D.C. Insane
By Bess Levin
Nuking the Hurricane Impeaching
Donald Trump is a bizarre
and strangely familiar nightmare
T
hrowing a hissy fit when he
was told he couldn’t buy
another country. Declaring
himself “the chosen one.” Flashing a
thumbs-up sign while posing for photos
with an infant whose parents had
just been murdered. Claiming that the
sound windmills emit causes cancer.
Feuding with John McCain well
after the late senator died. Proposing
the Department of Homeland Security
start nuking hurricanes. Uninviting
the president of Mexico from the
White House for not financing the wall.
Threatening to sic ISIS fighters on
Europe. Claiming that Melania and Kim
Jong Un had “gotten to know” each
other despite the fact that they’d never
met or spoken. Getting mad at
Puerto Rico for not moving the island
to avoid another hurricane. Getting
mad at Alabama for not being hit by
a hurricane. Promoting a conspiracy
weepy Eric shouted “We love you Dad!”
as the elevator doors shut. No one
expects him to make any sense; tweets
that border on the comprehensible are
assumed to be ghostwritten by staff.
He denies things that he said in public,
on camera. He can’t reach the end of
a single sentence without a non sequitur
about how he would have won the
popular election if not for voter fraud, or
some incoherent rant about late-night
hosts. Once, he said he invented the
phrase “prime the pump.” He thinks an
apostrophe is a hyphen. Conversations
about his mental afflictions are openly
discussed, though it’s clear to most
people that it will require decades of
intense research by a team of Swiss
theory that the Clintons had Jeffrey
Epstein killed. Claiming Democrats
support the kind of late-term abortions
that involve executing babies shortly
after they’re born. Making aides get
a cost estimate for building a wall-
adjacent trench and filling it with snakes
and alligators. Suggesting the Federal
Election Commission investigate
if Saturday Night Live was colluding
with Russia. Every single comment at
every single rally he’s ever held.
Ninety-seven percent of his tweets.
Donald Trump has said and done
a lot of things over the last 34 months
that, were he not president of the
United States, would have undoubtedly
resulted in a van pulling up outside
Trump Tower and a team of orderlies
dragging him from his office as he
screamed “WHERE ARE YOU
TAKING ME?! WHO SENT YOU?!
FAKE NEWS! COVFEFE!” while a
CHAOS AGENTS
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky,
Trump, Representative Adam Schiff, Hunter
Biden, and former vice president Joe Biden.
58 PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE THOMPSON
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS
/AFP (TRANSCRIPT, RIGHT), WILLIAM THOMAS
CAIN (JOE BIDEN), JAIME GLASSER/
EYEEM (CAPITOL), PAVLO GONCHAR/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET (ZELENSKY), ANDREW
HARRER/BLOOMBERG (SCHIFF),
CHRIS KLEPONIS/CNP/BLOOMBERG
(TRUMP), PAUL MORIGI (HUNTER
BIDEN), ALEX WONG (TRANSCRIPT, LEFT), ALL FROM GETTY IMAGES