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12.19.25 | 12:42 pm
I’ve been under the weather. That partly explains missing two days of posts. But another reason is a feeling of repetition. Everything I see in our politics right now — or at least at the pinnacle where Donald Trump dominates all the visuals and attention — has a feeling of drift, spectacle and fragmentation. Trump’s ballroom epitomizes it — crass, stupid, vulgar, unacceptable and yet ultimately meaningless. It’s the full-size version of having his stacked Kennedy Center board, of which he is the chairman, rename the institution after him. That was, I believe, Wednesday, though the days run together. Then there’s his new hall of presidents, a sick-burn tweet storm embedded on a wall of what remains of the White House. These all have the feeling of a man who is bored, tapped out, losing coherence and energy and who others are trying to keep distracted.