The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

North Carolina Democrats are headed to the polls to answer a simple question: what kind of opposition to President Trump’s second term would America’s billionaire class prefer? In the state’s 4th District, Rep. Valerie Foushee — the safe, well-connected incumbent with "good committee assignments" and a reputation for bringing home federal dollars — is being challenged by Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, a Sanders-aligned progressive who thinks maybe ICE raids and unconditional support for Israel’s Gaza war aren’t actually the height of moral leadership.

This would be a normal intra-party ideological fight if it weren’t also a proxy war for every Super PAC with a checkbook and a god complex. Allam is denouncing "billionaire-funded Super PACs like crypto and AIPAC" trying to buy democracy, while simultaneously benefitting from outside progressive spending herself — because in Trump’s America, even the people running against oligarchic capture have to rent some oligarchic capture just to get on the field. Meanwhile, establishment Democrats rally around Foushee on the grounds that she already knows how to navigate the burning building that is Congress, so why waste time training a new firefighter?

The district is so blue that whoever wins the primary basically gets a congressional seat pre-installed, no assembly required. So the real contest isn’t Democrats vs. Republicans; it’s whether the party’s response to Trump’s authoritarian cosplay will be a louder, younger left flank or a smoother, more senior version of the status quo — all refereed by the same national donors who underwrite the system that made Trump possible in the first place. American democracy remains a vibrant marketplace of ideas, provided your ideas come with a robust fundraising operation.

Pollsters have discovered a new scientific benchmark for American politics: Donald Trump is now less popular than spiders and ants, but still doing better than wasps and mosquitoes. So congratulations to the president – he’s officially performing somewhere between household pest and bloodsucking biohazard. Naturally, this historically unpopular guy with a 61% disapproval rating is insisting on Truth Social that these are the "highest poll numbers" he’s ever had, because reality is for losers and non-felons.

The 2026 midterms loom, and Trump is reportedly telling Republicans behind closed doors that if they lose the House, Democrats will "find a reason to impeach" him. That’s not paranoia so much as a confession with stage fright. A Democratic House could slow-roll his agenda and actually investigate all that "government overreach" the article politely tiptoes around, which is why he’s suddenly discovered the concept of consequences.

Of course, unlike ants, Trump has a few advantages – namely, a firehose of billionaire cash. The RNC is sitting on $95m, Democrats are rummaging in the couch cushions with $14m and some IOUs, and Trump’s Maga Inc super PAC is parked on about $304m like a particularly litigious dragon. Overall, Republicans have over $600m ready to burn on the midterms, while Democrats limp in under $200m, and outside groups are projected to drop another $5bn. It’s not an election so much as a hostile takeover funded by 100 very rich families who spent $2.6bn in 2024 to make sure the rest of us keep arguing about bugs while they buy the government.

So as the midterms approach, America faces a stark choice: let a deeply unpopular president backed by a mountain of oligarch money keep rewriting the rules, or see if voters like democracy more than they dislike spiders. Polling suggests ants, at least, still have a better reputation than Congress.

Anthropic has decided the best way to make sure AI "serves the public good" is to shovel $20 million into a political group to influence who writes the laws about AI. The money goes to Public First Action, a nice, wholesome outfit whose main mission is to stop the federal government from overriding state AI regulations — including that December Trump executive order designed to kneecap pesky state-level rules that might inconvenience his tech buddies.

One of the lucky beneficiaries: Republican Marsha Blackburn, now running for Tennessee governor, who bravely fought against Congress trying to stop states from passing their own AI laws. So yes, we have an AI company bankrolling a Republican politician to resist federal preemption pushed by Trump, all so the "public good" can be lovingly curated by whichever donor has the biggest checkbook this quarter.

Across the field, Leading the Future — backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and VC hype priest Marc Andreessen — has already hoovered up $125 million to fight stricter AI regulation. So the midterms are shaping up to be a delightful little experiment in algorithmic self-governance, where the people get to choose between Team Slightly-Regulated AI and Team Please-Do-Not-Regulate-My-Stock-Options, while Trump’s executive orders loom in the background like a half-finished Terms of Service written in crayon.

The result: a political system where the most advanced AI labs on Earth are locked in a spending war to decide how lightly they themselves should be policed. Democracy, in its final form: not one person, one vote, but one billionaire, one PAC, one regulatory capture strategy.

The Trump administration has discovered that ending a full-scale European war is just like closing on a casino in Atlantic City: you send a property developer and your son-in-law to Davos and Moscow, declare it's all down to "one issue," and hope nobody notices that the "issue" is carving up another country's territory. Enter Steve Witkoff, Trump donor and real-estate pal turned Ukraine envoy, confidently announcing that peace in Europe now hinges on a single, unnamed sticking point — which, purely by coincidence, appears to be the future status of Ukraine's industrial heartland in Donbas. Because nothing says rules-based international order like letting the guy who usually negotiates mall leases decide how much of your country you get to keep.

While Volodymyr Zelensky rides an overnight train out of a half-frozen Kyiv — where Russian strikes have knocked out heat, water, and power in the dead of winter — Trump is in Davos pitching a 20-point peace plan that is "90% ready," just like every infrastructure week. The "deal" on the table involves demilitarising part of Donbas into a "free economic zone" if Russia plays nice, plus a big question mark over who controls Europe's largest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia. Meanwhile, Trump publicly muses that Putin is "ready to make a deal" but Zelensky is "less ready," which is a polite way of saying the guy whose cities are being bombed is not thrilled with the US president and his in-laws workshopping Ukraine's surrender terms with the Kremlin.

Back in Moscow, Dmitry Peskov says talks will continue on the "Ukrainian issue and other related topics," which is diplomatic code for "we like where this is going." Putin hasn't yet decided whether to grace Trump's absurd "Board of Peace on Gaza" with his presence, but the mere fact that this is a sentence anyone has to write tells you everything about the clown car running US foreign policy. Zelensky is still hoping to sign security and economic guarantees with Trump in Davos, but admits there's "one mile left" to go — presumably the same mile between "sovereign ally" and "chip in a Trump-branded global deal so Jared can claim he solved war." In other words, Ukraine bleeds, Europe panics, and America’s diplomacy is being run like a family side hustle.

Donald Trump rang in 2026 at Mar-a-Lago by doing what he does best: turning religion, public office, and foreign policy into a live infomercial for himself. At his $1,450-a-ticket New Year’s Eve bash, Trump played auctioneer for a freshly painted portrait of Jesus that sold for $2.75m, because nothing says humble carpenter from Nazareth like a multimillion-dollar impulse buy at the president’s private club.

The painting, done onstage in minutes while a band crooned Hallelujah, was hyped by Trump as the work of “one of the greatest artists anywhere in the world” – which, in Trump-speak, is what he usually says right before someone ends up with a federal subpoena or a cameo on Newsmax. Half the proceeds, he announced, would go to St Jude’s children’s hospital and half to the local sheriff’s department, because if you’re going to launder your image through charity, you might as well cut in law enforcement too. “These people are loaded with cash, just so you know,” he told the room full of donors, in case anyone forgot they were supposed to be both worshipping Jesus and opening their wallets.

The guest list was a who’s-who of the American decline cinematic universe: Rudy Giuliani, still haunting public life; Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem; Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife; Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani; Brett Ratner, currently filming an Amazon documentary about Melania for those who felt the Trump era deserved a director’s cut; House Republican Tom Emmer; and DC attorney general Jeanine Pirro, proving once again that in Trump’s America, the justice system is just another banquet table. While Trump wished for “peace on Earth”, reporters asked about a reported CIA-directed strike on a dock in Venezuela, because nothing pairs with a soft-focus Jesus auction quite like covert military action in Latin America.

Earlier in the day, Trump spent his time presidentially calling Colorado governor Jared Polis a “scumbag”, labeling George Clooney “mediocre”, and insisting Democrats are a “bunch of cheaters and thieves”, all while bragging that his tariffs had produced a “World Record on investments”. He also fixated on Minnesota governor Tim Walz and alleged social services fraud, proclaiming that “they stole $18 billion” and promising to “get to the bottom of all of it.” In other words: accuse everyone else of scams, then go back to your private club, sell a Jesus painting for millions to your rich friends, and call it charity and patriotism. Other than that, we’re going to have a great New Year.

Welcome to the surreal world where a $50,000 dinner party propels a tech billionaire into an unholy alliance with the government, exchanging federal oversight for a free pass to meddle with taxpayer dollars and dismantle democracy, all under the banner of "efficiency." With the finesse of a toddler in a candy store, Elon Musk has not only wormed his way into pivotal positions within government agencies but seems to think he's running a reality show where he can fire federal workers on a whim. After all, what’s more efficient than a tech mogul treating the federal bureaucracy like his personal plaything? Seriously, should we be surprised Musk's *Department of Government Efficiency* (DOGE, because why not throw in a crypto meme) looks suspiciously like the malevolent offspring of Trump and a Silicon Valley fever dream? More than just a 'guest appearance,' Musk is now orchestrating a hostile takeover of your government, all while proclaiming it’s to “restore democracy from the dictatorship of the bureaucracy.” Irony much?