By By Dalton Delan
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, or so they say. How to understand that aphorism when applied to a presidency mired in kleptocracy?
Donald Trump鈥檚 first term was easier. Despite unmitigated dislike from my progressive friends, and in spite of inexplicable devotion to such a flawed vessel from my conservative ones, I found fault with the view from both camps. The Greek myth of Scylla and Charybdis define politics today. As my friend the late Paul Duke of NBC would say, he and I found ourselves 鈥渂iased in both directions.鈥 I can live with that.
This time is different. Having made it through Trump 1.0, I came to Trump 2.0 hoping to continue to balance on a picket fence with an occasional tumble. Then the devil鈥檚 horns of home security czar Stephen Miller and Elon Musk snorted into the arena seeing red and ready for blood. Assaults on diversity initiatives and universities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement roundups at Home Depots, silencing of Voice of America and assorted depravities crowding court dockets all turned my stomach and challenged my nonpartisan bent. Mix in the damage wrought by former President Joe Biden as he ran past his sell-by date after abandoning Afghanistan, and it was hard to keep signing thumbs-down when Trump鈥檚 animals took to the ring. They were overcompensating for what came before.
But the wanton destruction wrought by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency 20-somethings was a game-changer. Because I had worked closely for a year with Michael Gerson, former speechwriter and adviser to George W. Bush, I had a clear sense of the most positive legacy of his administration: the President鈥檚 Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. Gerson had championed this program, which has saved millions of lives in Africa. It鈥檚 the kind of thing the richest country in the world should do but seldom does. Put against China鈥檚 financing of stadiums and toll roads in the developing world, democracy was winning.
Along come Elon Musk and clown company into the heart of the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, a place they should never have entered. In high dudgeon, they distorted and misunderstood virtually everything they touched while Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood aloof with thumb in mouth. Presto chango: PEPFAR and USAID, a department established by John F. Kennedy that represented the best of what we stand for, suddenly were wiped from the map like so much detritus.
Did USAID need reform? Sure, but not a chainsaw massacre. It is no exaggeration to say that the DOGE demolition team have more blood on their hands than Lady Macbeth. It鈥檚 hard to be neutral when Black babies do not matter one whit when matched against scoring political points. In a moral universe, those responsible would sit in the dock at a new Nuremberg trial. Guilty, your honors.
This is not to even mention graft and corruption at previously unimaginable levels and Congress behaving like whipped dogs. And yet, and yet. Despite the Charles Lindbergh-like isolationism of Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump backed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu鈥檚 play and sent out the B-2鈥檚 with their bunker-busters to set back Iran鈥檚 nuclear threat. Something needed to be done, and only we had purpose-built technology. While it would be foolhardy to ignore the cautions from W鈥檚 Iraq adventure, and the consequences must be carefully managed, Trump acted. If you believe Biden would have done so, there is a bridge to Brooklyn I鈥檇 like to sell you.
What to make of this liminal space between all the darkness that preceded, and will no doubt follow, before Trump, Miller, Rubio and MAGA-cloaked kleptocrats fly off to their next killing fields after 2028? I鈥檝e been searching for historical rhyming. Consider criminally inclined Richard Nixon鈥檚 opening up of China. For those who condemn his and Lyndon Baines Johnson鈥檚 prosecution of the Vietnam war, LBJ鈥檚 domestic accomplishments were rivalled only by FDR鈥檚. Civil rights and Medicare owe LBJ an enormous debt. While the Trump administration has these in the crosshairs 鈥 part of the bell tolling for thee from Trump鈥檚 grandfather clock 鈥 LBJ鈥檚 record comes in two parts, Janus-faced.
Trump has long envied Barack Obama鈥檚 inexplicable Nobel Peace Prize, and at least one Fox News pundit has suggested Trump deserves one. In the unlikely event a ceasefire leads to real peace with a post-nuclear Iran, it might not be so far-fetched. Don鈥檛 hold your breath, but this I know: No one is black-and-white. Our life ticks away in the gray spaces. While nothing diminishes the demolition of PEPFAR and USAID, Trump made a right call in Iran. If he backs it up with a plan 鈥 not his strong suit 鈥 he could rescue a piece of his legacy. He鈥檚 a bull in a china shop. Let鈥檚 pray his atomic clock is right again.