Herr Trump blowing off at the mouth: NAJ screen shot
Tales From the MoJo Road –
By Glynn Wilson –
WASHINGTON, D.C. – It’s a different kind of spring here in and around the great capital city of the United States. Yes, the Japanese cherry trees blossomed this year by the Jefferson Memorial and around the Tidal Basin, along with the redbuds, dogwoods and mountain laurel in the woods along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. But the vibe is different. The intensity more severe.
Washington cherry blossoms in full bloom framing the Jefferson Memorial: Glynn Wilson
According to a guest op-ed in the New York Times the other day, former Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn, a Washington socialite who became the third wife of legendary Post editor Ben Bradlee, “Spring is normally the happiest time of year here. But not this spring.
“This spring Washington is a city in crisis. Physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. It’s as if the fragrant air were permeated with an invisible poison, as if we were silently choking on carbon monoxide. The emotion all around — palpable in the streets, the shops, the restaurants, in business offices, at dinner tables — is fear. People have gone from greeting each other with a grimace of anguish as they spout about the outrage of the day to a laugh to despair. It’s all so unbelievable that it’s hard to process, and it doesn’t stop.
“Nobody feels safe. Nobody feels protected….”
And no wonder. It’s by design. Yes, people are more crazy now all over the country since the anxiety of the Covid pandemic coupled with Trump’s first deranged term, and there are bad drivers everywhere. But around here, the drivers tend to take out their stress, anxiety and anger at the world on other drivers going the speed limit, as if weaving in and out of traffic lanes on the Beltway and other local roads blowing past at 90 mph and blaring the horn at them will somehow solve their problems by making them someone else’s.
That’s not only rude and dangerous. It increases the stress level for everybody. Slow the fuck down.
Washington has long been a stressful place to live and work. During the Bush years, all the helicopters and airplanes from the Pentagon, Andrews Air Force Base and the little airport in College Park, Maryland compounded the traffic noise and acted as a constant reminder of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 and the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even sitting by the Potomac River in a park reading a book, the intensity never really went away.
No doubt it was stressful in the Nixon years.
“I lived through the paranoia and vengefulness of Watergate,” Quinn writes. “This time in Washington, it’s different. Nobody knows how this will end and what will happen to the country. What might happen to each of us.”
Yes, any day now you or I could be whisked away by the police, locked up in chains and deported to El Salvador or Libya just for daring to disagree with Herr Trump. And if the Supreme Court disagrees, so what? Trump will just ignore orders from the high court controlled by right-wingers he appointed, and go on about being the dictator-king he’s always wanted to be, now seemingly knowing no one has the power to stand up to him. He’s obliterated all checks and balances by getting rid of anyone who dares to disagree in public.
“Even those who work for President Trump are scared,” Quinn says. “The capricious and shambolic way he governed in his first 100 days has them all insecure in their jobs…. Those most afraid are the Republicans on Capitol Hill. They are afraid of not just being primaried but also facing retribution.”
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Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said it out loud.
“We are all afraid,” she said. “Retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”
No, it’s not.
“And so the Republicans are so busy demonstrating their fealty to … Trump,” Quinn says, “that there’s no chance to have a conversation with anybody not also trying to do that.”
The socializing style of the Trump crowd is “a striking departure from what went on in Washington for decades,” she says. “Salons, where we got to know one another and exchanged ideas, are out. The preferred entertainment now is large galas in gilded halls and cavernous buildings with lots of flags, ribbons, hats and noise.”
Trump’s billionaire friends and cabinet are snapping up luxury real estate all over town, she points out, especially Georgetown, like Robert Kennedy Jr., who has taken to swimming with his grand kids in Rock Creek, known to be contaminated with raw sewage and E. coli and other bacteria. Not to mention Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who has become social media ass kisser in chief.
Quinn says the “Trump women” are a “all flash and Fox News,” with a “Palm Beach” vibe.
The restaurant and bar scenes have changed too.
“During the first Trump administration, Republicans tried to infiltrate Cafe Milano in Georgetown, overseen by the estimable Franco Nuschese. It could feel like Rick’s Cafe from Casablanca, with lots of black cars in front, some with flags; men with earphones, often Secret Service; and the seething locals about to stand up and sing ‘La Marseillaise’.”
The MAGA crowd usually hung out at the former Trump Hotel, of course, where the president dined regularly and Rudi Giuliani was a fixture.
Trump lawyer and former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuiliani hanging out with the tourists in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Seen here with Rebecca Seekford of Arlington, Virginia.
Quinn reports that the new hot spots are Osteria Mozza in Georgetown and Keith McNally’s Minetta Tavern at Union Market. But it’s “Butterworth’s” on Capitol Hill that “has emerged as a hangout for Republicans, enticing some Democrats to go incognito for sightseeing.”
“A new club, Ned’s, has opened downtown in very posh digs. It has gotten a lot of ink because it draws from both camps. Journalists flock there in hopes of spotting cabinet members…”
A new club will open this summer in Georgetown, the Executive Branch – owned by Donald Trump Jr., Steve Witkoff’s sons and Omeed Malik – with a Mar-a-Lago-esque membership fee of $500,000.
“Expect it to be where the monarchical court life this president is imposing on Washington will play out,” she predicts. Hint. Hint activists.
“Among once powerful lawyers, journalists, politicians, academics and lobbyists who have made up official Washington for the past few decades, the feeling is one of impotence, fear and frustration” she says. “With … Trump in the White House, anyone who socializes with Democrats can come under suspicion.”
Diplomats from other countries are also reeling, she says.
“They don’t know how to navigate relations with this unpredictable administration … embassies seem to have cut back on entertaining — traditionally the most effective way to maintain relationships. Trying to entertain in a city where people may not accept the invitations or not speak to their dinner partners if they come or, worse, may walk out is a challenge.”
The prominent historian Michael Beschloss said during Trump’s last campaign that a second term could lead to “dictatorship and anarchy.” At the time, he was accused of being alarmist. Not anymore.
“Everybody in Washington is being tested today,” says Leon Wieseltier, the editor of the literary review Liberties. “The question is: What can we do? It’s a time when we all have to ask: What am I capable of? It’s time for people to ask: What am I willing to die for?”
But she cautions that “we still have to remember to live … to commiserate, to laugh, to eat, to have a glass of wine, to despair, yes, but mostly to plan and search for a way forward.”
She points out that “impermanence” is a natural state for Washingtonians.
She says she’s always “loved the caliber of the people who have been attracted to Washington.”
“They almost always arrived optimistic, patriotic and civic-minded… Whatever the political wave they rode in on, they were all honorable. I’m not sure that is … the case anymore. Nothing is more important … than integrity.”
But that is long gone with this crowd. The way to get noticed is to do crazy things and utter crazy, false claims. That’s what gets press coverage, and it no longer matters anymore if it is crazy and false. There is no price to pay anymore for lying. Trump has made it his art form, and dared everybody else who wants to be in his orbit to learn the “art of the deal.” How to lie and cheat and get away with it.
The hallmark of this administration, Quinn says, “is cruelty and sadism, vengefulness carried out with glee.”
Elon Musk said it best: “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”
So the point, apparently, is to destroy empathy, to divide and conquer, to rule with an iron fist like the nationalist dictators Trump admires and tries to emulate, chief among them Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Jesus Fucking Christ, God, if you are out there on some cloud somewhere watching this shit show, answer the prayers of the people and save us from this antichrist, before it’s too late.
NAJ graphic by Glynn Wilson
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