Worst Wessel

These are not very bright guys and things got out of hand

We’ve all been at least a little spooked by the fash effusions of the Charlie Kirk assassination, I suppose — the firings, the frothings, the even more unhinged-than-usual ravings of Tubby. And everything I’ve heard about Sunday’s Grieve-a-thon makes it sound exactly as freaky as I’d expected, with oily Stephen Miller claiming the mandate of heaven only one of the highlights.

And the whole Prestige Press is acting like it’s a done deal and Trump has crushed his opposition. Semafor (ha ha I know) sent me an email with the lead story headlined “President Donald Trump is winning his war against the media.” The Democratic Leadership certainly acts like it has.

But while the whole propaganda push since Kirk got killed remains ominous, how it’s actually playing out reminds me more of Tubby’s weaknesses than his alleged strengths. It actually makes me a little optimistic.

This weekend you may have heard about the Erik Siebert situation. Emptywheel has a nice column about it. If you take the Trump-triumphalist POV — the default for MAGA people, but sometimes shared by gloomy resisters such as myself — it’s just another giant power play by our unstoppable future dictator, whom our gormless Democratic leaders can’t rouse themselves to resist.

But you can also see it, as I do, as a fuckup, and one that even lazy voters might notice and disapprove.

Siebert was until recently the U.S. Attorney for Virginia’s Eastern District, where Tubby has been trying to gin up a federal prosecution of Tish James, the New York Attorney General who successfully convicted him of fraud last year. The mortgage fraud charge pushed against James by Trump bagman Ed Martin, a specialist at this kind of operation even in the absence of evidence, is flimsy to the point of being a fraud itself. Siebert couldn’t or wouldn’t go along, hence his removal.

Like a lot of Trump stuff, the situation is an obvious put-up job that violates several legal and ethical principles, and the longer it’s in the news the more it reeks. With Tubby’s approval ratings in free fall, discretion would seem advisable.

But Emptywheel’s column shows that the goon squad made of it an even bigger cock-up than one would expect.

First, it was widely leaked in the press that Tubby wanted Siebert out because he wouldn’t indict James. (We’re talking Prestige Press here, so you know these leaks were somewhat authorized.) Those reports also suggested that USAG Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche were trying to prevent this result.

Then, after Siebert was forced to resign, Tubby announced in a text “he didn’t quit, I fired him!” because Siebert had “received the UNUSUALLY STRONG support of the two absolutely terrible, sleazebag Democrat Senators” for his office — which, Emptywheel points out, was true of Siebert when Tubby nominated him to the post.

“Particularly given ABC’s report that Siebert would like to stay on at EDVA as an AUSA,” Emptywheel says, “this text, demanding credit for firing Siebert, changes Siebert’s legal options going forward, and the impact of the firing on cases Siebert wouldn’t charge.” Also: “I can imagine judges there will be very skeptical of this investigation going forward.” I can, too.

Then Trump publicly pushed Bondi (“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility”) to appoint his Foxy blonde/censorship czar Lindsey Halligan, whom no one can take seriously, as the Solicitor General Robert Bork of the affair. When she didn’t, he announced himself he would appoint Halligan.

It would be one thing if this came in the context of a normally competent DOJ but, ordinary caseload aside, whenever Trump’s DOJ prosecutes controversial cases he’s pushed — like deportations, executive power, the right to have DOJ serves as Tubby’s private law firm in the E. Jean Carroll appeal, etc. — or defends the administration on such cases — they lose a great majority of the time. Sometimes the judges are quite rude about the shitshows with which DOJ stinks up their courts.

Not to mention DOJ shutting down its own investigation of ICE thug Tom Homan’s comically obvious, literal-bag-of-cash bribery.

If you think that’s bad, look at what the poor suckers compelled to privately represent Trump have to deal with. His recent defamation filing against the New York Times was so comically stupid — larded with bluster about how great and popular Tubby is — that the judge threw it back and told them to fix it if they wanted a hearing.

We can look at the Siebert thing the way the Prestige Press often looks at Trump’s puzzling efforts — as eleven-dimensional chess, something his brain trust has constructed like an Agatha Christie mystery plot, except more elaborate, with false fronts and trap doors that will confound all attempts to solve it. Maybe Trump wants gloopy types like us to be outraged, because that’ll make Mr. & Mrs. Average American love him more! Same for his defiance of federal judges! Maybe he wants to lose these cases, for some reason we’re too stupid to guess.

Well, no. I know we’re used to talking about him like he’s the Great and Powerful Oz, and that voters tend to be inattentive to the details of federal government; but I believe this whole business of running DOJ as Tubby’s revenge operation has, as they say, broken containment: Most people who hear of it will be aware of the abnormality, if only because they notice the flop sweat.

It’s the same with Garglin’ Bob Kennedy’s rampage against public health (and in that case the opposition of nearly every non-quack doctor in America is a big part of the tip-off). It’s the same also with the brutal ICE raids and vicious assaults on protestors, which have had the extraordinary effect of reversing what was once Trump’s polling advantage on immigration.

Not to mention the jump in prices everyone notices when they go to the store.

We joke about the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party and how MAGA voters feel screwed, but it’s worth going Behind The Laughter and noticing how little Tubby seems to care what anyone thinks, including his own base. (I don’t mean his rightwing base, which loves the chaos and viciousness but is only part of his coalition — I mean the electoral base that cares about things like the price of groceries and public services and social stability.)

This lack of interest is probably due to two factors. Number One: Tubby’s advisors are all rabid rightwing loons whose only hope of turning America into the fascist hellhole they want is to roll right over the will of the voters — which they can do now because of Number Two: Trump’s now-unconcealed contempt for those voters. (I believe he hates us for denying him reelection in 2020, which is why his denial was so psychotically outsized; plus his advancing age and decrepitude and the prospect of imminent death have made his desire for revenge on us even greater.)

The same, it now appears, goes for the Charlie Kirk thing.

The enamored press misses that at the time of his death not very many people were Charlie Kirk fans. MAGA propagandists are trying to remake him as a Tribune of the People, but as a podcaster Kirk was nowhere near as big as Joe Rogan. Hell, he wasn’t as big as Ben Shapiro. And as a non-podcaster, he was nothing. It’s all a put-up job.

And you could say the Kirk thing is going about as badly as the James thing. After an initial effusion of crybullying and forced mourning, Tubby has managed to associate Kirk’s death with the firing of not only dozens of Americans but also that of a well-liked TV personality. Trump has exploited Kirk’s death in a way that actually makes Kirk look worse: Though the propagandists are trying to whitewash Kirk as a free-speech warrior, Trump has explicitly tied him to censorship.

The sainting of Charlie Kirk and the Tish James prosecution, like a lot of other Trump projects, have this in common: They have nothing to do with improving the lives of his voters. They don’t even offer an attractive circus to distract them. They’re just maudlin, ugly displays that will make all but his most devotion incels and racists wonder how they can get rid of him.

Granted, he may yet get his masked ICE gestapo and other fash factota to disrupt elections and make himself dictator for reals. But Mondays are hard enough — let’s look on the bright side!