Gerard Baker: BULLSHIT ARTIST OF THE DAY

My interpretation of what is going on here: Gerard Baker saying “I am anti-Trump too!”, in the hope of shifting to firmer ground on which he can argue that he and his friends should get to keep all their ill-gotten gains from the Trump tax cuts. After all, aren’t the only things that matter (a) that, (b) making liberals sad and (c ) keeping non-”white” non-male non-elderly people in their place?:
So how come Google Maps now calls the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario the Gulf of and Lake America, but does not yet show New Mexico relabled as “New America” anyway?
We have the absolutely remarkable, in so many ways:
Gerard Baker: Help—I Feel a Bad Case of TDS Coming On : ‘A signal achievement [of Trump] has been getting control of the border and removing some of the people who have no legal right to be here. But even with this proper and overwhelmingly popular policy, the administration has managed to harm the country and the GOP’s standing. The unnecessarily cruel and indiscriminate approach has caught many in its dragnet who shouldn’t be treated that way and is fundamentally un-American. The political effect has been to devastate support for the GOP among Hispanics, more than reversing the gains Mr. Trump had made with the fastest-growing ethnic population in the country…
In what sense can this possibly be a “signal achievement” if it is “cruel and indiscriminate… caught many… who shouldn’t be treated that way… fundamentally un-American?”
Baker’s closing:
The looming Republican calamity… will be the result of presidential hubris, vanity, recklessness and the wider party’s abdication of accountability. Instead of seizing an unrivaled opportunity to shift America off the path of progressive endangerment, the GOP risks handing it back to the Democrats and their own obsessions. It’s enough to give anyone a case of Trump derangement syndrome.
Given Baker’s earlier—I am not sure what to call it? admission?—the fact that it is “the wider party’s” rather than my own “abdication of responsibility” is an interesting attempted evasion to see at this late date. What was the earlier “admission” you ask? This:
Jan. 6… removed any doubt about the threat Donald Trump might pose to our constitutional norms and rules, [but] I thought the institutions of the U.S. would… constrain his worst instincts and intentions. And by November 2024, after four years of a Democratic presidency had revived the prospect of a restoration of the progressive left’s crippling hegemony, the risks he posed seemed smaller than theirs…
But is anyone other than Gerard Baker really surprised by any of:
a self-indulgent tariff fixation based on a profound misunderstanding of international economics, an insouciance about public finances that has widened the deficit, and a reckless military adventure that has choked off global energy supplies,.. alienat[ing] everyone in the world who could be helpful to us (perhaps excepting Israel)… embolden[ing] and even embrac[ing] every country in the world that threatens us… the grotesque self-enrichment, the self-satisfying prosecutorial pursuit of political enemies, the endless projects of self-grandiosity… ballroom… Kennedy Center… Memorial Arch. …the buffoonish symbolic acts… the Gulf of America, Lake America, New America, the 51st state [of Canada]...
?
No. The only surprising thing is not any of Trump’s lunacies but, rather, that it is without a peep that the Republican congressional majorities have gone along with it all, on the Gingrich Principle that above all one must and the only thing that matters is to make the president of one’s own party look good—not actually be good, but look good—and the president of the other party look bad, no matter what the cost to the country. Thus it is not any individual one of these. It is that all of them have happened because there is no block of Republican senators and representatives willing to stand up and even threaten to, temporarily, cross the aisle to make Jeffries and Schumer Speaker and Majority Leader for one single day.
And, by the way, how the f*** does Gerard Baker imagine that Binyamin Netanyahu could possibly be “useful” in any way to anyone?
Perhaps if Baker had written this in the winter of 2025 it might have done a little bit of good, and one might be obliged to at least think of him as being, very partially, and incompletely, something one might consider calling “a man”. But at this late date?
This smells very much like somebody who wants to still be in the game after November if there is in fact a decisively Democratic congress. Thus he is now trying to join the anti-Trump parade that he has spent so much of the past eight years belittling and trying to destroy.

Facts Only

* Gerard Baker stated, "I am anti-Trump too!"
* Baker claimed that a "signal achievement [of Trump] has been getting control of the border and removing some of the people who have no legal right to be here."
* Baker contended that the approach was "cruel and indiscriminate" and "fundamentally un-American."
* Baker observed that this approach caused devastation to support for the GOP among Hispanics.
* Baker suggested the looming Republican calamity would result from presidential hubris, vanity, recklessness, and the party’s abdication of accountability.
* Baker noted that moving the narrative away from progressive endangerment required action rather than inaction by the GOP.
* Baker indicated that political shifts were not driven by his own failings but by a lack of willingness among Republican senators and representatives to cross the aisle for the benefit of the party leadership.
* Baker questioned the utility of figures like Binyamin Netanyahu in any context.
* The text references concepts such as "Gulf of America," "Lake America," "New America," and the 51st state of Canada.

Executive Summary

Gerard Baker expressed frustration regarding the perceived achievements of the Trump administration, citing actions that he deemed "cruel and indiscriminate" and un-American, which he suggested had negatively impacted support for the Republican Party among Hispanics. Baker questioned how such policies could be labeled a "signal achievement." He posited that the looming Republican calamity would result from presidential hubris, recklessness, and a lack of accountability within the party, rather than personal abdication of responsibility. Baker also referenced a prior acknowledgment regarding the significance of events like January 6th and the perceived threat posed by Donald Trump, contrasting this with the idea that the institutions might constrain his intentions. The text notes that many aspects of the administration’s actions—including tariff fixation, fiscal insouciance, and military adventures—are presented as demonstrations of self-grandiosity, referencing specific geopolitical and symbolic constructs like "Gulf of America," "Lake America," and renaming regions. Baker concluded by suggesting that a shift in political alignment would likely stem from the desire to remain in the game following the November election.

Full Take

The narrative operates by framing political outcomes not as inevitable consequences of policy or institutional action, but as matters of internal character—specifically presidential hubris versus accountability. The central pattern involves reframing systemic failures into individual moral failings ("derangement syndrome") while simultaneously diffusing responsibility across a broad coalition (the "wider party's" inaction). This mechanism allows the author to pivot from specific policy critique toward an appeal for shared moral reckoning, positioning any opposition as merely part of a larger, equally flawed system. The explicit cataloging of grand symbolic projects alongside policy failures serves to indict not just political actors but the very pursuit of self-grandiosity itself. Furthermore, the evasion regarding institutional constraints and personal responsibility suggests an underlying pattern of resistance to assigning singular causal agency, which often functions to neutralize calls for specific accountability measures. The juxtaposition of geopolitical concerns with internal party maneuvering highlights a systemic drift where external threats are contextualized within an echo chamber focused on internal validation rather than objective reality.

Sentinel — Human

Confidence

This text reads as highly opinionated, reflective commentary driven by a specific, adversarial viewpoint, characterized by sharp rhetorical shifts rather than neutral reporting.

Signals Detected

Sentence length variance is erratic; shifts in tone and abrupt structural pivots indicate a human author wrestling with complex, interwoven arguments.

The text demonstrates passionate, idiosyncratic focus (e.g., the shifting targets from political critique to geographical/historical absurdity) that is difficult for pure algorithmic synthesis to replicate without explicit prompting.

The argument builds through specific, loaded examples (Baker's quotes, the Gulf of America), which suggests an intentional structure rather than mere aggregation of talking points.

Specific, deeply embedded rhetorical maneuvers and non-standard conclusions suggest a personal voice driving the narrative, though factual claims are interwoven with opinion.

Human Indicators

Use of highly charged, informal, and personally invested language (e.g., 'lunacies,' 'grotesque self-enrichment') juxtaposed with more formal political analysis.

The inclusion of internal, unverified references ('What was the earlier “admission” you ask?') which mimic a direct, back-and-forth conversation.

The abrupt, almost tangential jumps between high-level political critique and geographical absurdity (Gulf of America/Lake America) that reflect a specific, idiosyncratic line of reasoning.