By Aunt America
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinion on ScoonTV
The second Trump presidency isn’t a Rorschach test; it’s a Hall of Mirrors. I didn’t miscapitalize just now. It is the actual, literal Hall of Mirrors at Versailles near Paris. It is renowned for its giganticness, opulence, and many extra pieces of flair—several features of the Hall exist only to look like they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
Of course, you’ll see whatever you want to see reflected in such a room; it’s either a ghastly explosion of money into a single room or it’s an effective bit of statecraft, proclaiming to anyone who drops by here is the wealth and power of the then-kingdom of France.
In other words, it’s either ominous or auspicious.
I don’t know if our President has ever seen the Hall of Mirrors. Still, given the fashion in which he decorated his New York penthouse in the 80’s, he would have left it highly impressed—his Peak 80’s penthouse was gold-plated, there was a private elevator, it had a fountain…it was all we talked about in the 80’s– you should have been there.
The most pressing problem of navigating Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors is discerning which is a concrete object and what is just the effect of a bad snail from the breakfast buffet.
And here in these early stages, we still don’t have a handle on which bit of Trump will rule the other Trumps—the showman? The blustering PR agent? The Commander in Chief who couldn’t wait to announce that a terrorist had “died like a dog”? The cheerful weight-loss version trotting alongside RFK with a rapidly shrinking physique in one hand and a bag of bunless Big Macs in the other?
We’ve seen all of these Trumps so far, and it’s partially the reason why some find him so terrifying. Even after an entire administration in the books and another one now past the 100-day mark, we still don’t know what he’s going to do next, where he’ll do it, or what government agency gets shut down in the aftermath.
It’s the greatest show in the Western Hemisphere. It’s partially because Trump learned from his enemies and critics the first time around: You can just do stuff, and if you want to do your stuff, you had better do your stuff early and often before the protestors even have time to load the Greyhound in Cheboygan.
So it’s the reader’s choice as to whether or not the following is auspicious or ominous.
143 Executive Orders On Parade
One moment of the Trump campaign in 2016 when I realized Trump might actually pull this sucker off. The gold-plated millionaire, I realized, trailing Tiffany bags tax write-offs, was connecting to people on a personal level. Auspicious, maybe?
The second moment was when I saw the reveal at one of the last rallies of the campaign. It was late at night in an airplane hangar, and Trump made an elaborate show (for he knows no other kind) of slooooowly opening the doors of the hangar to reveal his name writ large on his airplane. As airplane parking jobs go, it was a disaster—it was across the door, practically a parallel park job—but as stagecraft, it was genius. It cost the Trump campaign nothing but a five-point turn from their pilot, and it was a shout from Mt. Olympus: Behold, I AM My Brand.
This was a watershed moment for Trump personally and conservatives in general, who have no sense of arrival. They didn’t even know they could do a dramatic reveal until Trump did one. And by the time they figured it out, he was far and away the nominee.
Trump then applied these lessons to staging his executive orders, and I do mean staging. He literally signed some on an actual stage at an Inauguration Day rally, then tossed the pens into the crowd like Charlie Watts nailing “Paint It Black” and the encore.
Clumps of female athletes in uniforms surrounded Trump as he formalized Title IX action. Kids sat at desks and wrote alongside him as he happily disemboweled the Department of Education.
You might not like what you’re looking at when you’re looking at Trump, but you’re gonna look.
The Binders Not Full of Epstein Files Debacle
It feels like at least three or four suspicious suicides ago, but this took place in late February. And as own-goals go, this is either as auspicious or ominous as it gets.
Having promised to release the entirety of the much-discussed Epstein files from the FBI’s grasp and the black Sharpies, the Trump White House invited several conservative talk show hosts, commentators, and X posters to the White House, where white binders with a very official-looking Staples print job were distributed. These worthies held them up in the air, clutched them to their chests, drove off with them, and eagerly opened them to find: Nothing. Much of the information was already public.
If you’re a person who enjoys a good troll of anyone who refers to him or herself as “an influencer,” this was a tremendous day for you. But if you, like much of the rest of the planet, were hoping to find information regarding the new people we can all unify in hating together, it was like waking up in England one day, excited to see some in-person American football. And getting stuck with the Jaguars and the Patriots.
The Deportation Slide Show
Various departments under the Trump administration have a new hobby, and it’s posting photography on the internet. Slow to use social media the first time around, this time, Trump had a trustworthy teenager to guide him into the game—his son, Baron.
Having seen tremendous success on TikTok and in shorts on other platforms, the tactic trickled down to his department heads. The ICE X feed is a regular “Hey, Look At This Guy” show. It’s effective in the sense that the American people concerned about immigration see evidence of criminal aliens chucked back over the border wall. It’s shareable, it’s up-to-the-minute, and it’s the worst dating app you’ll ever see.
But is it dehumanizing? Many of the photos show deportees standing, stone-faced, between FBI and ICE agents who are invariably turned away from the camera. Scrolling through a whole stream of these can lead to an uncomfortable big game feeling, and it’s uncomfortable for everyone to note that the arresting officers are usually white and the deportees are usually… not. If you were the type of person boarding that bus to Cheboygan, this is ominous.
The Big Beautiful Bill
Two egos the size of Trump’s and Elon Musk’s cannot co-exist. The haters rubbed their hands, just waiting for it, and the faithful held their breath.
Everyone, including Trump and Musk, came away disappointed. The One Big Beautiful Bill– “this massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill”, according to Musk– was the rupture point. Not a slight on X. Not jumping one too many times on a rally stage. Codifying DOGE’s work is where the line in the gold dust was drawn.
While conservatives would’ve flung their coats for Trump to walk over ten or fifteen years ago to see the kind of government reduction that the OBBB proposes, many are siding with Musk on this. The cuts don’t balance the blow to the deficit, they’re arguing– and never will.
And part of the problem is Trump himself. By touting less government and bringing a to-the-bone businessman like Musk on board, the Tea Party was suddenly looking like a hippie commune. Once voters smell no income tax and a demolished Department of Education, it’s tough to hand them a bill crammed with “investments” in manufacturing and expect them to swallow it happily.
A giant bill was never going to satisfy everyone, and it might end up satisfying no one, except people who like big government. Trump’s bill increases government surveillance, takes away health coverage and food from poor people, and doesn’t allow states to block AI initiatives, no matter what they are, for a decade. Did people vote for this?
The Trump Show is just that—a grand one, and we’re on our tiptoes trying to get a look between the billboards to discover if it’s a rolling disaster or simply a closet-based one, in which everything has to be pulled out on the floor and sorted, labeled, and re-folded before sanity is restored.
Many Democrats and Republicans are trying to wait out Trump. Trying to see if he will go away, eventually, and MAGA with him, and then sanity will be restored. Sanity being a uniparty government and business as usual in Washington. But maybe that world no longer exists. We are living in a post-Trump world as radically different as an America before the Civil Rights Act or 9/11.
Curtis Scoon is the founder of ScoonTv.com Download the ScoonTv App to join our weekly livestream every Tuesday @ 8pm EST!
