Greetings and welcome to this wintry 62nd showing of the Carnival of Fools! It’s a revue that will never go into reruns and yet will always seem slightly stale, no matter how cold the weather gets — simply because it is the nature of folly to continue repeating itself in ever-more-memorable ways, with mistakes piling atop one another into a writhing mountainous mass of human error. The government shutdown is almost over, the “game” has resumed, and now we untangle this messy mass of stacked and spavined bodies, like football referees searching for proper possession of a pig-skinned MacGuffin that exists only in theory. Let’s get to sorting.
The Sierra Club Endangers Its Own Species
Where does power truly reside? It often resides only where people believe it does, and only up until the moment people believe it to reside there. And the Sierra Club — once one of America’s most formidable ecological activist groups — is giving up the illusion that it wields any power whatsoever, as it seizes up arthritically and kneels upon broken joints to display its helpless incapacity to the world. The New York Times is out with a story that, if you’re an outdoorsman, you may already be familiar with: “The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart.”
You know the drill from the headline alone. Yes, the Sierra Club, legendary juggernaut of environmental lobbying from my childhood, is now a flaming wreck. It has lost a full 60 percent of its paying donors since a peak moment in 2019, and for precisely the reason that all observers watching “wokism” progress through left-coded institutions thought it would: It was devoured by the never-ending financial and political demands of the progressive omnicause, which encouraged the formerly single-minded conservationist society to become deeply embroiled in the progressive left’s racial and sociosexual agenda as an adjunct to its core mission.
In typical omnicause fashion, “social justice” was folded into the Sierra Club’s mission through its newer, younger leadership and rank and file, via the now-standard series of semantic sleights of hand: “environmental justice is racial justice is transgender justice is Palestinian justice,” etc. And the scattering of its focus has not only left the Sierra Club flat-footed (and broke) in the new Trump administration, but it has also rendered it indistinguishable from other “everything bagel” progressive organizations.
I invite you to read the entire (well-reported) piece, if only because it’s like listening to the worst and yet most unavoidable rock group playing through its greatest hits: You’ve heard every single note of this song before, and even if you haven’t you can guess where the next beat is going to fall. (My favorite moment, again illustrative of the natural progress of activist entryism, came when a local Sierra Club member responded to a volunteer’s suggestion that the club lobby for more protections for wolves: “That’s fine, Delia. But what do wolves have to do with equity, justice and inclusion?”)
The Sovietologist Robert Conquest once posited a series of “laws of politics,” the most famous of which remains his second: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.” Believe it or not, I used to donate to the Sierra Club myself — back in the 1990s, when I was but a wide-eyed teenager who liked the outdoors and figured we ought to preserve it as best we can. (I’ve changed my e-mail since then, to avoid their fundraising asks.) There is no room left in organizations like these for people who feel the same way yet never wanted to fund social progressivism in its entirety. And that’s the way the people now running them want it.
They got what they wanted. And in so doing, they lost everything they ever had.
Elise Stefanik Shouldn’t Even Be Running for Governor
A brief note about Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, out of northern New York. Remember Elise? She was supposed to be representing America at the United Nations as our ambassador, a position she was nominated for and would have been enthusiastically (and bipartisanly) confirmed in were not it suddenly canceled by Donald Trump, once he realized just how perilous the Republican advantage in the House of Representatives actually was. (You can draw a dotted line between Stefanik’s nomination being yanked in the House and the massive nationwide redistricting war — triggered by Trump’s demands — currently being fought by both parties.)
If I were Stefanik, I’d have felt pretty sore about being forced to return to a backbench role after the prospect of something greater beckoned. And now she has declared that she is leaving her seat in any event, for a run in 2026 as the Republican nominee for the governor of New York.
She will lose. I hate to say that, because I genuinely like Stefanik and thought she would have been an excellent ambassador for our country in Turtle Bay. But the voters of New York are as likely to elect her to statewide office during the Trump 2026 midterm as they are to join the Proud Boys: It will be an election conducted under nationwide political backlash against the Republican Party. This is a sacrificial gambit, wherein the best possible outcome is an administration job come 2027 (and set to expire in January 2029). It didn’t have to be this way, and it shouldn’t have.
The Washington Commanders Deserve to Kick Off at Trump Stadium
On a final note of absurdity, the Washington Football-Like Product (better known these days as the NFL’s Commanders) is currently negotiating amid the rubble of D.C. politics in 2025 as it seeks to move its misbegotten franchise from the irrelevant Landover, Md., suburbs back into the District of Columbia itself. The deal seems to be all but done. And now ESPN star reporter Adam Schefter is reporting the most predictable news of all: President Trump is pushing the Commanders to name their new stadium after him. Who could have predicted that this man would have a thirst for public buildings with his name on them?
I am utterly indifferent to the details of this story; I just like the idea. You must understand two things, here: (1) The entire D.C./Maryland/Virginia metropolitan region loathes Donald Trump on a pre-political level and would likely boycott any building named after him; (2) I loathe the Washington Commanders at the same level.
I am a born-and-raised Redskins fan, embittered and forever disaffected by the trauma of the Dan Snyder ownership era. I left the city, but I never left behind my sports loyalties — except for this one. I have nothing left for Washington’s NFL franchise except lingering resentment and the black hope that as many hilariously awful things happen to it as possible. So I approve of this proposed stadium name. They ought to drape the entire place in gold lamé.
Until next week.