Maybe There Is No Time for Accountability
Approaching the too-late, maybe we have to accept even malign actors.
After President Donald Trump proclaimed on Truth Social that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” InfoWars host Alex Jones, former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and conservative commentators Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson all called for his removal from office.
Mr. Jones announced a “WAR CRIME ALERT,” quoted Mr. Trump’s words back at his audience, and wrote that Mr. Trump “literally sounds like an unhinged supervillain from a Marvel comic movie.” On air, Mr. Jones called Mr. Trump a “dementia risk” and asked his guest, “How do we 25th Amendment his ass?”
Ms. Owens tweeted that “the 25th amendment needs to be invoked,” called Mr. Trump “a genocidal lunatic,” and demanded that “Congress and military… intervene.”
Ms. Greene posted “25TH AMENDMENT!!!” and wrote that the United States “cannot kill an entire civilization” and that “this is evil and madness.”
Many such cases.
Podcast host Tucker Carlson accused Mr. Trump of trying to play God. “The message of all faith at the biggest-picture level,” Mr. Carlson said, “is you are not God. And only if you think you are, do you talk this way.”
What took them so long? Mr. Trump was crazy in 2016, when he rolled down his stupid gilded escalator spewing evil bullshit. These persons supported him after that. It was on their backs he was lifted to this position.
I saw on social media in response to a compilation of defections:
“This is your mess. You clean it up,”
“They’re the ones who did this,”
“Get the fuck out of here,”
“It’s too late.”
One particular Reddit comment caught my eye: “Until they are willing to take accountability for what they have said or done, I will never accept them.”
Were these hardcore right-wing talk show hosts and Ms. Greene looking for that poster’s acceptance? Or were they looking to stop Mr. Trump from nuking Iran? Were they looking for the left’s familial embrace? Or did they want Mr. Trump removed from power?
I do not expect this to be a popular thing to say over at Busboys and Poets or Kramerbooks, but I think it is too late to ask anybody for “accountability.”
Mmes. Greene, Owens, and Mr. Jones have already done enough deplorable things that, if we hold their crimes against them, we can never use their help. But we could let that be tomorrow’s problem! They will likely say or do terrible things in the future, might even try and harm us next week. But we can wait ‘til then to be mad at that.
I think it would be immoral not to agree to let them talk shit about Mr. Trump. It would be a sin to forsake their help when “Iranian civilization,” the existence of another country, is at stake.
If Iran is turned into a wasteland, as Mr. Trump threatened, that would be one of history’s great horrors, the loss and displacement of 90 million people. Economically, morally, ecologically, and spiritually catastrophic. Anyone who wants to stop this must try.
Ms. Owens saying “we are beyond madness” reaches people unreachable to MSNOW hosts Rachel Maddow or the Morning Joes.
Mr. Carlson saying that Mr. Trump’s mockery of Islam insults all people of faith, and that threatening of mass death on Easter is some antichrist bullshit—will be more meaningful to his millions of listeners than me saying the same.
To be clear, I am saying yes, amplify Alex Jones, even celebrate him, if it increases the sum of people objecting to the war.
We do not need to invite any of these blowhards “into the tent.” They were not asking to join—they think as poorly of us as we do them, and they would not enjoy “our tent.” But we want their tents on the right side of this.
Hardly even peace—conservative commentator Megyn Kelly said that “Trump could drop a nuke and [she’d] still vote Republican over those people [meaning Democrats].” But if Ms. Kelly would prefer there to be no mass destruction, she still ought to rebuke the president.
Mr. Trump should be removed from the Oval Office. We should stymie the destruction he calls for. If the ascendant generation of the Right’s villains will “do the work” to break the MAGA personality cult, then we must do that task together. If that cult’s former acolytes want to build their own cults with the pieces, then those will be their spoils; Democrats and all Americans of character will be rewarded with the end of the Trump show.
A comic book allusion. During the Marvel Comics crossover, “A.X.E.: Judgment Day,” the X-Men, desperate for aid to combat a space god, fought alongside a group of sentient mutant-hating-and-hunting Sentinels called Orchis. In A.X.E.: Judgment Day issue #6, after the space god is defeated, Orchis wins so much popularity from that campaign that children wore Orchis t-shirts, watched Orchis cartoons, and soon most mutants were imprisoned. Still, the planet did not get blown up.
This is to say that Mr. Carlson need not “redeem himself” to address the threat today, and he will probably profit if he does so and use those profits to promote his own evil ideology tomorrow. This is the lesser awful.
Former Representative Joe Walsh said at the 2026 Principles First Conference: “If you believe the threat is the threat,” then “we are called to do stuff that we never thought we would have to do. Deny ourselves.” The easiest things for me to sacrifice are perfect alliances and a future without sucky compromises, because we would never get those anyway.
Ms. Owens does not seek to be good by our standards. When she wages her wars against French First Lady Brigitte Macron and Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk, she invokes anti-Semitism, witchcraft, secret government plots, queerphobia. She writes litanies of libels weekly.
Mr. Jones is still derelict in repaying the families of Sandy Hook victims for using his broadcast to call them crisis actors.
Mr. Carlson will not seek forgiveness so that he can be included beside us. He is maybe on a Qatari payroll, maybe running for president, normalizing anti-vaccine propaganda and likely costing gullible Americans their lives, still promoting the same white extinction bullshit as Mr. Trump and his evil vizier Stephen Miller. He is an abhorrent and condemnable character, but it is possible to put fighting him on hold and deal with all that later.
The redemption arc of Ms. Greene has been a hard swallow, because however she arrives at the right conclusions, it always seems to be from bigoted, selfish, or conspiratorial reasons. Her work with Democrats to release the Epstein files was meant to catch Democrats in the files. Yet, by pursuing a common goal with her, Representative Ro Khanna got the Epstein Transparency Act passed, wounded the fuck out of MAGA, and turned Ms. Greene into at least a voice against genocide. That ruled, dude.
My friend Mr. G. said that the prosecution of the Iran war made even his lifelong Republican-loving, Trump-loving, Islamophobic parents turn against the president.
“They hate [Trump] now,” Mr. G. said.
I suggested Leaving MAGA founder Rich Logis’s nonprofit, Leaving MAGA.
Mr. G. sighed and said, “No, no, they don’t want to stop being Republicans, they just want the Trump show to be over before it’s too late.” Oddly, they had more willingness to attend NO KINGS than to leave MAGA. But that is still good!
On Truth Social, Mr. Trump announced his former servants had “Low IQs,” were “stupid people,” “thrown off Television, lost their Shows, and aren’t even invited on TV because nobody cares about them.” He called them “NUT JOBS” and “TROUBLEMAKERS.”
Mr. Trump said Mr. Carlson “couldn’t even finish College” and “was a broken man when he got fired from Fox.”
Mr. Trump said that “the First Lady of France is a far more beautiful woman than Candace, in fact, it’s not even close!”
Mr. Trump called Mr. Jones “Bankrupt,” and reminded everyone that Mr. Jones “lost his entire fortune, as he should have, for his horrendous attack on the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.”
Mr. Trump referred to Ms. Greene as “Wacky Marjorie Traitor Brown,” explaining that “green turns to brown under stress.” A sick burn, to be sure.
If Mr. Carlson does not want Mr. Trump to destroy Iran or to mock Islam, that is good. I cannot say he has no right to take a good position. And if he takes a good position today, and we must fight him again tomorrow—in 2028, or 2032, or 2036, or 2040—he has a right to run, and we must beat him then.
I just do not have the time to attack people while they are yelling at the same guy as me. I consider it irresponsible not to do so when the alternative is great destruction. I am certain my heart is set here. I am somewhat certain this is the correct course of action. If I regret this sentiment later, I hope it shows I came by it honestly.