Thanksgiving in the Age of Kakistocracy

Trump melts down, institutions wobble, but communities, and readers, still hold the line.

Good morning, and Happy Thanksgiving! Some mornings I wake up wondering whether there will be anything to write about, and every morning the universe answers with a deranged parade of scandals marching straight across my coffee cup like Macy’s floats designed by Kafka. This is one of those mornings when the challenge isn’t finding news; it’s deciding what not to include, because the country is now operating at a scandal surplus so large it should qualify for federal export subsidies.

We begin, naturally, with the holiday’s reigning chaos chef, Donald Trump, who spent the night before Thanksgiving on an unhinged bender of racism, diplomatic vandalism, and Lincoln Memorial demolition fantasies. Trump has always hated holidays; any day the nation’s attention might drift away from his personal vortex of grievance is a day he must ruin. So while you were basting turkeys, he was basting his own psyche in pure resentment, raging at Somali immigrants, South Africa, Katie Rogers, and the architectural integrity of national monuments.

For the readers blessed enough not to keep a running log of Trump’s hallucinations, here’s the short version: on Thanksgiving Eve, the President of the United States posted a photo of the Lincoln Memorial and its reflecting pool, serene, iconic, beloved, and declared it “Biden filth and incompetence.” He then vowed that “you won’t be seeing this much longer” once he and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum “fix it.” Fix what, exactly? The marble? The water? Abraham Lincoln’s face? The concept of reflection itself? No one can say, because Trump never clarified whether he intends to drain the reflecting pool, bulldoze the memorial, or simply pressure-wash history until it looks more like one of his casinos. What we do know is that he referenced one of the most sacred spaces in American civic life as though it were a stained tablecloth at Mar-a-Lago.

This is the same man who once floated the idea of replacing the Alexander Hamilton statue with a monument to himself, so when he hints that a national landmark is “not long for this world,” it’s not metaphor, it’s a renovation plan drafted by a sociopath with a sledgehammer. Past presidents have honored Lincoln as a symbol of unity and democratic resolve, Trump approaches the monument the same way he approaches everything: as an enemy to be destroyed unless it mirrors his reflection back at him in the flattering light of total subservience. It would almost be funny if it weren’t the sitting president announcing, on Thanksgiving, that one of the nation’s foundational memorials might soon be torn down because he doesn’t like the vibes.

His weekend tantrum over the G20 reached new artistic heights when he declared South Africa “not worthy of membership anywhere”, a bold statement from a man whose own membership in humanity remains under ongoing review. After boycotting the G20 for reasons known only to his adrenal gland, Trump announced that South Africa is hereby uninvited to next year’s G20, which he claims will be held in Miami as a kind of Trump-branded diplomatic time-share. This came after President Ramaphosa refused to indulge Trump’s imaginary “white genocide” psychodrama and clearly failed to appreciate the full majesty of Trump’s conspiracy scrapbook. The G19 put on a dignified, flawless closing ceremony while Trump posted through it, like a man who thinks international relations are run out of the comments section.

Even as a tragic shooting unfolded in Washington, DC, one involving two National Guardsmen and a shooter who Trump himself granted asylum last April, the president was busy posting fake poll numbers and pitching his new grand political innovation: rebranding Republicans as “Tea Republicans,” because nothing screams presidential focus quite like a man yelling his way through a thesaurus. Every credible poll puts his approval in the basement, but that hasn’t stopped him from insisting he’s soaring at 50 percent, presumably on the wings of imaginary bald eagles that only fly in McLaughlin’s polling averages.

The Afghan national who committed the attack had spent ten years embedded with U.S. special forces. Trump responded not by acknowledging his own administration’s asylum decision, but by attacking Somali Americans who had precisely nothing to do with it. This is the same regime that gutted the FBI’s counterterrorism division and handed it to a 22-year-old former gardener with no national security experience. Actual terrorism prevention? Not a priority. Raiding Home Depot parking lots and throwing chemical grenades at farmworkers? Now, that was a priority. Under Trump, the FBI became just another limp ornament in the kakistocracy.

One would think that with the world in chaos and two Guardsmen fighting for their lives, Trump might find something dignified to say. Instead, he found time to call New York Times reporter Katie Rogers “ugly inside and out” because she accurately reported on his lethargy, fatigue, and collapsing schedule. This comes just after he called a Bloomberg reporter “piggy.” I have known toddlers with more emotional stability, and toddlers do not control the nuclear arsenal.

Because even dystopia has local chapters, we turn to Newport, Oregon, where actual adults are doing their best to save actual lives while the federal government tries to hand the region a surprise holiday gift of chaos. Just weeks ago, the Coast Guard helicopter that has operated there since 1987 was quietly yanked away to North Bend, no notice, no explanation, no compliance with Congressional procedure, leaving commercial fishermen with rescue times that ballooned from 15 minutes to up to 90. The Pacific Ocean, being famously cooperative and gentle, did not adjust its drowning schedule to accommodate DHS.

Lincoln County and the Newport Fishermen’s Wives sued, because when the federal government abandons you during Dungeness crab season, you don’t write a sternly worded letter; you go to court. Judge Ann Aiken promptly issued a temporary restraining order forcing DHS to return not only the helicopter but the full personnel and infrastructure. DHS, having failed to respond to the lawsuit at all, then released a statement grumbling about “micromanagement,” as though returning a life-saving helicopter were the equivalent of asking them to fill out a second form at the DMV. Meanwhile, CBP has been spotted sniffing around Newport’s airport and federal contractors are calling local hotels looking for 200 rooms for a year. Nothing says “Happy Thanksgiving” like the looming specter of an ICE-adjacent operation rolling into a coastal town under the cover of missing rescue assets.

While that was unfolding, the Trump–Putin leak scandal continued to metastasize. Trump’s private disclosures of sensitive intelligence to Vladimir Putin, the kind of thing that used to trigger emergency briefings, special counsels, and bipartisan investigations, now drifts across the news cycle like smoke from a fire everyone pretends not to see. Allies have begun to question what intelligence can safely be shared with a U.S. administration that treats state secrets like personal loyalty gifts. Russia, unsurprisingly, has already adjusted its cyber posture in ways that suggest operational knowledge it should not have.

This is what national security failure looks like: helicopters disappearing from Oregon; counterterrorism handed to children; ICE contractors casing hotel rooms; intelligence leaking to hostile powers; and a president who responds to everything by yelling at immigrant communities and threatening to tear down the Lincoln Memorial.

Layered atop this Thanksgiving disaster lasagna, comes yet another sickening twist in the Epstein files: dozens of victims’ names, including minors, exposed in unredacted documents provided by the DOJ to Congress. Lawyers for the survivors say they’ve repeatedly warned both Congress and the government, only to watch names continue to appear unprotected so frequently that some victims now wonder whether this is incompetence or intent. Judge Richard Berman has ordered DOJ to explain its redaction process, while another New York judge considers the sealed Maxwell documents. Republicans and Democrats have begun leaking and counter-leaking, turning abuse survivors into accidental combatants in a partisan turf war. These women are not political pawns. They are human beings who deserve privacy, dignity, and the right not to be re-traumatized because the government can’t operate a redaction tool without blowing another hole in the hull.

It is exhausting. It is infuriating. And it is all happening before most Americans have carved into a single yam.

But there is good news, and this Thanksgiving it matters even more than the chaos.

Judges are holding the line. Communities are standing up for each other. Whistleblowers keep coming forward. Investigative journalists haven’t blinked. Local organizers are beating back federal abuses. International allies are refusing to indulge Trump’s tantrums. And despite it all, through fire, fog, and foolishness, people keep choosing each other over cynicism.

And that, ultimately, is where I find my Thanksgiving gratitude. Not in the headlines, but in the readers, in you. Every day, thousands of you show up to bear witness, to insist on truth, to refuse despair. You remind me that democracy isn’t a spectator sport but a shared act of endurance, outrage, love, and stubborn, righteous humor. You make this work possible, and on mornings like this, when the news feels like an avalanche made entirely of flaming garbage, it is your presence that keeps me writing.

On this Thanksgiving, in between the frantic posts, the court orders, the scandal leaks, and the relentless absurdity, I’m deeply thankful for you, the reader who stays, who cares, who refuses to look away.

Happy Thanksgiving, and may your day be filled with warmth, clarity, courage, and at least one moment of peace that Donald Trump cannot ruin, no matter how hard he tries.

Marz sends hugs and kisses!