Trump's anti-government gun nuts find their true calling
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Opinion
This heinous Trump abuse won't topple its targets — but the real point is much scarier
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump’s corrupt and lawless Justice Department served grand jury subpoenas on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, State Attorney Gen. Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and two county administrators, as part of an investigation into whether they “obstructed or impeded law enforcement during a sweeping immigration operation” in the Twin Cities area.
The subpoenas came a day after Trump’s DOJ urged a judge to reject a state lawsuit to stop the immigrant enforcement surge that has agitated and frightened local citizens, inspiring massive protests.
As James Zirin, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote in Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits (2019), nobody familiar with Trump’s legal history could have been surprised that in this case, “he would seek to weaponize the justice system, use his power to bend the law, attack his enemies and critics, and claim victory when there was none.”
Not unlike his embarrassing midweek performance at Davos, where his attempt to make a case for seizing Greenland was a total bust to say the least, in Minnesota, Trump declared victory immediately.
In response, Walz told Fox News: “A mother is dead, and the people responsible have yet to be held accountable.”
Most telling was the fact that there is not going to be a federal investigation of how Jonathan Ross, an ICE agent, killed Renee Good, because the Trump administration instantaneously “determined” that the officer acted in self-defense.
Even if this had been true, which videos clearly showed was not the case, to not investigate any law enforcement killing is in total opposition to common practices, locally or nationally.
Furthermore, federal officials did open an investigation into Good’s wife, Becca Good, to determine whether she “impeded a federal officer moments before he shot and killed Good” or had “ties to activist groups.”
In such an atmosphere, Walz stressed, “kids are afraid to go to school [and] small businesses are hurting,” employees laying low, customers lacking.
“That’s where the energy of the federal government should be directed: toward restoring trust, accountability, and real law and order, not political retaliation,” Walz said.
He also accused federal officials of pursuing “political theatre,” adding: “Minnesota will not be intimidated and neither will I.”
Similarly, AG Ellison said: “Donald Trump is coming after the people of Minnesota, and I’m standing in the way. I will not be intimidated, and I will not stop working to protect Minnesotans from Trump’s campaign of retaliation and revenge.”
The subpoenas against Ellison, Walz and others were searching for “any records tending to show a refusal to come to the aid of immigration officials,” according to a subpoena released by Mayor Frey’s office that included a long list of documents to be presented before a grand jury on Feb. 3.
In response to this inquiry, focusing on whether officials were in violation of a “conspiracy” statute, Frey stated that the subpoenas were simply about stoking fear.
“We shouldn’t have to live in a country where people fear that federal law enforcement will be used to play politics or crack down on local voices they disagree with,” he said.
Her, the St. Paul mayor, is an immigrant herself. She said she was “unfazed by these tactics.”
All the targeted officials regarded the federal investigation as spurious and involving “bullying tactics” meant to discourage political opposition and the right to first amendment protest against overly forceful federal immigration and deportation policy. Not to mention how that approach tramples on the fourth amendment.
These criminal investigations, like Trump’s lifelong history of counter-lawsuits, have always been about weaponizing the law. They also represent the Trumpian way of negotiating and/or playing with the vulnerable relationships of law, power, and justice.
For Trump, the fundamental difference is that he is no longer a private litigant. His roles are no longer confined to that of plaintiff or defendant in mostly civil lawsuits. Instead, he has become the de facto U.S. chief prosecutor and defense attorney, as well as chief FBI investigator.
According to Protect Democracy, which tracks retaliatory arrests, prosecutions, and investigations, by the end of 2025 the Trump Department of Justice had weaponized its power “to punish political opponents, chill dissent, or pretextually achieve political objectives” in at least 18 high-profile cases, against the following targets:
- Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve
- Lisa Cook, Federal Reserve Governor
- Mark Kelly, Democratic Arizona Senator
- Adam Schiff, Democratic California Senator, Former Chair of House Intelligence Committee
- Alex Padilla, Democratic California Senator
- LaMonica McIver, Democratic U.S. Representative from New Jersey
- Ras Baraka, Mayor of Newark, NJ, Democratic Candidate for Governor
- Kat Abughazaleh, Democratic Congressional Candidate
- Brad Lander, NYC Comptroller
- Honorable Hannah Dugan, Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge
- Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Maryland man deported in violation of Immigration Court order
- Letitia James, New York Attorney General
- David Huerta, SEIU California President
- John Bolton, Former National Security Advisor
- James Comey, Former FBI Director
- John O. Brennan, Former CIA Director
- Chris Krebs, Former Director Cybersecurity, DHS
- Miles Taylor, Former Chief of Staff, DHS
Like the forming cases in Minneapolis and St. Paul these cases all involved “selective” and "vindictive" investigations and/or prosecutions. Most if not all will come to nothing — other than to help reproduce the president’s lying narratives about his tactics and popular resistance to those lawless practices.
- Gregg Barak is an emeritus professor of criminology and criminal justice at Eastern Michigan University and the author of several award-winning books on the crimes of the powerful, including Criminology on Trump (2022) and its sequel, Indicting the 45th President: Boss Trump, the GOP, and What We Can Do About the Threat to American Democracy (2024). The third book in this Trump trilogy, Regime Change, Authoritarian Treason, and the Outlaw-in-Chief: President Donald Trump’s Struggle to Kill U.S. Democracy & Realign American Global Power, will be published after the 2026 midterm election.
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Show Trump bad news like this and he'll lose his mind
As Donald Trump’s dementia worsens, several axioms are useful for interpreting his increasingly incoherent bloviation.
- Axiom #1: Whatever he asserts to be a fact is either a wild exaggeration or a bald-faced lie. Always disregard.
- Axiom #2: Whatever he blames on anyone else is something he’s done. He projects like mad, so his accusations are always windows onto what he’s worrying that others will discover about himself.
- Axiom #3: Whatever he criticizes as being fake news is a fact he doesn’t want you to know. So pay special attention to it.
- Axiom #4: Whenever he attacks some source of information — a survey, poll, or report — it’s come up with some truth he fears. So look at it and share it.
(If you’ve got any other axioms, please share them with us.)
Apropos of the fourth axiom comes a new New York Times/Siena University poll, which prompted a bilious message from Trump, saying he’s adding it to his lawsuit against theTimes.
Hence, the poll is worth your looking at and sharing.
What does it show? That all the hand-wringing over Trump’s so-called “realignment” in the 2024 election was rubbish. There was no realignment.
It’s true that when Trump took office a year ago, his approval rating was above 50 percent and he had made significant breakthroughs among traditionally Democratic groups of voters — especially young, nonwhite, and low-turnouts.
But now that’s all gone. Only 40 percent of registered voters now approve of his performance. The supposed “demographic shifts” of the last election have completely vanished. Young and nonwhite voters disapprove of him even more than they did then, although he has kept most of his support among older and white voters.
Overall, among registered voters nationwide, Democrats lead by five percentage points. It’s the largest lead for the Democrats in a Times/Siena national poll since 2020. It would be enough for them to take back the House of Representatives.
The poll was done between Jan. 12 and 17, before Trump threatened Greenland and after an ICE agent killed Renee Good but before many of the other atrocities committed by ICE in Minnesota fully came to light.
But the biggest problem for Trump appears to be the economy. He was elected for two reasons: He said he’d get prices down and avoid foreign entanglements. He’s reneged “bigly” on both promises.
- Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org
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Trump's devotees are petrified about what's about to come
I confess. I don’t fully understand why anyone steeped in the culture of MAGA would be having doubts. Donald Trump is the same man he was the first time he was elected. Literally nothing about him has changed. If you didn’t mind what you saw after 2016, why would you mind what you’re seeing after 2024?
And yet it appears to be the case that MAGA is cracking. It hasn’t broken apart. It hasn’t crumbled. Not yet. But cracks are discernible not only in polling (Trump’s approval rating has been underwater for more than 300 days), but in the U.S. Congress.
The Republicans appear nervous about the fact that Trump is paying more attention to Venezuela’s problems than America’s. More importantly, they appear nervous about his broken promises. He said he’d bring down the cost of living on Day One. Nope. He said he’d release the Epstein files. Nope. He said he’d focus on America and leave the rest of the world alone. Nope.
In general, he said he’d make America great again, but even to his most devoted followers, America still doesn’t feel that great.
Republicans in Congress have reacted with a pace that seems to be increasing. First, it was the Epstein files. All but one voted for their release. Then it was health insurance. Seventeen House Republicans voted to renew ACA subsidies for three years. (That bill now goes to the Senate.) Then it was Greenland and Venezuela. The Senate is poised to vote on a war powers resolution aiming to restrain a president gone rogue.
Cracks, however, are just cracks. The edifice of MAGA stands firm for now. Trump can send his paramilitary (ICE, CBP) to execute frightened widowed mothers but still expect at least 33 percent of the population to back him. (The most recent Gallup survey that I have seen shows his approval rating to be 36 percent.)
And yet something is happening. Trump’s blatant abuse of power really does seem to be radicalizing moderates and causing Trumpers to experience cognitive dissonance (a mental collision of diametric beliefs). I haven’t seen Republicans this anxious since a mob sacked and looted the Capitol. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) voted for the war powers resolution faster than he ran away from insurgents.
If congressional Republicans are indeed scared, maybe there’s an opportunity. What that might be, exactly, I really don’t know. What I do know is that, in the long term, the Democrats cannot save democracy on their own. They need some Republicans to join them. Perhaps now is the time to help some MAGA voters step away from the edge, for their sakes and everyone’s sake.
This is the hope of Rich Logis. He’s the founder of a group that helps MAGA voters betrayed by Trump to come to their senses, though he doesn’t put it that way in this interview with me.
Instead, Rich told me that some issues, like the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its leader, are so contrary to the MAGA worldview (in this case, “America First”) that “over time, more and more in MAGA will realize that Trump's actions are not for the benefit of most Americans — including his supporters.”
I got in touch with Rich, because he himself reached out to liberals. In a piece for Salon in November, he explained his own indoctrination in MAGA, why it held him until about 2017, why it still holds millions more, and how liberals can help get them out.
I went fairly hard on Rich, as you will see. But I think his answers are strong. You might find them persuasive. Anyway, he’s right.
“If we are going to successfully fight back,” Rich told me, “against the administration's anti-democratic (lower-case d) and unconstitutional actions (defying court orders, apprehending and deporting without due process, among others), it will require unlikely, but necessary alliances.”
JS: Liberals believed the Epstein files are breaking MAGA. The president is struggling to regain the previously unconditional support of his base. Is that true? What signs are you seeing?
RL: I do think there are fissures within the MAGA community. Our organization, Leaving MAGA, has been approached by remorseful 2024 MAGA voters. It would seem from recent polling (even though I am somewhat skeptical of polls) that Trump is losing support among Latinos in particular. What is remarkable about the Epstein story is: in our current media environment, in which stories tend to come and go, the Epstein saga isn't going away. I believe many in MAGA are experiencing cognitive dissonance over the story, and are beginning to wonder if Trump has been lying to them.
In Salon, you said: "I believe most in MAGA are good people who have been led astray, exploited and manipulated." Trump hasn't changed. His first term showed who he is. Are you letting his supporters off the hook?
I will not defend my, or anyone else's, ignorance. I, like all MAGA Americans, support(ed) Trump of our own volition. None of us were coaxed or coerced into voting for Trump and defending him. One of the reasons MAGA is an extremist group is because vilifying, demonizing and dehumanizing those with whom we disagree is encouraged.
It is also important, however, to acknowledge that all of us are susceptible to being influenced. Personally speaking, I allowed myself to be inculcated into the MAGA black-and-white way of thinking, primarily because I consumed only MAGA-friendly media and spent most of my time with other MAGA supporters.
You say liberals must create conditions in which MAGA apostates are welcomed? You can understand that liberals often don't want to welcome those who can't or won't take responsibility for their actions. What's your advice?
Liberals are not wrong about the damage MAGA and Trump have wrought. I understand why liberals may be weary to befriend MAGA voters. Trump has traumatized America for more than a decade.
But if we are going to successfully fight back against the administration's anti-democratic (lower-case d) and unconstitutional actions (defying court orders, apprehending and deporting without due process, among others), it will require unlikely, but necessary alliances.
I don't ask that MAGA Americans be coddled. But if one believes all is not lost — after all, many of those in MAGA are our friends and family — then I would ask my fellow anti-MAGA countrymen and women: what is gained by publicly judging and ostracizing them? I guarantee that invective against MAGA supporters strengthens the already-strong tie that binds them to Trump.
You mention MAGA media. It is everywhere and it's on all the time. It is why otherwise decent and intelligent people believe lies. It is why MAGA adherents stay adhered to MAGA. There are rich Democrats who could create their own media universe. If you had five minutes of Warren Buffet's time (for example), what would you say to him?
I'm biased, since our organization features stories of those who left MAGA. What is needed is more content and media about those who have left, as well as those having doubts about their support for Trump.
If I started a well-funded media company, I would craft my content to find MAGA Americans who are feeling remorse over their past votes, not to censure them, but to give them a voice that legacy media doesn't seem much interested in providing. There are plenty of published reports focused on reasons Americans had for supporting Trump. But what about those who are now questioning their beliefs? They are among us and we need to get in front of them, and go to where they are.
MAGA media and MAGA influencers have a stranglehold on the national political discourse. Mis- and disinformation were the primary reasons Trump was reelected. To combat this, there need to be more efforts to engage the apolitical, who follow and consume very little political news.
Apoliticism is its own bubble, and effective pro-democracy media would seek to pop it.
Many liberals believe MAGA wants what its getting — a president who is trying to make America white again. And I think this is largely true. What you're saying is there are some MAGA who are reachable. How can they be reached if they didn't see the bigotry that was obvious to others? What kinds of policies are appealing? What values?
I have no problem with people enduring the consequences of their electoral choices. This is how the real world works. And, like any large group, there are some in MAGA who revel in bigotry and hatred. But I think for the balance of MAGA supporters, there are deeds and rhetoric of Trump's that have given them pause. In my case, one of the earliest such moments was Trump's response to Charlottesville.
For so many, MAGA is their identity, and they are heavily personally and politically invested in MAGA, which is why they justify the unjustifiable. I am not defending them, but I cannot emphasize enough how MAGA has shaped their being and personhood, and how frightening it is to admit that one erred in one's ways and allowed one's self to believe lies.
I understand why someone might say, "Trump voters are getting what they deserved" or "how could they not have known what Trump would do?" However, many MAGA voters didn't know much of what Trump would do because the information sources they consume didn't tell them.
MAGA media didn't tell them that American citizens would be kidnapped by ICE. Many didn't know that they would be personally and financially harmed by tariffs, as examples.
Having lived a MAGA life for seven years, I’m unsurprised by anything that has happened this year. Perhaps that is cynical of me to say. But I am still optimistic headed into 2026, because I believe that more and more people in the MAGA community are having doubts about their support for Trump and the movement.
It will take time, but please remember that epiphanies usually occur gradually, and then suddenly, all at once.
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This Trump ploy isn't just scandalously unethical: it's yet another impeachable offense
This isn’t merely scandalous or unethical: it’s impeachable on its face and dangerous to the survival of democracy worldwide.
Donald Trump is trying to use a United Nations resolution to justify making himself King of the World via a new “Board of Peace” that Trump says “might” replace the UN, with the ability to pass the title along to his son, Don Jr., if he continues to please his father.
No, this isn’t an exaggeration.
It all started when the United Nations Security Council voted to accept Resolution 2803 on Nov. 17, to make effective the Gaza peace plan agreed to by Israel and Hamas in October 2025.
Resolution 2803 called for a two-year international stabilization force and a “Board of Peace” to oversee the process in the region. It was explicit, however, that this would be a board with a very limited portfolio:
“The Security Council, Welcoming the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict … Welcomes the establishment of the Board of Peace (BoP) as a transitional administration with international legal personality that will set the framework, and coordinate funding for, the redevelopment of Gaza pursuant to the Comprehensive Plan, and in a manner consistent with relevant international legal principles, until such time as the Palestinian Authority (PA) has satisfactorily completed its reform program, as outlined in various proposals, including President Trump’s peace plan in 2020 and the Saudi-French Proposal, and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza.”
In response to that, Trump had his administration lawyers create an entirely new private, non-governmental “treaty‑based international organization” with its own legal personality, that is not a U.S. government agency, corporation, or standard NGO/non‑profit. This new entity called the “Board of Peace” would:
- Make Trump its chairman, with essentially absolute power and a veto over every action.
- Make the chairman the only person able to invite or approve new member-states into the group.
- Give Trump the sole ability to appoint his own successor as heir/successor/chairman, such as Don Jr.
- Keep the Board of Peace in existence for perpetuity should the current or a subsequent Chairman decide.
- Make the entrance fee for permanent members $1 billion each, money the Chairman controls.
The draft charter Trump has proposed for his Board of Peace doesn’t even mention Gaza, anywhere; as a result, it appears designed to replace the UN as a new governing body for the entire world.
When asked if Trump intended the Board to replace the UN, he replied that it “might” do so, adding:
“The UN should have settled every one of the wars that I settled. I never went to them. I never even thought to go to them.”
The White House has already named the first four Executive Board members: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, billionaire and Trump friend Steve Witkoff, former British prime minister Tony Blair, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Vladimir Putin also indicated he’d like to join and suggested Russia’s billion-dollar entrance fee could come from funds already seized by the US government.
This “give us an inch and we’ll take a mile” attempt to co-opt the power and role of the UN and give it entirely to the Trump family, creating a new international royal family that could rule the world for generations to come, was described by Jacob T. Levy, a political theory professor at McGill University, as “impeachable.”
“Regardless of whether this organization ever even looks in the direction of Gaza, it’s an assault on the international order subordinating the decisions of states to the personal jurisdiction of the Trump family … It’s hard to be shocked anymore, I know, but we should be shocked.”
This international power grab also comports with Trump’s statement yesterday at Davos that his becoming a dictator for the world would be a good thing:
“…I’m a dictator,” he told a reception for CEOs, adding, “But sometimes you need a dictator.”
It’s an echo of his statement last August as he was ordering troops into the streets of Washington, DC:
“A lot of people are saying, maybe we like a dictator,” then added, speaking of people’s comments about himself, “Already they’re saying he’s a dictator. The place is going to hell and we’ve got to stop it.”
With no elections, accountability, or checks-and-balances, this “Board of Peace” is a direct assault on democracy worldwide. The chairman (Trump) is not answerable to voters, Congress, courts, or international law: this is the opposite of democratic governance.
The chairman overrides all collective decisions, and even if member states vote, their decisions mean nothing without Trump’s approval. That isn’t democracy, it’s veto-by-monarchy.
This is designed to normalize authoritarian governance worldwide, fulfilling Putin’s dream. If the U.S. president can create a parallel global authority that ignores democratic norms, why shouldn’t other strongmen like him and Xi Jinping do the same? Or simply start ignoring UN mandates and rules, saying they now submit to the BoP’s authority instead?
It’s also corruption, plain and simple. The billion-dollar “fee” to stay in good standing is legalized bribery, making the entire scheme simply a form of extortion dressed up as governance: pay or be expelled.
Because membership can be terminated at the chairman’s whim — even after payment — this isn’t a real “treaty organization”: it’s a protection racket that violates the most basic anti-corruption norms the U.S. claims to defend. “Nice little country you have there; we’ll help you bring peace if you pay up to the Trump family…”
It’s also establishing a new form of dynastic rule with the Trump family at its center. Trump appointing his own successor isn’t even subtle: it’s a proposal for hereditary power without even the pretense of merit or consent.
And, because the Trump family, not the American people, controls the future of the organization, it’s not even a nod in the direction of the democracy our Founders and generations of Americans have fought and died to bring into being and keep alive. Even if voters were to decisively reject Trumpism at the ballot box, the Trump dynasty would still keep power at a level above the United States itself.
This mirrors the logic of autocracies the U.S. claims to oppose, including Russia, North Korea, and the Gulf monarchies that are all so dear to Trump. America fought a revolution to escape dynastic rule, but now Trump wants to establish one here and then export it worldwide.
Trump’s “Board of Peace” is a direct threat to American constitutional government because the US itself, under the terms of this charter, becomes subject to Trump’s personal authority. Under the proposed document, the U.S. can be expelled unless it pays a ransom or pleases the chairman.
This also undermines the American presidency as an institution — and future American presidents — because a future democratically elected president could be extorted or sidelined by this private Trump-led entity. It also bypasses Congress entirely with no treaties, no ratification, and no oversight. This isn’t “America First”: it’s Trump and his family first, raw personal power, with America Optional.
And it takes a direct whack at the international order established by the United Nations eighty-plus years ago. The BoP charter doesn’t even bother to mention Gaza, its supposedly humanitarian justification. International law is thus replaced by the Trump family’s personal jurisdiction, and nation-states are no longer equal actors; they become simple clients dependent on Trump’s favor.
The structure also rewards authoritarian regimes and punishes democracies. Dictators can pay, flatter, and comply, while democracies are constrained by law and public accountability and thus disadvantaged.
Already, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has said, “We have, of course, accepted this honorable invitation.” After the United States pulled back from 66 UN organizations and is now $1 billion in arrears on our dues, the 21 nations already committed to signing up also include: Bahrain, Morocco, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Israel, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, Uzbekistan and Mongolia.
This dangerous precedent doesn’t bring peace to Gaza or anyplace else. Instead, it replaces law with loyalty to the Trump dynasty.
If Trump can get away this, so can the next demagogue because once democratic norms are abandoned, they don’t magically return. It sets a precedent for private, unaccountable global power.
Which is why Jacob Levy is right: this is impeachable on its face. This phony “Board of Peace” is a personal power project that treats democracy as an inconvenience, the rule of law as optional, and the world as a Trump family inheritance.
We should be as shocked and furious as are the leaders of Europe’s top democracies — who have said they will not participate — and moving quickly toward impeaching our wannabe king and his courtiers.
- Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.
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This GOP Epstein gambit is plain hypocritical — and can't shield Trump for long
You’ve got to hand it to the Republicans. The hypocrisy they practice daily is truly world class, and never more so than as it applies to the Epstein Files.
You may have heard that on Wednesday, the ironically named House Oversight Committee — whose unwillingness to examine any culpability from the current administration in the matter of the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein matter is quite the “oversight” — voted to charge former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with criminal contempt of Congress, over their refusal to testify in the Epstein investigation.
This would be the same Department of Justice probe that is now more than a month behind schedule in releasing more than 99 percent of the unclassified materials demanded under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Evidently, the GOP thought the legislation was called the Epstein Files Disappearing Act.
What’s the hold up? Such an excellent question. I might have overheard a few excuses:
- “The boxes that contain them are just too heavy. We’re trying to hire some really strong guys to lift them.”
- “We’re way behind on rent at the storage facility where they’re being housed, and they won’t let us access them until we get square.”
- “They’re still being vetted by our crack team at the assisted living home.”
- “We’re struggling to translate them from Latin.”
The few batches of documents the DOJ has released are just enough to paint Bill Clinton as a guy who liked to hang with Epstein and his convicted sex trafficking accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Remarkably, nearly every other name in the docs is redacted. Or perhaps they simply have odd names, spelled with thick black lines drawn through them.
Let’s face it: the excuse that more time is needed to scale the redactions and protect the victims’ identities is a complete crock. Even if we’re talking about more than two million docs and exhibits, dedicating a team of 20 or 25 (or 50 or 150) people to the task of poring over them shouldn’t take nearly this long.
It's clear this is a matter of delaying justice, and we all know what they say about justice delayed. But where is the contempt charge for Attorney General Pam Bondi? Nowhere to be found, of course.
When you’re Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the Republican Oversight chair, accountability is a one-way street, and the rule of law applies only to Democrats.
Indeed, it’s downright remarkable that this sit-on-their-hands, see no evil, hear no evil House suddenly sprang to life when the Clintons told them to get bent. Even nine Democrats awakened to advance the contempt legislation. (They were seemingly just overjoyed to be voting on something that crept forward.)
This is not at all to diminish Bill Clinton’s involvement with Epstein and Maxwell. It’s creepy at best: shameful and inexcusable. The fact he was once President of the United States shouldn’t grant him immunity, even if the Supreme Court would probably see it differently — or would if his name was Trump.
But the Clintons are correct in seeing this as the transparent piece of political retribution that it is, and the double standard it exposes could not be more stark and appalling.
Should the full House approve the contempt citations in early February, criminal referrals to the DOJ could carry fines of up to $100,000 each and a year in prison.
Oozing self-satisfaction, Comer declared this week that the Clintons “possessed information directly relevant to the investigation.”
Apparently, the 99 percent of the Epstein docs whose release is mandated by law but remain locked away are by comparison irrelevant.
It shold also be noted that Bill Clinton has offered to submit to an interview by Comer under oath, and both Clintons were prepared to present sworn statements noting what they would say in testimony.
Not good enough for Comer.
This isn’t about seeking real accountability. It’s a dog-and-pony show designed to disparage the Clintons and distract, as ever, from the incriminating horror that’s really in those files.
At the heart of going after a former president and former presidential candidate (and cabinet member) is Donald Trump’s petty and destructive attack on the Democratic Party. If this works out, you can bet he’ll come for Barack Obama next. It’s a hateful power play, nothing more.
The elephant rampaging through this room is Trump himself. Does Trump not “possess information relevant to the investigation”? By all accounts, he had a longer and closer relationship with Epstein than anyone. He’s also the guy who made sure Maxwell was transferred to the cushiest lockup imaginable, where they do everything for her short of plying her with champagne and caviar and buffing up her nails.
The delay tactics and bait-and-switch fails to address the fact that the Epstein docs are all about Trump and his pedophile buddies. This was why it hit so close to home for Trump, leading him to give a decidedly unpresidential finger, when that guy at the Ford plant shouted, “Pedophile protector!”
We should be shocked if we see 5 percent of these Epstein documents before the midterm elections. My educated guess is that as long as the Republicans are in charge of Congress, that will be just fine with the virtuous disciplinarians who claim to have suddenly located their law-and-order spines, just in relation to the Clintons.
Make no mistake, the former first couple are being punished for their willingness to address the Epstein inquiry at all, while Trump skates free. It’s the Republican way of justice.
- Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.
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This red-state city is bracing for disaster thanks to Trump
Any day now a swarm of armed state police dressed for war could descend on a metropolitan area in south-west Ohio.
The small town of Springfield in Clark County is awaiting an invasion of unaccountable thugs who conceal their faces and identities, drive in unmarked vehicles with blackened windows, stomp on the Bill of Rights, and viciously brutalize human beings based on race and accent.
The clock is ticking for 20 to 25 percent of the city’s population from Haiti. In two weeks, barring last-minute legal or congressional intervention, immigrants from the violently imploding Caribbean country will lose their legal protection from rampaging ICE warriors eager to fill deportation quotas.
The militarized sweep of terror unleashed by unrestrained federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that has traumatized Minneapolis and the nation writ large could be coming to Springfield soon.
An estimated 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian residents in the metro area — many of whom have been living, working, and raising families in the area for close to a decade under a legal immigration lifeline — will be stripped of their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) on Feb. 3.
That means on Feb. 4, a paramilitary ICE force of masked tough guys can grab and deport as many Creole-speaking Black people in Springfield as possible.
Those who protest the savagery deployed against their neighbors could face the same harassment and dispersement tactics demonstrators in the Twin Cities did with flash grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets or, like Renee Good, worse.
The Ohio city is bracing for barbaric.
Haitian residents cut off from their legally protected status could meet the same fate as other immigrants besieged by cosplaying federal Rambos with weapons and short fuses.
The Haitians who flocked to Springfield to escape a violent homeland trusted Ohio to have their backs. They worked their tails off and endured much to revive a dying Rust Belt region. But the lives they painstakingly built in Ohio as co-workers, business owners, community activists and church-going family people are nearing an expiration date.
The huddled masses who yearned to be free in Springfield are terrified of being returned to Haiti which is even more turbulent and deadly than when they left.
It is considered too dangerous by the U.S. for its own citizens.
The State Department gave Haiti its highest Level Four: Do Not Travel advisory due to extreme risks of being caught in gunfire or ongoing gang violence, kidnappings, armed robbery, sexual assault, and severe shortages of basic necessities including fuel, water, and food.
Yet while acknowledging (in a gross understatement) that “certain conditions in Haiti remain concerning,” the Trump regime insists the bloody hellscape is safe enough to ship 350,000 Haitian immigrants legally employed in the U.S, including Springfield, back home.
The Department of Homeland Security even dangled a $1,000 incentive to Haitians who self-deport.
One Springfield immigrant who is haunted by the bodies he saw regularly on the streets of Haiti, gunned down by roving gangs, flinched at an exit bonus to armed conflict.
“You could be self-deporting to your death,” he said.
The Haitians who turned to Ohio for security, employment, and hope rescued Springfield said local pastor Carl Ruby.
The town had been in decline for 70 years before the 2017 arrival of Haitians, he explained.
“We had shrunk all the way back to the population we had in 1910,” and the influx of immigrants, granted temporary refuge in Springfield, was “one of the best things that has happened in terms of economic growth and tax revenues” despite initial growing pains.
“There were legitimate issues when such a large group arrived all at once, but we’ve made a lot of progress in dealing with those issues and it’s going to be both an economic and humanitarian disaster if TPS ends.”
At the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, executive director Viles Dorsainvil said many of his compatriots who survived political upheaval, insecurity and abductions in Haiti believed they had come to Ohio to work hard, raise their families, go to school and contribute to their community.
Now they shudder with fear and uncertainty as their final hours of safety and stability ebb away.
“But we keep going because we are a resilient people,” sighed Dorsainvil.
Yet if the Trump regime revokes the Haitians’ temporary protected status a couple of weeks from now ICE agents could quickly invade Springfield, like other targeted cities, and drag documented immigrants from their children their homes, their dreams.
Anxious town leaders are appealing for calm.
Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine warned of a looming economic crisis in Springfield if area factories and business cannot find replacements for the thousands of terminated Haitian employees slated for indefensible deportation to what DeWine called “one of the most dangerous places in the world.”
These immigrants were a godsend to American employers who struggled with hard-to-fill jobs.
In a sane world, Republican leadership in Ohio would be fighting tooth and nail to protect the TPS holders from Haiti building a robust economic comeback in Clark County because it is clearly in the best interest of the state to do so.
Ohio’s U.S. senators would be racing to obtain a TPS extension or redesignation for Haiti to give Springfield’s immigrant community work permit protections against removal to an extraordinarily unsafe country.
But they acquiesce without a fight while the madness of a militarized sweep of terror comes to south-west Ohio.
And it will. Any day now.
- Marilou Johanek is a veteran Ohio print and broadcast journalist who has covered state and national politics as a longtime newspaper editorial writer and columnist.
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This Trump lackey was shockingly prescient about president before wild about-face
Donald Trump “is unfit for our nation’s highest office,” JD Vance famously said.
He’s “reprehensible,” the now-vice president said before Trump’s first election, and “an idiot.”
Trump, he said way back then, may even become “America’s Hitler.”
Vance was prescient when it came to Trump.
Because the 47th U.S. president has repeatedly shown he’s unfit, most germanely for our purposes: He’s sent a paramilitary force of 3,000 masked, heavily armed agents to terrorize us. Agents have accosted Minnesotans based only on skin color, invaded people’s homes without warrants, beaten — and in two cases shot — people without giving justification for adequate cause.
The Vance who understood Trump so well a decade ago is apparently a weak man whose lust for power overrode whatever principles he had, if they were ever sincere.
He disgraced his office by calling Renee Nicole Good — who was killed this month by a federal officer — a “deranged leftist” and her actions “classic terrorism.” But in the same press conference, he admitted: “I don’t know what was in her heart or what was in her head.”
He’s ever the political chameleon.
That said, Vance is coming to Minnesota on Thursday for a “roundtable” with local leadership. We’re a welcoming people, so I hope he enjoys the brisk air.
No doubt his propaganda minister will set him up with someone who will tell him ICE is great and immigrants are terrible, but he should talk to some others.
Like ChongLy “Scott” Thao, an American who told the Associated Press masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents forced their way into his house and pointed guns at the family, yelling at them. They then pushed him at gunpoint out into the street wearing only his undergarments in subfreezing temperatures.
“I was shaking,” he said. “They didn’t show any warrant; they just broke down the door.”
Minnesota is home to many Hmong families who we welcomed here after the Vietnam War, when they fought for the Americans at great personal risk.
Or how about this Columbia Heights resident, Ramon Menera, another U.S. citizen who said he was detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents Jan. 14 because of his accent.
His hilarious retort, captured on video: “You have an accent, too!”
Maybe Vance should talk to Nasra Ahmed, 23, also a U.S. citizen, born and raised in St. Paul. She was arrested by ICE last week and detained for two days, enduring a racial slur and a stress-induced seizure, according to U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum. Oddly, Ahmed faces no charges.
He should also talk to Ryan Ecklund, a Woodbury realtor who was lawfully observing ICE when he was arrested and detained for 10 hours.
Finally, no doubt Vance backs the blue — except when people assault police officers as they storm the U.S. Capitol to try to keep Trump in office, in which case, pardons all around — so he should talk to Mark Bruley, the Brooklyn Park police chief.
Bruley said his own off-duty officers have been racially profiled while encountering ICE. “Every person who has had this happen to them is a person of color.”
Here’s what went down, according to Bruley:
“When (the officer) became concerned about the rhetoric and the way she was being treated, she pulled out her phone in an attempt to record the incident, the phone was knocked out of her hands, preventing her from recording it.
“The [agents] had their guns drawn during the incident and the officer became so concerned she was forced to identify herself as a Brooklyn Park police officer in hopes of slowing and de-escalating the incident.”
Second Lady Usha Vance is having a baby. Great! Vance should visit the Mischief Toy Store in St. Paul, where ICE agents — angry at the store’s public anti-ICE posture — showed up with a “notice of inspection,” forcing the store to prove its staff are permitted to work in the U.S., the Pioneer Press reported.
Vance should listen to Minnesotans who can tell him about widespread racial profiling and the routine violation of our constitutional rights, and then he should leave — and take his 3,000 masked hooligans with him.
- J. Patrick Coolican is Editor-in-Chief of Minnesota Reformer. Previously, he was a Capitol reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for five years, after a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan and time at the Las Vegas Sun, Seattle Times and a few other stops along the way. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and two young children. Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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The top three targets in America's fight to halt Trump
ICE agents have kidnapped a five-year-old child to use him as “bait” to arrest his parents. The child and his father are now in a detention center in Texas, although no one knows their exact whereabouts. They were in America legally.
This is only the latest cruel outrage I’ve heard about. All this is being done in our name — the United States of America — with our authority, our tax dollars, and, seemingly, our acquiescence.
Recently I asked many of you what you believe to be the most important strategy for stopping Trump’s reign of terror. I offered several alternatives based on what I’ve heard from prominent people and organizations in the resistance, along with some skeptical responses to each.
So many of you responded and want to discuss these further that today I’m posting a revised version of my query — including the top three alternatives, as edited to reflect many of the responses sent to me.
The list is hardly exhaustive, so please feel free to offer other ideas.
1. Target a few Republican senators and House members to switch parties and thereby give Democrats a congressional majority in at least one chamber.
Several of the people I contacted said the single most important thing we can do now is target a few Republican senators and representatives to switch sides or become independents who caucus with the Democrats — giving Democrats a majority in at least one chamber. That will be stop or at least slow Trump.
Republican majorities are razor-thin in both chambers, but as long as they’re in the majority, it’s extremely difficult to stop Trump. Yet some Republicans represent purple districts and states and are struggling to keep their Republican supporters behind them. They’re also struggling with their own consciences in continuing to support Trump’s authoritarian fascism. They’re “gettable,” I’m told.
I recall in 2001 when Vermont Republican Senator Jim Jeffords became an independent and caucused with the Democrats — thereby giving Democrats control of the Senate. Jeffords was a principled man who thought George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were destroying the GOP. Trump is far worse than Bush and Cheney.
Skeptics tell me this won’t work because the forces holding Republican senators and representatives in place are way stronger than they were in 2001.
2. Undertake the largest demonstration against Trump in American history, aiming for at least 10 million marching in the streets, along with a national strike.
Some of the people I spoke with believe that the two No Kings demonstrations last year generated a powerful wave of solidarity and that a third, far larger, would shake the GOP and Trump to the core. They also cite research showing that when 3.5 percent of a population takes to the streets, even the most intransigent regimes begin to fold.
They also recommend that such a demonstration be coupled with a general strike, lasting perhaps several days or a week, during which no one goes to work (if necessary, they call in sick) and no one purchases anything (stocking up in advance).
The demonstration and general strike would be designed to reveal the depth and breadth of the opposition to Trump. (Several people and groups in the resistance are aiming for May 1.)
Skeptics say a giant demonstration will only cause Trump to dig in and send even more ICE and Border Patrol agents into places where the largest demonstrations are occurring in hopes of provoking violence, which he’d use to justify even more repression. And a general strike would mostly hurt workers who take part in it, who’d be docked sick days or potentially lose their jobs.
3. Let Trump overreach to the point where Americans are so disgusted they overwhelmingly repudiate him in the midterms — resulting in a Democratic takeover of both chambers of Congress by wide margins, which severely limits what he’s able to do after January 2027.
Others I contacted tell me nothing more can or should be done over the next year, beyond organizing and mobilizing for November’s midterms. They say we should aim for an overwhelming vote against Trump’s Republicans — so large as to constrain Trump’s every move from then on.
Skeptics tell me that if Trump senses a huge midterm wave election against congressional Republicans, he won’t allow a free and fair election in November. They also say that unless action is taken between now and then to stop Trump, irrevocable damage will be done to America, so by January 2027 our democracy will be in tatters.
What do you think? You can vote here.
- Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org
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Trump's Davos embarrassment proves who is pulling his strings
Donald Trump went to Davos on Wednesday morning and gave the speech that Vladimir Putin wanted him to, lying and pissing off Europe and shaking the North Atlantic alliance to its core.
Our president has refused to help Ukraine in any meaningful way for a year now, giving Russia the room to destroy much of that country’s electric and heat infrastructure so badly that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had to cancel his trip to Davos to deal with the crisis.
Trump’s now invaded Venezuela and is threatening the same with Greenland, legitimizing Putin’s land-grabs in Georgia and Ukraine.
Trump’s ICE goons are destroying the rule of law in America, running amok in Minneapolis, punishing — and killing — the residents of that city for having elected politicians who’d dare advocate democracy over autocracy.
Russian media is proudly proclaiming that their own internal crackdowns on immigrants, dissidents, and people of color aren’t so bad because Trump’s doing the same thing in America. We’ve legitimized Putin’s racist police state.
Trump’s destroyed much of America’s “soft power,” our friendly relations with resource-rich developing nations, by killing off John F. Kennedy’s USAID program, directly causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people with more to come.
Many of the countries we’ve abandoned are now re-aligning themselves with Russia and China, to Putin’s delight.
Trump’s duplicating Putin’s “enemy within” rhetoric to amplify the Russian-promoted “Great Replacement Theory” meme that claims wealthy Jews are paying to have Black and brown people “replace” white men in their jobs and lives.
It’s become the operating system for ICE and is tearing America apart, pitting friends, neighbors, and relatives against each other while Russian media celebrates.
The biggest thorn in Putin’s side has been NATO, all the way back to his days as a murderous KGB intelligence officer, and Trump is now shaking that organization all the way down to its foundations by threatening to seize Greenland and trash-talking alliance member states.
Early on as Putin was rolling out his dictatorship, having destroyed Russia’s brief experiment with democracy, he put himself above the law by simply refusing to enforce rights the Russian constitution and laws gave to average citizens.
Trump’s today doing the same thing, simply defying the Epstein Transparency Act and other laws while approving as his ICE goons routinely violate Americans’ civil rights.
From Russia’s point of view, America’s biggest historic strength hasn’t been our formidable military (they have just as many nukes) but was our rock-solid multi-century relationships with allies.
Today, Canada is — for the first time in over a century — preparing to fight back against an American invasion, while the European Union is trying to figure out how to disentangle itself from our economy in the event we start a war with them.
Meanwhile a bigoted Australian billionaire family continues to pump daily pro-Russian-worldview (racist, nationalist, anti-democratic) poison into the minds of Americans.
In the 1940s, Sir Keith Murdoch built his family’s media empire, in part, by running sensationalist articles about Black American GIs stationed in Australia during World War II “raping” and having affairs with white Australian women. Now Fox “News” is one of the most frequently quoted American sources for Putin’s captured domestic media, according to The New York Times.
Everything Trump does, when it doesn’t involve soliciting bribes, hustling pardons, or making himself richer inures benefit directly to Putin. Which raises the question diplomats and leaders across Europe are increasingly asking out loud: why are elected Republicans tolerating this?
Is it just because five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized bribery and thus billionaire oligarchs who don’t believe in democracy now own them?
For example, billionaire Peter Theil, who financed JD Vance’s rise to power as the senator from Ohio, has said:
“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” and “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”
Could it be that most Republican politicians simply agree with those types of sentiments, that democracy is mob rule and inconvenient, and that strongman autocracy is a more stable and predictable form of government? That they’d love to jettison European and Asian democracies in favor of corrupt police states like Russia and Hungary where they can get away with just about anything just so long as they keep the emperor happy?
After all, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was nakedly taking millions in “gifts” from rightwing billionaires with business before the Court and became the deciding vote in the Citizens United case; are Republicans going along with Trump’s corruption because they, themselves, are also taking bribes and using otherwise illegal insider information to make themselves rich?
Or is it because six corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity from crimes and he thinks of himself as America’s monarch, as if he were mad King Ludwig of yore?
Are Republicans afraid — as Mitt Romney told his biographer, McKay Coppins — that Trump will use the force of law or activate his lone-wolf white supremacist terrorists to bring GOP politicians to heel or even have their families intimidated or their homes attacked like the Trump supporter who went after Paul Pelosi?
Could it be that Republicans know that most Americans — at least those who haven’t bought fully into the Fox “News” and MAGA cults — have figured out that the GOP’s only loyalty is to billionaires and massive corporations?
All they’ve done since the Reagan Revolution is cut taxes on the morbidly rich while gutting the agencies that catch criminal or unethical activity in government and the military; maybe the GOP now realizes we’ve got their number and that’s why they’re working so hard to purge voting rolls in Blue cities?
Trump’s shocking behavior — and the even more shameful docility of elected Republicans and the lickspittles he’s surrounded himself with — raises questions that will probably only be answered by future historians.
Nonetheless, we must push back. Democrats need to grow a spine, and the upcoming vote on the DHS budget is a great place to start. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) have indicated they may support the legislation, while Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Sen. Rubén Gallego (D-AZ) are signaling a fierce opposition. The battle will almost certainly play out in the Senate over a Democratic filibuster; you can call your two senators and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at 202-224-3121.
Democrats also must signal now and repeatedly that Trump’s pro-Putin, anti-American rhetoric and actions are so unacceptable that impeachment is necessary, both for him and his brownnosers at DHS, ICE, and the FBI.
And if there are any Republicans who have left an ounce of decency, now is the time for them to stand up and speak out. And not to back away as soon as Trump growls, the way Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Todd Young (R-IN) just did with the proposed Venezuela war powers legislation.
Republican senator Barry Goldwater famously walked from the Capitol to the White House to inform Richard Nixon that his criminality had become so severe and obvious that Republicans in Congress could no longer support him and would, if necessary, vote to impeach and convict him.
America needs today’s Republicans to find their spines, reclaim their integrity and patriotism, and politically stop Trump in his tracks. And maybe it’s starting to happen: Republican Rep. Don Bacon (R-NB) just told reporters he’s threatening impeachment:
“I’ll be candid with you: There’s so many Republicans mad about this [Greenland issue]. If he went through with the threats, I think it would be the end of his presidency. And he needs to know: The off-ramp is realizing Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this and he’s going to have to back off. He hates being told no, but in this case, I think Republicans need to be firm.”
It’s a start, but there’s a long way to go if Trump is to be held to account.
When future historians ask what Putin wanted from Trump, the answer may be painfully simple: “Everything America once stood for.”
Whether that happens is not yet settled and ultimately depends on what we Americans — across the political spectrum — do next.
- Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.
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Trump the Davos diva only made this key weakness more obvious — and more costly
Donald Trump didn’t just fly to Davos, after a false start thanks to problems with Air Force One, to attend the World Economic Forum. He fled there to be with his brethren.
Some say he fled mounting scrutiny of the Epstein files. More likely, he fled the affordability crisis crushing working Americans, and the reality that his central campaign promise, to lower the cost of living, has collapsed under the weight of his obsessions with revenge and self-enrichment, and his insatiable need to dominate the global spotlight.
Davos gave Trump what he craves: billionaires, deference, a room full of powerful people forced to listen to his garbage and kowtow. A far cry from the poor, obtuse, gauche MAGA crowd he secretly loathes like everyone else.
In the days before Davos, Trump kicked up a geopolitical kerfuffle, threatening to acquire Greenland, floating military action against Venezuela, aiming reckless rhetoric at allies. None of it was accidental, none of it served American interests. It served Trump.
Trump is obsessed with attention, and Davos, an annual gathering of the world’s wealthiest elites, was the perfect stage. He didn’t want to attend as a participant; he wanted to be the main character. He wanted to dominate the news cycle, command the room, and surround himself with flunkies eager to flatter, validating his delusions of dominance.
And it worked. Everyone scampered around him, wanting to know about Greenland, and wouldn’t you know it, as evening fell, he miraculously announced that one of his “framework” agreements had been reached with NATO. It happened so quickly because Trump got the attention he wanted.
It was from his patented playbook of pandemonium: Trump creates a problem, and lo and behold, Trump fixes the problem, and Trump is the hero.
But Trump has also created an affordability problem, and he has no idea how to fix it. While he hobnobbed in Davos, working Americans were being crushed at home.
Prices are rising. Groceries cost more. Health insurance premiums are surging. And now even executives aligned with Trump’s economic worldview are admitting the obvious. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently acknowledged that Trump’s sweeping tariffs are beginning to show up in consumer prices, as sellers pass costs on to shoppers.
Economists warned this would happen, the moment Trump launched his tariff tantrum last year. Consumers picking up the tab was never a question of if, but when.
That “when” is arriving now. The only question is whether it will wake people up.
Democrats are rallying around two simple words: affordability and accountability. As the midterm campaigns ramp up, affordability will only grow more urgent. By summer, after the primaries, as messaging crystallizes, the cost-of-living crisis will hit an inflection point. Prices will continue rising, largely unchecked, and voters will start looking for answers.
Trump has none. And Republicans are having hissy fits, panicking that he’s coming up empty-handed on the issue that put him back in power.
Accountability stretches across the wreckage of Trump’s second term: Justice Department retribution, Homeland Security overreach and ICE raids, legally dubious experiments like the Department of Government Efficiency, reckless military action, and an administration increasingly untethered from the Constitution.
But Trump’s most glaring failure is personal. He promised to lower costs for working families, and he has abandoned even the pretense of trying.
Instead, he is enriching himself at breakneck speed.
He surrounds himself with gold. He covets prizes, accepts luxury gifts, and monetizes everything: Bitcoin, branding, real estate, and influence. Billionaires flocked to his inauguration. Tech CEOs and luxury executives parade through the Oval Office, bearing tribute. Trump isn’t governing. He’s cashing in like he always planned to do, because he couldn’t do it in the business world.
When Trump failed as a businessman, he didn’t regroup or reform. He declared bankruptcy. Six times. The lazy way out. That instinct hasn’t changed. Faced with an affordability crisis he created and cannot solve and a working-class base he can no longer plausibly serve, he is once again walking away. He’s declaring political bankruptcy on the very people who put him in office.
And he knows it.
Trump may be unread and uninformed, but he isn’t stupid. He understands that his MAGA base, especially its lower-income core, will be hit hardest by rising prices and economic instability. He also knows he doesn’t need them the way he once did. If he wants to retain power, he’ll pursue it through intimidation, exploiting legal loopholes, or he’ll do it illegally. He won’t go to the trouble of stumping red states.
Trump has turned the People’s House into a personal palace, complete with ballrooms and gilded excess. The choice before him is simple: invest in affordability or indulge in opulence. For Trump, there is no choice.
At Davos, surrounded by the world’s richest men, Trump tried to sell a fairy-tale economy built on lies and bravado. “Nobody thought it could be done.” “Numbers nobody’s seen in years.” But those numbers aren’t real, and working Americans feel it every time they pay a bill.
Some of Trump’s base will never see this. They live in an echo chamber where imperial bullying sounds like strength and every hardship is blamed on Democrats or invented statistics. Even an economic calamity may not shake their loyalty.
But independents are paying attention. Casual voters will notice. People who don’t follow Davos or cable news will still recognize betrayal when their bills rise and Trump is nowhere to be found, except on a global stage, basking in billionaire adoration.
Trump is inching away from MAGA. He knows he can. He knows many will never leave him. And he knows the elite world he always wanted has finally opened its doors.
That’s what makes him so dangerous and so offensive. He doesn’t just exploit his supporters. He holds them in contempt.
Empathy for MAGA was always a lie. Davos just made it more obvious.
- John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”
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This grotesque Republican trend has metastasized
One supposes that it’s not an especially unusual phenomenon for politicians who ascend to power to do everything they can to cling to it. Between the ability to shape public policy and the trappings that come with inhabiting high office, political power is almost always an addictive drug that’s hard to kick. That said, it’s also one of the hallmarks and great strengths of American democracy that, for most of the last 250 years, politicians of all parties have accepted — usually honorably — the will of voters.
Tragically, however, this great tradition of honor and discipline was egregiously abandoned by Donald Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election — an action that led directly to the infamous January 6, 2021, insurrection. And now, five years later, it’s clear that this new practice of, when necessary, taking every conceivable step to evade the will of the citizenry in order to cling to power, has become the new modus operandi of Trump’s party in North Carolina.
We, of course, should have seen this coming. That the fear of voter decisions and the willingness to subvert them had become a new Republican tactic of choice was first made blatantly obvious in 2013 when the GOP-dominated General Assembly began enacting election law changes (like the infamous Monster Voting Law) that went to extreme lengths to both suppress the vote of disfavored groups — most notably voters of color — and rig electoral outcomes through the use of extreme partisan gerrymandering.
The practice continued in the weeks immediately following the 2016 election. That was the period during which the lame duck GOP-dominated General Assembly hastily convened to enact laws stripping the newly elected Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, of an array of basic powers long and logically attached to the office.
Never mind that voters chose Cooper with the eminently reasonable expectation that he would wield authority — like numerous important appointment powers — long and naturally associated with the role of a state’s chief executive. Ignoring the obvious will of voters, GOP legislators moved quickly to remove them, and in most instances, seize them for themselves.
And in recent years, sadly, this trend has only continued to metastasize and become even more ingrained.
See, for example, the ongoing effort to take gerrymandering to ever greater depths by, quite literally, rendering the results of almost all legislative elections foreordained and rigged to elect large Republican majorities. Late last year, the GOP took this practice to a new and truly preposterous level when, heeding the dictates of Dear Leader Trump, it further rigged the state’s congressional elections so that our deeply purple state will almost assuredly be represented by a U.S. House delegation of 11 Republicans and three Democrats.
And then of course, there was the almost laughably bizarre move to, in the aftermath of Democrat Josh Stein’s landslide victory in the 2024 election, seize even more gubernatorial power — like appointing the state Board of Elections — and hand it to, of all people, the state’s accountant (i.e. the auditor). It was a move so blatant and utterly contemptuous of the will of voters that it left many observers to conclude that Republicans would have gladly handed the seized power over to whatever GOP office holder happened to be handy — the Labor Commissioner? Agriculture Commissioner? — if the new GOP auditor, Dave Boliek, hadn’t been so cynically ready and willing to play along.
But wait, there’s more. As NC Newsline’s Brandon Kingdollar reported on Jan. 19, the governor’s office isn’t the only one from which Republicans have shown themselves more than willing to seize powers in contravention of the voters’ judgment. Newly elected Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson is also a target.
Despite ample evidence that Jackson has worked hard to approach the task in a nonpartisan manner guided by the letter of the law and the likelihood of demonstrable harm to our state, Republican legislators advanced legislation last year that would strip the AG’s office of one of its central and most important constitutional duties — to challenge unlawful presidential executive orders that harm the state.
One GOP lawmaker even promised he and his colleagues would wreak vengeance and render Jackson’s office “a feckless, empty shell of a position that has no authority to do anything,” if he dared to contest their action. Try to imagine that such a move could have occurred if Dan Bishop were AG and Kamala Harris in the White House.
All these moves come on top of many years of repeated legislative micro-aggressions toward Democrats elected to Council of State offices like the Superintendent of Public Instruction and Secretary of State via budget cuts and other power grabs.
Will this trend continue in the New Year? It’s hard to imagine that it won’t. While gerrymandering and political power jockeying has always been a feature of American politics, the modern, Trumpified Republican Party has taken both phenomena to new and extreme levels never seen before in American history. The only question that remains at this point is how much longer voters will stand for the fear and contempt directed their way by politicians supposedly sworn to serve them.
- Senior contributor and award-winning journalist Rob Schofield authors regular commentaries and hosts the 'News & Views' weekly radio show/podcast. A part of NC Newsline since 2006, he served as editor from 2017 to 2025 and, prior to that, worked for many years as an attorney championing the rights of low-income people and civil liberties.
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One venue, two speeches – how Mark Carney left Donald Trump in the dust in Davos
Mark Shanahan, University of Surrey
The meeting and venue were the same, but the style and tone of the two most anticipated keynote speeches at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos could not have been more different. On Tuesday, January 20, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney addressed the assembled political and business leaders as one of them: a national leader with deep expertise in finance.
He spoke about a “rupture” in the world order and the duty of nations to come together through appropriate coalitions for the benefit of all. It was a paean to multilateralism, but one that recognised that the US would no longer provide the glue to hold alliances together. Carney never mentioned the US by name in his speech, instead talking of “great powers” and “hegemons”.
Carney’s quiet, measured and evocative case-making demonstrated his ability to be the leader France’s Emmanuel Macron would like to be and the UK’s Keir Starmer is too cautious to be. He was clear, unequivocal and unafraid of the bully below his southern border. In standing up to the US president, Donald Trump, he appeared every inch the statesperson.
Mark Carney delivers his speech at Davos, January 21 2026.Then, on January 21, Trump took the stage. There was none of Carney’s self-awareness and nor did he read the room recognising the strengths, talents and economic power of the audience. Trump started with humour, noting he was talking to “friends and a few enemies”.
But he quickly shifted to a riff on the greatest hits of the first year of Trump 2.0 with the usual weaving away from his script down the rabbit holes of his perceived need for vengeance. Joe Biden still takes up far too much of Trump’s head space, but the next hour could be summed up as: “Trump great: everyone else bad.”
The president is the most amazing hype man for his own greatness, but it’s a zero-sum game. For him to win, others must lose, whether that’s the UK, Macron or the unnamed female prime minister of Switzerland whom he mocked for the poverty of her tariff negotiation skills. It’s worth noting Switzerland has no prime minister and its current president is a man.
While Carney was at pains to connect with his audience of allies, Trump exists happily in his own world where support – and sovereign territory – can be bought, and fealty trumps all. As ever, Trump played fast and loose with facts, wrapping real successes, aspirations and his unique view of the truth into a paean to himself.
He actually returned to his script to make the case for taking Greenland. The case is built on a notional need for “national and international security”, underscored by pointing out the territory is “in our hemisphere”. As so many commentators have said, collective security will do the job Trump insists that only the US can – and won’t require Denmark to cede territory. But Trump is sounding ever-less the rational actor.
Contrasting visions
The coming year is one of inflection for Trump’s presidency. His Republican party may well lose control of the House and possibly the Senate in the November midterms, which would severely curtail his ability to impose his will unfettered.
Trump is focused on his legacy and demands he’s up there with former US presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, James Polk and William McKinley, expanding the American empire and its physical footprint. This may be a step too far, even for a president with such vast economic and military power.
Donald Trump’ delivers his speech at Davos, January 21 2026.Carney’s speech played well both at home and around the world. His line, “If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” clearly resonated with his fellow western leaders. His vision for how “the power of legitimacy, integrity and rules will remain strong if we choose to wield them together”, also offered a positive vision in a dark time.
Trump told the audience that he would not use “excessive strength of force” to acquire Greenland. But, ever the real estate developer, he demanded “right, title and ownership” with an ominous threat: “You can say no – we will remember.”
As Trump laid out his grand vision of protecting and cherishing the rich and aligning nations to do America’s bidding, it was in stark contrast to Carney. The hyperbole and self-aggrandising, the insults and threats, and the singular vision of seeing the world only through the personal impact it has on him mark the US president out as remarkable, even exceptional.
But is this the exceptionalism the US wants? Is America about more than the strongman politics of economic and military coercion?
The immediate reaction in the US was relief, jumping on the line that Trump won’t take Greenland by force. It will be telling to look at the commentary as the country reflects on the president’s aim of lifting America up, seemingly by dragging the rest of the world down.
One leader donned the cloak of statesmanship at Davos this week. It wasn’t Donald Trump.
Mark Shanahan, Associate Professor of Political Engagement, University of Surrey
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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