Sympathy for the devil

Look at it from their perspective.

On the surface it looks airtight. First, you have the White House. Fat Boy knows the deal: You help him fuck over the libs, who he hates for thwarting and laughing at him, and he helps you fuck over the libs, who you hate for the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, and all the other forms of wokeness.

So far so good. Fat Boy’s crude and sloppy but that’s OK. His ramblings have a lot of people (including some of the libs!) convinced he’s a populist, and “populist” means untouchable. Let the libs talk in complete sentences. That just makes them sound stiff. Let ‘em howl that Fat Boy doesn’t make sense. Voters don’t know what a tariff is. They don’t know what due process means. They mean whatever he says they mean. He’s the President.

And he’s acting faster than you expected. He doesn’t stop and question anything. He signs the EOs fast as you can write them. That’s a huge advantage. You have momentum. And most voters don’t even realize what you’re doing.

You have Congress, too, and they’ve handed you the keys. They don’t even pretend to get in the way. Why should they? The Republicans (and a lot of Democrats) love not having to do anything they could get pinned on. They can just pose for pictures and draw salary. You write the legislation for them. While Fat Boy creates a distraction they just sneak a vote and skip to recess. Nice work if you can get it!

But the judiciary? Different story. Now you’re playing defense, not offense. It’s one thing to steer a case to the Fifth, force a circuit split, and shoot it up the ladder to Roberts and the boys. Now the libs are sending waves of constitutional challenges to what you’re doing and you just don’t have enough loyalists in place to stop them.

The Garcia thing has you worried. The opportunity is great. If you can get away with this, you can throw anyone in a foreign jail without charges. That would make things a lot easier. But the challenges are dragging it out, slowing you down, leaving you exposed. Fat Boy’s pitching a crime story: Garcia’s a gang-banger, we’re protecting your families. But normies are starting to pay attention. Give ‘em enough time and they may learn about due process after all.

You can see it’s making Roberts nervous. You were surprised when he trimmed as much as he did to get to 9-0 on the last ruling. That gave you a loophole, true — “effectuate,” “facilitate,” it can be gotten around. But it’s weak. Now that the case is getting hot Roberts might start thinking about his place in history. It’s been known to happen. Fat Boy’s muscling a bunch of big law firms, but it’ll take years for that to play out and some of them are starting to push back.

Hell, now some of the colleges are starting to push back! That really caught you by surprise. You got a little high on your own supply. Easy mistake to make: You knew they were mostly careerists with no sense of mission and last year your DEI and antisemitism racket really had them scared. It seemed a cinch they’d all fold as easy as Columbia.

But now Harvard is pushing back. And who knew Obama’d get involved? Now you have to either fold or push back harder. And you know Fat Boy doesn’t like to fold. So you’re going to have to make an even bigger public spectacle of it. Again, great opportunity but also a great risk. Don’t tell Fat Boy but people like Obama.

Speaking of folding, that tariff thing isn’t going to get any easier. Fat Boy likes crossing people up, which is how you sold him the Chinese cellphone thing. Getting Lutnick to say the exceptions were temporary was classic. Fat Boy hardlines China — tough; Lutnick eases off — practical! The problem is, this isn’t just politics anymore. This is real money you’re playing with. The markets are nervous and the big blowback is yet to come.

Try telling the voters it’s all a hoax when prices go up. Try selling them DEI stories when they can’t get government services and planes keep falling out of the sky. Momentum is good but it’s got drawbacks. If you get too far out front people get nervous.

In fact, you’re nervous. You’re starting to act like someone who’s trying to get away with something. Because you are. This isn’t just old-fashioned Good Government, this is a speedrun, a land grab, a coup. For a while you felt above it all, like you imagine Musk does with a head full of ketamine. But in your heart of hearts you can’t believe you’ve gotten away with as much as you have. Fat Boy never thinks about other people but he’s crazy. You don’t have that luxury. Now you notice people sitting up and looking at you. You’re rattled.

Maybe you should have waited until all the media properties were afraid to make you look bad. Maybe you shouldn’t have sent Farm Boy to Greenland. Maybe you should have erased all the government records that made the agencies look efficient and then claimed they had to be turned upside down and shaken out…

Coulda woulda shoulda! Don’t panic. It’s early. Plenty of time before the midterms, and there’s a great chance that by then you’ll have it fixed so only a landslide can flip Congress. (On the other hand, that’s just what you might get.) Try to rein Fat Boy in a little; don’t make it obvious, you know how he gets. At least make sure he stays on his meds. People can roll with him at Defcon 2. Pump it to Defcon 1 and all bets are off.

Above all hang tough. Keep acting large and in charge. Stick to the story. You get caught? Deny everything. If it blows?

Don’t even think about it.