Yes, it’s still free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter! Greg Mitchell is the author of fourteen books and director of five films for PBS since 2022. In a previous life, he was a longtime editor at the legendary Crawdaddy.
Pardon, my mistake? John Oliver last night explored Trump’s criminal use of pardons.
Thought I’d take a rare step of devoting this section of the newsletter to one regular guest, Paul Krugman, excerpted from his own Substack last night, on a question that I have long declared receives too little attention: Everyone loves to cite Trump’s growing insanity, his plunge in the approval numbers, and the Democrats rising chances in the midterms—but no pressure it seems from Democrats OR Republican for force him out of office through resignation or impeachment. And even if that happened—what has to happen next?
Krugman:
The President of the United States is mentally ill, but everybody knows that. So while we should continue to focus on this degeneration taking place in front of our eyes, we should also, beyond that, ask what we can do about the powers, the interests, the system that put this horrifying person in a position of power.
It’s May 31st. If you have been following some of the news you may know that Trump’s mental deterioration, which has been obvious for quite a while, got even more extreme in the past few days. Tellingly, the things that are really driving him into more obvious dysfunction are things that are blows to his ego. I was especially struck — I was rattled actually — by his reaction to the wave of artists canceling out on the self-glorifying concert series he’s holding on the mall….
Okay, but we knew that, right? It’s not really a surprise to find out that he has lost his mind, what was left of it. And yet, he is in power. People who did a lot to put him in power did so, knowing this — the billionaires who contributed vast sums of money to his campaign, the Supreme Court which gave him immunity back in 2024 — they all knew who they were doing this for. They understood what they were doing. Now, maybe, even they are getting a bit of cold feet as as he goes over the edge and as we’re starting to see in Iran and elsewhere what happens when you have a lunatic running the United States, a lunatic who has far more power than a previous president because all of the normal institutional safeguards have been short-circuited or dismantled.
Still, they are continuing to support him, and they are continuing to do so not just in concrete ways, but verbally, which matters. They continue to cover for him.
Just the other day, Jeff Bezos — who is not an idiot; he has to know what he’s looking at — but he said, oh, Trump is much more mature than he was in his first term, which is obviously a complete lie. That is not what Jeff Bezos thinks. And it’s telling you that he is still providing cover.
The Supreme Court, although it’s been knocking back a few things, is for the most part continuing to give Trump treatment that it would never have accorded, not just to any Democratic president, but to any previous Republican president.
Okay, this is not coming out of thin air. These people — I’m not talking about Trump but people who are empowering him — are not stupid. Some of them are weak but they are also acting because they think there’s something in it for them.
All of this at some level is about money and power for people beyond Trump. And it’s made possible by the fact that there is so much money in the hands of a few people, many of whom turn out, not too surprisingly, to be terrible, insensitive, anti-democratic people themselves.
Obviously, we need to defang Trump as much as possible and make sure that neither he nor anybody who follows in his footsteps has power after the next two elections. But beyond that, we really need to do a thorough purging of the United States. We need a deMAGAfication. And I’m not going over the top by using a word that’s very similar to the denazification that we pursued successfully after World War II in Germany.
And it’s not just the MAGA ideology, but the whole structure of hugely unequal power, hugely unequal wealth that made this horrific moment possible.
It’s not going to be easy, and maybe it’s not going to be doable, but we have to try because this is a nightmare. This is a nightmare beyond, I think, even the worst fantasies of progressives, beyond the worst fantasies of conservatives who still have a conscience. (There still are plenty of those, but they’re no longer MAGA.)
This has to be turned around and we should not, above all, whitewash or forget this moment. This is where a lot of forces in America have been leading and if we don’t do something beyond just getting rid of Trump, it’s going to happen again.
Music Pick
For the start of the new month, a deep cut from my Kinks, “Rainy Day in June,” from about six decades back. Do not despair, “Sunny Afternoon” on same album.
From Tune to Toons
Brodner:
Goris:
Chilton:
Royaards:
Photo Finish
Early morning in Provincetown after the rain.
Imagine a spoiled child in 1953 about to turn 8. Classmates who are invited to his birthday party and back out suddenly become "third rate, without talent." No one asks why they were chosen to begin with. Everyone simply nods and agrees, afraid that Anthony will be upset and send them to the cornfield. "You've really matured," they say. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Good_Life_(The_Twilight_Zone)
The oligarchs that helped put him in office are reaping their rewards. Maybe when they’ve made what they deem is enough we can put an end to this? I’m not holding my breath.