The Administration From Hell

Yesterday, Simon Heffer’s piece in The Telegraph nailed it: Milton’s Paradise Lost reads like a grim prophecy for our current era of authoritarianism and right-wing spectacle.

I promise, this isn’t too much of a classics rabbit hole.

Inspired, I dusted off my old, heavily annotated copy and dove back in. The pages hadn’t seen the light of day in 3 decades. It’s a bit of a slog for modern readers—Milton wasn’t writing for a TikTok audience—but the timeless truths cut through like a knife.

The opening act of Paradise Lost is a strategy meeting in Hell, led by Satan himself and attended by a rogues’ gallery of fallen angels. It’s a masterclass in manipulation, sycophancy, and passive-aggressive ambition—all wrapped in enough rhetorical flourish to choke a camel. Sound familiar?

If you’ve ever suffered through a senior-level government meeting, you’d feel right at home. Except this one is in Pandemonium, the capital of Hell—a place I imagine would look like the worst Trump Transition meeting, complete with gilded tackiness and the faint stench of sulfur. (Or mildew, if you’re at Mar-a-Lago.)

The debate? Oh, it’s a lively one. Some fallen angels suggest making Hell a bit more livable—think “evil gentrification.” Others want to launch a full-frontal assault on Heaven, declaring war on an unbeatable opponent.

Then comes the actual meeting: targeting God’s shiny new creation—us. The idea of corrupting humanity, God’s most beloved project, becomes the chosen strategy. And who volunteers for the job? Satan himself, of course. It was always his plan. When a direct assault on Heaven fails, attacking mankind becomes the ultimate revenge. As Satan puts it:

“To waste his whole creation, or possess
All as our own, and drive, as we were driven,
The puny habitants, or if not drive,
Seduce them to our party, that their God
May prove their foe, and with repenting hand
Abolish his own works.
This would surpass common revenge, and interrupt his joy.”

Does this sound a little... familiar?

It should. The parallels to today’s politics are as subtle as a sledgehammer. The fallen angels in this story aren’t just characters—they’re prototypes. Swap out Beelzebub and Belial for the MAGA brain trust, and you get the same toxic mix of ambition, incompetence, and amorality.

The MAGA operatives, family sycophants, billionaire bootlickers, scamfluencers, and D.C. operatives dreaming of internment camps and deadly revenge which are lining up for Trump’s Cabinet will make Milton’s Hell look like a model of compassion and efficiency.

These are people whose qualifications are as dubious as their morals and whose plans are as dangerous as they are chaotic. Their guidebook for wrecking the American system?

The infamous Project 2025. Remember that? They denied it, of course—counting on the credulous to buy their lies—but it’s as real as Satan’s envy in Paradise Lost.

And speaking of Satan, let’s not tiptoe around it: Trump is the Prince of Darkness in this particular drama. He wants nothing more than to destroy everything in his path. It’s not always coherent, but it’s always him.

His advisors inside and outside his transition —Susie Wiles, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Stephen Cheung, and the rest of his court—mimic the infernal chatter of Moloch, Belial, and Beelzebub. Like their hellish counterparts, their rhetoric is a corruption of America, their plans for an endless era of cruel spectacle, and their motives are rooted in hatred for the good. Just as Satan hated God and Heaven, Trump despises the institutions, norms, and values that have long preserved this country.

He’s backed by a parliament of Cabinet members and advisors dreaming of a post-American, post-republican, and post-democratic world. (Yes, the lowercase “r” in Republican and “d” in Democratic was deliberate.) Trump’s attention span may be short, but their ability to execute the commander’s intent will be boundless. They, and he, hate this country as it exists today.

What does he love?

Power. Obedience. Subjugation. Wealth. Immunity from consequences. These are the dark desires of every dictator, tyrant, and abuser in history. And Trump revels in them. His demonic minions—think Elon Musk as Moloch—are already busy concocting spectacles of suffering and chaos across America.

Meanwhile, we’re stuck debating the quality (or lack thereof) of Trump’s Cabinet picks and whether Joe Biden’s pardon of Hunter makes him Worse Than Trump. (Spoiler: it' doesn’t.)

Almost none of them would survive scrutiny in a rational world. But here’s the thing: their very terribleness is the point. Trump’s goal isn’t just to govern badly—it’s to corrupt every institution they touch. By forcing Americans to accept criminals, incompetents, and lunatics as leaders, he’s marking this country indelibly. This is his revenge, his legacy: a nation bent to his will and broken beyond repair.

And let’s not kid ourselves. The Senate—spineless and servile—will confirm many of these ghouls. Yes, I’m also looking at you, Democrats. There’s already talk of “picking battles” and “letting Trump hang himself.” It’s a strategy born of cowardice and complacency. The American people, however, are crying out for fighters, not whiners. They want leaders who will take the fight to Trump and his cronies with the same bloody-mindedness the MAGA crowd brought to 2024.

So, where do we go from here? My notebook from this recent break is full of ideas, but let’s start with the basics:

1. Fight these appointments. Every one of them. Stop the worst. Expose the rest.

2. Attack the disinformation infrastructure. MAGA thrives on lies. Cut off their supply.

3. Brand the MAGA GOP. Chaos, corruption, and crisis—they own it. Make it stick.

4. Prepare for 2026 and 2028. The battle for America’s soul didn’t end on November 5th.

5. Lead with courage. Fear and apathy are their weapons. Fight back with strength.

This is going to be a long, hard fight. But it’s worth it. Every battle we win—every appointee stopped, every policy exposed—will make a difference. We can’t let Trump’s minions slither into power unchallenged. They deserve our scorn, our contempt, and our relentless opposition.

Let me leave you with a final thought, marked in my old copy of Paradise Lost with three small stars—a sign, back in my academic days, of a particularly moving point, again relevant to Trump’s mind in the years ahead. His opposition to God defined Milton’s Satan. For Trump, it’s his hatred of America.

“For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
Or won to what may work his utter loss,
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow.”