"Trump is quickly becoming irrelevant to the MAGA movement...Peter Thiel's surrogate is warming up in the bullpen"

[gfarber]

30. Vance Warms Up

An analyst wrote on a Friday quite dour,
That power may sour by judicial hour;
If karma keeps score,
Some aides may want more
Than press passes to pass the time—behind bars.

At Davos, “Mean Don” took the stage,
With a rant that looked lost on the page;
A word salad flew,
With no dressing in view—
Even verbs tried to flee from the cage.

Once Trump read the room with some skill,
Now the room seems to read him—at will;
Trump 2.0’s flair
Feels oddly threadbare,
Like a reboot no focus could fill.

Behind him stands Miller, they say,
Deputy president—night and day;
From borders to raids,
He’s the hand that pervades,
Even timing the vitamins, hey!

ICE moves with a script and a cue,
Every step pre-arranged and reviewed;
If shadows ran shows,
He’d be boss of the prose—
With a pen and a plan to construe.

Meanwhile Vance gains sway in the wings,
While Trump fades from MAGA-think tanks and things;
With a Thiel-backed heir
Warming up over there,
The bullpen looks primed for worse flings.

So the columnist wonders aloud,
If the king’s just a face in the crowd;
When the movement outgrows
The man it once chose,
It’s the courtiers who may feel most cowed.