We don’t really learn anything new about Donald Trump anymore. He’s the same old liar and buffoon he’s been for 50 years. But sometimes we relearn the stuff we already knew in ways that are so shocking that we have to pause and take stock.

One of the old lessons we relearned this week has to do with Trump’s adolescent need for constant praise, and the abject willingness of his sycophants to provide it without his having to ask—even, or especially, when the reality screams for rebuke.

This is a crucial point that needs to be widely understood, and will be by those with a living memory of the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. The operating principle of such regimes was this: The worse actual conditions were, the more fulsome the propaganda had to be. The crops yields were excellent, comrades! Our cars are far superior to the capitalists’! Prisons? What prisons?

Which brings us back to Trump’s America, which isn’t so different in key respects from Enver Hoxha’s Albania. Here we have a week when Trump’s bumbling, his stupidity, his willed ignorance of history, and his utter refusal to think through policy have never been more fully on display. With all this tariff flip-flopping, he very nearly launched a global economic crisis. As it is, he personally—no one else—cost investors, from large institutional ones to you and me, trillions of dollars. And the lower tariff rates he announced Wednesday as the bond market was about to explode are still the highest since the infamous Smoot-Hawley years.

It was a disaster in every way. And as such, it required an especially intense degree of obsequiousness.

Bill Ackman: "This was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump. Textbook, Art of the Deal."

Karoline Leavitt (to White House reporters): "Many of you in the media clearly missed The Art of the Deal. You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here."

And the winner of this week’s Stalin Prize, Stephen Miller: "You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history."

For good measure, not exactly on the topic of the tariffs but nevertheless a Stalin Prize contender, we had Pam Bondi at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday: "President, we’ve had some great wins in the last few days. You know, you were overwhelmingly elected by the biggest majority."

Wait, what? "President"? Not "Mr. President"? Why? Because it’s a little closer to "El Presidente"? For the record, Trump won a plurality, not a majority, and he got four million fewer votes than Joe Biden did in 2020. But there’s more: In her next sentence, Bondi invoked "U.S. Americans." I haven’t heard that one since Miss Teen South Carolina in 2007.

If these people are right that Trump was acting the whole time with great intention, then we must seriously consider the allegation that he was manipulating the market with his Wednesday morning social media post about now being "A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" If he knew that morning that he was going to announce a pause that afternoon—an announcement that he had to know would send the market skyrocketing—then there’s little question that his post constituted market manipulation. The best argument in Trump’s defense here is a pretty pitiful one: that he’s so incapable of thinking more than 15 minutes ahead that it’s hard to believe he knew in the morning what he was going to do in the afternoon.

Regardless, we’re in an unprecedentedly chilling era in American politics. Literally never in American history have presidential aides and supporters spoken quite like this, employing the kind of flattery one usually sees in totalitarian regimes (which are a couple ticks worse in general than authoritarian ones).

What does it tell us about the future? Trump is going to get worse. I think we can say that with confidence. Each week so far has been worse than the last, in terms of the assaults on democracy. His executive order this week concerning Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs is terrifying—perhaps the most frightening thing he’s done yet in his war on political enemies. Telling the Justice Department to investigate specific individual Americans because of their political activity arguably goes further in turning the state into an instrument of his personal will than anything else he’s done.

Bondi said we should rest assured that the Justice Department alone will make any prosecutorial decisions. But the mere fact that Justice is going to use resources to investigate these two men, who are guilty of nothing more than political advocacy Trump didn’t like, has terrifying implications for every U.S. American out there.

So, yes, things will get even worse. And as they do, the sycophancy will grow ever more insistent and unapologetic. That’s how it works. These attempts to win the Stalin Prize are so pathetic they’re almost funny—but each one of them is also another assault on democratic values and customs. We can’t forget this.

You’ve heard about the Smoot-Hawley tariffs a thousand times now, enough to know that they have not aged well, to put it mildly. Not a good way for your surname to go down in history. But whenever I see Reed Smoot’s name, I can’t help but think of the issue with which, in his time, he was arguably more closely identified: censorship.

His specialty was sizing up foreign literature to determine whether it was appropriate for American consumption. Generally speaking, it was not. Time magazine mocked him in 1930:

Friends of that high-minded Mormon, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, were startled last week to learn how he was spending his holidays. Thoroughly, searchingly he was reading salacious books, one after another. Carefully he was blue-pencilling the most lascivious passages, turning down pages for future reference. It was duty, of course, not preference, which prompted the Senator’s actions.

Smoot’s passion here was best memorialized by the great Ogden Nash, whose poem "Invocation" is vintage Nash and gets right to the heart of things:

Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.)

Is planning a ban on smut.

Oh rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut.

And his reverent occiput.

Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,

Grit your molars and do your dut.,

Gird up your l—ns,

Smite h p and th gh,

We’ll all be Kansas

By and by.

Smite, Smoot, for the Watch and Ward,

For Hiram Johnson and Henry Ford,

For Bishop Cannon and John D., Junior,

For Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvunia,

For John S. Sumner and Elder Hays

And possibly Edward L. Bernays,

For Orville Poland and Ella Boole,

For Mother Machree and the Shelton pool.

When smut’s to be smitten

Smoot will smite

For G d, for country,

And Fahrenheit.

Senator Smoot is an institute

Not to be bribed with pelf;

He guards our homes from erotic tomes

By reading them all himself.

Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,

They’re smuggling smut from Balt. to Butte!

Strongest and sternest

Of your s x

Scatter the scoundrels

From Can. to Mex.!

Smite, Smoot, for Smedley Butler,

For any good man by the name of Cutler,

Smite for the W.C.T.U.,

For Rockne’s team and for Leader’s crew,

For Florence Coolidge and Admiral Byrd,

For Billy Sunday and John D., Third,

For Grantland Rice and for Albie Booth,

For the Woman’s Auxiliary of Duluth,

Smite, Smoot,

Be rugged and rough,

Smut if smitten

Is front-page stuff.

From Balt. to Butte. Makes me glad Smoot wasn’t named Smith; Nash might never have been inspired to write this.

Lovingly designed, all-inclusive tours of some of the most spellbinding places in the world, for special groups of TNR readers and supporters. Drawing on The New Republic’s contacts among local historians, artists, and chefs, we’ve created first-class experiences that will immerse you in the colorful and unique history, politics, and culture of each country.

Last week’s quiz: "I may not get there with you …" On the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, a few questions about that event and its history.

1. King was killed, of course, in Memphis. Why was he there?

A. To respond to the shooting of a Black teenager by a white Memphis policeman

B. To march with protesters trying to integrate a fancy restaurant

C. To support a sanitation workers’ strike

D. To visit some in-laws

Answer: C, the sanitation strike. A march was planned for April 8.

2. The line above, "I may not get there with you," is from his final speech, the night of April 3. What destination was he referring to?

A. The mountaintop

B. The Promised Land

C. The land of milk and honey

D. Nashville the next Tuesday, where a big sit-in was planned

Answer: B, the Promised Land. He also spoke in that speech of having been to the mountaintop, but this reference was to the Promised Land. Here’s the passage: "Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!" 

3. As he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel shortly before he was shot, King gently teased which member of his entourage about being underdressed for dinner?

A. Jesse Jackson

B. Andrew Young

C. Ralph Abernathy

D. A.D. King (his brother)

Answer: A, Jesse Jackson. They were all headed to a local reverend’s house for dinner.

4. James Earl Ray wasn’t arrested until about two months after the shooting. Where was he finally apprehended?

A. A Memphis hotel just half a mile away from the Lorraine

B. A brothel in Montreal

C. Crosley Field in Cincinnati during a Reds game

D. London Heathrow Airport

Answer: D, Heathrow. On June 8, he was trying to fly to Brussels when a ticket agent noticed that the name on his passport was on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police watchlist. 

5. Robert F. Kennedy (the real one) was campaigning in Indianapolis that night, and it fell to him to tell his audience that King had just been shot and killed. His extemporized remarks have gone down as one of the greatest speeches in American political history. What ancient poet did he quote?

A. Aristophanes

B. Virgil

C. Aeschylus 

D. Ovid

Answer: C, Aeschylus. The lines: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: ‘In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.’"

6. In the 1980s, when the MLK Jr. Day holiday became law, one Republican governor actually rescinded it, claiming it was created illegally. It was a huge controversy at the time. Who was that governor?

A. Guy Hunt of Alabama

B. Evan Mecham of Arizona

C. Bill Clements of Texas

D. George Deukmejian of California

Answer: B, Evan Mecham. Here’s the story. Mecham was so generally out there that he was eventually impeached. 

This week’s quiz: "It might as well be …" Songs, movies, and poems about (to some extent) spring.

1. In "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers, for whom was it winter?

A. Stalin

B. Churchill and Roosevelt

C. Marx and Engels

D. Poland and France

2. What notable thing does Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) do at the Spring Fling dance in 2004’s Mean Girls?

A. Douses Regina George (Rachel McAdams) with warm beer 

B. Breaks up her plastic tiara into little pieces and gives them to the less popular girls

C. Declares that she has a secret crush on Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan)

D. Shocks everyone by slow dancing with Principal Duvall (Tim Meadows)

3. Who wrote these lines?

Dear March—Come in—

How glad I am—

I hoped for you before—

Put down your Hat—

You must have walked—

How out of Breath you are—

Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—

Did you leave Nature well—

Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—

I have so much to tell—

A. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

B. Emily Dickinson

C. Matthew Arnold

D. Robert Lowell

4. Where did George Harrison write "Here Comes the Sun"?

A. Paul’s solarium

B. Ringo’s kitchen table

C. Eric Clapton’s garden

D. Sitting on the loo at Abbey Road

5. Who wrote the songs for 1948’s Easter Parade, starring Fred Astaire and Judy Garland?

A. George and Ira Gershwin

B. Rodgers and Hart

C. Sammy Cahn

D. Irving Berlin

6. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land opens with the famous line, "April is the cruelest month." What’s the next line?

A. "Breeding lilacs out of the dead land"

B. "Stirring dull roots with spring rain"

C. "In vials of ivory and colored glass"

D. "They’re selling postcards of the hanging"

There’s a little joke embedded in question 6 that some of you might enjoy. Answers next week. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com. 

—Michael Tomasky, editor 

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