The Great American Stampede
This Week and Next: November 3rd-9th
There’s a particular quality to chaos that only those who’ve spent time around horses truly understand. I should know—I’ve ridden horses my entire life, be fox hunts, horse shows, hunter paces or just “hacking out”: I can tell you that when one horse spooks, and the rider does nothing, the entire field follows. Not because they see the danger, mind you, but because panic is the most contagious disease in nature. Which brings us, naturally, to Donald Trump’s Washington.
The horses are beginning to bolt.
Consider the spectacle (seems like every week is) of this past week. While America was collectively deciding whether 42 million hungry citizens deserved food—the Supreme Court mulling it over like a wine selection at Le Bernardin—we were treated to the news that Dick Cheney had shuffled off this mortal coil at 84, his borrowed heart finally giving out after thirteen bonus years. The man who once wielded power like a medieval mace, who sent thousands to die for phantom weapons, who left office with the approval rating of head lice, spent his final years denouncing Trump as “a coward” and endorsing Kamala Harris. Even Dick Cheney—Dick Cheney—couldn’t stomach what the Republican Party had become. If that’s not a sign of the apocalypse, I don’t know what is.
Here was a man who defended waterboarding but drew the line at MAGA. Who loved his lesbian daughter more than party orthodoxy. Who survived five heart attacks and lived long enough to see his own political legacy eclipsed by a reality television star with a gold toilet. One almost feels sorry for him. Almost.
But Cheney’s death barely registered a blip—we were too busy watching the rats abandoning Trump’s increasingly waterlogged ship. The approval rating has sunk to 39 percent, which in Trump terms is practically subterranean. Only 23 percent of Americans think he’s doing wonderfully, a number that wouldn’t win you a condo board election in Boca Raton, let alone inspire loyalty from Washington’s most calculating creatures.
Enter Marjorie Taylor Greene, she of the Jewish space laser theory, suddenly sounding like the voice of reason on “The View.” I nearly choked on my morning cappuccino. There she was, calling the shutdown “an embarrassment,” praising Nancy Pelosi—Nancy Pelosi!—and warning about economic illiteracy in the GOP. Wolf Blitzer looked as though someone had slipped peyote into his green room coffee. What happened? Did she finally hire a pollster? Find a psychiatrist? Or is she simply smart enough to know that when the ship goes down, it’s best to be wearing a life jacket with “2028” embroidered on the front?
Even Josh Hawley—remember that triumphant fist pump during the insurrection?—has discovered his conscience, or at least his survival instinct. He’s voting with Democrats on stock trading bans and demanding the release of the Epstein files. Trump, with his usual grace, called him a “second-tier senator,” which in the current climate is practically a compliment.
Speaking of Epstein, we must pause to savor the timing of Prince Andrew’s final humiliation. King Charles, displaying the ruthlessness that only comes from waiting seven decades to inherit, stripped his brother of the HRH on November 3rd—making him just plain Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, as common as a chartered accountant from Slough. Those love notes to Epstein—”we are in this together,” “play some more soon”—rather demolished his Pizza Express alibi, didn’t they?
One can only imagine Trump’s night sweats as he watches Epstein’s connections topple actual royalty. If the Queen’s favorite son, wrapped in centuries of institutional protection, can be brought this low, what hope for a Queens real estate developer who once observed that Epstein “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side”? The files, as they say, are out there. Waiting.
Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth—Secretary of War in all but constitutional authority—has been conducting his own Caribbean adventure, bombing suspected drug boats without congressional approval and killing at least 70 people. When Congress inquired about these decidedly extralegal activities, Hegseth essentially told them to mind their own business. Nothing says “beacon of democracy” quite like unauthorized military strikes followed by a gag order.
Then there’s young Barron Trump, all of 19, who has somehow amassed $150 million in cryptocurrency wealth. Some traders whisper he might be behind a perfectly timed Bitcoin short that netted $160 million—placed, coincidentally, 30 minutes before daddy announced new tariffs. Insider trading in the Trump family? Shocking as finding sand at the beach. The boy who looks like Lurch attended finishing school in Switzerland has certainly finished something—perhaps the last pretense that the Trump genes truly are programmed to grift with the same reliability that a duck’s draw them to water.
Even Elise Stefanik, who transformed from moderate Republican to Trump junk-yard dog with the speed of a fat bride’s maid at 44, catching the bouquet, has announced she’s running for governor of New York. Never mind that she was booed off the stage twice in her own district, with constituents shouting “Shame!” and “Go home!” Never mind that Trump lost New York by 13 points. She’s calculating her escape route before the locals bring out the tar and feathers.
And through it all, Trump has done what Trump does best: slapped a gold nameplate on the Oval Office door. Because apparently even the presidency needs a Trump Tower touch or he forgets where he is - possibly both. While federal workers go unpaid and millions go hungry, while unauthorized bombs fall on Caribbean waters and a teenager make millions on crypto tips from daddy, the most important thing is that everyone knows exactly whose office it is. The sign says it all, really. It’s government by garish, democracy by gold leaf.
I thought it would be slower. The systematic dismantling of every check and balance that took 250 years to build has fallen quickly indeed. A Secretary of Defense conducting military strikes without congressional approval isn’t just unconstitutional—it’s criminal on so many levels.
The boy who looks like Lurch attended finishing school in Switzerland has certainly finished something—perhaps the last pretense that the Trump genes truly are programmed to grift with the same reliability that a duck’s draw them to water.
Today it’s bombing drug boats without permission. When will it become bombing Venezuela? Next month? Who knows. Once you establish that Congress is optional, that law is negotiable, that military force answers to one man’s whim, you don’t get that back without blood.
The 42 million Americans about to lose food assistance aren’t statistics—they’re the trial run. When a government discovers it can starve its own citizens while the Supreme Court debates the fine print, when federal workers can be forced to work without pay while the president’s son makes millions on insider information, you’re watching the test case for how much cruelty the system will tolerate. While men like Trump and Johnson seem to the think that the answer, apparently, is infinite - it is not.
And those Epstein files everyone’s suddenly interested in? They’re not just about one prince or one president. They’re about an entire system of power that operates in the dark, where everyone has dirt on everyone else, where corruption isn’t the exception but the currency. When even Marjorie Taylor Greene starts sounding sane, it’s not because she’s changed—it’s because she is seeing what’s coming next.
Yes, we saw some Democratic victories last week, and yes, it feels like democracy flexing its muscles again. But don’t mistake a battle for the war. Don’t let the champagne bubbles obscure the fact that the foundations are still cracking, that the authoritarian machinery hasn’t been dismantled—it’s not even stalled. The danger isn’t over because we won a few races. If anything, wounded animals are the most dangerous.
The horses are spooked, friends. They are really spooked. And when this happens anything can happen. Some run off cliffs. Some buck their riders. But the point is once the spook turns to stampede—your only choice is one of two: ride it out and risk being killed or bail and risk breaking your neck. Both options suck.
The bells aren’t tolling for whom. They’re tolling for what—the end of the assumption that tomorrow will look anything like yesterday. Because once you break these things, once you teach people that law is optional and force is sufficient, you can’t simply vote your way back to normal. Ask any country that’s been where we’re heading. If you can find one that made it back.
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