The First Crackhead President
American media is not equipped to cover a lying, thieving commander-in-chief.
I have a cousin named “Slick.”
I’m not quite sure whether my older cousin earned that title because of his charisma or the Dax pomade-stained durag that facilitated his dizzying waves. In any case, my cousin’s nickname might be the most appropriate street moniker of all time. He is objectively handsome, supremely athletic and charismatic enough to talk a fish into wading onto dry land. He was born with the voice of an angel, and by the time he was 15, Slick had taught himself to play multiple instruments, including the drums, keyboards and guitar.
He had a girlfriend in every neighborhood and won every high school talent show. Although everyone wanted to play on his team when he played pickup basketball, he always picked me. He regaled me with street stories while giving me free haircuts. Our entire family roared with laughter when he hilariously impersonated the shouting techniques of everyone in our church. Needless to say, I revered my older cousin. In fact, Slick only had one fatal flaw that I knew of.
Slick smoked crack.
My cousin and I grew up in a super-religious churchgoing family that considers a sip of red wine to be the same as mainlining heroin, so our grandparents, aunts, uncles and elders were not equipped to deal with this soul-stealing dependency. And because his struggles with substance abuse coincided with the beginning of the crack epidemic, they believed he was going through a phase that could be cured with community kindness, love and prayer.
My not-so-streetwise aunt actually believed Slick needed to borrow her VCR at 3 a.m. to watch a training video for an upcoming job interview. When I “lost” the money I earned at my after-school job, Slick happily volunteered to help me look for it. Even as we watched him descend into the throes of dependency, we could not fathom that a substance abuse disorder could turn the most gifted human being we’d ever seen into an unrepentant hustler, liar and thief.
We eventually realized that Slick was not just going through a phase. We didn’t stop loving him, but we stopped treating his addiction like it didn’t exist. Supporting him required vigilance and tough love, which was tough. To me, he was my charismatic, gifted cousin who taught me how to shoot a jump shot and how to gently caress the back of a girl’s neck during a kiss. Still, I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t understand why my cousin eventually earned another nickname…
“Crackhead Slick.”
This story is about Donald Trump.
I have a cousin named “Slick.”
I’m not quite sure whether my older cousin earned that title because of his charisma or the Dax pomade-stained durag that facilitated his dizzying waves. In any case, my cousin’s nickname might be the most appropriate street moniker of all time. He is objectively handsome, supremely athletic and charismatic enough to talk a fish into wading onto dry land. He was born with the voice of an angel, and by the time he was 15, Slick had taught himself to play multiple instruments, including the drums, keyboards and guitar.
He had a girlfriend in every neighborhood and won every high school talent show. Although everyone wanted to play on his team when he played pickup basketball, he always picked me. He regaled me with street stories while giving me free haircuts. Our entire family roared with laughter when he hilariously impersonated the shouting techniques of everyone in our church. Needless to say, I revered my older cousin. In fact, Slick only had one fatal flaw that I knew of.
Slick smoked crack.
My cousin and I grew up in a super-religious churchgoing family that considers a sip of red wine to be the same as mainlining heroin, so our grandparents, aunts, uncles and elders were not equipped to deal with this soul-stealing dependency. And because his struggles with substance abuse coincided with the beginning of the crack epidemic, they believed he was going through a phase that could be cured with community kindness, love and prayer.
My not-so-streetwise aunt actually believed Slick needed to borrow her VCR at 3 a.m. to watch a training video for an upcoming job interview. When I “lost” the money I earned at my after-school job, Slick happily volunteered to help me look for it. Even as we watched him descend into the throes of dependency, we could not fathom that a substance abuse disorder could turn the most gifted human being we’d ever seen into an unrepentant hustler, liar and thief.
We eventually realized that Slick was not just going through a phase. We didn’t stop loving him, but we stopped treating his addiction like it didn’t exist. Supporting him required vigilance and tough love, which was tough. To me, he was my charismatic, gifted cousin who taught me how to shoot a jump shot and how to gently caress the back of a girl’s neck during a kiss. Still, I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t understand why my cousin eventually earned another nickname…
“Crackhead Slick.”
This story is about Donald Trump.
Our American Cousin
Hours after pouring out a little liquor on White Twitter Truth Social to celebrate the death of former special prosecutor Robert Mueller, President Donald Trump embarrassed his race again by threatening to commit what many experts consider to be a war crime. As usual, the president ended his threat with the signature sign-off that only makes sense if it were the fax cover page of a 1993 memo from middle management.
“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their Various POWER PLANTS,” wrote Donald Trump in a Saturday evening post. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Trump’s ominous warning dominated the conversation on Sunday’s news shows. But by Monday morning, Trump gave Iran’s power grid a five-day reprieve, thanks to bilateral negotiations “regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.”
“Oil prices tumbled, and stocks jumped on Monday after President Trump backed away from a threat to strike Iranian energy infrastructure and pushed the prospect of peace talks,” The New York Times reported. “Mr. Trump pivoted and promised a five-day moratorium on any U.S. attacks on energy sites, citing ‘productive’ talks between the two countries.”
As Fox News claimed the possibility of peace in the Middle East, CNN reflected the widespread optimism, reporting that he and the speaker of Iran’s parliament had reached 15 points of agreement. There was only one problem with outlets that were thanking Trump for his attention to this matter…
The president is a liar, a hustler and a thief.
“Iran denied President Trump’s assertions on Monday that negotiations were underway toward ending the Middle East war, with the speaker of Iran’s Parliament accusing the U.S. leader of issuing false statements to calm rattled energy markets,” The New York Times reported. “Iranian officials denied any direct talks with the United States, although they have said third countries have passed messages between the two sides.”
To be fair, the only person who contradicted the president’s claim that he was negotiating with Iran was Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament.
Trump’s struggle with alternative facts abuse disorder is well-documented.
His business career was predicated on his willingness to do and say whatever was necessary to close a deal. Likewise, Trump’s presidencies have been defined by his willingness to do and say whatever was necessary to get a win.
The churchgoing members of his evangelical MAGA family refuse to believe he’s not a Bible-believing Christian—even when he’s running the street with pedophiles and porn stars. His economically anxious kinsmen hail him as a brilliant business mind, despite his six bankruptcies, his tariff policies and the actual historic economic downturns he produced. In many ways, Trump’s ability to lie, steal and hustle the people who love him unconditionally is why Trump was elected president.
“America First” is just “Trump First” on crack.
Just as the American press is willing to discard basic tenets of journalism to report the words he says—truth be damned—the conservative members of the Supreme Court are willing to overlook precedent and the actual Constitution to justify this administration’s policies.
Justice reporter Elie Mystal blames the Supreme Court’s willingness to give Donald Trump the legal benefit of the doubt on “the presumption of regularity.” The century-old judicial precept is based on the assumption that all presidents—by default—act in good faith. “An administration is presumed to have bona fide reasons for its actions,” Mystal writes. “The presumption of regularity is afforded to members of the executive branch and no one else.”
Mystal’s premise might explain why members of the judicial branch treat Trump like a normal member of the American family. But there is only one reason the American media has collectively decided to treat a lying, hustling thief like a talented cousin who smokes a little crack sometimes.
White supremacy is an addiction.
America Abuse Syndrome
Donald Trump is a liar, a hustler and a thief.
That is not an opinion. During his first presidency, he made at least 30,573 false or misleading public statements. A criminal court jury found him guilty of 34 felonies. A civil court found him liable for rape.
To be fair, Trump’s race does not explain this. Joe Biden is white. So is Hillary Clinton. But Biden and Clinton were also regular politicians who told lies. Both dallied in racial politics to secure power.
But in the cases of Biden and Clinton, the press scrutinized their faults. The press attributed Biden’s mistakes to old age and cognitive decline. How could we trust Hillary Clinton to defend our country after she discussed military secrets on Signal a private email server? Was Kamala Harris strong and experienced enough to stand up to Israel?
But the same outlets that considered Obama’s birth certificate, Hillary’s emails, Biden’s brain and Kamala’s boyfriends as worthwhile journalistic endeavors will treat the words of a certified liar as if he’s playing a game of three-dimensional chess that will result in peace in the Middle East.
Nearly three out of four ICE detainees have no criminal record. Trump’s administration has admitted that ICE uses race as grounds for immigration stops. White House chief adviser and architect of the mass deportation program, Stephen Miller, is an unrepentant white nationalist. Still, the press reports on Trump’s mass deportations as if it’s not an ethnic cleansing project.
With all apologies to Mystal, they’re not affording Trump the presumption of regularity. If Trump were a regular president, they would fact-check his claims, double-source his statements and scrutinize his comments before reporting them. Make no mistake, mainstream media is treating him extremely irregularly. None of it makes any sense…
Unless you’ve dealt with a crackhead.
I know the term is a pejorative. Substance use disorder is a complex combination of mental and physical dependency. Just as conquering addiction involves admitting you have a problem, helping a loved one recover from a chemical dependency requires more than thoughts and prayers. Sometimes, we have to acknowledge our part in enabling their addiction.
The precept of journalistic objectivity on which the American press is built might be Trump’s biggest enabler. Not only has the media always been reluctant to use the word “liar,” it has historically precluded its practitioners from referring to any person or their action—no matter how blatantly prejudicial—as “racist.” Even though an objective definition can be found in any dictionary, in the American journalistic doctrine, calling someone a “white supremacist” is as unseemly as calling someone a crackhead. But there is only one reason the topic of racism is considered to be taboo, by default.
White people.
The unspoken agreement to protect white sensibilities is the only reason racism and white supremacy are considered to be a taboo topic, by default. But our willingness to overlook this destructive dependence and pretend the problem doesn’t exist enables it to fester and grow.
To be clear, calling Donald Trump a lying, thieving white supremacist probably won’t prevent him from lying, stealing and being racist any more than my cousin’s nickname served as a cure for his addiction. They are addicts afflicted with an illness. But at least the MAGAheads will have to acknowledge that they are enablers.
They know.
One day, I must have been 12 or 13, when I spotted Slick standing on the sidewalk with a few other guys. His face immediately lit up when he saw me. After we talked for a few minutes, he told me that I’d better leave before someone spotted me and told my mama.
“Yeah, you know what your mama will say,” he joked before going into a spot-on impression of my mom. “What are you doing standing on the corner like a crackhead?”
“She won’t say nothing,” I replied, still laughing. “I’ll just tell her I was here with you.”
He did not respond. Just before I walked off, he asked me for five dollars. I had it, but for some reason, I felt the need to ask him why he needed five dollars. He could have told me that he needed some gas money, wanted to rent a movie or that he left his wallet at home. Instead, the man who my ancestors filled with every imaginable ingredient for making beauty, art and happiness in this universe looked straight into my eyes and said: “Stop playing, cuzzo.” Then, with an air of desperation that I had never seen, he said:
“Mikey, you know why they call me Crackhead Slick?”
I knew.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.