Monday, July 21, 2025

Scooby-Doo’s America + Trump's Crimes

Living through Donald Trump’s second term is a bit like catching an afternoon block of Hanna-Barbera
Each day we’re shown a more cartoonish and evil crime. 
The perpetrators are as brazen as their guilt is obvious. 
Democrats and institutionalists hem and haw. Republicans deflect and deny until the smoking gun is produced
Everybody moves on and we start back at one. 
Cue the bats.
Salon
Opinion

Trump has us living in Scooby-Doo’s America

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/HS1LHd_oslI9Olg8vr37Lw--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyNDI7aD04Mjg7Y2Y9d2VicA--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/salon_articles_879/28d5117d3584d0a3f31e34022d9c6f47 

Dog Balloon passes the National Archives. Photo by Tracy A. Woodward/Getty Images
Alex Galbraith
 

By the time you’re seven years old, you know how it’s going to go.

A crime is being committed. The crack team is on the case. Cel animation artifacts line the next door to open in an endless funhouse chase. Pretty Mary Sunlight, she’s alright with me. Through a series of semi-smart deductions and bumbling failures, Mystery Incorporated bags the baddie and pulls off their ghoul mask to reveal some schmuck (frequently a real estate developer). Notably, you almost never see them go to jail.. .

But then again, any factual criticism of Trump’s empty drawer of a cabinet often quickly degenerates into descriptions resembling those of cartoon henchmen. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a square-jawed former television anchor with juvenile body-art, and a look that makes you think he has had bad plastic surgery and at least one mini-stroke during the last five years. He’s Ted Baxter on Adderall, legendary Houston anchor and reporter Marvin Zindler with a better toupée and, after Trump himself, he probably spends more money on makeup than anyone else in the administration. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the empty shell of a hero who might have been. The son of an American prince, he could have had it all. But, to quote Pink Floyd, “No matter how he tried, he could not break free and the worms ate into his brain,” causing total dysfunction and delusion. If he were a character in a “Star Wars” prequel, he’d be the guy “huffing” chemtrails.

Finally, in this cabinet of incapability, there’s Mad Man Marco Rubio. The wearer of a thousand hats. More powerful than most, his ability to sell himself out gives him the superpower to leap over large piles of Trump’s political fecal remains in a single bound. He once called the president a con artist and he now bows before Trump as the king, hopeful he can take control of the Resolute desk following the 2028 presidential election. Imagine the aneurysm Rubio will get when he finally realizes Trump still wants to run in 2028.

Then there’s J.D. Vance — the man nobody but Peter Thiel wanted. In his shrewdest move as president, Trump picked a man that guarantees he will never be convicted of impeachment. For this, Vance will go down as the man who brought unity to America for the first time in decades.

Actually, in a very real sense, Jeffrey Epstein — a man as perverse in politics as he was in his sexual and personal life — could be the spark that brings American voters back together. Everyone wants to see Epstein’s files and for the same reason: Accountability. 

The Jeffrey Epstein ruckus has felt different, if only because the GOP has been forced to acknowledge it. Driven mad by the (gh-gh-gh-)ghost of the late sex trafficker, Trump has lost a bit of his unflappable nature. He hasn’t been able to move on to the next scheme. For a dissembler and con man like Trump, stopping must feel like death, something that never made it into the crime-ridden but groovy worlds of Scooby-Doo, Jabberjaw or Speed Buggy. 
 
That’s just our suspension of disbelief, though
  • In the same way we buy a skull-faced astronaut haunting an airfield, we have to believe there are consequences for actions in a country with laws. 
  • We live in a world where the Paradise and Panama Papers are publicly available. 
  • We live in a country where hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol attempting to steal an election by force were all pardoned
  • The highest arbiter of what is just and lawful gave the president a free pass to do crimes
  • The real estate scams continue and are handsomely rewarded. 
  • The sheriffs look the other way.
Outside of ICE agents, the majority of people participating in this administration’s rampant lawlessness are unmasked. The only solution left is to break the repetition of politics as usual and level actual consequences for the people who abet Trump’s crimes. We’re ready, we’re willing and we can’t go back to the van until we see the villains behind bars.

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