I stopped reading comic books when the price went up from 12 cents to 15. Proof positive that I’m old. Cheapness wasn’t the only reason: I wanted to move on to more challenging and stimulating fare. In short, I was growing up. If only that were true of Team Trump.

The featured image is of a challenge coin designed for Kash Patel. Such coins are ubiquitous in the military given out to honor a unit or whatever. According to my countryman, Tom Nichols, Patel’s coin has a decidedly adolescent flavor:

“The coins are, to put it gently, ridiculous. On one side, they have what appears to be the symbol of the Punisher, a Marvel character. The Punisher is a vigilante who does … well, vigilante stuff, killing evildoers at will as revenge for the death of his family. The symbol is popular with a lot of people, including criminals, law-enforcement officers, soldiers, and some extremist groups such as the anti-government Three Percenters. None of this is good, especially because the character’s creator long ago admitted that the symbol was partly inspired by the Nazi SS’s Totenkopf, or “Death’s Head,” uniform insignia. (The author of the series also notes that the Punisher hates cops, something the police officers wearing the mark don’t seem to get.)

If you’re not a comic-book fan, the front of the coin looks more like a depiction of a space alien, or maybe a skull—or maybe a space alien’s skull—with spiders in the eye sockets and K$H on the forehead. (“Kash.” Get it? So edgy.) The face has a Greek or Roman helmet under the nose, and a pistol on each side, and together, it looks like a key or maybe a bottle opener. The other side carries Patel’s signature, the FBI seal, and a depiction of a tommy gun, perhaps as a romantic reminder of the days of J. Edgar Hoover hunting down John Dillinger or something.”

Patel doesn’t leave it at that. As I pointed out in a 2022 post called Kash Is For Kids he has wizard fantasies:

Kash Patel may be the leading adolescent fantasist on Team Trump but he’s not the only one. President Pennywise spends his days playing with AI. I don’t recall past presidents having that much time on their hands. They played golf and did the job. Trump plays golf and plays at the job.

Another adolescent member of the regime is Kristi Noem hereinafter Cosplay Kristi. Instead of doing her job, she plays dress up. Here are some of her greatest hits:

Cosplay Kristi does it all except for her job, which is not as fun as dressing up for the cameras.

As a little boy, I played with toy soldiers. We now have one as Secretary of Defense:

Dirty Hands Hegseth digs flag garb:

In a word: Flasher.

I remember when wearing flag garb was akin to flag desecration. Hard hats used to beat up hippies for wearing flag garb. It was regarded as fit for only performative idiots like Abbie Hoffman:

The key word is performative. Much like MAGA, the Yippies were all flash and little substance. That’s why I wrote a post last year comparing Trump to Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, MAGA Yippie.

Grown-ups used to run our government that was true of Democratic and Republican administrations. When W tried cosplay during the Iraq War, he was widely ridiculed:

I could go on and on but I’d rather not. Costuming is fun but it’s no replacement for governing. The policies they do have are destructive, but the Insult Comedian believes his job is to keep the MAGA maggots entertained. Me, I wish they’d grow the fuck up and stop acting like arrested adolescents.

The last word goes to the Beach Boys: