ban On 'Enemy' Law Firms Advances A More Efficient Fascism

Donald Trump is in the process of issuing a series of executive orders targeting law firms he doesn’t like. The orders strip partners and employees of the firms of their top-secret security clearances, bar the firms from doing business with the federal government, ban employees of the firms from federal office buildings, ban federal contractors from doing business with the firms, and initiate federal investigations of the firms for hiring and promoting people on the basis of race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Trump’s first order was against Covington & Burling, a firm that had done legal work for Jack Smith, the Special Counsel assigned to investigate Trump for his theft of top-secret national security documents and attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He then went after the Perkins Coie law firm, which the New York Times identifies as being “aligned with Democrats.”

Trump then turned his attention to Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, signing an executive order with the same restrictions on the firm, saying that one of the lawyers for the firm had worked as a prosecutor in New York on the indictment of Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, and that another lawyer had been involved in a lawsuit against January 6 insurrectionists. The order against Paul Weiss similarly forbade the firm from doing business with the federal government, barred any of its clients from federal contracts, and stripped the firm’s access to federal facilities.

The most egregious paragraph in the executive orders against the law firms was the one entitled “Personnel:”

“The heads of all agencies shall, to the extent permitted by law, provide guidance limiting official access from [sic] Federal Government buildings to employees of Perkins Coie when such access would threaten the national security of or otherwise be inconsistent with the interests of the United States. In addition, the heads of all agencies shall provide guidance limiting Government employees acting in their official capacity from engaging with Perkins Coie employees to ensure consistency with the national security and other interests of the United States.”

In essence, what this paragraph does is accuse the law firms’ leadership and employees of disloyalty to the United States, because everything they're being banned from belongs to the United States government. That's where the words “national security” come from. The nation's security is defended by the government. The implication is that if any of the law firms’ employees come in contact with government buildings or personnel, that contact would be a threat to national security, so it must be forbidden.

No evidence is cited for this outrageous allegation. There is nothing in the rest of the language of the executive orders to support why any of the law firms or their employees would be such a threat. Lacking that evidence, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the disloyalty of the law firms and their employees is to Donald Trump, not to the nation. This is just rank unsupported prejudice.

Perkins Coie did not take the ban lying down, immediately suing in federal court on the basis that the executive order was unconstitutional. Judge Beryl Howell issued a temporary restraining order forbidding the enforcement of the executive order. The Trump DOJ then moved in the D.C. Court of Appeals to get the judge disqualified. This was after the Trump administration had filed another appeal trying to disqualify Judge James Boasberg from hearing the case involving the deportation of more than 100 Venezuelan migrants on the basis that they belong to a drug gang.

So not only is Trump banning entire law firms from going into court against the administration, he is attempting to convince the D.C. Court of Appeals to get two well regarded federal judges with long experience banned from hearing cases against Trump and his administration.

What Trump has done is to make it impossible for these law firms to do business with the federal government, to file lawsuits against the federal government, or take clients who had business with the federal government. They must be able to do research, interview witnesses, and gather evidence if they're going to sue the federal government or defend anyone against charges brought by the Department of Justice. So, if you represent, say, Lockheed Martin, you wouldn't have any access to the Pentagon where the company's contracts for the F-35 fighter were written. If you represent a contractor who worked on a naval vessel like an aircraft carrier or a submarine, you wouldn't be able to enter a naval base where those ships are located, or interview anyone involved in the building or contracting for naval vessels.

This is the meat and potatoes of what lawyers do. Take away the right of employees from these law firms to walk into federal buildings, access federal documents, and review documents or interview anyone on any subject involving secrets and national security, and you're taking away the lifeblood of their business.

The Paul Weiss firm quickly made a deal with Trump promising to do $40 million worth of pro bono work for the White House. The White House issued a statement saying that the firm had “acknowledged the wrongdoing of its former partner Mark Pomerantz,” and had committed to ending its program of diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring and promotion.

In other words, the Paul Weiss law firm caved into Trump's demands so that security clearances held by its employees could be retained and the business the firm and its clients do with the federal government would not be damaged.

What Trump is doing with his assault on major law firms by executive order smacks of what Adolf Hitler did in the 1930s when he brought the entire legal profession and judicial system of Germany to heel by barring Jewish lawyers and judges from the German courts and forbidding Jewish lawyers from doing business with the German government.

This is from an article published by the Federal Bar Association titled “Lawyers and Bar Associations Play a Vital Role in Preserving the Rule of Law: A Study of How Hitler Perverted Germany’s Judicial System Highlights the Importance of Lawyers.”

“Hitler’s early decree stripping Jewish lawyers and judges of their professional capacities marked an early step in the decline from liberty to dictatorship. According to research conducted by the German Federal Bar and documented in its exhibit, “Lawyers without Rights: Jewish Lawyers under the Third Reich,” Hitler’s 1933 decree barring Jewish lawyers and judges from German courts did not trigger any formal protests or objections from non-Jewish lawyers or judges. There were many respected bar associations in Germany, but they did not oppose this action.”

The only difference here is that Trump is not starting with a religious minority, but with a minority of law firms and a minority of judges handling cases against the Trump administration. He knows that if he can knock down one or two big time law firms and manage to bar several of the judges hearing lawsuits against his administration from hearing the cases before them, he will have the entire legal profession and judiciary intimidated into falling in line.

This is the way fascism starts, with the few not the many, but the many are next. Today it's law firms barred from government buildings and judges barred from hearing lawsuits. Tomorrow it could be individual citizens barred from appealing decisions about their taxes or Social Security because Trump doesn't like the political party they belong to or the demonstration they attended or the club they joined in college. Today it's alleged drug dealers rounded up without charges and banned from the country.

Tomorrow it could be you and me.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. He writes every day at luciantruscott.substack.com and you can follow him on Bluesky @lktiv.bsky.social and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter


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