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I’m writing this from the Denver airport, where I’m desperately trying to get home to my family after this debacle, a nationwide ground stop courtesy of the Trump administration. I’m working through my options, and mostly I’m just sitting here stewing with rage. I’m probably not going to make it home today to hang out with my son, and that’s what I’ve been looking forward to all week.
And I keep thinking about everyone else stuck in this mess. The people trying to get to weddings. To funerals. To the bedside of a sick loved one. This is exactly why it matters that we have a functioning government full of actual public servants who know what the fuck they’re doing.
Instead, we have a Secretary of Transportation whose main qualification is he was on a reality TV show and Trump thinks he looks good on TV. Everything about this was preventable.
They spent the last two years screaming about DEI and purging qualified people from the government, people who actually knew what they were doing. So now we don’t just have one Sean Duffy at the Department of Transportation, or one Pete Hegseth at the Department of Defense, or one Kash Patel at the FBI. We have thousands of them. They’re all over the government, and they’re ruining this country in big ways, like what happened yesterday, and in small ways that materially make your life worse.
I don’t believe a single word coming out of Markwayne Mullin’s or Sean Duffy’s unqualified, idiotic mouths about this, because they lie about everything. I’m not going to pretend I know exactly what happened. Maybe it was the AI system. Maybe it was some other update, or a cyberattack, or God knows what. But I know I don’t trust these people.
We’re essentially governed by people who don’t believe there should be a government. So I’m assuming some of this ends with Republicans like Duffy pushing to privatize air traffic control, which they’ve floated before, because everything they do has to have a grift at the end of it. And if I had to guess, we’ll eventually find out these people are profiteering off this whole mess, too.
Like how Sean Duffy’s goofy son-in-law with the eyebrows apparently works for the AI company that pushed the update that may have caused this entire debacle.
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Last week, voters told these people exactly what they thought of this. They clearly weren’t listening.
What gets me is how insidious it is. Their incompetence betrays the very people they claim to represent. It seeps into everything and makes our day-to-day lives that much worse.
Look, on some level, it’s the little things that get you through the day. I’ve had a long week on the road at a conference here in Denver, and it was great. I got to spend time with a lot of people I love, do some networking, and meet with some great political candidates. But by the end of the week I was running on fumes, and what kept me going was the weekend. Couch. College football. My people.
Instead, I’m stuck here, because the government can’t keep the goddamn planes in the sky.
Once again, this administration’s material incompetence and corruption has made my life worse, and very likely made your life worse too. Not to mention whatever damage this is doing to the economy. And they don’t care. I guarantee you Sean Duffy slept like a baby last night. I guarantee you Markwayne Mullin slept like a fucking baby last night. They do not care how their incompetence hurts the American people. They simply don’t.
Yesterday, Sean Duffy was out there saying Congress needs to step in and fix this, and that they’ve got to give him more money. He said it just like that: give me the money. Not “invest in fixing the problem.” Give it to him. A man whose only qualification for this job is that Donald Trump thought he looked good on TV because he was on The Real World. A man who spent a bunch of time whoring himself out to different companies to get a stupid documentary about himself made.
I’m not surprised. But I remain flabbergasted and outraged by these people.
I wouldn’t give any of them one single fucking dime until, at minimum, Trump fires Sean Duffy and appoints a Transportation Secretary who knows what the hell they’re doing. Maybe we can get Mayor Pete back, because this shit didn’t happen on his watch.
The government’s job isn’t complicated. Keep the planes in the sky. Make sure our food doesn’t make us sick. Keep us safe. Keep the economy functioning. Don’t, I don’t know, blow up the global energy market because of a stupid war. I don’t think any of these are unreasonable things to ask.
So here I am, steaming mad in this unruly, gangly mess of an airport, trying to figure out how to get home to my wife and son. That’s all I want today. I don’t know if I’m going to make it, and that fucking sucks.
And I know a lot of people out there have it worse than I do. So if you’re traveling today, be safe and stay calm. I love you, and I hope you get where you need to go as quickly as possible.
With urgency,
—Mike
I have had paid subscriptions, but I prefer to make periodic donations instead. I make frequent donations to Aaron Parnas on Patreon and that works well for me
Mike, I'm so sorry for your predicament. You're right in saying our country is run by incompetents and worse! Stop the vanity projects and use that money for upgrading our aviation infrastructure. Hope you get home soon!