We’re nearly a month into America’s constitutional crisis, sorry, “golden age.” Are you feeling it? The wrecking-ball Musk-Trump-Vance administration, abetted by an M.I.A. Congress, is doing its best to make sure you are. (Or possibly that’s just a vague numbness.) Their efforts are reflected in our most recent poll results, with the nominal president, Donald Trump, lumbering back into the winner’s circle (30.3 percent), trailed closely by his C.E.O., Elon Musk (28.7 percent), and—a refreshing break from politics—the long-suffering Grammys streaker Bianca Censori (23.4 percent).
This week’s competitors in a moment, but first:
“Our Country is coming back faster than anyone thought possible. We are respected all over the world, like never before. ENJOY!!!”
—donald trump
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
J. D. VANCE
The vice president, who apparently will not be Trump’s successor (“No,” said Trump when asked, because, there will be no successor), has so far mostly ceded center stage to Un-elected President Musk, and stayed busy quietly strong-arming lawmakers into approving a farcical slate of Cabinet appointees. But Vance began this week with a bang, essentially declaring that Trump’s authority was absolute: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Right—checks, balances, rule of law? That’s yesterday’s (fake) news. No surprise here. We just thought it would take a little longer. Ended the week in Europe, selling America’s newfound Fascism back to the place that invented it.
2.
DONALD TRUMP
Basking in it while he can. (“ENJOY!!!”) In a CBS News poll, a dictatorship-curious American public gave the tariff-mad Trump a 53 percent approval rating, “describing him as ‘tough,’ ‘energetic,’ ‘focused’ and ‘effective,’” if perhaps not sufficiently engaged in lowering prices, which is what they mainly elected him to do. But not to worry: taming inflation will be easy. First, Trump just needs to address a few pressing matters, like assuming the chairmanship of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, taking over Gaza, selling out Europe, attending the Super Bowl, and assessing his reception there vis-à-vis the object of his obsession (“The only one that had a tougher night than the Kansas City Chiefs was Taylor Swift. She got BOOED out of the Stadium. MAGA is very unforgiving!”), and eliminating the penny.
3.
PRINCE HARRY
Received a reprieve—or the hint of one—regarding potential deportation from Montecito: even though the right-wing Heritage Foundation has sued to determine whether Harry lied on his visa application about previous drug use, Trump himself told the New York Post, “I’ll leave him alone. He’s got enough problems with his wife. She’s terrible.” The prince rose above it all with regal dignity, impersonating a moose for the Vancouver Convention Centre’s giant-screen “Moose Cam” at the Invictus Games. “Spectators were encouraged to smile at the camera, poke out their tongue and waggle their hands by the side of their head,” said the Daily Mail. Well, if actual deportation ever does become an issue, he’ll clearly be right at home in Canada—assuming Canada is still an independent country.
4.
ELON MUSK
Continued his unimpeded, Trump-sponsored rampage through the government, scooping up citizens’ personal information by the armful as he went. Having gutted the United States Agency for International Development, a move experts say may cost millions of lives, he turned to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—because who needs protection from corporate malfeasance? (“CFPB RIP,” Musk posted.) With his four-year-old son, X Æ A-12, invaded the Oval Office to make evidence-free accusations of widespread government fraud. The strident free-speech advocate also hypocritically demanded the firing of a Wall Street Journal reporter because she revealed that one of Musk’s DOGE lieutenants had a habit of posting racist statements, calling her “a disgusting and cruel person.” Announced a $97.4 billion hostile-takeover bid for competitor Sam Altman’s nonprofit OpenAI. And he made the cover of Time magazine.
5.
KANYE WEST
Ye’s recent anti-Semitic posts (“I love Hitler,” “I’m a Nazi,” etc.) were followed by a strange, low-production-value Super Bowl commercial, shot on an iPhone, that directed viewers to his Yeezy fashion-brand Web site—where the only item for sale was a $20 T-shirt with a swastika on it. Where exactly does he go from here? The New York Post supplied a possible answer: “An alleged $250,000 sex tape Kanye West reportedly made over a decade ago has resurfaced … ”
6.
ERIC ADAMS
So it all worked out. On Monday, Adams “urged a gathering of high-ranking New York City officials to refrain from publicly criticizing the Trump administration,” reported The New York Times. Adams, who has lately been prostrating himself before the new president, claimed that such criticism could ultimately hurt New Yorkers, but skeptics once again wondered whether the fun-loving, low-polling mayor’s main concern was for one New Yorker in particular—one who happened to be facing an April trial for bribery. Completely coincidentally—the same day, in fact—the Trump Justice Department asked that charges against Adams be dismissed, following which at least seven prosecutors resigned in protest. Finally, with that uphill re-election battle still ahead of him, Adams had to deny he was considering switching parties to run as a Republican.
7.
Lauren Boebert
When the New York Post reported this week that Lauren Boebert had been spotted getting into a cab with Kid Rock at 2:30 a.m. after one of the Trump-inauguration parties in Washington, it was like running into an old friend. It seems so long ago that the Colorado representative was tossed out of that Denver performance of Beetlejuice for “causing a disturbance,” and A.W.I. has missed her. “Perhaps they were going somewhere to discuss the Second Amendment,” the newspaper allowed, while noting that they had plenty in common: “Both are among Trump’s most die-hard supporters … They’re also both veterans of the novelty restaurant biz. She owned Shooters, a Colorado eatery where servers were encouraged to carry guns, and he is the proud proprietor of Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk and Rock & Roll Steakhouse in Nashville, Tenn.” —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
