How are you feeling on this fine Saturday morning? I’m apparently so turned around by how liberated I’ve been this week that I forgot, in the audio, that the markets are not open today. Be thankful for small favors.
But man, what a week: the biggest two-day market drop ever, an estimated loss of $9.6 trillion since Trump took office, including yesterday Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk seeing $15.9 billion and $11 billion of their fortunes wiped out, respectively. How about you and me? I haven’t had the guts to check on my investments, though I was a bit fixated on this yesterday:
Nothing comes out of the blue, and I don’t want to spend undue time charting how we got to a place where Donald Trump can unilaterally decree a state of emergency in order to place “reciprocal tariffs” — via rules he came up with himself — on 100+ countries. That the formulation makes no sense terrifies people who understand this stuff:
I’m not one of these people, but as you can hear in the audio, I’ve been around the stock market my entire life (when my brother, age four, was asked what his dad did for a living, he said, “He breaks stocks”). I’ve also spent my working life interviewing and writing about sociopaths/psychopaths (the terms are, to me, a distinction without a difference).
The actions of Donald Trump - his unwillingness to look at history, to understand economics, to distort the facts to fit his theory - might be seen as childlike, seen as stubborn, seen as sociopathic. Does he care that his policies might give rise to the next iteration of Hoovervilles? Might he even take some pride in the new Trump Towns, the rest of us begging for relief? I don’t know. But based on the work I have done, starting with interviewing the serial killer John Wayne Gacy in 1994, I am sure of one thing: there are people in this world who absolutely delight in having you fall for their lies, and who base their promotion on your demotion. These people do not experience remorse, or (alas) have the ability to feel love, but there is one thing that gives them wood, and that is getting one over on you.
I am sickened by the commotion Trump is foisting on America, and the world; how he is unmaking —with the collusion of the sycophantic legislators he’s inspired, though I suspect some of them are running for the exits, chased by constituents frantic with insecurity — a century of American hope and hegemony. I am not going to get sentimental about that - the earth will continue to turn — but to go down in such a stupid stupid fashion, at the whim of a man whose source of power is keeping others off-balance; who’s best friend is a hound named Chaos… which is sad if you think about it. I’ve always thought of Trump an insecure man. And what can an insecure person offer but that of which he knows?
Strap in for Monday.
Episode notes:
To the Bridge, a True Story of Motherhood and Murder, by Nancy Rommelmann
“No Exit Plan, the Lies and Follies of Laura Albert, aka, JT Leroy,” by Nancy Rommelmann (LA Weekly)
Destination Gacy: A Cross-Country Journey to Shake the Devil’s Hand, by Nancy Rommelmann
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