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
trump admin discovers exciting new disaster strategy: do nothing
Pictured: Washington’s new unofficial FEMA policy — if you wanted dry land, you should’ve donated more to the campaign.
Nothing says "strong leadership" like watching a state drown while you sit on the money that was supposed to keep it dry.
As atmospheric rivers turned parts of Washington state into an unplanned water park, the Trump administration was busy trying to cancel roughly $182 million in FEMA hazard mitigation funds and slow-walk another $31 million in disaster prevention grants. These weren’t hypothetical wish lists — Washington and other states had already secured the grants, started design and permitting, and even invested tens of millions of their own dollars. But Kristi Noem’s DHS slapped on a new approval policy, then just... didn’t approve anything, because nothing screams "homeland security" like letting floods do the urban planning.
Trump’s team also moved to kill FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program entirely, calling it "wasteful" and "politicized" — which is a bold take on a program where every dollar invested saves six in future disaster costs. More than 20 states sued and actually won in court, but the money still hasn’t shown up while people in Hoquiam and Aberdeen watch their economic future float away. In other words: states invest, courts rule, homes flood, and the federal government shrugs. But sure, tell us more about how you’re the party of fiscal responsibility and law and order.
#killing-democracy#anti-science#forever-grifting
holiday cheer, but make it anti-fascist
American shoppers bravely navigating the holiday season, trying to buy a mug without accidentally funding ICE recruitment, tariff abuse, or Elon Musk’s federal demolition derby.
Nothing says “Merry Christmas from President Life Alert” like having to run your gift list through a human rights filter. After a year of Trump’s second-term purge of DEI, immigrant crackdowns, and Musk’s federal-agency bonfire, shoppers are doing the unthinkable in America: spending less at giant corporations that openly lick the regime’s boots. The "We Ain’t Buying It" campaign, backed by more than 220 organizations, told people to skip Target, Home Depot, and Amazon over Black Friday, and millions actually listened. Little Blue Cart, a directory of progressive small businesses, saw record traffic, because apparently some people prefer not to fund fascism with one-click checkout.
Target is getting hit for rolling back diversity programs it used to brag about, Home Depot is under fire because ICE is scooping up day laborers from its parking lots like it’s a federal Costco, and Amazon is being shunned for its Trump inaugural cash dump and long, proud history of treating workers like disposable shipping materials. Spotify is helpfully running ICE recruitment ads—because nothing says holiday playlist like “Now Hiring for Family Separation 2.0”—and Tesla is bleeding sales after activists decided that if Elon Musk is going to help dismantle federal agencies, at least they won’t help him move Model Ys while he does it.
Meanwhile, immigrant-owned businesses are shortening hours or closing altogether under ICE terror campaigns, and some shoppers are deliberately supporting companies suing Trump over what they say are illegally enacted tariffs. Others are throwing money at colleges refusing to bow to Trump’s culture war decrees. In other words, the White House spent years screaming that the only freedom that matters is the freedom to shop—and now people are using that freedom to tell Trump and his corporate enablers to get bent. Capitalism meets conscience, and for once, conscience is actually putting a dent in the QVC Reich.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
america re-ups the reality show for another season
A room full of people applauding their own victimhood while the president calls it a "unity address."
MAGA activists are gathering in Phoenix, which in normal times would be called a fringe conference, but in our current hell timeline is just called "politics." Because nothing says "healthy democracy" like a movement whose whole brand is refusing to accept election results and then getting rewarded with more power.
Meanwhile, President Trump is once again addressing the nation and—more importantly—his fans, because the line between a presidential address and a fan convention disappeared somewhere around the third "witch hunt" speech. It's less "head of state" and more "livestreamed grievance rally" beamed into every living room.
And on the other side, Democrats are apparently holding a post-mortem on how they managed to lose 2024, which must be a very short meeting: "We underestimated the authoritarian cult again" followed by twelve PowerPoints about suburban messaging. In other words, the MAGA movement keeps radicalizing in public, Trump keeps mainlining attention into his personality cult, and the supposed opposition is still trying to focus-group its way out of a constitutional crisis.
#killing-democracy#fascism
president of the united states reviews jake paul fight from air force one
Anthony Joshua restores boxing sanity in Miami while the President turns Air Force One into a flying Jake Paul reaction channel.
Anthony Joshua did his civic duty in Miami by reintroducing Jake Paul’s head to gravity, four times, on a global Netflix stream designed for memes and traumatic brain injury awareness. The former heavyweight champ finally stopped the YouTuber-turned-punching-bag in the sixth, in what the Guardian politely calls a "restoration of sanity" and what any ringside neurologist would call "evidence for a future class-action lawsuit." Paul spent most of the night clinching, flopping, and buying time like a filibustering senator who forgot his talking points, before getting systematically folded by Joshua’s right hand.
The real national content, though, was happening at 30,000 feet. From Air Force One, President Donald Trump tuned in and rushed to Truth Social to praise Jake Paul’s "GREAT Courage" and "Fantastic Entertainment" against a "very talented and large Anthony Joshua." Because nothing says serious leader of the free world like live-blogging a Netflix novelty fight between a YouTuber and a faded heavyweight while flying on the taxpayer’s $200,000-an-hour plane. In other words: the imperial presidency has gone full Twitch streamer.
Joshua, to his credit, played the role of boxing’s reluctant bouncer, ejecting the influencer from the heavyweight VIP section while politely congratulating him for staying conscious slightly longer than expected. Paul, jaw probably broken and bank account definitely not, declared he has "already won in every single way in life"—which is an honest motto for the influencer-politics era: get wrecked for content, cash the check, and let the president hype your "stamina" to his base. But sure, tell me more about how this is all normal and not a late-stage empire glued to its screens while the guy with the nuclear codes live-reviews pay-per-view brain damage.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump’s loudest hall monitor suddenly has ‘family time’
Elise Stefanik announces she’s leaving Congress to spend more time with her family, and less time defending a guy who tried to overturn an election — personal growth, but make it decades late.
Elise Stefanik, one of Trump’s most devoted impeachment-defense parrots, has decided that running for New York governor against another Trump mini-me and staying in Congress is just too much work. So she’s doing the next best thing for democracy: quietly backing away from elected office while pretending it’s all about “efficient use of resources” and “family time.” Because nothing says I would have totally won like quitting the race the moment a real primary fight shows up.
Instead of spending 2026 trying to turn New York into a MAGA theme park, Stefanik says she’ll focus on her young son’s “safety, growth, and happiness” — which is a fascinating pivot from her previous focus on Trump’s safety, growth, and happiness during impeachment and beyond. Trump, naturally, stayed neutral between his two loyalists, calling both Stefanik and Bruce Blakeman “great people,” in other words: interchangeable foot soldiers in the same personality cult.
So the woman who helped normalize Trump’s abuses of power, defended his first impeachment circus, and nearly got shipped off to the UN as a reward (until House math got in the way) is now walking away from Congress and her gubernatorial ambitions. The last Republican governor of New York left office in 2007; Stefanik just made sure that streak is safe for a while longer — but sure, tell us again how this was all part of a grand, selfless plan.
#killing-democracy#fascism
judge commits crime of following the law, is swiftly removed
Artist’s rendition of a ‘Deportation Judge’: one hand on a gavel, the other on a shredder full of asylum applications.
The Trump administration has apparently discovered a new category of misconduct for immigration judges: granting asylum when people qualify for it. Army reserve lawyer Christopher Day lasted a whole five weeks as a temporary immigration judge in Annandale, Virginia before being fired, after he committed the unforgivable sin of letting six out of 11 migrants stay in the US. In other words, he acted like an actual judge instead of a "Deportation Judge"—which, fun fact, is now what the job postings literally call the role, because nothing says "independent judiciary" like naming the outcome in the job title.
This is all part of Trump’s master plan to bulldoze a 3.8 million case asylum backlog by turning the nation’s 75 immigration courts into one giant conveyor belt to the border. Nearly 100 judges "too liberal" (translation: occasionally followed the law) have already been fired. The solution? Flood the bench with up to 600 military lawyers, many of whom know about as much immigration law as your dentist—something the American Immigration Lawyers Association helpfully compared to a cardiologist doing a hip replacement. And it’s going great: in November, military judges ordered removal in 78% of their cases, versus 63% for everyone else. Rubber stamp in uniform, mission accomplished.
Day, however, messed up the script by not treating asylum hearings like a ceremonial pre-deportation ritual. Now he’s out, and because he’s military, he doesn’t even get normal civil service protections—just a delightful buffet of potential reprimands and career-killing letters that can take years and lots of money to fight. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and White House swear there’s no improper interference, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s protections for legal independence may or may not apply here. But sure, tell us more about how this isn’t a politicized purge of judges to enforce Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Totally normal rule-of-law country we’ve got here.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#lawlessness
