PREVAIL: 2023 in Review
Notable work from the last 12 months.
Twenty-twenty-three was a year in which the former President of the United States was indicted—not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times. This did not stop the neo-reactionary fringe from wanting to crown him king. Jared Kushner continued to face zero consequences for his catastrophic pandemic response, his new gig managing Saudi billions, or his sad attempt at Middle East diplomacy. Military promotions were stymied by a former college football coach who could not consistently win the Egg Bowl. Texas, already racist and fascist and transphobic and misogynistic and corrupt, got even more so, thanks to its staggeringly corrupt attorney general. A hateful old billionaire bequeathed a billion and a half dollars to arguably the worst possible custodian. Putin continued to slaughter Ukrainians and Russians both to satisfy his doomed imperial ambitions. Rupert Murdoch shitcanned Tucker Carlson. Elon Musk dismantled Twitter. Taylor Swift became a billionaire, caused an earthquake, and found true love with a football player.
As for me, I went on more deep dives than Ghislaine Maxwell’s submarine. Here is a smattering of notable pieces from the year that was:
American Huckster
Why did Trump make off with the classified documents? Why was he reviewing them? What did the quintessential salesman intend to do with them?
June 13, 2023
Donald Trump wants to sell you something. That’s what he is, that’s what he does. He is a salesman, a dealmaker, a pimp—a carnival barker, as President Obama put it. He wants you to buy a condo, a golf club membership, a bottle of vodka, a steak, a degree at the sham university that bears his name, a red hat, an NFT of your favorite president dressed as a cowboy, a room at his overpriced Washington hotel, a photo op at Mar-a-Lago, a presidential pardon, a book about how artful he is at selling stuff. He also wants you to buy the idea of him as a legit billionaire, a prodigious lover, an alpha male, a successful businessman worthy of apprenticing yourself to, a statesman feared by enemies and allies alike, a selfless patriot who only wants to Make America Great Again, a leader who alone can fix it. There is nothing he would not try to sell. He gleefully handed over his 14-year-old daughter to a modeling agency notorious for predatory behavior, ffs.
To Donald Trump, life is nothing more than a series of business deals. Everything is a commodity: his real estate inventory, his company brand, his influence, his endorsement, his family. Even his sex life is transactional. He turns 77 tomorrow; he’s been a minor celebrity for decades, and the most famous human being on the planet for at least the last seven years; by now, we all know him well enough to know that he is, at his core, P.T. Barnum 2.0, the ultimate American Huckster.
It is through this lens that I read the 38-count indictment handed down on Friday by Jack Smith, the no-bullshit Special Counsel. Thirty-seven of those counts involve Trump (the other belongs solely to his co-conspirator and manservant, Waltine “Walt” Nauta). The FPOTUS is charged with 31 counts (!) of willful retention of national defense information, as well as conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations.
I loathe this expression, which was used to death on Twitter in the early Trump years, but it is apropos here: let that sink in.
Clarence Thomas and Other Crow Holdings
The Supreme Court is corrupt.
April 11, 2023
One of our nine Supreme Court Justices appears to be owned by a rightwing billionaire.
As Pro Publica’s Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski revealed in Thursday’s bombshell article, “Clarence and the Billionaire”—the most consequential investigative news story in recent memory—Clarence Thomas has enjoyed the largesse of said billionaire, Harlan Crow, for over 20 years. For most of the current century, he has not bothered to disclose the many, many lavish vacations he and his wife, Ginni Thomas, have taken with—and that were paid for by—Crow:
For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.
The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Thomas has done this while presenting as a humble Man of the People who likes to drive across country in his RV, stopping at the occasional Walmart parking lot to rub elbows with the hoi polloi. In other words, he has deliberately, actively concealed the fact that he is sucking off the teat of an heir to a multi-billion-dollar real estate fortune.
The level of corruption here is so staggering, I’m having difficulty wrapping my brain around it. For all my work on Leonard Leo—another Crow crony; “Crow-ny,” if you will—I am frankly stunned at the egregiousness of the graft. It calls into question the very legitimacy of the Supreme Court. From the looks of things, SCOTUS has not just been captured; it is owned.
Dark Enlightenment, Part One: The Cathedral & the Red Caesar
The first of a two-part series on the neo-reactionary fringe: the dissidents of the New Right, America’s ascendant antidemocratic political movement.
November 28, 2023
Conservative politics is not just for Evangelical Christians, anti-abortion crusaders, tax-averse libertarians, Q crazies, and MAGA cultists. There has emerged a New Right: young, smart, edgy, urbane—even hip. Its political philosophy is coherent and compelling. Its religion of choice, if it has one, is Catholicism. It operates in large cities like Washington, Miami, and New York. Its thought leaders are high-minded, well-read intellectuals. Known as the neo-reactionary fringe—NRx for short—its radical, antidemocratic ideas have seeped into the Republican mainstream.
Welcome to the Dark Enlightenment.
The Revelation of Mike Johnson the Speaker
Do we really want a Christian nationalist who truly believes that the Rapture is imminent determining our policy in the Middle East?
October 1, 2023
The first time Mike Johnson spoke after his unlikely election as Speaker of the House, he had this to say: “I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you. All of us. And I believe God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment and this time. This is my belief.” Later, he participated in a prayer circle, right there in the House chamber.
I don’t object to any of that. For an inexperienced, obscure weirdo to attribute his sudden ascension to the Will of God is hardly some fanatical Christian Nationalist concept. It’s no different, fundamentally, than saying, “The Universe wanted me to have this job,” or “Fate brought me here today.” Nor should we be giving Johnson shit for using a quiet break in the Congressional business to give thanks and praise to the Almighty. Humility is a positive trait in a politician.
The danger here is that Mike Johnson, as best as I can tell, believes his election as Speaker is part of some eschatological master plan to hasten the Rapture. That he took the gavel just as war was breaking out in Israel would only strengthen that belief, as I will explain shortly—if he genuinely holds that view. Does he? And if he does, what does that portend for the rest of us?
Jared Unplugged
Takeaways from Lex Fridman’s interview with Jared Kushner
October 17, 2023
Earlier this month, Jared Kushner sat down for two interviews with the podcaster Lex Fridman—one before, and one after, the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel. The subsequent podcast episode—which includes both interviews, the more recent one first—dropped last week. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the most extensive media interview Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor has given since leaving the White House, if not ever. It’s almost four hours long. The transcript runs to 43,000 words—the length of a short novel.
The Ballad of Bob & Nadine
Senator & Mrs. Menendez are under indictment for serious crimes. For the good of the country and the Democratic Party, he must resign.
September 26, 2023
Last week, U.S. Senator Robert “Bob” Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and, until Friday, longtime chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was indicted by the Southern District of New York on bribery charges: one count of conspiracy to commit bribery, one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.
If those charges sound serious, that’s because they are. Taken together, they carry a maximum penalty of 45 years in prison. Menendez is almost 70. If convicted, he may well spend the rest of his life behind bars. And if the allegations are true—which, spoiler alert, they almost certainly are—he abused his considerable power for his and his wife’s own personal gain, selling out to a foreign nation, and making all of us Americans less safe in the process. Go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect a hundred grand in gold bars.
The indictment is damning.
Revisiting Trump's Pardons
FPOTUS freed loyalists, cronies, fraudsters, corrupt Republican politicians, and co-conspirators.
July 11, 2023
On January 19, 2021, the last full day of his presidency, Donald John Trump issued a flurry of pardons. Among the beneficiaries was Ken Kurson, a writer, editor, political consultant, and former punk musician.
As pardon material, Kurson was an unusual choice. Typically, individuals who receive pardons distinguish themselves by putting their life of crime behind them, by expressing remorse, by giving back to the community, by visibly changing their lives for the better. These are supposed to be redemption stories. There’s usually some well-placed senator, governor, or House representative lobbying for the pardon. Sometimes they’ve already served a big chunk of their prison term; sometimes they’ve already been out of jail for years.
Kurson was none of those things. He was under indictment for cyberstalking and harassment. The arrest warrant summarizes the nasty, vindictive behavior:
FBI Special Agents obtained information indicating that KURSON had used the mail, interactive computer services, electronic communication services, electronic communication systems of interstate commerce and other facilities of interstate commerce to stalk and harass Individual No. 1, Individual No. 2 and Individual No. 3 (collectively, the “Victims”) between approximately November 2015 and December 2015. . . . [D]uring this time period, KURSON was engaged in divorce proceedings and blamed Individual No. 1, among others, for the dissolution of his marriage. As a result, beginning in or about November 2015, KURSON threatened to ruin Individual No. 1’s reputation and engaged in a pattern of stalking and harassment against Individual No. 1.
(You can read more about the unpleasant details of the case here.)
There was no respected elder statesman sponsoring the push to Free Kurson. His case hadn’t even gone to trial when he scored the pardon, so his victims were denied their day in court. And he was unlikely to get off. The FBI had him dead to rights.
But Kurson had an ace in the hole: he was close friends with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.
Leonard Leo: Man in the Middle, Part I
He’s one of the most powerful individuals in the country. His spiderweb of connections is extensive. But most Americans, including many working in Washington, have never heard of him.
June 27, 2023
Occupying the center of an intricate web of political, legal, religious, and business connections, Leonard Leo is the quintessential Man in the Middle, a veritable dark-money spider. Like a spider, he is patient, painstaking, relentless, and much more powerful that he appears. And like a spider, he prefers to stay hidden.
I first wrote about him in February 2021, in a piece called “Leo the Cancer.” Leo, who I described as “a dandier George Constanza, or if The Penguin worked at Jones Day,” has, I explained,
made himself one of the most powerful figures in the United States. He’s put five—count ‘em, five!—justices on the Supreme Court: Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Sam Alito, and John Roberts. A sixth, Clarence Thomas, is one of his closest friends. And, perhaps most impressively, he quietly led the 2016 crusade to deny Merrick Garland a hearing, when Barack Obama nominated the highly-regarded jurist to replace the late Antonin Scalia (another of Leo’s pals). In the lower courts, he’s been even busier. He’s installed so many judges on so many courts, it makes you wonder if he really is the instrument of God’s will he believes himself to be. I mean, there are only three branches of government. One of those three—arguably the most important one—is Leonard Leo’s domain.
When I began researching that piece, I didn’t know much about the guy beyond his silly, comic-book-villain name. I was surprised to discover that he was, like me, a middle-class product of Catholic upbringing and Italian descent who graduated from a public high school in New Jersey—not at all the well-heeled, oenophilic Master of the Universe he has become. He’s also much younger than I expected; born in 1965, he’s solidly Gen X—only seven years older than Yours Truly.
Yet Leonard Leo, somehow, is the individual most responsible for stripping away federal abortion rights. (The anniversary of the odious Dobbs decision was this past weekend.) As his admiring chum Ed Wheelan presciently wrote in 2016, “No one has been more dedicated to the enterprise of building a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade than the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo.”
The Dark Seid
There’s a new Pope Leo. He owns the Supreme Court. And now, he has more money than God.
May 19, 2023
The horror of the 91-year-old reclusive billionaire Barre Seid—his name rhymes with “parricide”—bequeathing $1.6 billion of his vast fortune to radical Catholic forced birth activist and Supreme Court fixer Leonard Leo did not hit home for me until this week, when I read Nina Burleigh’s article in the New Republic. Her must-read piece is titled “Who Is Leonard Leo’s New Dark Money King?,” but the question I found myself asking after finishing it was: How can democracy possibly survive this?
Three Years of Plague
Over a million Americans are dead of covid-19. Where is the outrage?
January 24, 2023
Three years ago today, the Centers for Disease Control confirmed a second travel-related infection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the United States, this time in Illinois.
The Illinois case was the epidemiological equivalent of the second airplane hitting the World Trade Center. It meant that the first U.S. infection, reported in Washington state four days earlier, was not an isolated incident. It meant that the virus—which WHO would not dub “covid-19” for another month—had come to stay.
It meant that the pandemic was here.
Photo credits can be found on the original pages.
I’ve enjoyed all your writing this year. So glad I found you on substack after I left Twitter. The five eight has become our Friday night routine. Thanks for everything.
LOVE the year-end review! For my money, your deep dive into Mike Johnson's "ambitions" still ranks at the top. The others were excellent; Leonard Leo, Red Caesar, etc., but the Mike Johnson column distills it into one. All of the freaky weirdos that are looking for not only the Rapture, and the United States of Gilead in the meantime, seem to be personified in Mike Johnson. It's all right there!
GREAT year of writing, and I suspect 2024 is already writing itself. Substack is one of the few places left, IMO, that a person can get good analysis of what's going on in the world without having to RESORT (because that's what it's become) to the MSM. I will be here for it! Happy New Year, Greg!