It’s Not One Thing, It’s Everything
By Heywood Reynolds
It’s not that there’s just one thing wrong with Donald Trump—it’s that everything is wrong with him. And strangely, that might be the source of his resilience.
I’m reminded of an episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns visits his doctor expecting a clean bill of health, only to be diagnosed with “Three Stooges Syndrome”—a condition where he has so many diseases at once that they bottleneck at the door, preventing any single one from killing him. He literally has every problem imaginable. Misunderstanding the diagnosis, Mr. Burns assumes he’s indestructible.
We are living through the political version of this phenomenon. The Trump era is defined by such overwhelming corruption, dishonesty, and incompetence—happening all at once—that no single scandal ever seems to land. He’s “Teflon Don,” nothing sticks to him. Meanwhile, his political strategy thrives on singular, repetitive attacks against his opponents. With Hillary Clinton, it was “her emails.” With Joe Biden, it’s “his age.” With Kamala Harris, it’s “her low IQ.” Baseless as these smears may be, their simplicity and repetition make them stick. (And maybe Biden’s age was a valid critique.)
The irony is that if Trump were less corrupt or less chaotic, he might actually be more vulnerable to criticism. But chaos is his brand. We’ve become so numb to his absurdity that when he casually suggests buying Greenland, we just shrug. “That’s just Trump being Trump.”
If you don’t recall The Simpsons, you may have seen Saturday Night Live’s recent cold open, parodying how the media struggles to cover Trump. In the skit, a panel of news anchors tries to discuss his latest scandal, only to be repeatedly interrupted by breaking news of another. It’s satire—but uncomfortably close to reality.
No wonder Americans are tuning out. Many cite exhaustion, overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all. But disengagement is dangerous. The more fatigued we become, the more we enable Trump to act with impunity. And while some of his antics are mere distractions, his policies have real damaging consequences. In fact, many of his policies will likely produce the exact opposite result of their desired intention.
He wants to fix government dysfunction—by hiring people with no management experience. He wants to lower prices—through tariffs and mass deportations that will drive costs up. We are plagued by floods and wildfires—so he talks about gutting FEMA. We’ve just endured a pandemic—yet he wants to leave the World Health Organization and appoints a vaccine skeptic to lead Health and Human Services. He wants to make the federal workforce more efficient–by paying them not to work. We’ve had the hottest year on record—so he pulls us out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
It’s governance by gut instinct—and every instinct is wrong.
Which brings me to one final pop culture reference: Seinfeld. There’s an episode where George Costanza, the lovable loser, realizes that every decision he’s ever made has been disastrous. So he decides to do the opposite—and suddenly, his life turns around.
Trump could learn something from George. If every instinct he has is wrong, the opposite must be right.
And if we, as a country, don’t course-correct soon, this episode could end poorly.