Pumping the Brakes

Breaking the rules right now doesn't have the consequences it should.

Growing up, my family lived by three rules.

Dake Family Rule #1: Never go anywhere without your own car

Dake Family Rule #2: Always follow Dake Family Rule #1

Dake Family Rule #3: Never throw away today’s newspaper

Pretty simple yet effective standards to live by. Rules, by definition, are guides for conduct; if broken, they cause consequences.

If you broke Dake Family Rule #1, you automatically have broken Dake Family Rule #2, and that probably means you have entered a car driven by my father. The consequence of this was that you had no way of knowing when you would get out of that car or when the trip was over.

Not to worry, because my Dad was an excellent driver. He loved being behind the wheel. He spent most of his life around cars, and toward the end of his life, he ran some side hustles, detailing cars (although he had someone else do the work) and driving cars from one destination to another.

I never took on my Dad’s love affair with driving. I’m 180 degrees opposite and dislike driving. If I can walk somewhere, I will. If I can take the train, I’ll do that. If I need to be in a car longer than six hours, let’s figure out a way to get on a plane.

Growing up, I always broke Dake Family Rules 1 & 2. Even after I got my license at 17, I continued to break them. When I was around 32, I came home for Thanksgiving weekend, exhausted from the job and the long drive from DC, only to find myself easily crawling into the back seat of my Dad’s van to sleep as we drove all over Ohio for meals and visiting antique stores. It was great.

Sometimes breaking the rules has its advantages.

But unlike my wandering drives through the back roads of Ohio, I’d cut right to the point on this Scandal essay.

I’m pumping the brakes on the Political Scandal Rankings.

You’ll remember how excited I was when I announced the latest ranking edition to the Okay History Library. I thought it was a brilliant idea and pulled together a funny, unorganized, typical OKH ranking system.

That excitement immediately left three days later when the Second Trump Administration took over and managed to produce a scandal every week.

One subscriber recently told me about how depressing it is to read about political scandals for entertainment, only to turn around and see them unfolding in real time in Washington, D.C.

I have to admit that the first five months, Trump and his cultists have sucked all of the joy out of the scandal ranking system. On top of my job being very busy at the moment, with meetings in the early morning one day and late meetings another, along with packed weekends, my writing habits are off for the moment.

But reading about scandals of the past, then trying to write about them, while Trump has done the following, is becoming too much:

· Pardoning the January 6 Insurrectionists. Absolutely bonkers that people can march into the Capitol, beat police officers, hunt elected officials, steal stuff, plead guilty, claim to be political prisoners, and then be let go. Trump let One-Eyed Elmer out after he had been sentenced to 18 years in prison. He’s now free to make more videos about the Constitution with unpatriotic, nonsensical music in the background.

The president even made a deal with the woman who breached a barricade and was killed that day. Expanding the pardon scandals, Trump recently pardoned convicted tax fraudster Paul Walczak, a man who stole $11 million from people, but whose mother paid to attend an event with the president in April. Then, miraculously, her son was released from prison.

· The Walt Disney ABC Settlement. Giving Trump $16 million for his presidential library is a hilariously craven move. This scandal took place BEFORE Trump squeezed himself back into the White House.

· Then there’s DOGE. Trump was selling Telsers on the White House lawn because the wealthiest man in the world had bought him last year. All this immigrant did was take a chainsaw to the Civil Service because there was supposedly massive fraud taking place.

It’s almost June, Musk is leaving, and there’s no evidence that anything he did was successful. He did manage to break into the United States Institute of Peace, take it over, and declare DOGE’s home base, which is all illegal. But whatever.

· Issuance of the Trump MEME Coin. Look, I understand MEME coin and cryptocurrency as I do a carburetor. However, the idea that the President of the United States can issue something of value and profit from it begs the question – what are we doing here, folks?

· Let’s not forget the ICE Deportation mess. The idea that the United States is under an invasion is absurd. We have courts telling Trump and goons to stop, and shockingly, the twice-impeached but never convicted president is not abiding.

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My Dad taught me you could drive just ten miles over the speed limit on the highway and the police won’t pull you over. It’s not worth it to them. Trump has been able to drive the United States toward a cliff and has racked up so many scandals so quickly that I could rank his first 40 before Labor Day.

But I can’t take it anymore, and it’s brake time. Rules don’t matter right now, and I need my attention and energy elsewhere.

I’ll return this to the project – I just don’t know when.

In the meantime, I’ll fill my time with producing the things I mentioned when laying out this year. Additionally, I’m working on a marketing project that I hope you'll like.

Thanks for your patience and support. Please let me know your thoughts on this change. I’ve spoken to just a few of you over the past month, but a part of me is a little worried that I’m not fulfilling a promise here.

This isn’t like it was back in 2022, when I took time away. But look at what happened when I returned! I got married. So there’s that.

Have a good weekend, everyone. I will return on Monday, and we're heading into June, so let’s keep at it!

Appreciate you all!

Okay,

Chris

This is me about to get into my brother’s Camaro. No, it was not 1987.