Trump’s “Animal House” is floundering

Happy Thanksgiving. Stop doom scrolling. Try some sweet potato pie.

My daily trip to the White House, when I make it, is to take the Washington, D.C., Metro red line. I get off at the Farragut North station and walk two blocks to the White House.

Wednesday afternoon it was the site of gun violence aimed at members of the National Guard —  part-time soldiers, ordinary people stationed there because Donald Trump said it was making the city “safer.” 

“People are going to restaurants again,” Trump has said often about D.C. As recently as two days ago, he mentioned how his actions are making the District a place of mirth and virtue. “It’s now a world class city,” he says nearly as often as he claims that he’s “solved” eight wars. “You know that, you live there,” Trump told reporters. 

When the shooting happened on Wednesday, the president was on a golf course in Florida, but we were told via pool reports that he was “actively monitoring the situation.” 

On Thursday, Trump announced one of the troops, 20-year-old Spec. Sarah Beckstrom from West Virginia, had died. The other guard member, Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains in critical condition. The suspect, who is in custody, has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who had worked in Afghanistan for a CIA-run counterterrorism team. Despite Trump’s claim that he was “flown in by the Biden administration,” Lakanwal was granted asylum under Trump.

With Trump, facts never matter as much as whatever appearance he wishes to project. He bears responsibility for this violence because the guard was never needed in D.C. Now, due to one act of violence, Republicans began screaming for more troops, and Trump is sending 500 reinforcements into the city he previously told us was world class.

This Thanksgiving, while we pray for those who’ve been injured or killed in gun violence all across this country, I remain optimistically thankful. More and more of us are seeing just how deranged Trump is.

And we still have a lot more for which we can be thankful, all evidence to the contrary when considering the national political scene, the economy, international relations, the horrid state of the National Flag Football League and how the Trump administration bears a striking resemblance to the Omegas in “Animal House.” 

The president is Dean Vernon Wormer. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a ringer for Doug Neidermeyer. I can definitely see him kissing a horse with a carrot in his mouth. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is smarmy Greg Marmalard and is destined to end up with Babs, played by White House Pep Secretary Karoline Leavitt. All the Democrats in Congress remind me of Kent Dorfman — except for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. He’s an aging Stork. It would be nice if there was just one John Blutarsky in the bunch. Sadly, no senator has shown such leadership. Not one could rally the troops to fight the Germans after they invaded Pearl Harbor (forget it, he’s rolling) like Blutarsky did.

Then again, maybe Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly fits the bill. He recently called out Hegseth as a bully, refusing to assume the position for the fraternity paddle and saying, “Thank you sir, may I have another?”

A naval aviator who flew combat missions during the Gulf War and a former astronaut, Kelly found himself on double secret probation last week after he participated in a video with other Democratic veterans aimed at active-duty military personnel. “Our laws are clear,” he said in the video. “You can refuse illegal orders.” The message brought out the Neidermeyer in Hegseth, who called Kelly and the other veterans “despicable and reckless.”

Imagine being upset that a veteran is reminding members of the military that it’s not a good idea to break the law. Only criminals would complain like that. Or horribly incompetent men. Hegseth is both.

I am thankful Kelly denounced him as a bully. I am thankful for all the arcane references to pop culture I have at my disposal to frame the workings of a true coward like Hegseth. And I am thankful for the growing number of people who understand the truly acidic nature of the most feckless presidential administration of my lifetime.

On that point, I am also thankful for soon-to-be former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who in her resignation letter told her QAnon supporters about Donald Trump’s callous grifts. “There is no ‘plan to save the world’ or insane 4D chess game being played,” she said.

She told MAGA, QAnon and the world that the emperor has no clothes. I am very thankful someone inside the Trump tent finally said it. More people may tend to believe her because of her inside status. That, alone, gives me renewed hope.

Believe it or not, I am also thankful Donald Trump is not in Washington this week. As noted in Wednesday’s pool report, since returning to office in January, Nov. 26 was his 16th trip to Mar-a-Lago, the 29th day spent at his West Palm Beach golf course — adjacent to the county jail — and the 82nd day on a golf course he owns. 

I am thankful for all of this because while Trump has been in office more than 310 days, he apparently hasn’t worked for close to a third of that time. My Thanksgiving wish is that he, and by extension his entire administration, do not work more often. After all, when they do work, what they do doesn’t work. Does that work for you?

After Trump soared out of D.C. on Air Force One, the press office assured me, “He earned it. He works very hard.” Everyone in that group lies as often as everyone else draws breath.

I am also thankful people are questioning Trump on the economy and the price of eggs. He says gas prices are hovering “near $2.00 a gallon.” We all know that’s a lie. He also claims the economy is “the greatest. Many people are saying that.”

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Actually no one is, and I am thankful people are beginning to believe their own eyes and not Trump’s lies. He damn sure doesn’t want to hear about how bad you’ve got it. If he did, perhaps he’d spend less time golfing and more time concerned about the people in this country. 

On Monday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced it had officially canceled the release of the advance estimate on gross domestic product for the third quarter of 2025. The administration had previously delayed the release, which was initially slated for Oct. 30, due to the government shutdown — but now I guess Trump is determined to hide the numbers all together. Last week, the Labor Department called off releasing its monthly jobs report for October, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics scrapped its own report on inflation.

Leavitt blames the Democrats and the government shutdown for everything, but she doesn’t say much else. I’m thankful for that. Every time she opens her mouth I swear a swarm of horseflies and pestilence are released to consume the countryside.

Meanwhile Trump, still claiming he has “solved eight wars,” now believes he’s got the Russia and Ukraine war figured out — again. During a gaggle aboard Air Force One, on the way to his vacation, he told reporters he has a special relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That much is obvious. Asked what concessions the Russians would have to make to achieve peace in Ukraine, Trump proudly declared, “They’re making concessions. They’re going to stop fighting and they’re not going to take any more land.” 

Gee, I guess the people who’ve lost their land and their homes in Ukraine should be thankful that’s all they’ve lost. I am also thankful someone thought to ask Putin what he thought. He contradicted Trump and said there is no peace deal. I guess he still wants all of Ukraine. The country’s chief negotiator, Andriy Yermak, told the Atlantic in an interview published Thursday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would never exchange land for peace.

Meanwhile, Trump is also apparently thankful U.S. federal workers could lose whistleblower safeguards due. According to documents reviewed by Reuters, the  administration is close to implementing a rule that would end long-standing legal protections for whistleblowers who are senior federal employees, which has prompted backlash from lawyers representing government workers. 

Former Trump official Miles Taylor summed up the move this way: “We will ruin your lives if you tell people we’ve broken the law.” I am thankful for Miles Taylor.

I am also thankful for people like attorney Mark Zaid, who has represented whistleblowers on both sides of the political aisle in battling the federal government for the last 30 years. “This is not good,” he said of Trump’s plan. “But, it’s what you’d expect from them.”

Wait. We’re not done. A doctor critical of vaccines was quietly tapped as the Center for Disease Control’s second in command. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Ralph Lee Abraham promoted discredited treatments like ivermectin and, as Louisiana’s surgeon general, he halted the state’s mass vaccination campaign. Abraham declared that Covid vaccines were “dangerous.” The CDC didn’t announce his appointment, but an internal database lists him as the agency’s principal deputy director, with a start date of Nov. 23. I am thankful someone reported that. But I’d be more thankful if the good doctor got fired and went back to his medieval medical malpractice.

As always, I am thankful for friends, family and a sense of humor. And so far, I am very thankful for the criminal justice system. Putting aside Wednesday’s dismissal of election interference and racketeering charges against Trump in Georgia during the 2020 election, the courts are the only place that continues to push back against the president while the entire legislative branch sits in a MAGA stupor, watching the action and offering little in the way of resistance. I am exceptionally thankful that U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled that Lindsey Halligan, an attorney with no prosecutorial experience, was illegally appointed as an interim U.S. attorney.

I am also thankful for remembering the efforts of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who taught us in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” What he said remains relevant today.

King wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

Finally, I am thankful for Arlo Guthrie who, many Thanksgivings ago, taught us about the true meaning of this wonderful vacation and about Americans being blind to justice, going to jail, violent crime, military stupidity, government corruption and the importance of helping out your neighbors, including Sasha the dog.

Remember, you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant. Well, except Alice.

The post Trump’s “Animal House” is floundering appeared first on Salon.com.

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