The Audition

Trump’s press conference the day after Obama’s farewell was like watching someone who’d already decided the whole game was beneath him. The wall thing. Ignoring CNN, taking Breitbart instead. There’s something genuinely magnetic about that kind of contempt for the process—this refusal to play along, just say what you think and let it burn. I get why people loved it. Years of politicians carefully weighing every word, and here’s someone who wouldn’t.

But the wall never happened. Neither did any of it. And what’s actually stuck with me isn’t Trump but the people who’ll defend it all forever, who still believe in a wall that doesn’t exist, who’d rather hold the lie than admit the mistake. That’s the weird part—not the con, but everyone who knew better and loved him anyway.