Run, Susie, Run

There’s a moment in every Trump story when the camera pulls back and you realize the person standing by his side, all rictus grins and extended thumbs, knew better. They weren’t some Twitter troll or Adderall-fried Telegram anon or a Facebook uncle who thinks JFK Jr. is alive and well thanks to secret MedBed technology.

They were a pro. They had a résumé. They understood the game, the stakes, and the damage. And they did it anyway.

It takes sane people to run a White House, even one as evil and shambolic as the Trump White House, and they do it for a combination of three reasons. Power itself, that delicious drug, is often the first to blame, and rightly so. The White House Chief of Staff is the pinnacle of the slippery pyramid of unelected politics.

After power comes the beautiful life that being a former Chief of Staff unveils: absurdly lucrative lobbying contracts, a lifetime of paid corporate board assignments, speaking gigs, university sinecures, and cable news contributor contracts. Finally, a small few have their own agenda or loyalty to the principal, but that is rare.

Which brings us to Susie Wiles.

For a long time, the myth around Wiles was that she was the adult in the room. The “normie.” The one in sensible shoes and a blazer, not a gold lamé tracksuit, pneumatic lips, store-bought boobs, and high hair.

In a White House and campaign orbit stacked with cranks, weirdos, crypto, neo, and old-school fascists, dark-web racists, and people who eat roadkill and believe alchemy was the pinnacle of medical science, she was supposed to be the professional political operative. The Florida hand (and pound for pound, we produce more top political operators than any other state) who had worked with governors and senators, knew county chairs by name, and could get the trains to run on time while the rest of the circus screamed about harvesting adrenochrome.

She was the Trump Whisperer. She was powerful.

Now, she’s becoming the target. Not of hapless Democrats or supine media.

She’s becoming the target of MAGA.

Run, Susie, run...