Listen to This Article: Go Outside

0:00Go outside, a place to visit when the world goes mad. Getting this out of the way, since the internet above all demands a position on the question. Yes, Donald Trump is crazy. It was once possible to believe he was the tolerable version, a muttering in the subway type elevated the White House, but now he started a war, and not the unloosable, consequence-free type, preferred by preening faux-tuffs like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. We can say this for Trump. Unlike other draft eluding presidents, he starts wars with truly unlimited downside. Some say there's a method to his madness, that offering shifting explanations for mass death and destruction, while also not planning for obvious early consequences, like the clogging of the world's oil supply, is a 4D chess move, after which a fearsome regional belligerent will look clueless and humiliated, like we do now. After all, he assures us, we are the strongest nation in the world.

1:03The whole point of being the strongest nation, though, is that we shouldn't need 4D chess moves or madness and methods. We can just stay home and make waffles, take Italian classes, or to put it in terms Trump would understand, watch the UFC's Octagon throwdown in Seattle this weekend. It's a hard distinction, but I think the trick is avoiding crises, not starting them. Instead, we are at war. This aspect of the Trump experience is wild. The man was twice elected on a negative mandate. I.e. just don't suck as much as the other guy, neither were guys, but still. My house has a literally jar, into which my sons pay a dollar every time they use the often unnecessary word, but here it's appropriate. Trump could have literally sat on his ass and done nothing for four years, and he'd have left the office to parades. Americans would pay a cost equivalent to the Apollo missions for history's biggest live model cam sub-collection, if it could keep the president from starting this kind of conflict.

2:05His exact mandate was, not this, he did it. In every situation where all he has to do to win is not do something. That does the thing, it's uncanny. Trump's opponents are crazy, too. When last in power they put a corpse in the Oval Office, scrambling when even emphatomines wouldn't wake it up anymore. Now the opposition is organized around the same brand of satanic pizza gate conspiracies Democrats once got in trouble for trying to censor. America is now a land of competing religions, none of which believe in courtesy, sanity, civility, or kindness. Many hate Trump, some hate Democrats or foreigners, some are convinced Israel controls the world, and no one is happy. I spend more time outside now, people may have changed, but trees, frogs, and squirrels are the same. We have bears where I live, bears are awesome, they eat garbage and hold up traffic. In about a month they'll start swimming in my neighbor's pool, they've got things figured

3:06out. Humans? Not so much. The bear to human wisdom gap keeps growling. I'd suggest electing one in 2028, but why do that to them? Racket is still a news site. We have something breaking tomorrow, and we'll have a live stream. Michael and I were on the road in the last days. We'll keep sharing things we find out, but it might be time to start thinking in terms of different types of answers. I.E. one's politics don't provide. That's just a thought. See you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the audio version of this article. For more, visit racket.news.