Love at a Reasonable Price

References: The woke right stands at the door

To Claude today:

I read a Jonathan Rauch essay in which he argued that MAGA is using the same playbook as wokeness: post-modernism said you needed to pay attention to how people were using language for power, which rendered all thinkers suspect, making it difficult to use post-modernism to argue for anything. But then some thinkers came along and argued that people who had previously been oppressed had language that was automatically less suspect, and thus whatever they said, particularly if it could be logically related to past oppression, was the truth of the matter. And since this reasoning is both confusing and intimidating (who wants to be labeled an oppressor?), it made for a good rhetorical weapon. And now MAGA is using elements from this ur-woke-ism—a lack of objective reality, “truth” as just power assertions, language as reality—to justify their takeover of government, removal of democratic norms, and so on. Rauch argues that this tactic is largely intentional. For example, there’s a conversation with one prominent member of the White House and when Rauch points out that it’s a lie that the 2020 election was stolen, the official doesn’t deny that it is a lie, he just says, well, who’s winning that debate? Implying that the point is not telling the truth, but getting people to nod along with whatever you say is the truth. Add to this Trump’s Putin-esque style of blatant contempt for the truth as anything but what I the boss tell you it is. And you see a tactic that is rhetorically powerful but logically hollow. Of course the MAGA version of woke is just as hollow as the liberal version (the latter argues that the truths of people who can more readily find a way to identify with historically oppressed groups are somehow more “true” than everyone else’s; the former argues that the real oppressors are wokesters and their attacks on reality are so perfidious that one needn’t bother with niceties like “true” and “false” while defeating them; neither of these arguments is logical), and so it too is destined to fail. And those wielding this weapon (the right’s version of a post-truth reality) know people will not fall for it forever. That is why they are working to consolidate power and mess with the gears of elections so quickly. They know that this game will not work forever, and that if they want to stay in power forever, they need to rewrite the rules quickly. This makes the situation feel like a sprint. Especially as the midterms approach. A sprint to wake up and to organize not just spiritually but also with tactical care and wisdom. This has me sick to my stomach, and today, for example, I completely wasted, and now tomorrow I go back to work which sucks up all my time and power. This is the situation. What is the play wherein we catch the heart of this moment and move with it to a brighter future? And how to write it sooner rather than later?

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.
[Update Saturday, February 21, 2026: We’ve done 8 verses with 8 refrains. 8 verses and 8 refrains are left 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. [Updated 2/21/2026: We sometimes relaxed these rules, and we used slightly different rules (which we were even more relaxed about) for the refrains.]

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:
[Verses with footnotes follow]

[Demolition of norms [Also Dehumanization fits here]]
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.

[Glorification of Violence]
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.

[Might makes right]
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.

[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?
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?

[Undermining Elections]
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 sought to share
clear honest competence that cares
for self and other—share the love
that binds, 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 saw 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

[What’s Private is Public]
What I need you to believe
is double, you must needs
somehow accept, if you please:
both everyone and not me

kleptocracy’s normal here
and all my vague deals are
clever tools guaranteed to steer
our ship of state by wise North Star

When I make money when I,
say, pardon criminals,
or sell chips that therethrough may find
their way to rivals arsenals

When I destroy rules designed
to fight corruption here
and corruption worldwide,
or bundle obscure deals

When I may really seem to trade
the nation’s public assets
for private gains: Yes, I’m paid,
but everyone cashes in
And I least of all of everyone

Can you hold two things in your mind
together at one time
If so then you’re just the fell’er
I’d like to rule forever

Please understand me
All leaders steal and cheat
but I the very very least
kleptocracy I swear to thee
is standard US policy
but I less than all the rest
and I honestly wish you the best
you did vote for me, right?
because we don’t serve the other side,
that’s not the kind of country we live in
It’s us against them,
as winning’s our religion.
Because we’re winners, yes: you and me
and the rest’re dinner, for you and more for me
So yes: My friends and family do better
but only because they’ve weathered
the storms brought on by evil foes
who’d separate my holy soul
from the sacred service of taking
the nation’s wealth and making
it
my
own

[Attacks on the 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 for a land
where we all could stand
for truth without fearing
all the goblins jeering
their yellow teeth tearing
our home our heart our bearings

[Verses needed: Territorial and military aggression, Transnational Reach, Blood-and-soil nationalism, Mob and Street Thugs, White Christian Nationalism, Leader Aggrandizement]

[Alternative Facts]
We’ve offered alternative factstklj
to those who prefer them
Invented tales to support acts
when more expedient
on
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 really 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?
Where did it go the sacred secret line?

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???

[Verses Needed: Politics as War, Governing as Revolution]

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

What I need you to believe
is double, you must needs
somehow accept, if you please:
both everyone and not me

kleptocracy’s normal here 1
and all my vague deals are
clever tools guaranteed to steer
our ship of state by wise North Star

When I make money when I,
say, pardon criminals, 2
or sell chips that therethrough may find
their way to rivals arsenals 3

When I destroy rules designed
to fight corruption here 4
and corruption worldwide,
or bundle obscure deals 5

When I may really seem to trade
the nation’s public assets
for private gains: Yes, I’m paid,
but everyone cashes in
And I least of all of everyone 6

Can you hold two things in your mind
together at one time
If so then you’re just the fell’er
I’d like to serve forever

Please understand me
All leaders steal and cheat
but I the very very least
kleptocracy I swear to thee
is standard US policy
but I less than all the rest
and I honestly wish you the best
you did vote for me, right?
because we don’t serve the other side, 7
that’s not the kind of country we live in
It’s us against them
And winning’s our religion 8
because we’re winners you and me
and the rest are our dinner, don’t you see?
So yes my friends do better
but only because they’ve weathered
the storms brought on by evil foes
who would separate my sacred soul
from sacred duty of taking
the nation’s wealth and making
it my own?

NOTE: This time we asked Claude to do the notes. Of course, Claude did a great job!

Footnote 1: “kleptocracy’s normal here”
Anne Applebaum, in “Kleptocracy, Inc.” (The Atlantic, April 2025), argues that “we are living through a revolutionary change, a broad shift away from the transparency and accountability mandated by most modern democracies, and toward the opaque habits and corrupt practices of autocratic regimes.” She observes that “the presence in the American government of so many people, most notably the president, whose financial interests can be directly and immediately affected by their political decisions means that we now need a different way of analyzing American policy.”
Political scientists Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon, writing in Foreign Affairs, draw the critical distinction: “In a neopatrimonial system, corruption can be a means to an end—a way to maintain loyalty, build coalitions, and consolidate power. But Trump’s disposition is not merely patrimonial; it is kleptocratic. In kleptocracies, corruption is the end; the point of holding and keeping office is to enrich a ruler and his inner circle.”
The Campaign Legal Center’s “Trump’s Corrupt Transactions” tracker documents this systematically: “Those who pay get to play: Multimillion-dollar political donors have been rewarded with prominent government positions and the power to financially benefit their own bottom lines.” Cabinet positions went to donors including Linda McMahon ($20.3 million to Trump-affiliated PACs), Howard Lutnick ($11 million+), and Kelly Loeffler (nearly $6 million).
Sources:

Anne Applebaum, “Kleptocracy, Inc.,” The Atlantic, April 14, 2025: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-kleptocracy-autocracy-inc/682281/
Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon, “The Age of Kleptocracy,” Foreign Affairs, 2025: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/age-kleptocracy-cooley-nexon
Campaign Legal Center, “Trump’s Corrupt Transactions,” November 2025: https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/CLC_Corruption_Tracker_Nov20.pdf

Footnote 2: “pardon criminals”
The pattern of pardons-for-donors is stark:
Changpeng Zhao: The Binance founder was pardoned in October 2025 after his company channeled $2 billion to World Liberty Financial (the Trump family crypto venture). When asked on 60 Minutes about the appearance of corruption, Trump responded: “I can’t say, because— I can’t say — I’m not concerned.”
Trevor Milton: The Nikola founder, convicted of securities and wire fraud for lying to investors, donated $1.8 million to Trump-affiliated committees in October 2024—his first political contributions ever. Trump pardoned him in March 2025, eliminating $680 million in court-ordered restitution to defrauded shareholders. Milton’s attorney was Brad Bondi, brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Paul Walczak: A nursing home executive who stole over $10 million from employee paychecks was pardoned just 12 days after sentencing—and three weeks after his mother paid $1 million to attend a Trump fundraising dinner. The pardon wiped out his $4.4 million restitution obligation to victimized workers.
A House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff memo calculated that Trump’s pardons had cost victims over $1.3 billion in restitution and fines.
Sources:

Campaign Legal Center Tracker, November 2025: https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/CLC_Corruption_Tracker_Nov20.pdf
CNBC, “Trump pardons Nikola founder Trevor Milton,” March 28, 2025: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/28/trump-pardons-nikola-trevor-milton-ceo-securities-fraud-electric-vehicle.html
House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff Memo, “Trump’s Pardons Cheat Victims out of $1.3 Billion,” June 17, 2025: https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2025-06-17.dem-memo-re-$1.3b-cost-of-trump-pardons.pdf

Footnote 3: “sell chips that therethrough may find their way to rivals arsenals”
The Biden administration had blocked sales of advanced AI chips to the UAE over concerns they could be diverted to China. After Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan (UAE’s national security adviser, manager of its largest sovereign wealth fund, and chair of AI company G42) secretly purchased a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million—with $187 million flowing to Trump family entities and $31 million to the family of Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff—the Trump administration approved the sale of 500,000 advanced AI chips annually to the UAE.
Senator Chris Murphy called it “brazen, open corruption”: “A UAE investor secretly gave Trump $187 million and his top Middle East envoy $31 million. And then Trump gave that investor access to sensitive defense technology that broke decades of national security precedent.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren warned: “If China gets their hands on these chips at scale, they would be able to launch cyberattacks against the U.S., they could build autonomous weapons that could find and sink our Navy ships.”
Sources:

Wall Street Journal, “UAE ‘Spy Sheikh’ bought stake in Trump crypto company,” February 1, 2026: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-crypto-uae-spy-sheikh-2c95c8cd
Senator Chris Murphy floor speech, February 2026: https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy-on-trumps-secret-deal-with-the-uae-the-white-house-is-a-non-stop-corruption-machine
CNBC, “Warren to call for reversal of Trump’s UAE chip sales,” February 5, 2026: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/05/warren-trump-chip-sales-spy-sheikh.html
ABC News, “White House faces questions over UAE royal’s investment,” February 2026: https://abcnews.com/Politics/white-house-faces-questions-uae-royals-investment-trump/story?id=129774262

Footnote 4: “destroy rules designed to fight corruption here and corruption worldwide”
On February 10, 2025, Trump signed an executive order pausing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)—the landmark 1977 law prohibiting bribery of foreign officials. The order stated that “overexpansive and unpredictable FCPA enforcement against American citizens and businesses… actively harms American economic competitiveness.” Trump told journalists: “It’s going to mean a lot more business for America.”
Gary Kalman of Transparency International warned it “diminishes—and could pave the way for completely eliminating—the crown jewel in the US’s fight against global corruption.” In response, the UK, Switzerland, and France established an International Anti-Corruption Prosecutorial Taskforce in March 2025.
Applebaum documented the broader dismantling of anti-corruption infrastructure: “Trump ordered the shutdown of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, fired top officials in the Office of Government Ethics and the Office of Special Counsel, and slashed the budgets of the IRS and the Department of Justice in ways that will make prosecuting crooked officials and identifying tax fraud more difficult. He halted Treasury’s enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act—a law designed to expose shell companies and money laundering.”
Sources:

White House Executive Order, “Pausing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement,” February 10, 2025: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/pausing-foreign-corrupt-practices-act-enforcement-to-further-american-economic-and-national-security/
International Bar Association, “Pause on FCPA an ‘unwelcome signal'”: https://www.ibanet.org/US-presidency-pause-on-FCPA-an-unwelcome-signal-for-global-fight-against-bribery
Anne Applebaum, “Kleptocracy, Inc.,” The Atlantic, April 14, 2025: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-kleptocracy-autocracy-inc/682281/

Footnote 5: “bundle obscure deals”
Cooley and Nexon in Foreign Affairs identify a distinctive practice they call “transactional bundling,” which “intentionally collapses conflict resolution, economic bargains, and arrangements that benefit Trump cronies into grandiose megadeals that are hard or impossible to scrutinize.” They explain: “The touting of enormous total dollar amounts overwhelms scrutiny of the specifics, as does the practice of rolling together different kinds of deals—foreign policy, investment, business bargains, private side payments, and defense agreements—into a single package.”
The pattern includes: a “golden share” in U.S. Steel (giving the government veto power over business decisions), a 10% equity stake in Intel, demands for 15% of Nvidia and AMD’s chip sales to China, and “low billions” payment demands from TikTok investors. NPR described it as “extracting payments as if the federal government is brokering deals like a white-shoe consulting firm.”
Historian Dael Norwood observed: “There is no consistent principle at play, just the exercise of Trump’s personal power over other people’s money.”
Sources:

Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon, “The Age of Kleptocracy,” Foreign Affairs, 2025: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/age-kleptocracy-cooley-nexon
NPR, “Trump’s TikTok deal payment criticized as ‘shakedown scheme’,” September 26, 2025: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/26/g-s1-90598/tiktok-deal-trump-oracle
Bloomberg, “Trump’s TikTok Deal Puts the White House in the Driver’s Seat,” October 13, 2025: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-13/trump-s-tiktok-deal-puts-the-white-house-in-the-driver-s-seat

Footnote 6: “everyone cashes in / And I least of all”
This captures the rhetorical double-bind the verse dramatizes. Applebaum notes: “Once upon a time (and not even that long ago), blatant conflicts of interest, especially involving foreign entities, were something presidents sought to avoid. No previous inhabitant of the White House would have wanted to be seen doing personal business with companies from countries that seek to influence American foreign policy… But during Trump’s first term, the court system largely blew off his commercial entanglements. Now he not only does business with foreign as well as domestic companies that have a direct interest in his policies, he advertises and celebrates them.”
The rhetorical strategy requires citizens to hold contradictory beliefs: that corruption is universal (so this is nothing special) AND that Trump is less corrupt than others (so he deserves loyalty). The logical impossibility is the point—it tests loyalty through willingness to accept absurdity.
Source:

Anne Applebaum, “Kleptocracy, Inc.,” The Atlantic, April 14, 2025

Footnote 7: “We don’t serve the other side / that’s not the kind of country we live in”
The administration has made explicit that favorable treatment depends on political loyalty. When the Trump administration blocked a merger involving an unnamed company, a senior official reportedly explained that the decision was influenced by the executives’ political donations to Democrats. The Campaign Legal Center documents how “the unprecedented level of blatant corruption in our government highlights the need for change: both specifically, to address particular flaws in the systems designed to prevent corruption, and more fundamentally, to address the underlying problems of a political system that bestows such enormous, outsized power on a tiny, unrepresentative group of the ultra-wealthy.”
Applebaum frames this as the essential logic of kleptocracy: “The right question to ask about Trump’s tariff policy is also financial: How will this enormous change to American trade policy benefit Trump?… The countries and large companies damaged by these tariffs, some of which could face huge losses or even bankruptcy, will have an enormous incentive to play up to the president, to offer him political donations, and maybe even to offer business deals to him, his family, or his friends.”
Sources:

Campaign Legal Center Tracker, November 2025
Anne Applebaum, “Kleptocracy, Inc.,” The Atlantic, April 14, 2025

Footnote 8: “It’s us against them / And winning’s our religion”
This captures what Jonathan Rauch, in “The Woke Right Stands at the Door” (Persuasion, August 2025), identifies as the postmodern right’s cynical attitude toward truth: “What people call true (in the postmodern paradigm) is really whatever narrative, or metanarrative, achieves social dominance. Thus the way to establish what is true is not by reason, evidence, and objectivity, but by winning the narrative.”
Rauch cites an exchange between Steve Bannon and two Atlantic reporters:
“Not long ago, we sat in Steve Bannon’s Capitol Hill rowhouse, where he records his War Room podcast, pressing him on Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election, and his denial of what transpired on January 6. ‘Our reality is that we won’ and that January 6 was a ‘fedsurrection,’ Bannon said… But this reality, we pointed out to Bannon, is simply not true. ‘Now, here’s the interesting thing,’ Bannon said. ‘Who’s won that argument? I think we have.'”
As Rauch explains: “Because objectivity is a fiction, there is no single reality but rather my reality or our reality contending against your reality—and, with no objective basis to choose, narratives must struggle to dominate.”
Source:

Jonathan Rauch, “The Woke Right Stands at the Door,” Persuasion, August 6, 2025: https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-woke-right-stands-at-the-door

THEN WE ASKED CLAUDE TO DO A FEW ADDENDUMS:

ADDENDUM FOR FN1: Why anti-corruption norms matter
The facts on the ground:
The Campaign Legal Center tracker isn’t just making an argument—it’s documenting unprecedented departures from a century of anti-corruption practice:

Cabinet positions for sale: Eleven of Trump’s cabinet secretaries or senior appointees gave more than $1 million each to Trump-affiliated political committees before their appointments. Linda McMahon gave $20.3 million and became Education Secretary. Howard Lutnick gave over $11 million and became Commerce Secretary.
Ambassadorships auctioned: Warren Stephens donated $9 million to Trump-affiliated entities and was nominated as Ambassador to the UK on the same day he made a $4 million donation. Anjani Sinha donated $1 million to MAGA Inc. and was nominated for Singapore; at his confirmation hearing he “struggled to answer questions about the island-state.”
Pardons explicitly tied to donations: Trevor Milton’s first-ever political contribution was $1.8 million to Trump committees a month before the election; he was pardoned within months. Changpeng Zhao’s company poured $2 billion into Trump’s crypto venture; he was pardoned shortly after.

Why this matters—the 100+ year anti-corruption consensus:
The FCPA was enacted in 1977 after the Watergate-era SEC discovered that over 400 American companies had made questionable payments to foreign officials totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. The law reflected a bipartisan consensus that bribery corrupts markets, harms ordinary investors, and undermines trust in government.
A 2025 survey of economists found overwhelming agreement that ending FCPA enforcement would increase global bribery and corruption, and none believed it would increase long-term profits for US businesses.
Professor Rachel Brewster of Duke Law School notes: “Nine of the ten largest FCPA enforcement cases involve foreign corporations including European-owned Airbus, a competitor to Boeing, and Germany’s Siemens.” The law actually protects American companies by applying anti-bribery rules to both domestic and foreign firms.
Beyond economics, Brewster notes: “Corruption is one of the major problems that stops developing countries from experiencing greater economic growth. Suspending the FCPA is not only a concern for American corporations, but it’s a concern for welfare and development in some of the poorest places on the planet.”
Sources:

Duke Law School, “Professor Rachel Brewster on how the FCPA benefits U.S. companies,” 2025: https://law.duke.edu/news/professor-rachel-brewster-how-foreign-corrupt-practices-act-benefits-us-companies
CBS News, “Trump freezes U.S. law banning bribery of foreign officials,” February 12, 2025: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-fcpa-anti-bribery-law-executive-order/
Wikipedia, “Foreign Corrupt Practices Act”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act

ADDENDUM FOR FN2: Additional pardon cases
Paul Walczak — Wage theft from nursing home workers

Crime: Stole over $10 million withheld from the paychecks of nursing home staff to pay for personal expenses including luxury goods and travel.
Who it harmed: Nursing home workers who had money taken from their paychecks.
Sentence: 18 months imprisonment; ordered to pay over $4.4 million in restitution.
Time served: 12 days.
Connection to Trump: His mother, Elizabeth Fago, paid $1 million to attend a Trump fundraising dinner in April 2025. Walczak cited his mother’s donation history in his pardon application. Trump pardoned him just three weeks after his mother attended the fundraiser.
Result of pardon: No restitution to victimized workers.

Changpeng Zhao (Binance) — Money laundering failures enabling terrorists and child abusers

Crime: Willful failure to maintain an anti-money-laundering program at Binance, which allowed the exchange to be used by terrorists, drug traffickers, and child abusers.
Sentence: 4 months imprisonment; $50 million fine.
Connection to Trump: Binance deployed engineers to build the underlying technologies for Trump’s World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency. In March 2025, Binance channeled $2 billion to WLF through a UAE deal, “ultimately making billions of dollars for the Trump family.”
Pardoned: October 21, 2025.
Trump’s response when asked about corruption appearance: “I can’t say, because— I can’t say — I’m not concerned.”

Trevor Milton (Nikola) — Securities and wire fraud against investors

Crime: Made false claims about “nearly all aspects of Nikola’s business” to induce investors, including a video of a “working” prototype truck that was actually just rolled down a hill.
Who it harmed: Nikola shareholders who lost tens of millions; one individual victim defrauded of $15.2 million.
Sentence: 4 years imprisonment; $680 million restitution to shareholders, $15.2 million to individual victim.
Time served: Zero (free on bond pending appeal).
Connection to Trump: First-ever political contribution was $1.8 million to Trump committees in October 2024, including $920,000 to Trump 47 Committee and $750,000 to MAHA Alliance. His defense attorney was Brad Bondi, brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Result of pardon: $680+ million in restitution obligations erased. The company filed for bankruptcy in February 2025.

A House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff memo calculated that Trump’s pardons had collectively cheated victims out of $1.3 billion in restitution and fines.
Sources:

Campaign Legal Center Tracker, November 2025
House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff Memo, June 17, 2025: https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2025-06-17.dem-memo-re-$1.3b-cost-of-trump-pardons.pdf
CNBC, “Trump pardons Nikola founder Trevor Milton,” March 28, 2025: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/28/trump-pardons-nikola-trevor-milton-ceo-securities-fraud-electric-vehicle.html

ADDENDUM FOR FN5: How “transactional bundling” enriches Trump and friends
Cooley and Nexon in Foreign Affairs describe how bundling works: “These arrangements were negotiated through established institutional channels with built-in legal oversight and a clear separation between the national interest and the negotiators’ personal business affairs. In Trump’s distinct method, the touting of enormous total dollar amounts overwhelms scrutiny of the specifics.”
How the enrichment works in specific deals:
TikTok Deal:
The investors handpicked to purchase TikTok’s U.S. operations include:

Larry Ellison (Oracle founder) — described by the White House as a “close Trump ally”
Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch (Fox News) — despite Trump suing the Wall Street Journal over its reporting
Andreessen Horowitz — whose partners have been named to multiple government positions
MGX — the UAE investment fund whose chairman, Sheikh Tahnoon, secretly bought 49% of Trump’s World Liberty Financial

The White House said the investor base must be “patriotic.” The administration demanded a “finder’s fee” payment “in the low billions” from investors. As NPR reported, “Not a single member balked… They see it as something of a finders’ fee.”
The Free Press Foundation warned: “Donald Trump said just days ago that he thinks criticism of him should be illegal. Now he’s steering control of one of the country’s most popular social media platforms to his billionaire political allies.”
UAE AI Chips Deal:

Sheikh Tahnoon secretly purchased 49% of World Liberty Financial for $500 million, with $187 million flowing to Trump family entities and $31 million to Witkoff family entities.
Months later, the Trump administration approved the sale of 500,000 advanced AI chips annually to the UAE—chips the Biden administration had blocked over national security concerns.
The same Sheikh Tahnoon’s investment firm MGX got a 15% stake in the TikTok joint venture.
As Senator Murphy noted: “There is no record in the history of the United States of a foreign government making a direct investment in a company owned by the president of the United States.”

U.S. Steel “Golden Share”:
The administration secured a “golden share” giving veto power over business decisions when approving the Nippon Steel acquisition. Trump recently invoked those powers to block U.S. Steel from halting production at a plant.
Intel Equity Stake:
Trump secured a 10% equity stake in Intel, valued at approximately $11 billion. As Trump posted: “The United States paid nothing for these Shares.”
The common thread: As historian Dael Norwood observed, “There is no consistent principle at play, just the exercise of Trump’s personal power over other people’s money.”
Sources:

NPR, “Trump’s TikTok deal payment criticized as ‘shakedown scheme'”: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/26/g-s1-90598/tiktok-deal-trump-oracle
Al Jazeera, “Investors rejoice over TikTok deal despite political concerns”: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/9/22/investors-rejoice-over-looming-tiktok-deal-despite-political-concerns
Senator Murphy floor speech: https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy-on-trumps-secret-deal-with-the-uae-the-white-house-is-a-non-stop-corruption-machine

ADDENDUM FOR FN6: Trump claims to fight corruption while engaging in it
The rhetorical strategy:
Trump has consistently claimed to be the corruption-fighter while engaging in unprecedented self-dealing:
“Drain the Swamp” — Trump’s signature 2016 campaign promise. In practice:

The top 10 lobbying firms took in about $123 million in Q1 2025, compared to $80 million in the same period of both Biden’s term and Trump’s first term.
The DNC documented: “Trump, who once vowed to ‘drain the swamp,’ has relationships with many of the city’s top lobbyists, who raise money for him and sometimes bring him business opportunities.”

“Weaponized Justice Department” — Trump repeatedly claims Democrats “weaponized the Justice Department like nobody in history.” In fact:

Trump publicly demanded on Truth Social that Attorney General Pam Bondi prosecute Comey, James, and Schiff: “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
When career prosecutors refused to bring charges against Comey due to insufficient evidence, Trump fired the U.S. Attorney and installed his personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience.
Both the Comey and James indictments were subsequently dismissed by a federal judge who found “a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” and potential prosecutorial misconduct.
Halligan admitted she signed the Comey indictment without showing it to the grand jury.

“They’re crooked… maybe they have to pay a price” — Trump said of Comey and Brennan. But:

Comey was previously investigated twice (by the DOJ Inspector General and by Special Counsel John Durham) with no criminal findings.
A bipartisan group of 42 retired judges condemned the Comey prosecution.
The charges against Trump during Biden’s term were brought by a special counsel (not a Biden-appointed U.S. attorney) and were dropped only because of DOJ policy against prosecuting a sitting president—not for lack of evidence.

“It’s about justice, not revenge” — Trump said of the Comey indictment. But he had called Comey “one of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to” and a “DIRTY COP” on Truth Social.
The projection is systematic: accusing others of exactly what you are doing.
Sources:

ABC News, “With Comey, Brennan, Soros, Trump steps up his retribution campaign,” September 27, 2025: https://abcnews.go.com/US/comey-brennan-soros-trump-steps-retribution-campaign/story?id=125972721
Axios, “Trump DOJ stumbles with failed Comey, Letitia James prosecutions,” November 25, 2025: https://www.axios.com/2025/11/25/trumps-doj-comey-james-purge
Protect Democracy, “Tracking retaliatory use of arrests, prosecutions, and investigations”: https://protectdemocracy.org/work/retaliatory-action-tracker/
DNC, “Corruption Watch,” July 14, 2025: https://democrats.org/news/corruption-watch-instead-of-draining-the-swamp-trump-white-house-officials-and-lobbyists-are-raking-in-millions/

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

Not really, what’s going on?
Can you do me a big favor?
What’s that?
Can you carry something for me? I would be so grateful, it would be such a help.
Where?
Through the lot there.
I’m headed that way
Oh, thank you! I knew God would send me a blessing. I want to thank you so much for this. Some of us can carry on the Sabbath, but I made a commitment. It’s for a sick person. I pray many blessings on you.
Sure.

I’m not in a hurry
And I don’t care
that nothing anyone believes is true
I’m not in a hurry
And I don’t care
that nothing anyone says is true
I’m not in a hurry
And it’s no one’s fault the daydreams their world webs around them
I’m not in a hurry
And none of us will live much longer
We think we’re real
We feel solid
But the winds flood in and show us that we were wrong

There’s no point
So why am I here?
My grandparents are all dead
We walked up the dusty hills
And along the salty grass
There’s no point
I’m almost fifty
So why do I live?
My parents are old
We walked beside the saltless sea
And up hills of sharp brown grass
There’s no point
I’m always just me
It gets old
My siblings are married
We walked everywhere
and the old oak with a brick belly flexed its arm
There’s no point
anymore

Sometimes the government helps
Sometimes the government hurts
Right now we got the latter

So let’s start dismantling the power
that is to say unraveling the money
on our own
We can work on regulation when the heart has a voice again
I hope it speaks up

Amazon
Google
Trump and his cronyism and democracy-busting

You could have competitors to the monopolies
They could be ethics-first businesses
People could spend a little time and money choosing them
A monopoly is already a problem even before it begins twisting the screws
because it already has the screws in your thumbs in the thumbs also of your democracy of your culture of your faith

I see an online business that ships everything through UPS where people can order whatever they need and they can also go the UPS pick up place
I see a list of search engines that are actually just as good as Google but that don’t track you and that partner with open source software projects to bring you at least a good chunk of the amazing info-gadgetry that Google does
I see open source AI and businesses finding a way to turn them into competitive products

Sometimes government helps
When it doesn’t the people have to help more
And that includes changing money
because money is power is incentive is pushing us around is sucking up our lives is keeping us from taking the time to think this all through

What about ethics-first businesses that don’t try to be the very best, but that try to provide a similar product or service while also transparently doing the right thing for their customers, employees, and shared resources like the environment, governments of men, houses of cards
What about a public that chooses to unlace big money by simply together choosing to spread the love
?

It was a dark and stormy night
the rain covered the streets and danced in the electric lights
I smoked another cigarette and looked out at nothing
No cases and no money
The telephone rang
I reached for the curved black plastic
“Hello, Ambrose Whistletown, PI”
I said into the speaker, honging against the sweaty air

“Ambrose, it’s Clark, we need to talk!”
“Clark, hello! What brings you here, into my ear, and with it, my conscious space?”
“Ambrose, stop screwing around, I know that you know!”
“What? I don’t know anything that you know. At least, I don’t think I do. We haven’t talked in some time, and I’ve not thought of you once in all those years. To be honest.”
“Ambrose, the Evil is coming, I feel It!”
“Clark, I don’t doubt it, but what’s that got to do with me?”
“Ambrose, you must … ” but then there was a sound like a frog croaking or a man croaking or a neck snapping or a throat gagging on its own spit or a stick cracking and breaking.
Not that I’ve seen many sticks break, not that I’ve thrown many sticks to many yellow dogs with pink tongues trailing, not that I’ve been a TV show or even a radio program.

“Detective Smith?”
“Yes, and I take it you’re Ambrose Whistletown?”
“Sure. And this is my old friend Clark Gibbons, dead in his apartment looking over the crystal waters of West LA, at the very edge of our great Western Empire.”
“We’re doing such a great job! I can feel the world going squishy under our feet, can you?”
“I feel something going squishy under my bare naked feet. Not sure what it is though.”
“You discovered the body, I hear.”
“Yes, Clark called me for the first time in forever and then I heard a disturbing sound and so I came over to his apartment, where he lived alone besides an indifferent sea.”
“Very good, very good, and you left the body as it lay?”
“Of course, I know all about death and detectives. I even used a handkerchief to make my call to the precinct.”
“Excellent, excellent work. We need more like you in this city.”
“The truth is I’m writing this blind, having never been West of Arizona.”
“Weren’t you in Portland, Salem, Seattle, and the environs?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But California’s always been off-limits. Although I can rollerblade fairly well.”
“Glad to hear you’re not completely useless! But tell me, Ambrose, what do you make of your old friend’s neck? Seems to be snapped in a nice clean line.”
“Yes, I noticed that too. Wonderful workmanship; too good, really. As if a machine were involved.”
“Precisely! I’ll call in the AI Squad. These infernal machines have finally spilled past their borders! Filthy messes of wretched Os and reckless 1s!”
“Maybe. Although that presumes quite a number of technological advances, and all for the sake of ending the life of a pleasant-enough nobody with no family and no money and nothing special to clip onto his lapel.”
“Well, we’ll look into. I leave no stone unturned!”
“Admirable.”

And so it began, in a haze of smoke and whiskey, back when the black and white stills kept us indestructible and the lead in our gasoline only proved that progress gave the air that sweet melancholy something we’d longed for all our dime-a-dozen days.

Now I light another cigarette to blow smoke out my nose, confident that my coolness is an eternal Good.
Now I take another drag and smile into the void, convinced that every cool tortoise-narrowing of my eyes hangs forever in The Great God’s Hall of Mortal Fame & How Impressed & Proud Am I That I AM?!?!?

Real situations
Things that need thinging
Projects that shouldn’t wait
But you just
fold on the floor
like a clam
closed in around
the hurt

It was the other day
It was my fault

Not everything
gets past itself
Not everything
leaves the hangar
goes forward
takes flight
like water birds
running webbed feet
across dark rippling waters

Sometimes
epic fail