In the immortal words of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, “Things never got weird enough for me.”
The Good Doctor, sadly, didn’t live long enough to see what we are seeing these days. Had he been able to hang on until 2025, he probably wouldn’t have said what he said.
The political phenomenon of Donald Trump reads like a script for “The Twilight Zone” that was too weird even for Rod Serling. It’s akin to transforming an election certificate for President of the United States into an issue of Mad Magazine, chronicling a latter-day Faustian bargain.
If Trump and his electorate’s intention is to turn American politics into a dystopian theater of the absurd, it appears they are fixin’ to hit a home run.
Thompson, if you recall, invented Gonzo Journalism by embedding with the Oakland Hell’s Angels and provoking them to stomp him into jelly, just so he could write about it. He covered a dirt bike race near Las Vegas while ingesting his body weight in psychedelic drugs, and then putting pen to paper.
Thompson used the same journalistic technique to cover the Kentucky Derby, and shone his light on the dark and seedy underbelly of Richard Nixon’s campaign for re-election. But he offed himself before things got weird enough for him.
What a pity! He would have been the perfect journalist to cover the MAGA movement, and the strange excesses of Donald Trump.
Consider this: ahead of his inauguration, Trump has appointed an immigrant from Africa to head a federal agency that doesn’t even exist. Elon Musk, as Director of Government Efficiency, has already started throwing his weight around, monkeying in American budget policy by whip-sawing Congress into a tizzy.
Musk has already started an intramural MAGA food fight with Trump’s base by proposing that the U.S. borders be closed to everyone but alien tech geniuses and foreign trophy wives. All this before Trump’s inauguration and (if they are allowed to occur) Congressional actions to establish the DOGE, and Musk’s Senate confirmation hearing.
C-Span will need to expand its bandwidth to televise Musk’s confirmation, and popcorn futures will go up the limit. How’s that for weird?
Then there’s Robert F. Kennedy Junior, whose family crest reads “Publicae Tragoediae,” whom Trump will nominate to head the federal Department of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. ain’t a patch on his ol’ man’s ass.
If confirmed, we’ll have a DHHS led by a former junkie who survived brainworm, despite his prestigious family name. It’s important to remember that, when RFK the Deuce was considering his own run for POTUS, he tagged Aaron Rodgers, the ayahuasca drinkin’ quarterback, as his running mate.
That has to be way up there on the weirdness scale, and Hunter S. Thompson would have feasted on it!
Finally, Trump, as the champion of limited government and fiscal restraint, intends to add Greenland, Canada and Panama to his American Empire for reasons obvious or not. I’m pretty sure he’ll have to buy these countries with our money, because if he tries to invade them militarily, the Joint Chiefs will tell him to stick the idea up his ass.
If this proposal reminds you of Trump Steaks, Trump Airline and Trump University, you ain’t alone. But I see a sort of twisted wisdom in this move. He will, after all, need to keep Musk busy and far removed from anything important. Colonizing Greenland might be just the ticket.
So it’s kind of bittersweet that, when Hunter Thompson said things never got weird enough for him, he didn’t live long enough to hear Donald Trump say, “Hold my beer.”
