Reading · Michael James Writes

SO, WORLD! WHEN I WAS A KID, I WAS FASCINATED BY MAGIC - ESPECIALLY WHEN I SAW A DOVE OR A RABBIT PULLED FROM A HAT. WHAT I NEVER FIGURED OUT IS “WHY” THERE WOULD EVER BE CAUSE FOR A RABBIT OR A DOVE IN A HAT - BUT I DID LEARN THAT IN ORDER TO PULL OFF THIS FEAT, THE FIRST MAGICAL TRICK REQUIRES PUTTING THOSE ANIMALS INTO THAT HAT...

Which most often uses something called “misdirection.”

Which requires the magician to direct our attention ELSEWHERE while he did the actual deed.

Because he KNOWS people looking left can’t see what’s happening on the right.

See, there are good magicians and there are bad magicians.

And then, there is Donald Trump.

Who is NO David Copperfield.

Which is why we should be able to see - without even watching his latest performance - what he is trying to do.

He is attempting to become king.

Or dictator.

Of The United States of America.

And, if you ask Iran - or, say, ME - also of the entire world.

Now, MAGA will argue the verbiage, but it all leads to the same place.

They only don’t know this because they don’t ever know what to look at.

Which is why they are the most astonished and delighted folks in America when the dove or rabbit eventually emerges.

The trick Trump is trying to pull off now is to overthrow democracy and rule this country as its supreme authority - until he dies.

His technique?

To cause daily chaos.

Which is, in magician’s parlance, known as misdirection.

Which is why six years after the fact, we are revisiting the Covid pandemic.

Or arguing whether The Strait of Hormuz is open or closed.

Or whether we’ve won the war with Iran or lost.

Or whether some liberal vandalized The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool or not.

Or being told that Muslims and communists are taking over the country.

Or voting on yet whether another unqualified cabinet member - this time, Trump’s PERSONAL ATTORNEY, Todd Blanche - deserved to be US attorney general.

Or some other catastrophe designed to allow Trump to pull some bullshit out of a hat.

Which, in this case, is seizing the midterm vote and calling the whole thing off by declaring some not-so-magical national emergency.

Which is no trick at all.

Because it’s illegal.

And criminal.

And unconstitutional.

But yet, we sit, rapt, like children, watching Trump The Great rummage around in a tired old top hat, searching for something.

That we already know is to come.

How do we know?

Because he just TOLD us.

Again.

Like, last night, when he was asked if he would call off the midterm election.