It is easy to know exactly what is on the mind of New Yorker writer Jill Lepore 24/7. Orange Man Bad. And, oh, does she let us know why she just can't stop thinking about him which comes in the form of a bizarre extended stream of consciousness rant disguised as a story on Monday in "Trump and the Presidency That Wouldn’t Shut Up."
Her fixation on Trump begins with the first paragraph and then continues without letup as she focuses on the fact that he just won't SHUT UP and it is driving her NUTS!
The list of figures in American history with whom Donald J. Trump has been compared since he announced his bid for the Presidency a decade ago is longer than his trademark necktie, as red as a gash. It’s taller than Trump Tower, gleaming like a blade. It has a higher turnover than his beleaguered first Cabinet. It includes even more goons, toadies, and peacocks than his current Administration.
And yet the comparisons keep coming, in the daily papers, in the nightly podcasts, online, online, online. Is Trump more of a liar than Joseph McCarthy; is he slicker than Huey Long? Is he as mean-spirited as Father Charles Coughlin, more sinister than George Wallace? Is he as much of a fraud as P. T. Barnum, even more of an isolationist than Charles Lindbergh? He is trickier than Richard (Tricky Dick) Nixon, but to what degree?
After several more paragraphs of whining about Trump, Lepore then shifts into channeling a Margaret Dumont level of outrage over an AI video about miracle "medbeds":
Take out your flashlight and ask the inevitable question: Is there any precedent for a President of the United States doing such a thing? Is American history any guide to understanding why Trump, or someone on his staff, posted (and soon afterward deleted) a fake video about a nonexistent news report concerning a fictional miracle cure, an episode whose political significance strikes me as asymptotically approaching zero?
Lepore then conjures up the Constitution and a panoply of Presidents to make her case that Trump talks too much and how it should be somehow unconstitutional for him to do so in a more perfect world.:
And now for one more (but hardly the last) stream of consciousness inadvertent comedy outburst by Lepore against Trump and his talk, talk, talking that is beat, beat, beating against her poor brain.
Historians will need to account for Trump when, as Gerald Ford said when he succeeded Nixon, “our long national nightmare is over.” Analogies won’t help them. Because nothing in American history anticipates or explains the way Trump speaks to his supporters at his rallies—or his use of Twitter, between 2015 and 2021, and Truth Social, beginning in 2022. He riffs; he cusses; he dodges; he weaves; he raises money; he spreads lies. He is lurid and profane. He targets his political opponents, threatening them with prosecution, prison, and execution. He is the world’s most outspoken troll, and its most dangerous. He posts day and night, about everything from taco bowls to possible ceasefires. He is getting worse. In his second term, he has posted three times as often as he did during his first. Tonally, nearly everything he posts is unhinged, even when it’s a simple endorsement or amplification of a policy, like tariffs...
GASP! He...he "targets his political opponents, threatening them with prosecution, prison, and execution?" That has never ever happened in a previous administration. Well, except for the during Joe Biden's administration when the FBI's Arctic Frost investigated over 150 Republicans and hit Trump with 2 simultaneous federal indictments as well as two more White House influenced state indictments. As for "our long national nightmare is over," that was already pompously declared by Jake Tapper followed shortly afterwards by millions of illegals flooding across our borders, an ignominious departure from Afghanistan, high inflation, Covid censorship based on misinformation (based on disinformation), Ukraine War quagmire, oh, and lots of lots of lawfare against Trump and many connected with him.
Oh, and think of the epic meltdown if President Trump should target Jill Lepore, not with lawfare but with the mere mockery she richly deserves. It really shouldn't be done since that would be sure to drive her over the edge. And that would be wrong. But it would also be fun!
