Love at a Reasonable Price

what does it mean when you can’t go on?
And what should you do about it?
I cannot do one more day of this
And yet I know two things:
No one cares
and I don’t even know what I’m talking about
Tomorrow will be another same old day
required to keep this apartment
where I shelter

So what is the point of saying
that I cannot do one more day of this

Anyway, what can that mean when I live without bombs crashing, guns blaring, prisons closing in?
How dare I complain?

And yet why lie?
I can’t stand this
Not one more day
I need to leave
but what does that mean?

I cannot do this anymore
Tomorrow I will not go to work
I will get in a plane and I will fly away
I have enough money to last a year or so
Maybe more with some luck
But I am afraid to leave my home
and everything I know
I am afraid to leave
so what should I do?

I can’t leave my home
I can’t leave all my junk
I can’t leave
But I also can’t stay
not like this
and I cannot live with this failure
to stop the evil
this failure
to get up off my ass
this failure
to live

I’m out of ideas
I’m open to suggestions

the wound that doesn’t heal
the loneliness that doesn’t let up
the failure that doesn’t turn around
the time that takes you down the drain
It needs to end
but what’s a good idea in this massacre?

here’s the plan:
Tomorrow I don’t go to work
I stay home and I buy a ticket to Madrid
I pluck a million dollars out of the air
And I hire a moving company and find a house
And I take this living room that I am so used to and these tall ceiling and this pull-up and dip bar
I take it all to Madrid
That way I’m still at 40 degrees North and I’m still in the west and I’m still in the Indo-European languages, but I’m out of the clanking noise and I’m out of the melting plastic smell and I’m out of the triumphant dishonesty, and I can breathe free again.
And then I can see what happens

Because here there’s no way
Here there’s no hope, no point, no way forward, here there’s a stench in the air and betrayal in the eyes

Here’s the plan:
Tomorrow I leave
I pluck a million dollars out of the air
And I go somewhere that doesn’t taste like evil to me
I’m not greedy, the money’s just so I can stop spinning my wheels while digging myself deeper and deeper into the dark

Here’s the plan:
Tomorrow I leave
I see a million dollars growing on trees and I pick the money like fruit and I get the hell out of here

Here’s the plan:
I need a plan

dear god i need an idea god
what art can be formed of a heart
all tired and a mind mired
in ancient harmony gone off key
dear god i would if i could
speak word with you and work us through
to the other side where wisdom ‘bides
and innocence curls up safe and sound

dear god i need a web yes god
an art we weave upon a heart
that spans your holy lands
and my homely narrow style
dear god i never hear from god
i always spill my guts upon what
would rather not be splattered on
for art dies in jumbled cries
for love one can’t win normal-wise

So then you decide to once and for all hash it out
a hurt in belly chest shoulders head and being, bleeding pain
all day long every day, fighting that wound in the pit of gut
no one wants to hear
don’t want to say anyway
but one chokes on stuffed-up lonely

and then I remember
this is not even the real problem
this is just icing on the edge
icing shaped like that star-faced white-wedged tube
and winding now around the tip-top of a round party cake

the real problem
is the evil out there
the one that rules the world
that takes control,
declares itself king and stomps down anything
that would dare to disagree
no matter how beautifully
for the truth is beautiful
and power for the sake of power is
as ugly as it is boring as it is
evil

dear god i ask you to be fair with me
and to share with me the light that leads
our ships at sea to harbors safe and clean
dear god i ask you to tell me what to do
because all i find in my melon-mind’s a zoo
of i me me mine
Though I’ve heard
of Thou Thee Thine
and I wish to go beyond the narrow confines
of another poem
about and for
moi

maybe fair’s not the right word, maybe generous is better there

This is the original introduction for our Yes, It’s Fascism Ballad. The current introduction is shorter and less reactionary.

We read with interest Jonathan Rauch’s Yes, It’s Fascism January 25, 2026 article in the Atlantic Monthly.

We like so many of our fellow countryfolk—both real-ish and mostly-imagined characters—feel like the nation is in free fall and we should do something but

well,

what’s exactly going on and what exactly should we do and can’t we just move to Europe or Canada or back to the 1990s or whenever it was that we were young and cuddled within an infinite democracy that was on the march and spreading far and wide, and yes, there was still much injustice and much work to be done, but we had the tools to do it—a government that was ultimately responsible to the people and a people that were ultimately responsible to their conscience and to the shared faith that we are all in this together and can use our representative democracy and free conversation to together move towards the better and away from the worse

??

Of course we all know that a government is many things, but one thing it is is a weapon, charged both with exacting selective violence within its borders (example: fairly and nonpolitically stopping people from harming each other, with force if necessary) and with being ready to use violence to defend itself and its inhabitants from foreign aggression.

And who can really run away from such a big weapon in this shrinking world? And if democracy falls here, then thuggery has most of the military might in the world.

You can be cynical and say the US was always just a thug, but that’s an oversimplification. The US has always been imperfect and, as wealth and might make a nation’s reach wider and more impactful, great power tends to amplify both the good and bad behaviors of a nation. This moment now of exploding information makes it harder for a free people to remain ignorant of errors carried out under their flag and in their name. Or does it? We can cocoon in entertainment, in media bubbles, in having to work too much and spend the rest of our time trying to hold our lives and families together. Or we can let people with money dominate the conversation and call it “freedom of speech”. Or we can let a totalitarian state’s state media dictate the conversation and call it “the freedom to share the truth” (or be escorted to a dark place for to disappear).

You can be cynical and say the US was always just might makes right, but that’s not fair. Might makes Right is Hitler’s Germany, Putin’s Russia, places where the citizens are punished for saying the truth and doing the right thing. It’s not that such perversions of justice never happen in liberal democratic republics, but that they don’t win the game—mistakes eventually come to light and policies are eventually changed and actions reversed.

We won’t debate the last century of prodigious activity; but we will note that cynicism is another side of triumphalism: If everything is either hopelessly evil or perfectly good, then there’s nothing to do but either pout or exalt. The alternation between pouting and exalting is a tool of demagogues. The truth is that those of us living in the USA in 2016 had a pretty good hand and it’s looking quite a bit worse; and the world is looking more dangerous and less safe for competence, honesty, and the rule of law.

You can be cynical; you can be exultant; you can be by turns cynical and exultant as it fits your needs for feeling the way you need to feel to justify what you’re doing in a given moment. Or you can relax and try to see things as they really are as best you can in a given moment and

Yes it is an ongoing effort that combines both your ever-evolving relationship with the ultimately intellectually and emotionally un-capturable Truth and your ever-evolving piecing-together-on-the-fly provisional account of this world of appearances, but what of it? What else is there? Only pouting and exulting over lies that you clutch like great gods.

Be that as it may.

We’ve long attempted to get some kind of foothold in this moment. Perhaps an overview of this longstanding political project is in order, but much of it is not even published anymore, so let’s set that overview aside and focus on the little mini project we’re here prologuing. Or we’ve meant to be prologuing. Not sure what all’s gone on up there.

To (we plead with our many whip-snaking strands) return:

We read Jonathan Rauch’s essay with interest and we thought

Maybe here is a sound foundation for a protest song, or at least a song of political contemplation.

How to get people to together focus on this moment and to together work through it? Art is a way to examine a moment without dogmatically demanding an interpretation; but this moment cannot be well thought-through without a careful examination of pertinent facts. And so we decided to write a footnoted ballad based on the essay.

However, our time is limited and this weekend will die before we complete (or perhaps before we even start) number three of the eighteen eight-line verses (or sets of two four-line verses) that we had envisioned (one for each of JR’s categories in his list of why, taken as a whole, the way Donald Trump and co are currently governing is best labeled “fascism”).

We’ll keep working on this, but we offer up this little project as a fun game we can all play together. Write a verse! It’s fun! If you want to keep working in the same rhythm and rhyme scheme as we’ve been working: ABAB CDCD, with A and C being eight syllables of unstressed-stressed & B and D six syllables of unstressed-stressed.

Before we show you what we’ve got so far, perhaps we should discuss whether or not we think Donald Trump’s second presidency should be considered fascism.

Short answer is:

What you call Trump 2.0’s governing style isn’t as important as thinking about why it might be fairly described as “fascism” (totalitarian submission of the nation to the will of the leader), “patrimonialism” (the state is treated as personal property of the leaders), and/or “thuggism” (a patrimonialism with a particularly gangster vibe), while also considering why we prefer liberal (as in basic human rights are guaranteed to all regardless of who they are and who their friends are) representative democracy (as in people choose their representatives in regular fair elections) over those styles of government.

We think that liberal representative government is a spiritual good because it allows people to share power and meaning and to work together to keep their government safe for the universal values (aware, clear, honest, competent, compassionate, loving-kind, joyfully-sharing), which in turn gives people the ability to be publicly virtuous while still keeping themselves and their loved ones safe and sound. And we think that the current White House is undermining our existing imperfect-but-still-functional-and-thus-improvable liberal representative democracy, and that we should all work together to find a way to preserve, improve, and strengthen our liberal representative democracy. We’ve written a great deal on all this elsewhere; for now, let’s pass on to today’s project.

This is the original introduction for our Yes, It’s Fascism Ballad. The current introduction is shorter and less reactionary.

Author: Bartleby Willard
Editor: Amble Whistletown
Copyright: Andy Watson

We read with interest Jonathan Rauch’s Yes, It’s Fascism January 25, 2026 article in the Atlantic Monthly.

[Note that we deemed the original introduction too long and too sprawling, so we relocated it.]

We like so many of our fellow countryfolk—both real-ish and mostly-imagined characters—feel like the nation is in free fall and we should do something but

well, what exactly?

How to get people to together focus on this moment and to together work through it? Art is a way to examine a moment without dogmatically demanding an interpretation; but this moment cannot be well thought-through without a careful examination of pertinent facts. And so we decided to write a footnoted ballad based on the essay.

So far (Monday, February 9, 2026) we have written four verses and four refrains. There’s still twelve of each to go.

We’ll keep working on this, but we offer up this little project as a fun game we can all play together. Write a verse! It’s fun! If you want to keep working in the same rhythm and rhyme scheme as we’ve been working: ABAB CDCD, with A and C being eight syllables of unstressed-stressed & B and D six syllables of unstressed-stressed.

Before we show you what we’ve got so far, perhaps we should discuss whether or not we think Donald Trump’s second presidency should be considered fascism.

Short answer is:

How we name Trump 2.0’s governing style isn’t as important as thinking about why it might be fairly described as “fascism” (totalitarian submission of the nation to the will of the leader), “patrimonialism” (the state is treated as personal property of the leaders), and/or “thuggism” (a patrimonialism with a particularly gangster vibe), while also considering why we prefer liberal (as in basic human rights are guaranteed to all regardless of who they are and who their friends are) representative democracy (as in people choose their representatives in regular fair elections) over those styles of government.

We think that liberal representative government is a spiritual good because it allows people to share power and meaning and to work together to keep their government safe for the universal values (aware, clear, honest, competent, compassionate, loving-kind, joyfully-sharing), which in turn gives people the ability to be publicly virtuous while still keeping themselves and their loved ones safe and sound. And we think that the current White House is undermining our existing imperfect-but-still-functional-and-thus-improvable liberal representative democracy, and that we should all work together to find a way to preserve, improve, and strengthen our liberal representative democracy. We’ve written a great deal on all this elsewhere; for now, let’s pass on to today’s project.

Below is what we have so far.

First the verses themselves:

They poison the blood of our nation
with shithole country shit
This rapist, cat-eating inundation
I say it like I see it

The great threat’s the one from within
Marx-Commie-vermin-all
Let’s lock them up so we may begin
to stand up proud strong and tall

[original first refrain]
Is this what we all want to do?
Is this where we wish to go?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I thought we believed
in democracy, in honesty, in competency
I thought we shared a project
frayed maybe wobbling possibly
but yet ours to lift and protect

[trying to come up with a first refrain that better discusses the Destruction of Norms and Dehumanization categories]
Is this where we all wish to go?
Is this the truth we jointly know?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I thought we believed
in open, respectful community
I thought we shared a project
because we share humanity.
I thought we had norms to protect—
us citizens of democracy.

A violent day gets the word out
In legs we can shoot them
Make it a film, a glossy war shout
In boots and masks we refute them

Old waterboard’s a warmup game
like storming Capitol steps.
I’m Law: the King and Law’re the same!
& Dissenters deserve death.

[Original Second Refrain]
Is this where we want to take us?
Do we think this spiritual success?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I thought we believed
in equality under the law
in freedom to speak; a philosophy
of fair elections, of a flawed
but work- and mend-able democracy

[trying to come up with a first refrain that better discusses the Glorification of Violence category. Although, the second stanza also discusses the sense that Trump equates himself with the nation, the Lord of the all he surveyed, rather than thinking of himself as a temporary servant of the nation—which is what a president in a representative government is supposed to be. So maybe we should consider that in the refrain as well.]
Is this where we want to take us?
Do we think this spiritual success?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I thought we believed
in equality under the law
in speech without fear; a philosophy
of peaceful fair elections, a flawed
but work- and mend-able democracy.

We need not justify our take
We live in the real world
let power our arguments make
that truth’s our god our word

But is that law an iron bind?
Once slav’ry lived here legal.
And children worked Virginia’s mines.
Don’t free laws grow more moral?

Is Might the God we choose?
The strong prevail the weak must lose?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I thought we’d agreed
that justice and compassion
were more than empty fashion
I’d thought we believed in aware
clear honest competence that cares
for self and other and the love
that binds, the Love that comes from above.

Law is lawless when royal degree
wields justice for revenge,
greed and power; with loyalty
to king the only end

Why Comey, Brennan, Cook, et al?
Jail ’em, Kill ’em, what for?
Why do private gifts make tariffs fall?
Our laws now keep his scores.

Is this what we voted for?
Is this how our hearts implore?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I remember when we agreed
in government of by and for
the People, not the king and his whores.
Or were we lying all the time?
was democracy only a means for
more pride of place, more me my me mine?

We must decide, can’t have it both ways
Demand free and fair elections
Or let sharks win always
Once seemed an easy selection

What’s up? Were we lying all the time?
We’d rather bow to those
who’re ready to win even through crime?
than share the reins with foes?

Is Might the God we choose?
Even though we must thus lose
the power to pick and choose?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I thought we’d agreed
that people could an anchor be
for government and prosperity
I’d thought we together need
clear honest competence that cares
for self and other and the love
that binds, the Love that comes from above.
I’d thought we believed
in Goodness, Truth and Kind-Delight
I’d thought this nation conceived
in ideas strong enough to let in the Light
I’d thought we were more than the sum
of our mistakes. I thought us all one
one heart one mind one purpose
to stand against the usurpers
who rule for power and not to serve
who demand parades and empty words
of loyalty blind. I’d thought us cured
not by great wisdom but by the great blessing
of this open mic and shared confessing

You can’t report that anymore
The czar demands good news
Your newsrooms we’ll sue ’til you’re
gone or are useful tools

The press’s the people’s enemy
Reporter’s homes we invade
when they dare disagree
and no jokes or no deal made

Is this now America?
Not the land of the brave
but the bigman’s little slaves?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
How we can puff our chests
as toadies who bow and bless
these blatant boring crimes
that would smash the line
between true and servile
I’d thought we shared a wild
but holy hope of a land
where you could stand
for truth without fearing
all the goblins jeering
their yellow teeth tearing
your home your heart your bearings

We’ve offered alternative facts
to those who prefer them
Invented tales to support acts
when expedient

We do not care that Biden won
The point’s that we’re winning
the narrative. Join our fun:
The truth that we’re spinning

Is this the path we choose?
the fraudsters are just those that lose?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I’d thought some things true
and other false, some things good to do
and others not so okay
I’d thought we shared a way
to govern together
by trusting one another
to defend clear, true, honest,
accurate, competent,
compassionate.
I thought we fought over details,
but agreed on essentials. I’ve failed
to understand this evil
it feels like betrayal
like a punch in the gut
why don’t you see what
you’ve done?
I feel like I’m in outer space
Were you lying to my face?
Were you lying all the time?

The thought experiment:
Go back to 2015 and watch everyone jointly denounce the sort of behavior that Trump has made normal for today’s GOP. So what is true? You were always lying about caring about truth and competent government by of and for the people? Or now you are willfully doing what you have always known is evil? Or what? What is going on here? This is why I am sick to my stomach floating in outer space for years and floating farther and farther from the mother ship. Because I thought we had an understanding. I thought we were together going to do the right thing. Not perfectly, not always getting along, but at the end of the day … a government by of and for the people, which we all know is a miracle because people can both be publicly virtuous and safe. Amazing! Sacred. And now … wtf???

Then the verses with headings taken from JR’s article and our footnotes (we clicked through all his links, but didn’t end up using all of them as footnotes, and also added in some sources that he’d not linked to):

Demolition of norms [Also Dehumanization fits here]

They poison the blood of our nation 1
with shithole country shit 2
A rapist, cat-eating inundation 3 4
I just call it like I see it

The great threat’s the one from within 5
Marx-Commie-vermin-all 5
Let’s lock them up so we may begin 6
to stand up proud strong and tall 7

1
Trump praises autocrats, says immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’
BY Joseph Konig Nationwide
PUBLISHED 6:00 PM ET Dec. 17, 2023
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/us/snplus/politics/2023/12/17/trump-praises-autocrats–says-immigrants-are–poisoning-the-blood-of-our-country-

2
Trump’s Words Aren’t Just Insults—They’re Policy Signals
Sheila Miller
Dec 12, 2025
Branding immigrants as “garbage” and Somalia as “barely a country” is more than rhetoric. It’s a blueprint for dismantling decades of progress.
https://www.nilc.org/articles/trumps-words-arent-just-insults-theyre-policy-signals/

3
Mexican ‘rapists’ seems so mild compared to what Trump says about immigrants today | Opinion By the Miami Herald Editorial Board September 18, 2024 12:46 PM
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article292632624.html
4
WATCH: Trump amplifies false racist rumor about Ohio’s Haitian immigrants in debate
Politics Sept 11, 2024, PBS News Hour
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-amplifies-false-racist-rumor-about-ohios-haitian-immigrants-in-debate
5
“We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections … The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”
November 11, 2023, during a Veterans Day speech
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-violent-rhetoric-timeline/680403/

6
Trump on Clinton: ‘Lock her up is right’
October 10, 2016 | 9:23 PM EST
When some in the crowd at a Donald Trump rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., started chanting “Lock her up!” about Hillary Clinton on Oct. 10, the Republican presidential nominee replied: “Lock her up is right.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-on-clinton-lock-her-up-is-right/2016/10/10/fd56d59e-8f51-11e6-bc00-1a9756d4111b_video.html

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115239044548033727
Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT
7
Remarks at a “Make America Great Again” Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma June 20, 2020
The choice in 220 is very simple. Do you wanna bow before the left-wing mob, or do you wanna stand up tall and proud as Americans? True. [cheers and applause]
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-make-america-great-again-rally-tulsa-oklahoma

Glorification of Violence

A violent day gets the word out 1
In legs we can surely shoot them 2
Make it a movie, a war shout! 3
In boots and masks we refute them 4

A waterboard’s a warmup game 5
like our storm of Washington 6
I’m Law we’re One: the same 7
Say no, deserve death, done done 8

1
“If you had one really violent day … one rough hour—and I mean real rough—the word will get out, and it will end immediately.”
September 29, 2024, proposing a violent crackdown by police to deal with crime, during a rally in Pennsylvania
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-violent-rhetoric-timeline/680403/

2A. Shooting protestors in the legs
Former Pentagon chief Esper says Trump asked about shooting protesters
MAY 9, 20225:00 AM ET
HEARD ON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
By Michel Martin, Tinbete Ermyas
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097517470/trump-esper-book-defense-secretary

…
Former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said President Donald Trump inquired about shooting protesters amid the unrest that took place after George Floyd’s murder in 2020. He recounts that incident, and many others, in a wide-ranging interview with NPR’s Michel Martin on All Things Considered.
…
Esper said he and other top officials were caught off guard by Trump’s reaction to the unrest in the summer of 2020.
“The president was enraged,” Esper recalled. “He thought that the protests made the country look weak, made us look weak and ‘us’ meant him. And he wanted to do something about it.

“We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. [Mark] Milley and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?’ … It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air.”

2B Shooting immigrants in the legs
US President Donald Trump suggested shooting migrants in the legs to slow them down, according to a new book. Oct 2, 2019, BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49901878

The book, by two New York Times journalists, says Mr Trump suggested extreme methods of deterring migrants from crossing the southern border.
They included building an electrified, spiked border wall and a snake or alligator-infested moat.
Calling the claims “fake news”, Mr Trump tweeted: “I may be tough on border security, but not that tough.”
…
The book – called Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration, by reporters Michael Shear and Julie Davis, and based on interviews with more than a dozen unnamed officials – was published by the New York Times.
…
It chronicles a week in March 2019 when Mr Trump reportedly tried to halt all southern migration to the US.
According to an excerpt, the president privately suggested to aides that soldiers shoot migrants in the legs, but he was told it would be illegal.
Previously, Mr Trump had made a public statement suggesting soldiers shoot migrants who throw rocks. [https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/02/us/officials-dismiss-shooting-rock-throwing-migrants-trump-invs]

3A
DHS leans into propaganda with militaristic action videos
Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf 10/10/2025, CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/10/politics/ice-videos-dhs-noem-immigration-arrests-analysis

A few clips linked to in the article:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DPZTrp0CXdc/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DPhHn7pibT6/
https://x.com/David_J_Bier/status/1976014467965304874

3B
‘It’s a war’ Inside ICE’s media machine
Messages reveal how the agency has raced to satisfy the White House by pumping out videos of confrontations and arrests.
Washington Post, 12/23/2025
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2025/ice-social-media-blitz/

4
The White House wanted an ICE spectacle. It backfired.
The shooting of Renée Good in Minneapolis may mark a turning point in public opinion.
Kate Andrews, Washington Post, 1/19/2026
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/19/ice-immigration-enforcement-minneapolis-protests/

5A
“They said to me, ‘What do you think of waterboarding?’ I said, ‘I think it’s great, but I don’t think we go far enough.’ It’s true, it’s true—right? We don’t go far enough. We don’t go far enough.”
February 22, 2016, at a rally in Las Vegas
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-violent-rhetoric-timeline/680403/
5B
What Does It Mean When the President Endorses Torture?
President Trump said he would reinstate techniques banned as torture if his advisors endorsed the move because “I think it works.”
Ken Dilanian, Jan 26, 2027, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/what-does-it-mean-when-president-praises-torture-n712736

6A
When I think back to January 6th, after nearly a year and a half of investigation, I am frightened about the peril our democracy faced. Specifically, I think about what that mob was there to do: to block the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another based on a lie that theelection was rigged and tainted with widespread fraud.
I also think about why the rioters were there, besieging the legislativebranch of our government. The rioters were inside the halls of Congress because the head of the executive branch of our government, the then-President of the United States, told them to attack. Donald Trump summoned that mob to Washington, DC. Afterward, he sent them to the Capitol to try to prevent my colleagues and me from doing our Constitutional duty to certify the election. They put our very democracy to the test.
Trump’s mob came dangerously close to succeeding. Courageous law enforcement officers put their lives on the line for hours while Trump sat in the White House, refusing to tell the rioters to go home, while watching the assault on our republic unfold live on television.
When it was clear the insurrection would fail, Trump finally called off the mob, telling them, “We love you.” Afterward, Congress was able to return to this Capitol Building and finish the job of counting the Electoral College votes and certifying the election.
This is the key conclusion of the Select Committee, all nine of us, Republicans and Democrats alike.

From the Chairman’s Foreword to the Jan 6 Investigation.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/pdf/GPO-J6-REPORT.pdf
6B
January 6, five years on: sustained effort by Trump to rewrite history
Sam Levine
President and Republican allies have tried to make sure the deadly attack on the Capitol has been erased from memory
Jan 6, 2026, for The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/06/january-6-trump-us-capitol-attack

6C
The current Whitehouse’s whitewashing job:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/j6/
If you buy this, I’ve got some lovely bridges I’d like to sell you, some tremendous bridges

7
Professor Hanson: Trump’s Patrimonial Rule Treats the State as Personal Property and Undermining Impartial Governance

Professor Hanson: Trump’s Patrimonial Rule Treats the State as Personal Property and Undermining Impartial Governance

Professor Hanson underscores that “the key features [of Trump’s governance] are that the ruler governs the entire state as if it were his personal possession, viewing the state as a kind of family business. He distributes parts of the state and its protection to loyalists, cronies, and even family members directly. At the same time, he attacks the impersonal and impartial administration of the state as an obstacle to his arbitrary power.” This, he argues, is a defining characteristic of patrimonialism, a governance style that many assumed had been relegated to history but is now re-emerging in modern democracies.
8
Trump Calls for Executing Democrats Over Message to Military
By Jacob Knutson, Matthew Kupfer
November 20, 2025

Trump Calls for Executing Democrats Over Message to Military

In a feverish flurry of social media posts and reposts Thursday morning, President Donald Trump expressed support for imprisoning and executing a group of Democratic lawmakers for what he termed “seditious behavior.”
The behavior in question? Urging U.S. military service members to defend the U.S. Constitution and disobey orders that violate the law.
…
In a post on his Truth Social page, Trump wrote that the lawmakers’ actions were “really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” the president wrote in a separate post.
He also reposted a message from an anonymous user that stated: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
…
The six lawmakers — Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Penn.), Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) — all formerly served in the military or intelligence community.
“Right now, the threats to the Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home,” they said in the video. “Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders.”
Following Trump’s reaction online, the Democratic lawmakers put out a statement denouncing his comments, saying that “every American must unite and condemn the President’s calls for our murder and political violence.”
“What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law,” they said.
…
Trump’s social media posts also fit into a broader pattern in which administration officials publish menacing messages on social media — sometimes at the expense of their own goals.
As Democracy Docket reported in October, statements online by Trump and Justice Department officials could serve as evidence in court that charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) represent vindictive and selective prosecution.
…

Might makes right

We need not justify our take 1
We live in the real world 2
let power our arguments make 2
that truth’s our god our word

I don’t believe that law’s so iron 3
Once slav’ry lived here legal 3
And children worked Virginia’s mines 3
Freer folk forge law more moral 3

1
Expert Comment: The illegality of the US attack against Venezuela is beyond debate – how the world reacts is critical

Professor Janina Dill, Dame Louise Richardson Chair in Global Security at the Blavatnik School of Government, outlines why the biggest problem for international law is not the invasion of Venezuela and capture of President Nicolas Maduro, but how the United States and the world made sense of it.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-01-07-expert-comment-illegality-us-attack-against-venezuela-beyond-debate-how-world-reacts

January 7, 2026

More striking, however, is a critical difference between Operation Iraqi Freedom and this latest US attempt at forcible regime change. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was preceded by a long diplomatic quest to gain Security Council approval. It was accompanied by elaborate attempts to explain US actions in legal terms.

Now, the silence of US officials on international law is deafening.

The lack of effort to find a legal justification for the attack on Venezuela betrays their sense that international law does not, should not constrain US foreign policy. Unapologetic defiance of law is much more dangerous – for the law and hence for global stability – than violations couched in, however implausible, legal apologia, as previous US military interventions often were.

The sense that law does not constrain US foreign policy also adds urgency to the question of what does? President Trump and his officials have articulated a series of territorial ambitions in direct contravention of international law, including annexing Greenland. These threats explicitly evoke 19th century imperialist ideas of great powers’ spheres of influence. They reveal a total disregard for foundational legal rules like territorial integrity and self-determination.

The only limit to US interventionism seems to be the elusive and elastic understanding of the national or maybe even the “Presidential interest”.

2A

Stephen Miller says US is using military threat to maintain control of Venezuela

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/05/politics/video/senior-white-house-aide-stephen-miller-says-us-military-threat-to-maintain-control-of-venezuela-digvid

2B

Trump’s Anti-Moral Morality
Jan 14, 2026
PETER SINGER
Donald Trump now claims that the only thing that will stop him from doing as he pleases on the world stage is his own morality. Whether the world accepts Trump’s reversion to the unbridled dominance of great powers will determine the course of international relations for decades to come.

“You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world…that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he [Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff] told Jake Tapper of CNN. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time… By definition, we are in charge [of Venezuela] because we have the United States military stationed outside the country.”

[Italics mine]

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-might-makes-right-worldview-rules-out-moral-progress-by-peter-singer-2026-01

3A
Here we are echoing Peter Singer’s argument in the above-quoted (2B) article.
See the last few paragraphs of that essay:

What is so shocking about Miller’s appeal to what he assumes is an iron law of history is that it rules out all hope of moral progress. Yet the evidence of moral progress is all around us. Unlike the Athenians, who may have seen slavery as another example of the strong doing what they can, we do not have slaves, and we grant equal legal status to men and women. We prohibit torture and have laws against cruelty to animals.

Granted, this progress is often far from complete. But would Miller and Trump deny that it really is progress? If not, the possibility of further progress is a reason for trying to achieve it, not for scrapping the gains we have made.

The same holds for international relations. It was one of Trump’s predecessors, Woodrow Wilson, who, toward the end of World War I, called for a League of Nations to prevent such catastrophes in the future. Although the League failed to prevent World War II, its successor, the United Nations, may have contributed – along with nuclear deterrence – to preventing a hot war between the major powers during the past 80 years.

That is not an achievement to discard lightly. The course of international relations for decades to come will be determined by whether the rest of the world accepts Trump’s reversion to the unbridled dominance of great powers, or holds even the most powerful states to account.

3B
The commentators generally trace Stephen Miller’s “might makes right” type of philosophy to Thucydides: The Melian Dialogue (416 B.C.) https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/readings/thucydides8.html
In the end of that account, the Melians refuse to submit to the Athenians, and in the fullness of time, the Athenians defeat them, kill the men and enslave the women and children. The gods don’t seem to care, and life rolls on as cruelly as ever. But what does this prove but that “it rains on the just and the unjust.” Jesus didn’t make that argument to point out that the strong should take their advantage and the weak suffer it. If that were the great Truth of life, there would be nothing to live for, nothing to work for, no goal worth serving. And Jesus would be at home in this administration. But what’s the case? What’s really going on here? Riddle me that!

Politicized Law Enforcement

Law is lawless when royal degree
wields justice for revenge,
greed and power—with loyalty
to king the only end

Why Comey, Brennan, Cook, et al? 1
Jail ‘er, kill ’em, what for? 2
Why do private gifts make tariffs fall? 3
Our laws now keep his scores.

1A-D are from

Tracking retaliatory use of arrests, prosecutions, and investigations by the Trump administration

JANUARY 23, 2026

How to tell if the Trump DOJ is enforcing the law or retaliating against political enemies

https://protectdemocracy.org/work/retaliatory-action-tracker/

Start with the administration’s intentional and systematic obliteration of guardrails. President Trump and his political allies and appointees have openly disclaimed adherence to post-Watergate laws and traditions and to the very idea that law enforcement should be independent of the president’s personal political interests. …

The Trump administration’s proclivity for charging federal crimes and executing public arrests in cases that do not involve bodily injury, other indicia of serious offenses, or a credible flight risk in cases involving political opponents departs from DOJ guidelines. …

While not all cases brought by the Department of Justice should be expected to lead to indictments, the failure to bring enough credible evidence to indict should be the exception and not the norm. The Trump administration’s notable pattern of conducting high profile arrests only to drop (or be forced to drop) the charges days or weeks later has led judges and prominent legal commentators to sharply criticize the administration’s actions, both in the courtroom and out. …

Based on these questions, we previously concluded that the federal prosecutions of Trump brought during the last administration were necessary law enforcement efforts [https://protectdemocracy.org/work/trump-prosecutions-rule-of-law/]. Using them to assess law enforcement investigations and prosecutions of Trump administration political opponents, compels the conclusion that the administration has frequently veered far over the line into political retaliation

1A James Comey

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has made statements about being glad to see the investigation into “corruption at the highest level” and “the deep state” attacks on Trump, with no evidence to support these statements. Trump made statements about them being “dishonest people.” President Trump posted on Truth Social seemingly demanding that Pam Bondi prosecute Comey and saying Comey was “guilty as hell.”

…

Criminal investigation of a high-level federal employee for actions taken in the scope of their office is highly unusual, particularly in cases, like this one, that resulted in prosecutions and convictions. In this instance, there were already two Trump-instigated investigations of the conduct of the 2016 Russia investigation, one by the DOJ inspector general and one by Special Counsel John Durham. Neither of those investigations disclosed criminal wrongdoing by Comey. … Indeed, Durham’s investigation resulted in one guilty plea by an FBI attorney based on the alteration of search warrant application and two jury acquittals.

…

The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee conducted an extensive investigation that concluded that Russia did, in fact, interfere in the 2016 election for the purpose of helping Trump’s candidacy, which was the same conclusion reached in the investigation conducted by the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. …

1B John Brennan

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has made statements about being glad to see the investigation into “corruption at the highest level” and “the deep state” attacks on Trump, with no evidence to support these statements. Trump made statements about them being “dishonest people.” …

Criminal investigation of a high-level federal employee for actions taken in the scope of their office is highly unusual, particularly in cases, like this one, that resulted in prosecutions and convictions. …

While no charges have yet been sought or filed that would permit grand jury or judicial review, in addition to the investigations noted above, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee conducted an extensive investigation that concluded that Russia did, in fact, interfere in the 2016 election for the purpose of helping Trump’s candidacy, which was the same conclusion reached in the investigation conducted by the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

1C Lisa Cook

President Trump posted on Truth Social calling for Ms. Cook’s resignation, before the Justice Department had even started an investigation. Ms. Cook is one of three Biden appointees on the Fed, an agency that Trump has been publicly targeting. …

While the administration has publicly accused Cook before even indicting her, it has yet to produce any evidence of fraudulent intent. Several sources have found that two Trump administration officials, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer made the same alleged error, yet they are not facing prosecution.

1D John Bolton

Mr. Bolton has been an outspoken critic of President Trump since he served in the first Trump Administration and wrote a book documenting his time in the White House. Mr. Bolton was included in Kash Patel’s “enemies list.” Both President Trump and Vice President Vance made public comments about the investigation phase while acknowledging there was no actual reason known for the investigation.

Et cetera

1E
How Trump’s message to ‘Pam’ got exactly the results he wanted
Donald Trump has long called for imprisoning his opponents. For the first time, he has a Justice Department willing to do his bidding.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/10/trump-doj-prosecutions-comey-james-00601838?utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack

Trump’s public instructions to Attorney General Pam Bondi (which he may have intended as a private DM) were not subtle. The president named three public figures he has long detested and urged the Justice Department to prosecute them immediately.

Now, less than three weeks later, two of them are under indictment: former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both have denied wrongdoing. And the many other targets Trump wants to see in jail are bracing for who will be next.

The third person Trump named in his message to Bondi — Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — decried the new reality Thursday, shortly after James was indicted on two counts stemming from allegations of mortgage fraud.

“Those of us on the president’s enemies list, and it is a long and growing list, will not be intimidated, we will not be deterred,” Schiff told reporters. “We will do our jobs. We will stand up to this president.”

Some of them may have to do that while battling a Justice Department whose leaders obediently comply with Trump’s demands, flouting longstanding norms. …

1F

Trump Fires Election Security Director Who Corrected Voter Fraud Disinformation

NOVEMBER 17, 20207:37 PM ET

Alana Wise

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/17/936003057/cisa-director-chris-krebs-fired-after-trying-to-correct-voter-fraud-disinformati
Christopher Krebs, the Department of Homeland Security director who had spearheaded a campaign to counter rumors about voter fraud, has been fired, President Trump tweeted on Tuesday.

Trump, in two misleading tweets about the security of the U.S. election, said Krebs’ termination was “effective immediately.”

….

1G

A List of the Trump Administration’s Attacks on DOJ

Justice Connection’s DOJ Tracker is a list of publicly reported actions this administration has taken that harm the Department of Justice’s workforce, the institution itself, and the public it serves.

DOJ Tracker

1H [Favoritism of allies]

DOJ ended probe of ‘border czar’ Tom Homan for allegedly accepting $50K in FBI sting: Sources
The Justice Dept. said there was “no credible evidence” of criminal wrongdoing.
ByKatherine Faulders, Mike Levine, Luke Barr, and Alexander Mallin
September 21, 2025, 1:49 PM

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doj-ended-probe-border-czar-tom-homan-allegedly/story?id=125781386

1I [Favoritism of allies]

Trump grants sweeping pardon of Jan. 6 defendants, including rioters who violently attacked police

https://apnews.com/article/capitol-jan-6-pardons-trump-justice-department-8ce8b2a8f8cb602d5eaf85ac7b969606

2A

Fact check: Trump falsely claims he didn’t call to lock up Hillary Clinton

By Daniel Dale, CNN

Updated 8:00 AM EDT, Mon June 3, 2024

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/02/politics/fact-check-trump-false-claim-lock-up-hillary-clinton

Facts First: Trump’s claim that “I didn’t say ‘lock her up’” is false. He called for Clinton’s imprisonment on multiple occasions, including by using the phrase “lock her up.”

2B
Trump Calls for Executing Democrats Over Message to Military
By Jacob Knutson, Matthew Kupfer
November 20, 2025

Trump Calls for Executing Democrats Over Message to Military

…

In a post on his Truth Social page, Trump wrote that the lawmakers’ actions were “really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”

“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” the president wrote in a separate post.

…

The six lawmakers — Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Penn.), Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) — all formerly served in the military or intelligence community.

“Right now, the threats to the Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home,” they said in the video. “Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders.”

Following Trump’s reaction online, the Democratic lawmakers put out a statement denouncing his comments, saying that “every American must unite and condemn the President’s calls for our murder and political violence.”

“What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law,” they said.

…

2B

Donald Trump’s Corrupt Tariff Quid Pro Quo

LUCY DEAN STOCKTON

Donald Trump is granting tariff exemption deals to wealthy donors and politically connected businesses, echoing the corrupt tactics of his first term. But this time, he’s fired the government watchdog that raised the alarm about them.

https://jacobin.com/2025/04/tariffs-trump-corruption-trade-war

…

Already Trump has suspended the tariffs for electronics and is considering exempting cars as well — good news for Trump super PAC donor Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who personally delivered $1 million to Trump’s inauguration. During his first term, Trump offered key exemptions to major firms, including Apple, in a process that internal auditors had previously described as “neither transparent nor objective.”

While tariff exemptions were designed to aid products that aren’t available domestically, they’ve become a political tool benefiting large and politically connected businesses. A recent study of China tariffs during Trump’s first term found that companies donating to and lobbying Republicans were more likely to win exemptions, while firms supporting Democrats were less likely. Researchers found that granting companies tariff exemptions — which increased firms’ average market value by $51 million — was “a very effective spoils system allowing the administration of the day to reward its political friends and punish its enemies.”

…

Bonus

America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State
For most people, the courts will continue to operate as usual—until they don’t.
By Aziz Huq

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/05/trump-executive-order-lawlessness-constitutional-crisis/682112/

Today, we are witnessing the birth of a new dual state. The U.S. has long had a normative state. That system was always imperfect. Our criminal-justice system, for example, sweeps in far too many people, for far too little security in exchange. Even so, it is recognizably part of the normative state.

What the Trump administration and its allies are trying to build now, however, is not. The list of measures purpose-built to cleave off a domain in which the law does not apply grows by the day: the pardons that bless and invite insurrectionary violence; the purges of career lawyers at the Justice Department and in the Southern District of New York, inspectors general across the government, and senior FBI agents; the attorney general’s command that lawyers obey the president over their own understanding of the Constitution; the appointment of people such as Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who seem to view their loyalty to the president as more compelling than their constitutional oath; the president’s declaration that he and the attorney general are the sole authoritative interpreters of federal law for the executive branch; the transformation of ordinary spending responsibilities into discretionary tools to punish partisan foes; the stripping of security clearances from perceived enemies and opponents; the threat of criminal prosecutions for speech deemed unfavorable by the president; and the verbal attacks on judges for enforcing the law.

Dehumanization

We think this was already covered in “Demolition of Norms” [verse 1 and refrain 1].

Police-State Tactics

We touched upon some of this in “Glorification of Violence” [verse 2 and refrain 2]

Undermining Elections

We must decide, can’t have it both ways 1
Demand free and fair elections 1
Or let sharks win always 1
Once seemed an easy selection

What’s up? Were we lying all the time?
We’d rather bow to those
who’re ready to win even through crime?
than share the reins with foes?

Is Might the God we choose?
Even though we must thus lose
the power to pick and choose?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I thought we’d agreed
that people could an anchor be
for government and prosperity
I’d thought we together need
clear honest competence that cares
for self and other and the love
that binds, the Love that comes from above.
I’d thought we believed
in Goodness, Truth and Kind-Delight
I’d thought this nation conceived
in ideas strong enough to let in the Light
I’d thought we were more than the sum
of our mistakes. I thought us all one
one heart one mind one purpose
to stand against the usurpers
who rule for power and not to serve
who demand parades and empty words
of loyalty blind. I’d thought us cured
not by great wisdom but by the great blessing
of this open mic and shared confessing

1A https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Trump_23_cr_257.pdf
1B https://january6th-benniethompson.house.gov/report-executive-summary
1C https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/timeline-trump-administrations-efforts-undermine-elections
1D https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/09/trump-midterm-elections-voting-system#

Need an article about Trump’s call to take over elections, fox guarding henhouse

What’s Private is Public

Attacks on News Media

You can’t report that anymore
The czar demands good news
Your newsrooms we’ll sue ’til you’re
gone or are useful tools

The press’s the people’s enemy
Reporter’s homes we invade
when they dare disagree
and no jokes or no deal made

Is this now America?
Not the land of the brave
but the bigman’s little slaves?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
How we can puff our chests
as toadies who bow and bless
these blatant boring crimes
that would smash the line
between true and servile
I’d thought we shared a wild
but holy hope of a land
where you could stand
for truth without fearing
all the goblins jeering
their yellow teeth tearing
your home your heart your bearing

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/business/trump-calls-the-news-media-the-enemy-of-the-people.html

https://rsf.org/en/usa-trump-verbally-attacked-media-more-100-times-run-election

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/if-we-dont-have-free-speech-then-we-just-dont-have-a-free-country

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/27/brendan-carr-kimmel-fcc-00583301

Territorial and military aggression

Transnational reach

Blood-and-soil nationalism

White and Christian nationalism

Mobs and street thugs

Leader aggrandizement

Alternative facts

We’ve offered alternative facts
to those who prefer them
Invented tales to support acts
when expedient

We do not care that Biden won
The point’s that we’re winning
the narrative. Join our fun:
The truth that we’re spinning

Conway: Trump White House offered ‘alternative facts’ on crowd size
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts

In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd pressed Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway about why the White House on Saturday had sent Spicer to the briefing podium for the first time to claim that “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.”

“You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving – Sean Spicer, our press secretary – gave alternative facts,” she said.

Todd responded: “Alternative facts aren’t facts, they are falsehoods.”

Conway then tried to pivot to policy points. But later in the interview, Todd pressed Conway again on why the White House sent Spicer out to make false claims about crowd size, asking: “What was the motive to have this ridiculous litigation of crowd size?”

“Your job is not to call things ridiculous that are said by our press secretary and our president. That’s not your job,” Conway said.

In His Second Term, Trump Fuels a ‘Machinery’ of Misinformation
President Trump’s first four years in the White House were filled with falsehoods. Now he and those around him are using false claims to justify their policy changes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/business/trump-misinformation-false-claims.html

Trump Dismantles Government Fight Against Foreign Influence Operations
Dozens of employees who had been working to fight foreign interference in U.S. elections have been reassigned or forced out, according to current and former officials.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/business/trump-foreign-influence-election-interference.html

Trump Is Running a Disinformation Campaign, Not a Political Campaign
He’s not just lying. He’s creating an alternative reality.
DAVID CORN
OCTOBER 8, 2024

Trump Is Running a Disinformation Campaign, Not a Political Campaign

PolitiFact has hit a milestone: We published our 1,000th rated fact-check of Donald Trump.
Feb 2, 20224

What PolitiFact learned in 1,000 fact-checks of Donald Trump

Trump denies he suggested ‘termination’ of Constitution, without deleting post
On Truth Social on Saturday, he repeated false claims about election fraud, which he said “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/05/trump-terminate-constitution-00072230

Politics as war

Governing as revolution

Author: Bartleby Willard
Editor: Amble Whistletown
Copyright of the original material: Andrew M. Watson