Buckle up, we are entering four years of turbulence.
On Monday, Donald Trump was coronated to the messianic delight of his fans. The inauguration was like getting attacked by stray dogs inside a Pottery Barn. Trump 2.0 will the director’s cut of his original 2016 melodrama, a film noir by a bête noire who believes he is endorsed by God.
Who needs the Constitution when you have the Almighty?
But let’s begin with Melania’s hat, the wearable UFO she pulled down over her eyes. It’s amazing she didn’t need a white cane to get around the rotunda. Maybe she was using her olfactory sense: I smell ketamine and Axe body spray. That’s Elon Musk. This must be my row.
The hat conjured the Hamburglar, Carmen Sandiego and the Pizza Hut logo. It was a hat normally reserved for mob wives at funerals who do not want to be caught on FBI surveillance cams. Melania’s orbital brim was so wide it turned her face into a solar eclipse.
We should all be so lucky to have not witnessed Monday’s festivities.
After Trump’s first inaugural speech in 2017, George W. Bush reportedly told Hillary Clinton, “That was some weird s—t.” By George, this was weirder. Trump ditched his signature red tie, which was at the cleaners with Sweet ’N Sour stains. But the speech itself was a refried litany of resentments, grievances, falsehoods and solipsistic hubris.
America is a slum only I can transform into paradise with meme coins.
The speech also heralded a flurry of executive orders. King Trump was autographing more than J.K. Rowling at a Harry Potter book launch. He pulled out of the Paris Agreement again. He is ditching the World Health Organization, which seems unwise given how he botched the COVID response.
King Trump was so eager to scribble his John Hancock — why does his signature resemble an EKG of someone about to flatline? — he grabbed the Sharpie even before getting to the Oval Office. He was signing inside the Capital One Arena as fans cheered the new Days of Thunder.
If America goes to war, will Trump sell tickets to the Situation Room so the red hats can crowd around as SecDef Pete Hegseth stares at monitors with bloodshot eyes and jots down strike co-ordinates on cocktail napkins?
Monday’s executive orders were a MAGA crockpot of dreams come true: There are only two genders. The Jan. 6 violent rioters are freed from jail. The TikTok ban is paused. Joe Biden’s executive orders are null and void. The Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of America. No more birthright citizenship.
Henceforth, our national food is the Big Mac!
DEI? How about DIE. Remote work? Get your asses back in the office. Make the death penalty great again. King Trump also designated drug cartels as terrorists. Don’t be surprised if he tries this with other groups, including teacher unions, abortion providers, trans athletes and vegans.
If King Donald ever did household chores, he would have slapped a terrorist label on Mr. Clean.
This is why we all need Melania’s hat, something we can pull over our eyes and ears when King Donald vows to rename Canada “Canmerica” or brands his invasion of Panama as Operation DJT Canal. Or if he hits us with a 25 per cent tariff that will only serve as a murder-suicide for bilateral trade.
This dummy still doesn’t get how tariffs work. Best of luck to those who voted for him when the price of sneakers jumps by 50 per cent and a flat-screen TV requires a line of credit.
That was the real takeaway from Monday’s inauguration. The leader of the free world lives inside a funhouse of distorting mirrors, alternative facts and made-for-Fox propaganda. He tells tall tales to make others feel small. He invents catastrophes that do not exist and ignores the real ones. He sees policy as a photo-op. He constantly changes his mind because there is no stable intellect to guide decision-making. He lies more than Calamity Jane on molly.
No wonder Melania wore a hat that barricaded her face from the horrors.
No one could see her eyes as her husband’s counterfactuals turned strident and sclerotic. The woman knows King Donald better than anyone. It’s why she has a separate bedroom and mace in her purse. It’s why she always looks to be experiencing acute shortness of breath.
She knows he is impulsive and reckless. She also knows there are no guardrails this time. There are just buckets of Jell-O and invertebrate Republicans who won’t say no to Dear Leader even if he demands they gargle thumbtacks.
Melania Trump did not wear a hat on Monday.
She wore a warning sign for the rest of us to look away.
