It’s been a while, and a lot has happened. Too much to cover! For this piece, I landed on a theme for this administration and these times, a theme that had been swirling around in my head for a while as I watched shitty events unfold at a manic pace: cruel & stupid. 

There’s four topics covered in this article, each attempting to tie into that theme: the attempted remaking and politicization of the military, the odd debate around the political assassinations in Minnesota, the ongoing immigration crackdown, and last but certainly not least, WAR.

Enjoy!!!!

Well, we’re some five months into this administration, and it’s been over three months since the last Finagler update. Months seem to move like years with this regime, so a truly insane amount of noise has been generated in that time. Issues, stories, controversies, people come and go, here and out front one day and then gone seemingly into oblivion the next, though not really of course - usually they remain lurking in the shadows doing their dastardly deeds, but just successfully out of sight and out of mind, replaced by the next flashy thing…

Now, why is that? Is it because the administration is just doing so much? Is it just a general sense of chaos amongst the media and the populace? Orrrrr, perhaps, is the bug a feature - incessant cacophony by design, designed to overwhelm and stymie any potential for concerted and meaningful response or counter-action?

STEVE BANNON LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, talking about Trump World strategy against the media:

“All we have to do is flood the zone. Every day, we hit them with three things. They'll bite on one, and we'll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang. These guys will never be able to recover, but we got to start with muzzle velocities.”

Right… so as has become characteristic for The Finagler’s coverage of this administration, there will be no attempt to catch up on all events that have occurred or to cover every topic - there will be no fervent and disoriented chasing of phantoms and specters in the night mist. No, there will instead be choice selection of stories to highlight the absurdity and egregious flailing about of this regime, along with commentary to try to capture the essence of these times… and so for this issue, that essence is:

CRUEL AND STUPID! Cruelty and stupidity. You know, there’s kind and smart, lovely; there’s kind and stupid, generally harmless; there’s cruel and smart, extremely dangerous but useful in some circumstances perhaps; and then there’s… cruel and stupid. No redeeming qualities. Just malicious and inept. A blunt object being swung about with aimless disdain. And isn’t that a real pleasure?

So here we go…


From the Associated Press: HEGSETH DIRECTS 20% CUT TO TOP MILITARY LEADERSHIP POSITIONS

Also, from CBS News: HEGSETH ORDERS MAKEUP STUDIO INSTALLED AT PENTAGON

It’s good to finally have a real warfighter at the head of the Pentagon, no?

If this juxtaposition rubs you the wrong way, as the latter CBS News article felt it may with “the price tag for the project was several thousand dollars, according to two of the sources, at a time when the administration is searching for cost-cutting measures,” fear not! Hegseth is laser-focused on frugality and lethality, for as a defense official told CBS News, “Hegseth is doing his own makeup ahead of TV appearances, not paying for a makeup artist.” Well, that settles that then. My mind and soul are at ease. Cut the brass and let our Secretary of Defense apply his own warpaint before appearing on daytime television, GODDAMMIT, this is THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE!

Brave, indeed. Bravo, Secretary Hegseth, for defying gender norms. You know, when the administration rolled out its ban on transgender troops, I thought there might be some kind of REGRESSIVE POLICY developing! But now when I see Secretary Hegseth’s admirably progressive positions on cisgendered men not only wearing, but doing their own makeup, I feel reassured. I can rest easy on the issue of gender equality in our war fighting apparatus. Which is of course in the first place, the primary issue on most Americans’ minds when it comes to questions of WAR AND PEACE.

Certainly more in the forefront of the nation’s mind than such lesser moves as Hegseth’s recent direction for the military to cut 20% of its four-star general officers, 10% of its general and flag officers, and 20% of top National Guard positions. Efficiency! Don’t you get it? Cuts automatically lead to efficiency, because there are less people SIPHONING OFF OUR VALUABLE TAX DOLLARS, and so the remaining people simply have to operate BETTER to pick up the slack! This always works well in the corporate world, no? Do all workers not love this?

“Well, Barry, see, we’re downsizing.”

“Am I being fired?”

“What!?” insincere laughter. “No, Barry, no - but we have had to let 64% of your team go.”

“So who’s going to do their work?”

“Well, Barry, that’s why I called you in here. Think of this as an opportunity to excel.”

“… Will I be compensated for taking on these additional roles?”

Sincere laughter. “Ha! Barry, oh Barry, you are funny. I knew I liked you; that’s why you’re still here. Barry, be glad you have a job. Say, you mind stepping out and we can pick this up later? I’m getting a call…”

Barry returns to his desk and, with a fire burning passionately in his heart and a deep feeling of gratitude bubbling up deep within, he begins to OPTIMIZE and shortly thereafter is working at 600% of his prior efficiency, with 1000% the satisfaction!

Right! And while this is now the plight of countless federal workers across multiple agencies thanks to DOGE & Vought et al, it comes with particular potential for a much darker undertone in the military, because once we get past the clear stupidity in the fallacy in thinking that cuts must lead to efficiency, there is the question of - just which officers are going to be fired? Is it just going to be more black and women officers, as has already been done under the guise of eliminating those who have benefited from and/or support DEI policies? Is it going to be a random smattering to meet the arbitrary quota? Or is it going to be any and all who are deemed as insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump the Man, the issue arising with the potential for their being hung up on such outdated and annoying concepts as the military oath, the Constitution, and the potential legality and morality of orders?

More succinctly: is this just going to be an attempted purge of those who are seen as possibly valuing Country over Man? Of those who the administration believes may be tempted to resist illegal and immoral orders due to their having a moral compass? Or, as the administration will likely put it… those who aren’t REAL WARFIGHTERS!!? After all, Trump’s love for “real warfighters” is what began Hegseth’s path to being Secretary of Defense.

I do not want to digress too far into the past, but it’s worth a brief review here to provide concrete examples of the points in question. Who will be dismissed from the military brass? Who will be promoted? How are these moves meant to shift the ethos of the military? Who do Trump and Hegseth see as “real warfighters”? Well, back during Trump 1.0, when Hegseth was a prestigious co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, we find a few interesting scenarios…

Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance suspected a group of unarmed Afghan civilians of being insurgents and ordered his soldiers to open fire during a military operation in 2012. He was subsequently convicted in a military court for the murder of two of these Afghan men. He served six years of a 19-year sentence before being pardoned by Trump in 2019. Hegseth had lobbied for the pardon.

Army Green Beret Major Mathew Golsteyn was charged with murdering an unarmed Afghan man. He believed the man was a Taliban bomb-maker responsible for killing U.S. troops when he killed him in 2010, admitted to killing him and burning the body during a CIA interview in 2011, was subsequently investigated by the Army, and was finally not charged due to insufficient evidence, though his medal was stripped and he was removed from the special forces… then, however, during a 2016 interview on Fox News, Golsteyn again admitted to killing the man. The Army went on to open another investigation and ultimately charged him with premeditated murder in December 2018. Shortly thereafter, Trump tweeted, “At the request of many, I will be reviewing the case of a “U.S. Military hero,” Major Matt Golsteyn, who is charged with murder. He could face the death penalty from our own government after he admitted to killing a Terrorist bomb maker while overseas.” He tagged Hegseth and Fox News at the end of the Tweet. Hegseth later interviewed Golsteyn on his show in February 2019. Trump pardoned Golsteyn in November 2019.

Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher was charged by the Navy for crimes including shooting civilians in Iraq, killing a teenage Islamic State prisoner with a knife, and threatening to kill fellow SEALs if they reported him. Hegseth lobbied for Gallagher, interviewing Gallagher’s brother on his Fox show in November 2018. Gallagher’s brother asked Trump to review the case during that interview. Gallagher was ultimately acquitted of murder by a military jury but found guilty of posing for photographs with the deceased body. The Navy subsequently demoted him as punishment. Trump reversed the demotion. The Navy then moved to start the process of taking away Gallagher’s Trident pin and expelling him from the SEALs. Trump again intervened, tweeting, “The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!” Gallagher kept his pin and reposted Trump’s tweet on Instagram with the caption “Boom” followed by a series of explosion, flag, and applause emojis…

BOOM BOOM BOOM BITCHES! REAL MUHFUKN WARFIGHTERS!!! AIN’T NOBODY FUKN W OUR MUHFUKN COUNTRY BOIIIIIIII 😤😤🦅💥🇺🇸👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻 - a press release from the Department of Defense, soon, probably.

Now look, I understand that war is awful and complex and extremely gray, gray in ways that neither I or my very extensive staff here at The Finagler can fully comprehend as we have not been in war. Accordingly, I understand there is an argument that perhaps these three men were pursued unfairly, or at least overzealously. There are dark things that need to be done in war, and impossible decisions that have to be made in impossible situations - it’s hard to pass judgment on those decisions from the comfort of an armchair. And I understand that the President as Commander in Chief has ultimate authority over the military. Yes, real and necessary disclaimers.

But then, there are two primary questions - first, should the military not be left to pursue its own military justice amongst its members, through its own internal processes and procedures? Isn’t that why the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the court martial exist? Back in 2019, then Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy argued pardoning the three men would undermine the military code of justice and would serve as a bad example to other troops in the field. Which leads to the second and larger question we’ve already been pondering…

Just who do Trump, Hegseth, and their compatriots see as the “real warfighters” - is it those that “get it done”, no matter what? Those that won’t get hung up on petty affairs like legality and morality, extrajudicial killings and civilian casualties? Those that can make the split second decisions with an emphasis on LETHALITY above all? FUCK RED TAPE and those who try to enforce it! See, we shouldn’t tie the hands of the REAL WARRIORS; we must let them do WHATEVER they need to do, HOWEVER they need to do it! Now let’s purge the brass of those fucking pansies who have any objections and make sure only the REAL TOUGH ONES remain for the wars to come!!! REAL WARFIGHTER MENTALITY!!!

A true change in ethos has to start at the top, after all. Policy for the rank and file trickles down and disseminates out from leadership. Hegseth and Trump are now remaking the military leadership, of course with themselves at the top as Secretary of Defense and Commander in Chief. And Hegseth and Trump have let us know quite clearly what kind of leaders they are…

HEAVY, MAN! And since writing the above in late May and early June, we have some highly relevant PRIME EXEMPLARS of the fast-paced overwhelming nature with which events unfold under this administration. There is the National Guard and Marines deployment to Los Angeles in response to anti-ICE protests, thus far a delicate dance of questionable legality with troops being responsible for protecting federal buildings, not civilian law enforcement. There was also a fascinating episode at Fort Bragg where the Army selected a crowd of soldiers to attend Trump’s speech based on partisan allegiance and physical appearance so they could cheer on the President enthusiastically and even buy MERCH! It really is all about merch sales at the end of the day, no? And then of course, most recently, Trump’s military parade in DC… the analyses are still rolling in, but it’s largely been deemed a semi-to-full flop, and in my personal opinion, this is primarily because the Army went their own direction with the spectacle - more Army history, a rolling museum to celebrate the branch’s 250th birthday, than ULTIMATE FANFARE to celebrate the DEAR LEADER on his 79th birthday.

And so, we can see the attempted politicization of the military unfolding before our eyes - this administration does not hold anything sacred, and certainly not the lofty idea of a professional apolitical military, answerable to and under the command of the President as Commander in Chief, but with an ultimate oath to the Constitution - to higher, foundational ideals. Certainly not the idea that a Commander in Chief should not force them to choose between the two, for moral reasons, sure, but also for the simple fact that the Commander in Chief - the President - is also upholding the Constitution. No, it seems the administration would prefer a military of REAL WARFIGHTERS that is loyal to them rather than the country. And to do so, I suspect this administration would like to bring that potential rift between that high end of the chain of command and the greater oath to the forefront, to deepen it and tear it further, to erode longstanding traditions and force the issue to make the military at large choose to follow orders over oath, to make the concept of morality incompatible with REAL WARFIGHTING.

Well, we’ll see. It’s not all doom and gloom as I tend to doubt that the military will just roll over to any egregious attempt to force it down a road it has no desire to traverse, but the direction that the administration is attempting to lead in is itself deeply concerning.


Well, what else? Most recently, we have the terror in Minnesota - targeted political assassinations. State representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed; state senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were shot multiple times and survived. These were not actions taken in public, a high-powered rifle from a covert vantage point at a high-profile event on a public roster, horrific but not unknown in our country. No, the killer, Vance Luther Boelter, disguised himself as a police officer and attacked the victims in their homes in the dead of night. It’s a different kind of political violence than we’re used to in America, and it’s an extremely dark turn for the country.

While the full details of it all aren’t publicly available yet, both politicians were members of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and information suggests the killer was extremely anti-abortion and anti-LGBT. At this point, it appears the killer was a Trump supporter and some kind of security company employee who had previously preached in the Democratic Republic of Congo, shouting in that distinct evangelical preacher style about the horrors of the LGBT phenomenon. Police found a list in his hastily abandoned knockoff cop car with some 70 targets that included other Democratic politicians and doctors who provided abortions. Oh, and let’s not forget that his wife was detained during the manhunt, headed north with three relatives, a weapon, ammunition, cash, and passports. Are we getting the picture of his political and ideological motivations?

The killer had also been previously appointed by democratic Minnesota governor and former VP candidate Tim Walz to a state workforce development board. This board is a mundane governmental advisory board created by Minnesota law… let’s see, their mission is to “analyze and recommend workforce development policies to the governor and legislature toward talent development, resource alignment and system effectiveness to ensure a globally competitive workforce for Minnesota.” There are 41 board members appointed by the governor along with two state representatives and two state senators. Right. Has this paragraph fascinated and enthralled? NO!? Well, you’re clearly missing the OBVIOUS INSIDIOUS IMPLICATIONS!!

A (state workforce development board) WALZ APPOINTEE!!!! A DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE!!!! A FAR LEFT LUNATIC!!!! Don’t you see? He was a PLANT - THIS WAS A FALSE FLAG!! That old video of him preaching anti-LGBT shit in Africa?? YEARS LONG PSY OP BABY! Or maybe a deepfake… whatever, the details don’t matter. Just ask our disgraced former Certainly Not Our President Elon Musk, who chose to respond to a tweet saying the left was responsible for these killings and the left had become a full blown domestic terrorist organization with, “The far left is murderously violent.” Or Utah senator Mike Lee! Lee offered a condemnation of violence and prayers from his official Twitter account, then let his real thoughts be known from the personal account, tweeting a picture of the killer and “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way.” Or how about Trump himself, who also offered an official condemnation before moving on to call governor Walz “a terrible governor” and “a grossly incompetent person” adding “I may call him, I may call other people too.” Nice! And then of course there is the general internet discourse, the shit you find sifting through comments on Twitter and other similar locales, what’s loose in the ~ether~… a large portion of MAGA world has decided the killer is a leftist, facts be damned. And that is the story.

Stupid, and callous to the point of cruelty. And, really more so than any debate as to the killer’s ideological motivations, we should really just be concerned with the act itself - this is political violence. This is political murder due to extreme polarization. This man, the killer, was convinced that those politicians were others, rather than fellow countrymen from a different political faction. It’s an isolated event, sure, but it’s severe enough that its impact should be universally chilling… that kind of thinking is what leads to the breakdown of civil society and functioning government - it’s what leads to civil war. Instead, the murders are almost brushed aside as just another gruesome event in this wild land, an occurrence rather than an act, and the debate around them becomes another flashpoint… Why did he do it? And emphatically not, what does it mean? And, how did we end up here?

THINGS ARE GETTING HOT, HOT, HOT!! And no one in power really seems to care. The culture continues to embrace hustle and grind, own the other side, FUCK EM, GET YOURS, AT ANY COST! You feel your blood start to boil!? Let your emotions run HIGH and then let them guide you completely - it’s all just based on a feeling. There is nothing else. It’s all just down to the basest of feelings and notions, turbulent emotions. And why not? If we finally have all agreed to admit this thing of ours is one big rat race, well, there’s no room for honor in that is there?




Well, what else? We must touch on immigration, no? In our last article we talked about Mahmoud Khalil and executive order 14188 targeting foreign students with visas, though certainly not based on their speech! So much has occurred since then as the administration has made the immigration crackdown one of their biggest policy priorities. ICE raids have become a constant occurrence - we’ve seen ICE agents snatch immigrants from courthouses; we’ve seen the arrest of judges accused of aiding some of those immigrants or obstructing their arrests. We see ICE agents in plain clothes and masks, no warrant, no identification, snatching people off the street and carting them away to difficult-to-trace detention facilities. We’ve seen the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador to be housed in the dystopian mega-prison that President Bukele built for his draconian gang crackdown. We’ve seen some of those people wrongfully deported; we’ve seen court battles; we’ve seen court orders delayed and ignored by the administration. The detentions and deportations have been extensive enough that BIG BUSINESS has started to complain about labor shortages, the farm and hospitality lobbies in particular - Trump promised exceptions, but then reneged just as quickly. We’ve seen agents detain and arrest democratic politicians who have the audacity to question them or demand entry to detainment facilities. We have Stephen Miller, the mastermind of the cruelty portion of the whole crackdown, suggest that the administration is looking at suspending habeas corpus. That’s right. And accordingly, we have Trump continuing to flirt with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act and bringing the whole untethered weight of the federal government and military down on all those who oppose - what used to be the fantasized final boss battle for a certain type of conservative has now become a kind of sick wet dream for those converted MAGA hardliners… “As long as it’s not me getting fucked, I’d love to watch!” Yeah, I bet.

It’s too much to cover here. So instead, let’s look at a couple instances where the administration has doubled down after a loss or a setback, instances that highlight the vindictive nature of this immigration crackdown - punitive actions that are cruel by definition, and stupid by sheer amount of resources expended to pursue an end that does not serve the national interest.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was the main story for a period of time - he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador where he was imprisoned, and his legal battle made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where the justices ruled that the administration must facilitate his return. The administration had refused to do so all along, and even then they stonewalled and delayed. Garcia was first detained by ICE on March 12th, deported a few days later, and not returned to the US until June 6th. During that time, the story went from the top headline to a distant back burner, showing the short attention span of the press and the inundation of new stories that the administration brings on. And during that time, the administration openly challenged and defied multiple judges and the Supreme Court, though Trump danced carefully with his language there, and it all went unanswered. But what I specifically want to highlight here - when the administration finally obeyed the Supreme Court order and brought Garcia back to the country, they immediately charged him with transporting undocumented people, continued to accuse him of being a member of MS-13, and are still keeping him in custody. The charges are of questionable merit - based on a traffic stop in 2022 that was never followed up on until now.

So the administration has dug as deep as they can to find something to charge this man with - this random El Salvadoran man that had been living in Maryland. The entire weight of the United States Justice Department is being thrown onto him because the administration is embarrassed and angry. The administration fucked up, talked big shit, and then had to climb down. They hate that - it’s a petty, vindictive emotion. Embarrassment becomes anger; petulance arises when they’re told what to do; Trump feels betrayed by what he sees as his own Supreme Court Justices. And so we get a spurious case backed by extensive federal government resources being thrown against a man that, in reality, poses no threat to the average American or to this country. It’s a vendetta, and honestly, even if Garcia was transporting undocumented people, I don’t think most people really give a shit - certainly not to the extent to justify the fucking federal government to pursue this random immigrant so doggedly. That in and of itself is stupid, and yes, cruel.

Mahmoud Khalil was finally released from detention - he was held from March 8th to June 20th, during which time his baby was born. Land of the free! If you’ll recall, Khalil had his legal residency revoked because he had led pro-Palestinian and anti-war protests at Columbia University. He was taken into custody by ICE and carted away to Louisiana for detention, a place where an immigration judge may have an approach a bit more in line with the administration’s. Well, fortunately for Khalil, his attorneys had filed his habeas corpus petition while he was still detained in New Jersey, and the case was transferred to a federal judge there, Judge Farbiarz. The administration, naturally, requested to move the habeas corpus case to Louisiana or dismiss it, a request that Judge Farbiarz denied. Now, confusingly, while the habeas corpus petition was being considered in New Jersey, Khalil’s immigration case was being considered by a separate entity in Louisiana - by an immigration judge, Judge Comans. Note that immigration judges are actually employees of the executive branch and not the judiciary. So essentially, Judge Farbiarz was considering the constitutionality of the government’s case, while Judge Comans was only focused on whether Khalil could be legally removed from the United States.

Right, so remember, Khalil had not actually been charged with a crime - the government had revoked his residency and was attempting to deport him based solely on the assertion that his "presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” So, for good measure, shortly after the habeas corpus petition was assigned to Judge Farbiarz, the government asserted that Khalil had willfully failed to disclose material information when he had applied for a green card in 2024. BOOM! CRIME!

Now did Khalil withhold information at that time? I’m not sure, and as with Garcia driving a van full of undocumented immigrants in 2022, I don’t really care. Why not? Because I do not support the federal government bringing its entire weight and vast resources down upon people that have not committed any serious crime. It’s like an arrest for jaywalking. Is it technically illegal? Yes. Does it actually matter? No. Does the average person care at all or want the government to use resources to go after it? No. But hardliners can use it to pursue, persecute, and prosecute people that they aren’t capable of “getting” otherwise. “We couldn’t catch you doing the thing we accused you of, so we’re just gonna grab ya for something else bub.” It’s disingenuous and malicious.

From there, things become legally complex… First, the immigration side. In essence, skipping a lot of finer legal points that are murky to those of us who aren’t lawyers, Judge Comans denied an asylum request by Khalil and has ruled that Khalil can be deported from the United States based on the government’s allegations of immigration fraud. Khalil can now appeal within the immigration system. A couple highlights from the immigration court side of things include the government submitting a memo stating that Khalil should be deported due to "past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful", and the assertion that Khalil’s being uncooperative with ICE agents during his initial detainment gave them reason to believe that he would escape, creating an exigent circumstance, allowing them to arrest him without a warrant. So how’s that? “He didn’t break the law, but he said some things that we didn’t like, and then when we went to arrest him without a warrant, he wasn’t stoked, so that gave us reason to arrest him.”

From the habeas corpus side, Judge Farbiarz ruled that the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act under which the government sought to deport Khalil is likely unconstitutional, did not rule on whether the government had infringed on Khalil’s First Amendment rights, and said that Khalil’s lawyers had not provided sufficient information to refute the government’s allegations of withholding information on his green card application, though he gave them additional time to address that charge. There was some wrangling over his continuing to be held over those withholding information charges, but Judge Farbiarz ultimately ordered on June 20th that Khalil be released. He had to surrender his passport and limit his travel to a handful of pre-approved states.

Farbiarz has said, “There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish Mr. Khalil, and of course that would be unconstitutional,” and has additionally called the government’s efforts to continue to detain Khalil, “highly, highly, highly unusual.”

The administration has said, "There is no basis for a local federal judge in New Jersey —who lacks jurisdiction — to order Khalil’s release from a detention facility in Louisiana. We expect to be vindicated on appeal.” A tactic seen with Garcia - snatch and grab, rendition the person to some other place that better suits, then claim the judge back wherever ordering release has no jurisdiction based on the person’s current location!

So, after over three months, Khalil is finally out of detention, but the legal battles continue, and deportation still hangs over his head. The administration arrested him without a warrant for what is clearly his right to free speech, transported him to Louisiana, and entered into deportation proceedings. When a legal challenge was filed, they brought spurious immigration fraud charges against him. Let’s break that down one last time here - the administration asserted the absolute right to revoke Khalil’s residency and deport him based on his potential to have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” They beat their chest about it. But then, as soon as they were challenged on this, they finagled some immigration fraud charges into the picture, and stated that’s why they were continuing to hold and seek the deportation of Khalil. See, it’s personal and vindictive and so the only point is to punish and get rid of Khalil by making any argument necessary. It’s not about principle; it’s not about serving the interests of the country or prosecuting crime. The administration doesn’t like the guy and what he stands for, so they’re throwing shit at the wall and seeing what will stick.

Is that how we want our government to operate? Petty, punitive, contradictory… using any vague and forgotten statute possible to achieve its aims, arguing vigorously against the right to free speech after lambasting those who oppose free speech, rolling out sleazy tactics and justifications to arrest without a warrant, to rendition people into remote jurisdictions that better suit their goals, fighting hard to prevent a man from attending the birth of his child, and of course, expending vast time and resources to do it all. Extremely cruel, and almost impressively stupid. An administration and a government willing to do whatever it takes to achieve some hyper-focused vindictive end game on individuals who stand in opposition to them… they’re just tired of our rights standing in their way.


Alright, ONE MORE TOPIC for this article! And it’s a real joy. Something new and never seen before. Something ORIGINAL and EXCITING!! Something we’re all gonna love!!

WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST!!!!! WOOOOO!!! WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!! That’s right, WMDZ BABY! A ROGUE REGIME, AN AXIS OF EVIL PERHAPS??? MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ANYONE??? RUN IT BACKKKKK BITCHES!!! For who doesn’t love a sequel after all? Especially when the original was such a universal resounding hit. Why not continue THE FUN??



Well, there’s some 55,000 people dead in Gaza. Hamas committed an atrocity when they attacked Israel in October 2023. And of course Israel has a right to respond. But uh… 55,000?? The place is a field of rubble and the people are starving and getting shot and killed while they’re lining up for food… because they’re starving. To death. Amidst the rubble. From the bombs.

Right, and during this war, Israel has destroyed much of Hamas’ leadership and offensive capabilities. After some missile exchanges with Hezbollah, they decapitated its leadership and destroyed much of the Lebanese militia’s capabilities. Meanwhile, the Assad regime in Syria finally fell and a rebel coalition took over the country, generally broadcasting a message that they didn’t want to interfere with the outside world and don’t want the outside world to interfere with them. The Houthis continued to occasionally enter the fray from Yemen, and then finally there were some exchanges with Iran directly. Well, it turns out that in those exchanges, Israel apparently destroyed large portions of Iranian aerial defense systems.

The Iranian regime’s so-called axis of resistance had been severely degraded, with portions essentially neutered completely. Their land bridge from Iran to the Israeli border, ironically aided years ago by the United States installation of a Shiite government in Iraq, was broken when the Assad regime fell. Missile movements through that bridge to Hezbollah operatives in Syria and then Lebanon had been one of their greatest strategic advantages, and one of the greatest threats to Israel.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration was apparently attempting to negotiate some kind of nuclear deal with Iran. Shockingly, sufficient progress on an Iran nuclear deal was not being made by the administration that had blown up… the Iran nuclear deal, during Trump 1.0.

Well, with all this as the backdrop, Israel decided to attack Iran. The Israeli government claimed that Iran was extremely close to being able to produce a nuclear bomb. American intelligence did not agree, but Trump disregarded this, choosing to side with Netanyahu.

So then came the will-he-won’t-he debate - will Trump get in this thing? Netanyahu, ever the politician, crafted his messaging to the President with PRECISION-GUIDANCE, striking a tone that ranged from patriotic to sycophantic, which is of course Donald Trump’s love language. Trump issued contradictory statements as he loves to do; we weren’t involved in Israeli strikes, but we were informed, and now maybe we’ll do it, maybe not, possibly, gotta feel out the vibes, I’ll decide later…

And then, on June 21st, just in time to kick us off for a HOT HOT HOT SUMMER, he made the decision and we bombed Iran. Nice! Using B-2 stealth bombers equipped with massive ordnance penetrators and submarines launching Tomahawk missiles, we bombed three nuclear sites. Iran did not return fire, likely because they were unable to. And there we have it; and here we are.

Let’s begin with a portion of Trump’s announcement on Truth Social: “A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

A FULL PAYLOAD OF BOMBS WAS DROPPED! ~stop~ NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!

Isn’t that a beautiful juxtaposition? Isn’t that just the very essence of the foreign policy way of the American hawk, of the military industrial complex that brought us Afghanistan and Iraq? WAR EAGLE BABY! WE’RE GONNA BOMB YA, AND THEN YER GONNA LOVE US!!! HEARTS N MINDS!

But wait - what’s this? Trump via Tweet in 2013, “Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly-not skilled!”

Oh no!

Trump campaigned heavily on no more foreign wars - no more unnecessary military adventurism causing the loss of American blood and treasure, as they say. Trump and the majority of Republicans, at least MAGA-aligned and adjacent Republicans, had long decried American support to Ukraine, equivocating Russian invasion with Ukrainian resistance and saying simply that the war needed to end. There’s too much risk of a wider conflict, of a nuke going off, of World War 3! Well, ok. Let’s just accept that for a moment. We have a supposed anti-war candidate and anti-war movement ~ AMERICA FIRST ~ saying we need to focus on our own interests. No more involvement in these myriad overseas disputes.

Right, well, here we are again. It seems Trump just couldn’t resist the temptation in the end - Netanyahu said he could change history! Iran kept talking shit! The military parade was a flop! And those planes and subs and bombs… they’re just so cool. Just so ~~badass~~~ ;) ;)

In watching the news coverage today, the day after what has been dubbed OPERATION MIDNIGHT HAMMER, this seems to be a common theme: it’s just so badass. The news channels are putting up stats and infographics about the raid, and the pundits are emphasizing the impressive amount of machinery that took part: 125 aircraft! Seven stealth bombers! Multiple fighter jets! Dozens of air refueling tankers! SUBMARINES!! 75 PRECISION-GUIDED BOMBS!!! FOURTEEN MASSIVE ORDNANCE PENETRATORS!!!!! THE FIRST-EVER OPERATIONAL USE OF THIS WEAPONNNNNNNN FUUUUUCCCKKKKKKK AHHHHHH

Salivation. Meanwhile, Iran and Israel continue to exchange fire, and the administration is messaging to Iran that they had better not strike at American interests, or things will be much worse. And why would they? As the administration is now telling us repeatedly, this was a limited strike. As JD Vance said this morning, “We are not at war with Iran. We are at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”

And isn’t that a nice distinction. Of course, it remains to be seen if the country that was bombed agrees with the sentiment. That’s the thing about military action and escalation - you can’t control the response. And if the response causes a certain amount of death or damage, the government will feel that it requires another response. And so on and so forth, and then you have a war that neither side really wanted. And then you have death and destruction for the people. Generally speaking, all those decision makers that directed all those responses will be just fine. It’s the ordinary people that suffer and die.

Well, we’ll see what happens. Iran of course knows their limitations in a military conflict with the U.S., so it’s unclear what course they’ll really take, despite the harsh rhetoric coming from the regime. But I think the point right now is in the hypocrisy of it all - the hypocrisy of Trump and his administration to run as anti-war, to criticize the Ukraine war as having the potential to drag us into a major war, and then to so quickly take a completely voluntary risk that could thrust us into… a major war. The hypocrisy of the Israeli government and our government to begin bombing a sovereign nation, justified or not, and then tell that nation that they had better chill the fuck out or there will be consequences. It’s punching somebody in the face and then telling them they had better calm down or there will be a fight. We can keep debating the strategic objectives and the intelligence, but the whole thing is hypocritical and disingenuous, and as usual, the government and the media are rallying around the flag and the irresistible idea of military prowess - WHAT AN IMPRESSIVE OPERATION! WHAT A BADASS MILITARY! WHAT A HIT ON THE BAD GUYS!

Sure. I have no love for the Iranian regime, for a repressive and radical theocracy, and Israel certainly has a case to make when that regime repeatedly calls for their annihilation. But I think the American people are overwhelmingly tired of becoming involved in foreign wars, in wars that benefit the elites and not the people, and I know Trump ran on that sentiment. So what the fuck are we doing? As of now, there is very clearly insufficient proof that this is in our interest. The military industrial complex, the foreign policy hawks, the Israeli lobby, yeah - but The American People? I’m not seeing it.

And to close this topic, in classic fashion, after a day of administration officials, including the Vice President, making the media rounds with a carefully crafted message - “These were limited strikes! This is only about the nuclear program! This is not about regime change! We do not seek a wider war! Iran, it is therefore in your interests to NOT strike back!” We have our Dear Leader, taking to his Truth Social, with this profound statement:

“It’s not politically correct to use the term ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”

Sensational. Cruel, and at its very core, stupid.

EDITOR’S NOTE!!! Later in the evening (Monday, June 23rd) after finishing and posting this article, Trump took to Truth Social once again, this time to suddenly announce that a ceasefire deal had been reached and would begin in about six hours, after Israel and Iran had completed their in progress final missions… he dubbed their war “THE 12 DAY WAR”, said it would be officially over after 24 hours of the ceasefire, and threw around a lot of superlatives and God Blesses. Well, alright. If the hostilities end that’s a good thing - the people in Iran, Israel, and here in America don’t need another war. Of course questions remain - will both sides keep to the ceasefire? Was Iran’s enriched uranium and capacity to enrich further and obtain a nuclear bomb actually destroyed? Time will tell. But in closing, I think this is worth asking: if you and your friends start a problem, and then you all solve it, is that really an accomplishment? Better than the alternative, sure - the problem is over… but what if you all had just avoided starting the problem in the first place?


Honorable mentions for topics not covered:

• Democrats’ continued inaction and ineptitude
  
• Trump’s manipulation of the entire stock market with tariff announcements and pauses
• Elon Musk’s departure from government and subsequent feud with Trump
  
• Palantir’s tentacles spreading through the government and military
  
• The dystopian Army promotion of a group of tech execs to Lieutenant Colonels
  
• THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL and all the bullshit packed in there
  
• The proposed sale of public lands
  
• The administration’s wider attempts to stifle the power of the judiciary and checks and balances at large

Last piece kicked us off on the new Trusk Aministration, the first post since post-election analysis and what I intend to be a resumption of semi-regular coverage. In keeping with that general style, this piece will make no attempt to cover every event that has occurred or issue that has arisen in the meantime because, frankly, there is far too much shit happening and I believe such an endeavor would be self-defeating. So instead, we take a miscellaneous sampling of current happenings and elaborate and commentate upon them. THE 2025 REGIME FOLKS:

March 10th - 13th

Well, Donald Trump said he could not rule out a recession, and the markets have responded accordingly. For someone that has such a loose relationship with the truth, it was an odd occasion to be forthcoming. Trump has been imposing and delaying tariffs, giving menacing whiplash, but all in all, compared to his first term, he seems much more serious about their full and total implementation. He’s even said he plans to increase what’s already on the table. So, given this and other matters such as the firing of large swathes of the federal workforce, but mostly the tariffs, he was given the chance to reassure the market: give them that bullshit optimism that they so love, and that bullshit that he is so good at giving. Smooth it over! Instead, he did not. He left the door open to voluntarily walking the country into a recession and immediate pain.

Well, great!

A couple immediate thoughts: First, Donald Trump ran on being the best for the economy, on having a strong economy, and being loved by the markets, and now that he is in, less than two months in, he is telling us the economy and the markets may have to suffer. BAIT and SWITCH! The Republicans have doubled down on this tactic recently, namely the last election cycle and this administration, and where there used to be a sort of ~gentlemen’s agreement~ that the bait had to have some small resemblance to the switch, now there is not. That inconvenience is gone. Now it is quite acceptable to tell an outright lie and replace it with an outright lie OF ANOTHER SPECIES ENTIRELY! No resemblance. Scream it all loud enough and with enough emotionally-charged terms interspersed and they’ll take what they’re served. Perhaps my favorite current example: Trump’s total disavowing of and distancing from Project 2025 during the campaign, and Russell Vought’s subsequent very consequential appointment as head of the OMB.

Second, if Trump is willing to say that a recession is possible and there may have to be some pain - just how bad is he expecting it to get? That is to say, was this a random moment of being forthcoming with the American People, contrary to previous habits, or was this an informed maneuver to begin to prepare us for what his administration now sees as the inevitable suffering - a tepid pivot from the outright lie to an understatement more closely aligned with the truth? The truth then being CRASH AND DESPAIR. This then being a chance to waffle, or pivot, and begin to veer down the path of, “Well, we never said that it wouldn’t get bad before it was good, folks, you see…” An attempt to preemptively soften the inevitable blowback when the lie was so large. I suppose time will tell!

Alright, sure. But what about the underlying point that he’s making here - the necessity of short-medium-term economic pain for long term prosperity, for a whole realignment? Well, here, conceptually, I may actually agree. The great offshoring of American manufacturing and related jobs was a death knell for the blue-collar middle class backbone of the country - the Rust Belt was not so rusty before the likes of NAFTA and associates. When you allow the exporting of jobs for owners and shareholders to maximize their profits, but provide no protections or plans for the domestic workers that are affected, there are going to be negative consequences. Negative consequences for the workers, and so inevitably and profoundly, much to the elites’ chagrin, negative consequences for the country. We have seen that on an immense level over multiple decades. There is an argument to be made that rather than provide alternative conciliatory measures, this wrong needs to be righted, and jobs need to be brought back into the country, and thus there will be inevitable pains during the adjustment. An argument to be made, sure. And much of the detail missing in this brief writing. However, there was also the busting and gutting of unions. And there was also the vast deregulation and hyper-growth of the financial sector, really culminating in the Financial Crisis and Great Recession, but still just as present, still with an addiction to zero or near-zero interest rates. Then there’s also the wealthy elite and primarily Republican assault on worker protections and rights. And then, more broadly, there’s also alternative arguments to be made, that rather than try to bring the old jobs back, we should create new jobs, in new industries - you can’t turn back the clock so look ahead, not backwards.

But my point is this - in fairness to the administration, I am not totally against the idea that there is a need to make some fundamental shifts in our economy, even if those shifts cause some temporarily painful disruptions and CUT OFF THE GRAVY TRAIN for a bit, so to speak. We can’t always focus on the short term gains to the detriment of the long term trajectory, as Trump said in so many words. However, from there I diverge. Who is this shift for, and what are its real goals? Are we just trying to bring back some car manufacturing factories for a hollow red district win, then pay the workers shit, offer shit benefits, bust up their unions and siphon more profits off to domestic wealth holders? Is there any real focus on the worker beyond a potential swing state voting bloc? Do their rights matter - does their dignity matter? If a corporation by necessity must place profits for its shareholders above all, who will place the good of the workers above all? If we don’t establish that kind of oppositional balance of tension in the system, then how will any of this matter? How will workers be able to live well if they aren’t allowed to fight for themselves, and if no one is fighting for them?

Well, what else? We have the energy secretary saying, to oil and gas executives, that climate change was “a side effect of building the modern world.” Correct! Thank you, Secretary Wright, for confirming what scientists have been saying to people like you and your audience for decades. What a bold and brave man to take such a stance in this administration - to proudly confirm that climate change in our time is indeed human-driven. Kudos, sir!

No? Am I misinterpreting that remark - missing some context, perhaps?

Tesla shares have been sliding dramatically, so just last night our President declared that he would purchase a Tesla - today! This morning! He would do so to support his friend and Certainly Not Our President (CNOP) Elon Musk, explaining that “the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby’, in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.”

Alright - first, of course, as is always first in THIS PUBLICATION - the raw and powerful absurdity. We have a Republic, a NATION, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and our dear leader is issuing late night proclamations… that he is going to buy a new car. From his friend’s company. In the morning.

Next, more seriously, is the always-hyperbolic and, more darkly, intentionally-maligning suggestion that the collective actions and protests being organized against Tesla are illegal, and in a nod to his prior troubles, collusion. Collective action is collusion, and protests, when inconvenient, are illegal! This is actually part of a broader and quite serious push by Trump to paint protests that are against him, his allies, or his causes as illegal, as criminality, and thus the protestors as criminals subject to police and legal action - ILLEGALS THEMSELVES. If you can’t beat em, LOCK EM UP!

(An aside - as with Secretary Wright, I am pleased that President Trump has hit the nail on the head, noting that the protests and boycott of Tesla are intended to “do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.” How astute!)

And on that note, we arrive at a dark tale for The People’s rights - the detention of Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil goes to Columbia and was an organizer of the pro-Palestinian protests last year. He’s an activist, and he’s loud about it. This put him on the radar, as it often has throughout the brief and beautiful history of Our Nation. It also plays directly into the current culture war obsession with the Israel/Palestine conflict, meaning both the current actual war in Gaza, and the myriad accusations of racism at home, namely the left slamming the right for anti-Palestinian sentiment, and the right slamming the left for antisemitism, particularly during and after the aforementioned pro-Palestine campus protests.

Well, I’ll try not go get too lost in THE WEEDS here, but there’s various talk of pro-Israeli individuals and organizations back-channelling with sympathetic political contacts with the explicit intention of having Khalil punished/deported. Through some kind of strange and twisted grapevine, Khalil’s name made its way into the consciousnesses of the Trump administration upper echelon, i.e. Trump himself and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Here it was met with a hostile audience, a la Trump’s executive order 14188, signed in early February, which calls for the deportation of students with visas who have broken laws during the previous year of protests. It also finds the administration’s recent cancelling of approximately 400 MILLION DOLLARS in federal money for Columbia based on the university’s perceived lack of action on the protests… that’s a very real and very serious cudgel that the administration has chosen to beat the university with.

Right, a little background context, but the point is, Khalil was seized from his home in New York by ICE agents on March 8th. They pulled him out and put him in an unmarked car in front of his pregnant wife, and then they did not bother to tell her where he was being taken. He ended up in a detention center in Louisiana where he was then initially denied attorney-client-privileged phone calls.

Khalil is a lawful permanent resident of the US with a green card, and his wife is a US citizen. The ICE agents displayed no warrant. Khalil was able to get his lawyer on the phone during the arrest, and she spoke to one of the ICE agents. The agent said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. The lawyer informed the agent that Khalil actually has a green card, to which the agent said, well, we’ll revoke that instead.

The administration has cited a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that permits the deportation of lawful residents if the Secretary of State believes that their presence presents a risk of potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.

Trump took to his Truth Social airwaves to say that ICE had “proudly apprehended and detained” Khalil, and that “this is the first arrest of many to come,” amongst other maximalist language.

Actually, you know what, here’s the full Trump post because I think we should all know exactly what our President thinks about the matter:

“Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again. If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply. Thank you!”

Tom Homan, director of ICE, said the administration considers Khalil a national security threat. He went on to ask, “Can you stand in a movie theater and yell fire? Can you slander somebody verbally? Free speech has limitations.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Khalil’s case is not about free speech. He said, “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card.”

Maybe no one has a right to…citizenship?

Right. So here we have the Trump administration doing a snatch and grab on a legal US resident who has not been accused, let alone convicted, of a crime. Instead, he’s being portrayed as a radical terrorist supporter, an antisemite, and a bad person - he’s being accused by the administration of having the wrong views, views that are not in the national interest, and expressing these views loudly, and then the administration immediately and FORCEFULLY tells us that this case has nothing to do with free speech!

“Well, sir, why are you deporting this man?”

“Well, we don’t like the way he thinks, ok?”

“Well, sir, uh, how do you know what he thinks?”

“Well, he said it!”

“Ok sir, and uh, are you not then deporting him because of what he said?”

Brow furrows and eyes narrow, “Listen, buddy, I know what you’re trying to do here - I’ll tell you this right now, ok? This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It’s just… well, we can’t have him here SAYING THESE KINDS OF THINGS!”

So we have a picture forming - expressing the wrong opinions and engaging in the wrong activities can land you as persona non grata with the administration. At this point, those opinions and activities may just start to be construed as pro-terrorist and/or anti-American, against the national interest. And worse, actually, that may be akin to standing up in a theater and yelling, “FIRE!” or in other words, not under the purview of protected speech - not even a matter of free speech. At this point, the individual, because of their opinions and activities, may be deemed a threat to national security, and at that point, well… let’s see what kind of obscure legal code we can cite to GET RID OF EM!

See, as the administration is telling us, this isn’t a matter of free speech - it’s just, well, bad people doing bad things that maybe aren’t actually crimes but still need to be punished so maybe just some murky legal theory or even extralegal (illegal) means will have to be used to get to the desired end, which is, well, getting those people to stop doing those bad things… but then again maybe if those things aren’t actually crimes and they’re just things those people are saying then maybe we’ll just have to get them to stop saying those things… which maybe actually it will be easiest and really BEST FOR ALL if the people just go away? A little detention or deportation because, well, we have to stop them because they’re BAD. So you see, nothing to do with free speech, just bad thoughts from bad people that need to go away. BAD ACTORS ONLY! Easy breezy!

Is it more fun to skip stupidly and merrily into authoritarianism?

Everyone should be fired up about how our government is treating Mahmoud Khalil simply because it is wrong. It is wrong, cruel, and stupid.

But it should also be alarming to everyone. Make no mistake, this kind of action starts with the easiest targets - people without full US citizenship. Easiest legally and easiest socially. The “others.” All the while the REAL CITIZENS are assured they have nothing to worry about! But if a regime is allowed, by the courts, by the populace, to begin punishing people for having views contrary to theirs, they will not stop at the “others.” No, they will gradually find ways to make all those who loudly disagree with them into “others.” And then it’s open season.

Well, here we are. Trump. Musk. DOGE. 2025! We’re being constantly inundated with stories and chaos, and that very phenomenon is a story of intentional chaos in and of itself. But that’s not what we’re trying to cover here, nor are we trying to play catch up with analysis of it all. No, here we take our first short general assessment of the State of the Nation under the New Administration, and we consider the unique part of the American psyche now fully on display. YOU’RE GONNA LOVE IT!

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” - Napoleon Bonaparte and now, Donald Trump!

The rumor mill is firing off that Elon Musk, Certainly Not Our President (CNOP), has had his thirteenth child, this the first with this mother, a new mother for him, Ashley St. Clair. She is a conservative influencer personality type and author of such works as Elephants Are Not Birds, see from its synopsis - “Follow Kevin as he learns that even though he can sing, he is not a bird even if Culture insists that he is.” Oh boy! Capital “C” Culture!

Meanwhile, we continue to have daily stories such as, from the BBC: “US government tries to rehire nuclear staff it fired days ago”. Trump, Musk, et al (Trusk) fired staff from the Department of Energy last week, which apparently included staff from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Apparently, the Trusk Administration realized after the fact that firing staff from the National NUCLEAR SECURITY Administration may adversely impact NUCLEAR SECURITY! To quote a memo subsequently sent to NNSA employees - “The termination letters for some NNSA probationary employees are being rescinded, but we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel. Please work with your supervisors to send this information (once you get it) to people’s personal contact emails.” Right! Leaving the surely not redundant parenthesized “once you get it” aside, this portion of the memo is necessary because the fired employees were locked out of their federal email accounts. So, the Trusk Administration fired employees that they now realize they need, and now they can’t reach the employees to rehire them! GOVERNMENTAL EFFICIENCY! And so we have yet another fine example of what happens when you bring the tech world / startup / venture capital mentality to the federal government.

MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS!!! Well, sure, when it’s your own personal hellscape of a startup company, when you have a small contingent of hardcore dedicated employees, I suppose there is an argument to be made. But when it’s the federal government responsible for a nation of some 350 million people? Perhaps a small bit of deliberation first would be appropriate. Perhaps rapid movement isn’t an inherently laudable trait, and perhaps, as an average citizen, I’d rather not have my things broken in the name of “progress.” Progress for who?

But, CIRCLING AROUND and bringing the above points together, I want to touch on the uniquely American flavor that is potently present in all of this. We find ourselves at a truly foreboding precipice, a precarious perch with a vast chasm of darkness below, the bottom not even visible, the potential length and depth of the fall unknown. Our President quotes an infamous dictator and preaches of his perceived lack of legal limitations on executive power. The Certainly Not Our President (CNOP) is the richest man in the world, a man with a personal wealth greater than entire nations’ GDPs, and he has apparently largely unchecked autonomy and power to gut the agencies that are responsible for administration to the average citizens - “How has Medicaid touched your life, sir, with that net worth of ~$395 billion?”

And on and on and much more to say and elaborate upon, cc: Venture Capital Extremism and The Dark Enlightenment and its adherents in Trusk World, but right now it’s this: as we find ourselves at this newly terrible and real point of potential slide into oligarchy and autocracy, we still find ourselves in a flamboyant carnival of garish horror attractions. “Ah, the richest man in the world has eliminated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, buuuuut he also just had CHILD NUMBER THIRTEEN - NOW HERE’S AN EXCERPT ABOUT HOW KEVIN IS NOT FUCKING TRAN - I MEAN - A BIRD!!!” Queue big band!!

Somehow, even when the stakes are so high, even when our democracy is being pummeled by truly dark forces, the show is outlandish and corny and absurdly kitschy. It’s a hellscape, but it’s campy! WELCOME TO THE FASCIST CARNIVAL, FOLKS, YOU’RE GONNA LOVE IT!!!

Our President quotes Napoleon and then slams a McDonald’s fish fillet and a Diet Coke. You won’t have healthcare soon, but you won’t be able to help but laugh at some of the things he says! JUST THE DARNDEST THINGS!

We’re getting trans women out of women’s sports - and we’re getting REGULATION OUT OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY FOLKS!!! SPORTS! And, hey, hey, who didn’t love the Great Recession!? ***LAUGH TRACK***

Measles?? Measles, anyone? Hey, I hardly know her, but I’D LOVE TA!! ~audible groans~ We’re now seeing measles outbreaks in our country due to parents not having their children vaccinated due to their distrust of vaccines based on, well, their feelings of distrust. And now, we have RFK Jr. as US Health and Human Services Secretary. Don’t worry - he’s not against vaccines; he’s not even really skeptical of vaccines; he just has some questions! As did Bernie Sanders during RFK’s confirmation hearing - an actual quote from Sanders,

“You started a group called the Children’s Health Defense. You’re the originator. Right now, as I understand it, on their website they are selling what’s called onesies. These are little things, clothing, for babies. One of them is titled ‘Unvaxxed Unafraid.’ Next one – and they’re sold for 26 bucks apiece by the way – next one is ‘No Vax, No Problem.’” Right. Merch! Measles!

Well, and to make matters worse, just when you were thinking about taking that sweet little vacation time you’ve been saving up for a year… there seems to have been a disturbing rise in plane crashes and aviation incidents, no? Particularly the tragedy over the Potomac with the plane full of figure skaters and the Army Black Hawk with no survivors? We, The People, in the wake of these things hear tell that the FAA is short-staffed and overworked… and so, folks, Trusk and DOGE bring us - CUTS AT THE FAA!!! WOOOO!!! Fear not though, we’ve been assured that the agency has “retained employees who perform critical safety functions.” When further pressed, they said they would have to look into whether the fired radar, landing, and navigational aid workers were considered to handle critical safety functions. I imagine it went something like:

“SHUT UP! We wouldn’t fire anyone IMPORTANT to SAFETY you idiots!”

“Well, uh, what about radar? Navigation? Laaaaandddinngggg, perchance?”

“Hey now, ha ha, well uh, shucks… landing, eh? I see. Well, uh, we’ll get back to ya on that.” Spokesman dead pans into the camera with a quizzical shrug and smile. Curb Your Enthusiasm music begins to play.

We are experiencing the dismantling of our government by robber barons under the leadership, true or symbolic, of a would-be-dictator with the assistance of an eclectic cast of ideologues and charlatans - the stakes are high. And yet… it’s all done with the uniquely American flair for SHOW! Showmanship and absurdity - a flaming downward spiral but ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED??? Does the fanfare not cover up the starkness? Will we not laugh and make light all along the way down? Laugh up until the moment it’s truly, unmistakably, unarguably not funny anymore?

It’s laser lights and pyrotechnic flames and motley animatronics, and it’s clowns and jugglers and STEP RIGHT UP carnival barkers, and you’ve been laughing but also cringing and also confused, and then you’re in the maze and the chainsaw man begins to manically laugh and chase, and you scream and you laugh and you joke to your friends, “Oh, no, he’s gonna get me!” And then he does, and he chops you in half with the chainsaw, running straight down between the shoulder and the neck and out the groin, and your blood and your guts splatter out all over your friends’ dumbfounded faces as the two halves of your lacerated dead body hit the ground with a sickly squelch. A couple of your friends run, quickly seeing it for what it is, but most of them stay rooted to the spot, disbelief the most potent emotion, and a couple of them even begin to laugh, thinking it’s time for this surely garish prank to be revealed. They die next. The chainsaw man turns on them quickly, and more chainsaw men appear, apparently having been there close by in the shadows all along, and now the laughter is long gone and the disbelief is gone too and then there is only screaming and horror and stark terrible realization and whatever running away there can be, but none of that really matters because now it’s too late. Then your friends suffer and die as the chainsaw men do what they came to do - what they were there to do all along. Welcome to the Fascist Carnival, folks. You’re gonna love it.

A bit of digestion leads straight into a post-mortem, eh? There’s always a winner and a loser, and so there’s always a win and a loss. Here we attempt to take a look at these things, and at the State of the Nation that led us to this outcome.

Bonus stars go to Trump and Musk! Sorry Harris, no such luck this round.

Well, here we are. The Great Contest has ended, quickly and decisively. It’s something that I’m still digesting, or in truth, still actively avoiding digesting. Easier to eat some shit and watch some television and drift through a day or two as an amorphous blob free of real thought or feeling.

There is a particular American bent toward a cheap anger. It’s an easy emotion, one that offers quick and simple satisfaction, and to be fair, one that has plentiful sources in our modern society. The problem arises in the misguided nature of the thing, and so in the careening toward fake solutions that assuage the uncomfortable irritation but offer nothing of substance. There is no nuance or acceptance of complexity and so inevitable imperfection in outcomes. There is only feeling and base level superficial response to it. ANGER demands an outlet. Decay and decline are bad and so must be reversed, simply. Equivocation of any kind equates to weakness and must be punished. And of course all of this is underlain by the extremely American bent toward paranoia… a loose and fervent paranoia that permeates all aspects of life, not in an all-consuming sense, save for the most extreme individuals, but in a way that it touches everything. We end up an angry people unwilling to analyze reality in any meaningful way - a people that knows we’re getting fucked, but doesn’t really care to find out who’s doing the fucking, only to rage against the closest target of ire. Because if the ire itself is justified, then who cares where it’s directed, really… Right? Tell me who the enemy is and I’ll start swinging, brother. THAT will make me feel better, and feeling better is as far ahead as I can think these days in this muddled modern world.

Yeah, long term consequences be damned. Larger picture self-interest be damned. Self-interest in this current paradigm lies in finding an outlet for the rage and then raging against it and feeling a short-lived satiation. Meanwhile, the paths that could potentially lead to some form of meaningful change and improvement in society are not taken, and if all goes to plan by those helping to fan these flames of short-sighted anger, they will be blocked, obstructed, closed down for as long as possible and hopefully forever. It’s a plot that has been employed by the powerful throughout history - because it works. When the status quo works for the elites, but not for the people, redirect their attention. Have them rage against the aspects of the status quo that don’t matter for your interests and in doing so direct attention away from the aspects that are important for your interests. The people can likely be riled up to care about either. It’s like, the angry mob has formed just outside the gates. It’s too late to disperse them - something will have to be burned before they’ll all go home and go to bed. So, just accept that, and turn them toward something that doesn’t really matter to you - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to you, or someone that is an enemy to you. “Nay, not this estate good people! We are not the source of your troubles! Have you not heard of… that strange looking group of people in that strange neighborhood just over yonder? Have you not seen how they behave differently than you - THAN US? Surely, that is because they are the ones plotting against you…” Make them believe it, and then they’ll do what you want without much further effort. And of course, they have agency, so if you can make it about something that doesn’t really matter to them - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to them, or someone that is an enemy to them… well, then the sell becomes easy. Make sure it’s in your interest, but if you can, use whatever momentum already exists amongst them for the redirect. Then while they march on and the fire spreads you can return to tending to what really matters, be that wealth, or power, or some strange ideological framework… whatever tickles your fancy as an elite. You can continue to have dominion over them without having to give up anything of meaning.

Yes, true, but we’re zooming out a bit too far… Donald Trump and the Republicans won the election by harnessing the cheap and simple American anger, the sense of grievance with… life, and the strange flippant contrianism that rises out of it. It’s an odd combination of things, primarily along the lines of, SOCIETY’S GONE TO SHIT!!!! Inflation - grocery prices - gas - IT’S TOO HIGH! Illegal immigrants are a shadowy mass of doom that has permeated the entire nation and, while difficult to blame for many specifics, can certainly be blamed for generally making everything BAD. We just need to know who’s coming into our country! WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR JOBS!? Manufacturing jobs, real jobs, jobs that have been being destroyed since the 1980s and 90s - we need them back! The woke progressive values of the most vocal leftists have surely swept at least half if not more of the nation, and they are destroying masculinity, and family values, and good classical conservative ways of living, and they are going to be shoved down your throat, and maybe up your ass. Biden is too old, Kamala Harris is too woke and ineffective. We’re giving too much money to places like Ukraine, and we’re going to stop the war there, and unnecessary wars in general, but we’re also going to have the strongest military ever, and we’re going to bomb anyone that we have to. Less war, more war, whatever, you get it. Things like international accords, and drawn out diplomatic efforts, and large-scale government programs… we’ve just had enough. ENOUGH’S ENOUGH! CUT THE RED TAPE!!!! It’s time to just tear down all that bullshit and force our will through! No need to question why those things exist in the first place because they aren’t working now, and enough is really enough, so fuck trying to fix anything, we’re tearing it DOWN BABY.

Essentially, there are a lot of bad and wrong people in our country, and they want to do bad and wrong things to all of you, and there are a lot of bad and wrong things going on in our country, just in general, yes, and aren’t all of you getting fucked in a thousand ways, and don’t you want to not be getting fucked, and don’t you hate looking weak, and don’t you want to look strong, and don’t you maybe just a little bit want to fuck those bad and wrong people who are fucking you, and don’t you want everything to be good and easy and never make you uncomfortable, but without saying that because you are tough and would of course never say that’s all you want because you aren’t weak little pussies like them? And of course, we’ll make some jokes and have some fun while we’re doing all this, get a little rowdy. We don’t need to talk about how we’re going to do all of this, or what any of it means, because we’re angry and we’re justified in our anger and it feels good to talk about how angry we are and fuck it, fuck them, we’re taking back what’s ours, and we’re having a little fun while we do it - YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT’S TABOO OR WHAT TO DO YOU FUCKING COMMUNIST! Hehehe……

Yeah, so we’ll take many of the real problems facing average Americans and put them firmly in the hands of a billionaire president, with a multi-millionaire vice president, the richest man in the world as a close advisor to and proponent of the administration, and of course the wider Republican establishment, famous for policies like trickle down economics, union busting, and deregulation as desired by industry. A real dream team for the American worker. But hey, as consolation prizes maybe we’ll finally get to ban abortion and Venezuelans, and keep making fun of people with blue hair. Isn’t that nice? Remember that while you continue to slog through the muck for an unraised minimum wage, pion.

The American mentality decries finesse and swings a blunt object around gleefully and forcefully. If Teddy Roosevelt said speak softly and carry a big stick, this is beat everyone with a stick and scream at them, then laugh while they cry. Welcome to modernity. Decorum is dead, with spit on its grave.

So… we are angry, and if someone can just speak to that anger, just harness it and channel it and give us a small moment of catharsis amidst the rage - well, that’s good enough. Here’s the keys to the castle baby.

Of course, one side can’t win without the other one losing, and while analysis of the win always feels more pertinent, it’s important to analyze the loss as well. Kamala Harris and the Democrats couldn’t pull it off. It’s a long and wavering path that led their campaign down the drain, but I think the best place to start is probably 2016. Bernie Sanders was a populist and he had momentum. He talked to the average American, the American worker, and he acknowledged many of the stark realities that Trump was fanning the flames of. But he also offered actual plans to address them - complex, multi-faceted things, things that we can still debate the efficacy of, but certainly things that seemed to resonate with the people and were horrifying to the elites. Things that were loathed by the Corporate Democratic Party Structure. So, before worrying too much about Trump’s path in the primaries, or any of the Republican contenders, they dealt with the internal threat - they destroyed the enemy within first. Can we definitively say Bernie Sanders would have triumphed over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination if the Party had not meddled? No, of course not - we can’t be sure. But we can say with certainty that the Party put its thumb on the scale and did its best to scuttle his candidacy and promote the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The Democratic Party fought back against their own populist movement, believing they could bring it to heel with sheer willpower and brute political force. Meanwhile, the Republicans gave up on fighting their own populist movement, and let it end up at the top of the ticket. And the rest is history.

Did sexism play a role in Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump? Of course it did. But so did stifling an authentic populist movement and so misreading the mood of the nation - running a Corporate Democrat Insider when the populace was busily raging against insiders. When people are angry, telling them that their anger is, essentially, dumb, and that you know better than them generally doesn’t work… ignoring and/or artificially stifling a groundswell of support and telling people to get in line will generally backfire in the end. Whether you like it it or not. Similarly, telling large swathes of people that they’re sexist if they don’t vote for your candidate generally doesn’t work. And I’ll offer up a harsh political reality here for those that are feeling a swell of moral argument at that statement - even if it’s true, saying it won’t get you votes. And you won’t win without the right votes. And you won’t govern if you don’t win. Morality matters deeply in governance… but it doesn’t seem to resonate too strongly with the angry American voter. That is to say, when it comes to The Great Contest, effectiveness is king, and effectiveness certainly must involve dealing in reality.

Well, Joe Biden managed to pull through in 2020, but it’s hard to say many people were really fired up about him on a personal level. We had just had the reality of a Donald Trump presidency, and then a pandemic with associated economic jolt, very alarming and bizarre times and Joe Biden was, well… boring… and kind of normal. So he pulled through. Well, it didn’t take long into his administration for many Americans to start thinking his advanced age was an issue, and while we’re skipping myriad large matters here, that culminated in his debate with Donald Trump earlier this summer. It was a fucking disaster. And it was what many Americans had considered to be a real possibility, and what many democrats had feared. But the Party/Administration, really one entity at this point, had basically been telling everyone, including their own friendly detractors, to fuck off, because like in 2016 and 2020, they knew what was best.

Well, it was such a fucking disaster that they then changed their minds. Time for Joe to go! Except… their hubris had kept them from making any real plans for an alternative. The writing had long been on the wall for the average American, but not for the Party. So what had they been doing to prepare for this potential outcome? Scouring the Democratic Party ranks for a potentially popular stand in? Certainly not. Getting Vice President Kamala Harris out in the limelight more, seen as an individual, maybe even a separate entity from the Administration - working on her image with the American People? No thanks. Instead, everyone was told to shut the fuck up and circle the wagons, until the Party just suddenly walked out of the defensive circle and said, “Whoops!”

Whoops indeed. Well, we then saw the ruthlessly efficient Party Machinery spring into action, and in record time and with a record lack of public detractors we had Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party candidate. As a cold and aloof political analyst I was actually impressed - the Machine moved quickly and efficiently and unimaginatively to a publicly presentable outcome that seemed to stave off the potent sense of absolute crisis. And the initial honeymoon phase that followed for her candidacy seemed to affirm what the Party had been telling us all since 2016 - shut the fuck up and let the real adults handle it. We’ll come out on top. Let the Democratic Party be a little undemocratic, internally, and we’ll give you democracy externally in the end. YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE BOYS AND GIRLS - JUST EAT WHAT YOU’RE SERVED!!!

Yeah, well, it turned out that running a previously entirely sidelined generally unpopular Vice President from the incumbent administration, a well-known frequent allergy of average Americans, with an unknown Minnesota governor didn’t whip up enough voting fervor across the populace. The initial pitch was “Joy!” to a seething populace full of the aforementioned cheap and simple anger and fervent contrarianism. And while there was an initial pivot from previous Democratic Party strategies - i.e. be careful about being seen as too cozy with Hollywood and celebrities; perhaps don’t focus too much on making Trump and his supporters out to be fascists on the move, instead just call them weird - as momentum waned, the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront. Kamala Harris performed very well in her debate with Donald Trump, creating a stark contrast to Joe Biden and even making Donald Trump look, well, careening and unfocused and petty. But then what? Well, hard to say. So again, it was back to the same 2016/2020 playbook, and the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront as the campaign marched on to Voting Day.

And so we had another winning strategy from the wizards of the Democratic Party Machine - anoint a candidate who lacks the organic popularity, and then use the same previously defeated/narrowly won strategies to try to get them across the finish line. If there was ever a time for trying a dramatic, if risky, shift in strategy, in messaging, even in policy - this was it. This was a candidacy born out of a political crisis against a candidacy that we were told could be the end of democracy. But instead of some kind of bold pivot to meet the moment, we ended up with more of the same, sleekly packaged by the Party Wizards with the same gift wrap used in 2016 and 2020 with a loss and a lukewarm win as track record. The Democratic Party has still not learned how to read the room. And when they do a bit of reading, and they don’t like the message they receive, they run from it, rather than try to learn how to harness it.

Now this is a tough line, and I have mixed feelings about it, but I have to ask - when it comes to politics, what’s better - avoiding and denying that which you find unsavory, labeling it as reprehensible and untouchable, taking the moral stand - and losing? Or to see reality for what it is and find a way to harness it - play in the dirt and win. Well, politics is a game of power, so let’s check back in in a year and see where we’re at, eh? See what lovely changes have been made…

ALL HAIL THE MACHIIIIIIIIIINNEEEE

NOTE: additional political analysis from the summer of 2024 is, like this piece, caught up in an unfinished collection of writings with the working title Fearing & Loathing on a Very Big Boat. This one was was extracted out for its particular pertinence.

Biden is out of the race - officially certifying himself as the lamest of ducks. Since then, as aforementioned, my brain has been in a state of rot and thus communications from the homeland have barely been able to get through, the receiver being covered in the fleshy muck from the rot and having started to corrode. But regardless, it is quite evident that Kamala Harris, the current Vice President, has already begun seriously solidifying her position as the Democratic heir, with party leaders, media figures, and most importantly, big donors, all lining up quickly and seemingly in a fairly orderly fashion behind her. It is the logical move, and there is no surprise in it.

There were whispers of perhaps something radical happening - sidestepping the VP for an interesting ticket of some combination of Democratic governors, or something of that sort. It’s fun for the various analysts to imagine such scenarios when it’s all still far off and so not real. But then the moment of actuality comes and the sitting President, for the first time since 1968, announces he will not be running for re-election in the middle of the Great Contest. Then imagination is beaten down into small pieces and swept into the dustbin, unceremoniously taken outside and thrown into an obscure dumpster in the alley. Then it’s fuck imagination - there is only political reality. If you’re one of the Party Apparatus at that point and you start to allow in imagination, you allow in the potential for chaos and panic. No, no - it cannot be.

And so we also saw the great and vast and impressive lack of forethought or planning as the Party swung quickly and efficiently into lockstep behind the least imaginative option available. There had been no plan for this eventuality despite the whisperings of it amongst the greater populace since the last election! The average man on the street, if asked to place his wilder bets, could have seen Biden stepping down, or even dying, before the Great Contest was complete. But the Prestigious Insiders were unable to speak of this beyond the faintest whisper in the darkest most obscure corridor - they could not imagine. And so there was no plan formulated. There was nothing. Just an extremely obtuse stubbornness followed by a great and stupid panic after the first debate, then a chaotic chorus of calls for Biden to step down, and then… well, then an instinctive pivot to the safe and default.  And now we have the beginning of the new narrative, that our very unpopular and sidelined Vice President has never been those things; she’s just been waiting for her time to shine. It’s an incredibly stupid showing by the Party Machinery and company.

But then, why wouldn’t it be? That’s perhaps the least surprising development in all of this. The modern Democratic Party has shown itself to be quite capable at beating its members into rapid and total submission, and quite horrifically inept at just about everything else, particularly at gauging the pulse of The Nation and taking into consideration the will of the people. It’s an efficient machine, cold and calculated, a more evolved AI than we believe is yet available, hellbent on its own aims and incredibly adept at achieving them, and yet somehow nearly totally detached from human consciousness or will, devoid of things the greater populace is familiar with and desires, and so the outcomes, though somehow successful by its own foreign AI standards, seem bizarre and disappointing to us - even like failures.

And so here we are - the narrative now will pivot to the first woman, the first woman of color, the woman that has been patiently waiting on the sidelines, though was NOT sidelined, simply dutifully standing in the shadow of the Great Man Whose Time Has Passed, and now that he is ever so responsibly retreating from the sunlight, she can step out and SHINE at last. Sure. Never mind her previous political failings, never mind her past as a prosecutor (aka, narc), never mind her odd infrequent moments in the limelight in which her ramblings could be more incoherent than Biden’s. Never mind her unpopularity with the greater populace as shown in multiple polls, and more so, in the way that the Great Political Wizards will never understand - the simple wider sentiment, the instinctive feeling that is loose in the ether and can’t be quantified. Fuck all that. THE PATH FORWARD HAS BEEN CHOSEN BY THE GREAT AND INTELLIGENT MACHINE!!!