On stage at the New York Times’ Climate Forward summit on Wednesday, Heritage Foundation president and Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts boldly declared that “the climate agenda is ending the American dream.”
It’s a sentiment that should strike any thinking person as absurd on its face: What could be more devastating to human life, let alone the American dream, than spikes in extreme weather and disasters like floods and wildfires, lethal heat levels and water and food shortages?
And yet the words of a man with incredible influence over conservative politicians are worth taking seriously. Throughout the text of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s Cheesecake Factory-like menu of hopes for the next conservative president, the idea of climate change is repeatedly denigrated as “anti-human”: the ideology of “environmental extremists” eager to sacrifice the American way of life “to the god of nature.” In practice, the recommendations in its text would worsen many of the environmental rollbacks of former president Trump, whose modus operandi was to plug his ears and sing, “Drill, baby, drill!” And the planet would be screwed, to say the least.
When I spoke to David Kieve, president of Environmental Defense Fund Action, he rightfully critiqued Project 2025 as “a grab bag and a wishlist written by polluters for their short-term economic benefit, to the detriment of all of the rest of us.” I thought he was exaggerating until I dug into the list of Project 2025's advisory board.
On the board are several major think tanks devoted to climate denial. There’s the Heartland Institute (most famous for helping Phillip Morris push the idea that cigarettes aren’t harmful) and the Institute for Energy Research, both offspring of the libertarian, oil billionaire-funded Cato Institute. Then there’s California’s own Pacific Research Institute, which recently sprang into a spirited defense of poor, defenseless “energy producers” being sued by state Attorney General Rob Bonta for deceiving the public over the recyclability of plastic. All these entities have been generously funded by oil and gas tycoons and companies like ExxonMobil.
So, what’s on Project 2025’s to-do list? Many of its plans aim to kneecap the government’s ability to do literally anything that has to do with climate change and energy efficiency, including gutting and privatizing research and regulatory agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service. The reliability of weather forecasts and emergency warnings — like, say, for encroaching wildfires or hurricanes — would decline drastically.
It would restrict government-funded climate research; withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement; reverse regulations that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture, automobiles and industry; and axe the funding of green jobs in conservation, civil infrastructure and clean energy. Project 2025’s backers aim to dismantle restrictions on coal, oil and natural gas production and reduce fees and accountability for drilling operations on public lands. And perhaps most damaging for long-term government functionality is its plan to replace seasoned civil servants in NOAA and other agencies with political appointees who are “wholly in sync” with the regime’s agenda.
One particularly galling proposal is halting the Environmental Protection Agency’s progress on dealing with and researching PFAS, or “forever chemicals” from manufacturing. PFAS, found in drinking water, soil, fisheries and the human body, have been linked to cancer, developmental impairment and hormonal imbalances. The agency has recently been empowered to hold corporations accountable for PFAS contamination; but unfortunately, that violates Project 2025’s core principles of absolute corporate freedom and deregulation. So, ironically, while Project 2025 aims to roll back reproductive rights under the guise of increasing fertility and spreading pro-life family values, its authors seem to be fine with the proliferation of chemicals that, among many other things, reduce fertility.
Let’s assume conservatives are laser-focused on saving Americans money, and that’s why they advise caution on investing so much in climate initiatives. But how true is that?
San Francisco-based nonpartisan energy and environmental policy firm Energy Innovation gamed out the ramifications of Project 2025’s plan and found that its policies would lead to higher household energy costs, driven by increased reliance on petroleum and rising electricity prices. The analysis predicts an additional increase of $240 per household by 2030, and $150 by 2050 compared to following current policies. Overall, Project 2025’s environmental rollbacks would decrease GDP by $320 billion per year by 2030 and $150 billion per year by 2050.
The evidence is a direct rebuke to Heritage president Roberts’ assertion that climate investment will “end the American dream.” Though to be fair, if you define the dream as the freedom to pollute as much as you want to, he’s right. But the dream of opportunity — of a good life — requires a world with breathable air.
Fighting climate change necessitates an all-hands-on-deck approach like the Inflation Reduction Act of 2024, which invests billions in green industries and jobs. Yet the Heritage Foundation has gone full Red Scare on this initiative, calling it an anti-freedom, “centrally planned” Communist takeover of the economy.
It’s clear that the myriad of authors of Project 2025, which, again, will have an incredible amount of influence over the next conservative presidency, Trump or not, are willing to say and do anything — to burn this planet to the ground for the sake of protecting their funders.
The treatment of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, by the US president, Donald Trump, during what appears to have been a staged confrontation in the White House in front of the world’s press, marks one of the most profoundly shocking moments in US diplomacy in decades.
In this crass and deeply disturbing performance, the wartime leader of a democratic European country that is fighting against an illegal invasion by Russia, which has seen its citizens killed and cities bombed indiscriminately, was subjected to a vicious, ignorant and mendacious attack that was designed to humiliate.
Many watching the antics of Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance – and the subsequent cheerleading from their far-right political allies – will have been sickened by what they saw: an American president channelling the words of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. In the cold light of the day that has followed, the world – and Europe in particular – has woken to the most uncomfortable of realities.
The US, the country that has styled itself the indispensable nation, has aligned itself with the enemies of peace and democracy. If “America first” marks simply a shattering moment of US isolationism not seen since the run-up to America’s entry into the Second World War, this would be devastating enough. But, as they gather in London tomorrow, European leaders, Keir Starmer among them, must recognise that the contours of European and global security have been transformed.
The first lesson should be acknowledgment of what has been obvious since Trump’s inauguration: the US cannot be relied on as a security, intelligence or trading partner. Washington’s underpinning of Nato, and international security, is no longer a given. By giving succour to a Russia already conducting hostile acts against European countries beyond Ukraine, including Britain, Trump has made common cause with the greatest threat facing Europe today.
That was reflected in the comment by Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, after Friday’s degrading White House spectacle, that the “free world needs a new leader”. In practical terms, that must mean an end to the pretence that Trump can be flattered and played.
The almost unanimous outpouring of support from European leaders for Zelenskyy and Ukraine after the White House meeting needs to be rapidly followed by a show of unity at the London summit – and by concrete measures to support Ukraine and to preserve the wider peace on the European continent.
All of which means hard decisions will need to be made, and quickly, in European capitals, not only on defence spending but in recognising and in communicating to the public that a wider conflict with Russia – and without US support – is not unthinkable but must be actively prepared for.
For, while it is easy to see Trump’s actions as the petulant, theatrical and narcissistic reaction of a deeply insecure individual, the consequences go far beyond that. If there is a glimmer of hope, no matter how dim, it is that Trump’s poisonous bluster is underpinned by incoherence and weakness that is open to being challenged.
It is important to take stock of the reality with which the world is confronted, not the fantasy some would wish to see. Washington’s abdication of leadership and support for Ukraine requires a rapid and united European response without caveats.
At least the Oval Office meeting held by President Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was held in front of the cameras. False friendliness in public by Trump and Vance, followed by behind-the-scenes treachery, would have been much more dangerous to the Ukrainian cause.
Instead, Trump and Vance have revealed to Americans and to America’s allies their alignment with Russia, and their animosity toward Ukraine in general and its president in particular. The truth is ugly, but it’s necessary to face it.
Today’s meeting gave the lie to any claim that this administration’s policy is driven by any strategic effort to advance the interests of the United States, however misguided. Trump and Vance displayed in the Oval Office a highly personal hatred. There was no effort here to make a case for American interests. Vance complained that Zelensky had traveled to Pennsylvania to thank U.S. ammunition workers, because, Vance charged, the appearance amounted to campaigning for the Democratic presidential ticket. “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump angrily explained. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia.”
Both the president and vice president showed the U.S.-led alliance system something it needed urgently to know: The national-security system of the West is led by two men who cannot be trusted to defend America’s allies—and who deeply sympathize with the world’s most aggressive dictator.
Through the Cold War period, Americans were haunted by the fear that a person with clandestine loyalties to a hostile foreign power might somehow rise to high office. In the late 1940s, the Alger Hiss case convulsed the country. Hiss’s accusers charged—and it later proved true—that Hiss had betrayed U.S. secrets to Soviet spymasters in the 1930s, when Hiss served as a junior official in the Department of Agriculture. The secrets were not very important; they included designs for a new fire extinguisher for U.S. naval ships. But Hiss himself was a rising star. The possibility that a person with such secrets in his past might someday go on to head the Department of State or Central Intelligence Agency once tormented Americans.
But what if the loyalties were not clandestine, not secret? What if a leader just plain blurted out on national television that he despises our allies, rejects treaties, and regards a foreign adversary as a personal friend? What if he did it again and again? Human beings get used to anything. But this?
It’s not hard to imagine a president of Estonia or Moldova in that Oval Office chair, being berated by Trump and Vance. Or a president of Taiwan. Or, for that matter, the leaders of core U.S. partners such as Germany and Japan, which entrusted their nations’ security to the faith and patriotism of past American leaders, only to be confronted by the faithless men who hold the highest offices today.
We’re witnessing the self-sabotage of the United States. “America First” always meant America alone, a predatory America whose role in the world is no longer based on democratic belief. America voted at the United Nations earlier this week against Ukraine, siding with Russia and China against almost all of its fellow democracies. Is this who Americans want to be? For this is what America is being turned into.
The Trump administration’s elimination of PEPFAR, the American program to combat HIV infection in Africa, symbolizes the path ahead. President George W. Bush created the program because it would do immense good at low cost, and thereby demonstrate to the world the moral basis of American power. His successors continued it, and Congresses of both parties funded it, because they saw that the program advanced both U.S. values and U.S. interests. Trump and Vance don’t want the United States to be that kind of country anymore.
American allies urgently need a Plan B for collective security in a world where the U.S. administration prefers Vladimir Putin to Zelensky.
The American people need to reckon with the mess Trump and Vance are making of this country’s once-good name—and the services they are performing for dictators and aggressors. There may not be a deep cause here. Trump likes and admires bad people because he is himself a bad person. When Vance executed his personal pivot from Never Trump to Always Trump, he needed a way to prove that he had truly crossed over to the dark side beyond any possibility of reversion or redemption; perhaps his support for Russia allowed him to do that. But however shallow their motives, the consequences are profound.
In his first term, Trump sometimes seemed a rogue actor within his own administration. The president expressed strange and disquieting opinions, but his Cabinet secretaries were mostly normal and responsible people. The oddball appointees on the White House staff were contained by the many more-or-less normal appointees. This time, Trump is building a national-security system to follow his lead. He has intimidated or persuaded his caucus in the House to accept—and his caucus in the Senate not to oppose—his pro-authoritarian agenda.
The good and great America that once inspired global admiration—that good and great America still lives. But it no longer commands a consensus above party. The pro-Trump party exposed its face to the world in the Oval Office today. Nobody who saw that face will ever forget the grotesque sight.
John Simpson of the BBC noted recently that “there are years when the world goes through some fundamental, convulsive change.” Seven weeks in, he suggested, 2025 is on track to be one of them: “a time when the basic assumptions about the way our world works are fed into the shredder.”
Simpson was referring to the course the United States has taken in the past month as the administration of President Donald Trump has hacked the United States away from 80 years of alliances and partnerships with democratic nations in favor of forging ties with autocrats like Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On February 24, 2025, the U.S. delegation to the United Nations voted against a resolution condemning Russia for its aggression in Ukraine and calling for it to end its occupation. That is, the U.S. voted against a resolution that reiterated one of the founding principles of the United Nations itself: that one nation must not invade another. The U.S. voted with Russia, Israel, North Korea, Belarus, and fourteen other countries friendly to Russia against the measure, which nonetheless passed overwhelmingly.
Then, on Friday, February 28, 2025, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance made clear their shift toward Russian president Vladimir Putin as they berated Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, publicly trying to bully him into agreeing to the ceasefire conditions that Putin and Trump want to end a war Russia started by invading Ukraine.
The abandonment of democratic principles and the democratic institutions the U.S. helped to create is isolating the United States from nations that have been our allies, partners, and friends.
After yesterday’s Oval Office debacle, democratic nations rejected Trump and Vance’s embrace of Russia and Putin and publicly reiterated their support for Ukraine and President Zelensky. The leaders of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the European Council, the European Parliament, the European Union, and others all posted their support for Ukraine and Zelensky.
In London today, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer greeted Zelensky with an enthusiastic hug and in front of cameras told him: "You are very, very welcome here…. As you heard from the cheers on the street outside, you have full backing across the United Kingdom. We stand with you and Ukraine for as long as it may take."
In the last interview that former secretary of state Antony Blinken gave before leaving office, he talked about the importance of alliances and the strong hand the Biden administration was leaving for the incoming Trump administration. Now, a little over a month later, that interview provides a striking contrast to the course the Trump administration has steered.
We are learning the difference at our peril.
Inside the Trump White House, officials blamed the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the meltdown in the Oval Office on Friday, and expressed frustration that he pushed for security guarantees even though the US had made clear they wanted to negotiate that later, according to people familiar with the matter.
The officials had told their Ukrainian counterparts in advance of the meeting that Trump wanted to sign an economic partnership this week at a ministerial level, as aides worked on the details about security guarantees.
Trump saw the minerals deal as the first phase of a broader economic partnership and told aides it showed the US was effectively making a commitment on security guarantees, because the agreement deal would mean the US had a vested interest in Ukraine’s economic prosperity.
The officials believed that had all been communicated to Ukraine, as was the advice that senators gave Zelenskyy on Friday morning to praise Trump and not litigate the issue of wanting stronger security guarantees to his face...
The White House deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, called out what he termed Zelenskyy’s “impertinence” and described the showdown as “one of the great moments in the history of American diplomacy”.
“Millions of American hearts swelled with overflowing pride today to watch President Trump put Zelenskyy in his place,” Miller said, without elaborating on what public opinion information he had to justify that belief.
Here's another...
Quote:The White House deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, called out what he termed Zelenskyy’s “impertinence” and described the showdown as “one of the great moments in the history of American diplomacy”.
“Millions of American hearts swelled with overflowing pride today to watch President Trump put Zelenskyy in his place,” Miller said, without elaborating on what public opinion information he had to justify that belief.
I don't think there is any other character in American politics while I've been alive who would be a more perfect fit in a George Orwell novel or a film on the Nazi SS. Talk about being 'from central casting'.
On February 28, the same day that President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance took the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin against Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, Martin Matishak of The Record, a cybersecurity news publication, broke the story that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stop all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.
Both the scope of the directive and its duration are unclear.
On Face the Nation this morning, Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine, contradicted that information. “Considering what I know, what Russia is currently doing against the United States, that would I’m certain not be an accurate statement of the current status of the United States operations,” he said. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, Turner was in line to be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee in this Congress until House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) removed him from that slot and from the intelligence committee altogether.
And yet, as Stephanie Kirchgaessner of The Guardian notes, the Trump administration has made clear that it no longer sees Russia as a cybersecurity threat. Last week, at a United Nations working group on cybersecurity, representatives from the European Union and the United Kingdom highlighted threats from Russia, while Liesyl Franz, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity, did not mention Russia, saying the U.S. was concerned about threats from China and Iran.
Kirchgaessner also noted that under Trump, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which monitors cyberthreats against critical infrastructure, has set new priorities. Although Russian threats, especially those against U.S. election systems, were a top priority for the agency in the past, a source told Kirchgaessner that analysts were told not to follow or report on Russian threats.
“Russia and China are our biggest adversaries,” the source told Kirchgaessner. “With all the cuts being made to different agencies, a lot of cybersecurity personnel have been fired. Our systems are not going to be protected and our adversaries know this.” “People are saying Russia is winning,” the source said. “Putin is on the inside now.”
Another source noted that “There are dozens of discrete Russia state-sponsored hacker teams dedicated to either producing damage to US government, infrastructure and commercial interests or conducting information theft with a key goal of maintaining persistent access to computer systems.” “Russia is at least on par with China as the most significant cyber threat, the person added. Under those circumstances, the source said, ceasing to follow and report Russian threats is “truly shocking.”
Trump’s outburst in the Oval Office on Friday confirmed that Putin has been his partner in politics since at least 2016. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia… Russia, Russia, Russia—you ever hear of that deal?—that was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff, it was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it, and we didn’t end up in a war. And he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bathroom.”
Putin went through a hell of a lot with Trump? It was an odd statement from a U.S. president, whose loyalty is supposed to be dedicated to the Constitution and the American people.
Trump has made dismissing as a hoax what he calls “Russia, Russia, Russia” central to his political narrative. But Russian operatives did, in fact, work to elect him in 2016. A 2020 report from the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed that Putin ordered hacks of Democratic computer networks, and at two crucial moments WikiLeaks, which the Senate committee concluded was allied with the Russians, dumped illegally obtained emails that were intended to hurt the candidacy of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump openly called for Russia to hack Clinton’s emails.
Russian operatives also flooded social media with disinformation, not necessarily explicitly endorsing Trump, but spreading lies about Clinton to depress Democratic turnout, or to rile up those on the right by falsely claiming that Democrats intended to ban the Pledge of Allegiance, for example. The goal of the propaganda was not simply to elect Trump. It was to pit the far ends of the political spectrum against the middle, tearing the nation apart.
Fake accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook drove wedges between Americans over issues of race, immigration, and gun rights. Craig Timberg and Tony Romm of the Washington Post reported in 2018 that Facebook officials told Congress that the Russian campaign reached 126 million people on Facebook and 20 million on Instagram.
That effort was not a one-shot deal: Russians worked to influence the 2020 presidential election, too. In 2021 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Putin “authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President [Joe] Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical division in the US.” But “unlike in 2016,” the report said, “we did not see persistent Russian cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure.”
Moscow used “proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives—including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden—to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded.
In October 2024, Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, warned in an interview with CBS News that Russia was bombarding voters with propaganda to divide Americans before that year’s election, as well. Operatives were not just posting fake stories and replying to posts, but were also using AI to manufacture fake videos and laundering Russian talking points through social media influencers. Just a month before, news had broken that Russia was funding Tenet Media, a company that hired right-wing personalities Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, and Matt Christiansen, who repeated Russian talking points.
Now back in office, Trump and MAGA loyalists say that efforts to stop disinformation undermine their right to free speech. Project 2025, the extremist blueprint for the second Trump administration, denied that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election—calling it “a Clinton campaign dirty trick”—and called for ending government efforts to stop disinformation with “utmost urgency.” “The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth,” it said.
On February 20, Steven Lee Myers, Julian E. Barnes, and Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is firing or reassigning officials at the FBI and CISA who had worked on protecting elections. That includes those trying to stop foreign propaganda and disinformation and those combating cyberattacks and attempts to disrupt voting systems.
Independent journalist Marisa Kabas broke the story that two members of the “Department of Government Efficiency” are now installed at CISA: Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old known as “Big Balls,” and Kyle Schutt, a 38-year-old software engineer. Kim Zetter of Wired reported that since 2018, CISA has “helped state and local election offices around the country assess vulnerabilities in their networks and help secure them.”
During the 2024 campaign, Trump said repeatedly that he would end the war in Ukraine. Shortly after the election, a newspaper reporter asked Nikolai Patrushev, who is close to Putin, if Trump’s election would mean “positive changes from Russia’s point of view.” Patrushev answered: “To achieve success in the elections, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. And as a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”
Today, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a reporter: “The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.”
The takeover of the Kennedy Center may seem like an afterthought in the furious drama of President Donald Trump’s first month in office. The abandonment of the transatlantic alliance, proposals to annex territory on multiple continents, the evisceration of national institutions, and overt claims to kingship are such eye-popping departures from precedent that the leadership of a somewhat stuffy, self-consciously elite performing-arts venue seems negligible by comparison. But Trump’s peculiar preoccupation with the Kennedy Center is symptomatic of a profound change in the nature of American power since his inauguration: America is undergoing a cultural revolution. “This is going to be great television,” Trump said at the end of Friday’s stormy session with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It may as well be the motto of his administration.
It is a new kind of cultural revolution. Unlike the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, which imposed ideology on their populaces by means of culture and entertainment, America’s current reality is the overturning of the political order by the country’s entertainers. The American culture industry has overwhelmed politics: Washington today can be understood only as a product of show business, not of law or policy.
The Trump administration has been consistent in its veneration of show business, if in nothing else. The president has put a WWE executive in charge of education, made a Fox News talking head his secretary of defense, installed a celebrity conspiracy theorist to lead the National Institutes of Health, handed control of Medicare to a TV doctor, and appointed a right-wing podcaster as deputy director of the FBI. Elon Musk is running government reform because he can live-post it. Dr. Phil accompanies ICE on raids. Trump’s Cabinet picks resemble the cast of a reality-television show by design: Trump understands, by instinct and through experience, that the line between entertainment and power in American life has effectively dissolved.
In his farewell address, President Joe Biden described the incoming administration as an oligarchy. He was mistaken. It is rule by performers: a “histriocracy.” Anyone who wants to understand what is happening in American politics needs to understand it on those terms.
In 2016, a reality-TV star’s rise to the presidency was novel, and seeing that surprise triumph as an anomaly was still possible. No longer. The 2024 election was not just evidence of a rightward shift among traditionally Democratic voters, or of rising anti-government patriotism, but a clarification of how fundamentally American politics has shifted the ground from which its meaning derives.
Politics has become an offshoot of spectacle. Trump has left intellectuals grasping for historical analogies: Is he a fascist or a populist? Is he a latter-day Know Nothing or a modern demagogue? The analogies are unsatisfying because they fail to account for popular culture as a political force, the way it has scrambled traditional dividing lines. Trump has Orthodox Jewish grandchildren and is a hero to the white-power movement. He won a record percentage of Arab American votes, then appointed an ambassador to Israel who claims that “there is no such thing as Palestinians.” He enjoys fervent support among evangelicals despite the fact that his character is a living contradiction of every value they revere. These paradoxes would not be possible in a politics that selects the country’s leadership on the basis of ideas and character. They make sense if brute exposure determines who wins.
As the grand soap opera of this American presidency unfolds, displays of rage and wonder fill every moment: get-rich-quick schemes, rigged games, vengeful punishments. The audience is hurried from one hustle to another. The distinction between a con and a joke has blurred. The great circus showman P. T. Barnum prophesied the rise of Trump when he declared: “Let me furnish the amusements of a nation and there will be need of very few laws.” The connection between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and John F. Kennedy is more than genetic. Norman Mailer, in his famous essay on the 1960 Democratic Convention, “Superman Comes to the Supermarket,” noticed a mysterious sadness that gripped the spectators, which made sense only when he saw the future President Kennedy in the flesh: “The Democrats were going to nominate a man who, no matter how serious his political dedication might be, was indisputably and willy-nilly going to be seen as a great box-office actor, and the consequences of that were staggering and not at all easy to calculate.” Trump’s Cabinet is the staggering consequence that Mailer could not calculate.
Ronald Reagan in the 1980s made the connection between celebrity and power even more explicit; he rose after a career in which perhaps his most famous role was starring opposite a chimpanzee. The “Great Communicator” told corny jokes and knew that television was everything. The Republican Party “won one for the Gipper,” as Reagan’s campaign slogan had it. When his administration abolished the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, releasing news media from any obligation of impartiality, it prepared the way for histriocracy without government interference.
Rule by performers is distinct from autocracy. The ruling performers serve the narrative needs of their fans first and foremost. Policy will always be an addendum to the show. The overturning of Roe v. Wade had compelling emotional heft for Trump’s base, a soul-stirring final scene to the movie that had been playing in their minds for generations: “We beat the cosmopolitan elite to save babies.” The happy ending was that abortion became illegal in much of the United States.
But winning for show is very different from having a desired effect on the world. Since 2018, the rate of abortions has, by most accounts, kept rising—not that anybody seems to care, because the narrative impulse is the primary political driver. In fact, the restrictionist policy’s failure provides an opportunity for endless sequels. Trump has served the pro-life movement’s storyline needs by creating the conditions for an increase in abortion numbers: so many more bad people to punish, so many more babies who need saving. In a politics determined by performance, outcomes are epilogues that nobody reads.
The reality of rule by performers is profoundly disconcerting to American intellectuals’ self-conception of their government’s dignity. This is the message of the Kennedy Center’s takeover that the D.C. political elite has been so slow to register. If you think it’s a joke to have RFK Jr. in office, that’s the point. Jokes gather attention. Attention creates exposure. Exposure drives power. The greatest asset for any politician today is a bottomless narcissism that requires unremitting attention to satisfy.
Rule by performers doesn’t need to impose an autocrat’s lies on the people; people do it to themselves through their entertainments. In 1984, George Orwell described doublethink as the kind of intellectual gymnastics demanded by a totalitarian society: “To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.” Reality television and the WWE demand similar distortion-effect gymnastics; their audiences willingly suspend their disbelief and gladly accept events they know are artificial as real. The audiences come to political debate already prepared for the blurring of illusion and reality. “The public appears disposed to be amused even when they are conscious of being deceived,” Barnum understood, which is why they called him the “Prince of Humbugs.” In Trump, they have a king.
As forewarned, America has amused itself to death. Histriocracy is much less stable than traditional autocracy—wilder, more unpredictable. Turbulence is to be expected, as creating drama is the point of the government and the source of power. No doubt, the Kennedy Center will be consumed by a whirlwind of thrills and chills over the next four years. But when a circus departs, it leaves behind dirty streets, empty pockets, and lingering regrets. Under rule by performers, only one law is inviolable: The show must go on, until the curtain falls.
Today, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a reporter: “The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.”
The reality of rule by performers is profoundly disconcerting to American intellectuals’ self-conception of their government’s dignity.
America’s Cultural Revolution
What Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center really means
