- Trump’s cage match, planned for this evening; his attack on the weather service; comments from Bill Kristol and Robert Reich
- How MAGA-style Christianity isn’t about Christ at all, what with attacks against James Talarico for quoting Jesus;
- Abbott’s nonsensical claim that Democrats support Sharia Law (does he even know what that is?); Trump’s obsessions and his cultural references.
Photo from NY Times, today: How Trump Transformed the White House Lawn Into a Fighting Arena
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Among many others:
Deadline, today: UFC Tells Attendees To “Plan Accordingly” As Severe Thunderstorm Watch Threatens To Disrupt Trump White House Cage Match
This has been in the air for days. Naturally, Trump attacked the weather service.
Mediaite, today: ‘Chaotic’ Weather Forecast Threatens Trump’s UFC Fights — As Forecasters Call for Heavy Thunderstorms, 30+ MPH Winds
The White House’s Rapid Response Team hit back at The Weather Channel’s prediction, writing, “This event is about celebrating America’s unmatched greatness after 250 years — which apparently doesn’t sit well with the friendless loser who wrote this bullshit clickbait headline.”
This would never have happened in a *real* dictatorship! Guess they’ll have to try even harder.
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Thoughts about all this.
The Bulwark, William Kristol, 12 Jun 2026: Circuses and Circuses
…the UFC event is not as important as the war in Iran, or the economy, or the 2026 elections. But I do think it’s an event that captures something about this moment in our history.
After all, it’s vulgar, it’s violent, it’s commercial, it’s grandiose, it’s tacky, and it dishonors a place once thought worthy of care and respect. In other words, it’s Donald Trump.
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Robert Reich, today: Sunday Thought: The Horrifying Truth About Trump’s Cage Match, subtitled “What Trump and his ‘manosphere’ are trying to tell us with their public displays of testosterone”
Beyond the usual Trumpian issues of self-dealing and pay-to-play corruption, today’s fight also raises the question: What does a cage match on the White House lawn have to do with America’s 250th anniversary?
Just this: Trump and his regime are seeking to project an America that’s like the winner of a cage match.
Trump sees everything and everyone in terms of dominance or submission, and he’s hellbent on dominance. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong,” he told his supporters on January 6, 2021, before urging them to go the Capitol.
And,
He views America as locked in a zero-sum match with the rest of the world, and there’s no limit to our violence. Unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, he memorably said, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
Trump’s entire “manosphere” is obsessed with force and violence. His secretary of “war,” Pete Hegseth, threatens “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” and “maximum violence to the enemy.” When told some fishermen survived the American bombing of their boat, Hegseth reportedly ordered his commander to “kill them all.”
Trump’s secretary of health and human services frequently posts shirtless workout videos in which he’s lifting weights alongside figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kid Rock. He claims Trump has “the highest testosterone level” ever seen in an individual over 70 years old.
It goes on like this, including Ken Paxton’s swipe at James Talarico.
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Over and over, I get the impression that Christianity, especially evangelical MAGA-style Christianity, isn’t about Christ at all, but about primitive tribal solidarity. This would seem to cinch it.
Salon, Andrew Daugherty, today: Christian right calls James Talarico “demonic” — for quoting Jesus, subtitled “Attacks on Texas Senate candidate aren’t just about him. They’re an attempt to crush progressive Christianity”
James Talarico has been found guilty of quoting Jesus. The sentence he uttered, according to right-wing media, was “demonic” and “blasphemous,” exposing him as a “fake Christian.” Talarico is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas on a platform The New Yorker recently described as basically the New Testament. One Newsmax host accused him of using fake Bible passages.
The passages in question are familiar ones, found in Matthew 22 and Matthew 25. Love God and love your neighbor. Feed the hungry, heal the sick, welcome the stranger. They are, in fact, in the Bible.
The right’s attacks on Talarico aren’t about him, or at least not entirely. They’re about a much older argument — one progressive Christianity has been losing in public for 50 years — about whose version of the faith gets to count as real. The answer to that question has consequences far beyond any Senate race. When Christianity becomes a tool of power rather than a challenge to it, it doesn’t just damage the church. It destabilizes democracy. We are watching that happen in real time.
And this:
The Christian right spent decades narrowing the Gospel down to two issues, abortion and gay marriage. Talarico told Stephen Colbert something that’s obvious to anyone who has read past the cover of the Bible, rather than carrying it around for show: Jesus never mentions either of those things. But in Matthew 25, words in plain language, attributed explicitly to Jesus, tell us we will be judged by how we have treated the hungry, the sick, the stranger and the imprisoned.
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Similarly.
JMG, today (from Texas Tribune): Abbott Claims Dems Want To Implement Sharia Law
He also accused Democrats of supporting Sharia law and prompted thunderous applause when he called for completely outlawing it and giving the attorney general’s office more authority to tackle the issue.
Nonsense. Does he even know what Sharia Law is? I gather it’s a very harsh set of religiously-based rules for daily living, perhaps a bit harsher but otherwise much like the OT-rules that evangelical Christians would implement on everyone in the US, if they could. Does he not realize this? Does he not realize how ludicrous it is to claim that Democrats support it? Progressives don’t want *any* religious, tribal rules imposed on modern society, which is supposed to have overcome ancient tribal values. NT, French Revolution, American Revolution, Enlightenment, Constitution, Civil Rights, Scientific advances. At every point conservatives try to deny progress and drag civilization backwards.
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Briefly noted.
Slate, Trump Brain, 11 Jun 2026: Trump Brain, subtitled “No one can say for sure what’s going on in the president’s head. His 25 greatest obsessions can get us a little closer.”
I can’t resist posting this clever graphic of those 25 obsessions. They’re all very familiar.
I don’t care about Trump so much as to analyze these particular items. But rather to note this: most people become stuck in a particular cultural place, the one in which they grew up, or came of age, or perhaps their 20s or even 30s. Their tastes form and for many remain stuck forever. Trump has never escaped the 1980s. Andy Weir, in the musical references in both THE MARTIAN and PROJECT HAIL MARY, never escaped the ’60s through the ’80s. (I think Allen Steele has done something similar.) It’s very hard to break out of one’s comfort zone, and explore new ideas, to learn new things.
My take-away from this is: Beware of this. Be open to new experiences. Don’t get stuck in the past.
This is almost impossible not to do, of course. Since I’m conscious of this, I’ve tried. I’ve been rereading the classics, but I also try new writers from time to time. At the same time, I’ve stopped keeping up with new musical groups around 2000, except for Radiohead and Adele. Maybe Beck? And so on. I won’t belabor this for now.
Also this:
Slate, Nitish Pahwa, 11 Jun 2026: What’s Going On in Donald Trump’s Brain as He’s Turning 80? He’s Given Us Some Clues., subtitled “The cultural references he makes at the strangest times are oddly revealing.”
Especially about gold.
