Making sense of the senseless

While almost everyone agrees that we have never had an administration like this one, very few are adjusting their thinking accordingly. Even in the Reagan administration—when the president was often out of it and at other times heavily influenced by what he happened to see on TV—the underlying administration was conventional by 2025 standards. The people actually running the government tended to be fairly professional, with extensive experience in government and business. Even the first Trump administration was relatively normal by comparison. What we have now is something truly unprecedented, and it is foolhardy to use the assumptions and heuristics that worked with previous presidencies to describe what we're seeing now. Often the worst mistake an observer can make is seeing a coherent strategy or conventional tactics when none are there.

When trying to make sense of Trump, you need a new set of guiding principles. Here are the ones I've been using, and they've served me fairly well: Domination/Catharsis These are the big two, and they are so closely intertwined that it is often difficult to tell when one starts and the other stops. Josh Marshall, who has perhaps the best track record of any political analyst working today, has long argued that the need to dominate—and possibly even more importantly, to appear dominant—is the key to understanding Donald Trump. 

 Here's what we said in the aftermath of the Kimmel suspension:

With respect to other aspects, however, this is both huge and unprecedented. Josh Marshall, whose track record is unequaled in these matters, has argued that the key to understanding Trump is dominance and submission. I would add catharsis, distraction, and possibly feral disinformation, but Marshall is certainly right about the main driver. Marshall has termed this the “bitch slap theory” of politics, and that’s about the best description I’ve seen. The approach of looking overwhelmingly dominant while making your opponent look and feel helpless and weak often works very well, but it has a couple of major downsides. First off, if it fails, you can often find the intended roles reversed, with the bully looking small and ineffectual. On a somewhat more subtle level, a focus on shock-and-awe politics can undermine more low-key and often devious tactics, particularly “boiling the frog.” If you start with boiling water and taunt the frog as you’re throwing it in, it is likely to notice the temperature change. 

Catharsis has never gotten its due as a political force—not from news commentators, and certainly not from political scientists. Everything from policy changes to entire movements are heavily influenced by anxious and angry people looking for emotional release. That said, the role of catharsis in the public statements and decision-making of previous administrations is nothing compared to what we've seen under Trump, and we should expect this to grow even greater as the stresses of the office accumulate. 

Feral Disinformation

 While we can never truly know what's in another person's mind, we can be reasonably confident that Trump believes a large part of the rumors and conspiracy theories that he sees on Fox, on NewsMax, on social media, even when the claims conflict with his direct experience. 

LAST WEEK: “Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it.” THIS WEEK: … 🤡 @thedailybeast.bsky.social www.thedailybeast.com/trump-79-pos... [image or embed]

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) September 28, 2025 at 8:52 AM

(At first glance, I thought this said a "Weird AL video," which would have been both funnier and less disturbing.)

Trump tonight appears to have pushed the false "medbed" conspiracy theory, which has spread in the far-right internet over the years. www.yahoo.com/news/qanon-c... [image or embed]

— Alex Kaplan (@alkapdc.bsky.social) September 27, 2025 at 8:14 PM

 Just so there's no confusion, he shared an AI fake of himself pitching a product that only exists in QAnon fantasies.

From Wikipedia: 

Videos and podcasts about medbeds have become popular in far-right communities of Telegram, Discord, and Rumble. There are supposedly three types of medbeds, located in secret military tunnels: a holographic medbed, which supposedly diagnoses and cures any sickness,^[3] a medbed that supposedly regenerates missing limbs in minutes, and a medbed that supposedly reverses aging.^[4] Various companies sell devices or access to medbeds that supposedly heal ailments via pseudo scientific technologies while also including the Quack Miranda warning on their websites.^[1][2] The term "medbed" is also used by one company that offers nightly rentals in rooms in their facilities with "highly-energized" beds.^[5][1]

Medbed conspiracy theories often involve claims that the devices are utilized by members of a deep state, billionaires, or that John F. Kennedy, is still alive and youthful on a medbed.^[1] Belief in these devices is popular among QAnon influencers such as Michael Protzman, Romana Didulo, and YamatoQ.^[2][6] On 27 September 2025 Donald Trump posted to Truth Social an apparently AI-generated video (purportedly "breaking news" from My View with Lara Trump on Fox News) depicting himself announcing "medbed hospitals" as a new "healthcare system" for the United States, their nonexistence notwithstanding.^[7][8][9] The post was deleted the next day, on Sunday morning.^[10]