Washed Up in Washington
Senior Citizens Against Trump Take to MySpace!
My mom has been upset lately.
She called, gasping, “He’s got a chainsaw!”, and I thought someone was in her house - for real. Of course, she meant Elon Musk. The call closed with her warning: “Next election the Democrats are going to use this in every ad.” I reassured her: “So will the Republicans.” Then she wanted to know how they will free all the poor people trapped in bathrooms at Yosemite. I told her, “Like you do, by calling a locksmith.” Next up was the Zelninskyy/Trump flip-out.
That one unnerved me too, so I figured, if I had the time to be upset about it, then I have the time to understand why I’m upset. It’s a fine wine, with notes of celebrity, corruption, and narcissism. I cannot fault either Trump or Zelenskyy for advocating precisely what it is they stand for. What they were both guilty of is adjudicating the matter in public. However, the outcome was predictable, and for that, Zelenskyy did more harm than good to his cause - he could have seen this coming more than a deer on the Florida turnpike.
We’ll get there fast and then we’ll take it slow, that’s where I’m gonna go (right after I publish this), on down to Kokomo…
Let’s start with Zelenskyy. From 1998 to 2008 he starred in a Russian language slapstick television show akin to Benny Hill or America’s Got Talent called KVN (Club of Funny and Inventive People) which featured gags like men playing piano with their peters.
He graduated from pratfalls to leading man, starring in a handful of Ukrainian Rom-Coms, culminating is his most notable role as the Ukrainian voiceover for Paddington (2014) and Paddington 2 (2017). Show business is obviously full of ardent Republicans - you know, like Ronald Reagan, James Woods and Chuck Norris. But, throw a rock in Hollywood and it’s far more likely to hit Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Katie Couric, Richard Gere, John Oliver, Harrison Ford, Scarlett Johansson, Julia Roberts, LeBron James, Jennifer Aniston, Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sara Jessica Parker, Eminem, Andy Cohen, Cher, Anne Hathaway, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Sally Field, Ben Stiller, or John Legend than Kid Rock. All of them, and too many more to mention, campaigned for Kamala Harris. So incestuous is the love between them that DEADLINE, from whence I sourced the list, mentioned Bill and Hillary Clinton as among the celebrities who endorsed Kamala.
Zelenskyy and wife also took time out of their schedule rebuffing Russian aggression to bathe themselves in haute couture finery for an Annie Leibovitz cover splash in Vogue magazine, an appearance that came sandwiched right between Jill Biden’s two appearances. She was the first president’s wife to see the newsstands twice in one term while Melania Trump was the only president’s wife ever to be snubbed by the magazine. How very Hollywood of them all. In an extra sanctimonious dig, the magazine ran the headline: “A FIRST LADY FOR US ALL.” So clever.
Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya. Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama. Down to Kokomo. That’s where I wanna go.
Stay focused. You got this.
Zelenskyy found some more time, working around the war effort and Vogue, to pay an “emergency” visit, read “campaign stop,” to Kamala Harris during which he generously presented himself for media friendly photo ops. Below Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) can be seen attesting his fondness of war, by signing bombs to be dropped on Russians, while President Zenenskyy smiles on. Dateline: Pennsylvania Sep 23, 2024. That’s right in the home stretch, and in a precisely targeted swing state. Coincidences don’t happen in theater or politics, and Trump is nothing if not competitive, so of course there is more bad blood between him and Zelenskyy than between Theranos and investors.
The only thing cozier than the relationship between Zelenskyy and Hollywood is the one between Joe Biden and the Ukraine. His son worked there while he was Vice President, serving as a board member of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in the world. Burisma’s management structure at the time was, of course, crawling with Ukrainian government officials, and the company was facing a number of serious corruption charges from global authorities. Again, this was while dad was VP under Obama. Timeline below:
Feb 20, 2014: RUSSIA INVADED CRIMEA
Mar 11, 2014: OBAMA APPOINTED BIDEN TO LOOK AFTER THE MATTER
Apr 13, 2014: DEVON ARCHER MET JOE BIDEN IN WHITE HOUSE
Apr 15, 2014: BURISMA BOARD APPOINTED DEVON ARCHER
Apr 15, 2014: BURISMA BOARD APPOINTED HUNTER BIDEN
Apr 16, 2014: UK LAUNCHED INVESTIGATION INTO BURISMA
Apr 22, 2014: JOE BIDEN VISITED UKRAINE
Jan 20, 2015: UK SHUT DOWN BURISMA INVESTIGATION
Aug 05, 2015: UKRAINE LAUNCHED INVESTIGATION INTO BURISMA
Nov 06, 2015: HUNTER MET OBAMA OFFICIAL AMOS HOCHSTEIN RE: BURISMA
Nov 11, 2015: AMOS HOCHSTEIN MET JOE BIDEN IN WEST WING
Nov 13, 2015: JOE BIDEN VISITED UKRAINE
Dec 07, 2015: JOE BIDEN DEMANDED UKRAINE REMOVE BURISMA PROSECUTOR
Feb 04, 2016: BURISMA GAVE HUNTER AN UNSPECIFIED BIRTHDAY GIFT
Feb 16, 2016: UKRAINE PRESIDENT ASKED BURISMA PROSECUTOR TO RESIGN
Feb 19, 2016: BURISMA PROSECUTOR RESIGNED
Jan 10, 2017: BIDEN VISITED UKRAINE 10 DAYS BEFORE INAUGURATION
Jan 20, 2017: DONALD TRUMP TOOK OFFICE
Mar 19, 2017: BURISMA CUT HUNTER’S PAY 50%
Apr 30, 2019: HUNTER RESIGNED FROM BURISMA BOARD
May 18, 2019: BIDEN ANNOUNCED CANDIDACY FOR PRESIDENT
Hunter and an associate, his “best friend” Devon Archer, earned $3.4 million during their time on the board. A registered lobbyist before this gig, and a member of the Washington D.C. bar, he had neither standing to practice law in Ukraine nor any previous experience in the natural gas industry. His mental and physical state during that timeframe were, to put it politely, questionable (he was expelled from the Navy for failing a drug test, named in the Ashley Madison data breach, went to rehab but pulled a runner, crashed a car, left pipes and drugs in it, got a divorce, started dating his brother’s widow, forgot his laptop at the repair shop, knocked up a stripper…). Honestly, his best defense would be that he couldn’t have possibly orchestrated any influence.
The only thing harder than quitting drugs is cutting back your lifestyle. I should know. I’ve done both - twice. That’s why everybody keeps working at jobs they’ve grown tired of well past the point at which they could comfortably retire - because they care to live more than comfortably - and Ukraine had a pretty comfortable lifestyle in the form of war support coming from the US before Trump.
The US was paying 6% more than the sum of all Europe when it’s a fact, not conjecture, that Russia poses much more of a threat to them than to us. Also American money came in the form a gift, while European money came in the form of loan - ones that were underwritten by US guarantees. This sweetheart deal suggests Zelenskyy, who ran on a campaign of rooting out corruption, might have some leverage on Biden, and the facts suggest that it falls somewhere between possible and probable that he did. Even if he didn’t, this — unmatched foreign transfers payments as such — falls precisely in the crosshairs of what Trump campaigned against.
Before the infamous meltdown heard around Cable News Network, a new deal was stuck, in which the US gets something - rare earth minerals - in trade for the money. Zelenskyy, who himself confesses the war would be over in 3 weeks without the US, then scheduled a personal appearance before the cameras to sign, presuming President Trump would oblige, which he did. Zelenskyy showed up in designer cashmere combat fatigues. The meeting started with Trump saying he had talked to Putin and “We’re going to try and bring this to a close.” He added, “It’s something that you want and that he wants,” without gaining Zelenskyy’s disapproval. However, when Zelenskyy started talking, things started heating up.
What suggested to me that there was more backstory here than just business as usual - i.e. Trump being Trump - was that the straight man, JD Vance, went crazy before the crazy man. The meeting lasted 40 minutes before things unraveled in the final 7 minutes. Preceding that, Zelenskyy did 40% of the talking (based on transcript word count) and hammered at this theme: “it’s very important” to “continue it,” (US giving them money). Several times he presumed the US “will not stop support.” Trump, meanwhile, kept on message, too, saying - “Yeah, sure,” we will provide arms, but “hopefully I won’t have to send very much because hopefully we’re going to have it finished - we’re looking forward to finishing this quickly.”
The wheels came off when Zelenskyy said, “We can’t just speak about ceasefire and speak and speak. It will not work,” before huffing that Putin has “25 times broken cease fire.” Trump’s answer: “He never broke it to me.” Probably not the way to ask people who don’t like you, who you campaigned against, who themselves campaigned on an America First platform, for some more free money, for a war that they are convinced only exists at all because of shady arrangements between Biden and your government (because that gave Putin the open door to do this in the first place). I’m just saying.
Conclusion: Zelenskyy heard what he needed to hear, in a place that he shouldn’t have heard it, because that’s where he put the conversation. If the customer is always right, then he did a terrible sales job, and JD Vance was right:
Mr. President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.
One thing I told my mom, a lesson I learned during Trump 1.0, is never to get fussed about anything he does, because in 5 minutes, he will have done something more outrageous, and the news cycle will have moved on. I was right about that, by the time I could collect my thoughts, all attention had turned to the Democrats’ shambolic State of the Union revolt. You know they must be in trouble when NPR runs an exasperated headlines about their flock being lost in the wilderness.
Proof that Trump is a cultural phenomenon who, like a hermit crab occupying a snail shell, yanked the Republican Party infrastructure from its cold, dead hands and used it to obliterate the opposing zombies, Democrats now are trying to go head-to-head with Trump and Musk in social media. It’s almost too desperate a ploy even to discuss.
Trump had more Twitter followers than Justin Timberlake before most of the Senate even knew there was some newfangled the kids were using like Facebook where they could perhaps marshal some votes. He currently has more followers than the sum of the entire Democratic Party. His side kick is the guy who invented meme-stocks, who owns Twitter, and who makes a hobby of casually gaining the entire world’s attention: “Let that sink in.” So the shouting and petulant teenager spitball games to protest the State of the Union are not working and will not work. No, they will not upstage those two at outrageousness and engagement. Next.
Actually, not next. There is no next. That’s because they’re too old and too long a protected to know what better to do, thus they keep repeating the same strategies and same messages that are not working: we hate Russia; we love Ukraine; we hate Musk; we love bureaucracy; we hate Trump; we love transgenders… Most of their voters don’t even support the latter agenda, particularly those with daughters. It’s all evidence of their disconnection from society, obliviousness to modernity, and unfamiliarity with competition. Even NPR, with the help of Sheryl Crow’s money, cannot help them win this crusade.
The average age of an American citizen is 38.7. The average age of a Senator is 65.3. Trump might be old, too, but he knows how to Tweet, and that makes him an anomaly. The rest of them are too old of dogs to learn new tricks, the result of which is “cringe.” While they do their practice, I ask, please, stop scaring the old folks. Because that’s all they’re reaching. My mom will appreciate it. So will I.
Key Largo, Montego. Baby, why don't we go? Ooh, I wanna take you down to Kokomo. That’s where I’m gonna go… now that I’m done with the Zelenskyy show…
Christian, this is a most brilliant assessment of the latest Ukraine kerfluffle in the Oval Office - and in the context of all the crazy shit going back to 2015. It explains a lot about the current state of affairs as President Z comes around to reality under Trump.
Let us know when you’ve established on Twitter (not X - am I old?)