There is a specific, immutable law of physics that governs the collapse of American dignity. It isn't gravity, and it certainly isn't justice. It is the magnetic pull of the Grift Singularity. Like two black holes spiraling toward one another in a void of moral vacuums, it was inevitable, written in the stars of our decaying reality, that Elizabeth Holmes—the disgraced baroness of bloodless blood testing—would reach out to Donald Trump. The news that the Theranos founder has formally requested a commutation of her sentence is not surprising. It is boring. It is the exhaustion of a scriptwriter who has run out of ideas and decides to just smash the two most obvious action figures together to see if the plastic breaks.

Let us pause to appreciate the sheer, unadulterated gall required for this maneuver. Holmes is currently residing in a federal prison in Bryan, Texas, serving an 11-year sentence for defrauding investors on a scale that would make a Ponzi schemer blush. She didn’t just fudge the numbers; she sold a magical box that claimed to diagnose diseases with a drop of blood but actually just spun around and made noises like a terrified washing machine. She played with people’s health. She cosplayed as Steve Jobs, complete with the unblinking stare and the baritone voice that sounded like she was gargling gravel to establish dominance. And now, having been processed by the legal system in a rare instance where the gears actually turned, she has decided that the rules simply shouldn't apply to her. Why? Because in modern America, shame is a currency you spend to buy freedom.

The logic behind her appeal to the President-elect is transparently cynical. Holmes likely looks at the political landscape and sees a mirror image of her own modus operandi: reality is whatever you can convince enough people to believe until the check clears. She is betting on the tribalism of the moment, hoping that her status as a 'persecuted' entrepreneur might resonate with a movement that views all institutional accountability as a Deep State conspiracy. Never mind that she defrauded Betsy DeVos and Rupert Murdoch—titans of the very right-wing establishment she now needs to woo. That is a detail for historians and people who still care about facts. Holmes operates in the realm of vibes, and the vibe right now is 'consequences are for poor people.'

One has to wonder about the mechanics of this request. Did she write the letter in that fake, low register? Does the text vibrate with the sociopathic confidence of a woman who stared down a room of investors and lied about physics? The request for commutation is the final act of the narcissist: the belief that one’s own suffering is a tragedy, while the suffering one caused to others is merely a statistic. She has two young children now, a fact her legal team has brandished like a shield of vibranium. It is a cynical ply for sympathy, utilizing the very biology she once tried to monetize with faulty technology. It is gross, it is effective, and it is precisely what we deserve for turning these people into celebrities rather than cautionary tales.

This situation exposes the rotting underbelly of our justice system's intersection with fame. If you steal a car in this country, you go to jail. If you steal hundreds of millions of dollars and humiliate the venture capital class, you get a Hulu miniseries, a fervent online fanbase, and a shot at a presidential pardon. Holmes is not asking for forgiveness; she is asking for peer review. She is reaching out to the highest office in the land as a fellow traveler in the art of the deal, hoping that the shared language of salesmanship transcends the petty dictates of the law. She assumes that the game recognizes the game.

And the most depressing part? She might be right. We live in an era where the concept of 'truth' has been eagerly dismantled and sold for scrap. If objective reality is negotiable, then why shouldn't an 11-year sentence for fraud be negotiable too? If we can pretend that up is down and that verifiable election results are suggestions, surely we can pretend that Elizabeth Holmes was just a misunderstood visionary who flew too close to the sun, rather than a fraudster who flew too close to the Walgreens. The commutation request is a litmus test for our collective sanity. If it is granted, it won't be a miscarriage of justice; it will be the formal announcement that the asylum has been fully handed over to the inmates, and the inmates are charging us a subscription fee to watch them burn the place down.

So here we sit, watching the ticker tape of stupidity scroll by, waiting to see if the woman who faked the blood tests will be bailed out by the man who faked the gold plating. It is a match made in hell, presided over by a bored and indifferent public that has long since lost the capacity to be shocked. We are not citizens watching a democracy function; we are captive audience members in a reality show that has gone on for twenty seasons too long. Elizabeth Holmes wants out. And frankly, looking at the state of the world she wants to return to, one has to question her judgment yet again.