American Aedile

It may be of no great electoral consequence that two of traditional conservatism’s most respected columnists—George Will and Peggy Noonan—have written pieces in the past week proclaiming Donald Trump unfit for the presidency. The MAGAfools —and those respectable Republicans who have sold their souls to do this bully’s bidding—will ignore these clarion calls. The polls probably won’t move. But they are worth noting. George Will called Trump “frivolous” and “oblivious.” Noonan thinks Trump’s flagrant corruption is affecting American decency. In a previous column, she questioned his mental health:

Even at his age he is restless; when there’s peace and quiet he seems to become anxious, as if he can’t tolerate normality. He shows little faith in quiet progress, as in: Set good policy in place and hope it succeeds inch by inch. Instead he creates drama or a crisis, arouses a counterforce, attacks this new enemy, experiences fear—will my luck hold?—defeats the new enemy, feels relief, relaxes. Then, restless again and on the prowl, he creates new drama . . .

Today’s edition: He wants to rename Lake Ontario. He wants to call it Lake America.

In fact, Trump had a predecessor in ancient times, a highly-ranked official in the Roman Republic: the Aedile who supervised public works and entertainments, like tributes and gladiatorial contests. Later, in England, the official who took charge of festivals was called The Lord of Misrule. That fits, too. There can be no question that, in his dotage, Trump has become more ceremonial than substantive. He was last seen clumsily waving a green flag at his Formula One race, accompanied, for a change, by Melania—a pointed attempt to convince the press that the Slovene hadn’t seceded, or been replaced by another from his wardrobe room of blondes, Natalie Harp.

At other times, he’s been fussing over construction projects. The ballroom, the arch, the U.S. Navy’s battleships. His redo of the Oval Office is hilariously dreadful and an affront to the understated spirit of the room. The gilt may be real, but it looks fake and cheesy—like something you pick up in the plaster decoration aisle at Home Depot. Some of us, from Queens, figured out the subtleties of Manhattan. We were humble, and gradually migrated through Brooks Brothers into the corridors of the elite. He didn’t. He tried to overwhelm the sophisticated swells with his banal view of “class.” He had no idea.

And he doesn’t look too good these days. Suddenly, there are a bunch of doctors opining in print—on the basis of nothing more than his appearance and apparent exigencies (22 medical specialists attended the Corpus Orange?)—that he is in the process of shuffling off this mortal coil. He certainly is shuffling. But the willingness of doctors to presume about his health has the aroma of day-old Mickey D’s and diminution about it. He no longer seems a strongman.

The calendar is inevitable, the political ground is rumbling beneath him. The first meaningless horse-race polls of the 2028 presidential campaign are being tossed…moving the conversation away from him. The wrigglings of J.D. Vance are front page news. Trump’s Gordon-Gekko-like son, Donald Jr., may have pillaged the bitcoin markets sufficiently and is now announcing the “calling” he has for public life. Talk of a third term for Donald Sr. seems increasingly fanciful.

Trump seems to have abandoned all interest in public policy. You won’t hear him saying much about Iran these days. He used to be every-day stupid—bomb them into the Stone Age…oh, wait a minute! Scrub that! They’re just desperate to make a deal, or maybe not, or maybe, this week, we may, at some point, levy heavy heavy economic sanctions on them. Truth is, Trump has been taken to the cleaners. I hope he hasn’t demolished the last semblance of American power in the world. But his behavior conforms with the assessments his fellow real estate developers told me about him in the 1980s. He was a spoiled kid, a joke. He didn’t know what he was doing.

Among the few serious people in his Administration is Jared Kushner who, his own monumental thieveries nearly complete, may want the Trump-inspired chaos to subside. He wants to solve Gaza; he met with Hamas. He met with Hakim Jeffries which was leaked—no surprise—to Maggie Haberman of the Times. The Jeffries meeting may have been a significant launching point of negotiations beyond the knowledge of his addled father-in-law. The insinuation was that Kushner and Hakeem talked about things the Republicans and Democrats might do…together after the midterm elections. That is so useful as to almost seem incredible. Various left-wing Democrats are savaging Jeffries for giving Jared the time of day—but those who call themselves “socialists” don’t care about getting anything done. Like Trump, they don’t know how; they just want to throw cow-pucky at the oligarchs. The DSAs and MAGAs deserve each other. Both camps are Aediles. They care about entertaining their own delusions; they do not care about “working families.” They wouldn’t recognize one of those if she ringed them up at the convenience store. Unless she was in Hijab. The faux-socialists are as useless as those on the right who think Jesus will save them if they forgive all the lying and diddling Donald did. Jesus won’t. His message: you can only save yourself by not being an asshole.

And so, a question: What if something serious happens? What if the Chinese take advantage of Trump’s debility and try to capture Taiwan? What if the market crashes?What if Iran—which attempted this a few weeks ago—messes with the quality of our water supply? What if Putin uses a suitcase nuke to get rid of Zelensky? What happens if Donald Trump actually has to be president?

I dunno. It’s all about appearances. In his mind, a real crisis might involve a shortage of beauty products: What if Pete Hegseth runs out of hair gel? What if we run out of collagen? Who could replace Katherine Leavitt? What if Trump’s sun lamps fritz? Or his hair-enhancement tonic is made in Canada? What if he stops looking like a character in The Hunger Games?

I won’t even try to answer the most important question: Are the American people tired of having this huckster using them as pawns in a grift for the ages? When do they finally get it? Or is there simply a bottomless appetite for his potty-mouth, bullying, melanin-deprived public presence, his snarky race-baiting, his attacks on (women) journalists, his delusions of grandiosity? Even Mike Pence is marking Trump’s incompetence in public now: “I think the last thing we need right now, as our economy gets back on its feet, is a trade war with Canada.”

Poor Mike, one of history’s fools. Actually, what he is saying is not true: Joe Biden and Jay Powell conquered inflation and pointed the economy in the right direction—only to have Trump reinstate blistering price hikes with his Iran “excursion” and tariffs. But as many Republicans privately acknowledge these days: If you lie down with a dog, you wake up getting fleeced.

Oh, fiddle-dee-dee. Tomorrow is another day. There’s Oman to bomb. There’s a reflecting pool to be scuttled in front of the Jefferson Memorial. Maybe American roses would be more appropriate than Japanese cherry trees. He can shout at Bibi and pretend Netanyahu has listened to him. He can pretend to be the Greatest Man in History because Gary Player’s caddie imagined that was true.

It is not true. He may be the Greatest Fraud in History. But he doesn’t lack power. He—and his enablers on the idiot left—can destroy the magnificent thing we created here. Democracy demands subtlety, it demands close work. But. . .Let the Games Continue! Are there enough of us boring, responsible moderate-conservatives to prevent it? I wouldn’t bet the farm.

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