I disliked Babygirl. A Washington Post piece, saying Nicole Kidman “takes on what may be her most risqué role yet as a high-powered CEO in a steamy psycho-sexual affair with her intern,” stirred my interest in the movie. But the relationship shown reminded me of the scams and coercion that constitute so much of current news. The domineering intern, played by Harris Dickinson, uses the threat of getting Kidman’s submissive CEO fired to keep the affair going, while talking about “consent.” Later, Kidman kicks another scummy guy out of her office, saying: “If I want to be humiliated, I’ll pay someone for it,” which isn’t a bad idea.
I logged in on X again. I enjoy it now. I was intrigued by a repost by @Maggie0405 of a claim that USAID spent $500,000 to “expand atheism” in Nepal. I researched this, which isn’t easy because the Trump administration keeps shutting or stripping down federal websites. It turns out this isn’t news, nor exposed by DOGE, but refers to a $446,700 grant that went through the State Department to Humanists International to promote religious freedom. Last summer, the State Department acknowledged it may have been misled by the group as to how the funds were used. If so, that’s not good, but it’s not the same as trying to “expand atheism.”
The Trump administration has pulled down the State Department web page that solicited proposals for projects that “support Religious Freedom globally.” But the page, from 2021, is archived, so you can read it here. It says the goal of such projects would be to “ensure everyone enjoys religious freedom, including the freedom to dissent from religious belief and to not practice or adhere to a religion.” I’m on board with that. As someone who’s traveled in Nepal, including to religious sites, I see no basis for Republican lawmakers’ claim the U.S. government funding was “neglecting Christian and Muslim minorities who, unlike atheists and humanists, face real persecution in the relevant parts of South Asia.” These Republicans have no clue who’s facing persecution, or what has or hasn’t been done.
If you’re pleased that Elon Musk is looking out for you, through such actions as accessing government payment systems and putting USAID through the “woodchipper,” you’ve been screwed as hard as Nicole Kidman standing in the corner or lapping up milk on all fours. The overarching goal of the Trump administration is to take power out of your hands. Methods now underway to do this include: reducing the power of Congress relative to the Executive Branch, so that your capacity to address any government activity by contacting your representatives is nullified; making bureaucracy more opaque, rather than less, by overriding internal safeguards such as inspectors-general; and overwhelming the court system with illegal actions, so that the Executive Branch is effectively exempted from following laws.
Hoping to get a refund from the IRS this year, and in a timely manner? The staff that processes refunds is under a hiring freeze. Perhaps you expect that voting for Trump, and living in a red state, means you’ll likely get better treatment from the federal government than the suckers and losers who’ll bear the brunt of the Trump autocracy. That might happen to some degree, but I wouldn’t count on it. Why does Donald Trump need to keep you, his loyal supporter, happy, when he’s immunized from criminal liability, has a Congress that’ll never impeach him, and has media cowering in the face of lawsuits?
Trump doesn’t need you, because he’s got Elon Musk and DOGE on the job, including a teenager who goes by the moniker “Big Balls” and whose “professional and online history call into question whether he would pass the background check typically required to obtain security clearances,” as Wired reports.
Did you think that, in international relations, Trump’s focus was on avoiding foreign entanglements and minding our own business? Then you are, as Walter Olson writes, “really among the prime suckers of our era.” However, by my lights, though I disagree with isolationism, a Trump supporter who wanted a U.S. pullback doesn’t merit the disgust I have for John Podhoretz, who celebrated Trump’s “will to power” in proposing forced removal of the Palestinians from Gaza, and who wrote that Heracles cut the Gordian knot (later corrected to Alexander the Great, seemingly without acknowledging the error).
Podhoretz raptured that displaced Gazans would be housed “in one, two, four, seven, maybe even twelve comfortable sites. Gaza will be turned into the Riviera of the Middle East.” He went on: “At that point, the people once resident in Gaza can return… if they want to. Otherwise it will become an international city for world people.” Whatever the hell that is. Trump hasn’t been ironclad in assuring the Gazans would be allowed to return. And even if he were, his words count for nothing.
Any Gazans who leave should understand they’ll likely never be allowed back. Any federal employees who take Elon Musk’s “fork in the road” retirement deal should understand there’ll be not much they can do if, after they’ve left, the payments don’t arrive. Nicole Kidman should’ve understood that domination by her intern was a bad idea, however much it appealed to her fantasies. Trump voters should’ve understood that their instrument of retribution was designed to slip out of their control. They’ve been screwed, and America’s been screwed. The screwing may be so nasty that growing numbers will want to kick Trump and his team of scumbags out of office. We’ve got a long way to go.
—Kenneth Silber is author of In DeWitt’s Footsteps: Seeing History on the Erie Canal. Follow him on Bluesky
