Welcome back. This one is shorter than usual (a mere 4,500 words) because people keep telling me lies like I’m “rambling” and “out of control” and “a little too drunk for preschool pickup.”
→ Dark new polls for the Dems despite all the opportunities: The Democratic Party’s popularity is hitting new lows. Only 27 percent of voters say they have a positive view of Dems, the lowest rating for Dems in NBC polling history, and only a brave 7 percent say they have a very positive view, according to an NBC News poll. CNN similarly reported a record low favorability rating for the Dems.
I love the 7 percent who think the Democrats are doing great. That’s the 7 percent of Americans who don’t read the news and live happy, good, peaceful lives. That’s the 7 percent of Americans who make lemongrass tea from their garden, and they go to an Episcopal church with rainbow stained glass windows, and they have zero grandchildren and three Subarus, but you know what? It’s a good life. They are the Mel Robbins people, shouting Let them! every time a Democrat dies on the hill of gender-affirming healthcare for illegal immigrants. The Democrats are committing slow-motion suicide and 7 percent of voters are all, That’s their truth, and I love them not despite it, but because of it.
Meanwhile, ol’ Trumpo enjoys a 48 percent approval rating this week. That’s despite making America’s debutantes (all my friends and me) aghast and alarmed by our collective portfolio performance. “It’s not fair!” we shriek. “You said he was the businessman president! Why is line going down? Line supposed to go up!”
Trump’s Treasury secretary Scott Bessent called the market correction “normal” and “healthy.” Like, Scott, when I describe something I’m doing as “normal” and “healthy,” you can rest assured it is the sickest thing you can imagine. It’s me spending seven hours reading vacuum cleaner reviews, hiding in the bathroom to watch another vacuum cleaner video, which is normal. And healthy. Calling the manufacturer of the company that makes the gummy bears my daughter likes to get some information on the dyes in the red ones? Nothing to worry about. Normal. Healthy. Conscientious, even.
But my portfolio of MAGA stocks is not healthy. TSLA is down 33 percent this month. The index funds are not winning. My IRA is not in an American Golden Age. I thought this was the scam president, the president for rich people, and all I’m saying is that I’m not seeing what I paid for here.
→ That’s beautiful: Axios this week blessed us with a magical Trump quote, from a story called “Trump Unplugged: What He Says Behind Closed Doors.” And what does he say?
The Diet Coke button. The Village People obsession. The tans. The pageantry. The pettiness. The Liberace aesthetic. It’s been said, but: Just as Bill Clinton was our first black president, Trump is truly our first gay one.
→ Shut down all media companies: In more serious news, Trump this week floated the idea that certain media companies are illegal and should be shut down. It’s been fun!
“I believe that CNN and MS-DNC, who literally write 97.6 percent bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party and in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal, what they do is illegal,” he said in a speech to the Department of Justice. Continuing: “And it has to stop, it has to be illegal, it’s influencing judges and it’s really changing law, and it just cannot be legal. I don’t believe it’s legal, and they do it in total coordination with each other.”
Normally I follow the Peter Thiel doctrine of taking Trump seriously, not literally. But he’s the president giving this speech on locking up journalists to the Department of Justice staff. It does feel kind of literal now. Peter, King Thiel, please help. I want to see mainstream media reporters fail just as badly as the next Substack reactionary, but I don’t want them jailed. Then we’ll get so, so many jail memoirs.
→ More Teslas lit on fire: People are lighting more Teslas on fire and keying them in parking lots, all over the place. This week, a set of those evil electric cars were set on fire with Molotov cocktails at a service center in Las Vegas. Which authorities named Pam Bondi are describing as “domestic terrorism.” Assailants also painted the word resist on the front doors of the service center, which seems a tiny bit dated. I can smell it: the Tesla bomb throwers are millennials.