The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

Donald Trump’s latest attempt to convert the US Postal Service from a mail carrier into a democracy filter just got drop-kicked by a federal judge. Judge Emmet Sullivan blocked a USPS scheme that would have let the agency refuse to deliver ballots in states that didn’t hand over their voter rolls to the feds and reengineer their election procedures on command. Because nothing screams "free and fair elections" like, give DHS your voter list or we’ll hold your ballots hostage.

This brainwave came from a Trump executive order demanding "sweeping changes" to how elections are run nationwide, with USPS drafted as the enforcement arm. The NAACP pointed out that this not only trampled on voting rights, especially for Black voters who disproportionately rely on mail-in ballots, but also straight-up violated a 2021 legal settlement that forces USPS to take extraordinary measures to deliver election mail on time through 2028. The court agreed, extending what was already a multi-state injunction into what looks a lot like a nationwide "stop trying to rig the mail" order.

So on one side: a civil rights group, existing law, and a binding settlement requiring the postal service to help people vote. On the other: Trump, demanding that USPS create "roadblocks" to mail-in voting and threatening to strand ballots unless states cough up voter data to DHS. The administration keeps pitching this as "election integrity"; the courts keep translating it as "authoritarian trash." Turns out even in Trump’s America, you can’t openly conscript the mailman into your voter suppression squad. Yet.

Housing is now so expensive that the typical home costs more than five times the typical family’s income, construction is stalling, and Congress somehow managed a bipartisan bill to speed up homebuilding for the first time in 30 years. Trump took one look at that lifeline and decided it was “of minor importance” unless Congress first hands him a shiny new voter-suppression package: limits on mail-in voting and proof-of-citizenship requirements designed to shave off minority and poor voters. So yes, the president is literally ransoming the roof over your head in exchange for making it harder for you to vote him out. Democracy, but make it extortion.

This is just the latest entry in the “Trump lovingly sets his own base on fire” anthology. Gas prices exploded after his impulsive war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, wiping out the tax-refund sugar high from his One Big Beautiful Bill. He’s simultaneously jacking up power costs by kneecapping solar and wind while AI datacenters guzzle electricity like frat boys at a kegger. Health insurance premiums under the ACA are up 58% on average after he pulled subsidies, millions are projected to lose coverage, food assistance and Medicaid are cut, and farmers — his most loyal counties — get hammered by his trade wars, fertilizer spikes, and immigration raids that gut their workforce. Manufacturing jobs? Down. Male employment? Down by 1.5 million. But hey, at least the tariffs made imported stuff more expensive for everyone.

Now he’s threatening to blow up the USMCA trade pact with Canada and Mexico — even though nine of the ten states most dependent on that trade voted for him — which would invite retaliatory tariffs right on his voters’ heads. The pattern is clear: policy is just a weapon to enrich the Trump family, settle grievances, and lock in power, even if it means methodically wrecking the lives of the people wearing the red hats. Housing, health care, jobs, trade — all negotiable. The only non-negotiable item on the agenda is making sure fewer of the people he’s screwing over are allowed to vote about it.

The National Labor Relations Board, allegedly the top labor watchdog, is now functioning more like a corporate shredder for worker complaints. Since Trump’s second term began, the NLRB has jacked up dismissals of unfair labor practice charges to 34.7% for unions and a staggering 67.4% for individual workers. Apparently the new standard is: if you can’t union-bust legally, just refuse to process the paperwork.

This magic trick didn’t happen by accident. Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the board, then left the agency without a quorum for 345 days, because who needs a functioning labor watchdog when you’ve got CEOs to impress? While Congress hacks away at the budget, regional offices are understaffed by nearly a quarter, over 150 staff fled in 2025, and cases are evaporating thanks to glitches and technicalities in a broken docketing system. The backlog grows, the workforce shrinks, and management pops champagne.

To really put a bow on it, Trump’s handpicked general counsel, Crystal Carey – fresh from the union-avoidance factory at Morgan Lewis – has pushed "settlements" over litigation and jammed through new intake rules that demand workers cough up “substantial evidence” in just two weeks or see their cases tossed. Union election filings promptly fell 30% while the administration tries to cancel collective bargaining agreements for over a million federal workers. The NLRB declined to comment, presumably because "we’re dismantling labor protections on purpose" didn’t test well with the communications team.

Donald Trump, statesman that he is, has decided that US foreign policy toward Italy will now be conducted entirely through imaginary selfies. He told an Italian TV journalist that Giorgia Meloni “begged” him for a photo at the G7 in France, then doubled down on Truth Social, claiming she needed the picture to rescue her sinking poll numbers and that her real crime was not cheering loudly enough for his Iran war. El País helpfully pointed out that what really seems to have upset him was a video of Meloni appearing to scold him — lèse-majesté against the Mar-a-Lago Sun King.

Meloni, suddenly discovering the concept of dignity, released a video saying the whole thing was “made up” and noting that the US president treats allies worse than adversaries. She capped it with: “I do not beg, nor does Italy,” which is a strong line from someone who has spent years politely swallowing Trump’s tariffs, his quasi-abandonment of Ukraine and his general hostility to Europe. Her foreign minister Antonio Tajani even briefly canceled a US-Italy business forum trip, before everyone started frantically taping the alliance back together in time for Trump’s big 250th-birthday-for-America party at the US ambassador’s Rome compound.

The rift, of course, is less about geopolitics and more about everyone’s favorite topic: polling. Trump is furious she wouldn’t line up behind his Iran adventure; Meloni is watching her own numbers crater after voters torched her judicial reform in a referendum, the opposition parties are teaming up, and she’s getting outflanked on the hard right by General-turned-shouter Roberto Vannacci. Picking a fight with Trump — who is wildly unpopular in Italy — lets her cosplay as the proud nationalist who won’t be ordered around by Washington, while stealing oxygen from both the center-left and her even-more-feral rivals.

The best part? Europe’s political class, from Italian hard-righters to Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, rushed to express solidarity with Meloni after Trump tried to publicly humiliate her, basically confirming that yes, the American president does treat allies like disobedient interns. Meloni, meanwhile, is busily pushing changes to Italy’s electoral law to scoop up bonus seats and cling to power — because nothing says “defending Western civilisation” like fiddling with the rules while the world’s most powerful man throws tantrums over a photo that never happened.

Colorado Democrats just finished their version of a talent show where the only event was "Who can say lawless Trump administration with the most conviction?" Attorney General Phil Weiser, the supposed underdog, beat longtime Sen. Michael Bennet in the governor’s primary by pitching himself as the guy who actually sues Trump instead of just sadly shaking his head on C-SPAN.

Weiser’s big sell: Congress, including Bennet, has been a decorative plant while Trump runs a "lawless, bullying administration." Bennet tried to clap back by pointing out that Weiser sat out some of the early lawsuits over Trump’s child-separation policy, which is a fun reminder that the moral high ground in this race is basically, "I tried to stop the president from ripping kids from their parents slightly more than the other guy." Weiser counters with his 50+ lawsuits against the administration, while Bennet brings his proud record of voting for only eight of Trump’s Cabinet picks because nothing says resistance like approving part of the authoritarian staffing chart.

Both campaigns carpet-bombed the airwaves with anti-Trump ads, promising to protect Colorado from the same federal government Bennet is still going to be working in until 2029. Weiser heads into the general as the favorite in a state that hasn’t elected a GOP governor in over 20 years, while Bennet returns to Washington to continue bravely not checking the president he just spent months calling dangerous. American checks and balances, now available mostly in campaign commercials.

Acting attorney general Todd Blanche – formerly known as Trump’s personal lawyer and now apparently the nation’s chief document shredder – is under court order to cough up unredacted Epstein files about "Jane Doe 4", one of the only alleged Epstein victims to directly accuse Trump of assaulting her when she was a young teenager. Instead of complying, the Justice Department is frantically lawyering up and inventing new ways to pretend 2.5 million records are just vibes and "duplicates". The Biden-era FBI already sat on her allegations; the Trump-era DOJ is now treating transparency like it’s classified nuclear launch codes.

Meanwhile, Jane Doe 4 is "off the grid" and terrified of retaliation from the Trump administration, because nothing says "totally baseless accusations" like the alleged victim having to hide while the president’s fixer-turned-AG personally manages which files the public is allowed to see. A judge reminded DOJ that the Epstein Transparency Act doesn’t let them bury evidence just because it’s politically embarrassing, so Blanche’s team helpfully responded by… adding the department’s #3 official, Stanley Woodward, to the case to fight harder against disclosure.

Victims’ names and compromising photos were accidentally exposed in the chaotic 3-million-document dump, but potential co-conspirators and Epstein’s powerful pen pals? Magically retracted. The only people to see the FBI’s handwritten notes on Jane Doe 4’s interviews are a couple of reporters working off an unnamed source, while DOJ still refuses to release them as required by law. So the scoreboard reads: alleged child victim in hiding, Trump nominee in charge of the evidence, and a Justice Department arguing that protecting reputations somehow outranks the statute that explicitly says they can’t do exactly that. American justice is doing great.