The ICE shooting is still the big story

I want to acknowledge up front that the biggest news story of the week is the killing of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of ICE agent Jonathan Ross. I’m not ignoring the story, and this is a good reminder to read our main Salon website, along with the newsletter. I wrote about it last week, and I have two more articles coming up soon, which will add more meaning and context. 

That gives me space in this newsletter to talk about Donald Trump’s imperialist designs, which are also terrifying. It sucks to have to worry about so many different things at once, but that’s what happens when our fellow Americans, out of ignorance or malice, vote for a napping, narcissistic fascist.

Stephen Miller exploits a nasty, tired old man to get WWIII

I’m increasingly convinced that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller wants to start World War III, and that he’s exploiting Trump’s co-morbidities of evil and stupidity — which are both getting worse with age — to get there. Miller and his equally sinister wife, Katie Miller, have been aggressively arguing that the U.S. should take Greenland simply as a fascist show of force. 

In an especially telling interview with Jake Tapper of CNN, Stephen Miller — speaking in a sticky-mouthed cadence familiar suggestive of someone high on cocaine or amphetamines, or just on evil — justified a possible invasion of Greenland with this: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”

Miller denied that seizing Greenland — which is an autonomous region of Denmark, a NATO country and U.S. ally — would have major ripple effects around the globe. There is every reason to believe he’s lying. First of all, his lips are moving. Second, European powers have clearly indicated that such an unprecedented move would effectively end the NATO alliance. That, in turn, could be read as an invitation for Russia to expand its war on Ukraine to other vulnerable nations in Eastern Europe, and for China to attack Taiwan. It’s highly reminiscent, in fact, of the way Germany and Japan teamed up at the launch of World War II. 

Santa Monica Goebbels is exactly the kind of pinhead who would think he can succeed where Hitler failed. No doubt Trump is also dumb and egotistical enough to be lured into the same fatal delusion. 

But it’s also been reported that Trump is convinced that Greenland is a lot bigger than it really is, because he’s been suckered by the Mercator illusion on flat maps, which makes that island look disproportionately large. Trump loves an easy win above anything else, so being told he can seize an enormous chunk of land with a small military deployment is catnip to him. Come to think of it, it’s like slapping your name on the Kennedy Center and pretending you earned it. So yeah, I think Trump is being manipulated by Miller and others, on top of being naturally evil. 

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Trump’s oil meeting wasn’t just an embarrassment

As I’ve written before, there’s a lot of reporting that suggests Trump lives in an increasingly delusional bubble, where the only people allowed in are those happy to shower him with flattery and lies, mostly for their own gain. The severity of this situation was illustrated on Friday, when Trump held a televised meeting with a bunch of oil executives to discuss his fantasies about stealing Venezuela’s oil, now that he’s kidnapped that country’s president. 

Mindful of not directly crossing Trump on camera, most of the executives avoided saying anything negative, and some even pretended to be interested in this cockamamie scheme. Notably, however, they avoided making any commitments amid all the head-nodding and praise, because there is very little chance any of them are willing put up with the massive cost and headaches of going into Venezuela, when the only real profit will be to please Trump. 

The CEO of ExxonMobil said as much, telling Trump that Venezuela is “uninvestable” given its current instability. But Trump is so far up his own ass that he probably believes U.S. companies will be drilling there by April, and that he can win the midterms with $1-a-gallon gas. So he’s reacting like someone who is unused to hearing “no,” and threatening to ice Exxon out. That sounds a lot like being uninvited to the lamest party of the year, which is probably why the CEO of a massive global company wasn’t super worried about this outcome. 

The larger issue here, and why we should be concerned about the risks of Trump starting a major war, is that more than ever, he is surrounded only by yes-men and, crucially, that he feels entitled to their endless praise. As long as you keep on flattering him, you get what you want. Especially since anyone who wants to offer any kind of disagreement based in reality gets the boot. Trump is surrounded by violence-addicted, power-hungry morons who really want to invade sovereign nations. Now they have a doddering old man who’s willing to go along with their bad ideas, so long as they keep kissing his ass. Right now, there’s no one left who’s likely to get in their way. 

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What we're reading this week

• “The Ignominious Death of Drill, Baby, Drill,” Paul Krugman, Substack

• “Kill, smear, cover-up,” Judd Legum, Popular Info

• “Renee Good’s Murder was Misogyny,” Kate Manne, More to Hate

• “Renee Good Was the Kind of Person I Should Be,” Jenée Desmond-Harris, Slate

• “We're all just content for ICE,” Ryan Broderick, Garbage Day

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