Splitsville HERE COME THE ASTEROIDS!

The Touchingly Naive Newsletter for Fans of THE SPLIT

Number 80--!!

Wait a minute. This is Splitsville Number 80? Being written and published during the week Donald Trump turns 80 years old? Like the guy in the old internet video, high (we think) on LSD and viewing a double rainbow, we want to shout: WHAT DOES IT MEAN? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Okay, hold it. We’re doing the math. Maybe it means that we started writing Splitsville the week Trump was born, and if we stop writing it, he’ll drop dead. Right? Isn’t that how things work? Please?

No? Too much voodoo woo-woo and/or wishful thinking? Okay, fine. We’ll keep writing and publishing, and one day he will drop dead. We just know it. It won’t be soon enough—that deadline (sic) has long passed—but it will nonetheless, when it happens, be unto us as a blessing, a benison to ourselves and our issue, and a cause of great rejoicing throughout the land.

Until then we have Trump’s fading health to think about, to…not worry about so much as to root for, as one loudly or quietly roots for one’s favorite sports team (or, more likely, the defeat of one’s hated nemesis). This attitude, this abiding waiting, resides in the back of our minds, a ubiquitous promise (and threat) that settles in like a front of mental weather that surrounds and maybe slightly influences everything we do and say.

Except that Trump’s deterioration possesses something that weather does not: a concrete endpoint. So maybe that’s the wrong metaphor. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that Trump’s demise is like an asteroid speeding toward a collision with Earth, and that when it hits—which it inevitably, unstoppably will—great changes will ensue.

Not that it’s the only one. In fact, these days we’re prepared to suggest that there are no fewer than three (3) asteroids heading our way. One may miss us entirely. Another will certainly hit, but we don’t know when. The third will absolutely hit, and right on schedule.

Any and all impacts will be consequential. Let’s take them in ascending order of predictability.

I. AI GEVALT

You know what AI is. You’ve used it. It’s “amazing.” You’ve prompted Claude to explain itself and been absurdly pleased when it complimented you on the astuteness of your queries. You’ve asked ChatGPT the best way to kill your boss with over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and it’s obliged. Or whatever. You know what agents and tokens are. You can’t wait for the advent of Artificial General Intelligence, which will be a simulacrum of human consciousness and will revolutionize every fucking thing on earth as much as, or more than, the Industrial Revolution itself.

But if you know all that, then you also know that a lot of smart, persuasive people are contradicting all the hype and promises of Sam Altman (Open AI—ChatGPT) and Dario Amodei (Anthropic—Claude, Mythos, Fable). What those contradictors are saying is that a disastrous collapse is coming. (That’s our first asteroid.)

Why? Because the economics don’t add up. As explained by the scathing, funny Ed Zitron in his (free) weekly newsletter Where’s Your Ed At:

1. Companies were happy to use AI when the two giants (Open AI, Anthropic) were subsidizing the use of their Large Language Models. Then, in Jan. 2026, both companies reverted to charging what it actually cost, and people freaked out. Uber ran through its yearly budget in a single quarter. Zillow ran through its budget by the end of May. The previous $20/$100/$200 per month all-you-can-eat became an a la carte nightmare.

2. No one was, or is, able to really calculate how valuable AI is—meaning, what is its Return on Investment (ROI)? This is true even for the vaunted “AI can write code” argument, since the code it writes is janky, flawed, and doesn’t stand up well. Because--

3. AI always makes mistakes (“hallucinations”). If that means it delivers a “photo” of Margot Robbie with three arms, ha ha, that’s good clean fun. If it means drafting a motion your law firm gives to a judge, who points out that some of the cases cited don’t actually exist, it’s not so funny anymore. And to the extent that you need actual humans to review and police that, you undercut the premise of AI’s automating wonderfulness.

4. Of course, one way you can quantify gains is by eliminating droves of human workers. See here for a concise discussion, between Chris Hedges and Zitron, about the social and political consequences of that.

5. THE WHOLE INDUSTRY NEEDS TOO MUCH FUCKING MONEY TO SURVIVE. The expenses of AI are vast: an endless supply of chips (mainly from Nvidia); data centers and their profligate use of power and water for the ever-increasing amounts of “compute;” continuous re-training of the models. The labs (Open AI; Anthropic), and the “hyperscalers” (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, etc.) have spent and/or borrowed gigunda (to use the technical term) sums to build the infrastructure for all this, and are now sub-leasing them to each other, or investing in each other, in a giant display of clapping to keep Tinkerbell alive.

Yes, AI can do cool things. But saying that is like saying, “But those tulips are so pretty!” in the Netherlands in 1637. The problem is the financial insanity behind it all, driven by hype, p.r., groupthink, FOMO, stupidity (what Zitron refers to as Business Idiots), and the unquenchable desire, in the computer and finance industries, for the next, internet- or smart-phone-like Big Thing.

After the SpaceX IPO and following the assumed IPOs of Open AI and Anthropic, something like 40% of investment capital in the stock market will be in AI. Can you imagine? No, you can’t, and neither can we. What happens if the bubble pops? Disaster, like that which followed the sub-prime mortgage meltdown in 2008: Little companies, and some big companies, go under. A ton of money is lost as the value of huge investments shrivels. Data centers (equipped with chips that are now obsolete) going—like commercial real estate in 2009—unused. Unemployment, recession, etc.

And then the societal response. People who watched, enraged, as the government bailed out the banks and investment houses after 2008, and only one stupid schmuck went to jail after all that Ponzi-like hustling, will be, um…unsympathetic to calls to bail out the billionaires. You think Occupy Wall Street was intemperate? Wait for Occupy Silicon Valley.

IT’S NATIONAL PANIC DAY. BUT CALM DOWN. IT’S ALSO SEYCHELLES CONSTITUTION DAY. THEY CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT. SO WHY NOT

It might not happen. That asteroid may miss the Earth. We should be so lucky. But—

II. TRUMP IS HEADING FOR WHAT DANNY DEVITO IN L.A. CONFIDENTIAL CALLS “THE BIG ADIOS”

Granted, this is not our idea of a disaster. It’s a consummation devoutly to be wished, and is one of our asteroids only insofar as when it hits it will trigger big changes. And, whether or not you walk around thinking, “Gee, I wonder if that AI bubble will burst and, if so, when,” we know you walk around thinking, “Isn’t it time for Trump to drop dead?”

You’d think. And so would we. And we’re not the only ones. Here’s the punchy, amusing Dean Blundell on Trump’s recent visit to the G7 in Evians-les-Bains, in France.

The President of the United States spent three days in the French Alps looking like he was being escorted through an airport he didn’t recognize. World leaders had to physically point him in the right direction. He sat slack-jawed and vacant while everyone else posed for the camera. He needed Narendra Modi to help him up a single stair. And this morning, lost again, trailing behind the South Korean President because he didn’t know where his own chair was, he turned to the most powerful people on Earth and announced — I swear to God — “I’m the boss.”

We’ve written about this before. The point is not Trump’s diminishing faculties. (Blundell’s best line: “The family photo on Tuesday? He wandered off. Wrong direction. Had to be herded back into the group of grown-ups like a toddler at a wedding.”) The point is, we all walk around all day entertaining thoughts and emotions centered on the imminence of his croaking—a combination of rational, sensible expectation and blow-out-the-candles birthday wish. Is that how devout/nutso Christians feel about the impending return of Jesus? That deliverance will come at any second?

Or, okay, not any second. Soon. Or soon-ish. How you live with it, how it affects your day-to-day mood, must be a function of your fundamental character. For some, we assume it’s a source of constant frustration. (“What? He’s still alive? Come ON.”) For others, a source of quiet hope. (“Any day now…”) In any case, that asteroid is coming. When it hits—especially if it happens while Trump is still in office—the aftershocks will be unavoidable.

MAGA will be distraught and cry “fraud.” Vance will become POTUS. But—Fun Fact--everybody hates him. Will there be an immediate plotting of a palace coup? Will the cowards and toadies who currently kiss up to Trump do so with the new Prez? With no Trump—and therefore no MAGA voters—to fear, how will Republicans in Congress react? Who—among the meatheads, connivers, and outright Nazis on the right—will strive for the MAGA crown? How will Dems react, especially as regards the Epstein Files? What will become of the Cabinet, the universally-loathed Stephen Miller, the walking embarrassment Kash Patel, etc., etc.? We may have to tap the Strategic Popcorn Reserve to cover the national demand as the dramas unfold.

And maybe this will happen before—

III. THE MIDTERMS: JUDGMENT DAY

This is our most predictable asteroid, because even if you think Trump will somehow “cancel” the mid-terms, that itself would be cataclysmic. We don’t think he will, both because it can’t be done, and because it will be—if it isn’t already—beyond him physically and emotionally.

The question is, will he and the GOP be able to cheat enough to overcome what will be a huge repudiation of him and his party? They’ve already started, with voter suppression, bullshit about mail-in votes, gerrymandering, etc. But the polls for Trump and the Republicans are abysmal; many of their incumbents are retiring, creating a vacuum into which are rushing a cohort of cretinous, corrupt candidates; and the MAGA faithful will be far less motivated to turn out than the masses of outraged and disgusted Dems and Independents. Each MAGAt who remains on the couch is half a vote for the good guys.

If the cheating is blatant and there’s intimidation—or actual violence—at the polls, what will the Dems do? What, for that matter, will we—and you—do? Okay, let’s table that one for the moment.

But if (as we expect) the election proceeds normally, and (as we expect) the Dems win at least the House, what will Trump do? Call for another January 6^th-type insurrection? Hop—sorry; waddle—onto a plane to Moscow or Argentina? As for the members of the administration—the sleaziest, most corrupt heap of mutants ever assembled—expect them, when confronting their impending overthrow, to panic. To betray one another. To slip incognito onto flights to places whose names they can’t pronounce. To jump off ledges and fling themselves off bridges. Or to just acquiesce as they’re ushered by Big Strong Police Officers into cars with flashing lights on top. Pass that popcorn!

So there’s that—dependably; inevitably—in our future.

Three bombshell detonations. One possible but not fated; one definite but at an unspecified time; and one en route and scheduled to arrive COD in about five months. Each one will shatter the US into a fresh version of Splitsville (our term for when a single geo-political entity harbors two or more distinct “nations”). Any—let alone all—of these cataclysms will lead to a rapid splintering into a variety of political and social sub-groups, each demanding its own version of justice, recompense, revenge, protection, and security.

Indeed, we’re halfway there today, pre-split like a Hershey bar pre-scored into tidy little separate squares for easy snacking and sharing.

Happy 250^th, us. E Pluribus Unum? More like E Unum Pluribus, arewerite?

SPEAKING OF: WANT TO SEE WHAT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE IF THE RED STATES FORMED THEIR OWN STUPID COUNTRY? VOI-FREAKING-LA: