The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The Supreme Court, also known as the Federalist Society’s long-term investment portfolio, is starting a new term featuring all the Trump-era greatest hits: climate collapse, deportation machinery, and more guns than a Call of Duty lobby. On day one, they’ll hear Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, a seemingly “technical” case that just happens to decide whether states and cities are allowed to make oil giants pay for torching the planet, or whether Exxon and friends get permanent immunity because climate change is just too big to be anyone’s fault. Corporate lawyers are already warning that if they lose, fossil fuel companies might face something horrifying called “accountability,” which they characterize as a stealth carbon tax and potential bankruptcy, rather than what normal people call “paying for the damage you caused.”

While Justice Alito is recusing himself from this one (apparently owning other oil stocks is now his ethical high-water mark), the broader Trump-era project is still humming along: funnel environmental catastrophe into federal preemption, keep Congress useless, and let the Court decide which laws corporations actually have to follow. And that’s just the opener. Also queued up: religious institutions demanding taxpayer money while rejecting nondiscrimination rules, and gun cases testing how many AR-15s can dance on the head of a 6–3 supermajority. The term hasn’t even started and the Court is already poised to keep doing what it does best: strain democracy, shield power, and call it constitutional interpretation.

Out in Vandalia, Ohio, President Donald Trump packed a high school gym to maybe three-quarters capacity so he could explain that the midterms are actually about the only candidate who really matters: Donald Trump. He promised Republicans a "big surprise" this November, which is definitely what you want to hear from a guy who already tried to litigate and intimidate his way out of an election loss. Nothing says healthy democracy like the president hinting at mystery outcomes if the numbers don’t go his way.

The rally was nominally for Sen. Jon Husted and gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, but quickly devolved into the usual loyalty festival. Trump bragged that when he’s on the ballot Republicans win, and when he’s not, turnout drops by 44%, then instructed fans to just pretend he’s running so they’ll bother to vote. GOP leaders like Alex Triantafilou dutifully nodded along, openly admitting their entire strategy is to activate low-propensity Trump superfans while polls show both Trump and his Iran war are widely unpopular. Governance is secondary; the important thing is feeding the cult enough red meat to drag them to a polling place.

Meanwhile, Republicans and their billionaire super PAC friends are lighting $93 million on fire to keep Husted’s Senate seat, while his opponent, Sherrod Brown, drives a mobile billboard around Dayton reminding everyone that Husted backed Trump’s Iran adventure and higher gas prices. Trump tried to help by mocking Brown for not being an athlete, because nothing reassures families worried about war and inflation like the president doing high-school jock humor from a half-empty set of bleachers.

So the "big surprise" Trump is teasing? Maybe it’s that the self-styled strongman has to beg people to imagine his name on the ballot just to keep the illusion of political dominance alive. Or maybe it’s that the party that built an entire movement around one man is now terrified that, without him literally on the ballot, his voters will stay home and let democracy accidentally function for a cycle.

The Trump-era TSA has bravely identified the real threat to aviation security: chairs. Airport security officers who check your ID and boarding pass will now be banned from sitting down, because nothing says "vital national security function" like forcing underpaid workers to stand on concrete for hours until their joints revolt. A TSA spokesperson wrapped this in corporate hostage-speak about "alertness" and "hospitality", as if the agency just discovered Disneyland, but with more pat-downs and fewer basic ergonomics.

The union representing TSA officers calls this what it is: a "disregard for employee rights and safety" and part of a broader pattern of contempt for the people actually keeping planes from exploding. This comes after a 76-day Trump shutdown where officers worked without pay, watched colleagues quit, and saw security lines balloon while the president used their livelihoods as a bargaining chip, then swooped in with a late pay order like a game show host handing out consolation prizes.

Meanwhile, the administration is busy pushing to privatize airport security checkpoints at more airports, and the union is lawyering up to fight it. So the sequence is: underfund, shut down, deny chairs, burn out the workforce, then claim the public sector "doesn't work" and hand the keys to private contractors. The AFGE is openly calling this a "regime" trying to "take out our workforce through whichever means possible"—which, under Trump, apparently includes weaponized OSHA violations masquerading as patriotism.