The featured image is of Erich Weiss DBA Harry Houdini. It’s my latest stand-in but not just for Donald Trump, it stands for the MAGA movement as a whole. They’ve chained themselves to the Kaiser of Chaos and are slowly but surely feeling the pinch. That’s what happens when you substitute magical thinking for rational thinking.

I’ve had a lifelong fascination with Houdini. Inspired by the Tony Curtis-Janet Leigh biopic, I messed around with magic tricks when I was a tadpole. Sleight of hand was not for me: I’m a klutz from way back. I never tried chains or a straitjacket. I may be eccentric but I’m not crazy. Something that cannot be said of the MAGA movement. I have no idea what Houdini would have thought of it, so let’s consult with Gilbert O’Sullivan:

All coalitions break apart. The most successful coalition in American political history was assembled by Franklin Roosevelt. The FDR coalition dominated our politics from 1932-1968. It cracked up over Civil Rights and the Vietnam War: big issues that caused big fissures in the Roosevelt coalition.

FDR’s coalition was not just a cult of personality. It was issue based and policy driven with a dollop of charisma from its founder. It endured for some 24 years after FDR’s death. The Trump coalition shows signs of breaking apart during his second term. Why? It’s based on magical thinking.

MAGA asked us to believe that Richie Rich come to life was the man to make America great again. He promised to run the government like a business, stay out of endless wars in the Middle East, and appoint the best people. Instead, Trump has treated the treasury like his personal piggybank, started a war of choice with Iran, and appointed a cabinet of malevolent and incompetent clowns. Why? In two words: magical thinking.

This post was inspired by a fine opinion piece in the NYT by Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner, The Trump Administration Is In A Psychotic State. That’s not magical thinking, that’s the truth, which is, of course a stranger to Team MAGA.

Here’s how Rauch and Wehner begin their piece:

“It has been clear for a long time that President Trump is a person with a disorganized mind and a disordered personality. What the past few months and especially the past few weeks have brought into focus is how his pathologies have cascaded downward and outward through his administration. They have become institutionalized. The reason the administration so often does not act coherently is that it cannot. The world faces something new and baffling and frightening in Mr. Trump’s second term: a psychotic state.

This does not mean that every individual in the government is emotionally or psychologically unstable. Nor is it a clinical diagnosis of the president. The issue is that the administration as a whole lacks a consistent attachment to reality and the ability to organize its thinking coherently. Mr. Trump’s grandiosity, impulsivity, inconsistency and outright breaks with reality have become state policy.”

You say psychotic state; I say magical thinking. Let’s call the whole thing off.

The Insult Comedian is the high poohbah of mendacious magical thinking but he’s not alone. Tucker Carlson has “apologized” for supporting Trump. Like everything else about this bow-tie motherfucker, his apologia is based on blind ambition. Carlson was among those who convinced themselves that MAGA was an ideology, not a cult of personality. Ideologies require independent thinking at the beginning before hardening like arteries after a fried chicken bender. The Kaiser of Chaos always expected obedience and slavish praise from his followers. He’s more like Stalin circa 1938 than Lenin circa 1918.

What is Tucker Carlson up to? I think he wants to run for president in 2028 as a MAGA purist who spoke truth to power. That’s magical thinking on steroids. He spent a decade publicly sucking up to a man who he privately deplored, which is not unusual among GOPers but it’s not what one would call presidential. His apostasy will, however, allow him to torment JD and Marco as they jostle for position as MAGA’s dipshit dauphin.

During Trump 1.0, MAGA’s magical thinking was restrained by the so-called adults in the room but that was before the Supreme Court’s immunity impunity decision. That dreadful decision gave Trump a green light to act on his worst impulses. It’s coming back to bite him in the ass as he betrays the people who elected him. The Epstein Files mishigas and the Iran War have accelerated MAGA’s breakup. It’s far from complete but there are signs everywhere that the cult leader’s grip on his followers is loosening. It’s about damn time. That’s NOT magical thinking.

The crackpot crackup looms. The last word goes to Nick Lowe: