Charles Manson was the leader of a murder cult of such savagery that I won’t go into details here. He’s famous enough that you either know who he is or can find out easily on your own.
This brings me to the next point. If he were alive today, Trump would not only have tried to pardon him by now, but probably hired him to be on his staff.
“Unpossible!” you say. “Manson was convicted by a California state court!”
Oh, my sweet summer child, the John Roberts Supreme Court has already rewritten the Constitution several times to supply the Trumpanzees with what they need. Do you really think they’d let a little detail like Manson’s conviction by a state court instead of a federal one get in the way of one of Trump’s insane Executive Orders?
I think most people know by now that God made the Shadow Docket for the express purpose of circumventing that pesky Constitution.
And, of course, the Republican Senate is so servile that it would have confirmed Manson for any post Trump wanted him for.
So let’s look at some of the potential options Trump would have considered. For this article, I’m going to assume that the Roberts Court would rewrite the Constitution to let Trump grant a full pardon to Manson even though he was convicted in a state court.
Besides, this is really just a thought exercise, so it’s best to leave your legal hat on the barstool. That’s what the Supreme Court does these days.
Attorney General
Did you know that you don’t need to be a member of the Bar Association to be the U.S. Attorney General? Being a prison lawyer (or just a prisoner) would be considered good enough by this obsequious Republican Senate.
Trump’s long-time personal lawyer and now current Attorney General, Todd Blanche, has been an essential figure in the Trump crime family’s successful takeover of the United States government, so it’s not like it hasn’t been done before.
Get to Know Todd Blanche, Your New Attorney General
Bill Cassidy is a living advertisement for why people who are tired of this regime need to flock to the election booth in all its forms during the midterms.
Blanche’s criminal activities span a wide range of deceits, most obviously burying the Epstein Files.
As useful as Blanche is to Trump, it’s possible Trump would decide that Manson would be even more helpful in the role of Attorney General. Under Manson, Pennsylvania Avenue would eventually be lined with the heads of libs on pikes, and the MAGA cult would cheer it on every step of the way.
All of Washington, D.C. would likely become one big bone temple with Manson as AG. If Democrats don’t win the midterms, it probably will anyway.
Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services
Things wouldn’t be much different than they are now.
In our world, food safety has been gutted, people are experiencing explosive diarrhea from eating salad, vaccines are scorned, measles are making a comeback. A serial killer like Manson would love running the joint, but I’m not sure he could kill people as quickly as JFK Jr. probably will before it’s all over.
Secretary of Defense
As Secretary of War and Mass Killings, Manson would relish the opportunity to blow Caribbean fishing boats out of the water, blow up Iranian schoolchildren, depose South American dictators who sit on vast pools of oil, have weekly coffee klatches with Netanyahu, and hang out in Buenos Aires with Peter Thiel.
I’m not sure that he’d want to go to war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, though, because he’d be a huge admirer of their killing machine. Trump never cared about Iranian citizens, so if Manson could find a way to snag some of Iran’s oil by cozying up to murderous ayatollahs, Trump would be 100% behind it.
In other words, we’d probably be better off with Charles Manson as Secretary of Defense than we are with the drunken neo-Nazi currently embarrassing the nation’s once proud military machine.
Chief of Staff
Current Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has succeeded in implementing Trump’s insidious agenda mostly behind the scenes, but Manson would satisfy Trump’s craving for a crasser, more in-your-face Chief of Staff.
As Chief of Staff, Manson would probably suggest random political killings. If he included journalists in the mix, Trump would surely sign off, especially if they singled out women.
FBI Director
You don’t need to be Quentin Tarantino to imagine the fun Manson could have in this role.
Commander-at-large of the Border Patrol
You may remember Greg Bovino and his statement overcoat marching through the streets of Chicago before he was unceremoniously deposed as a commander at the U.S. Border Patrol for making his intentions too obvious.
It’s almost too easy to use Photoshop to slap Manson’s face on a photo of Bovino and say, “Yeah, I can picture this.”
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Duh.
Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Also, duh. The roles of DHS Secretary and Director of ICE were created for people like Charles Manson. Once Manson accepted any other position in the Trump administration, it’s safe to assume he would have lobbied Trump every day for a chance at one of these two jobs.
Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Manson would have been much older than in his prime murder/mayhem days. Perhaps he would have mellowed and taken satisfaction in a more subtle form of mass killing, similar to what we are seeing today, but on a grander scale.
No food inspections to speak of, just like today, although maybe Manson would be a little more honest about it and advertise the resulting death rate.
Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Again, perhaps a mellower murder and mayhem dude might have relished the idea of official government vaccine denial and taken great comfort as he rested on his pillow each night, dreaming about the possibilities after gutting the CDC’s science staff and spreading official government disinformation.
He’d take comfort in the high death toll, just like the current regime surely must (why else the policies?).
A million Covid deaths would have thrilled him. Whatever the regime is now baking in their oven will probably make us long for those halcyon Covid days.
Commerce Secretary
This might seem like an odd choice, but if he was promised an opportunity to join Jared Kushner in turning the Gaza killing fields into a tourist trap for wealthy sheikhs, he’d jump at the chance.
As a bonus, he’d be responsible for AI regulation (of which there is currently none).
With AI companies and their employees sounding the alarms that AI might kill us all within a few years, Manson could seize the opportunity like a newly formed Borg queen.
DOGE
Charles Manson could not have done a better job killing people than Elon Musk has done.
On July 17, NPR reported that cuts to USAID funding by Elon Musk and his Tech bro kiddies resulted in 700,000 deaths, including half a million children.
Elon Musk is Charles Manson.
No, sorry, that’s attributing 700,000 more deaths to Charles Manson than he was responsible for.
Elon Musk is in a class by himself.
And yet, he’s a living, breathing trillionaire, the first and only one in the world, who can do whatever he wants.
His most recent trick? Launching a massive propaganda campaign in Germany that helped propel the far-right, anti-immigrant and overtly racist AfD party to a big win in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Every day, he uses his Apartheid Twitter machine to launch far-right propaganda assaults on the U.S. public, and has pledged to pump millions into the midterm elections, just like he did to help a convicted felon and insurrectionist seize the White House.
Charles Manson couldn’t dream of achieving the carnage Elon Musk has managed.
Who needs Charles Manson when you’ve got guys like Elon Musk working for you?
Notes
What a stupid idea for a Substack post. The Trump regime is already exponentially worse than these imaginings, but continues to be sanewashed by a compliant corporate media.
The Kushner Shores brochure graphic might look familiar to regular readers. This is called milking something for all it’s worth to continue making a point about what this regime’s wars in the Middle East are all about: money. Trump thought by kicking Iran’s ass in the wake of deposing the Venezuelan president, he could access Iranian oil. That didn’t happen, of course, because Iran is not Venezuela.
Notes on the cover image
No AI was used for the cover image. I used Photoshop to make a duplicate layer of Trump signing something, then added Manson in a suit (the suit was from Adobe Stock) from this public domain photo:
Then, I just erased the part of the duped image to reveal Manson, who was in between the two Photoshop layers. Easy Peasy. Took me half an hour, and I drained no reservoirs with AI to do it.
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This article first appeared on the Medium platform.
He’d have RFK Jr’s job.
He couldn't pardon him, Charlie was convicted on state charges