Don’t even imagine the Blue Wave is going to change the world. It is not. It can’t.
No. I’m not going to apologize for pouring cold, mucky brown water on your day because you know what? Y’all need to wake the fuck up. The Dems, blinded by their euphoria, are walking straight off a cliff. Ask the Gen Zers — you know, that nice group of young folks who have had it up to their eyeballs with the Dems slow-walking every goddamn thing. They are watching their lives slip away, all because of the policies the Dems have failed to fight for tooth and nail. If you think you're having a hard time making ends meet, imagine earning the same hourly wage people had twenty years ago. You, too, would be living in a van. With roommates.
Dems have not risen to the “occasion” for over 10 years — not any occasion, truth be told. They have been more focused on comparing the designer clothes of Jill Biden to Melania Trump’s, and extolling the virtues of Barack Obama, whose presidency ended nine (count ‘em) years ago. Jesus Christ. Get with the program, you boneheads.
Dems had their chance to stop fascism in its tracks, but instead were busy shoring up billions of dollars in arms funding for Israel so Netanyahu could kill even more Gazan women and children, which he seems to be thoroughly enjoying. So, for those of you who equate antisemitism with a dislike of current Israeli policies, go fuck yourself. And for those of you who don’t have Gen Z kids, but do have oversized opinions of them, shut the fuck up already. The rest of us are not interested in what you have to say. You took your eye off the ball, but not your wallet, and here we are.
Here’s our big problem: the most ineffective factions of the Democratic Party, i.e., the 1968 Preservation Society and the Millennial Afterparty Caucus, have done next to nothing for a good long while. Add to that a bunch of Gen Xers who consider themselves “moderates,” whatever the fuck that is, and you’ve got a recipe for some pretty shitty soup. No flavor, overcooked, hardly any chicken, mushy noodles, and measly portions. And yet there are some talented cooks in the Congressional kitchen, so why the fuck aren't we making them the executive chefs instead of Chef Boy-R-Jeffries, otherwise know as Nowhere Man.
It would seem that “We,” the Dems, are not united in anything except our hatred for Donald Trump and his coterie of evil bastards. Most of us are also pissed about the obliteration of Obamacare, food subsidies, and all those fabulous government entities that once protected and served us, but clearly those issues did not put fire in the bellies of our legislators. And neither did the massive atrocities taking place in our immigration detention facilities. Did Democratic legislators come down hard enough on their GOP colleagues — especially those who might have backed our opposition to Project 2025’s goals? No, they did not.
Granted, this election took out many of the nastiest MAGA folks, but the members of the GOP that remain are still slaves to Donald Trump. It’s going to take someone much more passionate and charismatic than Hakeem Jeffries to bring a Trump-weakened Republican Party to heel. We need everyone on board, left and right, if we are to rebuild our democracy. It is a mess.
Regardless of the lameness of the current Democratic Party, ya gotta give them (and their recent converts) credit for bagging the balls on this basket of deplorables:
Ken Paxton, Susan Collins, Vivek Ramaswamy, Greg Abbott, Roger Marshall, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry, Steve Hilton, Jeff Van Drew, Mike Rogers, Brandon Herrera, Max Miller, Michael Whatley, Lauren Boebert, Mike Collins, Joe Lombardo, Jon Husted, Darline Graham, Ashley Hinson, Bruce Blakeman, Darren Bailey, John Sununu, Rick Jackson, Stacy Garrity, Monica De La Cruz, Jay Feely, Marianette Miller-Meeks, Zach Nunn, Rob Bresnahan, Ryan Mackenzie, Jennifer Balkcom, Jim Desmond, Aaron Flint, Joe Mitchell, Carlos De La Cruz, Ralph Alvarado, Casey Askar, Zach Lahn, and Mike Beltran.
Woo hoo! Good fucking job on that, Dems! This 👆is amazing. You sent all those sociopaths packing.
But this we cannot escape: “We,” the Democrats, are not united on much else, especially the issue of how we are going to take on this evil monster and all of his buddies. If we don’t get our shit together yesterday, we are doomed. Guess what? We did not get our shit together yesterday.
The GOP had/has a plan. A carefully drawn-up and specific plan. Project 2025. This not-so-beautiful document has nonetheless been meticulously crafted, and the leaders of the Heritage Foundation carefully vetted the entire cast of characters for executing said plan. Almost all of the plan’s components are now in place. And guess what doesn’t even factor into their plan?
CONGRESS
Well before the Midterms, the Project 2025 surgical team had already anesthetized the House and Senate, neutered them, and found other ways to accomplish what they wanted done. None of their nefarious methods involved that big, unpredictable, fucking mess we call Congress. How could anyone ever control that many misfits, especially when half of them were deadset against every plank in the Heritage Foundation’s platform? And so those Project 2025 White boys set their sights on positioning loyalists everywhere — and I do mean everywhere.
Here you go. Trump’s big beautiful wall of agencies now infiltrated with loyalists. We’re fucked. Are you getting this?
White House · National Security Council · Office of Management and Budget · Office of Personnel Management · Department of Justice · FBI · Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division · U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Washington, D.C., New Jersey and Nevada · Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives · Pentagon · Joint Chiefs of Staff · CIA · Office of the Director of National Intelligence · Department of Homeland Security · Immigration and Customs Enforcement · Customs and Border Protection · Secret Service · FEMA · State Department · U.S. Agency for International Development · Treasury Department · IRS · Department of Health and Human Services · CDC · FDA · National Institutes of Health · Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · Social Security Administration · Departments of Education, Labor, Commerce, Energy, the Interior, Agriculture, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs · Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General · Environmental Protection Agency · Small Business Administration · Consumer Financial Protection Bureau · Federal Communications Commission · Federal Trade Commission · Securities and Exchange Commission · Federal Reserve Board · National Labor Relations Board · Equal Employment Opportunity Commission · Merit Systems Protection Board · Nuclear Regulatory Commission · Federal Energy Regulatory Commission · Federal Housing Finance Agency · Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac boards · Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation · Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation · Tennessee Valley Authority board · Export-Import Bank of the United States · U.S. International Development Finance Corporation · National Archives and Records Administration · National Endowment for the Humanities · U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America · Kennedy Center Board of Trustees · U.S. Institute of Peace.
This 👆 is when it became game over for the Dems.
So, you better put on your seatbelt, roll up the windows, and lock the doors. It might also be good to throw on a Kevlar vest and a ballistic helmet.
Turns out our Blue Wave is, in fact, a rogue wave. Definition of “rogue wave” from Wikipedia: “Also called monster or killer waves, these are solitary, massive ocean surface waves that reach more than twice the height of the surrounding sea state. They are unpredictable, appear suddenly from conflicting currents or storms, and have enough raw impact force to snap large ships in half.” Damn. Pretty sure this is where we’re at. Sound about right to you?
The bigger question is this: Which ship is going to get snapped in half? Ours or theirs? That is going to depend on Democratic leadership. 💯 It better be fucking invincible. So, you boneheads, when you talk amongst yourselves on Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn, IG, and Threads, you damn well better keep this in mind. The person who leads us out of this shitshow needs to be INVINCIBLE. So, let’s start the selection process by crossing Kamala Harris right off the list.
Remember this? When the shit hit the fan after Trump was re-elected, Kamala disappeared. It wasn’t until almost 6 months after the election that she bothered to make a public appearance. In the meantime, the rest of us were losing our minds. She was not there for us in our time of need.
So fuck her, is what I say.
Really, y’all? You’re still reveling in the glory of the Blue Wave? Do you really imagine our lackluster Democratic leaders drove this victory home? They absolutely fucking did not.
Donald Trump gets to take full credit for the Blue Wave. 💯
Democrats could have stuffed the ballot buffet with banana slugs and still turned the House and Senate blue. Given the alternative, voters were prepared to overlook the slime. And that they did.
Things are so bad that Texans voted for Democrats. Texas. Blue. WTF.
The reality is that Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are just as lackluster today as they were a month ago, a year ago, two years ago, and when Biden was president. And I’m including Biden, the man himself, in the lackluster laundry list. We were fucked from the start of the Trump Era. We are still fucked.
Add to that the fact that Schumer and Jeffries, our de facto leaders, get huge amounts of money from AIPAC and other Israeli-affiliated PACs. I’ll leave it to your imagination to envision where their priorities lie. And this is in spite of the fact that 75% of Democratic voters — their constituents — oppose renewing annual weapons funding to Israel, 92% oppose the military actions in Gaza, and 65% support sanctions.
Guess what? Those two limp dicks do not care. They are living pretty off the hefty handouts they get from the Israeli lobby, so you can count on every piece of potential legislation having to pass through the Israeli lobby filter. You’ll need a sodium phosphate enema to get anything passed in Congress if these two keep their posts as Senate and House leaders.
Damn those Israeli-backed PACs. So many Dems are taking their money. It’s really disappointing. That’s a bevy of major corporations, media moguls, folks in high tech, real estate, private equity and hedge funds, entertainment, sports, and consumer lending. Can you say major conflicts of interest? How do our legislators manage to navigate these turbulent waters, where the wake of major corporations is capsizing their constituents' kayaks? That’s easy. They aren’t bothering to navigate at all. They’re lounging on the beach, drinking margaritas while all of this is going down. Or they’re body-surfing and attending museum openings, like Barack Obama.
The point is this: our legislators aren't voting on our behalf. They are first and foremost voting on behalf of the people who pay them the big bucks. They hope that some of their bigwigs’ goals dovetail with the goals of their constituents. Most of the time they do not. C’est la vie.
Yeah. Permission granted to get really pissed about that.
Dems. We’re fucked. Blue Wave and all. What are we actually getting out of all this excitement and happy-making?
That’s what all those beautiful new Democrats in Congress will be able to accomplish given our divided government. Nothing.
Committee chairs can launch inquiries, hold public hearings, take sworn testimony, subpoena records and witnesses under committee rules, and publish findings until the cows come home. They can start these investigations without the blessing of the White House or Supreme Court. But the minute an official or congressperson refuses to comply with their demands or claims executive privilege, civil enforcement ain’t gonna happen (not in our lifetime, at least), because (drum roll, please) a criminal contempt referral depends on the DOJ’s willingness to prosecute. Need I say more? Inquiries, hearings, etc. will go in the DOJ’s round file. The Dems are fucked.
Both the House and Senate can refuse any new funding Trump requests and can negotiate binding restrictions on spending bills, but those restrictions have to become law. And laws can only get passed if Congress can muster enough votes to override a veto by you-know-who. Though a standoff could shut down parts of the government, most of the money has already been allocated and is therefore available regardless because it has been put into place by existing laws — pre-Blue Wave laws.
The main place Dems can tighten the thumbscrews is on defense spending, and that could potentially be some pretty powerful leverage, especially if we expect there is a coup in the works. But, as of today, the GOP is gathering forces to pass a generous defense funding bill, which will undoubtedly be signed immediately by his majesty, with the usual Sharpie flourish. Hegseth’s ass is covered. Once again...
Will Dems be able to block judges and senior appointees? Yes and no, respectively. The Senate can vote down or decline to take up nominees for federal judgeships, but with Cabinet posts and other agency leadership, its power of confirmation has been weakened ever since Trump’s first term. In the case of a Supreme Court opening, the Senate could decide to leave the position vacant or use its leverage to press for a different nominee. But for other types of positions, non-judicial, in particular, the Senate’s power of confirming or rejecting candidates has become meaningless. Trump has circumvented the system by putting temps into cabinet posts and agency leadership, then leaving them in place indefinitely. What is the lesson here? Trump does whatever the hell he wants, whenever he wants. And no one calls him on it, at least not his colleagues in the GOP. And the Dems? Well, a few of them weakly chastise the President. What they need to do is collectively raise the fucking rotunda.
So, once again, the Dems are fucked, and that is partly their own doing.
Most contested bills require 60 Senate votes to end a filibuster under current rules. The Dems are not there. The most votes they’ll be able to muster after all election returns are in is 56, maybe only 54. Budget reconciliation can force some fiscal measures through with a simple majority, but Trump can and will apply his veto power to these situations. He would use the veto just for the sport of it. Trump has glibly pointed this out in nearly every post-election interview he’s given.
Overriding Trump vetoes requires two-thirds of the votes in each chamber — a phenomenon that ain’t going to be happening. Fifty-six seats (in our best-case scenario) leave Democrats four short of cloture and eleven short of an override if all 100 senators show up. Sing it loud: Dems are fucked!
The House can impeach an official with a simple majority, but conviction and removal of that same official requires two-thirds of the senators to be on board. Removing Trump would take substantial Republican support, so, as we well know, that ain’t happening. Once again… Dems. Fucked.
I believe you’ve got this chorus down by now.
Here’s what’s left after Grandpa has sucked all the ice cream out of the cone: a nasty, soggy glob of goop. Congress will only be able to pass laws that Trump agrees to or that attract enough Republican votes to override his inevitable vetoes. In other words, nothing is going to get done. We are fucked.
And who is well aware of all of this?
How did you guess?!
Willkommen to the Fourth Reich
DO PLAY 🎶 👇🏼
Though they’d tried before to warn him
Stephen Miller has no feelings in his heart
Every time they broach the subject
Donald notes that was the point right from the start
Every little thing he does is fascist
Everything sadistic turns him on
As we know his social life was tragic
Until Katie birthed his spawn
Do I have to tell the story
Of what lies ahead with Stephen at the helm
Every cruelty earns him glory
And a big promotion in his master’s realm
Every little thing he does is fascist
Everything sadistic turns him on
Every human setback feels like magic
He’s the darkness that POTUS counts on
You probably noticed, as I did, that no one in the White House was flinching as the Blue Wave rolled in. There was no ketchup dripping down the walls, no tears shed, no shouting matches, no threats of violence. No drama was needed, as there was no point to be made. Everything Trump wants is already in place. He “won” before the absentee ballots had even left the election offices. Does he care that Republicans lost massively. No, he does not.
The Dems taking Congress means nothing to Trump. Their win didn’t put even the smallest dent into his long-term ambitions. He’s not getting impeached. He’s not going to jail. None of his pet projects are getting tabled. No one is stopping the war in Iran. No, that clever fucker has thought of everything. Or should I say, Stephen Miller has thought of everything.
So sorry, Dems. Your Blue Wave is no riptide. It did not and will not be pulling Trump under. Congress, whether Democrat-controlled or Republican-controlled, no longer factors into Don’s long-term plans — the plans detailed in Project 2025 and in the Trump Family Manifesto.
Sadly, most Democratic voters aren’t getting any of this. They’re bustling about psychoanalyzing Trump as if he were human. Hello. This is a pointless waste of energy. And Democratic leaders — well, they have been far too busy freshening up their wardrobes and test-driving AIPAC-financed luxury vehicles to put together their own manifesto. Instead of dicking around, they should have been putting together Projectile 2029, a manifesto for blowing up Project 2025.
My point? Dems are unprepared. They were unprepared to handle two more years of unchecked GOP control, and they are even more unprepared for the massive victory that was handed to them on a silver platter. What will they do with it — their newfound popularity and power? Your guess is as good as mine.
Folks! Dems! Get your shit together.
Trump knows exactly what he wants. Now we need to figure out what we want, or we will never be able to bring this monster down.
So what has Trump done post-election? As predicted, he dumped Suzie Wiles, then crowned Stephen Miller Chief of Staff. Steve looks pretty good in Suzie’s wig, don’t you think? A lot better than when he spray-painted fake hair on his head. Remember that? 😂 Somewhere along the line, he figured out looking like Mr. Clean made Katie cream her jeans, so he quit doing that shit. Yuck and yuck.
My prediction: we have entered Phase Two of the formation of the Fourth Reich. For those of you who fell asleep in history class, here’s a rundown on the Reichs:
The First Reich: The Holy Roman Empire (800–1806)
The Second Reich: The German Empire (1871–1918)
The Third Reich: Nazi Germany (1933–1945)
The Fourth Reich: NotSee America (2016 — present)
Stevie Boy has been hard at work between bouts of chasing his wife around the bedroom and impregnating her. He’s got an evil little checklist he’s worked on secretly in the dark recesses of the White House. No one has been using that stupid bowling alley for years — apparently that’s where he hangs from the ceiling.
Steve’s progress on his Aufgabenliste has been remarkable. While y’all were obsessing on the Epstein Files, Stephen was dismantling the Constitution.
Hey - I get it. Those Epstein Files are important. Very important. The only problem with this obsession — until these fuckers are gone, no progress is going to be made on those files. You’ve got to do things in order. Get the fuckers out of office, then nail them to a cross before they go scurrying back into their hovels.
So, please, for now, let it go.
Before we explore Stephen Miller’s special list, I’d like to tell you a little story. Here it goes…
The Tale of the Fire and the Key
Once upon a time, in a wounded country called Deutschland, there stood a great palace of glass and stone where men gathered every day to quarrel. The house was called the Reichstag. Within its grand chamber, voices rose like clashing swords over bread, wages, and the bitter memories of a lost war. In those cold, hungry years, the quarreling grew so loud and the misery so deep that many weary citizens began to wish for a master who would hush the shouting and make the great house still.
On the thirtieth day of January in the winter of 1933, the land’s ancient president — a giant of an old field marshal named Paul von Hindenburg, with eyes like dull iron and a white mustache that swept from cheek to cheek — summoned a dark-haired orator to his side and made him chancellor. Adolf Hitler possessed neither noble blood nor gentle manners; his hair was parted flat against his brow, and his small black mustache was scarcely wider than his nostrils. When he spoke, his voice would begin in a low, conspiratorial murmur, drawing men forward until suddenly it rose into a feverish roar that made the chandeliers tremble.
The new chancellor wasted no time weaving his web. Within days, on the fourth of February, his cabinet persuaded the old president to sign an order that curbed the newspapers and granted the police power to forbid political rallies and processions. It was not yet a complete silence, but the first tightening of the noose.
Then came the freezing night of February 27. Passersby in Berlin heard the sharp crash of shattering glass, and within minutes, great tongues of orange flame burst through the Reichstag’s gilded cupola. The grand debating chamber was gutted by fire, its timber and tapestries turned to cinders beneath a canopy of choking black smoke. In the smoldering corridors, the police seized a dazed young Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe.
Before the embers had died, Chancellor Hitler and his lieutenants had already fashioned their story. They declared that the blaze was no solitary act of arson, but the fiery signal for a vast, bloody communist insurrection intended to drown the towns in blood. Whether the fire was the work of a lone wanderer or a darker conspiracy remained an unanswered riddle, but the chancellor’s tale spread faster than any winter wind.
On the gray morning of February 28, the chancellor returned to the old president with a piece of parchment. Hindenburg, terrified that the fatherland was about to be swallowed by rebellion, invoked Article 48 of the constitution and pressed his pen to the paper. Officially, it was christened the *Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State*, though the rest of the world would remember it as the Reichstag Fire Decree. The decree bore a name of honey and guardianship, but in the hands of the state, it became an iron key. With this key, the police could turn the lock of any private home in the dead of night, search its cupboards, and tear open sealed letters and telegrams without a magistrate’s warrant. It stripped the citizens of their right to speak their minds, assemble in halls, or publish their dissent. Worst of all, it granted the chancellor’s men the terrible power of "protective custody" — the authority to drag political rivals from their beds and vanish them into detention cells for weeks, months, or forever, without a trial, a charge, or the mercy of a judge. Yet the illusion of the old realm remained. An election was scheduled for the fifth of March, and though the chancellor’s brown-shirted stormtroopers beat opponents in the streets and closed rival presses, the Nazis still failed to win a true majority, taking only forty-four of every hundred votes cast. To rule the house, they were forced to clasp hands with conservative allies. The chancellor, however, did not intend to bargain with partners for long. On the twenty-third of March, because the blackened Reichstag remained in ruins, the parliament was summoned to meet inside the Kroll Opera House. It was a hall transformed into a nightmare theater. Immense red banners bearing the crooked black cross hung from the balconies, and ranks of armed stormtroopers lined the aisles, their boots clicking against the parquet, their voices chanting veiled promises of death to any who dared resist. Eighty-one Communist deputies could not vote; their mandates had been annulled, and they were already locked in cellars, hiding in dark forests, or fleeing across borders. Many Social Democratic deputies were missing as well, hunted and detained. Those Social Democrats who remained took their seats under the menacing gaze of the guards and courageously cast their ballots against the darkness. It was not enough. By a crushing margin of intimidation and complicity, the assembly passed the Enabling Act. For four years, the chancellor’s cabinet was granted the power to enact laws entirely on its own — even laws that violated the constitution itself — without ever consulting the parliament again. The Reichstag had signed its own death warrant, and the democracy of the Weimar Republic was legally strangled where it sat. The new masters ruled for twelve years, not in a fairytale peace, but in a relentless terror that devoured whole continents and murdered millions of innocent souls in camps of concrete and ash, until their empire crumbled in the fire and ruin of May 1945. And so, reader, whenever a ruler comes bearing crisp paper and honeyed phrases, promising that you must surrender your ancient liberties to be shielded from the wolf at the door, look closely at what is written. For under titles as noble as *“For the Protection of the People and the State,”* the darkest monsters have always forged their keys.
And now, let’s take a look at Stephen Miller’s to-do list. He’s already checked off a disturbing number of boxes, so it’s not hard not to imagine the next order of business might be the biggie: a manufactured crisis, dramatic and violent — something on the scale of the Reichstag Fire. The panic that would ensue would be the perfect opportunity to stage a coup, don’t ya think?
Perhaps I’m letting my imagination get away from me, but I don’t think so.
Nothing’s quite as effective as orchestrating just the right catastrophe to make a dictatorship look like the responsible path forward. More than one political commentator has floated some version of this possibility as of late, often citing the Reichstag Fire as an example. Considering what we’ve already endured under Trump’s reign of terror, a big bonfire on Capitol Hill seems disturbingly plausible.
Stephen’s To-Do List…
☑️ Reich-Size the Federal Bureaucracy
An effort (DOGE) billed as "modernization" has stripped numerous federal agencies of their independence and much of their career staff. Veteran administrators have been replaced with political loyalists — some with little or no background related to the institutions they now run. New agency policies, critics argue, seem designed to serve the administration first and the public somewhere further down the list, if at all. Historians have drawn an analogy — though not an equivalence — to Gleichschaltung, the process by which Nazi Germany brought once-independent institutions into line with the regime.
☑️ Reich-Model the Pentagon
Renovations to the Pentagon's command structure have reportedly removed numerous load-bearing objectors — including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, senior military leadership, and top military lawyers, i.e., the people whose job it was to say "that's illegal" before anyone found out the hard way. The goal: armed forces are expected to obey the president without pausing to consult the Constitution. Those inclined to ask inconvenient questions have largely been shown the door, and with oversight running thin, the remodel is said to be nearing completion.
☑️ Castrate Congress
Congress's role in the federal government at one time included making laws, determining how much the government could spend, deciding whether the country goes to war, and acting as a watchdog for all three branches of government. Trump has chosen to ignore this division of power and has boldly appropriated most of Congress's power to himself. To this end, he has frozen money Congress had already doled out, launched a war against Iran without congressional authorization, and fired a slew of federal watchdogs without giving Congress advance notice. He also declared a national emergency as a ruse for slapping tariffs on imports from countries that don't display fealty to him. The Supreme Court has confirmed he has none of these powers, and yet he continues to appropriate them for himself. And he's not been impeached for it.
☑️ Establish the Press Access Rewards Program
Provide MAGA podcasters and influencers with front-row seats at White House press briefings. Make an example of the Associated Press by barring them from Oval Office events when they insist on calling the Gulf of America the Gulf of Mexico. The White House has decided it gets to pick who will and will not join the presidential press pool, and its decisions on this appear to be based solely on who is willing to prop up the press secretary's propaganda, while not calling it propaganda. When the president was displeased about negative coverage of the Iran war, the FCC chairman reminded broadcasters what could happen when their licenses came up for renewal. And finally, every media executive in America watched as Paramount paid out $16 million to settle Trump’s absurd 60 Minutes lawsuit, after which it got its quasi-monopoly merger approved. The FCC chairman's review of this merger was declared "routine." Then there was the debacle with CBS. The list goes on.
☑️ Supreme Compliance
Years of court-packing, combined with sustained pressure on judges at every level, appear nearly finished, with another round of appointments anticipated this month, before the holiday break and the seating of the new Congress. Judges who rule against the administration face impeachment threats. Supreme Court justices perceived as sympathetic to the president have conveniently avoided the scrutiny that would have sunk lesser officials as regards comparable ethics questions. As one can imagine, those justices have found themselves to be supremely loyal to the President. The administration has suggested that an independent judiciary confuses citizens, especially those who have mistaken it for a separate branch of government.
☑️ Dissent-ivization Programs
Publicly criticizing the GOP, the administration, or any Trump-appointed agency head has become a hugely inadvisable career move — public criticizers routinely find themselves stung by a swarm of attractive lawyers with breast augmentation. Law firms that take on the Trump administration have reportedly faced retaliatory consequences, including threats to their security clearances and federal contracts. Remarkably, the right to an attorney remains intact. It's just that having one means very little in a world where court orders are routinely ignored without consequence.
☑️ Domestic Policy's Wartime Vocabulary
The Trump Administration has reframed every policy disagreement as a battlefield. Immigration has become an invasion. Budget fights have become war footing. Protesters are insurgents, journalists are combatants, and routine regulatory disputes are rebranded as fronts causing a national emergency. With Americans constantly under siege, due process has become a luxury, and dissent has been reframed to sound like aiding and abetting the enemy — the enemy being anyone who disagrees with Trump.
☑️ Reich-Minded Opinions Prevail; All Others by Permit Only
The administration insists it's restoring freedom of expression, while critics say it's doing the opposite: targeting institutions, activists, journalists, and other troublesome Americans who insist on exercising their First Amendment rights. Should free speech escalate into a prosecutable offense, all offenders are entitled to counsel — appointed, if they can't afford one — though facing down a Justice Department that's in no hurry tends to make your Sixth Amendment rights feel more symbolic than structural. Federal judges have been ruling against the administration in a notable wave of First Amendment cases — nearly 75 this term alone — a troubling number of which have since been paused or overturned on appeal. Implementing the new free speech policies goes much more smoothly when you have friends on the Supreme Court, some of whom have failed the ethics smell test without consequence.
☑️ Presume Election Fraud Until Proven Republican
An executive order requiring new citizenship documentation and changes to election administration has recently drawn immediate court challenges over the limits of presidential authority — limits the administration appears to regard as more of a suggestion than hard and fast law. The administration's operating principle: elections are sacred, fragile institutions requiring close presidential supervision. Whenever the electorate starts developing ideas of its own, it is the president's duty to intervene, right? Though Article I, Section 4, Clause 1, of the United States Constitution dictates that States run the elections, Trump has determined he has final say in who can vote, how ballots are to be cast, and how ballots are tallied.
☑️ Call It An "Invasion," Then Hollow Out Habeas Corpus
Big changes in habeas corpus. DHS has been allowed to expand detention of immigrants without bond hearings, and the administration has argued, in court, that once someone is removed from the country, little meaningful relief is to be offered. The point of judicial review would have been to determine if a person should be forced to leave the country, but if they are already gone, well, problem solved, right? Advocates are also reporting cases of ICE re-arresting individuals after they've won release, thereby negating the court's wishes.
☑️ Eliminate Women in the Party and Administration; Rollback Women's Rights
Men, as the Bible dictates, are meant to be in charge. Period. They are the deciders, they are the household voters, and it is their choice with whom they are going to have sex. If you're carrying their child, it's going to be to term. Then it's on the woman to care for and financially support that child. Regarding the women's vote, the GOP’s goal is to eliminate it altogether. In the meantime, the stopgap measure is the SAVE America Act, which in effect disenfranchises the vast majority of married women. All of this is a work in progress.
☑️ Impoverish the People. Destroy the Planet. Blame Your Enemies. Play Savior.
The through-line, as critics describe it: manufacture crises that make ordinary life harder, then position the administration as the only entity capable of resolving these hardships. Living wages, the social safety net, affordable healthcare, education, civil rights protections, clean air and water have all become negotiable when they're politically inconvenient or more money is needed for the military. A financially insecure citizenry, the theory goes, makes excellent acoustics for a strongman — a leader who threatens by claiming that only he can fix what has been broken. By him, that is.
☑️ Operation Exclusion
Make belonging in the United States a federal privilege. Raid, detain, and deport immigrants, both legal and undocumented. Revoke protections for asylum seekers and send them back to their countries of origin, even if it means they will be harmed or meet their deaths. Close the door on immigration except for specific groups of people who are White and/or Christian. Sweep up Latino and Filipino immigrants, shut out Haitians, Somalis, Afghans, Iranians, Sudanese, Syrians, and Palestinians. Pull the rug out from under Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. Take crisis support away from lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer people, including children. Revoke the passports, health care, and military careers of trans people. Gut federal diversity and accessibility programs, then issue a press release about how much freedom has been restored. Open a hotline for Whites to call to report cases of discrimination in the workplace. Chastise and slander all of the above on national television, stoking up hatred toward these groups.
☑️ Create Elaborate Structures Idolizing The Ruler and His Regime
President Donald J. Trump International Airport • President Donald J. Trump Boulevard • President Donald J. Trump Avenue • President Donald J. Trump Highway • Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace • Trump–Kennedy Center (name currently removed) • The White House Ballroom • The 250-Foot Triumphal Arch (in progress) • The Trump Presidential Library (planned) • The Oval Office National Monument • The Rose Garden Patio and Statuary • The Presidential Walk of Fame • The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Renovation • The Granite White House Helipad • The East Potomac Park Golf Course Overhaul • Trump-Class Battleships (planned) • USS Defiant (planned) • The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (planned) • TrumpRx • Trump Accounts • The Trump Gold Card • The Trump Portrait Passport • The Trump National Parks Pass • The 24-Karat Trump Gold Coin • Trump’s Signature on U.S. Paper Currency • Trump Portrait Banners on Federal Buildings • The Golden Trump Statue at Doral • Trump Dulles Airport (proposed) • Trump Penn Station (proposed) • Trump Commanders Stadium (proposed) • Trump on Mount Rushmore (proposed).
☑️ Convert Public Exhaustion Into Political Resignation
Keep scandals and crises arriving faster than anyone can fact-check them, so that confusion and sheer exhaustion do the work outrage used to do. Record the resulting numbness, officially, as improved public acceptance of the administration's policy agenda.
☑️ Redefine "Enemy" as Anyone Who Inconveniences or Disparages the Regime
Build public confidence in this definition by first demonizing violent criminals, then widening the aperture to include protesters, lawyers, professors, election workers, college students, and the librarian who keeps putting It Can't Happen Here on the display table. The goal: an escalation so gradual it's nearly invisible, with the citizenry kept off balance, wondering whether what they're doing, or even who they are, is still legal.
☐ Complete Construction on the Ballroom/Bunker
Few people are under the illusion that the new "Presidential Ballroom" is being built for Viennese waltzes and state dinners.
☐ Calendar the Burning of the Capitol Building
A fire at the Capitol will become, by morning, the pretext for suspending Congress, civil liberties and privacy protections, authorizing mass arrests, centralizing power, and suppressing political opposition, as well as imprisoning all of the celebrities who have spoken out against Trump, starting with Robert DeNiro and Bruce Springsteen. The ashes of American democracy would then quickly be swept up by an army of ShopVacs donated by Home Depot, and the spot on which the Capitol once stood would become the new location for the Arc de Trump, which will have tripled in size.
☐ Draft the One Big Beautiful Capitol Fire Decree
The president will respond to the Capitol Fire by dissolving all federal, state, and local governmental institutions and assuming the self-bestowed title of His Most Führious Führer, inaugurating the Make America Furious Again era — and, with it, the birth of NotSee America.
☐ Announce That Trump's Extraordinary Powers Are Temporary
Extraordinary powers, naturally, remain in place only until order has been restored, the threat eliminated, investigations concluded, and the guilty sentenced to death by firing squad, or by lethal injection in Tennessee. It will be business as usual (per the Constitution) once Americans start returning to rallies in respectable numbers. Until then: fuck it.
☐ Update the National Motto and the Constitution
First, a quick brand refresh: “In God We Trust” officially becomes “In Trump We Trust.” Next, since the White House already has a calligrapher on retainer, we might as well have them take another pass at the Constitution. Let’s face it — the original draft is wildly inconvenient for the current administration, the cursive practically illegible, and nobody is adhering to it anyway. It’s time to drag the supreme law of the land into the 21st century. New rules, fresh wording, and classic lettering rendered with a Sharpie Calligraphy Pen™ are in order. Here’s what Stephen is envisioning for the United States version of the Enabling Act:
And finally…
☐ Settle In For A Nice, Long World War