Even though we’ve lately had a surfeit of voting results and dissections thereof, here come some more. In last week’s Attention-Whore Index competition, top honors went to the incoming First Felon, Donald Trump (44.3 percent). Two increasingly bizarre objects of Trump’s bromantic affections were next, Elon Musk (17.1 percent) and Tucker Carlson (14 percent). It’s worth noting that one of Trump’s ex-bromancees placed fourth (Rudy Giuliani, 11.4 percent). And a shout-out to the late Henry Kissinger—fifth (6.3 percent), not a bad finish from the grave, or rather from the monument, as his will made perfectly clear he deserved. Plenty of post-election showboating to get to, but first this:
“Welcome to the Golden Age of America.”
—Stephen Miller, the anti-immigrant white nationalist just appointed Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
ELON MUSK
The world’s richest person got richer—Tesla stock surged by 50 percent in the week after the election and is still up 30 percent, making Musk many billions. In that context, the $100 million he spent to re-install Trump in the Oval Office seems like a good investment … at least for as long as his influence lasts. But when Trump inevitably marginalizes “Elonia” (as journalist Kara Swisher calls him), because he’s younger, taller, better-looking, and richer than him, Musk can again turn his attention from secret meetings with Iranian officials to his new favorite cause: the unconfined dissemination of misinformation.
2.
JEFF BEZOS
The decision by the world’s second-richest person—and Musk rival, on Earth and in space—to shelve his newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris has cost The Washington Post hundreds of thousands of subscribers and many millions in revenue, and, says the Daily Beast, “has thrown light on the role of Blue Origin, the long-faltering rocket company in Bezos’s sprawling empire.” It also explains Bezos’s response to Trump’s victory, a post for the ages: “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
3.
The Nominees
An embarrassment of riches, or maybe just an embarrassment. A few for your consideration:
- Matt Gaetz, attorney general. Just after his nomination, the repellent Florida representative—even Republicans can’t stand him—conveniently resigned from Congress on the eve of the release of a “highly critical” House Ethics Committee report on his alleged underage-sex misconduct and illegal drug use, very likely ending the investigation.
- Tulsi Gabbard, former Democratic congresswoman given to parroting Kremlin propaganda, for (what else?) director of national intelligence, an area in which she has no experience—for our side, anyway.
- Pete Hegseth, an obvious choice to be in charge of 1.3 million active troops as secretary of defense. The Fox News host, and former prison guard at Guantánamo Bay, has no government experience.
- South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, the scourge of inadequate puppies everywhere, for Homeland Security chief. (Trump’s initial one, anyway: he had six during his first term.)
- Science-averse, anti-vaccine public-health antagonist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who insists he’s actually the opposite of all that, to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
- And Elise Stefanik—who took offense (“a disgrace!”) when a Fox News interviewer had the temerity to ask the upstate New York representative about her once having called Trump a “whack job” and “insulting to women”—will bring her special fusion of diplomacy, ambition, and toadying to the global stage as ambassador to the United Nations.
4.
MIKE DAVIS
Even though (or maybe because) he has said, “I don’t like democracy,” the lawyer was talked about as the next attorney general—and might be again, if Congressional Republicans grow a spine and Gaetz doesn’t get confirmed. But don’t expect a softer touch. Post-election, Davis wanted to deal with rivals this way: “Drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall.”
5.
PRINCE ANDREW
Breaking: the royal squatter apparently can afford to remain in 30-room Royal Lodge, doing God knows what, and avoid the downsizing to Frogmore Cottage that his brother the King has spent two years pushing for. Charles ceased underwriting security for Royal Lodge last month—as far as anyone knows, he stopped short of turning off the electricity—but “in an unexpected twist, Andrew has now convinced Palace authorities that he has sufficient funds from legitimate sources to support himself,” reported The Times of London. “He no longer receives public money and with no discernible income beyond a Royal Navy pension there have long been questions over the source of the duke’s wealth.” No doubt they will continue, as the origin of those “sufficient funds” has not been disclosed.
6.
ANTHONY WEINER
The disgraced former congressman and recidivist sexter is thinking of running for a New York City Council seat. Weiner’s online activities led to a prison sentence and, many feel, to the election of Donald Trump in 2016 (sexting scandal, seized laptop, split with then wife/Hillary Clinton campaign adviser Huma Abedin—and presto!—sudden F.B.I. investigation into Clinton days before the election). “The things in my past, the things about my addiction, the things about my acting out, the things about my background—it’s a lot, it’s a lot,” Weiner allowed on his local radio show. “But I want to be of service.” Critics can dust off the jokes about “Carlos Danger”—the name he chose for his illicit online exchanges.
7.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE
As the clown car of appointees for the next Trump administration fills up, with no seat available so far for the representative from Georgia, Greene has started referring to herself in the third person: “The message that was shot across the bow is, guess what? The American people, the voters that voted for Trump overwhelmingly, they are MTG. MTG is not radical or extreme—she’s mainstream America.” MTG = USA? OMG or LOL? —George Kalogerakis
George Kalogerakis, a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL, worked at Spy, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times, where he was deputy op-ed editor. He is a co-author of Spy: The Funny Years and a co-editor of Disunion: A History of the Civil War
