A week ago I asked whether global energy markets have “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” I was being a bit arch because I didn’t mean in the sense that MAGA world means, which is being somehow obsessively, compulsively anti-Trump. I meant the opposite. Are the markets wedded to a kind of Trump magical thinking? That somehow he’ll always find a way to thread the needle or slip out of his self-made crises? I’ve tried to be very aware of the fact that I’m totally green on the question of global energy markets. And since oil futures are at least flirting with twice the price that they were at when this war started, it’s hardly like markets aren’t reacting to it. A friend who follows energy markets very closely walked me through some of the reasons why the markets response has been more tempered than one might expect: existing slack in the oil markets on the eve of the war, continued impact of the recent release of 400 million barrels of oil, and uncertainty about whether the U.S. can or will reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But I get more and more indications, some in just reading the news closely, some in small bits of information I pick up from sources, that there really is something going on here.

Kate and Josh discuss the DHS secretary confirmation hearings, a big defection on Iran and the Illinois primaries.

Semafor reported last night that Joe Kent, momentary half-resistance hero and full-time white nationalist weirdo, is being investigated by the FBI for leaking classified information. According to Semafor, at least, the investigation predates his high-profile, news-driving resignation. We don’t know many details of this investigation. It’s at least possible that, rather than being retaliation for the resignation, it was actually the cause of it. In other words, maybe Kent saw the investigation was building, that the moment was right, and made his push to clothe the investigation and any possible future charges as retaliation. But let’s set that possibility aside for the moment. Because there’s another possibility I want to explore, one that goes to the heart of how Trump II works.

Our friend John Judis had an essay over the weekend in NOTUS airing the provocative and audacious claim that Trump is a world-historical figure in the way that the German philosopher Hegel used the term. This is a proposition sure to drive many to distraction. And perhaps for good reason. But as I told John in an email I largely agree with him, but with an important exception or difference in the way he articulated the claim. Before getting to that, let me give a very, very brief outline of the concept.

The idea here is not that the figures in question — an Alexander or Caesar or Bonaparte, the figures Hegel thought of — are good people. It’s not even that they necessarily have any articulate awareness of their role in history. It’s that there are some individuals who have an intuitive sense of the opportunities of the historical moment. They then acquire power and force huge changes that drive the course of history in dramatically new directions, directions that are essentially impossible to undo. The key is there’s really no going back from the changes these people make.