state department discovers free speech by banning critics from entering country
The State Department, bravely protecting American free speech by making sure critics of disinformation can’t physically enter the country to talk about it.
In the latest defense of "American free speech," the Trump administration has decided the best way to protect it is to… ban foreign critics from entering the country. The State Department has denied US visas to five people whose great crime is working against disinformation and online hate, including Imran Ahmed of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate and Clare Melford of the Global Disinformation Index. They’ve been officially rebranded as "radical activists" in the global "censorship-industrial complex"—because nothing says "we love open debate" like slapping dissidents with travel bans.
Also on the enemies list: former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, architect of the EU’s Digital Services Act, plus two leaders of German anti-hate group HateAid. Their sin? Supporting regulations that mildly inconvenience US tech billionaires and the right’s favorite disinformation firehoses. Macron and other European leaders are calling it "intimidation" and an attack on European digital sovereignty, while the Trump State Department insists it’s just defending American speech from the unspeakable horror of… foreign laws passed by elected parliaments.
In other words, the administration that screams about "censorship" any time a Nazi loses a blue check is now using federal power to blacklist researchers and regulators who track hate, disinfo, and platform lies. The targets call it an authoritarian attack on free speech and the rule of law, which is accurate but undersells the vibe: this is a loyalty test for US tech and a warning shot to anyone who thinks platforms should verify users or stop monetizing hate. But sure, tell us again how the real tyrants are the people asking Elon Musk to follow the law.
#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
democracy? sorry, we’re redistricting that away
A map of the United States, helpfully updated to show where voters still matter and where the legislature already picked the winners.
President Trump spent 2025 speedrunning the part of the authoritarian playbook where you don’t bother winning more voters, you just draw fewer of the wrong ones. Republican legislatures across the country spent the year furiously carving up congressional maps like a Christmas ham, hunting for every last seat they could steal by line-drawing instead of, you know, persuading people. Because nothing says “confidence in your ideas” like having to gerrymander the map into modern art just to survive the next election.
Trump is reportedly leaning on GOP states to squeeze out maximum advantage before next year’s contests, while Democrats get a few scattered chances to counter in the courts or in the handful of states they still control. In other words: Republicans are playing a coordinated, nationwide power-maximization game, and Democrats are playing whack-a-mole with a butter knife.
So 2025 becomes the year where the House of Representatives is less about representing actual people and more about representing whichever party controls the cartographers. But sure, tell us again how this is all about “election integrity” and not about pre-rigging the scoreboard before voters even show up.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy#full-stupid
supreme court temporarily rediscovers posse comitatus
Live look at Chicago, which the White House insists is in open rebellion, as federal judges squint and say, "We’re gonna need more than Fox B-roll for that."
The Trump administration went to the Supreme Court demanding permission to federalize and deploy the Illinois National Guard to "protect" immigration agents in Chicago, because nothing says "normal law enforcement" like rolling in the troops over local objections. The Court, in a rare moment of remembering what the law is, said no—at least for now—pointing out that the statute Trump invoked only kicks in when the regular military can't restore order, and that tiny inconvenience called the Posse Comitatus Act still exists.
In an unsigned order, a 5–4 majority (three conservatives plus the three liberals) noted that the government "failed to identify a source of authority" to let the military execute civilian law in Illinois. Translation: you don't get to cosplay dictatorship just because you're mad at Chicago. Illinois and Chicago had already argued that this was less about "rebellion" and more about Trump punishing political enemies, and lower courts agreed there was no credible evidence of the "lawless chaos" the administration keeps insisting is everywhere Democrats live.
Naturally, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch were furious that the Court didn't just wave through the deployment, with Alito announcing his "serious doubts" about the majority's reasoning—because if the president wants to send troops into opposition cities over protests, who is the Constitution to say no? Meanwhile, Trump's broader campaign to impose federal control on Democratic-led cities—D.C., Los Angeles, Portland, and beyond—rolls on, backed by a string of Supreme Court wins. But in this case, even this Court decided that using the National Guard as an ICE goon squad crossed a line. For now.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump screams ‘judicial coup,’ judges buy guns and cancel credit cards
Federal judges upgrading home security and dodging swat teams because the president can’t handle losing in court — truly the shining city on a hill the Founders envisioned.
In the latest episode of "Who Wants To Be A Fascist?", longtime Reagan-appointed Judge John Coughenour blocked Trump’s blatantly unconstitutional stunt to gut birthright citizenship — and immediately discovered what happens when you anger the guy whose fanbase thinks the Constitution is a deep-state plot. Within days, someone "swatted" the 84-year-old judge, falsely reporting that he’d murdered his wife and barricaded himself in his home, then followed up with a fake bomb threat in his mailbox. After four decades on the bench, Coughenour finally did something he’d never felt compelled to do: he took a gun home from the courthouse because the American president and his enablers had whipped up a mob against him.
He’s not alone. Judges across the country who ruled against Trump or dared defend judicial independence are now living like they’re in witness protection. They’re upgrading home security, changing driving routes, moving houses, freezing hacked credit cards, and warning their families to scrub personal info from the internet. One Trump-appointed judge received death threats after crossing Dear Leader; another judge, Stephen Bough, blocked a Trump deportation scheme and was rewarded with creepy 1 a.m. pizza deliveries to his home — and to his daughter’s house 800 miles away — because nothing says "respect for law and order" like weaponizing DoorDash. The U.S. Marshals are now treating surprise pizzas as potential intimidation ops, possibly from foreign actors, which is definitely a normal thing in a functioning democracy.
Meanwhile, the administration that lit the match is insisting it’s just telling the "truth." Stephen Miller calls adverse rulings a "judicial coup," Attorney General Pam Bondi sneers about "low-level leftist judges," and MAGA influencers daydream publicly about impeaching judges who get in the way of the agenda. Then White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson shows up to deliver the punchline: any suggestion that this relentless demonization might be fueling threats is "deeply unserious," and actually, Trump "cares deeply" about judicial safety. In other words: they slam the gas pedal on delegitimizing the courts, watch the threats spike, and then swear they’re just humble truth-tellers while the judges buy guns and move houses — but sure, tell us more about how this is all very normal and not at all how democracies die.
#killing-democracy#fascism
historic shutdown, tariff brain genius, and the vibes recession
Americans bravely simulating a thriving economy by maxing out their cards on rent, medical bills, and AI gadgets while Trump calls it the greatest boom in history.
Trump’s miracle economy update: GDP grew at a robust 4.3% in Q3, which we are only hearing about now because the historic Trump shutdown jammed up the Commerce Department so badly they couldn’t even release numbers on time. Nothing says "stable business environment" like a president who both tanks the first quarter with sweeping global tariff threats and then turns off the government’s lights so the statisticians can’t tell you how bad his ideas were.
Meanwhile, the supposed boom is powered by people spending more on hospitals, nursing homes, prescription drugs, and computer hardware to feed the AI hype machine. In other words, Americans are going broke trying not to die and training the algorithms that will replace them, but sure, "consumer spending is strong." Inflation is down to 2.7%, wages are still (barely) beating prices, and yet the cost of rent, electricity, and health insurance keeps chewing through paychecks so fast that only rich shoppers are keeping retail afloat.
Despite the topline "win," business and residential investment are falling, the job market is softening, and people tell pollsters they feel like their finances are circling the drain. Trump, naturally, insists everything is amazing; the latest NPR/PBS/Marist poll says only 36% of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, his worst score yet. So the official numbers say the economy is growing, the president says he’s a genius, and most people say they’re one surprise bill away from disaster — but remember, questioning the vibes is fake news.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid#money
trump calls press 'enemy of the people,' cops take notes
A journalist in a press vest and helmet, moments before law enforcement demonstrates what "enemy of the people" means in practice.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation just dropped a fun little data point: in 2025, US journalists have been assaulted almost as many times as in the previous three years combined. The spike comes as Trump returns to office, ramps up mass deportations, and revives his greatest hit, calling the press the "enemy of the people"—because nothing says "land of the free" like turning news-gathering into a contact sport.
Most of the 170 documented assaults this year happened at protests against the administration’s immigration crackdown, where law enforcement decided that the real threat wasn’t unconstitutional deportations without due process, but people with cameras and press badges. Reporters and photographers were batoned, shot with pepper balls and "less-lethal" rounds, and blown up with explosive devices from a safe 40 feet away, just to make sure nobody gets too clear a picture of how "Operation Midway Blitz" actually looks on the ground.
A federal judge in Chicago had to issue a restraining order literally telling ICE and DHS "don’t beat the people clearly marked as journalists unless they’re committing a crime"—a standard that used to be implied by the whole Constitution thing. The government responded by insisting the area was in a "vise hold of violence" to justify indiscriminate force, and the judge politely translated that as: "That narrative simply is untrue." In other words, they lied to defend assaulting the press, then appealed the ruling because of course they did.
But remember, we can’t prove a direct line from Trump’s years of media-bashing to cops treating reporters like enemy combatants. He only calls them liars, delegitimizes their work, brands them enemies of the people, and runs an administration whose policies and rhetoric "reflect hostility towards the press" and could be seen as condoning violence. Totally mysterious how we ended up with journalists getting shot and clubbed for doing their jobs. Must be a coincidence.
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
trump orders, whatley obeys: north carolina tries elective monarchy
Michael Whatley, proudly auditioning for the role of ‘Most Loyal Senate Intern to Dear Leader’ while North Carolina voters pretend this is still a normal election.
Michael Whatley is running for Senate in North Carolina the old-fashioned way: by waiting for Donald Trump to call and inform him that he’s already decided. According to Whatley, Trump phoned after Sen. Thom Tillis bowed out and basically said, “You’re going to run, you’re going to win, so congratulations” — because nothing says representative democracy like the president assigning Senate seats over the phone like it’s a mid-level promotion at Trump Org.
Whatley, former RNC chair and current professional Trump loyalist, has responded by Velcroing himself to Trump so hard you can practically hear the ripping sound. Onstage at a pre-Christmas rally, he declared Trump “the most transformational president in our lifetime” and pledged to be his “ally” in the Senate — not an ally to North Carolinians, mind you, but to “our great president.” In other words, it’s not a Senate race, it’s a loyalty audition.
Meanwhile, the MAGA base is deeply inspired by…someone else. Steve Bannon says Whatley’s “not MAGA,” grassroots Republicans are openly calling him “an awful candidate,” and Young Republicans at a tacky sweater party are pining for Lara Trump instead — because if you’re going to be a vassal state, you might as well get a real member of the dynasty. Lara, for her part, is using her Fox News show to boost Whatley while bragging about how they “cut the fat” at the RNC, which is a polite way of saying they turned the national party into a fully-owned Trump family asset.
So North Carolina’s “critical” Senate race boils down to this: Roy Cooper, a popular ex-governor who’s actually won statewide races against Trump’s numbers, versus a handpicked former party apparatchik whose main qualification is that he’ll never, ever distance himself from the president. If Whatley wins, Trump keeps his four-seat Senate cushion and his personal Praetorian Guard. If he loses, it’s one tiny crack in the facade of the imperial presidency. But sure, tell us more about how this is just normal politics and not a slow-motion attempt to turn the Senate into the Mar-a-Lago Board of Directors.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy
jd vance makes his play for ‘crown prince of maga’
An AmericaFest attendee raises a hand in prayer, presumably to the Constitution they’re actively workshopping out of existence.
At Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix — the traveling roadshow where authoritarianism cosplays as patriotism — Vice President JD Vance is already being crowned heir apparent to Trump nearly three years before 2028. He pulls 84% in a straw poll of the MAGA faithful, while Marco Rubio and Ron DeSantis split the participation-trophy vote. In other words, the base has seen the future, and it looks like a guy financed by tech billionaires cosplaying as a blue-collar prophet.
Turning Point, now run by Erika Kirk after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, is boasting 1 million members and 1,400 campus chapters, i.e., an entire pipeline of youth activism devoted to making permanent rule by one movement seem normal. Attendees gush that they “wish Trump could just be king forever and pass it down … eventually Barron,” but swear they “don’t believe in having kings.” Because nothing says “constitutional republic” like openly workshopping your preferred hereditary monarchy between merch purchases and prayer sessions.
The grassroots story the article thinks it’s telling is that Vance “has the balls” and a “real background.” The story it’s actually telling is that the MAGA coalition is already gaming out a post-Trump succession plan, locking in loyalty oaths from the big youth propaganda machine while the base casually shrugs off the whole ‘no kings’ part of the American experiment. Vance isn’t just running for president someday — he’s auditioning to be the next steward of a movement that’s decided democracy is optional, but vibes and grievance are forever.
#killing-democracy#fascism#oligarchy
america, now proudly a regional power with nukes and daddy issues
Trump and Putin gaze at Europe like two arsonists arguing over who gets to light the match first.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, two men united by a shared love of status and a shared hatred of not being invited to the cool kids’ table, have converged on the same basic foreign policy: if you can’t earn respect, burn down the system that measures it. Putin does it with tanks in Ukraine; Trump does it with a "national security strategy" that reads like a Maga subreddit manifesto, denouncing Europe, the rule of law, and multilateralism while demanding "unrivaled soft power" based on nothing more than America’s "inherent greatness and decency". Because nothing says "soft power" like screaming at your allies and threatening them on behalf of Elon Musk’s favorite platforms.
The administration is busy trying to turn Europe from a rules-based, liberal democratic project into a patchwork of angry, ethnonationalist mini-Trumps: backing far-right parties, fantasizing about a "culturally white" continent, and punishing factcheckers and social-media moderators with visa bans for the crime of noticing that fascists lie. At the same time, Trump is hollowing out the very "massive military, diplomatic, intelligence and foreign aid complex" that once made U.S. influence possible, proudly downgrading America from architect of the postwar order to regional power with delusions of grandeur. In other words: Washington built the house, Europe moved in and actually followed the rules, and now Trump is outside kicking the walls and insisting everyone admit he’s still the landlord.
The result is a U.S. that liberal democracies treat like an "angry, incoherent drunk with a bazooka"—you try to keep it calm, but you definitely don’t respect it. The White House wants to remake Europe in Maga’s image while simultaneously retreating from NATO and global responsibility, a neat trick that mostly turns America into Russia with better fast food: not a leader, just a spoiler. From sanctioning Brazilian judges to help Bolsonaro (and backfiring) to threatening the EU for regulating X, Trump’s foreign policy is a masterclass in killing democracy abroad while setting the stage to do the same at home. But sure, tell us again how "America is strong and respected again".
#killing-democracy#fascism
live from dc: the trump-kennedy center for performing authoritarianism
Rep. Joyce Beatty, briefly allowed to speak in a country where Trump boards now solve dissent by hitting the mute button and calling the result ‘unanimous.’
The Trump-appointed board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has decided that what America’s official memorial to a murdered president really needed was... Donald Trump’s name bolted on top of it. They voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center and, in a totally normal democratic flourish, slapped his name on the facade the very next day—because nothing says living memorial to JFK like stapling a gold-plated billboard for the guy who tried to overturn an election right above it.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, who actually sits on the Kennedy Center board by law, is suing, arguing that you can’t just rebrand a congressionally-created memorial by vibes and cult devotion; you need an act of Congress. Her lawsuit notes that during the board meeting she was literally muted after identifying herself and then informed she would not be unmuted—after which the board declared the vote “unanimous.” In other words, it’s not just a power grab, it’s a badly stage-managed one, more authoritarian dinner theater than governance.
This is just the latest episode in Trump’s takeover of the Center: earlier this year he reshuffled the board so it could elect him chair, then they helpfully adjusted programming to effectively cancel some Pride events. Now they’re trying to retroactively pretend Congress meant “John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts (Some Restrictions and Future Trump Branding May Apply).” Beatty is asking a federal judge to confirm the obvious: that the legal name is still the JFK Center and this cosplay-monarchy renaming stunt is “null and void and without legal effect.” But sure, tell us again how the real threat to American traditions is drag queens, not the guy carving his name into the national arts memorial like it’s another failing golf resort.
#killing-democracy#fascism
president ‘innocent acquaintance of epstein’ very upset about all these epstein files
Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, thoughtfully explaining that the real Epstein victims are bankers in tuxedos whose reputations might not survive Getty Images.
Donald Trump emerged from Mar-a-Lago to bravely defend the most vulnerable class in American life: “highly respected bankers and lawyers and others” who just happened to “innocently” hang out with Jeffrey Epstein. Standing in front of his gilded crime-scene cosplay, Trump complained that the newly released Epstein files might unfairly damage people who merely appear in photos with the convicted sex trafficker — you know, the sort of people who were on planes, at parties, and in his contact book, but are now apparently victims of overzealous photography.
Trump, who spent months resisting the release of those same files and has called the whole thing a “hoax,” now insists the scandal is just a distraction from his tremendous Republican successes, like “building the biggest ships in the world.” Because nothing says “totally not worried about what’s in those documents” like pivoting from underage sex trafficking to aircraft carriers in the same breath. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act — a law Congress passed almost unanimously and Trump signed — by releasing exactly one batch of documents and then taking a long contemplative pause, prompting survivors and lawmakers to wonder who, exactly, is being protected.
Bill Clinton’s spokesman is now openly accusing DOJ of selective releases that smear people who’ve already been cleared while mysteriously withholding everything else. In other words, even Clintonworld is begging the government to stop playing coy and just dump all of it. When Bill Clinton is yelling “release the files” and Donald Trump is whining that it’s all so unfair to the rich guys who “innocently met” Epstein at parties, you’re not watching a justice system work — you’re watching the elite panic about how much of their world got documented before the cameras turned off.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump discovers 18th‑century law, forgets 5th‑amendment exists
Nothing says “respect for due process” like outsourcing your deportees to a foreign mega-prison and calling it national security.
In a plot twist absolutely no one saw coming, a federal judge has ruled that when Donald Trump dusted off the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan men to a mega-prison in El Salvador, the administration was supposed to follow that annoying little thing called due process. Chief Judge James Boasberg held that the men Trump labeled as members of the Tren de Aragua gang were entitled to hearings before being shipped off like excess luggage, writing that the government must actually let them argue their case. Our law requires no less, he said — a sentence that reads like a subtweet of the entire Trump immigration agenda.
On March 15, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to target alleged gang members and promptly filled planes with people the White House insisted were part of a Venezuelan prison gang "invading" the U.S. ACLU and Democracy Forward sued, pointing out that maybe, just maybe, you can't use a John Adams–era law as a magic deportation wand. Boasberg certified the deportees as a class and noted that the men remained effectively in U.S. custody even while locked inside El Salvador's CECOT hellscape, meaning the court still had jurisdiction over the mess Trump created.
In a particularly on‑brand move, the administration ignored Boasberg's same‑day temporary restraining order and let the planes land in El Salvador anyway, then argued the judge was meddling in "foreign policy" — because nothing says strong executive leadership like blowing off a federal court order and calling it diplomacy. Now the administration has until Jan. 5 to either bring the men back to the U.S. or somehow provide real hearings that meet constitutional standards. In other words, the court just informed Trump that even when you're playing with 18th‑century laws and 21st‑century prison states, the Constitution still technically applies.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#anti-immigration
trump admin discovers new legal theory: if you starve the watchdog, the crimes disappear
The CFPB headquarters in D.C., currently serving as a very expensive prop in the Trump administration’s live-action reenactment of How to Kill a Watchdog Without Leaving Fingerprints.
The Trump administration has invented a bold new consumer protection strategy: destroy the consumer protection agency. Acting CFPB director and professional wrecking ball Russell Vought is refusing to accept funding from the Federal Reserve, claiming the Fed has no "combined earnings" because it’s operating at a loss. In other words, the administration found a creative way to read "you must be funded" as "lol, never mind."
A coalition of 21 states and D.C., led by New York AG Letitia James, has now sued to stop this little coup-by-accounting trick, arguing that Congress clearly intended "combined earnings" to mean revenues, not just profits. Because, minor detail, the CFPB is legally required to collect consumer complaints and share data with states so they can go after predatory lenders and scammers — which is hard to do when the agency is being financially waterboarded by the White House.
Under Trump, the CFPB has already been gutted: staff locked out, work paused, mass firings attempted (blocked by courts, because somebody has read the law). Now, with the agency warning it could run out of money by January 2026, the administration is trying to finish the job by pretending the Fed is too broke to fund it. Because nothing says "drain the swamp" like kneecapping the one agency that stops banks and debt collectors from looting people’s lives.
#killing-democracy#corruption
60 minutes discovers trump now has a 'kill switch' for journalism
CBS News courageously stands up to power by quietly backing away from it and asking if Stephen Miller would like some more camera time.
CBS pulled a fully vetted 60 Minutes investigation into El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison at the last minute, because nothing says "independent journalism" like shelving a torture exposé that might annoy the guy who controls your merger approvals. The segment documented how the Trump administration accused over 200 Venezuelan migrants of being gang members, deported them to El Salvador without legal due process, and parked them in a prison built for terrorism suspects—then refused to comment when asked. So naturally, new CBS News boss Bari Weiss decided the story wasn’t "ready" until they could put administration officials on camera to balance out the whole brutal-abuse-and-possible-war-crimes thing.
Reporter Sharyn Alfonsi, whose piece had already been cleared by CBS lawyers and Standards & Practices after five screenings, politely called BS, saying the segment was "factually correct" and that spiking it now is "not an editorial decision, it is a political one." She warned that if the White House’s refusal to participate is enough to kill a story, the administration now effectively has a "kill switch" on any reporting it doesn’t like. Meanwhile, Paramount Skydance is chasing a giant Warner Bros Discovery deal that needs Trump regulators’ blessing, and senators Brian Schatz and Ed Markey are out here saying the quiet part loud: this looks a lot less like journalism and a lot more like corporate groveling before the "Mad King" to keep the mergers flowing.
Media critic Kara Swisher helpfully translated the corporate-speak: this is "entirely to please Trump," whose people reportedly want Stephen "anti-immigration zealot" Miller wedged into the piece for that fair-and-balanced fascism flavor. In other words, CBS had a hard-hitting report on Trump’s deportation machine and its partnership with a notorious foreign prison, and instead of airing it, the network decided to audition for state TV. But sure, tell us again how the real threat to democracy is some college kids protesting on a quad.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump declares war on wind to protect america from… cheap electricity
Artist’s rendering of a deadly national security threat: windmills quietly generating cheap electricity where Trump can’t see his golf course.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new national security threat: affordable, renewable energy. Doug Burgum’s Department of the Interior abruptly froze construction on five major offshore wind projects — Vineyard Wind 1, Sunrise Wind, Empire Wind, Revolution Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind — claiming the turbines might create radar "clutter" that could somehow endanger the military. This, despite Pentagon assessments under Biden that said Revolution Wind would not harm Defense Department missions, and despite the minor detail that the same administration is totally fine with oil rigs, tankers, and whatever else clutters up the ocean as long as it burns nicely.
This pause comes on the heels of a federal judge already ruling Trump’s earlier wind permit ban "arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law" — in other words, illegal cosplay masquerading as policy. So naturally, instead of complying with the law, the White House doubled down and escalated its war on wind, threatening billions in investment, thousands of jobs, and badly needed clean power just as AI-driven electricity demand spikes. Because nothing says "protecting the American people" like sabotaging cheap homegrown energy to keep a bunch of dying coal plants on taxpayer-funded life support.
Trump, who has hated wind ever since it offended the view from his Scottish golf course, summed up the intellectual rigor of the policy at a rally: "Wind is the worst… that’s a scam." In reality, wind is among the cheapest energy sources on the planet, but sure, let’s pretend the real emergency is spinning blades in the Atlantic and not the administration systematically kneecapping the country’s largest source of new renewable power. The message is clear: if it helps the climate, the grid, or consumers, this White House will find a way to call it a security risk and shut it down.
#killing-democracy#anti-science
good twin, maga twin, and the bomb-threat democracy
Indiana twins demonstrate that in 2025 America you can share DNA, a face, and a family—just not the same basic level of respect for democracy or immigrants.
In Indiana, we now have a live-action doppelgänger horror movie masquerading as a civility lesson. Nick Roberts is a 25‑year‑old Democratic city council member; his identical twin Nathan runs an anti‑immigration outfit called "Save Heritage Indiana" and proudly rocks the MAGA merch. Nick had to post a viral video begging people not to confuse him with the guy in the red hat, because nothing says "healthy political system" like needing a public service announcement to distinguish you from your Trumpist twin.
Meanwhile, in the background of this Very Inspirational Story™, Indiana Republicans are trying to redraw congressional districts to juice the GOP for 2026, and Nick is getting bomb threats and an attempted swatting for daring to oppose it. In other words: the state is flirting with minority-rule gerrymanders enforced by stochastic terrorism, but don’t worry, the twins are being very kind and civil about it. One brother organizes to keep immigrants out, the other gets law-enforcement pointed at his house, and the moral is apparently: "you have one family, you might as well make the best of it"—because when the system is busy killing democracy, all that’s left is holiday photos and careful lighting so people know which twin is the one trying not to get you deported.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration
much bureaucracy, very freedom, such layoffs
Elon Musk proudly brandishes a "chainsaw for bureaucracy," which is fitting, since the Trump administration mostly used him as a proof of concept for taking a hardware-store approach to dismantling the federal government.
Elon Musk showed up at CPAC this year waving a "chainsaw for bureaucracy," then quietly walked away from his role as head of DOGE after those pesky things called lawsuits and other people in the government got in the way. He now calls the whole thing only "a little bit successful"—which is one way to describe helping torch chunks of the federal workforce while failing to actually fix the deficit.
In classic Trump-era fashion, the big, flashy promises of trillions in savings and hyper-efficient government never really materialized, but the damage absolutely did. By the end of 2025, some 317,000 federal employees are gone, entire agencies like USAID and much of the Education Department have been effectively erased, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been kneecapped—because nothing says "draining the swamp" like firing career civil servants while the deficit keeps growing anyway.
OMB director Russ Vought is now leading the quiet-cleanup-by-destruction phase, focusing on slashing so‑called "Democrat priorities" instead of pretending this is about neutral efficiency. In other words, DOGE’s meme-era chaos has given way to a more methodical ideological purge: fewer headlines, more firings, and a federal government increasingly redesigned to serve Trump’s politics, not the public. But sure, tell us again how this is all about wasteful spending.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
no experience necessary: only blind loyalty accepted at state
State Department building prepares for its new role as the HR wing of the Trump Loyalty Program.
The Trump administration is yanking nearly 30 career diplomats out of ambassador posts worldwide, not because they did anything wrong, but because they committed the unforgivable sin of having been appointed under Biden and not worshipping loudly enough at the altar of MAGA. Ambassadors in at least 29 countries were told their gigs end in January so the White House can "reshape" US diplomacy with people "fully supportive" of Trump’s "America First" priorities. In other words: the State Department is now a staffing agency for absolute loyalists only.
The State Department insists this is just "a standard process in any administration" — because nothing says "standard" like a rolling purge of experienced, nonpartisan professionals so you can replace them with whoever passed the loyalty test on Truth Social. These aren’t political hacks; they’re career foreign service officers being yanked back to DC for the crime of not being handpicked by Trump 2.0.
Africa gets hit hardest, with ambassadors recalled from 13 countries, because why have experienced diplomats in places like Nigeria, Niger, or Somalia when you can just wing it from Mar-a-Lago? The Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Americas all get their own little slices of the purge pie too. Lawmakers and the diplomats’ union are worried, which is cute, considering this administration has made it abundantly clear that "concern" and "expertise" are for losers.
So the US is systematically replacing career professionals with ideological loyalists across the globe, hollowing out one of the last semi-functional institutions left in Washington — but sure, tell us again how this is just "normal turnover" and not the slow-motion dismantling of a professional diplomatic corps in favor of a cult of personality.
#killing-democracy#fascism
presidency now streaming exclusively on trump plus
President of the United States, pictured here beta-testing the idea that state communications should run exclusively through his own failing meme stock.
Donald Trump has effectively turned the presidency into a low-rent streaming exclusive on Truth Social, a platform used by roughly 3% of Americans and owned by, wait for it, Donald Trump. In other words, the commander-in-chief is paywalling official communications, policy announcements, and his ongoing mental unravelling behind a glorified penny-stock vanity project that props up his net worth. Because nothing says "serving the American people" like forcing them to subscribe to your failing app to find out if you just declared a travel ban.
Inside this walled garden of senility and racism, Trump is posting at manic volume, confusing AI videos with reality, and boosting conspiracy garbage about magical "med beds" that cure everything — and may or may not exist only in the brains of QAnon YouTubers. He falsely announced that a Brown University shooting suspect was "in custody," then had to walk it back 19 minutes later, casually demonstrating that the president is now just live-action fan fiction with nuclear codes. Mixed in: random context-free videos, self-glorifying photos, and reposts calling Somali Americans "inbred savages" pushing "Sharia bullshit" — the kind of thing that used to be a career-ending scandal and is now just Saturday on Truth.
The only upside is that almost nobody is actually there to see it. The downside is that the traditional role of the presidency — communicating clearly and transparently with the country — has been replaced by Trump yelling into his own algorithm while mainstream media occasionally has to relay his worst outbursts to the rest of us. Meanwhile, the GOP, forever chained to Grandpa’s rage-app, is heading into the midterms trying to pretend that the man who falls asleep in cabinet meetings and can’t tell an AI deepfake from his own speeches is totally fine and definitely the real victim here. But sure, tell us more about "election integrity."
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
maga christianity: now with extra state-sponsored persecution complex
Trump’s vision of religious liberty: one hand on the Bible, the other on the launch codes.
Donald Trump, America’s most famous casino theologian, has decided the real global crisis isn’t war, famine, or climate collapse—it’s the "mass slaughter" of Christians in Nigeria, which he’s helpfully pairing with threats of a U.S. invasion. Because nothing says "religious freedom" like using the Pentagon as your missions committee.
Back home, the administration is busy turning Maga Christianity into an official state religion with better branding. Trump handed Pam Bondi a shiny new taskforce to root out "anti-Christian bias," moved to "protect prayer" in public schools (translation: government-approved performative piety), and issued a memo identifying "anti-Christianity" as a potential driver of terrorism. In other words, the state is now in the business of defining which religion gets special protection and which dissenters get quietly reclassified as security threats. But sure, tell us more about how other countries are hostile to religious liberty.
The pastors in this piece are the inconvenient Christians—the ones who actually read "love thy neighbor" and thought it wasn’t a typo. While Maga preachers bless ICE raids and anti-LGBTQ+ crusades, these folks are running immigrant-support vigils in Oklahoma, escorting undocumented people to their hearings, and organizing letter campaigns to demand basic human decency from GOP officials like Kevin Stitt and James Lankford. In Minneapolis, they’re teaming up with Moms Demand Action to push for assault-weapons bans after a church shooting killed two kids, because unlike the White House, they think "thoughts and prayers" should be followed by legislation.
From Chicago protests under National Guard occupation to Florida clergy camping outside "Alligator Alcatraz" to oppose Trump’s detention dystopia, local faith leaders are doing the radical Christian thing of… acting like Christians. Meanwhile, Trump 2.0 is busy baptizing authoritarianism in holy water and calling it "religious liberty." The good news? There’s a growing movement of pastors who’ve decided that if the choice is between state-backed Maga Christianity and the actual gospel, they’re siding with the guy who talked about immigrants and the poor—not the one who sells $399 Bible bundles on Truth Social.
#killing-democracy#fascism
