{"id":24398,"date":"2025-04-12T18:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T01:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=24398"},"modified":"2025-05-02T11:31:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T18:31:58","slug":"an-arbitrary-corrupt-mendacious-and-utterly-incompetent-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/04\/12\/an-arbitrary-corrupt-mendacious-and-utterly-incompetent-king\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;An arbitrary, corrupt, mendacious, and utterly incompetent king&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Andrew Sullivan on Trump;<\/li>\n<li>How Trump supporters rationalize whatever crazy things he does, from Charlie Warzel and Molly Olmstead;<\/li>\n<li>Trying to understand what Trump&#8217;s crackdown on science will accomplish;<\/li>\n<li>Another item about the Christian right&#8217;s war on empathy; have I misunderstood Christianity all this time?;<\/li>\n<li>And items about how books removed from the Naval Academy Library reveal the administration&#8217;s racism and defense of white supremacy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>Some of us call out the emperor&#8217;s new clothes.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/sullivantrumpillo-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/sullivantrumpillo-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"259\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@sullydish\/note\/c-107994952?\">Andrew Sullivan on Substack<\/a>, yesterday (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/carl.freedman.9\">Carl Freedman<\/a>)<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Once you grasp Trump as an elected monarch, his full rebuke to the very idea of America comes into clearer view. He is precisely \u2014 almost uncannily \u2014 what this country was founded to oppose: an arbitrary, corrupt, mendacious, and utterly incompetent king.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p>While members of cult are sure the leader is always right. Whatever crazy thing he&#8217;s just done, it must be part of a master plan.<\/p>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p>Three days ago.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.theatlantic.com\/thumbor\/-D_rNvbGB3rWIOzMuiN9sHAmyyE=\/0x0:2880x1620\/976x549\/media\/img\/mt\/2025\/04\/2025_04_09_delulumaga_BK\/original.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Atlantic, Charlie Warzel, 9 Apr 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2025\/04\/trump-tariff-reality-test\/682373\/\">There Was Never a Master Plan<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Trump backed down on tariffs. His supporters think that was the idea all along.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Beginning:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">To plainly state what is going on right now would make you sound delusional.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">The president of the United States has essentially been holding the global financial system hostage. He\u2019s done so by threatening massive tariffs on nearly 100 countries and territories, including one that is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/trump-tariffs-antarctic-islands-heard-mcdonald\/\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"510538\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">unpopulated<\/a>. These tariffs, which were set to go into effect today but have now been put on a 90-day pause for every country except for China, which will see a 125 percent tax on exports, seem to have been calculated using a blanket formula that some economists and trade experts find almost nonsensical. (Many have <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/krishnanrohit\/status\/1907587352157106292?s=46\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"510876\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">speculated<\/a> that the math was done by a chatbot.) The administration\u2019s supporters do not have a <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/crampell.bsky.social\/post\/3lm5sngbhm22p\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"510910\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">coherent<\/a> message about why any of this is happening; before President Donald Trump announced the pause, they\u2019d argued simultaneously that the tariffs were a temporary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.semafor.com\/article\/04\/04\/2025\/how-thune-is-steering-republicans-through-trumps-tariff-turbulence\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"510925\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">negotiating<\/a> tactic but also that they might be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2025\/04\/trump-tariffs-iphone-prices\/682357\/\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"510932\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">durable<\/a> enough to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Going on and on in this vein. He concludes with my thought that eventually reality strikes back.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That sufficiently motivated people might break with reality is by now somewhat predictable in American politics. But what\u2019s far more uncertain is what happens when reality punctures the protective bubble of cognitive dissonance. QAnon devotees and MAGA die-hards were certain that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. When reality became impossible to ignore, we got January 6. Few events have the power to pierce the veil, but a global financial crisis could be one of them. What happens if the true believers are confronted with a truth they can\u2019t look away from? History suggests it won\u2019t go well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p>More about MAGA spinning.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/bde08705-7e75-43a2-9b29-609365e7c79d.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1040%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1280\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Slate, Molly Olmstead, 9 Apr 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/life\/2025\/04\/tariffs-news-trump-china-pause-latest.html\">\u201cEmail Jobs\u201d and iPads<\/a> subtitled &#8220;What a week of furious MAGA spin on tariffs can tell us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It\u2019s rare, these days, for a decision by President Donald Trump to evince anything but a unified reaction from his die-hard supporters. But this week\u2019s experiment with reciprocal tariffs\u2014carrying promises of disaster for small businesses and American consumers and based on incoherent models and a bizarrely simplistic understanding of global trade and supply chains\u2014forced the MAGA influencers to think more creatively. As the spin turns again after Wednesday afternoon\u2019s maybe-reversal from Trump (followed by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/04\/08\/stock-market-today-live-updates-.html\">definite reversal from the Nasdaq<\/a>), pro-Trump voices\u2019 reaction over the past week gives them a durable road map for another reversal\u2014or for whenever Trump, almost inevitably, does something like this again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Both of these articles mention a term I had not seen before.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It\u2019s always hard to know how much the brash posts mocking Democrats and, in this case, \u201cpanicans\u201d\u2014a term that some influencers have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/maga-gushes-over-trumps-latest-neologism-panican\/\">trying to make happen<\/a> since Trump coined the term for tariff-worried Republicans in a Truth Social <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/114296801411259400\">post<\/a> on Monday\u2014represent genuine positions, rather than just trolling. At this point in modern conservative politics, the difference doesn\u2019t really matter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou do NOT need the new iPad,\u201d one notable far-right commentator <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheQuartering\/status\/1907814179173490782\">wrote<\/a>. \u201cYou do NOT need the new video game console. You WANT them. There is a big difference and if you look at the people whining about the tariffs I challenge you to ask them how their lives have been affected in any way.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sour grapes? This is flabbergasting given conservatives&#8217; traditional support for capitalism. People are *supposed* to buy new things to keep the economy going!<\/p>\n<p>The piece goes on with further rationales and claims that the pain of these tariffs is to be endured in order to &#8216;save the country&#8217;. From what? Something other than a white nationalist theocracy? That seems to be what the cultists want.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Another piece from three days ago.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-2203267858.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&amp;w=750\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Vox, Bryan Walsh, 9 Apr 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/407586\/immigration-crackdown-foreign-students-science-innovation-funding\">The self-inflicted death of American science has already begun<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Trump\u2019s crackdown on foreign students and scientists will do irreparable harm to the country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll comment, rather than quote. Has it been unfair of America to gain worldwide scientific supremacy in part via foreign students and foreign scientists who&#8217;ve been allowed to come to our country? (As part of the centuries-long &#8216;melting pot&#8217; of immigrants, many of whom escaped oppressive foreign regimes.) I doubt MAGA\/DOGE has thought this through. On the one hand, you could argue that xenophobic Americans, who think for some reason that they are the cream of the human race, don&#8217;t need any &#8216;furriners&#8217; to help them (ignoring history); on the other hand, it&#8217;s obvious that as America steps down from leadership in science, other countries will fill the gap. Currently, China is the best candidate.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>A piece that confounds my understanding of what Christianity was supposedly all about.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/guardian12apr25.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/guardian12apr25-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"257\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Guardian, Julia Carrie Wong, 8 Apr 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/ng-interactive\/2025\/apr\/08\/empathy-sin-christian-right-musk-trump\">Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Trump\u2019s actions are irreconcilable with Christian compassion. But an unholy alliance seeks to cast empathy as a parasitic plague&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Long piece, worth another visit, but for now I&#8217;ll quote the opening:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Just over an hour into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/elon-musk\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Elon Musk<\/a>\u2019s last <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sSOxPJD-VNo\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">appearance<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/culture\/joe-rogan\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Joe Rogan<\/a>\u2019s podcast, the billionaire brought up the latest existential threat to trouble him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">\u201cWe\u2019ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on,\u201d Musk said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s like, I believe in empathy. Like, I think you should care about other people, but you need to have empathy for civilization as a whole and not commit to a civilizational suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">The idea that caring about others could end civilization may seem extreme, but it comes amid a growing wave of opposition to empathy from across the American right. Musk learned about \u201csuicidal empathy\u201d through his \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/tech\/the-man-whose-musings-fuel-elon-musks-nightmares-e3317674?st=KEE7Ro\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">public bromance<\/a>\u201d with Gad Saad, a Canadian marketing professor whose casual application of evolutionary psychology to culture war politics has brought him a sizable social media following. By Saad\u2019s accounting \u2013 and this is not dissimilar from the white nationalist \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2022\/may\/17\/great-replacement-theory-explainer\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">great replacement theory<\/a>\u201d \u2013 western societies are bringing about their own destruction by admitting immigrants from poorer, browner and more Muslim countries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy,\u201d Musk continued to Rogan, couching his argument in the type of pseudoscientific language that\u2019s catnip to both men\u2019s followings on X. \u201cThe empathy exploit. They\u2019re exploiting a bug in western civilization, which is the empathy response.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No. This is the is\/ought fallacy. Empathy might have been a weakness in the ancestral environment, in which tribe fought against tribe for limited resources and thus survival; but the world has changed. We&#8217;re a global society now, like it or not.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Shorter items.<\/p>\n<p>This was on the front page of the New York Times today.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/11\/multimedia\/00dc-bookban-zmjw\/00dc-bookban-zmjw-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, 11 Apr 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/11\/us\/politics\/naval-academy-banned-books.html\">Who\u2019s In and Who\u2019s Out at the Naval Academy\u2019s Library?<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s office resulted in a purge of books critical of racism but preserved volumes defending white power.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The article cites only three examples:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Gone is \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1970\/02\/25\/archives\/books-of-the-times-masculine-and-feminine.html\">I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings<\/a>,\u201d Maya Angelou\u2019s transformative best-selling 1970 memoir chronicling her struggles with racism and trauma.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Two copies of \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/09\/24\/books\/how-was-mein-kampf-handled-in-the-book-review-in-1943.html\">Mein Kampf<\/a>\u201d by Adolf Hitler are still on the shelves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Gone is \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomsbury.com\/us\/memorializing-the-holocaust-9780857718112\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Memorializing the Holocaust<\/a>,\u201d Janet Jacobs\u2019s 2010 examination of how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed and remembered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe Camp of the Saints\u201d by <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/06\/22\/books\/jean-raspail-author-white-supremacists.html\">Jean Raspail<\/a> is still on the shelves. The 1973 novel, which envisions a takeover of the Western world by immigrants from developing countries, has been embraced by white supremacists and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/11\/22\/books\/stephen-miller-camp-saints.html\">promoted by Stephen Miller<\/a>, a senior White House adviser.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1994\/10\/16\/books\/what-is-intelligence-and-who-has-it.html\">The Bell Curve<\/a>,\u201d which argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than white people, is still there. But <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/measured-lies-aaron-gresson\/1123455083\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a critique<\/a> of the book was pulled.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>But that they used certain &#8220;key words&#8221; to search their database of books is by itself evidence of bias, of racism and xenophobia.<\/p>\n<p>Locus Online has <a href=\"https:\/\/locusmag.com\/2025\/04\/381-books-removed-from-naval-academy-library\/\">this piece<\/a> about the matter, noting books by genre authors removed from the library because they were implicated for &#8220;promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew Sullivan on Trump; How Trump supporters rationalize whatever crazy things he does, from Charlie Warzel and Molly Olmstead; Trying to understand what Trump&#8217;s crackdown on science will accomplish; Another item about the Christian right&#8217;s war on empathy; have I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/04\/12\/an-arbitrary-corrupt-mendacious-and-utterly-incompetent-king\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,48,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authoritarianism","category-conservative-resistance","category-conservatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24398"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24570,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24398\/revisions\/24570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}