This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

It’s actually predictable. It’s one of the five stages of grief. If you’ve ever worked for a tyrant before, you know what I mean. A boss who vents on the employees and then, here you come to show the boss the new COD list, and YOU get fired. It’s got to be somebody’s fault, right? Would Pam Bondi have been fired if all had gone well in Iran?

Admittedly, the old boy probably isn’t appreciably happy with Bondi. But since when is competence a necessary requirement for continued employment in the Trump administration? I mean, if we’re talking about cases, it would be time to clean house. Trump is about trust and cover. Insiders and outsiders. Mr. Trump has tried (until recently) to keep the old guard solid. Bondi did something or is perceived to have done something. And ever since the boss hit the office, he’s had blood in his eyes and been in the mood to take heads.

That Bondi leaked information to Eric Swalwell, sounds too made up for Washington. And not prosecuting Trump’s enemies vigorously or successfully enough. She’s not a miracle worker. Trump knows these cases are basically smoke and bullshit, and 99% of the punishment is in taking them to court. So fired for not winning enough seems far-fetched. Who is to say that some other scum-sucking, cultish type loyal to the throne would have done any better?

No, this isn’t about what Pam Bondi did. This is about what Donald Trump did and now regrets. A coiled spring waiting to pop. First, Noem pissed Trump off. Imagine you’re the boss for a moment and Kristi Noem was your employee? I’d say Mr. Trump has been tolerant and or stupid, and or poorly informed. Or Noem would have been gone much sooner. Now, remember, you’re the boss and you just solved a problem and eliminated the source of the trouble. And it felt good to you; you haven’t done this in a long time.

Perhaps Bondi said or did something to irk Trump big time, and perhaps she spoke out of turn or pointed out reality once too often. But if Iran had gone as well as Venezuela, would Bondi be unemployed right now? When Mr. Trump fires you in a tweet and announces you’re going to a big cushy (yet to be determined) job in private practice. That’s personal. That’s Trump twisting the knife, saying, “Forget about a cushy make-work job in government.” Next stop, private practice! Trump gave Kristi Noem a job as his personal representative to polyester or something, but Bondi gets a cardboard box and fifteen minutes to clean out her office. Bondi must have done something, or Trump thinks she did something. As the conspirators begin to circle and turn on each other.

Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan. What we are witnessing is historic and unpleasant. Richard Nixon drunk and staggering through the White house bottle of whiskey in his hand. In his underwear, talking to the presidential portraits on the wall. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Clean up on aisle four! Mr. Trump knows it’s all over for his presidency. The apogee has been reached. The titanic clash between Mr. Trump’s ego and his narcissism. As reality comes crashing through like thunder on Trump’s dream theater.

But it wasn’t just Pam Bondi given the old heave ho, hoe. Popgun Pete Hegseth also cashiered a half-dozen generals at the Pentagon. Of course we’re winning! We’re winning so much that we’re firing the architects of our victory and the generals responsible. I suspect they were fired either because they had encouraged Mr. Trump on the Iran campaign or because they had tried to discourage him about Iran. Fired for being wrong or fired for being right. Fired for being right, because the boss was wrong. You tried to warn the boss, and now all that you have prophesied has come true. You, become the object of his fury and the permanent reminder of a sore-thumb situation. The boss can’t get rid of the sore thumb, so he gets rid of the reminder.

Mr. Trump has reached his boiling point and is lashing out. The despondent dictator facing down defeat and clears the room of all the whores and harlequins, harlots and hangers-on. All alone now on the threshold of eternity, fading in and out of reality. I’ve heard a lot of dementia patients suffer with anger issues living inside a degenerating brain. Knowing that something in the brain isn’t working right. But being unable to figure it out because the brain isn’t working right.

Mr. Trump’s speech the other night, was it me? Or did Mr. Trump seem chemically augmented? He talked slower and seemed more subdued than normal. Like he was on tranquilizers, and that could equally explain why he failed to make a point in the speech. The administration told the networks they had big news about Iran and delivered bupkis. That’s a first. Either the administration had something to say, and Mr. Trump failed to say it. Or Mr. Trump had nothing to say, but wanted to say it on TV. Maybe, he thought, if he explained it to us just one more time.

We’ve been through denial, anger and bargaining. Now we move on to depression, and then finally acceptance. We’re talking a Macbeth level Shakespearean tragedy here. Trump navigating the five stages of grief hourly, and Bondi caught him on anger. The boss was on the warpath, and she didn’t get out of the way fast enough. Or…perhaps, Bondi was torpedoed by one of her rivals in a substantial subliminal criticism campaign.

There is one well-known side effect of firings on an organization. It is one of the best-known ways to stifle all initiative and communication. Nobody will make the smallest decision without the bosse’s endorsement. You could get canned for asking a question like that! Shut up! You’ll set him off!

In the early days of the Third Reich, when all went well. The Fuhrer was considered a genius. His generals were all brilliant tacticians. But when the situation turned, and it became clear the Fuhrer wasn’t a genius. Then it became all the generals’ fault. The Fuhrer was still a genius, only now, those same generals weren’t following his orders correctly. And the Fuhrer began to fire them. So you see? It’s actually predictable. The Fuhrer wrote in his last will and testament, how the German people had failed him. It wasn’t his fault; it was predictable.

“At headquarters, where everyone lived under the tremendous pressure of responsibility, probably nothing was more welcome than a dictate from above. That meant being freed of a decision and simultaneously being provided with an excuse for failure.”
― Albert Speer,

“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”
― George Orwell,