The term of art often used to describe Trumpistan is kakistocracy: rule by the least competent and worst people. We now see that coming to the fore before Trump has even been inaugurated. Paul Krugman (who I think I will be linking to a lot) lays out the contours of the internecine warfare between the MAGA Brownshirts and the Broligarchic Libertarians. Once again, the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party is the go-to explainer for people who voted for Trump only to discover that he isn't actually their friend.
Josh Marshall hits on something else. Yes, this is a Steve Bannon/Laura Loomer vs Elon Musk/Vivek Ramaswamy cage match pitting one horrible set of people against an entirely different set of horrible people. Rooting for injuries, etc.
However, this ignores the key player in this drama. Much like Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Trump is not on the stage, but central to the drama. As Marshall notes and I think it true, Trump is already a spent force in so many ways. He's old and was never really smart to begin with. He learned almost nothing from his previous four years in office. He looks and sounds exhausted. Now, he's term limited.
One of the key acts in this drama was Trump's recent experience being sidelined by Elon Musk over the government shutdown. Musk drove that whole monkey boat, until Trump emerged, grunted a few things to help resolve it and then started babbling about Greenland and Panama in order to re-center the narrative on him. Now, almost immediately afterwards, the narrative has again escaped his control.
Central to this is that Trump believes almost nothing, beyond a deep belief in Donald Trump. Everything - and we mean everything - is a transaction that Trump "will" win by being Trump. The government shutdown was interesting, in that Musk really wanted his Chinese investments protected. He blows up the deal, gets them protected (Trump does not get his debt ceiling ask) and then the whole thing goes away. That was very Trumpy: chaotic and fundamentally corrupt.
The problem is that there are two hugely obnoxious and important wings of Trump's coalition that have an irreconcilable difference on H1-B visas. Being a huge collection of privileged assholes, they have set upon each other hammer and tong. Since Trump revels in vulgar, brash name calling, they have aped their Orange Jesus and started throwing slurs at each other.
It's honestly glorious.
Trump, ultimately holds the balance of power. To this point, he has been reluctant to really call Musk on his bullshit, but hating foreigners will ultimately clash with his other core belief in privileging wealth over everything else. Since he presumably won't be elected again (laughs nervously and nods at the 22nd Amendment) he has no need of anyone's votes. Musk, Ramaswamy, Bannon, Loomer...they are trying to create political movements. Bannon's Right Wing Populism cannot coexist with Musk's Arrested Adolescent Libertarianism.
Meanwhile, there is a steady drip of stories from the Red Hinterlands of people who look aghast at what Muskaswamy are planning to do. Who cherish their immigrant friends (who aren't the bad ones). The impulse from many, including myself, has been to sit back and weather the storm as Trump embarks on disastrous policies, and then kinda sorta hope that those cascading disasters land hardest on Red America, dependent as they are on Big Gubmint handouts. That makes me feel bad about myself and my country though.
Rooting for the chaotic disaster of MAGAt on MAGAt violence, however, is glorious.
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