Donald Trump's Magical Mystery Tour - Hoopla And Confetti, Tears And Flapdoodle

The American Left has never understood Donald Trump and probably never will. From the moment he arrived on the political stage until now, they have been befuddled, gobsmacked, dismayed, and horrified. How could this vaudevillian, this Borscht Belt tummler, this imposter, this fool, this grandmaster of deceit ever have been elected?

 

Twice, they say, they had nominated a true savior - women of weight and substance, import, intelligence and good will - and twice they had been roundly defeated by this circus clown, a man with no depth, a bourgeois nappy, a...

There could be no words to describe the feeling of bilious, vile hatred for the man.  Not only were the hopes of America sent packing, but the interim years of the Biden Administration - four years of fundamental, revolutionary changes for the good - had had no impact.  The idiot was returned to office and was now ruling with a vengeance. 

After so many years of lawfare, screeching howls of misogyny, racism, homophobia and innate bigotry - none of which stuck and only served to add coal to the fire of an already vindictive president - the man was not only still in office but running roughshod over them. 

Wails of misery, torment, and agony were heard up and down Pennsylvania Avenue as liberals forced themselves to walk past the White House, to watch the parade of beautiful blonde young things coming and going, not a black face among them; to hear the blaring horns of triumph playing in the Rose Garden, to see the silhouettes of this unholy cabal of white supremacists strutting from East Wing to West Wing. 

 

'What hath God wrought?', said Bob Muzelle, reverting to his Biblical training never forgotten after years of secularism.  He caught himself too late.  His oath had been uttered and heard by his confreres. However, the man in the Oval Office was indeed an apostasy, a visitation, an unholiness, something deserving of righteous Old Testament wrath. 

When pressed for reasons for this bilious hatred, Bob could only sputter. 'He...this man...this...', he managed without finishing his thought.  It was not only that the question itself was maddening, suggesting there still needed to be justification for liberal criticism, but that the animus within had grown to such proportions that it was unutterable. 

The President had secured the borders, cleared the decks of useless, wasteful government bureaucrats, clotured all debate on the insanity of gender choice, bombed the Iranian nuclear facility to smithereens, rid the Caribbean of a Communist dictator, assisted Israel in its existential time of need, and freed private enterprise from imprisoning taxation, laws, and regulations.   America was regaining status in the world, leading a conservative revolution in Europe, and expressing Machiavellian will and resolve. 

And yet and still, the Left could only shout, 'Racist!' louder and louder with more passion and insistence as though the turning up the volume and shaking like trees in a storm could make a difference.  The Left had nothing in the armory.  Its gunracks, shelves, repositories, hangars, and missile silos were empty.  Gone were the halcyon progressive days of Lafollette, Brandeis, and Gompers, men of principle and intellectual fiber. All that was left of the movement were hollow bellows. 

Meanwhile conservatives were jumping with joy. Finally and at long last, their voices were being heard and finally a real American president, a man like them, was in office.  Trump was indeed middle-brow, a bourgeois man of yachts, mansions, glitz, glamour, and arm candy. The new White House ballroom, the revamped Kennedy Center, the parties, the formal events, the whole atmosphere was all what Americans wanted, what they liked, and what they aspired to. 

 

Yes, his policies mattered and the dismantling of the presumptuous social agenda of the Left was long overdue, but it was his persona which mattered most.  He was a man after their own hearts. 

'But how could they?', asked Bob, still immured within his own progressive redoubt.  So convinced was he of the absolute righteousness of the supremacy of the black man, the essentiality of the gender spectrum, the profound philosophical wisdom of socialism, and the dangers of the warming climate, that anything else was errant, foolhardy, absurd nonsense. 

Conservatives couldn't wait for the latest off-the-cuff remarks from the President, his Borscht Belt, Grossinger's one-liners, his outrageous impressions, his zero tolerance for stupidity, his braggadocio, hilarity, and effusiveness. 

They also loved his machismo - no idle threats, no posturing, no vain saber-rattling.  He just went in and bombed the shit out of Iran's nuclear bunkers, sent a commando unit to capture and remove Maduro and sent warships to the four corners of the globe.  

They admired their man's 'So, sue me' response to the threats of his opponents.  He had earned his chops on the mean real estate streets of New York and nothing intimidated him.  He was willing to go for the jugular at the slightest intimation, play the hardest hardball imaginable, and never lose a wink of sleep because of it. 

 

Donald Trump should be a mystery to no one, and his magical mystery tour - a roundhouse assault on bad government, intellectual chicanery, and liberal idiocy complete with bassoons, banners, festoons, and marching bands - should be no surprise. The fact that America has never had a president like this is no excuse for ignorance.

'What next?', said Bob. 'What possibly could come next?', but that agonizing thought was the halcyon cry of Trump supporters who couldn't wait to see what new, marvelously ingenious initiative would come out of the White House. 

Of course for Bob and his colleagues, it really didn't matter what came next, for they were already instinctively prepared to oppose it, to damn it, and to dismiss it. The solidarity of absolute belief is a thing of wonder.  No reason, no logic, no reflection, no historical context, no philosophical thought can penetrate the perimeter.  Everything is settled science for the progressive.  It is an a priori world of first principles.

For the conservative, life is as it comes. A priori has no meaning or relevance whatsoever.  Life is a perennial wheel of fortune whose only axis is human nature - and that hasn't changed since man came down from the trees.  In the conservative zeitgeist there are no surprises, only delight in seeing what life has next in store. 

'Oh, my God', Bob moaned, again belying his secularism, but the oath was out of his mouth before he knew it.  Things couldn't possibly get any worse, but they did. Every day was a new assault on universal values, goodness, and right behavior. 

Ironically at that very moment a parade crossed in front of his perch in Lafayette Square in front of the White House - phalanx after phalanx of blonde, blue-eyed young women, twirling batons, marching proudly to drums and cymbals, heads held high, breasts thrust forward, all smiling. The rear guard carried American flags, oversized pictures of Trump and placards saying, 'MORE TO COME!'

It was the magical mystery tour parading right before his eyes. The gall of the man! The very idea...but again Bob's voice trailed off in the March wind.  He didn't get it and never would. 

The Queen Of The Jalisco Cartel - How An Ambitious Dancer Made Her Way On The Stage And In Bed

Maria Luisa Fox was a dancer from Guadalajara - a line dancer and then a runway queen, and finally the lead dancer of the Rockettes at Rockefeller Center in New York.  She was a prima donna, a woman who knew her own talents, intelligence, and allure, and thought the world was open to her. 

Of course, New York is not Guadalajara, a town of serapes, tacos, and Montezuma's revenge, controlled now by the cartels who have the government, the Federales and local police in their pocket.  Yet it is still a nice place, more American now than Mexican, what with so many retirees from El Norte settled there; but a place to come back to, to relax on the front porch, listen to rancheros, and watch Mama make enchiladas. 

New York is a jungle, especially for an ambitious woman like Maria Luisa - a comer, a desirable commodity for sale like everything and everyone is in New York - and no matter how she tried, the right doors to Broadway remained closed.  No matter to how many producers and directors to whom she sent her portfolio, she got no callbacks. 

Maria Luisa's family was non-political, more of a que sera sera, cultura de la hamaca family.  The cartels meant business and were everywhere.  Not exactly like Stasi and Sevak, the notorious Secret Police of East Germany and Iran, but an endemic presence. 

Maria Luisa had always been a favorite of Don Miguel Miranda, a high ranking member of the Jalisco cartel but a gentleman, courteous and accommodating in his interest of the young dancer. 'Anything you want, Maria Luisa, you know you can count on me'. 

His favors were generous but modest - flowers, jewelry, an Easter bonnet, dinner at the Marriott for her entire family - but she knew that he was serious in his offers.  What would she have to give in return? Better not to think about payment due, although there was not a drop of intimidation or veiled warning in his promises. 

And so it was that she accepted his offer to travel with him to Acapulco for the weekend.  Separate rooms, of course, but all expenses paid; and if she were so inclined, they might become more intimate. 

The weekend was an idyll, the best accommodations, food, and drink.  She was treated like a princess, and she had to admit that she was moved by his generosity and attention.  

It was shortly after that trip to Acapulco that she returned to Guadalajara and asked to meet him in private.  She was finding it difficult to get the break on Broadway she knew she deserved, and perhaps he had friends in New York who might be of help. 

'Of course, mi amor', he said, and within a few weeks she was informed by the administrative assistant of owner of the Belasco Theatre that he would be pleased to make her acquaintance.  Saul Feinberg, the producer of a musical now in pre-production would also be there. 

Maria Luisa never asked Miguel what he had done to arrange this meeting, and knew that it was better to keep silent and be grateful.  Whatever offer he had made was the right one, and she got the part which she wanted and was most suited for.  

Sleeping one's way to the top is nothing new either on Broadway or in Hollywood.  Any ambitious starlet or theatrical rising star understands the sexual dimensions of success; and in her case Maria Luisa not only got the part but was treated as a queen when she returned to Mexico. For her there was no question about the arrangement, and she repaid Miguel with sincere affection. 

She became well-known in Mexican cartel circles - not quite a gun moll, but the consort of one of the most important figures in the drug underground. The couple was an event, seen at the best watering holes in the capital, on the beaches of Baja and Cancun, and everywhere where it paid to be seen. 

The life was seductive, one of pure pleasure, respect, and admiration; and she found herself spending more time in Mexico than New York.  After the run of the Broadway show in which she had an important role, she deferred other offers, and wondered whether life with Don Miguel was ultimately what she wanted - glamour, fame, wealth, and pleasure without the work. 

There is no doubt that life on Southern plantations in the antebellum South was elegant, grand, and beautiful, very Cavalier and sophisticated. The two worlds - slavery and the cultured world of mansions, lawns, live oaks, and formal balls - could indeed co-exist and while there were grounds to criticize the former, there were still good reasons to champion the other. 

The same was true of life within the Jalisco cartel.  Yes it was a gangland menace, a drug-running threat to governance and civil order; but it was also the home of some of the most swell-to-do men and women in Mexico.  It might not exactly be high European-style society, but it was certainly bourgeoise at its most opulent - a bit overdone and Baroque in places, but all in all as glamorous as anything anywhere. 

'Dance for me', Don Miguel said to her one evening on the lawn of his palatial home overlooking the ocean, and dance she did with plies, twirls, staccato folk steps, and graceful swanlike bows.  Don Miguel was entranced.  How lucky he was to have found her. 

The day she met the President of the Republic in the palace's private chambers was a day to remember. Maria Luisa knew that the cartels had influence at the highest levels, but she never knew how much.  She and Miguel were treated like royalty, honored foreign dignitaries, respected guests.  Little of any import transpired, but the President's warm welcome alone showed the level of respect accorded to Don Miguel. 

She had become so used to the cartel life that she paid little attention to the news of internecine violence, collaboration with MS-13, Mara Salvatrucha, and the vendetta killings in three states. 'It's just business', said Mafia dons after waves of vengeful killings, and so it was with the cartels. Everyone has to make a living, and the demand for drugs in El Norte justified the supply and the necessary means to assure it. 

The Broadway producers who were her sponsors had of course learned of her other life and were hesitant to place her in another show.  If the press got onto this trail, God only knows where it would lead.  So again Don Miguel asked for and arranged another visit to Broadway, Maria Luisa was chosen for an important part yet again, and doubts were quelled. 

It all fell apart, however, when El Mencho the drug kingpin of all Mexico was killed by a combined force of federales and US agents.  Mexico was in flames and the cartels were at each other's throats after blood.  One of Miguel's closest associates was murdered in front of one of Mexico City's most exclusive clubs, and he told Maria Luisa that he would have to disappear for a while. 

After a number of weeks went by, rumor had it that he too had been murdered, and that the idyll was over. She was indicted by a New York federal court, deported back to Mexico, and returned to Guadalajara to live with her mother. 

She was smart enough to know that living such life would have its pitfalls, its up and downs, and perhaps even its minor disasters; but for a woman like her - ambitious not only in terms of career and social position, but for living itself - it was all worth it. 

Cartels are not all that bad, all things considered. 

Serapes, Tacos, And Montezuma's Revenge - Mexico, Cartels, And Mayhem

As of this writing (2/23/26) Mexico is aflame. The drug cartels are wreaking havoc in the country in reprisal for the killing of their supreme jefe. This display of violence - burning cars, armed assault on police, destruction of commercial properties - has shown that the government is not nor never has been in control of the country. Worse, as many have suspected, the government is in the pocket of the cartels.  Unable stop them, they have joined them and have built offshore bank accounts, homes in St. Tropez, and villas on the Caribbean. 

Now, most Americans know little about Mexico except diarrhea; and although the country's tourism department has advertised places like Cancun, Guadalajara, Cabo St. Juan, and Acapulco as tropical idylls, attracting thousands of credulous Americans every year, they are nothing more than explosive tinder boxes in the hands of the cartels.  Most tourists to Cancun still get  diarrhea, but they get some soft breezes in return. 

The country is a mess, and the economic growth, five star Michelin meals in Mexico City, and a solid trade in tomatoes and lettuce, is just window dressing.  Mexico is a Third World country as corrupt as any African dictatorship, perhaps without the secret police, dungeons, and summary executions, but an ungoverned and ungovernable place nonetheless. 

Many older Americans remember their first trip to Tijuana, a quickie across the border for cheap booze and cheaper whores. 'You want to see my seester?', pornographic postcards, rotgut tequila, and rolled by greasers in shithole whore houses was what they got, but still kept coming.  It was a foreign place, full of promise and adventure, and no amount of sleaze, rancid whiskey, stinking serapes, and mangy dogs was going to dampen adventurous enthusiasm. 

Mexico was a joke, a South of the Border getaway from censorious, Puritan America. There you could watch as many dirty movies as you wanted, drink from morning till night, sleep with dark-haired senoritas, and go home with the clap, broke, but happy. 

NAFTA, the cross-border free trade agreement signed a number of years ago helped jumpstart the economy, and supermarket bins were full of Mexican produce.  Of course you had to scrub them, soak them in potassium permanganate, and peel them before eating, but it was a start - fresh produce all year around. 

Farm labor was Mexican, lettuce and strawberry picker, most illegal, but necessary to keep Sacramento Valley humming, and it was only when Joe Biden open the borders and said, 'come one, come all', did Americans get a good dose of Mexicans, and didn't like what they saw.  If the country was so great, why didn't these people stay homes?  It wasn't that the price of lettuce would go down, but sanctuary cities and their taxpayers were spending billions to house illegal immigrants in three-star hotels with a per diem that beggared most Americans'. 

The Mexican government, under a deal with the cartels, every so often showed the flag - planned, mutually agreed upon incursions into known cartel strongholds.  A few shots fired over the heads of the gang members, and a few pickups riddled; but in the main it was all for show.  The cartels went back underground to do their business in peace. 

Now with US help, a drug kingpin has been killed; and this time it is not like when Pablo Escobar got arrested, a quiet reassembly of the hierarchy and then business as usual. This time, the cartels decided to show their muscle both the Mexican government and to the United States.  The violence sent white tourists scattering in panic from airports and streets.  Told to shelter in place, they have been hunkering down in hotel rooms and condos until order is restored; but that is a fanciful promise.  No one knows when the mayhem will end and when the cartels have proven their point. 

Los federales, the state police, have kept petty crime to a minimum all for the sake of tourism, but leaving the cartels alone.  What police officer with a family and a baby on the way wants to confront bloodthirsty cartels?  What federal judge wants to try and convict the few cartel members unlucky enough to avoid federal protection and have his home firebombed as a result?

So Mexico looks like a nice place to visit - safe streets, nice restaurants, good weather, and cheap flights - and the cartels, given America's insatiable appetite for drugs, remain underground, sated, and happy with spectacular profits.  If there is violence, it is between cartels, and the operative Mexican policy is to let them kill each other off. 

The cartels are well-organized, politically savvy, open to new investment, and completely and absolutely bloody-minded. They have no problem with MS-13, Mara Salvatrucha, the Salvadoran gang now with a foothold in Los Angeles. A little extra muscle clearing the trade routes from the south, and helping enforce the status quo is welcome.  While not exactly brothers, the cartels and Mara are cousins in brutality and arms. 

Even the Somalis decided to get into the game - not on the muscle end of course, for these skinny little Africans were not intimidating unless they were behind a Russian machine gun on a pirate boat - but on the distribution end.  Minnesota has looked the other way in an atmosphere of diversity and inclusivity, and Somalis have made billions through fraudulent networks.  Why not use this sanctuary and political blindness to make ten times the money made through empty storefront daycare centers?

So give Mexicans credit. The cartels are even more powerful than the Mafia ever was and their reach extends far beyond Mexico's borders.  The Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Juarez cartels are like the five big Mafia families, each with its own turf, willing to defend it at any cost but agreeing and cooperating when it is in everyone's best interest 

It is also a hydra, a many headed snake - kill the likes of kingpins like Escobar or El Mencho and a hundred others will scramble to take their place.  The violence in Mexico now is not the chaos of a political vacuum, it is a show of strength.  Soon some other brutal leader will head the cartels. 

'Mrs. Sheinbaum, she don't know what she doing', said Maria Valdez, taking a break from cleaning bathrooms. But Sheinbaum knows exactly what she is doing.  She is in bed with the cartels, presents an anti-American nationalistic posture to calm her leftist supporters, and refuses American help because in her heart of hearts and offshore bank accounts she wants no help and is quite happy with the status quo. 

Everyone in Mexico except Sheinbaum and the cartels would be happy if the US military came in, took over, and wiped out every last one of the cartel leaders, destroyed their infrastructure and supply lines, and put an end to the violence.  However, Trump is quite busy, on alert for an invasion of Iran, ready to help Israel if Gaza heats up, and at odds with Russia in Ukraine.  An invasion is possible, but doubtful. 

The days of serapes and tacos are long gone. Montezuma's revenge is still around, but the rest of the landscape is far different than it was.  Mexico is a failed state, one which has done wonders with window dressing. Americans like their cheap tomatoes and strawberries and are content to look no further in understanding the socio-political dynamics of the place. 

Cartels rule! That is the only lesson to come out of the mayhem and universal civil disorder in Mexico. Everyone this side of the border knows it, knew it, or should have known it; and the time for reckoning has come.