Irritable President Syndrome

If your opponent is of choleric temper,
seek to irritate him. 
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

You never know what kind of crap will be produced by a bad case of irritable president syndrome (IPS), but in this current bout, most of it is splattering on the First Amendment. The prickliest president in the history of United States presidents will bear no criticism. The most humorless person ever to live in the White House will not be the subject of anyone’s jokes. Don’t let the burnt-pumpkin sheen fool you; that skin is rice-paper thin.

Ads from The Lincoln Project have consistently penetrated to the fragile ego of President Choleric Temper, and it seems that Gavin Newsom and his social media team get it as well.¹ Their parodies of Trump’s social media posts mimic Trump in style and demeanor and have gained the attention of right-wing media. The tone-deaf reactions of Fox News hosts characterizing Newsom’s posts as immature and undignified are a testament to the power of mockery. Newsom had Dana Perino imagining herself as his wife:

“You have to stop it with the Twitter thing. I don’t know where his wife is. If I were his wife I would say, ‘You are making a fool of yourself, stop it!’”

“I’m so glad she’s not my wife,” said all of the men watching The Five that day.

Poor Tomi Lahren couldn’t help but think of Gavin Newsom peeing, which kind of confirmed some theories I had about her:

“Gavin and his team of beta males who sit down to pee actually think they’re trolling the president and actually think this is making Gavin look like a badass.”

So there you have it ladies: Tomi Lahren has no respect for anyone who sits down to pee. If she were saying these things from the left, Elon Musk’s X would be a solid wall of claims that Lahren is a man.

I spoke at a Constitution Day event in Grand Forks, North Dakota on Wednesday. In my remarks, I characterized the abduction and imprisoning of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey, as the most egregious violation of the First Amendment in my lifetime. She was snatched—I refuse to characterize it as an arrest—by masked agents and jailed in Louisiana because of an op-ed she had contributed to in the university newspaper. That op-ed criticized the university for failing to acknowledge the Palestinian genocide and for not divesting from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel. It was the kind of measured, reference-laced rebuke one would expect from a bunch of graduate students. The Trump administration, however, felt that the op-ed was not politically correct, and they could not think of anything that might constrain them from jailing a student for the crime of disagreeing with the U.S. Government.

On Thursday morning, I woke up to news that ABC had canceled Jimmy Kimmel’s show because he had angered the same fragile snowflakes with remarks that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr characterized as “truly sick.” Carr has threatened revocation of broadcast licenses as a tool to quash dissenting voices. Here is what had made Carr so queasy:

Jimmy Kimmel:

“Meanwhile, many in Maga-land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk. . . . The president and his henchmen are doing their best to fan the flames, so they can I guess attack people on the dangerous left.”

And:

“The MAGA Gang is desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

Here is JD Vance grieving:

“While our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies, it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far left.”

Of course, “alternative fact” and “statistical fact” are interchangeable for Vance, who doesn’t get enough credit for his shameless dissembling, probably because he works in the shadow of the pants-on-fire master.

Speaking of whom, here is Donald Trump grieving:

Recorded Statement on September 10th:

“Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”

Getting on Marine One one September 14th:

“Well, the problem is on the left. When you look at the problems, the problem is on the left. It's not on the right, like some people like to say on the right. The problem we have is on the left. And when you look at the agitators, uh, the -- the -- you look at the -- the scum that speaks so badly of our country.”

Fanning the flames? Check. Finger-pointing? Check. Capitalizing on a murder for political gain? Check. Jimmy Kimmel was right.

While no one was thrown in a jail cell, the use of government power to force ideological correctness from broadcasters was an even more brazen attack on the First Amendment than the imprisonment of a doctoral candidate. So, I have a new most egregious attack on the First Amendment in my lifetime.

This case of irritable president syndrome has infected the entire administration. At the Pentagon, reporters have been told they can enjoy their freedom of the press by reporting only what has been approved for release by DoD officials. The White House press briefing room has been stacked with shamelessly fawning fans of the President. The Trump administration has made clear that they will bring the power of regulatory agencies to bear in order to keep the airwaves free of dissent and keep Trump’s IPS under control so worse things than ketchup aren’t splattered around the White House.

That would be truly sick.