Why ‘The Motto' is Trump's favorite Drake song

Washington Post

01-04-2025

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Donald Trump's musings about a theoretical third term predictably stir the pot. But as told by Megan McArdle, the president lives according to two mottoes: YOLO ('you only live once') and YCOBPOTUST ('you can only become president of the United States twice') — but the latter doesn't have the same ring to it and was a bit too long for the headline.
Megan brainstorms a few reasons Trump's governance is so audacious the second time around. For starters, she notes that Trump is unfettered by traditional political mores. Unlike previous term-limited presidents, Trump is not an industry baby, Megan explains. So-called lame-duck presidents 'are usually establishment people, the kind of folks who defer to expert consensus and the conventional policymaking process.' These leaders had reverence for their forebears — but Trump seems to have mostly revulsion for his.
This factor, along with the president's other idiosyncrasies, has emboldened him to party in the Oval Office like it's 1999 — which, Megan muses, he'll probably carry on doing until Jan. 20, 2029.
Garrett Graff takes us back to a time when the men who ruled the country had stronger inhibitions: the spring of 2008, standing on the cliff of an economic catastrophe 'that upended the housing market, jobs, the broader economy' and shaped today's populist Republican Party. On Friday, March 14, 2008, Bear Stearns, 'the country's fifth-largest investment bank with some $400 billion in assets and 15,000 employees,' suddenly collapsed, swiftly buried by the avalanche of an intensifying recession.
Graff collects testimonies from more than a dozen key actors about that ill-fated weekend and, like any good storyteller, sets up the fundamental plot points: exposition, rising action, climax — and the protagonists, who were none other than 'usually risk-averse government leaders at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.' His oral history demonstrates how the agencies kicked into high gear to respond to the dire economic situation on Wall Street, adopting 'an operational, almost tactical, role that has in the years since become a more normal way of operating.'
What followed was a nail-biting saga in which everyone looked 'to the federal government to get things done under pressure quickly' and save the day.
Chaser: Today's looming financial storm clouds are like a car crash our writers can't look away from. Read opinions from the Editorial Board and Catherine Rampell about Wednesday's unveiling of Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs.
Our chaotic country got you stressed-out? Michael Antonoff, former editor of a drug paraphernalia magazine, has just the tool to take the edge off: a groovy, iridescent bong packed with marijuana — just please don't purchase it from a 'sterile,' 'transactional' dispensary.
Antonoff yearns for the heyday of the paraphernalia industry, before weed became largely legalized and headshops were 'vibrant with the creativity and whimsy of a nationwide network of countercultural artisans.' Nowadays, weed culture is uninspired; 'the excitement of funky paraphernalia design … is largely gone,' Antonoff laments, 'replaced by pharmaceutical-grade drugs in screw-top containers and resealable pouches with nutrition panels.'
He describes how headshops bravely weathered the storm of antidrug laws, only to be neutralized by the changing weed habits of the 21st century. Everything is 'pre-roll' this and 'gummy' that: 'The thousands of talented artists who designed bejeweled clips must be rolling over in their trays.'
It's a goodbye. It's a haiku. It's … The Bye-Ku.
The House advances
Massive bailout package for
Floundering headshops
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