It’s September! That means back to school, back from vacations, back to work, and maybe, just maybe, temperatures in the double-digits. The NFL season starts next week—disorientingly, not only on a Wednesday and a Thursday, but on the same Wednesday and Thursday the Republicans will be holding a farcical, poorly-attended, embarrassing “Midterm Convention” in Dallas. Get ready for photos of huge tracts of empty seats, interviews with unbelievably idiotic delegates in hideous Trump merch, lies from Mike Johnson about how well-attended the event is and how everyone is excited and enthusiastic, and blood-chilling accounts of how expensive hot dogs and beer are in the arena. JD Vance and Donald Trump will speak, so get right on Polymarket to place your bets on how many times each will use the terms “Golden Age” and “communists.”
Is it all too much? Are you still clinging to a summertime state of mind? Then this week’s Splitsville is for you. We’ve prepared a series of questions to help you get your head on straight as autumn approaches. They’re not new questions. In fact, they’re as old as time itself—or at least as old as Trump’s second term. So, okay, they’re twenty months old. Below each one are some provisional answers. Feel free to add your own responses in the Comments.
How is it possible that so many millions of Americans still support Trump, despite everything he’s done, despite his obvious contempt for them, despite his criminal convictions, despite his moronic tariffs and bonkers Iran war, despite his rapid slide into senescence and physical decrepitude?
The knee-jerk answer is that they’re profoundly stupid. But that can’t be right. To support him out of stupidity, you’d have to be too stupid to dress yourself. And, while that surely describes some in the MAGAverse, most of his supporters—even the woman who recently said on camera that she likes Trump because he never lies—manage to put their own clothes on. Or so we have reason to believe. Okay, so if it’s not profound stupidity, maybe it’s that…
To his followers he’s not a political figure but a religious figure. You can no more convince a hard-core MAGAt to forswear Trump than you can convince a devout Christian to find a substitute for Jesus. Reason won’t nudge them away from Trump; it’s a job for a cult deprogrammer. Is there a cult deprogrammer who works in bulk?
Why have virtually all the GOP elected officials in the country subordinated themselves to Trump? It’s an axiom that no one ever voluntarily gives up power, and yet here we are, two months from what is widely believed will be a repudiation of Trumpism (and Republicans) of historic proportions. And yet, for all he’s betrayed his enablers (let alone their constituents) with imbecilic policies, flagrantly open corruption, and displays of mental disintegration, almost no one has turned on him. Why? Theories (none of which are conclusive or mutually exclusive):
Trump delivered votes. He is, per The Economist, at 35% overall approval rating, the vast majority of which we assume consists of the MAGA faithful. (Fun Fact: The other stats are: 61% disapprove, 5% aren’t sure. Do the math. That equals 101%. Someone tell The Economist.) So the GOP is desperate to hold on to at least that.
Fear of being attacked, or of family members being attacked, by Trump thugs
Fear of being attacked by constituents who are Trump cultists
Why does Trump appear to be hell-bent on destroying the USA, NATO, and possibly everything else?
He hates himself and is taking it out on the world
He has a psychotic need to dominate everyone and everything, and what better way to dominate than to destroy?
He has a psychotic need to demonstrate that he’s the smartest person alive by forcing his policies and aesthetics on the world. Since he is in fact stupid and tasteless, the results are predictably horrible.
He craves the admiration of the Strong Daddy, who in this case is Vladimir Putin. His destruction of the US is something he thinks Putin would like.
Or maybe it’s just that Putin has promised Trump (assuming he does Putin’s bidding throughout his second term) $100 billion, a gold-plated dacha on the Black Sea, and an endless stream of teenage Siberian girls.
Do Bessent, Hegseth, Lutnick, Vance, Rubio, Kennedy, Jr., and the rest of that sorry, sycophantic lot think that, when their days in the Trump administration are over, they’ll go on to greater glory in politics or the private sector?
In our view, they’ll be lucky if they don’t end their days in a low-security federal hoosegow. Or with their (metaphorical) heads in a (metaphorical) guillotine basket. Why don’t they see that, after Trump is gone, they’ll be as popular as Nazi officers in Germany after the end of WWII. One theory: They’re fucking morons.
Some of them rightly believe that the job in the Trump administration is the best job they’ll ever get.
Some of them think they’ll be hired as lobbyists after Trump, and so the more loyalty they show now, the better their reputation as a team player will be later.
Some of them (like Lutnik) are getting rich(er) by exploiting government. Here’s Dean Blundell explaining how Cantor, Fitzgerald, the company of which Lutnik was CEO and which is now being run by his sons, is trading tariff rebate claims at 20 or 30 cents on the dollar. If you’ve paid ten million dollars in tariffs, and the courts might rule them illegal, Cantor will pay you 2 or 3 million in cash now, in exchange for your claim on the full ten million you’ll be reimbursed, if it ever comes to that.
Why are the Democrats such pussies? Why are Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer such lily-livered, weak-tea disappointments? Why don’t we hear all Dems, every day, denouncing and mocking not just Donald Trump, but every single Republican in the House and Senate? “Because we have to work with Republicans”? At what? They’re destroying the country! “Because I don’t like conflict”? Too bad! Then you’re in the wrong job.
One theory: It’s too depleting, too demanding, too much trouble. So they use “respect for the institution” as an excuse to stay quiet and out of trouble.
Another theory (which we wrote about last year): The job, at least in many parts of the country, selects for a go-along/get-along kind of personality. Because the Democratic Party encompasses such a broad spectrum of political values, many office holders default to a middle-of-the-road inoffensiveness. “Do no harm” becomes “Don’t make anybody mad” which becomes “Don’t do nothin’.
Why is so much of the mainstream media so useless? Why book Scott Bessent or Ted Cruz on Meet the Press, when everyone and his ferret knows that they’ll lie about everything? And that if Kristen Welker suggests that they aren’t being entirely truthful, they’ll respond with a new lie? Why, even when stories are well-sourced and damning, are their headlines in the Washington Post or the Failing New York Times so tepid and misleading?
To maintain access—i.e., so as not to offend anyone in power, and thus assure their availability to tell more lies.
Because the corporate overlords of the MSM mainly agree with Trumpism, or at least prefer it to the alternative, which would threaten higher corporate taxes and, um, “communism.”
Because—we’re going out a limb here—there’s a secret set of MSM style guidelines, in effect since at least the early 1950s, and every MSM outlet is desperately afraid of accidentally letting it all hang out, style-wise, and therefore not appearing to be a member of the fucking MSM.
WE KNOW YOU KNOW IT’S NATIONAL WELSH RAREBIT DAY. BUT DID YOU KNOW IT’S ALSO US BOWLING LEAGUE DAY? OH SHUT UP. NO YOU DIDN’T. SO JUST BUY THE SPLIT AND WE’LL SAY NO MORE ABOUT IT.
What would Trump have to do in order to get the required number of Republicans to join with Dems to impeach him and remove him from office?
Use a nuclear weapon, either on a domestic target, or on a foreign target which prompts the use of one on the US.
Significantly interfere with the coming mid-term election, but only if the resulting mass street protests that would inspire result in a massacre of unarmed civilians.
That’s it. Republicans will tolerate, defend, ignore, and/or lie about anything else Trump does.
What? “Release the Epstein Files!”? See below.
Does JD Vance—who recently said he tries to do “God’s work” as much as possible, and if that results “in the End Times,” he’s okay with it, and that it wouldn’t surprise him if the Antichrist were walking the earth right now—know what an asshole he is?
No. To be an asshole is to not know you are an asshole, and even if you think, “Okay, I’m an asshole. Deal with it,” that makes you an ever bigger asshole, a fact of which you remain unaware.
Is Mitch McConnell alive?
Define “alive.”
McConnell, like Schrodinger’s cat, is currently in a state of superposition, both alive and dead. He is in a closed room. The people outside the room tell the press that he is alive. When, at last, someone opens the door, enters the room, and observes McConnell, he will turn out to be dead.
Once he is out of office and, if only technically, still alive, will Donald Trump be prosecuted either by the Feds or the states for his many blatant crimes?
Probably not. If the law even came close to him, he’d probably flee to Russia (remember that putative dacha?) or somewhere in the Middle East, and let a thousand lawyers drag out the process of extradition (if that is even possible) until he dies of old age a couple of days later.
Okay, but can’t he at least be tried in absentia?
Maybe. But he won’t be. The Dems would have to wander in the desert for forty (or maybe just four) years, killing off the Baby Boom generation, before there could arise a generation with the courage and principles to do that. Hey, wait a second, WE are Baby Boomers. Oh, shut up and finish your oatmeal, you toothless, spineless old dotards.
When Trump is gone—in whatever way you want to define “gone”—what will become of MAGA? What, for that matter, will become of the GOP?
MAGA as a self-conscious movement will fall apart the way a religious cult falls apart when the charismatic leader dies, goes to prison, or Kool-Aids the cult in Guyana. Various dickheads in the GOP (Vance, Ted Cruz, Tucker “A Demon Scratched Me in My Sleep” Carlson) will try to seize the fallen mantle and proclaim themselves Trump’s heir, but they’ll just embarrass themselves and the results will be laughable. The Republican Party will become an even more nauseating spectacle, a mix of white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and billionaires. It’s possible that each of those three cadres will hate the other two, so that’ll be fun.
Seriously. What’s the deal with the Epstein files?
We think they will either be completely released or leaked. They will show that Trump sexually abused under-age girls. Other prominent names will also appear. Everyone implicated will claim the proof is “AI slop.” No one except morons will believe them. What will be especially interesting will be the reaction of the implicated people’s children.
If the Democrats attain the trifecta in 2028, will they have the nerve to expand the Supreme Court? Will they make DC and Puerto Rico states? Will they raise tax rates on the obscenely rich, raise the tax cap on Social Security (currently at a paltry $184,500) and fund the IRS to prosecute wealthy tax evaders? Will they start the move toward Medicare for All? And shit like that?
Isn’t it pretty to think so?
What the fuck?
Don’t ask.
No doubt you have questions of your own, starting with, “What does this have to do with Splitsville?” If, by that, you mean, “How can the US be described as a single geo-political entity harboring two or more distinct ‘nations,’” we’re glad you asked. We have in mind three such nations.
One consists of those of us for whom the coming months promise some sort of long-desired, desperately-needed reckoning: Trump’s second term thus far has been an absolute tsunami of legal, ethical, and moral filth. We want a Dem-controlled House (at least!) to hold hearings, dig up the dirt, “persuade” little fish to turn on big fish, and generally commence a cleanup of the Augean Stables of the administration. Trump’s Justice Department, corrupt to the core, will of course refuse to take legal action against anyone in the regime. But get these criminals and scumbags under oath, take note of when they commit perjury, and remind them that there will be a presidential election in 2028. And if, in the meantime, various state Attorneys General want to enforce state laws for which Trump can issue no pardon, all the better.
Another nation consists of all of them—the GOP, the Trump administration, its water-carriers and defenders and propagandists, and the deluded souls who still think this pathological, destructive con man is a hero. We may have to access the nation’s Strategic Popcorn Reserve while watching them panic.
The third nation is everyone else—the people who “don’t follow politics” or think “both sides are the same” or whatever. They can go fuck themselves at their earliest convenience.
Any questions?
FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T BUY AND READ AND ENJOY THE SPLIT. AND I DID NOTHING. BECAUSE I HAD BOUGHT AND READ AND ENJOYED THE SPLIT. THEN THEY DIDN’T COME ANYMORE.
A perplexed country has needed these answers! Thank you. One more (mine, which I believe) to "why does he want to destroy us." Close to your first answer but not the same. He hates America. Because America (somehow?!?) did something bad to him.
Luckily for EW, SR and the readers of the comments here, I’m on the train down to NYC so can only do a limited response.
Yay.
But “[n]o doubt you have questions of your own, starting with” why did Roy Edroso take the week of, which is fine, but didn’t send a postcard or write us?
This has been bothering me all week.