I wrote recently about where we source our news in a rapid-fire landscape news cycle. We pay attention to things that impact or interest us: will the U.S. Department of Education be shredded, or what was Elon Musk’s oddly-named kid saying to Trump in the Oval Office this week?
If it’s the democracy crisis that interest you—why is the unelected richest man on earth running our country and accessing all your personal data—maybe that’s the news you’re losing sleep over. I try to regulate how much time I spend consuming news, and binge season one of White Lotus in an effort not to turn into a Bernie Sanders curmudgeon.
What I saw this week that helped me exhale was an op-ed written by Ezra Klein at The New York Times. Thanks to social media, I guess they make Klein do dramatic, shadowy documentary-style readings of his own pieces, so I saw this versus reading it. This is interesting: to consume an op-ed by seeing the journalist read it in a video: definitely a first, and he does have a podcast so it makes sense. Whatever gets around the Times paywall.
The Klein video is worth watching. It opens with Steve Bannon dropping the “flood the zone” strategy and calling the media “dumb and lazy” and a barrage of the executive orders that have defined the first few weeks of the Trump presidency. CNN’s Kaitlyn Collins, with her signature tiny smirk asks, “Is this legal?” Klein observes that the more outlandish initiatives Trump puts forth, the more it wears down the public, saying “If you make people believe something is true, you make it likelier that it becomes true.” See also: the “Gulf of America.”
Klein points out that Trump never wanted to be president, only king, and that if he makes us believe he’s king we’ll be more likely to let him govern that way, repeating the line “don’t believe him.” Klein says: “The projection of strength obscures the reality of weakness,” noting that Trump issuing piles of executive orders instead of submitting legislation to Congress is a telling sign of that weakness.
This country was reminded this month of the branches of government and their authority. Will Trump incite a constitutional crisis by ignoring the judicial orders against his illegal governmental shutdowns? Congress passes laws, not the president, yet he has presented them no legislation—as Klein says, he doesn’t want to be humiliated a la John McCain shutting down the Obamacare repeal.
“Trump is acting like a king, because he’s too weak to govern like a president,” says Klein, noting that the flurry of activity in the initial weeks, though right-wing social media hails alleged achievements while Musk has illegally been given unfettered access to multiple federal agencies.
“The real threat is if he convinces the rest of us to believe he has power he does not have… He is trying to overwhelm you. He is trying to keep you off-balance. He is trying to convince you of something that isn’t true. Don’t believe him.”
Something about Klein’s words, however corny the dramatic filming and lighting might be, helped me a little bit this week, and at a time when Google bends a knee to cancel Black History Month and Pride, I’m grateful to find any shelter in the storm of this chaotic presidency.
—Follow Mary McCarthy on Bluesky and Instagram
