Politics

Schadenfreude Overload

It is too soon to speculate, but what happens after the last hamberder is eaten?

Geoff Anderson

03 Sep 2025 — 8 min read

Starting late last week, my feeds had been inundated with suspicions that one orange menace was either already deceased, or on death's door. And to be frank, it seemed collborated by the longest stretch without Trump speaking in public, the press gaggles that nourish his warped ego were avoided as they were kept at least 100 yards from the President when he entered The Beast.

Something is off. The cankles, the bruising on the back of the hands, and the social media posts over the weekend that were definitely not drafted by Trump, and speculation is rampant.

Look, I am not one to dive into said speculation, but it seems like Trump is fading, and what does that mean?

First, the betting markets are beginning to see a rise in the odds of Trump not making it to the end of the year. That is 4 months away.

Molly White notes that the two betting markets that count Don Jr. as an advisor, Polymarket and Kalshi are both seeing spikes of activity:

The bet that Vance is out as Veep (this means he becomes Pres)

Prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket opened betting markets on President Donald Trump being “out as president” as social media platforms erupted over the long weekend with rumors that he had died. The competing platforms, which both list Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser, launched their markets after the typically omnipresent Trump vanished from public view, with press photographers reduced to capturing grainy, distant shots that call to mind Bigfoot sightings. Recent appearances had shown Trump with swollen ankles and bruised hands, and online sleuths seized on holiday road closures around Walter Reed Medical Center and recent press appearances by Vice President Vance stating his readiness to assume the presidency as further evidence of Trump’s demise.

This is pretty bleak, but the actuarial tables are cruel mistresses.

Read more here:

Then there's today's Triad in The Bulwark by JVL:

He speculates that while it appears that Trump is still among the living he does weigh into what happens.

Alas, his speculation is that Vance is a caretaker, that the real power goes to Trump's heirs (probably Don Jr, and maybe Ivanka). I am less sure of that.

In the comments, there is plenty of speculation that Vance is sidelined either immediately or at the end of the term, but I disagree.

First, the belief is that without Trump, MAGA dissipates. That allegiance doesn't get moved to a different person, and the Republicans begin to rediscover their spines. This I doubt.

I would agree that Trump circa 2020 that was the case, that the Republicans in Congress were ready to move on, to toss Trumpism into the ashbin of history. Especially right after the storming of the capital on January 6th, it seemed that the fog that was covering the Republicans was lifting.

That lasted about 3 fucking weeks, until Kevin flew to Mar A Lago to kiss the ring. Then all the rest of the elected Republicans quickly fell into line.

Second, the rise of the Bro-ligarchs in Silicon Valley has taught them that they can circumvent the government. They have enough money to sway elections, to subvert democracy, and to get what they want.

Reading the Big newsletter over the weekend (Matt Stoller's weekly Monopoly Round Up):

He leads off with the Silicon Valley money boys making moves that are chilling and determinative:

That said, the main story from last week I’m going to look at is the creation of a new political slush fund by titans in Silicon Valley. I don’t want to be alarmist, but if it goes to plan, it could functionally subvert elections in America.

To understand why, we have to start with the strategy used by crypto venture capitalists to enact their agenda. In 2024, Ripple, Coinbase, and Andreessen Horowitz - all of whom were facing legal action from the government - created a political slush fund called Fairshake. In the last electoral cycle, they spent $139 million. In Silicon Valley, that’s not very much, but in an electoral campaign, that’s a nuclear amount of money.

then there's this in the Post:

Today, Fairshake can flip most politicians without spending a dime, secure in the knowledge that aspiring office-seekers wouldn’t want to lose just over what they perceive as a minor policy around finance. These companies got everything they wanted; they are now running crypto policy for Trump, and have terrified most members of Congress into voting for whatever they want. Fairshake has amassed another big war chest for 2026, and it’s unlikely that crypto’s power will be dented until there’s a financial crash.

Unfortunately, the lesson of Fairshake was not lost on others in Silicon Valley. Marc Andreessen, who is on the board of Meta and involved in Fairshake, has been organizing this strategy in other areas. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and AI venture capital investors, have now chosen to launch their own Fairshake-style slush funds, to make it impossible to regulate generative AI or big tech.

The results of this are chilling to consider. More from Matt:

Now, it’s always been difficult, especially in the Citizens United era, to make progress, as big money does drown out a lot of good policy. Indeed, what we’re really seeing is the final stages of an organized attempt from the 1970s onward to allow money to overwhelm democracy. The Lever’s Master Plan is an excellent podcast series on it. These massive slush funds could mean that voting really has become ornamental.

Yikes.

Then there's the Time's Thomas Edsall who always has good, well researched takes. This week, he discusses how effective Trump has been at tearing apart the system, and how bleak the chances are of undoing the damage:

Click this image for a gift link - worth the read if depressing

He quikly gets to how Trump has been so effective, and no surprise it is OMB Director, Russell Vought, and the Project 2025 plan that he crafted with the Heritage foundation:

While Trump thrives on the wreckage he leaves in his wake, he is guided by Russell Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget, and Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser. Vought and Miller are coldblooded, ideologically driven strategists who have spent nearly a decade developing the foundations for this MAGA takeover of what was once a familiar American way of life.

This is bleak, but Edsall has more toough medicine (that is his trademark). In an exchange with Steven Pinker:

“The shock in the second Trump administration,” Pinker wrote,
is how ruthlessly organized the movement became during the four-year interregnum. This time his administration was prepared with surgical strikes on all the zones of resistance. Apparently this planning came from the architects of Project 2025. The resistance appears to have no corresponding defensive plan.

Ain't that the truth. The resistance is a bit fractured, unfocused, and frankly it is what I expect from Democrats. But he also has some tough words for the former Center Right and the Never Trump coalition who love to point at the Dems and do the Neson Muntz "Ha ha" from The Simpsons.