Wednesday, October 28, 2026
A peaceful Minnesota polling place, moments before being declared a hotbed of voter fraud by someone who’s never met a fact-checker.
Minnesota, formerly known for lakes, lutefisk, and passive-aggressive politeness, is now the latest stage for Trump’s favorite double feature:
"Immigrants Are Coming to Get You" and
"Voter Fraud Is Everywhere Except Where We Can Prove It". The White House has turned a normal Senate race into a conspiracy pageant, where every ballot is suspicious and every brown person is a talking point.
Democrats are trying to talk about things like policy and governance, which is adorable, while Trump and allies scream about "integrity" of elections they keep trying to delegitimize. Accusations of voter fraud are being sprayed around like de-icer in January, with roughly the same subtlety, and immigration fearmongering is doing the usual heavy lifting for a party whose platform is now 60% grievance, 30% lies, and 10% merch sales.
So the Minnesota Senate race isn’t just about who goes to Washington; it’s about whether Trump’s strategy of calling democracy rigged whenever he’s on the ballot can keep warping entire states into permanent battlegrounds. The GOP brands it as "election security" and "border control"; the rest of us recognize it as killing faith in elections and scapegoating immigrants for sport.
Lisa Murkowski seen performing dark witchcraft, also known as endorsing someone who might actually try to govern.
Lisa Murkowski has committed the unpardonable MAGA sin: recognizing that governing is a job, not a loyalty pageant. The Alaska senator endorsed Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for governor instead of Bernadette Wilson, the Trump-blessed candidate whose main qualification appears to be an ironclad refusal to ever work with Democrats. Murkowski’s radical platform: maybe the governor should cooperate with the legislature so Alaska can function. Truly deranged stuff.
The Trump wing, naturally, responded with nuance and policy detail. Just kidding. Wilson accused Murkowski of having "abandoned Alaska values" and branded Kreiss-Tomkins "Just Keep Taxing" and a puppet of "extreme socialists hellbent on fighting President Trump" — because in Trump’s GOP, opposing the Dear Leader is now an explicit campaign issue in a state race. Meanwhile, Murkowski is also backing GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan while Trump’s Justice Department sues Alaska election officials to protect him from the terrifying threat of… another guy named Dan Sullivan on the ballot. Murkowski, stating the obvious, noted that Alaskans can read and the state already fixed the confusion.
Trump, having nothing better to do than rage-post about a senator who occasionally acknowledges reality, fired back on Truth Social and crowned Murkowski the "Republicans’ Worst Senator, by far." Which, translated from Trumpese, means: "She will not fully submit to my personal control over the ballot, the courts, and the party." The Alaska GOP may be operating under ranked-choice voting, but Trump’s vision for the party is still strictly single-choice: him, always, everywhere, forever.
Israeli exit polls say Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right bloc and Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition are basically tied, which means nobody really won except the guy who gets to squat in the prime minister’s office as a "caretaker" while the country drifts in constitutional purgatory. Netanyahu’s camp sits at about 51–52 seats, Eisenkot’s at 49–51, and the magic 61-seat majority remains as elusive as accountability for either of them.
Arab parties, meanwhile, are projected to grab an unprecedented 18–19 seats, which mathematically makes them central to forming a government and politically makes them the bogeyman Netanyahu uses to scare his base. Eisenkot could, on paper, form a minority government with their support, but this is Israeli politics, where acknowledging Arab voters as legitimate partners is treated like inviting a skunk to a perfume convention.
Eisenkot gave a victory speech, told Netanyahu to act like a "decent leader" and leave, and — casually! — warned him not to start a war to save his political career. He even reminded the security chiefs that Bibi is now just a caretaker, not the messiah. Then Netanyahu wandered out after 3 a.m., also claimed victory, declared that only a "strong Jewish right-wing national government" is acceptable, and insisted Israel must not be "endangered" by relying on Arab parties. Democracy: great system, as long as the wrong people never actually count.
For extra dystopian flavor, Netanyahu bragged that "Iran is weaker than ever" and that, together with his "wonderful friend President Trump," they can eliminate the threat once and for all. Because nothing reassures a fragile, deadlocked democracy like a caretaker prime minister hinting at major military action, backed by a twice-impeached, multiply-indicted American ex-president who thinks foreign policy is a Fox News segment with missiles.
Screenshot of the manosphere’s spiritual home: a guy with a ring light explaining how democracy and women both ruined his life.
Apparently the "manosphere" – that vibrant online community of guys who turned their dating failures into a political ideology – is starting to ghost Donald Trump. After years of worshipping the world’s most thin-skinned alpha as their orange messiah, some of these grievance influencers are now flirting with fresher, even more openly authoritarian options. When your brand is permanent adolescence and weaponized misogyny, loyalty is strictly month-to-month.
What we’re watching is the same radicalization pipeline Trump supercharged now shopping around for a different strongman, because their current one is aging, needy, and occasionally remembers he has to win suburban women. The ecosystem he helped legitimize – the podcasts, the YouTubers, the "red pill" brain geniuses – is still pushing the same anti-democratic, anti-women, proto-fascist sludge, just maybe not exclusively wearing MAGA merch this season. The monster he fed is still out there; it’s just checking out other brands of authoritarianism like it’s browsing sneakers.
The Trump DOJ, seen here trying to protect ‘election integrity’ by pointing a legal flamethrower at the people counting the ballots.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter just spent three and a half hours listening to the Trump DOJ explain why it should be allowed to hold the entire Los Angeles County election hostage to a Trump-approved list of 20,000 supposed noncitizen voters, and somehow resisted the urge to throw the whole operation out the nearest window. Instead, he wrapped the hearing by telling DOJ officials, in extremely polite judicial language, to stop menacing state and county election workers like a mob crew with law degrees: “any threats to state and county election employees cease immediately.”
The Trump DOJ’s genius plan is to push the Big Lie of mass noncitizen voting by demanding a temporary restraining order that would force L.A. County to segregate and not count ballots from people on their magical list, effectively injecting a brand-new citizenship verification regime into an election while voting is already underway. Top LA federal prosecutor Bill Essayli helpfully kept the intimidation vibe going in court, insisting that processing those ballots could be a federal crime, because nothing says “free and fair elections” like threatening to prosecute the people literally counting the votes.
Carter signaled he’s likely to deny the TRO, appoint a special master to sort out the technical details, and hold a fast-tracked hearing in about two weeks — which, very inconveniently for Trump’s sabotage schedule, would push this circus past Election Day. The judge noted the real deadline is December 3, when results must be certified, and calmly told DOJ that if there’s an actual problem, “we can clean that up before December 3.” Translation: you don’t get to break the election in real time and then call it protecting election integrity. You want to prosecute actual noncitizen voters? Knock yourselves out. You want to intimidate election workers and freeze tens of thousands of ballots on a junk list? Absolutely not.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Todd Blanche’s Department of Justice, seen here bravely protecting federal agents from the terrifying threat of grieving parents asking basic questions.
The Trump administration’s law-and-order cosplay claimed another civilian, and now they’re trying to speedrun the cover-up. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse at a VA hospital, was gunned down by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis back in January. The administration immediately branded him a domestic terrorist who “violently resisted” and supposedly threatened agents. Tiny problem: video shows him holding a cellphone, not a weapon, and getting shot in the back while lying in the street. He had no criminal record and a legal carry permit — which the agents helpfully solved by disarming him and then shooting him anyway.
The Prettis spent nine months politely knocking on the doors of law and justice, only to find Todd Blanche’s DOJ and Minnesota’s top federal prosecutor Dan Rosen hiding under their desks. The feds insist the state has no jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, then also refuse to tell the family whether the feds are actually investigating anything at all. Rosen finally met them in July after months of ignoring them, then declined to share even basic information, like whether anyone might ever face consequences for killing their son.
Meanwhile, Minnesota officials say the federal government has stopped sharing information about both Pretti’s death and the killing of Renee Good, another 37-year-old shot by an ICE officer during a protest. DOJ’s public response? A wonderfully robotic statement explaining that families aren’t usually told anything until there’s an indictment or trial — a nice, bloodless way of saying, "You’ll hear from us when hell freezes over." The Prettis are asking for accountability; the Trump administration is offering a masterclass in how to turn federal law enforcement into an unaccountable, armed rumor mill.
With a week left before the midterms, President Trump has turned Texas into his personal soundstage, jetting from Corpus Christi to Lubbock like Air Force One is a campaign Uber paid for by everyone except the campaign. Officially, he’s “stumping for GOP candidates.” Unofficially, it’s a live studio audience for the ongoing experiment in how far you can blur the line between governing and permanent rally tour before the phrase “abuse of power” files a hostile work environment complaint.
Greg Abbott and the rest of the Texas GOP get the full presidential seal of approval: the guy who tried to overturn the last election is here to help keep in office the folks who’ve been busy gerrymandering maps, tightening voting rules, and treating migrants as props in a taxpayer-funded cruelty pageant. Meanwhile, Democrat James Talarico is planning a dueling event, because someone has to at least pretend this is still a normal election and not a traveling roadshow for soft-launching authoritarianism.
Trump’s second rally of the day in the same state isn’t about local issues so much as reinforcing the message that loyalty to him is the real ballot question. Policy is just background noise to the main act: a president turning swing-state democracy into a fan convention circuit, complete with merch, grievance monologues, and the ever-present implication that if the results go the wrong way, reality can always be “recounted” into submission.
Flávio Bolsonaro explains how he definitely didn’t lose while mentally checking which U.S. suburb he’ll be fleeing to on his brand-new visa.
The State Department has apparently decided that the United States is now the world’s leading witness protection program for failed authoritarians. Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, fresh off losing the presidential election to Lula and refusing to concede while muttering about fraud, is getting U.S. visas for himself and his family. The timing is charming: he jets out of Brazil just as a Supreme Court order tells him to surrender his regular and diplomatic passports.
It gets better. Flávio is the son of Jair Bolsonaro, currently serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for attempting a coup after losing to Lula in 2022 — you know, the thing Trump tried but didn’t quite get to finish. Jair, of course, previously escaped to Florida after his loss, because if you’re an aspiring strongman with legal problems, America under Trump is basically Club Med for coup guys.
The family ties are a full MAGA telenovela. Brother Eduardo Bolsonaro lives in Texas, was convicted in absentia in Brazil for illegally lobbying the Trump administration, and has a warrant out for his arrest. Naturally, he encouraged Flávio to leave the country if he lost. Trump, ever on-brand, didn’t fully endorse Flávio in the runoff but still managed to declare Brazil’s election “rigged” without evidence, continuing the global franchise of democracy denial from the comfort of his own legal disaster zone.
So Brazil jails coup plotters and takes their passports, while Trump’s America stamps their visas and hands them a microphone to whine about fake fraud. One country is trying to enforce the rule of law; the other is running a loyalty rewards program for defeated authoritarians. Guess which one keeps calling itself the world’s greatest democracy.
The president of the United States is now openly applauding a Quebec separatist premier while his own administration is supposedly trying to patch up a trade war with Canada. Because nothing says "good faith negotiations" like cheering on the dissolution of the country across the table. Trump congratulated Paul St‑Pierre Plamondon, whose Parti Québécois wants a third independence referendum, and even boosted an article bragging that the vote was a "blow" to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts to keep the country unified against Trump’s hostility.
While Kevin Hassett goes on Fox to insist talks are "gathering steam," Trump is on the campaign trail accusing Canada of "massive tariffs" and "treating us badly," and his embassy is busy alleging Ottawa is meddling in U.S. politics by… imposing reciprocal tariffs. At the same time, Trump is hailing British Columbia’s new conservative premier-designate as proof that "Conservatives are moving strong in Canada!" — even as both he and St‑Pierre Plamondon politely pretend they are not part of MAGA North. The president’s relationship with Canada has now progressed from trade tantrums and "51st state" threats to actively rooting for the fragmentation of a key ally, because when you’re trying to fix a crisis you created, why not set the rest of the house on fire too?
Meanwhile, U.S. policy is being quietly rewritten by Susan Collins’ feelings, as the White House starts carving out exemptions from 50% tariffs to save itself from electoral blowback. So the official strategy appears to be: wreck relations with a neighboring democracy, accuse them of election interference for responding, praise separatists trying to break their country apart, then partially retreat when a moderate Republican senator gets nervous. Truly a masterclass in killing diplomacy while pretending to negotiate.
Alice Weidel, seen here auditioning to turn the European parliament into a very expensive suggestion box.
Marine Le Pen and Alice Weidel have looked at Brexit’s flaming wreckage, shrugged, and decided the real lesson is: don’t leave the EU, just gut it from the inside. Frexit may be on pause, but now the plan is a "Europe of nations" – which is a poetic way of saying "let’s turn Brussels into a hollowed-out mascot costume for Orbán fanfic." Weidel wants to abolish European parliament elections (democracy is such a drag on vibes), carve out German opt-outs on migration, defence and borrowing, and generally rewrite the rules so nationalism can cosplay as governance.
Le Pen’s National Rally, not to be out-grifted, wants to slash French EU contributions by 60% and strip Brussels of the power to propose common policies, because nothing says "21st-century geopolitical strength" like 27 separate countries trying to negotiate with Xi, Putin and a future MAGA White House while elbowing each other in the ribs. Far-right think tank fantasies that used to live in PDFs nobody read are now the actual programs of parties leading the polls in France and Germany – the historic engines of European integration now being retrofitted as demolition equipment.
Meanwhile, pro-European leaders are responding with all the urgency of a Brussels technocrat discovering a printer jam. Mario Draghi is out here warning that without a serious industrial policy, Europe will get steamrolled by China and the US, while Emmanuel Macron waves a tiny, lonely flag for "strategic autonomy" as everyone else practices their best WB Yeats impression: the center shrugs, the extremists are full of passionate intensity, and somewhere in Mar-a-Lago, Trump and his MAGA heirs are watching Europe consider voluntary geopolitical disarmament and wondering how they got this lucky.
Bill O’Reilly popped up on NewsNation to warn that the U.S. could soon see French-style street protests "on steroids" if Trump keeps barreling along as president. So the guy who spent decades cheerleading every authoritarian impulse on Fox is now clutching his pearls about the logical endpoint of shredding institutions, stoking grievance, and governing via constant televised tantrum. Truly, a visionary.
Host Leland Vittert dutifully teed up the question about what happens if President Trump keeps doing, well, exactly what President Trump does: attack checks and balances, treat the law as optional, and light various parts of the electorate on fire for ratings. O’Reilly’s big insight is that this might not end well socially. Next week: a panel of arsonists explains that if you keep pouring gasoline on everything and flicking matches, you might get a fire.
The larger message from the Trump-era media ecosystem remains the same: help build the rage machine, profit from the chaos, then go on TV to gravely warn that the chaos you helped create could spiral. American democracy is being slow-roasted, and the people who turned up the heat are now selling themselves as the fire marshals.
The Biden administration spent years rebuilding alliances, institutions, and a functioning State Department, so naturally the Trump restoration has handed a chunk of Ukraine war diplomacy to… Melania. The former jewelry pitchwoman turned first lady has apparently "secured" a localized ceasefire in Russian-occupied Oleshky, because when you think complex multi-party negotiations in a live artillery environment, you obviously think: Be Best, but for war.
Washington is now dutifully pretending this isn’t wildly abnormal — as if letting the president’s spouse freelance foreign policy with a nuclear power is just another box on the East Wing chore chart. No Senate confirmation, no real transparency, just a designer-clad emissary gliding through one of the bloodiest conflicts in Europe since WWII while the actual diplomatic corps gets treated like set dressing. The message to the world: why bother with institutions when you can slide into authoritarian warlords’ DMs via the First Lady’s office?
Sure, a temporary humanitarian pause is good for the civilians trapped under Russian occupation — they need food, medicine, and a break from shelling, not a lecture about separation of powers. But this White House is busy turning life-and-death diplomacy into a prestige side quest for the Trump family brand, and if that sounds familiar, it’s because this is how you launder personal influence through state power while everyone cheers the "win" and politely ignores the constitutional faceplant happening in the background.
Senate Democrats just discovered that in Trump’s America, "permitting reform" apparently means permitting the White House to use federal clean energy money like a campaign slush fund. Tammy Duckworth, Ron Wyden, Ed Markey, and Jeff Merkley are telling Trump’s people to put back billions in clean energy grants they yanked in October 2025 and to put it in writing that they’ll stop canceling projects just because a state had the bad manners to vote against Dear Leader.
That ask isn’t coming out of nowhere: the Energy Department has already admitted in a court filing that the grant cancellations were based on politics, while budget goblin Russ Vought helpfully circulated a list of non-Trump-voting states like a revenge to-do list. A report from DOE alumni and Lawyers for Good Government says many projects are now stuck in "limbo" with "negligible" funding, especially in blue states, though the chaos is splashing on everyone. Meanwhile, bill co-authors Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich are out here trying to speed up renewables, as the rest of their party tries to make sure BAAJA doesn’t turn into a statutory excuse for Trump to shovel favors to fossil fuels and punish enemies. Faithfully executing the law is now such a distant memory that senators have to beg the administration to stop committing openly admitted, partisan sabotage of congressionally funded programs just to get a vote on a permitting bill. Totally normal democracy stuff.
Israelis are heading to the polls while Benjamin Netanyahu runs the classic strongman campaign: promise endless war, threaten national annihilation if you lose, and quietly work on kneecapping the justice system so that pesky corruption trial goes away. His pitch is basically, "Sure, there was the catastrophic October 7 failure, three years of war, and a democracy-crushing agenda, but have you considered giving me another chance to start something with Iran?" To really drive home the message, he posted an AI-generated nuke fantasy of Tel Aviv as campaign content, because nothing says responsible leadership like deepfake apocalypse porn.
Behind the curtain, it gets even more on-brand: Netanyahu spent weeks trying to get President Trump to sign off on a pre-election strike on Iran, and when that didn’t work, he tried to push the IDF into laying groundwork for an attack in the final 72 hours before voting. IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir had to play the role of the last adult in the room and refuse, warning that maybe, just maybe, staging a war to juice turnout and possibly cancel elections is not ideal. Meanwhile, some of Netanyahu’s closest advisers and his campaign manager allegedly took money from Qatar to shape Israeli public opinion during wartime. His rivals call it "treason"; Netanyahu says he had no idea. Apparently the only thing this guy never knows about is the corruption happening directly next to him.
On the other side, former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot is running on the radical notion of accountability—commission of inquiry for October 7, draft for ultra-Orthodox men, and maybe a government that doesn’t run on nonstop chaos. Naftali Bennett is helpfully reminding voters that the last four years have been a masterclass in dysfunction. The opposition is organized, motivated, and boosted by tens of thousands of expats flying back to vote, plus record-high turnout among Arab citizens. But Netanyahu doesn’t even need to win outright; he just has to block a majority and cling on as caretaker prime minister for another six months, because of course the system is perfectly optimized for one indicted man’s survival.
So the choice for Israeli voters is stark: a potential new government that might actually investigate how everything went to hell, or the guy whose campaign message is essentially, "Re-elect me or the nukes get it," while he eyes Iran and the judiciary like they’re both items on a clearance rack. Somewhere in Mar-a-Lago, Trump is probably wondering why he never thought to post AI images of obliterated cities as campaign literature.
John Thune and Ashley Hinson bravely workshop new ways to call themselves ‘independent’ while voting for whatever Trump wants.
John Thune is touring strip-mall bars in Iowa, bravely trying to convince voters that the Senate is both an independent institution and also totally fine with handing Donald Trump a blank check to wage an unpopular war with Iran. Rep. Ashley Hinson promises to be a "thorn in his side" when she disagrees with Trump, which is an adorable way of describing a voting record that’s marched in lockstep with the White House on war powers while gas prices scream at people from every street corner.
Back in D.C., Thune’s brand is that he’s a "kind," "decent" man who "doesn’t lose his temper" while calmly ushering through Trump’s massive tax, border security, and defense agenda and helping block any serious attempt to rein in the president’s war authority. Democrats keep forcing votes to limit Trump’s Iran adventure; Thune’s conference keeps saluting, then flying home to explain to voters how they’re totally worried about the war they keep voting to enable.
The Senate GOP chose Thune precisely because he’s the anti-MAGA showman: a soft-spoken institutionalist who makes authoritarian deference look respectable in a suit. As the war dents the economy and voters stare at their receipts, the big question is whether Thune’s genteel rubber-stamping will still count as "steady leadership" or just the moment the Senate officially rebranded itself as the White House’s upper-level HR department.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Attorney General Blanche, moments before discovering that "because Trump said so" is not a valid legal theory in federal court.
The Trump Justice Department marched into federal court demanding that California election officials pull thousands of ballots out of circulation because they might have been cast by noncitizens. No proof, no completed investigation, just the usual vibes-based "election integrity" panic and a hope that judges would treat due process like an optional add-on.
Instead, a federal appeals court responded with the legal equivalent of "stop wasting our time" and tossed DOJ's request. So for the moment, those California ballots get to exist as actual votes instead of props in another Blanche-branded conspiracy roadshow. When your own hand‑picked judiciary starts telling you to sit down and read the Constitution, the coup cosplay is not going well.
The cherry on top: Attorney General Blanche is out doing media hits bragging that DOJ is "doing our own research under the law" on other ballot challenges, which is a bold way of saying "we Googled some stuff and decided to overturn elections." The administration keeps trying to turn the Justice Department into a national voter suppression hotline, and the courts keep having to explain that "I saw it on Truth Social" is not an evidentiary standard.
Trump announces a $1 million voter fraud bounty, presumably funded by the same imaginary account that’s paying for his other election bribes.
Donald Trump has apparently decided America needs a presidential crime tips hotline, offering $1 million to anyone who snitches on supposed voter fraud that leads to convictions. Where does the money come from? Unknown. Who verifies the claims? Also unknown. But he posted it on Truth Social, so the White House says that’s all the detail the nation’s election system requires. After years of failing to find widespread fraud, he’s now crowdsourcing paranoia with a bounty program.
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Trump’s DOJ is already suing states like California to force them to segregate mail ballots they speculate might belong to noncitizens — a phenomenon research shows is vanishingly rare. They’ve also filed suit in Alaska to block certification of a Senate race if Dan Sullivan loses, because nothing screams confidence in democracy like preemptively suing to stop the count. Courts keep swatting down Trump’s attempts to rewrite voting rules on the fly, but he keeps testing how far he can stretch executive power before it snaps.
Layered on top of that, Trump is running a $25 million “government fraud whistleblower” program where he personally decides who’s worthy of the prize, while promising $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans hold Congress — again with zero explanation of funding. So the president is simultaneously offering cash for dirt on voters, cash for dirt on the government, and cash for votes dressed up as ‘policy.’ It’s not an election strategy; it’s a game show about dismantling democracy, and the grand prize is what’s left of the rule of law.
President Trump is burning jet fuel to Mississippi to rescue Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, because nothing says "confident majority" like dispatching the Dear Leader to a state that usually votes Republican before breakfast. Hyde-Smith, whose greatest hits include jokes about public hangings and a voting record straight from the Heritage Foundation’s dream journal, is somehow in an actually competitive race with Democrat Scott Colom, a district attorney who has not, to our knowledge, suggested reenacting Jim Crow as performance art.
The White House is treating this like a five-alarm fire: Trump rallies the base, while Kamala Harris, Raphael Warnock, and Cory Booker swing through to remind Mississippi that other political parties exist and occasionally read the Constitution. Beneath the campaign slogans, the subtext is loud: the GOP’s grip on deep red territory is now so dependent on Trump’s personality cult that even Mississippi needs a presidential intervention. The message to voters is clear—either keep sending loyalists like Hyde-Smith to Washington, or risk a Senate where Trump can’t treat the law as a suggestion and democracy as a speed bump.
Two ex-governors stare into the middle distance as they publicly discover that handing your party to a rage-addicted reality TV star has, shockingly, gone poorly.
Former South Carolina governors David Beasley (the Republican who fled the scene) and Jim Hodges (the Democrat who replaced him) have joined forces to endorse Democrat Annie Andrews for Senate, because apparently the bar for bipartisan unity is now "please stop screaming at everyone and maybe govern". Andrews, a pediatrician, is running against Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham’s Trump-endorsed sister, in a state that used to be so red you could win office by promising to cut taxes and glare at a rainbow.
Beasley, who watched the GOP get slowly marinated in Trump’s brain-worm rhetoric, is now on camera saying the party’s vitriol is "toxic" and that he no longer considers himself a member of this thing calling itself the Republican Party. It only took a decade of fascist flirting, coup attempts, family-separation, and open bigotry for a former GOP governor to say, actually this seems bad. Progress!
South Carolina isn’t alone in its oh-god-what-have-we-done tour. Ex-Republican governors in Kansas are backing a Democrat for Senate, Texas Republicans are publicly choosing a Democrat over indicted Trump lackey Ken Paxton, and various GOP fossils in Georgia, Montana, Florida, Virginia, Illinois, and South Dakota are crawling out of retirement to say: "We like tax cuts, not authoritarian cosplay." Trump’s party promised to burn it all down; now the old guard is standing in the ashes, endorsing Democrats and pretending they had no idea matches were flammable.
The global populist fan club of Donald J. Trump just had a rough weekend. In Brazil, Flávio Bolsonaro — heir to his dad’s coup-curious dynasty — tried to ride the Trumpist wave straight into the presidency and instead face-planted into democracy. Lula won, Bolsonaro Jr. screamed fraud and demanded the results be annulled, and somewhere in a prison cell, Jair is probably workshopping his own "stop the steal" sequel. Trump, naturally, calls the elder Bolsonaro’s conviction for plotting a coup a "WITCH HUNT," because attempting to overthrow elections is basically the Mar-a-Lago loyalty oath at this point.
Over in Serbia, long-time strongman Aleksandar Vučić — self-described Trump "kindred spirit" and friend of Don Jr.’s Instagram feed — actually did the unthinkable and conceded defeat after a student-led movement toppled his party. That follows Hungary already sending Viktor Orbán, another Trump pen pal and democracy hobbyist, packing after 16 years in power. The Trumpist international is suddenly discovering that voters occasionally prefer functioning institutions to lifetime rule by guys who treat the constitution like a restaurant suggestion menu.
None of this has stopped Trump from trying to turn foreign policy into a fan-club management operation. He slapped tariffs on Brazil to defend a convicted coup plotter, while his chosen right-wing darlings racked up wins elsewhere in Latin America. And now he’s gone for the full historic flex: openly endorsing Benjamin Netanyahu in a tight Israeli election that’s basically a referendum on the catastrophic Oct. 7 security failure. Netanyahu, under indictment and clinging to power, is proudly waving the Trump endorsement like it’s a Nobel Peace Prize instead of a warning label.
Meanwhile, Europe is auditioning for its own spin-off series: Marine Le Pen is gearing up in France, Germany’s AfD is soaring in the polls, and the whole continent is playing political whack-a-mole with far-right parties. But the through line remains the same: Trump keeps trying to build an international league of strongmen, crooks, and "kindred spirits" — and every time one of them loses, it’s another reminder that the global far right’s big selling point is "permanent power," and the big recurring problem is elections still exist.
