The Long, Long Road Trip
And Tommy's Tiffany Tale
Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been
— “Truckin’” by The Grateful Dead (1970)
The Long, Long Road Trip
After Sean Duffy resigned from Congress in 2019 to spend more time with his family, some of us wondered how he could go back into public service in 2025 as President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Transportation. Turns out, being the Secretary of Transportation was just a side gig while he made his YouTube travel videos, “The Great American Road Trip,” with his wife, Fox News personality Rachel Campos-Duffy.
“Beyond the screen and onto the road: Join Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his family for an unforgettable civic experience as they rediscover the people and places defining our national identity for America’s 250th birthday,” a caption on the video trailer for the series promises on the official Department of Transportation YouTube site.
Somehow Duffy found time to make this five-part video series in between his official duties. Life must be very quiet at the Department of Transportation. You’d never know that an airline failed and went into bankruptcy because of high fuel costs. Or that airline passengers were recently stuck waiting in airports because TSA employees were not showing up to work when they went unpaid. Or that safety while flying has become a major concern again. Or that some idiot in the White House wants to build a giant, 250-foot triumphal arch in a flight path from Reagan National Airport.
New York Magazine reports Duffy’s explanation of how he was able to find the time off from his day job to travel from sea to shining sea. “Over the course of seven months we just kind of found these moments where I might be able to do some work, I could take the kids with me, do a road trip,” Duffy said.
When that explanation wasn’t good enough for the public, a Department of Transportation told the magazine, “The series was filmed over the course of many months in small, one day or two stops.” That’s a lot of flights to go on short drives. Who paid for all of this?
Well, we paid Duffy’s salary during this time, of course. But the Department of Transportation has a list of sponsors that paid the expenses of these excursions through a non-profit that was set up for this purpose.
There are more than a few obvious conflicts of interest in the list of sponsors, obvious to everyone except those inside the Trump Administration. Companies like Boeing, United Airlines, and the Royal Caribbean Group are not funding the Duffy vacations because they’re suddenly charitable institutions. The American Bus Association and the US Travel Association are not run by fans of Duffy’s time as a reality television star. And gee, what could Shell Oil want from the Trump Administration?
In the late 1970s, the FBI “stung” a few congressmen by tricking them into accepting bags of money. In the Trump Administration, the bribery is wide open. Duffy gets free vacations for him and his family, and a series of self-promotional videos for him and his television celebrity wife. The only thing that would make these professionally done vacation videos better is if he can get his son-in-law, Michael Alfonso, a candidate for the congressional seat Duffy once held, to make a cameo appearance or two.
When a Transportation Department spokesman told New York Magazine, “The Secretary and his family do not receive any financial compensation,” how did he keep a straight face?
But let’s be fair to the Duffys. To love America, you need to see America, according to the Duffys. And what could be more patriotic than traveling America in a Toyota? Hopefully the sponsorship meant the Duffymobile entered America’s ports tariff-free.
Remember, the first rule of graft is to be utterly shameless. The second rule is to make sure your patrons are well rewarded with prominent displays of affection, like the Toyota logo nearly taking the whole screen.
The “road trip,” looking at the sites visited in the trailer, takes the Duffys from Boston to Montana, from New Orleans to Philadelphia. And what Republican road trip with children would be complete without a visit from Kid Rock?
But the obscenity isn’t found just in Kid Rock’s lyrics.
No, it’s the premise. “So, gas up the car. Pack up the kids. Get behind the wheel. And get out and see America,” Duffy says in the video. Oh, sure.
You would think the Secretary of Transportation would know the price of gas is too high for most American families to follow his advice to hit the road. Perhaps Duffy should report to the office a little more often.
Tommy’s Tiffany Tale
Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson is not going to come out of retirement. After asking around to see if anyone was interested in seeing him run for governor again, including asking strangers on Facebook, Thompson decided to endorse Congressman Tom Tiffany for the Republican nomination.
“Tom will build on the education, welfare, and tax reforms we started here in Wisconsin. The State has to keep reforming and moving forward. That’s why I am endorsing Tom today,” said Thompson in the Tiffany Facebook post which is strangely missing from Thompson’s Facebook page. I’m sure it’s just an oversight.
Tiffany already has the Trump endorsement which means he’s unlikely to face any challengers for the Republican nomination for governor. Tiffany’s qualifications include signing onto a Texas lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election results in Wisconsin and voting twice in the aftermath of the insurrection of January 6 to overturn the presidential election.
In 2016, Thompson supported Ohio Governor John Kasich in the Wisconsin presidential primary, opposing Trump. But since then, Thompson has fallen into line. Despite serving as the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) under President George W. Bush, and being a major proponent of vaccinations during the Covid quarantine, the former governor even supported Trump’s HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy.
I think we’re at the point where we can start questioning Thompson’s judgment.
The Final Curtain
Dying
Have you seen the 60 Minutes interview of former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse? Sasse has terminal cancer, but this death sentence has given him the gift of being able to talk seriously about dying, his service as a senator, and his belief in America’s greatness. It’s an amazing conversation that I believe everyone should watch.
Surviving
If that’s too much for you, British comedian Miles Jupp filmed a comedy special, “On I Bang.” It’s the story of the day he experienced a medical emergency.
Just because the ground beneath me appears to be moving at breakneck pace, and everything else in my vision is turning into slowly swirling brightly colored dust. I’m sure on the whole everything’s fine. One mustn’t get these things out of proportion.
Jupp ends up going to the hospital where he receives the news: it’s a brain tumor.
The End
Our friend Charlie Sykes is off of Twitter (X). Well, not by choice, but it’s a condition he’s more than willing to live with, and it’s even overdue in his opinion. He’s gone, but his daughter promises he will go on.
James Wigderson is a writer living in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He is the former editor/owner of RightWisconsin and a former columnist for The Waukesha Freeman. Once described as “the spokesman for the state’s far right,” by the Capital Times, Wigderson is now a critic of the new Republican Party under President Donald Trump.
Wonderful take on the Duffy Family Vacation. A minor quibble. Their Toyota probably was built in the US. (https://www.wilsonvilletoyota.com/blog/blog/made-in-the-usa-which-toyota-vehicles-are-manufactured-in-america/) The components, on the other hand ...