Your Guess is as Good as Mine

The country is in freefall. Not the slow, dignified kind where people clutch their pearls and debate policy in well-lit rooms, but the kind where a clown car full of lunatics has just gone off a cliff, and everyone inside is arguing about who should be driving. The last 24 hours have been a masterclass in political insanity, a surrealist painting come to life where the Pentagon is picking its own fan club, foreign leaders are bringing Trump cosplay accessories, and the very concept of democracy is being rewritten by people who think a child tax credit should come with extra ballots.

Let’s start with the Pentagon, where the Department of Defense has decided it no longer needs to deal with the inconvenience of journalism. The great American tradition of a free press? Too messy. Too many questions. Too much reality. So, in a move so blatantly authoritarian that it would make Richard Nixon blush, the Pentagon evicted The New York Times, NBC, NPR, and Politico from their press offices. In their place? One America News Network and Breitbart. That’s right—the people who once brought you hard-hitting journalism on things like Watergate and the Pentagon Papers are being replaced by guys whose biggest scoop is “Why Biden’s Socks Prove He’s a Secret Communist.” At this rate, the next White House press secretary might just be Alex Jones in a military uniform, screaming about the dangers of fluoride in the water while handing out free MAGA energy drinks.

Meanwhile, across town, Japan’s Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, decided diplomacy wasn’t dramatic enough and gifted Donald Trump a golden samurai helmet. Not a trade agreement. Not a policy initiative. Just a shiny, gilded war hat, as if Trump is about to lead a horseback invasion of California. This, of course, is exactly the kind of gift that will appeal to his delusions. You can already picture him strutting around Mar-a-Lago with it, demanding that the White House staff address him as Shogun Don while he screams at the television about election fraud. Somewhere, an actual historian is clutching their chest and whispering, we are so screwed.

But the real masterpiece of idiocy belongs to J.D. Vance who has decided that democracy—already a fragile, limping thing—needs one last kick to the ribs. His latest bright idea? Giving parents extra votes for every child they have. That’s right—if you’re a single working-class American trying to make ends meet, congratulations! You get one measly vote. But if you’ve got six kids and a TikTok account dedicated to making homemade baby formula, you are now a political powerhouse. The logic, if you can call it that, is that parents have a “greater stake in the future.” By that argument, what’s next? Should billionaires get extra votes for every yacht? Should landlords get to vote on behalf of their tenants? And where exactly does this system leave the child-free? Do they just get to sit quietly in the corner while some suburban mom of eight controls the future of the country? This isn’t democracy—it’s a fertility contest disguised as governance.

And if you thought that was the dumbest thing happening in the Republican Party right now, allow me to introduce the latest episode of Texas vs. Reality. Somewhere deep in the Lone Star State, a group of GOP lawmakers have decided that the biggest threat to America is... college students voting too much. Yes, Texas Republicans are working on legislation that would make it harder for university students to vote in their college towns, because apparently, young people showing up at the polls is now considered election interference. The state that will let you buy a firearm with a library card is suddenly very concerned about 19-year-olds filling out ballots. If you listen closely, you can hear the ghost of Lyndon B. Johnson cackling in the distance.

Of course, while all of this is going on, the White House is churning out chaos at a speed that defies logic. Reports out of Washington suggest that Trump is toying with the idea of another executive order—something about “streamlining” the Justice Department, which is code for “purging anyone who isn’t personally loyal to him.” The man is two weeks into his second term, and we’re already getting Watergate-speed scandals without even trying. At this rate, by summer, we’ll be watching Supreme Court justices get sworn in with loyalty oaths and cabinet meetings conducted entirely in cryptic Truth Social posts.

So where does that leave us? In a country where the Pentagon is hand-picking its own personal cheerleading squad, the president is being gifted medieval battle gear like he’s starring in a Game of Thrones spinoff, the vice president is trying to convert the voting system into a procreation contest, and Texas Republicans are trying to pass a law that makes it illegal to be young and informed.

And this was just one day.

Tomorrow, it’ll be something even dumber. Maybe Trump will wear the samurai helmet at a press conference and demand to be addressed as “The Shining General of the West.” Maybe Ron DeSantis will try to ban the use of the word “college” in Florida altogether. Maybe the Pentagon will cut the middleman and just replace the Associated Press with an official government TikTok channel where a guy in a tank top explains foreign policy over dubstep.

At this point, nothing is off the table. America has taken its hands off the wheel, slammed on the gas, and is now soaring through the air like a flaming Ford Pinto, with no one quite sure where it’s going to land.