20 Jan Goblins Gone Wild!

‘History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.’ – James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922

‘My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.’ – D. Drumpf, New York Times, 1/8/26

The mind doth well and truly boggle, Gentle Reader(s). Every time I begin to imagine that perhaps I’m beginning to get some sort of a handle on the extent of the corruption (moral and otherwise) and criminality that is the core ethos of GoblinReich 2.0 I am reminded anew of the folly of my presumption. Each and every passing day finds the vile regime exploring exciting and innovative techniques with which to plumb new depths of depravity, venality and cynicism—in the immortal words of William S. Burroughs, ‘A new standard by which to judge infamy.’

In addition to my own blabbery I’ve been cherry-picking some choice observations from those who know much better than I what the real deal is and are able to communicate them without resorting to Tourettes-esque spasms of profanity. To wit:

‘Just as actual train wrecks tend to stop us cold because of their apparent inevitability and imperviousness to intervention, moral train wrecks seem to create a similar element of stop-time—a mixture of fascination and paralysis— with no one able to prevent the damage even as the carnage and destruction roll on.’ – Daphne Merkin, New York Times, 7/29/22

‘No one reacts when Mr. Trump tells a lie because explaining ethics to Donald Trump feels like explaining existentialism to a chicken. And if you didn’t know he was a liar already, that’s your fault.’ – Elizabeth Spiers, New York Times, 11/26/23

We knew we were in for the Real Shit this time around, did we not? The only question was ‘How Really Shitty is it going to get?’. One year in to GoblinReich 2.0 and we’re beginning to get a pretty good picture of just how shitty. The unintended benefit of Drumpf’s loss in 2020 was that the architects of the new regime had four years to regroup, lick their wounds, hone their grievances, and plot strategy. The lessons of the shortcomings of Original GoblinReich were well learned and would not be repeated.

‘The steady stream of bizarre news is the consequence of putting a person in charge of systems and institutions when he has no regard for those systems and institutions beyond his own self-interest. When these systems break under the stress of abuse, neglect, or general incompetence, bad things happen. Some of these things are straightforwardly bad: possibly illegal, horrific, cruel. Others would be scandals worthy of resignations if only there were political leaders able to enforce some accountability. But others are just weird mutations. In this way, Trump’s callousness, indifference, and corruption alter the very texture of our shared reality. They drag us all into a world of his making.’ – Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 5/14/25

Herr Drumpf closed out 2025 with an unprecedented run that stands out as extraordinary even by his own benchmarks of cruelty and vindictiveness. From demolishing the East Wing of the White House (less than 24 hours after stating that he wouldn’t do it), to staging a putsch on the Kennedy Center for the Arts and appending (without authorization) his own name to the institution, to approving an ever-escalating series of summary maritime executions of suspected drug runners, to the spectacularly deranged and callous suggestion that Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were responsible for their own tragic murders through their opposition to the Goblin regime. Every day—a new assault on decency, truth, empathy and the rule of law.

‘Trump has surrounded himself with officers who are either empty vessels for his ambition—Pam Bondi, Hegseth, JD Vance—or superpowered ideologues whose agendas align with Trump’s thirst for personal power, like Marco Rubio and the fanatical Stephen Miller. Whatever their motives, all are aligned in delivering to Trump the ultimate prize: limitless, unchecked power he can exercise anywhere he chooses, from the streets of Chicago to the presidential palace in Caracas.’ Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, 1/9/26

On January 3 we woke to news of the invasion of Venezuela and the deposing/kidnapping of its president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife—this, one month after Drumpf pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras. Hernandez had been tried and convicted in a U.S. court of drug offenses and sentenced to 45 years in prison and an $8 million fine. Drumpf explained the pardon by claiming that Hernandez, like himself, had been the victim of a ‘Biden horrible witch hunt.’

In the New York Times article quoted above, Lydia Polgreen makes one significant point that hadn’t previously occurred to me: Nicolas Maduro had managed to pull off one deft move on the political dance floor that Drumpf has not (yet) been able to execute: Overturning the results of an election in which he was resoundingly defeated—the very stuff of which Goblin dreams are made.

And speaking of the dance floor, it has been reliably reported that part of Herr Drumpf’s pique with Maduro was based upon the Venezuelan president’s appropriation of signature elements of Goblinese choreography.

Seriously. I’m not making this up. No one could make shit like this up!

The murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis on January 7 took place less than a mile from where George Floyd died beneath the knee of a police officer in May 2020. As with Rob and Michele Reiner, the demonization and blaming of the victim began instantaneously, followed closely by investigations into Good’s widow, Becca. Within a week of Good’s murder Drumpf was threatening the Iranian regime with ‘very strong action’ if they continued their deadly crackdown on anti-government protestors.

‘Like many Americans, I had watched the video of the killing of Good by an ICE officer on a residential street in Minneapolis with horror and sorrow. From afar, this tragic and possibly criminal act of violence could plausibly be seen as incidental to President Trump’s mission to deport undocumented people from the country. But when I landed in Minneapolis on Monday and saw the size, scope and lawlessness of the federal onslaught unfolding here, I understood that Good’s killing was emblematic of its true mission: to stage a spectacle of cruelty upon a city that stands in stark defiance against Trump’s dark vision of America.’ – Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, 1/19/26

So, let’s get this straight: Iranian protestors are backed up by the threat of American military force while a peacefully protesting mom in a van in Minneapolis get shot in the face because, well, she asked for it. Cogitate on that for a moment.

‘We stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And for those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us: What do you have? You have nothing.You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy! You are envy! You are hatred! You are nothing! You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity.’ – Stephen Miller, 9/21/25

‘Once citizens begin to view their own government’s security forces as an occupying army, violence becomes inevitable. Trump’s team knows this. In fact, that’s the point. They are not trying to restore order; they’re trying to trigger the very unrest that would justify further crackdowns. In the end, violence serves their ultimate end: They want to create the illusion of disorder so they can tighten control and stay in power indefinitely.’ – Barbara Walter, New York Times, 10/7/25

As has been pointed out numerous times, cruelty and chaos are not just the byproducts of GoblinReich doctrine—chaos and cruelty are the point. But there’s more to these ploys than just cruelty and chaos. As punishingly real as the bewildering mayhem may be, the smoke and mirrors stagecraft element of it all is not to be discounted. Remember back, oh, who knows how many news cycles ago, when everyone was up in arms about Jeffrey Epstein and ‘affordability’? Heard anything much about those items lately? Me neither. Remember the outrage over DOGE and maniacal chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk? It’s almost nostalgic at this point.

And this, Gentle Reader(s), brings us to today, January 19. On this day the prime minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Store, released the body of text messages that he exchanged with the Orange Goblin over the weekend. In his text the OG advises Store that since ‘your Country’ jilted him for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize he ‘no longer feel[s] an obligation to think purely of Peace.’

Okay. So, up until the Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Carina Machado, Herr Drumpf had been thinking purely of Peace? How did we ever manage to miss that?

(It should be pointed out that the Peace Prize is not awarded by the Norwegian government, but rather by the Norwegian Nobel Committee—an independent body appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. It should also be pointed out that the Orange Goblin is very likely unaware of this distinction.)

The context of this text message exchange concerns Herr Drumpf’s current fixation with American dominion over the island nation of Greenland. What was once written off as a Big Mac/Diet Coke-induced delusion is now on the verge of becoming horrifyingly real. The notion of GoblinReich 2.0 taking Greenland by force—a possibility that Drumpf and his minions have been steadfastly unwilling to dismiss—would bring a apocalyptic conclusion to the postwar order. As one of the cornerstone tenets of NATO holds that an attack on one member nation is an attack on all member nations, our closest allies would become our enemies. The United States could possibly be involved in armed conflict with not only Denmark but the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Greece, Albania, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and the 21 other nations making up the alliance. That includes those friendly folks next door in Canada.

‘Democracy, multilateralism and accountability once defined the postwar order. These words are increasingly dismissed as elitist, woke or dead. We need to ask ourselves, on both sides of the Atlantic, if we want to live in a world where democracy is recast as weakness, truth as opinion and justice as an option.’ – Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, New York Times, 1/19/26

So, here we are: Precariously poised on the brink of a fascist police state here at home and on the brink of a complete breakdown of the world order abroad. Are we Great yet?

In conclusion, and at the risk of coming off like an utter toffee-nosed git, I’ve got to say that I am not just morally and intellectually horrified by GoblinReich 2.0 and everything it entails, I’m also grossed out by the regime’s signature aesthetic (if one could go so far as to characterize it as such). From the newly installed ‘classy’ gilt greeting card script proclaiming ‘The Oval Office’ on the wall outside of—you guessed it!—the Oval Office, to the sleeked down/pumped up bird-of-prey look of the core GoblinReich chicks, to the buff bro vibe of Secretary of War Hegseth and tanning-bed gargoyle RFK Jr. I could go on… and on… and on… but I’m just going to leave it at that.

And as for that Goblin dude—that Orange Goblin dude: Fuck that dude. That’s what I’ve got to say.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!