''Trump Has Lost the Country’ | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

 Likely to be the most accurate prediction of the Trump legacy of them all.

In short, conservatives, Trump is ruining you for the next 100 years.

The 2026 Election, 4th Edition: The Wasting No Time Edition*

 

The Wyoming races went from speculative to active virtually overnight, thanks to Sen. Lummis' announcement that she was not going to run again.

We'll note, before looking at the state of the races, that not a single Democrat has announced for any of these offices so far.  It is early, of course, but hopefully some do.  Otherwise, given recent examples, the races tend to be "how far right can we go", which isn't conducive to democracy or health politics in general.

December 24, 2025

Cynthia Lummis political future was barely deceased before the opportunities that it presented were being exploited.  It's caused a lot of shifting about and pondering, as this news article relates:

Degenfelder 'Strongly Considering' Run For Governor, Others Ponder Higher Office

We'll take a look, therefore, at where we current are in the 2026 races, now that the charge has started.

U.S. Senate

GOP

Harriet Hageman.

Our prediction came true amazingly fast.  Harriet Hageman announced for the Senate yesterday.

Well. . . of course she did.  She nearly had to, before other state Republicans volunteered to pick up the Senatorial baton and run past her, which is how Lummis obtained the seat in the first place, announcing before Liz Cheney could.  And in doing so, she immediately picked up endorsements from those whom she should have feared would run, and who very well may have.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, for instance, endorsed Hageman, stating:

She is the fighter that we need to defend the conservative movement in this country and in Wyoming,  I endorse Congresswoman Hageman for her campaign for US Senate. Harriet has advanced our Wyoming values as a member of the US House, protecting Wyoming industries and our way of life.

Degenfelder is somebody who clearly has political ambitions beyond the office she holds, as noted below.  

Chuck Gray, who clear does also, also came immediately out of the chute to endorse Hageman, although probably nobody really cares about Gray's endorsements.  He stated:

She will do the same as our US Senator. Congresswoman Hageman has my complete and total endorsement for US Senate.

There were, as we noted, already two filed candidates, although we can now doubt that one of them will go for the Senate, as we'll discuss below.

Hageman also picked up the endorsement of Donald Trump, which in spite of  Wyoming being the state that is the most enamored with the illegal occupant of the White House, probably doesn't really mean all that much.  As Wyoming is also the the state with the highest percentage of citizens who are enrolled in the AHCA, by the primary date that may be a bit of a liability, if Wyomingites wake up to the fact that they're played the fool by Donald Trump nearly daily.¹

The local state of the economy might play a role in that as well.  The price of Wyoming oil today is $43.91/bbl. Hageman has already made a statement about Wyoming contributing to the great state of the economy (as she sees it) due to energy, but the fact of the matter is that the current price is a good $20.00/bbl below what Wyoming needs it to be in order for Wyoming crude to be economic.  Nationally oil is at $58.60/bbl, which is right at the break even point.  Moreover, if the agricultural markets decline, and save for beef they're in bad shape, she might end up bearing the brunt there as well.

Reid Rasner

Rasner filed forever ago, and he's running for something, but what isn't exactly clear.  Earlier it was apparently Lummis' seat, after having failed to push Barrasso out of his. Now it appears, however, that he's reconsidering.

Rasner is simply deluding himself on his chances for any office, but it's not for want of trying.

Jimmy Skovgard.

Nobody really knows anything about Skovgard, but he is, or at least was, running.

U.S. House of Representatives

GOP

Gavin Solomon

One dipshit carpetbagger of New York Gavin Solomon has filed as an annoyance.

The state needs to do something about out of state residents running for Wyoming offices, as in make it criminal.

Other possibilities.

It's clear that Chuck Gray, discussed in more depth below, has his eyes set on this seat.  He has to run for it, or for Governor, or his political career is over.  

If Gray runs, other Republicans will as they won't wont to see him in this office.  My guess is that Casper's Tim Stubson may do so, and might whether Gray runs for this office or not.  It's likely some current members of the legislature will as well, including both moderate Republicans and Freedom Caucus members.

Governor

The Lummis reshuffling of the deck has caused politicians to reassess their aims, as we're very quickly seeing.  That's impacting the race for Governor.

GOP

Eric Barlow

Barlow is running, and is the front runner. He's a rancher and a traditional conservative.  He wisely got out in this race first, and has been campaigning for awhile.  So far, he's pulled way ahead of the pack.

Brent Bien

Bien was a career Marine Corps officer and is running on the archetypical "I spent my entire career elsewhere sucking on the Government tit and I'm here to tell you why you won't get to".

That's really harsh, but in recent veterans who had guaranteed pay and guaranteed retirement have come into or back to Wyoming and campaigned on hating the government, which if they do, they should have resigned their careers and worked in the uncertain world of American capitalism like the rest of us.  Their position is really hypocritical.  They've never had to punch a clock or write down their time daily, or worry about income and expenses.

Bien, I'll note, was a Marine Corps aviator and retired as a Colonel.  That's honorable service, which fully qualifies him to be a Marine Corps aviator.

Bien is a figure of the far right, as would be predictable.  Most of the returning or imported candidates who are veterans have been.

Meggan Degenfelder

The State Sueprintendant of Education indicates that she's  "Strongly Considering"  running, which practically means that she is.  She was probably pondering this move all along, but may have been hedging her bets on inside information to see what Hageman would do.  If Hageman hadn't announced for Senate, she probably would have, and she likely would have been a strong candidate.  It's surprising for that reason that she didn't announce for the House.

I have mixed feelings about Degenfelder, who has tacked to the generally far right, but not so much that she's a Freedom Caucus type.

Reid Rasner

Rasner has filed early for Senate, as noted above, which has been ignored by the press, but is now publicly indicating he many run for Governor.  A person has to wonder if Delgenfelder's announcement will cause him to back off.

He's sure running for something.

Other possibilities.

Chuck Gray is running for something, and has taken a page out of Rasner's book and has recently run a television ad in which he boosts himself without saying what he's running for.

Gray has a loyal pack of acolytes, like Donald Trump, but he's worn increasingly thin over while he's been Secretary of State.  He's locked horns constantly with Gov. Gordon and other members of the State Land Board, which means that if Degenfelder runs she's going to skewer him like a pot sticker.  He's not from Wyoming and doesn't come across as a guy who could survive in the state for more than a brief vacation if he wasn't backed by family money, although perhaps that's deceptive.  He rose to his current office in part by backing election lies and has tried to make the mission of the Secretary of State's office to return Wyoming elections to the year 411.  He's intensely disliked by a lot of people, and openly so.  While in office he's operated the same way that Rep. Jim Allemand has, by claiming to be from the far right but then embracing local environmental issues when convenient.

A dark horse candidate right now would be Governor Gordon himself.  While theoretically blocked by term limits, it's well known that they are unconstitutional and would not survive a legal challenge.  Having said that, the entry of Barlow into the race would strongly suggest that Gordon will not attempt a run.

Treasurer

GOP

Curt Meier

Curt Meier is running for reelection and will be successful.

December 25, 2025

Hageman's Senate Run Reignites Criticisms Over Public Lands

As well it should.

December 30, 2025

Chuck Gray, surprising noone, announced that he's running for Congress.  In announcing, the fish out of water Californian stated:

I’m running for Congress to continue fighting for Wyoming’s way of life. With Congresswoman Harriet Hageman running for U.S. Senate, Wyoming needs a representative who will build on her strong record, advance our shared Wyoming values, and advance the Trump agenda that has delivered the largest margin of victory in the nation in three straight presidential elections.

Chuck Gray announces bid for U.S. House

On the last item, Gray fully endorsed the lie that Trump beat Biden, and is still apparently wedded to the outright fabrication, along with some new "margin of victory" lies.

The Californian is a Freedom Caucus member, and was immediately endorsed by them.  He released a video for his campaign that makes it clear that he's awkward in Wyoming settings, as to be expected, and fully wedded to MAGA and its hero, Donald Trump.

January 3, 2026

Reid Rasner has announced that he isn't running for Governor but will announce what he's running for this week.

Footnotes

*Regarding the coloration on this post, blue is recognized worldwide as the color of the right, and red of the left.  In the U.S. in recent years the opposite has been the case as some total bufador reversed it.  At least in this thread, we're not doing that.

1.  Regarding the primary:

Party Changes

The state of Wyoming passed legislation affecting when a registered voter is allowed to change their party affiliation.

• You MUST appear in person in the Elections office on or before May 13, 2026 to declare or change your party affiliation.    
• NO party changes at the polls on Primary Election Day.
• Qualified voters who are not yet registered will still be able to register and choose their party on the day of the Primary Election.

Absentee Voting

The timeframe for voting absentee has shortened from 45 days to 28 days.

• Absentee ballot request may be made by phone, mail, email, online or in person.
• Your ID is required to vote in person or to pick up a ballot.

Absentee voting for the Primary Election:     July 21 - August 17, 2026
Absentee voting for the   General Election:     October 6 - November 2, 2026

January 6, 2026

George Conway, former Republican, former spouse of  Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, and a conservative is running as a Democrat for Congress in NY-12:

January 8, 2026

Reid Rasmer announced that he's throwing himself in a flaming blaze of misbegotten hubris ignited glory into the race for the U.S. House.

So we now have two far right candidates who will be in favor every stupid thing Donald Trump says even as he takes steps to wreck the American standing in the world, screw the Wyoming economy, and wreck the environment Wyoming depends on.  

There's room for a moderate candidate, or a conservative one, here.

My prediction is that this will get nasty.  Chuck Gray has been full of shit so long that he won't be able to help himself and he'll start slinging it like a zoo chimpanzee  Rasner will ignore it, but will seek the embrace from the political right, which will reject it as he's an acknowledged homosexual.

That Rasner is "out" and unapologetic about it, while not making a big deal about it, is really to his credit actually.  His sexual orientation does appear to have been the source of a vile rumor campaign against him which he justifiably brought suit over, but that entire episode reveals a lot about the state of the GOP.  The person sued was himself the father, in Florida (most of the Freedom Caucus are actual or intellectual Confederate ex pats), of a child by way of an underaged teenagef girl when he was an of age teenager.  There's a pretty strong anti homosexual bias in the GOP far right which really, at the same time, in spite of its embrace of Evangelical Christianity is basically okay with sexual immorality, at least if its of a conventional type.  But if people are going to raise flags on the issue, they ought to explain the mysteries they present themselves.

That's not the normal Wyoming norm, where such questions are not usually openly asked, but its probably time that they are. Rep. Hageman has for years indicated how strong family values are to her, but she has no children of her own.  Nephew's and nieces aren't substitutes for your own children.  There may be a tragic medical reason for this, but it could be avoidance for career, which is neither traditional or admirable.

This campaign will focus in people's minds, although they will not admit it, that Chuck Gray, age 36, isn't married.  It's not the case that everyone has to be married, and at one time it wasn't regarded as particularly abnormal that a 36 year old man or woman would not be married and have no known significant other, but following the Sexual Revolution it has been.  And frankly it is odd.  What does that say about his character that he can draw such public attention, but not a suitable spouse (and no, I'm not claiming he's a homosexual, but rather that being unmarried at 36 is odd).

Nasty questions?

Yes, but in an age where Wyoming elected somebody like Bill Allemand, and in one in which Republican figures where the symbols of Crusaders on their chest, when those Crusaders would have found them to be heretics, it might actually be time to ask them.

January 2026

This news makes puts Degenfelder on the don't vote for, for anything again, every list.

‘RUN MEGAN, RUN!’ Trump Promises Endorsement If Degenfelder Runs For Governor

Involving a current client:

Gordon To Gray At Wind Meeting: 'Do You Want To Step Outside?'

In Gordon's defense, all sentient life forms would like to invite Gray outside and point him back towards California, which is what I'm going to assume Gordon meant.

January 12, 2026

Megan Degenfelder is now officially running for Governor.  She claims she announced after an insane clown urged her to do so on X.

January 13, 2026

Barrasso Endorses Hageman's Candidacy For U.S. Senate

Former Democratic Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola is running for the Senate.

January 14, 2026

Jillian Balow, former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction announced for the House.

I don't know what I think of Balow, other than she's actually from Wyoming, and a better candidate than Rasner or Gray.  When she was Superintendent of Public Instruction, I didn't pay all that much attention to the position.  She must have been fairly well thought of as she was recruited away by Virginia, where the position is not elected.

Balow was, by my recollection, a breath of fresh air compared to Cindy Hill who came before her, who was the first Wyoming politician who fell into what we might now regard as the Wyoming Freedom Caucus camp, although it wasn't called that at the time, and probably didn't even really exist.  Hill ended up being very controversial and hugely unpopular, and should have served as a warning sign as to what was to come.

So, right now for the House, we have:

Chuck Gray, who is a carpetbagging founding member of the Freedom Caucus.

Reid Rasner, who is a gadfly.

Jillian Balow, who is the only palatable candidate to announce so far.

Well, that is that Solomon guy, but he's a joke. And a Daniel Verl Workman has done so as well, as an Independant, and he's a joke.

Following up on yesterday's news, the Demented Caudillos endorsement of Degenfelder probably means that unthinking MAGAs are now in her corner, dooming the campaign of Brent Bien.  Frankly, that's a good thing as both Degenfelder and Barlow are leagues better than Bien.  Having said that, Barlow is clearly a much better choice than Degenfelder who is still pretending to drink the Koolaide.

January 17, 2026

It didn't take Gray long to go full weasel:

My record shows that I’m the  only candidate in this race that has  the track record of getting com mon sense conservative priorities  done. My track record is in sharp con trast to the others in the race. Jillian  Barlow [sic] has a Liz Cheney 2.0 profile.

Having a Cheney 2.0 profile would be a good reason to vote for Barlow, but that's pretty much baloney.  Gray went on to accuse Reid of being all talk.

The Trib reports that  David Giralt, a former advisor to Lummis, plans on joining the race.  I don't know much about him, but he's noted to be a veteran, which isn't a reason to vote for or against him.  He's also a member of the Knights of Columbus, which means he's Catholic.  Gray is also Catholic, which doesn't seem to have kept him from telling some whopping lies in the past.

January 20, 2026

Knezovich drops out of Wyoming governor race due to eligibility requirement

We failed to even note him, but after reading the article about him, he would have been on our don't vote for list, fitting into a whopping three categories.

January 21, 2026

Forcibly retired Admiral Nancy Lacore is running for South Carolina's 1st Congressional District.

I don't know anything about the district, but what this symbolizes is that Trump's enemies lists are lining up to get into Congress.

We will conclude this edition with this entry.

January 22, 2026

Skovgard, whom we mentioned above, is in fact running for the U.S. Senate.

Skovgard publishes a blog, which might reveal his positions on things.  Otherwise he's really a bit of a mystery right now.

One thing about Skovgard is that, right now, the other two candidates in this race, Hageman and Rasner, are on the don't vote for list.  That may simply be because we don't know anything about him.  Having said that, if the election were held today, we'd seriously consider Skovgard as we won't vote for the other two.

January 24, 2026

One Joseph Kibler is running for Governor as an independent.  He's a Californian who moved in and is running what appears to be, more or ess, a religion based campaign.  It'll go nowhere.

January 28, 2026

A Hageman event sounds like it was poorly attended and didn't go really well:

Rep. Hageman touts Wyo earmarks, faces fiery ICE questions in Casper

People didn't show up, and jeered Hageman on her response to 4th Amendment violations in Minnesota and her delusional response on climate change.

When she left the stage early, after a round of ICE questions, Hageman was booed.

Of course, predictably, Jane Ifland appeared to represent Democrats from 1973.

January 29, 2026

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is running for Governor of Minnesota.  Klobuchar has run for the Democratic nomination for President in the past.

Related threads:

Pollice Verso. The 2026 Political Negative Endorsement. The Don't Vote For List.

Labels: 2026 Election, Chuck Gray, Cynthia Lummis, Dixiecrats, Eric Barlow, Harriet Hageman, Ignorance, Megan Degenfelder, Populism, Public Land, Republican Party, Trailing thread, Wyoming Freedom Caucus

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 3rd Edition: The Self Inflicted Wound Edition.

Labels: 2026 Election, Carpetbaggers, Chuck Gray, Climate Change, Eric Barlow, Harriet Hageman, Mark Gordon, Politics, Public Land, Reid Rasner, Republican Party, The Amos Barber Effect, The Law of Unintended Consequences, Wyoming

The Trump Administration decides the Second Amendment ain't that much.

One of my predictions is that we're going to see a violent couple of years.

The other is that within a year and a half the editorial pages of the American Rifleman, who fawned over Trump, will be decrying a GOP embrace of gun control.  Fans of radicals who proclaim themselves to be for democracy and freedom while ranting about others as enemies should here to study history.  

Gun control came in to the USSR with the Communists, after they'd secured power at the barrel of a gun.  It was the Irish Republicans who brought gun control into Ireland, after the republic had been won with guns.  People like to claim the Nazis brought gun control to Germany (they didn't), but those who like to yell that should recall that Hitler was elected into office as part of a populist movement that promised to fix the economy and which hated "others", so to speak.

As soon as Trump sees the populace as the enemy to his safety, he'll act to preserve himself.  It's not, after all, as if he's been competing at Camp Perry and he doesn't need anyone's vote in four years.  If he acts, what are those who supported him on this issue going to do, join the Democrats?

Yeoman, January 6, 2025.

Alex Pretti, who was shot down by the Border Patrol, with Border Patrol shooting ten rounds.¹

I'm seeing one of my predictions about the Second Trump Administration coming true.

Everyone should have seen it.

Of the many people I know who voted for Donald Trump, there were three groups of what I'd call "single issue" voters who voted for him on the solid belief that he shared their views on one single issue, and that overrode everything else. There are: 1) opponents of abortion² , 2) opponents of gun control, 3) opponents of wars overseas ("forever wars").³

Trumps betrayed you, if you are in one of these categories, on all three.

The betrayal on gun control is simply epic.

A few days ago the Border Patrol gunned down Alex Pretti.  They actually shot ten shots.  People will defend the Border Patrol on this, but it's indefensible.  He was carrying a handgun legally, and it had been removed from him before he was killed.⁴

For decades the NRA insisted that Americans, and indeed everyone everywhere, had an absolute right to carry a firearm anywhere and campaigned for the right to carry, concealed and unconcealed, everywhere.⁵   Pretti had availed himself of that right.  He was going absolutely nothing illegal at the time he was gunned down.

The Administration's reaction has been to make every left wing gun control argument you've ever heard.

I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.

Kash Patel.  Well, Kash, don't come to Wyoming then.  There aren't any, and I mean any, largescale demonstrations were people aren't carrying, concealed and unconcealed. Shoot, I saw a guy with a M1 Garand and fixed bayonet a couple of years ago.

Patel tried to claim that Pretti was breaking the law by carrying a sidearm at a protest, apparently ignoring that this guy became a hero for something like that:

Minneapolis police officials, at any rate, quickly disabused that notion, noting in the press and on Face the Nation that this simply isn't true.  Pretti wasn't breaking the law.

That same comment was made House Majority Leader Steve Scalise who was flat out confronted by Margaret Brennan on the same topic on Face the Nation.  Scalise stumpbed all over himself and said he was for the Second Amendment had had sponsored a concealed carry law down in Louisiana, but that if you are carrying a gun while breaking the law it's a felony, and Pretti was breaking the law.

Pretti wasn't breaking the law, but it does give you a pretty good idea of what the former Republican Party, now the Fascist Party, thinks of the 1st Amendment as well as the 2nd.

The ever nervous Scott Bessent had to appear on Meet the Press.

KARL: He was an ICU use who worked for the VA and there's no evidence he brandished the gun whatsoever

BESSENT: But he brought a gun

KARL: I mean, we do have a Second Amendment

BESSENT: I've been to a protest -- guess what? I didn't bring a gun. I brought a billboard

The always nervous Scott Bessent.⁶   

Bessent has been to a protest?  Was it a super megabucks soybean protest? 

Same thing here.  Now bringing a gun to a protest marks you for death.

Kristi Noem, whose thugs committed the killing, really went after Pretti, calling him a domestic terrorist.  That is now the official line for any of these protestors, they're terrorists.  Neom sated:

I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.

Noem falsely accused Pretti of brandishing the weapon.

Stephen Miller called Pretti "an assassin" and accused him of trying to murder Federal agents.  

J. D. Vance repeated that lie, and Gregory Bovino more or less did.  Only Trump, who was initially claimed to have said something falsely, apparently hasn't.

Ironically, it was the press and the police that were defending Second Amendment rights to carry the past couple of days. You shouldn't bring a gun to a protest.  Pretti's handgun, which is a fairly typical 9mm SIG, was a "military weapon" (it is, but just about any semi automatic handgun could be), he had "multiple magazines".

And finally, we have the Dear Leader himself:

I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it. But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.

Donald Trump.⁷ 

Basically, the Administration's position is that if you are carrying a handgun, the Federal Government can gun you down.

All things right out of the left wing gun control handbook.

The very thing, I"d note, that the NRA warned us about, in regard to the Federal Government, with the irony being it comes right from the man they backed.

Not that any of this should be a surprise.  I've never felt for a moment that Trump had any actually affinity for firearms or was a member of "gun culture".⁸    He's a salesman, and he sold gun owners a line of bull.

Now they know better.  But it will be too late.

The things is, however, the accomplishments on the Second Amendment have been made. They can be taken away.  Therefore, a real "fool me once" thing is at play here.  A lot of gun owners are going to keep backing Trump as they'll refuse to think on this.  

And that's why support for Trump will prove to be too late.  W.E.B. Dubois declared that "only a fool never changes his mind".  How many gun owners will choose to be fools?

Footnotes:

1. The large number of shots suggest that the Border Patrol falls into the keep shooting category of policing, which many large city police do as well.  

I'm not a fan of magazine capacity laws, but I"m at the point where I don't think most policemen of any type should carry a firearm at all, and that when they do, it's time to go back to .38 revolvers.  They're simply less likely to kill people if they are med in that fashion

2.  A lot of people who find this to be a deep moral issue, and I do see it that way, voted for Trump on the false belief that they had no other choice.  There were other choices.

Now Trump is urging his supporters to soften their opposition to abortion. Mitch McConnel gets credit for the conservative judiciary that Trump put in place, which issued the Dodds decision, but there would be no real strong reason to feel that Trump cares much about the issue himself.

Trump's own sexual history is immoral, and usually multiple partners indicates a casual attitude towards abortion.  There's nothing to indicate that any of Trump's tarts had one, but he has shifted his position, and its still shifting, over the years.  

3.  Trump really likes to brand himself as a peace president but there are no wars that the US was involved in when he took office that we are now out of, the only real lingering one being the war in Syria.  He's started a new conflict in Venezuela, conducted a largescale mixed result raid in Iran, and appears to about to hit Iran again.

4.  Pretti's parents said that they knew he had a permit, but didn't know him to actually carry.  I'm in the same category.

My reaction is probably a lot like a lot of people in Pretty's category.  I'm going to start carrying.  

5. A spokesman from the NRA initially defended the shooting, slightly, and then the organization, waking up to the fact that it's about to be dumped by its members (it's already in financial trouble) backtracked and came out supporting carrying, but in a very muted fashion.

6.  Bessent is another figure who doesn't square with what MAGA claims its view of the world is.  He's an open homosexual in a homosexual union, something that MAGAs declare as abhorrent and which they repeatedly sneered at Biden's Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for.  It's been interesting that Buttigieg and Jean-Pierre were condemned for the very same thing that Bessent does at home, the point being that like a lot of members of fascist movements, MAGA adherents will suspend all of their supposedly deeply held beliefs to follow the leader.

7. The two magazine thing is a real left wing talking point.  

Use of the terms "very powerful" and "bullets" in place of cartridges almost always demonstrates firearms ignorance.  9mm pistols are not "very powerful". Quite the contrary. That's why some police forces simply blaze away with them, and why soldiers are taught to shoot an opponent more than once.  The 9mm should be a good police round for that very reason as its unlikely to kill anyone with a single shot.

8.  I'll have to get into gun culture, which I use as a positive expression, not a negative one, elsewhere, but I've never trusted anyone in the Second Amendment movement who wasn't an active member of a shooting sport, if even only a collector.  While Eric Trump is a hunter, Donald Trump's only outside interest seems to be the incredibly boring sport of golf.  If you can shoot, you wouldn't send much time on the golf course.

Wayne LaPierre, the former head of the NRA, struck me that way also, but I don't really know much about him.  Chuck Gray in Wyoming strikes me that way also, although I could of course be wrong.

Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 2. The War is a Racket edition.

 

December 17, 2025.

WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

Gen. Smedley Butler.

American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries and drugs.

Stephen Miller, Homeland Security Advisor.

Stephen Miller, who is Jewish, has somehow managed to become the most White Racist and imperialist member of the Trump Administration, apparently forgetting that the white, Protestant, demographic he's backing, doesn't regard him as white.

Maybe Miller ought to listen to some Nick Fuentes.

Anyhow, the other day Trump said something about Venezuela stealing "our land".  It made no sense, but now, with Miller's help, we know what he meant.

Geology created the Venezuelan oil industry.  Imperialism created the concept that somebody else's natural resources belongs to us.  Neo imperialism will get us bogged down in regional wars Miller won't be going to so that young American men can die for petroleum oil, which we have plenty of here in the US.

Trump is demented.  People like Miller have his ear. This is absolutely frightening.

December 19, 2025

Trump’s handpicked buttkissers on the Kennedy Center board voted to renames it the Trump Kennedy Center

It's questionable if it can legally be renamed, and all of these "love me" type of monumental acts are going to go away as soon as Trump's illegitimate interregnum is over.  The amazing things that there's such syncophantic asskissers who are willing to do things like this.

December 22, 2025

And while you are, or aren't, worrying about this:

If you are an Apostolic Christian, and aren't worried yet, you ought to be. Or maybe not. Or maybe.

You might want to worry that we have a seemingly unstable would be caudillo in the Oval Office and an administration that violated the deadline provisions of the law concerning release of the Epstein files.

At first the MAGAs were pointing toward the photos of Clinton, but within 24 hours they were pulling stuff back down that referenced Trump.  On Sunday they sent a deputy AG around to the Sunday shows to explain that they had to do that, apparently, as women who appeared in the buff in those photos might have been complaining about it.  If those women were minors, they shouldn't have released that material, but then they should have had that figured out in the first place.  If they were just nude women, well, too bad.  You get photographed in the house of a creep, you can't expect that not to get around.

Anyhow, he ran around sounding rather distraught.  Now we know that a third oil taker in our sights in the Caribbean, and today we learn that Trump has appointed a "special envoy" to Greenland who has said something about how we should annex that territory to the US.  Denmark has called in our ambassador.

Okay, how does that relate to this thread?

Trump appears to be pretty desperate right now.  Nothing distracts like a war.  Nicolás Maduro shows no signs whatsoever of backing down, and there are no signs whatsoever that his military is going to force him out.  Trump can't back down.  And what better way to change the topic at Christmas dinner from "so. . . why do you think the administration is protecting the diddler files" than by sending than by sending FA 18s over Venezuela. . . or maybe putting the Marines on the beaches?

Am I saying that is going to happen as a distraction from the embarrassing teenage girl sex story?  No, I"m not, but I am saying its not impossible to imagine that.

And at this point, it's clear, Maduro is sitting there ignoring Trump.  War with Venezuela, in some form, is inevitable.

cont:

Not really properly before in this category, but administration news nonetheless, the ambassadors to Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritius, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Uganda, Fiji, Laos, the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Vietnam, Armenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovakia, Algeria, Egypt, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Guatemala and Suriname are being removed and replaced.

cont:

We need Greenland for national protection. They have a very small population…They say that Denmark was there 300 years ago with a boat. Well, we were there with boats too I’m sure.

Donald Trump. 

The United States isn't 300 years old. . . 

And that small population comment is just the sort of thing a New Yorker would say . . . 

And then there's this gem. Trump wants a fleet of twenty five battleships built.  Battleships have been obsolete for decades.

cont:

It appears the "battleships" will not be battleships.

December 24, 2025

Now this is interesting:

Heritage Foundation killed by MAGA

December 25, 2025.  Christmas Day

What a horrible person.

December 31, 2025

First Greene, and now Boebert.

Like Greene, Boebert was a fanatic MAGA.  Problem for Trump was that she, like Greene, MAGA than Trump who, at the end of the day, is only about Trump.

At some point somebody pointed out to Trump that there are people in the Epstein files whose names he shouldn't want released.  Maybe that's Trump or maybe that's somebody else.  Probably somebody else, but Trump already looks pretty bad in regard to hanging out with Epstein.  He didn't want those files released, and so far the administration hasn't fully released them.  Boebert, like Green voted to release them.

Now she and her district must pay the price.

Well, it was a Trump district.  If they suffer as a result, so be it.  They're getting exactly what they deserve.

January 13, 2026

Oh, this is going to be interesting.

January 22, 2026

The idea of turning Greenland into America’s rare-earth factory is science fiction. It’s just completely bonkers. You might as well mine on the moon. In some respects, it’s worse than the moon.

Malte Humpert, founder and senior fellow at The Arctic Institute regarding the avaricious lusting after Greenland's mineral wealth.

January 24, 2026

There are no penguins in Greenland, or anywhere in the Arctic.

The DoD also put an item up based on this theme with the words "Be a warrior, embrace the penguin".  Apparently that's a recruiting effort aimed at morons.

Last edition:

Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus* Watch Part 1.

Labels: 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump, Climate Change, Conspiracy Theories, Ignorance, Karlee Provenza, Mehmet Oz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Stupidity, The Liz Cheney Maxim

Manifest Destiny and the Second Trump Administration. What's going on with Greenland.

Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, dramatizing Manifest Destiny.

 

Over the weekend, the real imperialist thinking behind Trump's avarice for Greenland was revealed, and not by Trump, but by Ted Cruz.

Look, the whole history of America has been a history of acquiring new lands and new territories, whether you go back to Thomas Jefferson making the Louisiana purchase — about half of the United States of America today — or you go back to America purchasing Alaska from Russia. You want to talk about — at the time they called it ‘Seward’s Folly’ — It turned out to, to be an extraordinarily consequential purchase, Greenland has massive rare earth minerals and critical minerals. There are enormous economic benefits to America, but like Alaska, it is located on the Arctic which is a major theater for major military conflict with either Russia or China,

In short, it's a naked imperial land grab whose intellectual justification dates back to the 19th Century.  The age of alliances and of the United States representing hope and freedom is over. The age of grabbing lands to exploit because we can is back. 

It's deeply immoral, but Donald Trump is a profoundly immoral man.

He probably also didn't come u pwith this idea, but it was a natural for him.  He's not smart enough, or learned enough, to know of manifest destiny.

We've never covered the concept of Manifest Destiny here before, although we've covered some of the latter stages of the exercise of it.  We probably should have, as we've mentioned the Indian Wars fairly frequently, which are tied to it.  Having said all of that, it's worth nothing that there was never a time at which the concept had anywhere near universal American approval, and it was often hotly contested.

Manifest Destiny had its origins to some degree in the earliest history of the Republic, but less than is sometimes imagined.  The term itself was coined in 1845 in an editorial by later Confederate propagandist John L. O'Sullivan, although an earlier editorial by the adventersome Jane Cazneau entitled Annexation is credited by some with being the first work backing it.  That advocated for the annexation of Cuba and was penned about the same time.   O'Sullivan had used the term "divine destiny" as early as 1839.  O'Sullivan entered the scene advocating for the annexation of Texas, and then in an editorial about the Oregon Boundary Dispute wrote:

And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.

The entire concept is patently absurd, but it had a strong pull on people as an excuse for aggressive expanding.  God, the concept holds, made the United States unique and it the country was charged with a divine mission that included expanding its territorial control.  It had opposition right from the beginning.  None other than U.S. Grant stated:

I was bitterly opposed to the measure [to annex Texas], and to this day regard the war [with Mexico] which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory... The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.

An obvious problem with the concept is that once the United States reached the Pacific, the expansion should have been over.  It was used to justify everything about the worst of American expansionism up until that point.  Thomas Jefferson had seen the acquisition of Louisiana as a 1,000 year long preservation of agrarianism, but everything the country could do to exploit the West and its resources started nearly immediately.  The expansion not only left room for yeoman farmers to expand into, the country forces the native inhabitants into reservations and began destructive extraction of minerals nearly immediately.  The mixed legacy of expansion can be seen in contemporary illustrations, such as the often seen painting Manifest Destiny, showing a barely clad angelic woman pointing the way west, while in the shadows a Native American family (with fully topless Indian women) look back as they're pushed off the land.  Wyoming's state seal has a cowboy and a miner.  Colorado's features mountains and a the phrase, Nil sine Numine, Nothing without Providence.

By the time the Frontier closed in 1890, the entire concept was really losing its appeal.  The Battle of Wounded Knee that same year raised questions about the morality of Western Expansion in a new bloody way, although the questions has always been there.  A sort of national angst set in with nowhere to expand to.  That soon found the concepts old backers urging war with Spain.

Supposedly the Spanish American War was over Cuban freedoms and dissatisfaction over Spain's reaction to the explosion on the USS Maine.  In reality, McKinley was forced into it, or at least ended up going along, as it looked like the US could grab Cuba and add it as a new territory.  Opposition in Congress, however, . . . which affords us a roadmap now, statutorily kept that from happening.

What was wholly unanticipated, however, is that the US would brilliantly deploy its Navy to position it to take the Philippines.

Painting depicting Dewey in the Battle of Manilla Bay. Why, exactly, did we want the Philippines anyway?

Congress hadn't precluded the US from adding the Philippines, or Gaum, as U.S. territories.  The Philippines had a long running independence movement and a well educated class that thought of the American arrival as guaranteeing their immediate independence, which they were quickly disabused of.  The U.S. ended up fighting to keep the Philippines as a colony, although the war was deeply unpopular and lead to Theodore Roosevelt simply declaring that the US had won it, when in fact it had not. Some part of the Philippines contested for independence all the way into December 1941, when they then took up the cause against Japan.  Indeed, some other elements of the movement to gain independence, which by that time had been promised by the U.S., welcomed the Japanese as liberators and collaborated with them, something that was not held against them by the Philippine people later.

Up until the end of the 19th Century the US had been hostile to Great Britain for historical reasons.  The UK, however, immediately saw what was occuring, and was in its high colonial phase.  The reality of what the US was doing was portrayed in Kipling's poem, The White Man's Burden.

Most Americans had a strong distaste for colonialism, and had it before the Spanish American War.  The population bought off on the concept that we need to "Remember the Maine", but that didn't mean owning Cuba.  The war did bring the US into the Caribbean like never before, and for four decades the US fought an endless series of Banana Wars, often to secure the interests of American business, that has made us hated in Central America to this day.

The US intervention in Venezuela was a page right out of that book.  The US intervened in a foreign nation that really isn't a problem country for us, and now the Administration is busy trying to figure out how to profit from its oil.

Greenland is the same sort of thing.

The justification routeinly features the same sort of rationalization that was used to shove Native Americans off their land.  They'd be "better off" with the kind entrepreneurial American hand guiding them, and they would "get rich" with their country more efficiently exploited, never mind if they didn't' want to get rich and they didn't want to exploit their land.  In Greenland's case, it's now bitterly clear that part of real estate developer Donald Trump's desire to steal the country is so that rich American enterprises can exploit its mineral wealth.

What if they don't want it exploited?

That though never enters the minds of a certain branch of American capitalism.  Maybe most people don't want endless economic exploitation.  Maybe we don't want to mine everything.  Maybe we don't want endless business growth.

By World War One the US had moved very much away from colonialism.  The country started a series of "good neighbor" policies with countries to our south.  At the end of the Great War we favored self determination for nations.  World War Two's results emphasized this even more, with the US now favoring collective security against nations that were fundamentally opposed to democracy.

Trump has thrown that all in the trash.

People, myself included, have been struggling to figure out what on Earth Trump is thinking, and if he's being paid to destroy the US position in the world.  Nobody really knows, but all this does point back to the lunacy of National Conservatism, which looks back on a world that never was.  National Conservative thinkers see the US in much the same way the members of the New Apostolic Reformation do, and both forces are at work here.  National Conservatives want the US to crawl into the Western Hemisphere, making it solidly Christian, and shut the door behind us. They figure Europe will do the same, if its not too late, in their view, with many looking at authoritarian regimes like those of Orbán and Putin as Eastern European models.  Putin, they imagine, will advance Orthodoxy, although there's no reason to believe that his alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church is anything other than convenience.  Orbán is supposed to do the same with old world values in Hungary and Eastern Europe.  Immigrants to Europe and foreign influences are to be exterminated and tossed out.

That's what's going on in the minds of the National Conservatives, and that's partially what's going on with Greenland.

At this point, I frankly feel that its nearly inevitable that the US is in fact going to invade Greenland.  Europe can't really stop us from doing it, although it'll result in bloodshed.   It'll destroy the post war order completely. The Trump Administration will set about trying to exploit the minerals of Greenland immediately.

But that won't be the end of the story.  It's taken this along, amazingly, for people to get a concept of how horrible Donald Trump and his backers really are, but it's finally occuring.  Americans don't want to invade Greenland. They didn't want to invade the Philippines.  If, and I feel its a when, we do this, it'll be followed by several realities.

The first will be that exploiting a nation takes time, and those backing this move do not have it.  The House will flip in November, even though Trump will in fact take a run at suspending the election.  The Senate might flip in November as well, although that's doubtful, but Senate Republicans, their own careers on the line, will begin to back away from Trump.  In 2028 a disgusted populace will elect Democrats into office.

The US will leave Greenland, and in a big hurry.  It'll be independent.  The Trump legacy will be the pile of shit it deserves to be.  The US will begin the process of rebuilding itself, but as a much, much, weaker country than before.  That will be Trump's legacy.

May God grant that I'm wrong on all of this, and that somebody intervenes to stop this insanity before it's too late.

This again.  It never occurs to many that the mines and cities aren't really everyone's dream.  It particularly doesn't occur to a rich real estate developer who isn't smart and whose values are shallow.

How much more of this can the country take?

 I don't think much more.

I don't have a license to use this, but nothing else seems to capture it as well as this.

Every week, or practically every day, Trump does something outrageous or insane, and its getting worse.  His behavior is so asinine that its indescribable.

Things are tense, but MAGA doesn't seem to realize it.  If the water isn't at the boiling point, it's clear that its about to reach a full boil.  Nobody inside the administration, save for the Joint Chiefs, who are reportedly slow rolling a moronic illegal instruction to prepare to invade Greenland, is doing anything.

But that last item is telling.

Something is going to occur.  We're either going to see the 25th Amendment invoked at the nick of time, and the pot taken off the stove, or we're about to go into a period of civil strife in the country unlike any we've seen in over 50 years.  People are already getting killed.  If we go into that, it'll get much, much worse.

Anyway we look at it, I don't think the country can take any more of this.  Trump is too insane for this not to boil over and start to spill.

Voices of Kalaallit Nunaat: An open call to Greenlanders, and musings.

 

An interesting blog entry by a native Montanan.

Voices of Kalaallit Nunaat

An open call to Greenlanders

I note this in part because she's a nature writer, and native Montanas are close to nature, like native Wyomingites.

Indeed, I've tended to find since Donald Trump reared his New York overfunded balding head that real Trump backers in my home state either lack education, or tend to be imports.  I know part of that is a really harsh judgement, but I don't find too many natives, in any demographic, who are fire breathing Trumpites who are exceptions to this rule.  There are, I'd note, educated Trumpites here, for sure, but they tend to be imports.  

I think people know what the unrestrained wealth and exploitation mean to Wyoming, and that helps explain it.  Wyomingites are, if they are real Wyomingites, conservative/libertarians but not populists really.  

Imports who move here, however, including some who claim to be us, or want to be us, often are Southern Populists at heart.  Indeed, a couple of years ago I was out in the sticks and saw a giant Stars and Bars flying above somebody's camp tent, something that, when I was young, would stood a good chance of having been ripped down by any native passing by.  

I've written a lot about how we got here.  The question now, is how we get out. We'll be getting out, one way or another.  The question is, however, whether a rational conservatism can emerge that's free of the horrific elements that Trump has interjected into what's passing for conservatism now, or whether it will pass the way the way that French conservatism did after Vichy.  I think, frankly, the latter is more likely.

If conservatism can survive Trump, which frankly I very much doubt, when it reemerges it's going to have to rebuild a lot nationally and internationally that Trump and his minions have utterly destroyed.  More likely, however, what will emerge after this era is a renewed liberalism countered only by a somewhat middle of the road liberalism.  Again, France provides the model.  After the Second World War the French Third Republic was dominated by the hard left, including a very powerful communist party, countered only really by a centrist to liberal centrist Catholic party.  The French right died. 

I suspect that's the country's political future, in a way.  Starting in 2026 the Democrats will regain the House and, if Trump is still in power, provide a block to an outraged and increasingly insane Trump.  By 2028, the Senate is likely to go Democratic too, assuming it doesn't in 2026.  The White House will have a legitimate President following the 2029 election who will almost certainly be a Democrat.

That President, whether he's Republican or Democrat, and who won't be J. D. Vance or Marco Rubio, is going to have a big task in front of him.  Part of that will be to repair the international damage done by Trump. 

Not all of it will be capable of being repaired.  A western world that had depended upon the U.S. to be the world leader of Western ideals will never, and I mean never, trust the U.S. again.

But the U.S. will also be much diminished in the Western Hemisphere, in spite of what Trump, Vance, and Rubio think.  In South American a new block will emerge, likely with former major rivals Argentina and Chile as the leadership, but with Brazil, a massive country in extent and population, more significant than the U.S.  Canada will be regarded as a serious, educated, intelligent nation by the Europeans.  The U.S. will still have weight in the world, but in the way that France or the United Kingdom do now, save for Asia where the U.S. will still be a major presence.  We will have been forced to look to the Pacific, as so many in the past have urged us to do in the past, by Trump and the Republican party soiling our relationships with our intellectual home.  

Basically, we will have been the kid that left home, got into drugs, and embarrassed everyone. We'll be the Hunter Biden of Western nations.

Domestically, we're going to have a lot of repairs to do.  A new President will quietly accept much of what Trump has done in immigration.  The damage done to trade economics will likely have repaired by them, the tariffs having by then settled into an economic background as part of a new system which will not generate all that much in income but which countries are by then used to.  Businesses won't come back to the U.S. due to them, and the Rust Belt dreamers will have gone on to despair.  The Agricultural sector will be barely reviving, I'd guess, from a Trump induced economic collapse by that time.

The U.S. will return to environmental and conservation sanity and begin to try to make up lost ground and lost damage, in part because its role in the world will have been so decreased that it will have no choice.  Fools who insisted that we had to grab Venezuelan oil as China was going to will wake up and find that China will, by 2028, be using largely electric, not gasoline, vehicles. Europe won't be far behind, and a U.S. auto industry that will wish to sell will have advanced in this direction, with U.S. consumers, less enamored with a 19th Century economy than Donald Trump, will have as well.

If Trump's "Travis, you're a year too late" petrol pipe dreams will have achieved little, and they will, perhaps a revival of nuclear power might actually make a difference.  Like many of Trump's policies, or those who used Trump to gain position, that policy on the margin of his larger policies, would be beneficial.  The pipedreams about coal and oil, however, will go nowhere and already are going nowhere.  Indeed, Wyoming's coal fortunes, so desperately pinned on Trump, are going nowhere at all, and the price of oil in the state is down in the disastrous levels.

In larger things, people sometimes ponder the existential "problem of evil", that being why does God allow bad things to occur.  A common answer is that God does not allow it unless a greater good can come out of it.  While I don't want to go so far as to claim to detect a Devine hand at work here, I wonder if a bit if we're going to see something like that occur.

The country that comes out of Trump Drunk in 2028 with a bad hangover is going to be a much lesser nation.  Maybe that's a good thing, particularly of Europe, where we derived our culture from, revives to claim a larger place.  We'll need to get used to being told what we will do, and like a bratty teenager, which we've proven ourselves to be, we'll have to get used to that.  Our Evangelical Puritanism which most Americans assume is Christianity will have taken a sharp hit.  Our botching foreign wars will end as nobody will really trust us much as a solo actor.  Nations that need alliances, and many do, will look to us only in concert with others, which will make them safer. Taiwan and South Korea will look to Japan, and perhaps to Australia. Europe will look to ourselves.  Nobody will care one wit about us, and we'll have to look, pleadingly, to everyone else.  Our environmental destructivism will start to come to an end.  Our cultural imperialism will come to an end, as nobody will admire a country that could produce such vile characters as Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, or Jeffrey Epstein.  Our absolute lust for the wealthy, that came in with Ronald Reagan, who looks less and less like a hero, will come to an end as well as we have to face a Republican ramped up budget crisis the only way we can, taxes, and taxes on the wealthy.

Not all of Trump's legacy, including the tiny positive portions of it, or the negative massive aspects of it, will go away.  Trump has destroyed the post World War Two United States.  But the country itself will survive, and rebuild, and probably be better than it was before.  

Perhaps the U.S. can get back to being the U.S.

Oh, and Greenland will be independent. Americans won't really be welcomed there.  The U.S. military won't be there.