Michael Flynn’s non-stop griftathon

This guy is possibly the purest cynic in MAGAland, other than the God-Emperor himself. He’s currently hawking the craziest Qanon conspiracy nonsense to enrich himself and his extended family, while being caught on tape acknowledging that it’s all lies. (You’ll be shocked to learn that his theory is that Qanon is actually “a disinformation campaign, created by the left and the CIA.”).

For whatever reason, he’s risen to the top of the current Trumper martyrology, and is cashing in bigly, via practically open rube-running. That his brother Charles, who at least on paper appears uninvolved in all this grifting, is a very high ranking general who currently commands U.S. Army Pacific, seems at least a little disconcerting.

I expect he’ll play a leading role in America’s Got Fascism, as our ultimately reality TV show strives to get rebooted this November. I actually wouldn’t be that surprised if Trump names him as his VP pick, as Trump becomes increasingly erratic and impulsive (The MAGA base basically worships Flynn, perhaps a bit too ardently for Trump’s taste, but we’ll see).

Relatedly, here’s some really interesting data from Nate Cohn regarding the extent to which Trump’s chances in November appear to turn on whether a bunch of people who rarely or never vote turn out for him. These aren’t Ariana Grande voters — they’re people who are normally outside the electoral system altogether, as opposed to the classic low information swing voters for whom my favorite singer has become a symbolic reference on this blog.

Much of this group is made of young people and/or minorities, as opposed to the older white voters who show up for every election. I suspect this group is full of people for whom Trump is pretty much just a repository for a free-floating sense of disgust and alienation from politics, the economic system, the mainstream culture, etc.

Whether they actually show up to vote in November in decisive numbers is at this point anybody’s guess.