Barbarians Sack the Capital.
Three days ago, on Saturday, without required notice to local officials or a judge, crews rushed to cut down hundreds of mature trees at the East Potomac Park public golf course in Washington DC. The idea is to convert a much-loved, affordable community asset into a Mar-a-Lago style garishly elite facility. Donald Trump will be gone before this fantasy can be realized. Meanwhile the trees are gone for good. (Photo Aaron Schwartz/Getty. Other photos Deborah and James Fallows.)
Did this weekend’s pillage of one of Washington DC’s civic treasures, the very low-cost, open-to-all golf links at East Potomac Park, also known as Hains Point, constitute an impeachable offense?
Who knows. It’s probably in the same category as Donald Trump’s sudden demolition of the East Wing of the White House, and his plastering his name on the Kennedy Center and other institutions. We’ll get back to Hains Point and why its desecration is felt so deeply by people who live here.
But for Time Capsule purposes, here’s a day-by-day summary of recent events, some of which may be impeachable and all of which would be inconceivable in any other era.
October 2, Friday, ‘Super Intelligence.’ A Trump executive order requires all federal agencies to stop using the universally recognized terms “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in communications, and instead only to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI.” Six days later, on October 8, Trump formally declared, via Truth Social rant, that anyone still using “AI” would officially be considered “THE ENEMY” and presumably subject to prosecution for treason. Even before then, Elon Musk and the heads of Microsoft, Nvidia, Salesforce, and other tech firms said they would capitulate by using this preposterous new lingo.
October 3, Saturday, “New America.” Trump releases a “complete and total endorsement” video for a GOP House candidate in New Mexico. Trump’s opening words of the message are “Hello New America, formerly known as New Mexico.” This follows Trump’s orders that official government maps must change the names of Lake Ontario, the Gulf of Mexico, and so many other places and things. It would be one week later, on October 10, that Trump “joked” with a rally crowd that either the Atlantic or the Pacific should be renamed “Trump Ocean.”
Impeachable? Probably not. Signs of mental disorder? Certainly so.October 4, Sunday, a slow news day. Trump confines himself to posting that Fox News could go out of business if it keeps airing people who criticize him, and not covering him enough.
He also declares that leaders in Iran were failing because they had “played their cards too tough.” Again not impeachable in itself, but suggesting a wild disconnect from reality.October 5, Monday, “Let ‘em take out Los Angeles, let ‘em take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay.” These were lines from Trump’s notorious rally speech in Grand Island, Nebraska.
Over the next few days, some press reports and all Trump officials would try to sane-wash the remarks: “Of course, what the president meant to say was that Iran would threaten cities like this, which is why he’s been so wise in containing the Iranian menace…” But in real time, Trump chose not to say “Let ‘em take out Kansas City, let ‘em take out Omaha”—he was, after all, speaking in Nebraska—and he seemed to gain energy as the crowd came to life with his mention of two blue-state cities.
In a press gaggle the very next day, October 6, Trump declined to walk back, “clarify,” or moderate the “take out” comments. And the day after that, on October 7, he repeated the Los Angeles and San Diego line to a cheering crowd in San Antonio.
Treasonous? Maybe. Unmatched in US history? Certainly so.October 6, Tuesday, Love Me ads. At taxpayer expense of more than $10 million, Team Trump has been running a series of appalling and self-glorifying ads, including one during NFL games with the repeated background phrase “Love Me…” Not a sign of mental health. JMSN, the artist whose “Love Me” song ran in the ad, protested its use.
In response to legal pressures, on October 6, Trump said that these “patriotic” ads would shift to campaign funding. But they stayed on the air, and stayed at taxpayer expense. Five days later, on October 11, a federal judge would order that the ads, which were still running, must cease. Only yesterday, October 12, did Team MAGA announce that future ads would be campaign-funded. But they refused to repay the millions taxpayers had already spent.October 7, Wednesday, Nobel prizes. Announcement week has kicked off for the Nobel prizes. Trump begins his weeklong grievance campaign, especially on the theme that no one deserves the Peace Prize more than he does. That is because he has “settled eight wars.”
On this same day, at a rally in Texas, Trump throws a glass of water onto the stage floor, to demonstrate the triviality of environmental regulations. Media coverage of the rants persists in calling them “meandering” and “off-script,” as opposed to demonstrably insane.October 8, Thursday, a relatively slow news day, with no possibly impeachable developments.
A highlight comes in the afternoon, when Donald Trump gives the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk and other tech titans who have done his bidding. (Namely: Google’s Sergey Brin, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and AMD’s Lisa Su along with Musk for the Science medal, and Michael Dell and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella for the Technology medal.) Trump then accepts the National Medal of Science once earned by his late uncle (the one he always refers to as the genius from MIT), which seems a pre-balm ahead of his likely disappointment with the Nobels.
October 9, Friday, a very busy news day: Buying diesel from the Russians. Life-streaming an execution. Antitrust war on the media. And more grievance about the Nobels.
-Contrary to sanctions legislation, Trump announces new purchases of diesel fuel from Putin’s Russia (which will certainly arrive too late and be too skimpy to make any difference in US diesel prices). He also openly aligns with Putin in the Ukraine war.
-The ineffable Pete Hegseth announces plans to live-stream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood murderer who is now confined to a wheel chair.
-Trump’s “Justice” department announces possible anti-trust investigations against major news networks, based on their “collaboration” in standing up against Trump’s strictures on the White House press corps.
-And Trump erupts when the Nobel Peace Prize goes to someone other than him, saying that the decision is a “stain” on Norway, and “We will not forget, Norway, that you didn’t give [me] this prize.”
Impeachable? The diesel deal and antitrust threats against the press, probably so. The live-streamed execution is a mark of barbarism. The Nobel rant, which in the following days intensified, is about the Nth sign this week of a man who has lost his mind.October 10, Saturday, carnage at Hains Point. Just before torrential rains driven by Hurricane Isaias soaked the town, and while golfers were still on the course, crews authorized by MAGA officials of the National Park Service began cutting down hundreds of mature trees on the East Potomac Park golf course. The judge supervising this case doesn’t hear about it until it too late.
October 11, Sunday, soaking rains throughout Washington, and another slow holiday-weekend news day.
On that morning’s Meet the Press, host Kristen Welker has a generally hostile-toned interview with Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan.1 Among the exchanges is this:WELKER: Earlier this year, you said, “President Trump should be impeached.” What do you see as his impeachable offenses?
EL-SAYED: Like, which one? There are many —
WELKER: Can you name something that he has done specifically –
El-Sayed started with Qatar’s thoughtful “gift” of a 747 that US taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars outfitting as a (defective) new Air Force One, and that Donald Trump undoubtedly plans to take with him to Florida if he ever leaves DC.
But El-Sayed went on to say that new offenses emerge almost every day, and might get lost (as they seemed to have done for Welker) precisely because there are so many of them. He then quickly switched back to “on message” mode, saying that the real issues in the campaign were affordability, corruption, destruction of alliances, et cetera.
|October 12, Monday, Ilhan Omar and Judge Ana Reyes. And John Husted’s ass. For years Donald Trump has ranted against Rep. Ilhan Omar by name, calling her “garbage” and an “incompetent person” who was in the US “illegally” and should “get the hell out of here” and be “sent back.” Early Monday morning, a federal holiday, federal agents under Trump’s control raided her home in Washington.
Also on Monday, federal judge Ana Reyes, joining a three-hour Zoom call remotely from Istanbul, reamed out administration officials for unleashing the chain saws on hundreds of trees in Hains Point. “You did not do your best,” the judge yelled at one point. “You did your absolute worst.” It was the landscaping equivalent of the unannounced, and irreversible, demolition of the East Wing.
-While we’re at it, and to cap off the week: At a rally last night in Ohio, Donald Trump appeared in support of MAGA Senator John Husted, JD Vance’s successor in that seat. Trump said he had been checking out Husted’s athletic body and liked Husted’s “ass.” Not impeachable. But… seriously?October 13, Today: We mark the three-week point before the midterms. And now I turn from Time Capsule to a word on why the Hains Point assault cuts so deep into the heart and soul of the people who view Washington DC not just as a center of governance but as their home
Golfing through the ruins.
Yesterday afternoon at Hains Point, golfers walking around trees that MAGA contractors had toppled but not yet removed. The large beige pile in the center of the picture is the remains of a tall tree, converted over the weekend to woodchips.
Washington DC is of course a global capital. People around the world use it as a shorthand for power, for corruption, for “the mess in Washington,” for other concepts.
But for nearly a million people, it’s also home. And in the many decades since Deb and I first lived here, we’ve seen it flourish in the many ways that mark a real community and motivate people to think of it as home.