The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

Documenting the chaos since day one — one awful day at a time.

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Category: killing democracy

Sunday, October 11, 2026

killing democracy

ted koppel gives steve bannon a 54‑minute rehab special

Steve Bannon, seen here explaining that dismantling liberal democracy is actually just a bold new content strategy.

Steve Bannon, seen here explaining that dismantling liberal democracy is actually just a bold new content strategy.

CBS graciously handed Steve Bannon nearly an hour of network oxygen so he could walk viewers through his favorite hobbies: nationalist revanchism, Trumpist personality cult maintenance, and the fine art of pretending election denialism is just another quirky political opinion. Ted Koppel, doing his best "concerned grandpa moderating a fascism book club" impression, lets Bannon frame "populist and nationalist politics" as a legitimate governing philosophy rather than the marketing arm of creeping authoritarianism. The conversation hits all the greatest hits: how Trumpism is totally not a cult, it's just millions of people coincidentally believing the same lies; how questioning election results is just healthy skepticism, especially when it only ever goes in one direction; and how the media is terribly unfair for occasionally saying out loud that trying to overturn elections is bad. Bannon also gamely opines on the 2026 midterms, treating democratic backsliding like a horse race, complete with field reports on the "ground game" of anyone to his left like they're an invasive species. What emerges is a lovingly produced segment where one of the architects of January 6th-adjacent brain poison gets to rebrand himself as a gruff political sage, while the words "authoritarian" and "democracy erosion" presumably wait in the green room. It’s a neat trick: turn the normalization of election denialism into Sunday morning infotainment, then act surprised when the body politic keeps coughing up blood.
cbsnews.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
killing democracy

steve bannon volunteers as tribute to run over the 22nd amendment

Steve Bannon, seen here wondering which other amendments you can "drive a truck through" if you squint hard enough and call it originalism.

Steve Bannon, seen here wondering which other amendments you can "drive a truck through" if you squint hard enough and call it originalism.

Steve Bannon, freshly rebranded from "The Great Manipulator" to "The Guy Who Did Four Months For Contempt of Congress and Learned Absolutely Nothing," has emerged to explain why America simply cannot afford to let voters interrupt the "Age of MAGA" with something as gauche as a Democratic House majority. He’s still comparing Trump to Washington and Lincoln, boldly adding a third category: "salvation of the nation," which is a fun way to describe the guy whose last term ended with his supporters beating cops with flagpoles in the Capitol. Bannon, who literally went to prison for refusing to testify about his role in January 6 after telling his podcast audience "All hell is going to break loose tomorrow," now warns that if Democrats retake the House, they’ll impeach Bobby Kennedy and Pete Hegseth and bury Trump in subpoenas. So his closing argument is basically: If we lose, the other side might start following the law and using oversight like we taught them not to. He reassures everyone that you don’t need a majority of Americans, just an amped-up base and enough "low-propensity" voters to keep the minority in charge. Democracy, but make it voter suppression chic. Where this really leaves the rails is Bannon proudly declaring himself "right wing, not conservative" and then casually pitching a third term for Trump, brushing off the 22nd Amendment with, "I think you could drive a truck through that amendment" because some unnamed "constitutional lawyers" told him there are "alternatives." Translation: if they can find one Federalist Society intern with a printer and a Red Bull, they’ll try to litigate their way into permanent Trumpism. The fact that Trump is 80, gives rambling speeches suggesting Iran should "take out" Los Angeles or San Diego, and is presiding over an unpopular war with Iran is waved away as just him "going off-script." Asked about Americans being embarrassed by Trump, Bannon retreats to the usual safe space: media elites, East Coast elites, Atlanticists, probably the cast of "Hamilton" for good measure. He insists working-class Americans aren’t embarrassed at all — they’re apparently thrilled by a president who jokes about foreign adversaries nuking U.S. cities while his brain trust publicly brainstorms how to run a semi-truck through the Constitution. The message from War Room HQ is clear: the midterms aren’t about policy or accountability. They’re about whether Steve Bannon and his friends get to keep testing how much democratic infrastructure they can destroy before the rest of the country changes the locks.
cbsnews.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
killing democracy

trump tries to recruit fetterman for team authoritarian

John Fetterman, moments before being told by Donald Trump that party affiliation is just a mood ring you change when the polls go south.

John Fetterman, moments before being told by Donald Trump that party affiliation is just a mood ring you change when the polls go south.

Donald Trump, America’s neediest cult recruiter, stepped off Air Force One and publicly begged John Fetterman to switch parties, gushing that he’d “love to see him as a Republican.” Nothing says healthy democracy like the president openly shopping for opposition senators a few weeks before midterms in order to keep his Senate firewall intact. The message: why win over voters when you can just convince a Democrat to cosplay Republican and call it bipartisanship? Fetterman, for his part, has been doing his best impression of a political Rorschach test. He votes overwhelmingly with Democrats while cutting campaign-style videos for the GOP convention, praising Republican senator Dave McCormick, and denouncing “extremes and socialism” like he’s auditioning for a Fox News weekend slot. He even accidentally called himself a “lifelong Republican” on stage in Texas, which is either a Freudian slip or the soft launch of his next campaign logo. The awkward courtship comes as Democrats suddenly realize Trump’s unpopularity and the economic crater left by the Iran war might actually hand them four Senate seats and a 51–49 majority. That would make Fetterman weirdly powerful if he stays put, which slightly complicates Trump’s fantasy of turning him into the next Arlen Specter, but in reverse. The White House sales pitch boils down to: ditch the party you mostly vote with, join the one wrecking the economy and institutions, and in return you get… warmer tweets from Donald Trump.
theguardian.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy

twice-impeached guy who extorted ukraine now recommends regime change

Trump explains to Ukraine how democracy works, as though they didn’t already learn that lesson the hard way while he was busy praising Putin.

Trump explains to Ukraine how democracy works, as though they didn’t already learn that lesson the hard way while he was busy praising Putin.

Donald Trump, the man impeached for trying to strong-arm Volodymyr Zelenskyy into helping him steal an election, is now generously offering Ukraine some leadership tips from Mar-a-Lago and declaring the country needs a “new leader.” Because when your nation is fighting off a full-scale Russian invasion, what you really want is advice from the guy who withheld your military aid for dirt on Joe Biden and then lost anyway.

This latest wisdom drop comes after Trump’s clash with Zelenskyy, who made the unforgivable mistake of not playing along with the MAGA fan fiction that Putin is secretly the good guy here. So Trump is back to his favorite foreign policy doctrine: if you don’t personally flatter him or kneel to his narrative, your democracy should probably be replaced. Very normal behavior for a former U.S. president, casually auditioning for the role of America’s freelance regime-change consultant on behalf of the Kremlin’s strategic interests.

Instead of backing a democratically elected leader under fire, Trump’s message to Ukraine is basically: “Nice country you’ve got there, shame if your voters’ choices weren’t convenient to my ego and my buddy Vlad.” It’s a helpful reminder that the 2019 shakedown call wasn’t a one-off; it was the blueprint. The man who tried to trade Javelins for political favors is now openly arguing that the frontline democracy resisting Russian imperialism needs a management change. Truly, nothing screams “defender of the free world” like echoing the wishes of the guy bombing it.

today.comSource ArticleAlso: axios.comAlso: thehill.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy

susan collins bravely votes no after it doesn’t matter

Susan Collins, reflected upside down on a desk, which is honestly the most accurate visual metaphor for her spine in the Trump era.

Susan Collins, reflected upside down on a desk, which is honestly the most accurate visual metaphor for her spine in the Trump era.

Susan Collins spent three dramatic hours on the Senate floor pretending she might actually stop one of Trump’s pet projects: a bill to hack $9 billion out of foreign aid and public broadcasting. As chair of the spending committee, she had the power — and a bipartisan amendment ready — to save the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which also would have blown up the whole bill and derailed Trump’s latest tantrum against anything that educates or helps people. Instead, after all that suspense, Collins did what she does best: she folded. She quietly shelved the amendment, let the bill move forward, and then cast a safe, symbolic "no" vote once it was clear Republicans already had the numbers to pass it. Democracy got another sternly worded frown; Trump got exactly what he wanted. The Times analysis helpfully quantifies the performance art: Collins votes against Trump more than any other Republican, especially when it’s cost-free, and almost never when it would actually change the outcome. From Iran to the border emergency to the ACA, her arc goes from occasional genuine resistance in Trump’s first term to a steady slide into decorous complicity in the second. The brand is independent moderate; the results are indistinguishable from a reliable vote for Trump’s agenda.
nytimes.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#leopards-ate-my-face#full-stupid
killing democracy

swing district debates whether to rehire the arsonist

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez listens patiently as colleagues debate whether Congress should once again be a legislature or just Trump’s live studio audience.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez listens patiently as colleagues debate whether Congress should once again be a legislature or just Trump’s live studio audience.

Southwest Washington’s 3rd District has apparently decided to cosplay as the Roman Senate, calmly debating whether to hand Donald Trump his legislative matches back for one last bonfire. NPR politely calls it one of the most competitive districts in the country; translated, that means it’s a place where Trump can win the presidential line while a Democrat who believes in things like elections and not storming the Capitol can also win on the same ballot. Truly a land of contrasts, and also of whiplash. Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez flipped this Trump‑loving district in 2022 after Republicans knifed their own incumbent, Jaime Herrera Beutler, for the high crime of voting to impeach Trump after Jan. 6. Now Trump‑endorsed state Sen. John Braun is here to ask voters to forget all that pesky insurrection stuff and help the GOP “keep power and shepherd Trump’s agenda across the finish line before his presidency ends” — a charmingly casual way of saying, “Let’s give the guy who tried to overturn the last election another shot at the machinery of government.” Both candidates are branded as moderates, which in this era means one of them is trying to keep the lights on while the other promises to flip the breaker more slowly. The locals insist they’re fiercely independent and “person specific,” which is a nice, civic way of describing a district that will vote for Trump and then also vote for the person tasked with containing the damage. Gluesenkamp Perez now has to survive an anti‑incumbent mood while Braun has to run under an unpopular President Trump, whose entire political project is breaking every guardrail that made competitive districts like this possible in the first place. The stakes are simple: if Braun wins, Trump gets a more obedient House to rubber‑stamp whatever authoritarian fever dream he’s on this week; if Gluesenkamp Perez holds, the country gets one more speed bump on the road to full cult rule. Democracy really is hanging on by a couple of counties and some split‑ticket voters in Longview.
npr.orgSource Article
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy

trump tests the 'special relationship' to destruction

Two flags, one relationship: the US wonders if it still needs Britain, and Britain wonders if it needs a restraining order.

Two flags, one relationship: the US wonders if it still needs Britain, and Britain wonders if it needs a restraining order.

The fabled US‑UK "special relationship" is apparently now a situationship, and Donald Trump is the guy who keeps showing up drunk at 3am to ask if Britain is "even bringing anything to the table". The president has spent his second act gleefully kicking the diplomatic furniture: floating the idea of ditching Britain over the Falklands, cheering on a united Ireland just to watch unionists’ heads explode, and yanking B‑1 bombers out of RAF Fairford while his online fan club jeers at the Brits for sport. Nothing says "reliable ally" like treating 80 years of shared blood and intel as a content opportunity for the MAGA reply guys.

Former CIA analyst turned novelist David McCloskey has the bad manners to point out that this isn’t just vibes; it’s a structural weakening of the alliance that underpins western democracy. His fictional Trump-like CIA director calls MI6 "freeloaders" and "pickpockets", which is only slightly more subtle than Trump’s real-world message: allies are marks, enemies are bros, and NATO is a protection racket. British spies now reportedly wonder whether sharing sensitive Russia intel with Washington means it will be personally hand-delivered to Sergei Lavrov, like that time Trump allegedly did exactly that with Israeli intelligence. When your closest partner’s main security risk is the president himself, the relationship may be less "special" and more "hostage".

Behind the polite talk of "divergence" and "strain" is the core problem: Trump’s foreign policy treats alliances, treaties, and intelligence-sharing as disposable props in his ongoing audition to be America’s Erdogan. The US leans harder on "America First" thuggery, cozies up to Putin, and casually undermines Ukraine while the UK, as the junior partner, gets to choose between swallowing its pride or losing access to the world’s biggest intel firehose. McCloskey politely calls it "fairly alarming"; a less diplomatic term would be killing‑democracy on the installment plan — hollowing out the very alliances that were built to keep authoritarianism in check so one can flourish comfortably at home.
theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#national-security
killing democracy

trump’s doj discovers antitrust law, promptly uses it on the first amendment

Attorney General’s office, seen here carefully training antitrust law on five cameras instead of five corporations.

Attorney General’s office, seen here carefully training antitrust law on five cameras instead of five corporations.

The Justice Department has decided that the real antitrust menace in America is not oil companies, tech monopolies, or health care conglomerates, but five TV networks that briefly said, "no thanks" to being unpaid camera crew for Donald Trump. NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox News are now under federal investigation for a supposed "group boycott" because they temporarily suspended pool coverage after Trump kicked CNN, MS Now and Politico off the White House grounds for the crime of reporting things he didn’t like.

Having lost round one in court — where a judge told the White House it couldn’t just ban outlets and call it “FAKE NEWS!” law — the administration appears to have pivoted to a new strategy: if you can’t legally silence the press, try to scare them with the Sherman Act. DOJ spokeswoman Emily Covington is pretending this is just a neutral competition case, while press freedom advocates are politely pointing out that weaponizing antitrust to punish coverage decisions is a spectacularly obvious attack on the First Amendment. The pool system that’s worked under both parties for decades is now being treated like a criminal cartel because it offended one guy’s TV habits.

And the punchline? Even during the mini-boycott, networks still covered open White House events — they just refused to play along with Trump’s attempt to exile specific outlets from the rotation. So the government isn’t protecting viewers’ access to information; it’s protecting Trump’s access to a compliant press corps. The message from the administration is crystal clear: cover us on our terms, or the Justice Department will be right over to discuss your "competition issues." Freedom of the press, meet the freedom to be investigated for not flattering the president enough.

nbcnews.comSource ArticleAlso: nytimes.com
#killing-democracy#fascism

Saturday, October 10, 2026

killing democracy

speaker for life (or at least until november)

Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump’s favorite theocrat from Louisiana, is suddenly workshopping his exit strategy in public, hinting he might just toddle back home if Republicans lose the House in November. Translation: the guy who helped normalize Trump’s authoritarian cosplay is now wondering if it’s worth sticking around once the gravy train and subpoena-shredding service slow down. Turns out “owning the libs” is a lot less fun when the libs might actually own the gavel again. Republicans, meanwhile, are staring down a midterm map powered by voter rage over the economy and President Trump’s underwater approval rating, while pretending they haven’t spent years turning the House into a Fox News green room with a voting schedule. Democrats are licking their chops at the chance to reclaim the chamber, investigate everything that moves, and maybe ask why the legislative branch has been functioning like Trump’s legal defense PAC with better stationery. Johnson’s “maybe I’ll just go home” routine is less a dignified farewell and more a pre-emptive I was leaving anyway from a party that’s been using its House majority as a shield for corruption, extremism, and a long, slow assault on basic democratic norms. If the GOP loses the House, Johnson loses the gavel, Trump loses his most obedient floor manager, and the whole “permanent MAGA majority” fantasy looks even more like what it always was: a temporary lease on power held together with gerrymanders, voter suppression, and whatever fresh outrage Trump can squeeze into a news cycle. Whether Johnson actually returns to Louisiana or just morphs into another right-wing martyr on conservative media, the message is clear: the second the House stops being a tool for Trump’s agenda, the true believers start eyeing the exits.
thehill.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy

new trump hill wrangler hired to sell same flaming dumpster

Katie Bailey, newly promoted congressional wrangler, preparing to sell another round of "historic achievements" to a legislature that really should know better by now.

Katie Bailey, newly promoted congressional wrangler, preparing to sell another round of "historic achievements" to a legislature that really should know better by now.

The Trump White House has picked Katie Bailey as its new head of the Office of Legislative Affairs, because if you're going to keep shoving the same agenda through Congress, you at least need a fresh salesperson for the ongoing arson. She replaces James Braid, who Vice President J.D. Vance lovingly credited with such "achievements" as the largest tax cut ever (for the donor class), "resources" for Trump's historic immigration agenda (translation: more money to punish migrants), finishing the border wall cosplay, a "landmark" first crypto bill, and ramming through cabinet confirmations at warp speed before anyone could Google the nominees.

Bailey, already deputy director of legislative affairs and special assistant to Trump, now gets promoted just weeks before the midterms, with Republicans clinging to a slim majority in both chambers and Democrats actually within striking distance of taking the wheel back from the clown car. Her résumé includes serving Mike Braun as legislative director before he upgraded himself to governor of Indiana, presumably after proving he could reliably vote for whatever the party’s donors wanted.

So the stakes here aren’t just internal staffing drama. This is the person whose entire job is to keep Congress signing off on more tax cuts, more anti-immigrant theater, and more deregulation dressed up as "crypto innovation." If the GOP hangs onto the House and Senate, Bailey gets to turn Trump’s second-term fever dreams into law. If they lose, she becomes chief negotiator for a president who thinks compromise is what weak people do when they’re not yelling on Truth Social. Either way, Congress is about to enjoy a front-row seat to the latest episode of "What If We Broke Democracy Just a Little Bit More?"

cbsnews.comSource ArticleAlso: thehill.comAlso: thehill.com
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
killing democracy

gop midterm strategy: vibes, denial, and a prayer to the shy trump voter

Republicans are getting wrecked in poll after poll, so naturally the new governing theory is: the polls are lying. Axios walks through a midterm landscape where Democrats are leading on the generic ballot, Cook is projecting Dem gains in both chambers, Trump is marinating at ~37% approval, and the best the GOP can muster is, "well, historically polls have underestimated us, so maybe math will chicken out again." Nothing says stable constitutional order like one party betting control of Congress on the mythic "shy Trump voter" riding in for a fourth straight miracle. Pollsters, meanwhile, are out here doing statistical necromancy on a phone-based system that died in the late '90s. Republicans don’t answer surveys, so the solution is to just pump extra weight into the Trump diehards who do pick up the phone and hope they resemble the ones who are too busy screaming "fake news" at their TV to respond. Experts politely note that this can easily inflate the size of a supposed Democratic wave or, alternatively, conjure phantom Republicans out of bad data. Translation: everyone is flying blind, but only one side is currently running the country while chanting "the polls are wrong" like a governance strategy. The result: Democrats probably have the edge, but the margins swing wildly depending on who you think will actually vote, with one YouGov model showing anywhere from a 6- to 16-point Democratic lead. Even Republican pollster Brent Buchanan admits that "hanging our hopes on, 'The polls are wrong'" is "not very strong" — which is a polite way of saying the party that controls the federal government is reduced to crossing its fingers that statistics will fail harder than Trump’s approval numbers. American democracy: now with randomized difficulty settings.
axios.comSource ArticleAlso: thehill.comAlso: thehill.com
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
killing democracy

trump kills title ix, men show up with duct tape and a flashlight

Men holding "I Am Jane Doe" signs while the Trump administration holds a giant "I Am Title IX Repeal" Sharpie somewhere in DC.

Men holding "I Am Jane Doe" signs while the Trump administration holds a giant "I Am Title IX Repeal" Sharpie somewhere in DC.

While Trump’s Education Department keeps methodically taking a chainsaw to Title IX, tens of thousands of people showed up at city halls and campuses to say: maybe the federal government shouldn’t be running cover for rapists. The rallies followed the Cornell gang rape case and LSU’s “sure he’s accused of rape but he’s good at football” approach, proving yet again that colleges will happily treat women as acceptable collateral damage for frat dues and TV contracts – especially now that Washington has their back.

Against that backdrop of institutional cowardice, six men in New York tried something radical: basic decency. They talked about calling out misogyny in group chats, backing actual legislation for consent education, teaching boys what consent is before they get to the frat basement, and refusing to pretend victim-blaming is a personality quirk. One described how police and DAs don’t take sexual assault seriously, which is a lot easier to do when the Trump administration is busy stripping away protections for survivors and LGBTQ+ students, then calling it “reform.”

So we now have this inspiring division of labor: Trump and his crew work tirelessly to dismantle safeguards "from the frat house to the White House," and regular people are left trying to rebuild a culture of consent one awkward conversation and protest sign at a time. The federal government loosens the lid on rape culture; citizens show up with a mop and a copy of the consent curriculum they’re begging the state to mandate. Freedom, apparently, now means freedom for universities, cops and prosecutors to do nothing while everyone else cleans up the mess.
theguardian.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
killing democracy

trump’s tsa discovers the true threat to america: chairs

TSA supervisors survey a checkpoint proudly devoid of chairs, confident that plantar fasciitis is the key to national security.

TSA supervisors survey a checkpoint proudly devoid of chairs, confident that plantar fasciitis is the key to national security.

The Trump administration has finally located the real danger at America’s airports: chairs. TSA leadership quietly ordered every seat yanked from checkpoint podiums, then told workers that standing for eight hours straight "reinforces professionalism" and "hospitality"—because nothing says "welcome" like mandatory shin splints. Officers showed up mid-shift to find their chairs disappearing and being replaced with "inadequate mats," which is corporate-speak for "we bought the cheapest rectangle of suffering on Amazon." Union leaders at AFGE say they weren’t notified, weren’t allowed to bargain, and have no idea what happened to the vanished chairs—presumably they’ve been renditioned to a black site for interrogation about their suspicious cushioning. Workers who need light-duty accommodations? Good luck. At the same time, TSA forced employees to sign a pledge promising to support "the well-being and morale of our colleagues," which is a bold demand from an agency whose current morale strategy is take away the chairs and pray nobody faints. Managers, of course, remain seated somewhere far away, bravely defending national security from behind ergonomic mesh. This is just the latest entry in Trump’s second-term "Punish the People Who Kept Working Through Your Shutdowns" tour. TSA officers already worked unpaid through two shutdowns, are staring down pay freezes and higher health insurance premiums, and watched DHS try—twice—to illegally cancel their collective bargaining agreement until a judge smacked them down for violating an injunction. Meanwhile, the administration is busily expanding TSA privatization through its Gold+ program, because if you’re going to grind workers’ joints into dust, you might as well do it with a contractor skimming a profit. The agency still requires chairs for passengers upon request, though, so at least someone is allowed to sit in this security theater—just not the people doing the actual work.
theguardian.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
killing democracy

dhs gives tribal sovereignty a 60‑second heads up

Nothing reassures a sovereign Native nation like anonymous men in tactical gear guarding drill rigs at dawn and blocking the tribe’s own police from their own land.

Nothing reassures a sovereign Native nation like anonymous men in tactical gear guarding drill rigs at dawn and blocking the tribe’s own police from their own land.

At 4:59 a.m., the Tohono O’odham Nation’s chairman got an email from Border Patrol: contractors were about to start soil tests for a 62‑mile border wall on tribal land. If the Nation wanted cultural monitors present, they were welcome to watch — as long as they didn’t interfere. Work began exactly one minute later, because nothing says "good faith consultation" like a timestamped middle finger.

DHS lawyers had just finished telling a federal judge they were engaging the tribe in good faith, which helped kill the Nation’s request for a preliminary injunction against what they called an historic attack on tribal sovereignty. On the ground, that "good faith" looked like a caravan of contractors flanked by Border Patrol, guarded by masked agents in tactical gear drawn from a special operations unit previously used for citywide sweeps in Minneapolis and Chicago that left three people dead, including two U.S. citizens.

While the tribe held a border prayer ceremony, ProPublica found that DHS surveilled the camp and questioned tribal members off the reservation, all while insisting that the area — where border crossings have sharply declined — is somehow "one of the most dangerous smuggling and trafficking corridors." Declining crossings, militarized raids on Native land, and surveillance of a religious gathering: the administration’s border policy is less "security" and more "live‑action reenactment of every treaty violation in U.S. history."
propublica.orgSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.com
#pro-publica-is-a-national-treasure#killing-democracy#racism
killing democracy

war president furious he didn’t get peace trophy

Trump, furious that launching a war didn’t earn him a peace prize, explains that Norway has gravely offended both him and, coincidentally, civilization itself.

Trump, furious that launching a war didn’t earn him a peace prize, explains that Norway has gravely offended both him and, coincidentally, civilization itself.

Donald Trump, fresh off starting a war with Iran, spent a Syracuse rally for other Republicans doing what every great peacemaker does: ranting that he deserves the Nobel peace prize and denouncing Norway for not handing it to him. According to Trump, the United States – "represented by me" (subtle) – has suffered an "indelible stain" because some Norwegians didn’t give him a medal while he’s threatening to turn a country into a smoking crater.

Not content with just whining, he announced that the Nobel peace prize is now "forever discredited" and run by "radical ideologues" who are "enemies of civilization" – because nothing screams respect for democratic institutions like branding a foreign prize committee as civilization’s enemy for insufficient flattery. He then bragged about the many "wars" he claims to have "settled" (including ones that either weren’t wars or are still ongoing) and promised to "settle or win" two more: Iran and Russia-Ukraine, assuring the crowd that Iran will be handled "very quick one way or the other: that they give us everything or they don’t exist any longer."

Trump also declared he had personally stopped Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and "saved more lives than anyone in history" – a fun little fantasy directly contradicted by US intelligence, which says Iran suspended its weapons program back in 2003. The Nobel, meanwhile, went to Navi Pillay, a South African human rights lawyer who chaired the UN commission finding that Israel committed genocide in Gaza – or as Trump described her, "a liberal person who works at the United Nations, who nobody has ever heard of." So the guy threatening to erase a country thinks the real threat to peace is: a woman who investigates war crimes.

theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: nbcnews.comAlso: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism

Friday, October 9, 2026

killing democracy

commander in beef: mike tyson campaigns from the west wing

The Trump White House invited Mike Tyson to wander into the West Wing briefing room, where the press is allegedly supposed to hear about governing, not the undercard for Trump's next ego rally. Tyson proudly announced that the administration asked him to hop on Air Force One for Trump's Syracuse campaign stop and confidently predicted that "Trump will win" the midterms, because nothing says robust democracy like treating elections as a pay‑per‑view title fight. Reporters got a quick dose of democracy‑as-spectacle while the White House once again used official space, staff time and the trappings of the presidency as a backdrop for pure campaign messaging. No policy, no governance, just a celebrity hype man in the taxpayer‑funded briefing room, warming up the crowd for Dear Leader’s next rally. The line between state business and campaign circus gets thinner every day, and the clowns keep getting more famous.
thehill.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
killing democracy

rubio sanctions the war-crimes police

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has decided that if you can’t beat the war-crimes charges, you should just sanction the people bringing them. The U.S. is slapping full blocking sanctions on the International Criminal Court for the grave offense of investigating alleged war crimes by Israel, American service members, and the Trump administration. When the law gets too close, this crew doesn’t hire better lawyers, it tries to financially kneecap the court.

Because reality has a sense of humor, Rubio’s tantrum arrives just as an ICC judge is being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. So on the same day the rest of the world is saying, “congratulations on your work for justice,” Washington is essentially screaming, “hand over your assets and shut up about our atrocities.” Nothing says "rules-based international order" like sanctioning the referee the moment he reaches for the red card.

This isn’t foreign policy, it’s mobster cosplay. The Trump-Rubio State Department is broadcasting that U.S. power means never having to answer for what you do to civilians, prisoners, or occupied populations. Accountability is for smaller countries; America, under this crowd, just weaponizes the Treasury Department against anyone who tries to enforce the laws we pretend to support at international conferences. The message to other authoritarian leaders is loud and clear: if your generals end up in The Hague’s crosshairs, don’t reform — just start drafting your sanctions list.
thehill.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy

turns out tying yourself to trump is still a bad investment

Cook Political Report just shifted 18 House races toward Democrats, which is what happens when your party spends years torching institutions, mismanaging a war, and driving fuel prices up while insisting everything is going perfectly. The new projection has Democrats picking up 9 to 19 seats, putting them in majority territory, because apparently voters have some limit to how much chaos and corruption they’re willing to call “owning the libs.” President Trump is hustling around the country trying to save GOP candidates, which is adorable given that the midterms are effectively a referendum on his White House dumpster fire. Republicans are suddenly discovering the ancient political art of pretending not to know the guy they all enabled, while a Politico poll helpfully notes that about one in four 2024 Trump voters think their local Republican would do better by publicly dumping him. When even your own base is edging away like you just started talking about injecting bleach again, the vibes are not immaculate. Underneath the spin, the math is brutal: Democrats only need to win about 20% of the toss-up races to secure a majority, while Republicans are watching previously safe seats slide from comfy red to "Lean R" and "Likely R" like a slow-motion bank run on their gerrymandered advantages. The GOP spent years rigging maps, gutting norms, and wrapping itself around Trump’s ego, and now the bill is coming due — payable in House seats, denominated in buyer’s remorse.
axios.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#losses
killing democracy

trump invents a kangaroo court to fire a fed governor

Trump stares at a Fed org chart wondering which box he can replace with "loyal henchman" and which ones just need a good old-fashioned show trial.

Trump stares at a Fed org chart wondering which box he can replace with "loyal henchman" and which ones just need a good old-fashioned show trial.

Trump has now decided that if you can't legally fire a Federal Reserve governor, you just build yourself a little homebrew inquisition and try again. He signed an order directing the attorney general and assorted loyalists to form a "committee of inquiry" into Fed Governor Lisa Cook, accusing her of making false statements on a mortgage application — the same sort of "fraud" that a ProPublica report shows has been a popular hobby across his own Cabinet. The committee’s mission: hunt for "cause" to remove her, after the Supreme Court inconveniently ruled he has to at least pretend to give her a fair shot at defending herself. The White House memo helpfully announces that Cook "shall appear" at a hearing on November 5 — two days after the midterms, because nothing says "independent central bank" like a politically-timed show trial. Her lawyers, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, note that Trump has already publicly decided to fire her regardless of facts, which is generally considered a bad sign for "due process." Meanwhile, the underlying mortgage scandal appears to be that she called a vacation home a vacation home, while various Trump officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and multiple Cabinet alumni, have juggled "primary residence" claims like they're running a shell game. All of this originates with Bill Pulte, Trump's handpicked Federal Housing Finance Agency chief, who lobbed the initial mortgage-fraud grenade in 2025, which Trump then blasted across social media as justification to try to purge Cook from the Fed. Why the obsession? Cook has a permanent vote on interest rates, and Trump has been running a sustained pressure campaign to bully the Fed into cutting rates on his political timetable. Sen. Elizabeth Warren calls it what it is: an "illegitimate show trial" and a power grab to take over the central bank, while Trump simultaneously rants that Jerome Powell should be forced to resign or sued "at the highest level" despite an inspector general report clearing him. The administration can't win control of monetary policy the honest way, so it's testing how far it can go turning the Fed into just another branch of the Trump Organization.
nbcnews.comSource ArticleAlso: thehill.com
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killing democracy

michael cohen rebrands as russia-hoax concierge

Michael Cohen stands behind Trump in 2016, back when he was just a fixer and not yet the host of "Welcome to My Client’s Russian Intelligence Problem Is a Hoax."

Michael Cohen stands behind Trump in 2016, back when he was just a fixer and not yet the host of "Welcome to My Client’s Russian Intelligence Problem Is a Hoax."

Michael Cohen, the guy who once called Donald Trump a racist, liar, and sleazebag while testifying to Congress about Trump’s crimes, has now boomeranged straight back into the MAGA cuddle puddle. He’s hosting a pro-Trump radio show on WABC and using his podcast to assure listeners that Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin is actually just "pragmatic realism" and savvy diplomacy, not the world’s saddest audition tape for a Moscow timeshare.

On his show, Cohen invites journalist David Corn on to talk about Corn’s book on how Russia has been running an influence war that benefits Trump. Corn calmly notes that Rudy Giuliani literally colluded with a Russian intelligence agent to smear Joe Biden, that US intelligence warned Trump Giuliani was being targeted, and that Trump then happily blasted that Russian disinfo out on Twitter. Cohen’s defense? Giuliani is "not Donald Trump" and maybe Trump was just "trying to support Rudy"—you know, by amplifying a foreign intel op against his own democracy like a very stable patriot.

Cohen then completes his loyalty oath by declaring the Trump–Russia scandal a "hoax," even while calling Corn a "very prestigious journalist" who “knows a lot.” This is the MAGA media model in its purest form: acknowledge the facts, then stuff them into a woodchipper and broadcast the mulch. The onetime fixer who helped cover up Trump’s sleaze is now helping cover up Trump’s entanglement with Russian operations, all from the comfort of a pro-Trump radio lineup. The grift is eternal; the storyline—"Russia, if you’re listening"—apparently is too.

motherjones.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting