Welcome To The Court of the Sun King

Which courtier will win?

Apr 09, 2025

My latest print magazine piece, on the dynamics around well-branded policy-setting in Trump 2.0, is on The Court of the Sun King:

Major matters of international policy are decided according to what you can get Elon Musk to tweet. The whim of a middling tech bro can turn into a news cycle and an internal communications memo to all-staff on a congressional listserv within a day. The problem is no longer policy driven by elite, globalist, anti-American institutions; the problem is policy driven by memes. Neither is, in the frame of the civilizational future of the West, ideal.
A key aspect of this courtier system is the pervasive, delicate and hierarchical understanding of placement on the periodic table of “based,” a concept Google AI defines, somewhat inadequately, as “a term of praise for someone who is ‘un-woke’ or holds unconventional opinions.” A small illiberal portion of the right that has always existed. What’s different now is that a group has seized on illiberal messaging as a linguistic tool to support playing out their personal vendettas against those they dislike.
To disguise this agenda, driven by individual animus as opposed to any deep principle, they have embraced a fictional mantra surrounding the “based” lifestyle brand to disguise their true motives. “You should’ve done his podcast after you went on vacation, you’re more tan now,” a friend said to another potential nominee. The look of the second Trump era is very important to maintain: you need the right bronzer and fillers even if you still shop at Safeway.
Today, Washington is full of an upper-class set of conservatives who share all the personal predilections and tax brackets of the people they’re criticizing. They advocate for, but do not attend, church – RINOs have been replaced by TINOs (Tradcath In Name Onlys). They preach the doctrine of large families while having small ones; their friends all quietly forget the IVF journey they pretend never happened. They hire foreign nannies, buy multi-million dollar properties, have scads of gay married friends, while never owning a used car (that’s for poors) and not knowing the first thing about building an AR-15 (what’s a “lower?”).
On the surface, they are no different from all the people who voted for Kamala Harris and know the difference between East and West Coast oysters on sight. But they blast anyone to their left (or even to their libertarian right) as effete, out-of-touch liberals. The coin of the realm is who others think you know, not who you actually know. “Yes, I can try to get him to tweet that,” says the sherpa to the nominee at Butterworth’s, lying obviously about even having a remote connection to the suddenly critically important Daily Wire host they are discussing – who may not be as important in three weeks.
A steel man version of this would be a kind of Tucker Carlson who kills, butchers and eats elk with the best bone-out techniques – but come on, guys, he’s an Episcopalian with four names, born in San Francisco. The ever-present work to manifest a real-man, Paul Ryan lifestyle of bow hunting and lifting for these courtiers is nothing more than the right-coded equivalent of Tim Walz wearing a new field jacket and not knowing how to load a shotgun. But Ryan was defined as a nerdy cuck because he cares about numbers and spreadsheets and Medicaid’s long-term care program – not like Musk, who has put his staffer, Big Balls, atop DoGE like a boss. Consider it a reminder that branding matters.

Read the rest here. And subscribe to The Spectator here.

Breaking Down the Internal Courtier Divides

Semafor breaks down Team Tariff vs. Team Econ:

Ask Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, and National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett about negotiating on tariffs, for example — and you’ll hear four different answers.
After Lutnick insisted on CNN that Trump is “not going to back off,” Navarro argued in the Financial Times that “this is not a negotiation.” Shortly after that, Bessent announced on X that he would “open negotiations” with Japan and Hassett told Fox News that advisers would “present a plan for Trump” on negotiating tariffs.
The mixed messages point to fundamental disagreements within the administration about how to address trade deficits, according to more than a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and analysts interviewed for this story. Trump’s advisers sound united behind the spirit of his trade agenda but far less aligned on its execution — differences driven by both personality and ideology…
The results of such a unique experiment in economic policymaking are unsettling investors and sparking quiet frustration among congressional Republicans who now have to defend the tariffs to voters and businesses. While some lawmakers and CEOs may look for advice from one economic adviser over another, the internal discord indicates that Trump is the only reliable narrator of his next moves on tariffs…
Standing on the outside of that dynamic, albeit with considerable influence, is Elon Musk. The billionaire Trump ally has made clear he disagrees with the tariffs and labeled Navarro “a moron” who is “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
It’s enough to drive Republican lawmakers to distraction, sometimes in public. Republican senators pressed Greer at a Thursday hearing about who, specifically, was playing point on tariffs for the administration.
“Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., asked Greer on Tuesday, questioning what he described as a potentially overbroad approach to the tariffs. “I wish you well, but I am skeptical,” Tillis said later, before tempering his vivid rhetoric on the Senate floor.
“Trying to get everyone on the same effing page would be great,” one House Republican, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the tariff rollout, told Semafor. “I’m good picking a lane — but pick an effing lane.”

More on the Musk v. Navarro fight in Politico and WSJ. Here’s my podcast on it:

Bond Market Worries on Wall Street

The Wall Street Journal:

U.S. stocks rose early Wednesday after administration officials discounted recession calls on Wall Street, following the implementation of sweeping new U.S. tariffs and China's retaliation.
Volatility returned approaching midday in New York. Major indexes turned lower, with the Dow leading the way down, only to reverse once more.
President Trump counseled cool and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told bankers “we are in pretty good shape" on the economy. Earlier, JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon had said the economy was likely headed for a recession.
Trump’s reciprocal tariffs on nearly 100 nations took effect overnight, including a 104% tariff on Chinese imports. On Wednesday, Beijing said it would raise levies on U.S. imports to 84%, from 34%.
Also under scrutiny was the selloff in U.S. Treasurys. The yield on the 10-year note, the reference point for trillions of dollars in loans and securities, rose as high as 4.47% Wednesday before retreating somewhat. It marked the largest rise over a four-day period since the height of the 2008 financial crisis.
Investors say there is broad nervousness about holding longer-term Treasurys ahead of government auctions Wednesday and Thursday. That anxiety contributed to a global stock selloff, with Japanese equities falling 3.9% and Europe's main benchmark down nearly 3%.
Trump said Tuesday that levies on pharmaceutical imports will be announced “very shortly.” Pharma stocks such as Merck and Pfizer were down 3% early Wednesday.

But at least they got to meet some penguins:

Some found moments of levity amid the chaos. In a webinar, a strategist for JPMorgan’s asset-management arm brought on a pair of fake penguins he said were trade representatives from the remote Heard Island and McDonald Islands. The territory is home to little besides Antarctic wildlife but was still hit with Trump’s tariffs.
The strategist thanked the penguins for joining him by tossing them a toy fish.

Biden Admin Hid Report on Early Covid Cases

Free Beacon:

Seven Americans may have contracted COVID-19 in Wuhan in October 2019, several months before the reported start of the pandemic, according to a bombshell military report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon that the Biden administration concealed from the public.
The December 2022 report, which the Biden administration was required by law to release to the public over two years ago but didn’t, reveals for the first time that seven U.S. military service members contracted COVID-19-like symptoms during or after their participation in the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019—contradicting the Biden administration’s public claims in 2021 that there was no evidence that any American participants contracted the virus at those games. The revelation adds to a mounting body of evidence that the virus was circulating in Wuhan for months before China disclosed it to the world in December 2019 and further bolsters the growing consensus that it could have leaked into the human population from a Chinese lab.
The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act required the Biden administration to make its report on the 2019 Wuhan World Military Games "publicly available on an internet website in a searchable format" by the summer of 2022. Though the Biden administration transmitted copies of the two-page report to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in December 2022, it didn’t see the light of day until sometime in late March when the Trump administration quietly uploaded it to a Defense Department website.
The potential COVID-19 illnesses from the American participants in the Wuhan World Military Games appear to have been a closely guarded secret of the Defense Department. Chinese authorities have suggested since as early as February 2020 that America could have unleashed COVID-19 into Wuhan through their participation in the World Military Games. Former Biden Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told the Washington Post in June 2021 that the military had "no knowledge" of any COVID-19 infections among the troops that participated in those games.