Jason Miciak

This gruesome Trump allegation cannot go unpunished

At the risk of taking a political stand within the context of a vicious criminal attack on girls and women, it is time for Democrats to push much harder on all matters connected to Jeffrey Epstein. Political fortunes align with doing far more than the less-than-minimal action currently undertaken.

With the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and congressional heat on billionaire Les Wexner, members of the public around the world want to see a real investigation and consequences. Indeed, other nations are initiating their own investigations. Momentum is building.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel are far angrier at the people wanting answers than at the people who raped girls. It's time to use that fury against them.

In the name of the victims, Democrats must push for America to undergo "De-Epsteinification.”

DOJ must be pressed to release all the files. Given its obvious reluctance and obfuscation, along with Trump's demand that the nation "move on," Democrats must be actively preparing contempt and impeachment proceedings, to initiate the moment they have control of Congress next year (presuming, of course, that they gain it. Polling suggests that they will.)

But this isn't about just releasing the files. It is more about putting people in prison.

Congressional Democrats must now start to call for De-Epsteinification through a special prosecutor's office, sitting outside Bondi and Trump's control, staffed with prosecutors from any or no party and given four directives:

Rid the nation of this stench and suspicion.
Punish rapists and their enablers.
Publish a 9/11-like report on the entirety of what is found.
Find justice for the victims.

The British chose to prosecute a member of their own monarchy. American legitimacy rides on this nation's willingness to deal with ours, formerly the untouchables.

As an attorney, I understand there are constitutional considerations, but given that Congress can apply overwhelming pressure for the appointment of special prosecutors, there is likely a means — once Democrats regain control.

Of course, it shouldn't have to be this way. The attorney general and FBI director used to be fiercely independent. But like so much else in the Trump era, it's now all about loyalty, and if we've learned anything about this regime, it is that loyalty to the king trumps all.

This is made especially true in light of the recent shocking allegations that DOJ actively suppressed one of the most gruesome allegations arising out of an alleged attack by Trump on a girl then aged around 13, in 1983. A nation dedicated to the rule of law cannot survive if such a gruesome allegation goes without real investigation, never mind is actively hidden.

So take it out of their hands. Establish a congressional De-Epstenification Office, give it a pile of money, and let it work.

When even the Joe Rogans and Shawn Ryans of the world recognize the current investigation is a sham, it's time to do more and do it around the administration. The American public is ready for someone to take control. It should be Democrats in Congress.

There is literally no one else.

The push has to start before the power is secured, there may be enough Republicans who might crossover prior to the election, but, if not, it can and should be a campaign issue. Outside the pursuit of a true sense of justice, the political advantages are clear.

The public will hear Trump's fury and panic, forcing him to daily confront questions as to why he doesn't want rapists brought to justice. And even the push will act as a major incentive for Bondi, her deputy Todd Blanche and Patel to move forward in a way that convinces the public that such a prosecutorial group isn't necessary.

To be sure, a special prosecutor's office is never an ideal solution. Investigation would be done behind closed doors instead of through congressional hearings. Additionally, as we saw with both Robert Mueller and Jack Smith's prosecutions, such investigations take an immense amount of time. There would also be some pretty valid constitutional challenges.

Push it anyway. Yes, justice delayed is justice denied. But justice redacted, covered up, and politicized is no justice at all.

If Trump committed crimes in relation to Epstein, it will be all but impossible to prosecute him personally. He will pardon himself for everything while on the way out the door, no matter what happens. But we can at least attempt to ensure that the "Trump Kennedy Center" loses a sponsor, no airports will ever bear his name, victims can seek restitution, and his legacy will lie in history's landfill. Meanwhile, even billionaires can face the threat of prison.

It is the right thing to do. This is the time to start to do it. And to the extent that politics should play a role in any of this, let it do so in a way that punishes those who seek to evade punishment. The "De-Epsteinification of America" should start now.

Never again.

Jason Miciak is a former Associate Editor of Occupy Democrats, author, American attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow @JasonMiciak and on Bluesky. Currently seeking beta readers for his latest soon-to-be-published novel, he can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com

These clownish villains may actually bring down Trump

President Donald Trump stumped with promises to rescue the forgotten man, telling his MAGA base he'd bring down the globalist "left" by exposing the Epstein empire and destroying the pillars of domestic democracy, one at a time, all in accord with Project 2025. That process is ongoing — fortunately for the rest of us, Trump's problem is that he couldn't and still can't find the cast to ensure it all gets done before his own implosion creates a historic mile marker in American self-government.

Similarly, Trump promised a strong economy, only to reliably set that aside and focus instead almost solely on remedying personal grievances and shockingly clear fraudulent enrichment.

The pursuit of such a contradictory agenda requires the assistance of true loyalists — and in Trump's case we're lucky that means people so closely tied to him as to ensure abject incompetence (think Pete Hegseth), such that their own ultimate destruction is also baked in.

Over at the Department of Justice, Attorney General Pam Bondi stands ready for her own inevitable implosion. Hot off one of the worst performances in a congressional hearing in memory, Bondi oversees an operation still suppressing half or more of the total Epstein files. Perhaps that's understandable. Congress has already used files disclosed to bomb Bondi and light up a scandal encompassing such obvious cover-ups that it would have long since brought down a normal administration.

Bondi's DOJ has so incompetently suppressed thousands of references to Trump that even absent evidence Trump committed any crime in the world of Jeffrey Epstein, the scandalous and utterly inexplicable decision to not investigate and prosecute any possible Epstein co-conspirators, Democrats or otherwise, remains as one of the leading indicators that Trump and/or his friends are vulnerable to something in those Epstein files.

Bondi doesn't possess the tools to dance through this delicate situation.

A truly qualified attorney general would know he or she would be far better served by overreach without regard to the president, than by no reach at all.

Bondi has never seemed more out of her depth than when failing even to do anything to advocate for Epstein victims present at her own hearing.

Such laughable ineptitude would ensure she someday faces charges in a criminal conspiracy, were it not for the ever reliable “get out of jail free” card that is the presidential pardon.

But one cannot pardon self-destruction.

Meet Kristi Noem. Predictably, this situation appears to need no Democratic nudge to help it into the abyss. The Homeland Security Secretary is so hapless that she doesn't even know to avoid attention by setting aside her own personal luxury jet while traveling the world with her alleged boyfriend, Corey Lewandowski. (Both are married but reports regarding the plane reference a "private cabin" in the back, nearly begging the reader to appreciate the pair's, uh, dedication to their mission.)

Noem's one gift seems to be unleashing her wildest instincts, untamed. But even in the wild, the survival instinct usually "trumps" the reproductive.

Ironically, though the plane and the boyfriend present the most shocking display of overt political malpractice among Trump's sidekicks and henchmen, that failure is also the least important among Noem's own shortcomings. This is a woman who oversees agencies that shoot non-violent protesters in the face and back, while leading a department tasked with federal intervention in less predictable disasters such as weather events, earthquakes, or even terrorist attacks: the kinds of events that always expose incompetence.

She's ready, for sure.

The travails of Noem and Bondi are just two recent cases among so many examples of egregious Trump administration ineptitude. The drumbeat of scandals and failures continues, further testing Trump's hold on the right.

And thank God for that.

Sometime this year, prior to the November elections, the nation will have to navigate one of two paths, both of which lead to destruction.

One path involves a demolition of the Trump administration through a combination of mounting Epstein evidence, relentless inflation, rising unemployment and other economic woes, all mixed with a foreseeable cluster of errors by incapable loyalists like Hegseth, Noem, Bondi, Kennedy, Patel, Gabbard, and others. This path ends with the administration unable to hold on, calls for Trump to resign reaching a deafening pitch.

The other path leads to a point where Trump succeeds in breaking American democracy for good, through a mix of comprehensively despotic moves that render elections indistinguishable from those held in Russia: pre-ordained, Republican wins brought about by a Republican-only vote.

The man who brought about a literal mob attack on democracy after losing in 2020 will not allow the next election to bury him in intensive investigations. But he will only be able to take such drastic destruction if he is led by a team of capable soldiers, able to pull off the mechanical and emotional steps that serve as a predicate to an unarmed takeover.

Lucky for us, we can be sure that his actual aides and advisors will press on, doing everything possible to put their utter incompetence in the face of every American.

Trump promised MAGA he alone could lift them above the elite. In fact he never prioritized his own voters' needs, and appointed a cabinet that collectively provides his opponents with their greatest hope.

The clock is ticking, elections are looming, Trump's self-enrichment is expanding, his grievances are growing, his cast of incompetents stand unready. Bondi, Noem, Hegseth, the whole gang, operating in a cloud of self-interest, moderated only by breathless inability.

Jason Miciak is a past associate editor of Occupy Democrats, author, attorney, and single parent girldad to a teen, seeking serious beta readers of his soon-to-be published novel. Contact at jasonmiciak@gmail.com, follow on X @JasonMiciak, and please now follow on Bluesky.

This Trump outrage will sink him with MAGA — and it's not Epstein

One cannot fully appreciate the level of danger President Donald Trump brings to every assumption ever made about American self-governance without acknowledging that whatever else the man may be, he has been a master at reading the room, manipulating the right-wing press, existing less as winner than feral survivor, able to walk the edge, an anti-political-gravity machine.

Now, though, he seems on the edge of losing that never-more-necessary skill.

Trump has failed more in the last six weeks than in any other period in his political life, outside January 2021. Not content to pull back and reevaluate, he may have just made his worst read yet.

No doubt, any Trump implosion will involve a lagging economy and more messy Epstein revelations. But tied into both those realities is Trump's newly announced lawsuit seeking $10 billion from the Internal Revenue Service, for "leaking" his tax documents — the IRS being part of a government he "rules" with glee and considers his piggy bank. Yes, the suit enrages the left — but everything does. More importantly, this will enrage too much of the right, especially if the suit is successful.

MAGA celebrates the man who sleeps with porn stars and owns Mar-a-Lago, who has bragged from day one that he's "really rich." Some supporters will still defend him. Nothing comes more naturally to these folks than falling into the victimhood in which they entrench themselves so comfortably: "Look at what the IRS did to him! They investigated... "

Yeah, they did. Set aside that those investigations were in far better faith than those of Jerome Powell, Hunter Biden, or the auto-pen: the man ended up president again, richer than ever. Now his lawsuit looks like a bank robbery — because that's precisely what it is. Even more dangerous to Trump, it makes him look desperate, more gluttonous than righteous, and will insult many followers.

"We thought that you already had limitless money, and now you say you need a few more billion, so you're giving it to yourself?"

Basically, yeah.

He might once have assured himself that he can navigate the landscape better than anyone, that it's a risk worth taking given the gold, and he'll survive anyway. But he's given himself reason to doubt lately, so much so that the IRS suit looks particularly reckless.

Look at all Trump managed to do since the holidays.

He grabbed Nicolás Maduro in the middle of the night with an operation of almost breathtaking professionalism if dubious motivation — then immediately coughed up the snap by practically declaring himself king of Venezueala and never looking more adolescent in his neediness than when "accepting" the Nobel Peace Prize won by Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

Then he stormed off to Davos, to humiliate himself in pursuit of the white whale that is Greenland, only to fail and get owned by Canadian PM Mark Carney.

Regarding Minneapolis and the depredations of ICE, Trump fumbled and appears to be backing down from the message, to the degree that he's even forced MAGA pols to turn on him, or at least take him less seriously.

And then came Epstein again...

So demanding the government he runs give him $10 billion fits the pattern — as oblivious as it is gratuitous, a net worth between five and ten billion apparently not enough. He wants to double it with daylight robbery? This looks particularly stupid.

Good, although the stupidity is less of a problem than the shameless greed. Trump isn't suing for $10 billion as symbolism. This is about getting a check, nothing more.

Picture it now. We enter summer 2026 with Americans on edge. The cities are hot, tempers are high, everyone nervous because inflation refuses to come down, markets become increasingly uneasy, and real economic fear sets in, even if short of panic. Does Trump really want to have the IRS announce that it "settled" his case for any significant amount?

Put it this way, our system uses lawsuits to remedy damages and punish when things go awry. This lawsuit involves a "victim" whose net worth has done nothing but shoot up since he entered public life. What needs remedying?

But even that matters less than a voter sitting back, knowing Trump "banked" on winning by filing, wondering "Why the f--- does this guy get to give himself a few billion more dollars for the trouble while I just took a second job?"

Such thoughts will not consume all of MAGA, but they will consume enough.

If Trump's Nobel hold-up revealed his immaturity, self-absorption, and shameless simplicity at previously unseen levels, then this move highlights greed and cluelessness so shocking that even the most cynical might say, "Whoa." Trump thought he could wrestle Greenland away from Denmark only to get hung with a giant "L." The pattern could repeat here, only on this one, he'll surely get his check, only to then "lose" far more than money.

One last thing. No question, Trump believes that even though every president endures troublesome leaks, he is the world's biggest victim. So if he really wanted to stick it to the leakers in the IRS, he could actually sue for one dollar and tell the world he wants to make a statement, for either the government or a jury to admit he was wronged. He could do so. But he's Trump, and no principle stands above "the" principle: "Only money matters."

Nice move, Ace. Normally, I would be the one needing to check myself, having failed in predicting your political demise all too many times. But with your recent record, there's reason to believe that you've developed a bit of a blind spot.

Relentless greed does that, and one senses that even MAGA has its limits, if feeling economically left out. In this case, they will.

Jason Miciak is past Associate Editor for Occupy Democrats, an author, and attorney. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com and on "X" at @JasonMiciak, and now follow on Blue Sky.

Trump's insanity is hiding the one thing that will finish him

Americans spent last week cringing over President Donald Trump's behavior, both at home and abroad in Davos, Switzerland, especially as the wanna-be king asserted he will take Greenland one way or another, even admitting that his personal desire to obtain it played a bigger role in his decision than national security.

But while one must absolutely hold Trump accountable for his never-ending insane bullying on the world stage, everyone best entertain the strong possibility that it is less Trump flailing away as a man experiencing cognitive decline than being crazy like the proverbial fox. It sure appears that Trump is willing to look like a self-absorbed maniac on the world stage, so long as his inanity blocks Americans' focus on the potentially-explosive revelations in the Epstein files.

No scandal has hit Trump harder, none posing a greater risk, than what might explode from those FBI files against a man who places his personal interests over everything else, in every context. It all forces us to lay much of the blame or explanation of Trump's dangerous Greenland talk as merely a convenient distraction, buying Trump valuable time, even at the expense of further trashing the country's reputation with neighbors and former allies.

Almost as an aside, but very related to Esptein, it's worth noting that Trump has never sounded more like a brute than when asserting an American right to take Greenland. He asserts all American rights or interests in Greenland as wrapped up in military dominance and wealth. As a nearly untouchable, powerful man nonetheless hearing the word "No," from both Greenland and Denmark, Trump responds with little more than a version of, "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

It is almost impossible to not see how the same discussion might have occurred with a woman who continues to say, "No."

In Davos, Trump's behavior forced experts to question his sanity at levels over and above the torrid past. He stumbled, using "Iceland," instead of "Greenland" at least three times, while ripping Canadian leadership and the EU's defense of Denmark, while rambling about his grievances.

Trump even admitted he felt little need to act peacefully because he believed that he had been "overlooked" for the Nobel Prize — behavior no different than a 13-year-old failing to get what he wants and responding with over-the-top rebellious behavior.

He isn't doing this in a vacuum.

Congress notes that it has received a mere one percent of the Epstein documents — a near-stupefying fact, forcing everyone to wonder what can possibly be in those files, material so damaging that career officials like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel have put their own legal fates on the line by withholding materials the law clearly mandates be released.

There is a tendency to get lost amidst Trump's history of attacking clear truth — attempting to overturn an election, reversing the January 6 narrative, etc — such that we cannot even see the Epstein matter at its most basic level, in its shocking corruption and criminality.

Simply consider that we have a president who may be implicated as at least knowing of and perhaps participating in the biggest, most notorious child sex-trafficking ring in American history, and that the same president is personally interfering in the investigation, to protect himself and his friends as assailants.

Clear out all we know about Trump and lay the above out as a purely objective matter. It would be extremely tough to name anything more damning, more deserving of bipartisan questions regarding impeachment, than interfering with an investigation of powerful people engaging in child rape. Yet he's doing all he can to cover the investigation up, even calling victims "Democrats."

Commentators have long noted that Trump will do nearly anything to "wag the dog," to fog over Epstein headlines. We noted that he might declare martial law or invoke the Insurrection Act, even cancel elections, anything to distract. We all knew it was coming. Nonetheless, it's hard to see it play out in real time.

So while it is critical to hold Trump accountable for his insane behavior on the world stage, it is also critical to never forget that he has proved willing to do nearly everything necessary to generate outrage that doesn't flow from Epstein.

The Department of Justice has released a tiny fraction of its files, even sitting under the sword of Damocles that Congress put in place, forcing everyone to ask, Why?

Only one answer makes sense. Hold that fact and it becomes obvious why Trump is willing to make a joke of himself on the world stage, or invade Venezuela, or investigate Fed Chair Jerome Powell, occupy Minnesota, even to state that the Insurrection Act makes everything "easier," implying he simply wants to "rule."

It all appears planned. It is also working.

Everything is on the table — Greenland, insurrection, tariffs, Cuba, everything — so long as those files stay under the table. We should never forget and never stop pushing. Ultimately, Epstein may explain all.

Jason Miciak is a past associate editor of Occupy Democrats, an author, and an American attorney. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com, and on Twitter @JasonMiciak, or Bluesky @jasonmiciak.bsky.social

We know MAGA is doomed — and Trump doesn't care

Liberal commentators have spent the last ten years serving up all-too-feel-good comfort food, much-needed pablum to the undernourished, assurances that the American body politic is on the cusp of excising the infection that oozes all things MAGA. The end always sounds near. It has never got around to happening.

But that doesn't alter the fact that MAGA is now, finally, unquestionably, unraveling before our eyes. It is starting to die.

Save the full-throated victory pitch. The sun is setting only partly because MAGA was always transactional, was never tied to a redeeming principle, and never sought to build anything lasting. MAGA is crumbling, in part, due to its mystifying success. It prevailed in its only real aim. Ultimately, MAGA only sought to break sh--, to tear it all down: the government, social progress, cohesion ... progressive hope. On that score, it has been shockingly successful. But now, at last, it has nowhere left to go.

None of them want this to end. Nor will they give up willingly. But so much is happening at once that MAGA is failing from the inside out, its most strident supporters at each other's throats, factions fighting over purity, who best represents "America First."

None of it can survive a crumbling economy.

Nothing was ever more inevitable than Republicans taking a blowtorch to markets, prices, and wages. If there is one thing the world has learned over the years, it is that Republicans use power to rob the poor and middle class. Ironically, Donald Trump, the MAGA Caesar, is never more a traditional Republican than when he's first through the door in the bank heist. He hasn't even tried to hide it, surrounding himself with billionaires from the first hour of his second inauguration.

The inevitable implosion was always going to hurt him, but in his hubris and "f--- you" attitude, he has never wasted a minute worrying about his white, blue-collar base. It's going to bite him, but it's doubtful he's even aware. He has taken them for granted for so long, why would it ever occur that he could go too far?

But that only works in a stable economy. The rules are about to be rewritten. This was as foreseeable as gravity.

The GOP has always assumed the adults will pick up after them. The average blue-collar Republican voter has always been willing to trade economic stability for what they see as precious social stability, the chance to spit on and mock those considered lesser: people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+. When Trump came on the scene, such folks yearned to be “great” again, to be openly racist, misogynistic and anti-semitic. They were willing to go along with damn near anything, so long as that promise was fulfilled.

It hurts to say they won here, too. Go on X, read the threads about being proud to be white, openly calling others animals, being proud of your “genes,” as if that meant anything.

Progress cannot be forever halted — there's always the “arc of the universe” thing. But man, MAGA has managed to slash the tires. They don't care. They've never planned for the next stop down the road. They are in the here and now.

But it's all about to collapse.

Of course, there's Jeffrey Epstein too. Of course, we knew that Trump was as entwined as could be. We had video. We had Access Hollywood. E. Jean Carroll. But MAGA surely didn't, or wouldn't, and it's taken seeing their guy squirm for close to a year for it to dawn that they might have a problem. Most of MAGA still cannot admit it, but Trump's Epstein links are real and they know it.

Maybe all things Epstein could be pushed aside for a time — in a strong economy. But, again, they don't have that now.

There are other dynamics at play, the most relevant on display in the civil war now unfolding, as a generation of young MAGA men seek the powerful dopamine hit to which they think they're entitled. For them, only the noxious Nick Fuentes and his neo-Nazi friends have anything left to offer. The most deplorable deplorables are young and reckless, unable to comprehend the explosives they're handling. Maybe they don't care.

Trump surely doesn't. Those MAGA men still love him. For him, that's all that matters. But for many, the open embrace of Nazism is finally a bridge too far. The detonation is starting, giving off those slight pops one hears in buildings about to fall.

MAGA cannot withstand the confluence of these waves: not with a troubled economy, not with Trump embracing billionaires and sucking money from the treasury.

As for Trump, it's tough to tell whether he really cares anymore. Largely shielded from being held to account, he has at least tripled his wealth. He likes being president but doesn't like doing what presidents must do. He is old. He has to face the whole 2028 thing, a lame duck, others the center of attention. One wonders if a "medical setback" and retirement might be close.

The MAGA endgame is here. It is ugly and will get uglier. They are splitting over whether there is anything left to want. But it is hard to get excited about victory. For the rest of us, there is more work to do, none of it joyful. But crawling into a fetal position would be worse.

Just because this process has started and can't be stopped doesn't mean MAGA can't make things even worse on the way out, and that means all effort should go to ensuring the end of this noxious movement happens as fast and as devastatingly as possible.

The real work begins now. Everyone always counted on the adults to clean up. The sun is setting on MAGA.

Jason Miciak is past associate editor of Occupy Democrats, author, political commentator, American attorney, and single dad. He can be reached at @JasonMiciak, on Bluesky at Jason Miciak, and at jasonmiciak@gmail.com.

Squirming Trump now all alone as allies admit this terrible truth

It appears the extent of President Donald Trump's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein is about to finally fall into the open. Left unanswered is whether anything means anything anymore. But even in this cynical age, perhaps almost quaintly, the matter of the infamous late financier and child sexual abuser probably still does. The world will soon find out.

Now, everyone sentient and sensible has long suspected that Trump was grossly involved in Epstein's world. How, we don't know — though of course, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse in another case, involving E. Jean Carroll. But he had to have knowledge of what Epstein did to his girls. At one point, the two men were best friends. Epstein surely wasn't the one who called his own plane "the Lolita Express." Those around him did.

Trump knew but did nothing. Then, recently, he did something. He blessed Ghislaine Maxwell's move to more comfortable prison surroundings, her conviction in relation to the crimes of Epstein, her former partner, be damned.

Keep that thought.

Because if there is one thing we know about Trump, he sympathizes only with himself. What may occasionally look like care for others is just expression of fear for himself. When talking about Maxwell, Trump "wished her well" — a lot more than he would ever say for judges, Democrats, Barack Obama, even George W. Bush. In the fate of Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump feels invested. Duly noted.

One of the weirder characteristics of emails in a wired world is that moments still get frozen in time. The emotions and motivations behind correspondences, references to certain people, remain as alive today as when first tapped out. Messages and urgencies conveyed long ago may always bloom again.

Epstein's own words are now laid bare. More will come out. Like the girls Epstein used, in a way, Trump will be exposed, with little to no defense. Then Trump will do what he always does: attack. Who? His critics, certainly. But Trump's escapes usually require redefining reality itself. After all, we now live in a world in which he was the purported victim of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and January 6 was a day on which patriots fought for democracy.

But reality cannot be redefined in the face of hardened evidence — like emails directly referencing Trump's alleged knowledge of Epstein's activities and time at Epstein's houses, or birthday cards with messages about "secrets." All are now coming out. This will mirror the reaction to the Access Hollywood tape, back in 2016: the supposed "locker room talk" in which Trump bragged about sexual assault. But this time we're talking about victims who were kids. And we're talking about cold, hard text:

Michael Wolff: “I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you — either on air or in scrum afterwards.”

Epstein: “if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?”

Wolff (next day): “I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”

It appears that Epstein wasn't going to say anything that would incriminate himself. But it also strongly seems that he had the "goods" on Trump, and others knew it.

Read the above while knowing that a man in his late 40s should never be spending social time around a teen girl — especially without her having a parent there. Never. All decent people understand that. Then read the words below, from 2011, Epstein to Maxwell, in legal jeopardy, still wondering whether his circle would hold:

“i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. [VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there”

The same day, Maxwell replied: “I have been thinking about that…”

Trump was a major figure in Epstein's orbit, a dog prominent enough that one bark could be fatal. But Trump hasn't barked — except to protect himself. Nothing for the girls, either.

Most men would push back, expressing sympathy for Epstein's victims and anger at themselves: "I didn't do nearly enough, and I am aching, thinking back to what those girls endured." But we know Trump, and he won't acknowledge anyone's pain but his own.

This scandal may not be enough to drive him from office. Only an exploding economy will wake enough Trump supporters to see him clearly. “Nice ballroom, Ace”.

But it is reasonable to link Trump to Epstein's crimes. He's the "grab 'em by the p---y” guy, after all. And he remains terrified. Epstein is dead but Maxwell got moved to comfy prison quarters after talking to Trump's former attorney, the deputy AG.

There's no way out of this one. Too many parents and decent moderates now sit with an undeniable fact. Trump knew, and never took a side against him or Maxwell.

Everything has changed. Maxwell likely won't get a pardon. What good can the "goods" do her? Watch Trump squirm. He needs to pardon her, but can't. This subject is fire, and too many people know it. FBI agents, Trump's cabinet, Speaker Mike Johnson. They know.

Trump is on his own, which is fitting. So were Epstein's girls.

Jason Miciak is an American attorney, former associate editor at Occupy Democrats, executive editor of Political Flare, and writer at large for Politicalzoom. He can be reached at jasonmiciak.com, @JasonMiciak, and on Bluesky

This lickspittle's ludicrous report reveals Trump's true aim in power

On Tuesday, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) came forth, evidently speaking on behalf of the GOP majority on the House Oversight Committee, to label President Joe Biden's late pardons of many key Trump critics null and void.

Comer claimed that Biden did not personally authorize the use of autopens to sign pardons issued to good Americans who simply opposed President Donald Trump and his followers.

Comer's claim, done surely on the order of Trump himself, is not only clearly wrong as a matter of fact and law. It is yet another dictatorial move that threatens gut-wrenching harm to constitutional and civil self-government. It also sends many innocent lives careening towards extreme legal predicaments.

Of all Trump and MAGA's "retribution" to date, attacking Biden's pardons is the single most reckless and vicious act.

To put my lawyer hat on, momentarily, the benefit of autopen use is that signatures on documents, once accepted, are utterly binding. No exceptions. Period. This is especially true given President Biden specifically said he authorized every single one.

It is insane to allege that those pardons did not count.

I could cite all the cases that affirm the position, but they are nearly meaningless to most. Even lawyers only want the simple conclusion. But still, the validity is inarguably laid out in cases such as Ex parte Garland (1866) and Biddle v. Perovich (1927).

One does not need any legal training to note that even though the law is ironclad that the pardons stand, the whole point of Comer's declaration and investigation is to put the recipients through the hell of the prosecutorial process.

Even if we were to grant Trump and Republicans' strongest assertion, that someone fraudulently used an autopen to issue pardons behind the president's back, the pardons themselves would still be valid as accepted, and the only legitimate crimes to prosecute would be against staff who may have abused the process. That's it. Period.

Thus it is that even though Dr. Anthony Fauci, Liz Cheney, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and others will almost surely have their pardons stand, whether Biden authorized them or not — and he says he did — the real goal is already fulfilled. The point is that Trump and his lackeys want their targets to be forced to resort to extremely expensive defense lawyers, perhaps to be charged, booked, etc, all while asserting their rights and ultimately having their cases thrown out.

The process is the punishment for taking action the MAGA crowd doesn't like. That alone is guilt, in most Trump supporters' eyes.

Given that the law is as clear and simple as it gets, the fact that Comer, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Trump are recklessly doing it anyway shows breathtakingly precise dictatorial power, flowing from unmitigated rage.

When a country gets to the point that it is prosecuting critics for simply taking positions that the powerful don't like, it is, by definition, a dictatorship.

Sadder still, Trump campaigned on the issue, stating over and over again, "I am your retribution," cutely trying to show a duty to supporters, bearing the cross. It was "about them," when really he was the one burning inside. It is about revenge. He has said he loves blood-chilling payback more than nearly anything.

His MAGAs see this as merely the mirror image of Biden AG Merrick Garland's treatment of Trump. They are simply responding. "We" started it. Trump is a victim. So unfair.

That ridiculously self-serving view is as offensive to the core of democracy as can be. Trump invited prosecution when he tried to circumvent a perfectly normal election to stay in power, ultimately sending his supporters to sack the Capitol in what was, plainly, an attempted coup.

Usually, dictators attempt to violently overthrow government while knowing that it is all on the line — that they might give up their lives. Loser loses.

Trump got off easy, with Garland taking forever to appoint a special counsel, without jumping right off with the most obvious crimes, even though nearly the whole world supported quick action.

Now, as Trump retaliates, we can't even wholly count on all judges to simply toss cases out with lightning dispatch and possible sanctions.

Most will. Absolutely. It is that clear.

But some may fish for any reason to stay beholden to Trump, violating clear law in order to stay on the team. It is a dangerous time, these are dark days — as noted, ironically, by former President Biden himself.

Again: under no reading of the law can Biden's pardons be attacked. The only possible crimes could have been committed if someone actually did abuse the autopen to issue documents behind Biden's back.

But that's not the point, is it? It never is to an authoritarian. To the extent there were remaining doubts, we're well past them now. We live in a dictatorship, clear and proud.

Trump sees himself as king — but he is closer to a two-bit, cigar-chomping, uniform-wearing, balcony-strutting war lord. Less royalty, more Saddam. Trump probably wouldn't see that as particularly insulting. The U.S., that "Shining City on the Hill," is now governed by a plain old junta.

Jason Miciak is an American Attorney, former Associate Editor of Occupy Democrats, former Executive Editor of Political Flare, author, and single dad. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com, or followed on Twitter or Bluesky.

There's one key issue on which Dems can effectively hold GOP feet to the fire — now

On Monday, in one of the single most impressive analytical discussions ever to occur on perhaps the most deeply cerebral and politically aware show in US television — The View — the hosts took turns discussing the clear and present danger that lingers whenever President Donald Trump turns coy and not a little bit smug about his plans for 2028 and a possible third term.

On the heels of yet another failure by Trump to simply say "No" about mounting a diabolical, unconstitutional third run, this one occurring on Air Force One on the way to Asia, each host took a turn making the same simple point: take this seriously, right now.

Amen. Now is a particularly good time, nay, a necessary one, to do more than recognize the issue. It is time to stand up.

The Democrats finally grew something that can pass courteous muster as a "spine" in shutting the government down, largely over GOP-desired cuts to Obamacare subsidies.

Nothing would be harmed and there would be everything to gain if the Dems now included a little rider on reopening the government: the passing of a resolution, by both parties in both Houses, that Trump (along with everyone else) is bound by the clear terms of the 22nd Amendment and all talk about a third term is moot.

True, if Trump doesn't feel bound by the Constitution, he damn sure won't have even passing interest in a mere resolution. But that's not the point.

Given our history and the Constitution's clarity, such a vote on such an issue should be an afterthought. The very fact that it most certainly would not be, were it to take place, makes the commitment that much more important as an action to take up now, getting all Republicans on record as they gaze over the horizon to next year and the midterm elections.

The closer we get to 2028, having blown past 2026 — with Steve Bannon and especially Trump himself continually screwing around — the more danger is ushered in.

It is not so much about Trump as it is a test of whether the Constitution still exists as a binding compact.

Or, alternatively, it is very much about Trump. It is about whether he can be stopped. Ever. On anything.

Sure, we all look to the White House ballroom as near proof positive that Trump doesn't believe he's going anywhere. But on The View, Sunny Hostin made an even more salient point. She may have been noting the obvious but nonetheless it was sharp: Given all we have absorbed to the marrow about Trump, is there any conceivable way that post-2026 he will allow himself to fade, tossing the spotlight to JD Vance or Marco Rubio, or a ticket containing both men?

Excuse me, but no f-----g way.

Every excellent analyst on The View highlighted the importance of getting all Republicans on record by having Democrats challenge them on the issue. But that would not be strong enough on its own. The Dems gotta keep the government all shut down.

There is no chance that Trump would go along with such a resolution. Good. Make him make that move, now, while the GOP isn't necessarily forced into line.

Understand, 2025 isn't 2027. Two years from now, the pressure will be much more evident. Any hope to timber this issue involves Democrats coming out of 2026 with majorities in both chambers of Congress. And nothing else, no real issue, stands on the horizon to engineer such a victory, especially given the map, new voting restrictions, and voter apathy.

Democrats have gotta shake things up, big. This might be the only pitch to hit. And if someone throws you a softball, for the love of God, hit it.

Because all indications are that Americans generally, and even a slim majority of Republicans, are against a Trump third term. It is a rare thing to find a majority of GOP-ers against Trump – and is there anything else with which to hold Republicans' feet to the fire? Oh, go ahead, throw Epstein in too. Why not make them vote on that too? There is certainly room.

It is not every day that you can preserve democracy over the caucus lunch. So, Dems — give it a shot. If you can't, what can you do?

Jason Miciak is an American attorney, past Associate Editor of Occupy Democrats, novelist and dad. He can be reached on Bluesky and Twitter, or at jasonmiciak@gmail.com

Squealing GOP hypocrites know they aided a coup — only relentless truth will expose them

Everyone remembers. We watched it live on TV. After a fairly mundane election, in which Donald Trump simply wasn't capable of accepting a loss, he chose instead to fire everyone who dared to tell him he came up short, fair and square, then proceeded to collude with others to attempt to overthrow the government. Trump set his sights on the Capitol in a last-ditch attempt at a coup, attacking Congress just as it certified that pathologically intolerable loss.

Trump's utterly reckless and brazen behavior on January 6th, 2021, led even some of his most hardened supporters to shake their heads. Some resigned their positions. He was done, finished. Finally, everyone agreed the man wasn't fit, a threat to all the nation holds dear. Social media banned him: too dangerous. The world crawled across the line, finally able to see it all clearly. The movement was exposed.

That lasted for about a month, in which Mitch McConnell stood at the podium of the Senate and waved away his "not guilty" vote on the second impeachment, ensuring us Trump was now a matter for law enforcement, not voters.

Subtext: "Trump will be investigated and perhaps indicted."

History will come down hard on former Attorney General Merrick Garland for unforgivably slow-walking the investigation, leaving sufficient time for the great whitewashing that started with small meetings at Mar-a-Lago with Kevin McCarthy, then GOP leader in the House, and from that seed growing to a forest of outrageous and self-righteous rallies. In just two-and-a-half years, January 6th went from MAGAs' lowest moment, a national timeout, to a rallying cry, setting the stage for Trump's reelection in 2024. (Also as an anti-vax movement, anti-science, anti-modernity, anti-NATO, pro-Russia...)

It was only about three years in that Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Department of Justice finally got around to filing charges. Unbelievable. The moment had passed.

Now, with the release of files showing that Smith subpoenaed telephone records from various members of Congress, the right feels at home as the ultimate victims, crying that Smith was "tracking calls," as if the goal was blackmail and not to investigate a possible conspiracy on January 6th — remember, the crime we saw on TV?

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) is just one of many crying out:

Jack Smith tracked my private communications and those of my colleagues during his witch hunt to investigate [Trump]. This is exactly the type of political weaponization of the federal government under Presidents Obama and Biden that Republicans and President Trump have been calling out for years. We will get to the bottom of this, but every American should be shocked to see what happened here."

"Witch hunt?" He means the investigation of the vicious attack on Congress, of which he's a member, now subject to a whitewash so shameful that his memory seems wiped politically clear.

Again, Hagerty is just one of many.

Left unsaid is that Smith investigated many reports that members of Congress both knew of the "alternate electors" and the plan to attack the Capitol. And yet Hagerty is here acting as though Smith "tracked his calls" to set the senator up.

Brazil went through something similar — it imprisoned its president for years. It is a more mature democracy.

In Washington, the monstrous crime necessitated a massive investigation. This wasn't some spontaneous uprising, with Congress hapless bystanders. No, Trump invited everyone to congregate and asked members of Congress to speak. The Electoral College had voted, it was over, and yet Trump continued to hold rallies, promising this one would be "wild," with a wink.

People like Hagerty and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) conveniently forget that MAGA "troops" were in position on January 5th. Steve Bannon (who refused to testify to Congress about the plot), all but laid out the scene:

“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It’s all converging, and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack.

“I’ll tell you this: It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen. It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different, and all I can say is strap in.”

But this is a hoax witch hunt, according to many.

Everyone close to Trump knew the attack was coming. "Strap in" leaves no room for doubt, and surely some in Congress knew. Hawley wasn't pumping his fist about a vote. This was an attack on Congress, an attempt to steal the presidency, a crime at the absolute highest possible level. It would have been malpractice had Smith not sought the phone records of damn near everyone, Democrats included.

So powerful is Trump's ability to reverse reality, so willing are the followers to absorb an alternate history, the subpoena revelation has become a rallying point, crying about the fact that Garland's Justice Department took action against them, and yet Obama, Hillary Clinton, Smith, and other usual suspects remain free.

The MAGA crowd likes to spout out, "What if Trump and Pam Bondi 'tracked' the calls of Democratic senators?" To which the obvious retort is, "Had Democrats attacked the Capitol and a later Democratic president pardoned them all, Democrats wouldn't have a lot to complain about."

Therein lies the difference. The right is ever willing to bend reality to fit their need to prosecute the investigators, their raison d'etre. Prominent Democrats must be imprisoned for reasons traced to conspiracy theories, Pizzagate and Q-Anon. Meanwhile, the left knows that if reality were let loose, nearly everyone in the current executive branch would face a grand jury.

There is an obvious example, one of dozens.

What if Joe Biden was associated with Jeffrey Epstein but had Garland and then FBI Director Chris Wray send 1,000 FBI agents to pore through the records and flag all mentions of Biden? What if Biden then publicly stated there was nothing to see, it's a Republican hoax? What if he then promoted Ghislaine Maxwell to "Club Fed,” a prison way cushier than any sex offender ever would normally see? Oh, and we'd be supposed to ignore the birthday card with a naked woman mentioning friends with secrets, too.

The right would take up pitchforks.

The Epstein matter is a cover-up of the highest order. But January 6th need not even be covered up — it's now a point of pride. They fought the righteous fight, and anyone investigating it is the criminal. We are in upside-down world.

The Republican-controlled government will now investigate the investigators (they have experience with this), and they will assert that criminal Democrats were looking to "trap" innocent Republicans by "tracking" their calls, conveniently forgetting the attempted coup as if it were a wholesome, peaceful protest — or simply never happened, even though we all saw it live on TV.

That is where it gets especially dangerous.

Like so many dictators before him, Trump doesn't even pretend to serve the whole country. He openly leads and favors all who slavishly support him. All others have become "the enemy within." Somewhere, Stalin is nodding.

In 2020, democracy handed Trump a loss he was unable to psychologically process. Democracy itself became his enemy, one to be attacked on January 6th.

He campaigned in 2024 that he would be here to finish the job. He may voluntarily step down in 2028. He will be old. But he'll be damned if he ever subjects himself to democracy again. (You know he plans to run somehow — he's building a ballroom and it's not for JD Vance.)

And so it goes, the right will now initiate criminal investigations into those who investigated them. The key difference is that Trump and his followers committed a real crime. It was live on TV.

After the murder of Charlie Kirk, the right likes to say that only the left resorts to violence. Wrong. In 2000, the Democrat Al Gore had a legitimate case that the Supreme Court cut off counting the vote in Florida that would have made him the next president. Yet Democrats accepted events. They didn't attack the Capitol.

In 2020, Trump clearly lost — it wasn't that close. And yet, as president, Trump literally sought fake votes from a "friendly" Republican Secretary of State in Georgia ("All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, give me a break."). Then he sent the mob to sack the Capitol. The right is not "peaceful" when threatened.

So we're entering even more dangerous territory. Trump must avoid the Epstein issue. So he cries that the enemy within is stronger than any international adversary (Imagine China's smile.) Thus, Texas appears to be on the verge of invading Illinois. The stage is now set for a series of arrests, with Trump criminalizing any opposition to the regime.

Just like any regular dictator — just like Putin.

Changing voting mechanisms, altering districts, eliminating mail-in ballots, having the National Guard at polling stations — all of it tightens the noose. Hopefully, people don't start falling out of buildings. Don't laugh.

Bannon said "Strap in," but now it appears all too likely that Democrats must strap in for a fight to prevent 40 years of Republican rule, taking us straight from the first world to the second, that of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and India.

We are watching it in real time. The fact the FBI released information already known (the subpoenas for calls from the members of Congress around Jan. 6th) is of no matter. They have the Epstein files from which to distract. It seems to be working all too well.

Trump supporters are demanding investigations — we're used to that, it's a given. But against arrests properly made as a result of a vicious attack on the Capitol, they won't be satisfied. As James Comey can attest, nothing but arrests will satisfy this crowd, nor this president.

Everyone remembers watching the battle for democracy live on TV on January 6th, 2021. But, really, who could've known that we were merely observing the first skirmish in a war?

Left with no choice, we must fight back — but not violently. Fight back with the weapon they most fear. The truth. Sure, they will ignore it. Many in the teetering middle won't. It is not irrelevant. Ultimately, the truth is the toughest army for them to subdue. So get it out there because, setting aside lone-wolf violent attacks, the truth is, actual criminalization of politics is wholly one-sided.

A battle for truth is a fight for democracy, and it also needs to be fought live on televisions, phones, computers, and the streets. No self-respecting democratic resistance would do otherwise.

They will be the ones playing victims, pointing at clouds, always creating a fact-free reality. But have no doubt, the consequences are all too real.

Jason Miciak is a former Associate Editor at Occupy Democrats, author, American attorney, and can be found regularly on Politizoom. He can be reached jasonmiciak@gmail.com, Twitter @JasonMiciak, and follow on Bluesky @jasonmiciak.bsky.social

These forgotten Americans hold the key to Trump's downfall — and they'll use it soon

Even at the absolute highest level, at some point, just getting the basic job done — sawing wood, blocking and tackling — is the only means to sway critical elements of the American electorate toward support or disdain for this or most other administrations.

For that reason, and precious few others, it is only a matter of time until the floor drops out from under Trump's MAGA express and its adolescent scorched-earth second run.

Such a low-key, mealy-mouthed pronouncement kind of sounds absurd at first.

After all, at any given point, 35 percent of this country is in a cold civil war with the opposite 35 percent. The red side of that equation believes that Trump's Department of Justice is about to deliver Obama and Hillary's Q-inspired imprisonment, all while they cheer the deployment of troops to Portland. Probably Portland, Maine, given this administration's incompetence.

Meanwhile, many of us on the blue side believe we're a day or two away from Trump passing out on the podium as the Epstein files prove that he played a major role in the most notorious teen sex-trafficking scheme in modern history. (And don't think that he doesn't love the government shutdown as a diversion.)

The reality is likely more in the middle — though that's one hell of a middle, to be sure.

Real hope for moderating or deflating Trump and company will likely spring more from that middle 30 percent, the kind that don't believe that pitchforks are warranted yet, so long as someone answers the damned phone when they call Social Security, gets their tax rebate before Memorial Day, wants FEMA positioned before the storm, and prefers hamburger that is at least cheaper than Bitcoin.

Because Trump et. al. can implement Project 2025 in all its horror, putting troops in American cities, deporting actual American citizens, firing women and POC as presumptive "DEI hires," all of it, with the 35-35 dynamic and a "thirtyish" middle that is practically asleep, just wanting American s––– to work.

To deal with an obvious issue, no, that middle should not be forgiven for being asleep at the wheel as Trump steals American democracy, but that's a topic for another day.

There is reason to believe, however, that the middle is about to lose its precarious tolerance of Trump as his regime continues its nosedive into banana republic despot despair.

First and foremost, there is the fact that no one can afford anything, whether it is groceries, a house, Amazon Prime, never mind health insurance. Trump is in the White House based on one issue — inflation, and not only has he failed spectacularly to bring it down, but there is every indication that it will only get worse. Prices alone will move that middle to disapproval faster than nearly any other factor.

But now watch what happens when air traffic control, or the lack thereof, makes Thanksgiving and next summer an utter nightmare. Yes, that's a "First World Problem" but we are or were "the First World," and very easily angered when such entitlements are threatened.

We got damned lucky this hurricane season. FEMA got "DOGE'd" but wasn't tested in August or September, and good thing too: We could have had a disaster on top of a disaster. But just because the trade winds favored us doesn't mean that a major upheaval, such as an earthquake, fire, or next year's hurricane season, won't expose the breathtaking incompetence we know to be in place.

There is a darker side, too. As the Trump administration fully politicizes the FBI, pulling agents into political conflicts and away from international attacks, all under the leadership of a former podcaster, we are terrifyingly more exposed to terrorist attacks, whether of the old variety, such as bombs, or the newer threats to our networks and grids. The political folly of the FBI, replacing so many honed-in apolitical veterans, can and likely will be exposed in something where minutes matter. It is more likely than not.

And then there is the relatively easy stuff that is already souring, as mentioned: Social Security calls going unanswered, VA appointments dropping off, SNAP dissolving, and Medicaid cuts closing hospitals, all of that toll takes only time — and the administration has lots of it remaining.

It is really easy to spend an hour on X and fully believe that the United States is about to start the Civil War 2.0 — and, no doubt, our democracy is being burgled by the hour, the post-Constitutional America may well be "here." But the administration still has to fear that middle because in this hyper-polarized climate, it takes only a good 15 percent sway in the electorate and very suddenly the administration has little room to move without serious risk.

There is a major, major difference in the authoritarian battlefield between a presidential approval rate of 45 percent versus a true 35 percent, and as has been written here before, Trump has never had to defend his "burn it all down" approach in a souring economy — never mind a wholly dysfunctional government.

This is not a call to sit back and wait. No. The dangers are present and clear, the agenda is damned dangerous, and its implementation is now weekly. Stand and resist, spread the word, don't give an inch, all that. But do not scroll the phone thinking that we're one big revelation away from MAGA implosion.

If we have learned one thing in the Trump era, it is that scandal doesn't touch him ... unless the economy sucks, the phones go unanswered, and a real bomb drops. He has never faced a major revelation with an angry middle.

It is coming. The incompetence can only remain hidden for so long. Just don't count on overwhelming shock about any one revelation, until such time as the middle gets miffed.

At some point, competence matters. The federal government, whether it is TSA, Social Security, the FBI, or FEMA, has actually "worked" fairly well, going back a generation. We have had legions of politically agnostic civil servants earn the expectation that they can be counted on. But most of them are gone, perhaps primarily because they kept politics out of the office, all to usher in just a few "true believers."

And their absence is about to be felt, month by intolerable month.

The somewhat perverted "good news" is that it is coming, and as the middle turns against Trumpism, some of his worst plans will be abated. The bad news is that it cannot come soon enough, and questions linger over whether there will be much left worth saving.

Fight now. Resist today. And know that replacements are coming. Whether they can be forgiven for waiting until abject incompetence set in is a question for history.

But it most certainly is coming — this administration has shown that it cannot be counted on to answer the phone, blocking and tackling, and that's on a nice day. Wait for a real storm and not the "Q" type.

The administration will soon find out that competence matters most.

Jason Miciak is a past Associate Editor of Occupy Democrats, American attorney, author, and can also be found on Politizoom. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com

This laughable J6 rewrite isn't funny when you see the sinister motive behind it

January 6 was one of the single most devastating days in American history. In the months and years after, Donald Trump and MAGA manufactured a nearly inconceivable whitewashing of the whole insurrection. Now, Trump and his supporters are engineering a direct reversal of the underlying plot, as a further means to criminalize the left, leaving their opponents flailing.

A 21st-century iron curtain is descending on American democracy — but there is little hope for resistance without understanding the gravity of the latest moves.

Trump and MAGA are promoting a cynically manipulated reading of an FBI document pertaining to plainclothes federal agents present at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to claim such agents agitated the crowd in a "fedsurrection."

The now all-too-familiar rewriting of history marches on, unabated.

As most know, FBI agents were present within the crowd on January 6 in order to gather intelligence on potential threats, not to incite violence. Trump and MAGA are using a reverse-reading of an email simply noting that informants provided tips on Proud Boys/Oath Keepers plans. But the FBI never spurned anyone on. Real reports have always shown that only four to eight agents entered the Capitol with the rioters, all passively observing.

But Trump supporters, and Trump himself, are using the misreading of documents to further undermine the FBI as another "deep state" actor attempting to thwart Trump. Of course, Trump et al fail to explain why any anti-Trump agent would help attack the Capitol, thereby hindering Congress's certification of Joe Biden's win in the 2020 election.

The fact that this reading makes absolutely no sense is simply papered over.

On Saturday, Trump posted: “It was just revealed that the FBI had secretly placed, against all Rules, Regulations, Protocols, and Standards, 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax.

“This is different from what Director Christopher Wray stated, over and over again! I want to know who each and every one of these so-called ‘Agents’ are, and what they were up to on that now ‘Historic’ Day.

“Christopher Wray, the then Director of the FBI, has some major explaining to do. That’s two [FBI directors] in a row, [James] Comey and Wray.”

Clearly, Trump simply wants his supporters in a rage. The fury-fueled war drums beat to better buttress support for Trump's next step in his personal retribution tour — one that threatens the very foundation of democracy in the United States.

He is doing nothing less than criminalizing opposition, then and now.

After all, Trump already manipulated facts to demand that Comey be prosecuted. This move would have once been seen as automatic grounds for impeachment. Trump has normalized it such that the stage is set for more dictatorial criminal charges by a radicalized Department of Justice.

Rightwing influencers on X are already demanding that Wray and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (speaker of the House on January 6) be prosecuted.

One guesses that Trump's earlier characterization of January 6 as "peaceful" with "a lot of love in the air" is no longer useful and thus tossed aside as if he never uttered the words.

All of the above is set forth only to emphasize an overriding point. Trump and MAGA are using Soviet-level propaganda to take this country down a dark path, one in which nearly every prominent figure who publicly opposed any Trump narrative is labeled an enemy who must go down. Trump's post expressly states that the country "can never let this happen again." He is saying he wants prosecutions over it.

But what he more fully means is that anyone daring to aggressively oppose his personal ambitions will face the almost unlimited power of his personalized government. It all conjures Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Notice the call to prosecute Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who merely opposed Trump in his work in Congress.

Where we stand now is bad enough, but look to the future.

Democrats and independents place their faith in the 2026 and 2028 elections to reverse course and restore sanity. But given Trump's fact-free war against all opposition, faith in elections becomes terrifyingly tenuous. Is there any indication that Trump and his supporters will allow a mere vote to push them aside? Because that is what this is about, every bit as much as it is a personal vendetta.

Project 2025 was always about laying the foundation for permanent authoritarian one-party minority rule, not unlike Russia. The GOP now controls the entirety of the government. The old maxim that possession is nine-tenths of the law, married to a fact-free movement, and a vindictive president could shatter a lot of hope.

Many might now lose faith that democracy will retake its place in American government.

It is almost comically ironic that the left's best weapon against this foreboding future almost surely includes a partnership with the business elite. In such a desperate hour, Democrats might not so much Occupy Wall Street as hug those rascals. Big Corp. might rebel against such volatile rule, perhaps draining much of the financial support needed to throw the country beyond the point of no return.

There is also the chance that the Trump administration's unadulterated incompetence in governance may sour some MAGA mystique.

And "We the People" are powerful in many unexplored ways, making it absolutely critical to retain conviction and hope no matter how dark reality may be. After all, if history shows us anything, it is that things change. But anyone fully committed to a democratic America better do it with clear eyes.

Such needed vision includes understanding that the full power of the federal government is now utterly twisting January 6th's entire fact-based premise around to support the possible prosecution of people who simply opposed Trump- a blindingly bright light blinking red over the American horizon.

Opportunities to thwart this drive to a Saddam-type future are narrowing. Violence is never acceptable, it is immoral, it is counter-productive, it must be utterly rejected by all. But a near-battle-like conviction better take hold if democracy remains the goal.

We all watched January 6 play out on live television. Trump supporters cheered the attack on the Capitol, hoping it would stop Congress. The level of insanity and the danger it represents in reversing the story, all in order to prosecute more Trump enemies, had better be fully understood to counter this new outrage.

The people must wake, rise, and peacefully partner with all powerful opposition to turn this around. It can be done, but not without fully understanding the MAGA rationale for a breathtaking rewrite of January 6.

Jason Miciak is a past Associate Editor of Occupy Democrats, American attorney, author, and can also be found on Politizoom. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com

This shocking Trump act spells disaster for our republic

President Donald Trump has done so much damage to the formerly steadfast pillars of democracy that it's often difficult to single out any one disastrous act, other than the obvious, such as January 6 and militarizing the homeland. But the indictment of former FBI director James Comey may break the strongest last wall buttressing one of history's most resilient republics.

There seems to be nothing left, no rule, no law, no moral, no ethic, no obligation — nothing that can restrain Trump's id when free to "rule," as demonstrated by the unprecedented order to charge Comey. Mark this development as his most significant anti-democratic moment in term two, one that might take two generations to overcome.

Perhaps the near-defining characteristic of third-rate dictatorships is the automatic imprisonment of one's political rivals. Just call modern Republicans a "junta," and it all starts to at least sound normal.

Yes, the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden charged Trump and many others with crimes. But Biden did not direct any charges (One might argue, and many have, that he should have been more involved, from very early on.)

There are no allegations that Biden contacted Attorney General Merrick Garland about any one charge or that Garland was politically motivated. Indeed, not only did Garland foot-drag the milquetoast effort, he even brought in a special prosecutor midstream, creating catastrophic delay. And the Right still calls it "lawfare.”

Not it seems to now matter, but it's worth mentioning that Trump and cohorts most certainly did enough to at least be charged with crimes. The federal government pleaded with Trump for years to return critical documents, even sent binding subpoenas as warnings — begging to settle, only to be ignored. Moreover, the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021 and the third-rate conspiracy to vitiate certification of Biden's win were as corrupt as they were unprecedented and should have been far more aggressively prosecuted.

There is simply no comparison. Every objective person, including nearly every Republican member of Congress, knows this to be true. They are simply that beholden to Trump. One man, not a value, idea, or program, one man — a symptom of deep disease in our body politic. MAGAs are absolutely giggling and high-fiving this as if it were a playground scrap.

The Jeffrey Epstein files must be really bad. But that's actually beside the point, which makes this even more destructive.

It all results in what we have now — real "lawfare," because none of these "Trump enemies" committed any crimes in the normal sense, and literally everyone also knows it, with the possible exception of Trump himself, who seems to believe that it is criminal to be his antagonist. Comey didn't even charge Trump!

Making matters even worse, we had Trump issue what might have been an absurd error in tweeting, not texting, Attorney General Pam Bondi, instructing her to indict his "enemies" and then firing his own appointed U.S. Attorney for Eastern Virginia in order to bring about these charges. This jaw-dropping move is actually all out in the open. He announced the f–––––g thing!

All hope to pull Trump back on the Comey matter now falls to the judiciary.

Other than our actual Supreme Court, the district judges and circuit courts have largely been the most stalwart constitutionalists pushing back against the viciously whimsical and deeply personal tyranny from above. “Saving democracy" was never contemplated when drawing up a district judge's job description. Still, there is some hope that the federal judge will throw Comey's case out based on vindictive prosecution. We will see. But without regard to the end result of this case, the damage is done.

The overriding problem here is that the usual "American solution" to insanity is to bide time, wait for the public to regain some sense, find this untenable, and democratically throw all things MAGA out of office. Such a move would allow criminal charges to be brought against Trump for personally directing the "payback" while profiting so handsomely from the office. Except we now face two problems with that scenario, and right about there is where someone starts looking two generations down for a real fix.

First and foremost, if an administration is willing to simply charge enemies with crimes, honest prosecutors be damned, there is absolutely no guarantee that this administration will even contemplate allowing a real election ever again. People rarely consider it, but Russia has elections, too. They just don't mean anything because they're predetermined by Vladimir Putin.

Please look at where we are headed and consider whether Trump will ever allow himself to be exposed to "an outsider" who may review his actions. He is already directing what looks to be elections of the Russian variety.

Second, even if this country came to its constitutional senses, wrestled through real elections, and voted in a Democrat with Trump term-limited out, the fact that "Project 2029" should include putting these people in jail then just continues the pattern. The party in power charges the former with crimes, even when it's obvious that only one party does it in bad faith. Even the good answer is catastrophic.

And that's what makes the Comey indictment such a landmark.

Pretend momentarily that this country actually does return to sanity in 2028 with President Newsom, Buttigieg, or Whitmer. One could make a very persuasive argument that it would actually be better to simply wipe the slate clean and pretend none of this ever happened, rather than bringing yet another round of charges against a former administration. Let history imprison these people.

Sadly, even though that might prove to be the best option, that too is a hallmark of a failed government. Simply ignoring blatant criminality in order to "move on" allows future administrations to push further into abject corruption and self-dealing. A lawless Oval Office may be accepted as the price the powerful pay for being rich, free, and alive, all at the same time.

All that said, it becomes too apparent why this indictment is a bomb of a development.

Noted above, this could easily take two generations to fix, but keep in mind that there's no rule saying it ever must be. And so here we are. As far as critical dates and developments in the Trump attack on real American exceptionalism? This matter is actually every bit as important as January 6th. Don't be fooled.

One could spend all day analyzing and critiquing Comey's tenure as head of the FBI. Some of us fully believe that he had no good choice when presented with Hillary Clinton's emails. But no sane person believes he is a criminal, and even if Comey shaded his testimony in favor of one view, he would be no different, indeed likely less so, than anyone else to ever testify before Congress, especially an independent director answering to hostile political hacks.

It all just makes it worse. Comey is just so obviously not a criminal, but he is equally clearly someone Trump just hates.

Mark this day as the one on which a U.S. president simply called for the head of someone who infuriated him. Know, of course, as history surely will, that Trump did it, almost alone. It took 240 years to get here and one man to bring it all down. But stop licking wounds for a moment and try to track where it all goes into the near future.

Take an honest look at the lay of the land. There doesn't appear to be an off-ramp in sight. Perhaps President Malia Obama and Gen Z can sort this out.

But they'd better start thinking about it now because this is far bigger than even the headlines relate.

Jason Miciak is a past Associate Editor at Occupy Democrats, author and American attorney. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com

The world watched Trump rave at the UN. What it learned is no laughing matter

It is beyond ironic that Donald Trump names so many of his clubs "Trump International," because he never seems more out of place than when forced to address global matters. His very small world comes across as laughable, but it matters.

Whatever it is that fires up the Trump mystique among the MAGA movement, capturing the support of 40 percent of Americans at any given moment, it certainly doesn't travel. He is never found more wanting than when addressing global matters. The most recent humiliation actually occurred here at home — his home, New York City, but in front of the world at the United Nations.

Standing at the same podium on which Khrushchev banged his shoe, Castro held court for four hours, and JFK aspired to "explore the stars," Trump announced to an attentive world that while he was personally "really good at predicting things," immigration was causing their countries to go to hell. Nice.

It would be almost impossible for him to sound older. While there is room to discuss ways a country keeps its original culture in an evolving world, or the mechanisms for orderly immigration, the very idea that nations can isolate in a connected globe is both mystifying and unwanted. Given that Trump was primarily directing his immigration animosity toward Europe, he's essentially telling them to stay "white" or descend into Satan's flames. Nice.

Were that his only problem.

Not only did Trump float out his ugliest of ideas, the "great replacement theory,” but he also went fact-free in addressing one of the most sophisticated audiences he'll ever entertain, and did so when addressing the topic about which that audience was most interested — trade. He claimed that in his second term so far, the United States has "secured commitments and money already paid for $17 trillion," a statement so laughable as to bring a drink to the nose, given that America's entire GDP last year was $29 trillion.

The laughable lie is akin to telling a domestic audience that drug prices will go down 1,500 percent. If Trump could be believed, Walgreens will now pay us $52.25 to pick up the Klonopin needed to survive this post-fact world. And yet there he is, this time speaking to international leaders, laying out another statistical impossibility. Nice.

Did he whine? Of course, he did. Trump complained that no one has given him any credit for ending wars around the world — he seems stuck on seven, though no one can name them, and then noted that "everyone says I should get a Nobel Peace Prize." He did not say, "After all, they gave a Nobel to the Black president," but he may as well have. This column is more likely to win the Nobel Prize for Literature than this unserious man winning a prize for peace. But he whined anyway. Nice.

Now, do not doubt for a second that despots around the world do tell Trump such stupid stuff and will laud him in private over his powerful UN oratory. No question, when he hears from leaders in the Middle East, Latin America, China, or other authoritarian strongholds, he is showered with praise, told that the United States is "strong again," and most certainly, he deserves that white whale, the damn Nobel.

It is just that easy for other dictators to pick our pockets while filling his with flattery. Nice. To him, at least.

This is all just so awful on so many levels. American foreign policy over the decades, while fallible to a fault, was better than nearly any alternative, largely a force for good. And while that is nice, it also benefited Americans in more ways than we can count. From military bases in the Far East and Europe, to wall-sized televisions for $500, attracting the smartest people on Earth, and cutting-edge tech, Americans benefited tremendously from being "the good guys," the enlightened ones, science-centered, fiscally powerful, with a sensible long-term outlook. No more.

We look as stupid as he sounds.

Many might say, "Well, it's still just a speech and can't matter in the long run," but they're wrong. It does matter. Because the audience extends beyond the delegates. Imagine CEOs in Germany, Korea, or India, power players considering a major infrastructure move in the United States. Big business craves stability. Foreseeability. Reliability. They hear this crazed American and his policy and see only liability.

Banks, too. Entire economies ride the back of the 30-year mortgage, the bet that the next three decades will look "similar enough" to the last three that banks will extend loans, providing the American dream — home ownership. But again, as Wall Street looks on in wonder, muttering "WTAF," moguls here and around the world consider gripping their money tighter, putting our economy in peril, making everything more expensive.

Kind of funny. If the U.S. actually took in $17 trillion "every few months," the federal government could probably buy everyone a house. And that would be nice.

But that won't happen because it's not a serious number, nor based on a serious trade policy. It matters because trade is what underlies the UN's greatest purpose, peace throughout the globe. It is hard to go to war with the country that makes your phone. Simply put, we cannot afford to wage war with China. Global trade is essential to peace and prosperity, but do you suppose that any world leader sitting in that audience believes that he or she can enter into a beneficial, solid trade agreement with the United States?

No, and now your car just got more expensive and the world more unstable. Not nice.

But it certainly is expected when the president of the United States, once considered the leader of the free world, the most powerful man on Earth, takes to the podium whining, lying, and sounding like a petulant man-child, or exactly what happened this week. Skip the horror movie this Halloween and instead watch a side-by-side comparison of a typical Barack Obama UN speech next to that. Then think about the next 30 years.

For the last 30 years, the world has been pretty good to the United States, and the United States has been good to much of the world. Our military owned the seas and the skies, our crops had intercontinental buyers, our stuff was fairly cheap, oil flowed too freely, and economic progress was essentially baked in. Nice.

No longer.

Standing at the same podium from which Ronald Reagan brought along the Soviets, Nelson Mandela fought apartheid, and Pope Francis argued for drastic action on climate change, current American president Donald Trump talked about hats that said he's right about everything, then repeated, "And I don't say that in a braggadocious way, but it's true. I've been right about everything."

Just what the world ordered. The know-nothing playing the know-it-all all. Nice.

Because it is not just a speech. It is a direction, one that encompasses 340 million citizens, a powerful military, backed by a powerful GDP, and against that juggernaut, it is hard for the world not to sit back and think, "That's the wrong direction," and then work around us. Perhaps Americans remain largely unaware of the UN and our global prosperity because of it, in part because we've never had to live without it.

But with speeches like that, laying out a direction as such, we — along with the CEOs, banks, and farmers — may have to now factor in such a world. Unfortunately, it may only hit us when the television is $1,400, a mortgage far out of reach, and our mighty military is fighting at home and alongside despots. Is there any other takeaway from such a speech?

Alas, "Trump International" is now laughable. Sadly, it is more than just another speech and actually does matter. Eventually, the laughter turns to tears. Nice.

Jason Miciak is a past Associate Editor at Occupy Democrats, author and American attorney. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com

These sinister rants show Trumpworld isn't mourning — it's unleashed

Everyone who follows politics from any sort of middle ground suffered comprehensive dread after Donald Trump's second election. We knew of Project 2025 and its "in your face" drive toward totalitarianism. It was baked in — a guarantee.

The nightmare unspooled as it became all too clear that Trump's new administration wouldn't tolerate minders, deep thinkers, the conscientious. There would be no adults in the room. Trump presented a cabinet of laughably unqualified "loyalists" and America pretended it was normal. Expected as it was, the foreboding was no less real.

However, the last 10 days have taken matters to a new level — one even more extreme, perhaps planned all along, but now most definitely here.

Charlie Kirk's murder, along with some admittedly heartless responses, ushered in a new phase, one for which Trumpworld may have been planning all along, but now set upon us over days. In so doing, they ushered in near zoo-level incompetence from a cabinet picked for loyalty despite abject incompetence. The "in your face" aggression, coupled with newfound confidence, brought about the most dangerous week yet in Trump 2.0.

The White House is emboldened, using Kirk's assassination to unapologetically twist the dial, more aggressively crazed than ever. This is dangerous.

The most obvious newly evolving move is the labeling of the entire left as a terrorist movement that threatens American stability. This is gaslighting so pure as to be almost elegant, coming as it does from terrorists who attacked our Capitol. Opposition to Trump has become that much more dangerous. And if one listens closely, they almost took joy in the killing as leaving them finally "freed." What an opportunity.

Stephen Miller, never more self-righteous and raw, the most openly authoritarian-racist member of the administration, recently said:

"With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks, and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name."

Sorry, but that sounds less like grief than relief.

There are no left-wing networks. As a member of the Democratic Party, I'd say we probably need more and better-defined networks to spread an anti-Trump message, but they don't yet exist. Not as Miller meant.

No matter, Miller wants an excuse to "attack" the left, wanting to spring loose the semi-fascist brownshirts in Homeland Security and National Guard on anyone they don't like. Breathtaking in its boldness, one can feel his rush to rage-filled hatred, ready for an open-field run.

Watch out.

But Miller is only following the example set at the top. Trump has been all over the place, spitting vitriol at the left, using Kirk's death to go next-level. Post-Kirk, he has a treasured launching pad toward Orwellian control, example "A" being Jimmy Kimmel. Emboldened, Trump went after even bigger game — network news, as evidenced by recent interactions with the media, as reported by Politico:

President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated his claim that critical television coverage of him is “illegal” and pushed back on criticisms that his administration was taking actions that chill free speech.

The administration quickly established the fact-free narrative that the left metaphysically groomed the suspect in the Kirk killing, Tyler Robinson, despite all evidence pointing to an isolated, uniquely sick loner, practically apolitical, a young man who simply hated Kirk's intolerance toward LGBTQ Americans. Hardly a political leftist.

But the idea took hold on the right, an excuse to attack all opposition as terrorists threatening Americans. This is as dangerous as it is self-serving.

Meanwhile, the cabinet seemed newly confident, and with increased energy came new evidence of jaw-dropping incompetence. None is in over their head more than FBI Director Kash Patel. Little more than a flame-throwing podcaster, he appeared in front of Congress backed by a new level of anti-left rage, and promptly humiliated himself as the most hapless, fully politicized, and laughable FBI director in history. As noted by USA Today:

During his equally contentious Sept. 16 hearing before a Senate committee, Patel went off the rails, labeling [Sen. Adam] Schiff “a political buffoon at best” and saying, “You are the biggest fraud to ever sit in the United States Senate.”

Try to imagine Fox News's reaction to a Democratic administration, or simply a normal FBI director, trying that. Despite almost non-existent expectations, Patel managed to still surprise as a newly freed, shameless, hapless, moron. This, of course, after erroneously announcing the arrest of a “subject” in the Kirk killing.

It goes on, even down to the Department of Health and Human Services and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s absurd crusade against vaccines — the single most powerful public health tool in history, short perhaps of proper sewerage. But conspiracy freaks are going to freak, and the "post-science experts" at a key CDC meeting devolved into clueless chaos.

Per a report in The New York Times:

“Thursday’s session ended with the panel members at odds. A hot microphone caught one panelist calling another committee member 'an idiot,' although it was unclear who was speaking.”

Take your pick.

True, the administration was always vicious, uncaring, and self-satisfied, but it went to a new and dangerous level prior to even Charlie Kirk's memorial service at an NFL stadium in Phoenix. State control and censorship reached late-night comedy, leaving those left on air quivering. All over mildly disrespectful talk — but only talk.

It is likely that the plotters in Project 2025 counted on some seminal moments all along, using each to tighten their grip. They surely envisioned protests, some perhaps descending into violence as their launch pad to the next level. Instead, they are rallying around two grotesque but extremely isolated killings: Kirk as "proof" that political violence is the province of the left, and the murder of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian immigrant, as "proof" that white people are under attack. That incident in Charlotte, North Carolina lubricated a shift to more surface-level racism — always useful to the right.

It all worked better than they could have hoped, and they're showing it with barely suppressed excitement.

The pattern was set in January. Perhaps even ahead of schedule, it is now viciously in your face — a government that is authoritarian, post-law, post-decency, post-unity, in what were the United States. They always fantasized about a war within. Now they get to move, seeing themselves as blameless, responding to a first shot, one taken by "all" Trump opposition. How useful.

MAGA provides its voters self-identity. It's not what they believe. It is shared hatred, never more acute, thus never more united, never more willing to quash all that previously made America great. Those charged with leadership don't need to be good, only "committed."

Unfortunately, the impact will be felt as they move with a greater sense of mission, greater hatred, less confusion, and more dopamine. Never forget: they hate you more than any international faction on earth, more than all of them put together.

Now, though, they have a theme — they're under attack by a violent resistance as a whole. Tragic as one young man's senseless killing may be, they seem more fulfilled, even relieved to have a tragedy transition to a precious tool, never on clearer display than the last week.

And it is just so f–––––– dangerous.

Don't believe me? Listen to them.

“Stephen Miller understands the assignment,” Laura Loomer wrote on Sunday. “Many others don’t. Crush. The. Left. So they never rise again.”

Jason Miciak is a former Associate Editor at Occupy Democrats, author, and American attorney. He can also regularly be found on Politizoom.

Spineless Schumer must force a shutdown this time. Here's why

Given Republicans' breathtaking control of the federal government, there are precious few opportunities for Democrats to leave their mark. But a real opening lies just ahead, and Dems must be ready to go to the mat, forcing the GOP to shut the entirety of the government down on Sept. 30 if they don't honor Democratic demands.

Nothing less than the framing of the stakes for the 2026 elections, combined with longstanding expectations for subsidized health care and a minimal social safety net, is at stake. Last time, Dems cratered. They no longer have that luxury.

Back in March, as the current spending bill approached, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), along with Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), John Fetterman (D-PA), and a few others, made almost no effort before caving in to Republican demands, out of fear of what President Donald Trump and Elon Musk (and DOGE) might do with "emergency powers" that might flow from a shutdown.

The bill went through with nearly every Republican cut in place. Since then, and as Project 2025 unfolds, we've been given a masterclass in how fiercely Trump seizes shocking levels of executive power even absent an emergency.

Trump is going to Trump without regard to exigencies. Inaction in hopes of normalcy is dangerously naive.

The current Republican bill guarantees cuts to Obamacare subsidies, Medicaid funding, FEMA funding, and other cuts that hurt poor and middle-class Americans. If Republicans stay in line, the bill will pass the House. It must be stopped in the Senate.

This gives the Democrats a unique opportunity to invest heavily in the right messaging, starting now to get out in front.

This week, Rep. Rose DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the leading Democrats on spending matters, said Republicans “walked away from negotiations and are now threatening a shutdown by trying to jam through a funding bill on their terms alone.”

That was a good start. From here, Team Blue must stand firm, with resolute focus on our increasingly expensive American lives.

It is the right time to do it. Trump is still polling poorly at about 43 percent approval and has been seen as "extreme" throughout his second term. Team Red on Capitol Hill is nothing more than a distribution center for Trump Inc., headquartered just down Pennsylvania Avenue. The GOP is Trump. The coming shutdown is about him, period — not Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) or John Thune (R-SD), or House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

It is about "the Trump cuts" or the "Trump money grab." Brand it. Personalize it. He deserves it.

To be sure, one takes a massive risk in shutting the government down during a period of economic uncertainty. A shutdown could slow the economy further. Thus, Democrats must stand tall and say that they must stop cuts to these social programs precisely because the economy is slowing and may turn downward in the near future.

Lingering economic worries will make Trump's cuts that much more devastating. Hold the line.

What Democrats can't do is get into a fight that looks like they are shutting the government down over politics. Playing the usual politics, whether about issues such as Voter ID or just obstructing to obstruct, is a loser. Dems must singularly and clearly stand their ground over the cost of the Republican bill to ordinary Americans, and not get into the weeds.

The GOP "money grab" must be the sine qua non of the Blue.

It will not be easy. But this is the perfect opportunity to paint Trump as an extremist, one trying to tear every remaining shred of government support from Americans' hands. Note the economic risk by screaming that Trump is doing all he can to run the economy into the ground as it is, with tariffs, layoffs, inflation — especially grocery prices. Pound on the need to help Americans, "more now than ever."

What Democrats cannot do is fold again, as they did in March. Chances to really improve American lives are so rare in this political dynamic that they must be seized when presented.

It will take some real political skill, but it most certainly can be done. Simply message that Dems won't consider anything that hurts ordinary Americans. Don't even mention any potential riders. Color Trump as the bad guy, stealing from the poor, willing to shut the government down to grab even more.

Trump owns the GOP with a totality that takes one's breath away, but that allows the Dems to make this personal. Whatever happens, it will be them against "Trump" and his demands. Talk about hospital closures, rising health care costs, and disaster relief. Put it all in the context of a very uncertain and somewhat painful economy, the Trump economy.

Do not back down. If we have learned anything under Trump's rule, it is that he will make things worse. He will use every inch of rope, grab powers heretofore unknown to exist, and lash out at minorities, women, LGBTQ Americans, immigrants, and the poor. He will do that anyway. There is no reason to let that concern get in the way of stopping this bill.

Republican cuts are deeply unpopular, so make Trump eat them. Make it such that Trump has to take the hit. He is the one who wants to hurt Americans so badly that he's willing to shut the government down in order to do it. And then let all the consequences shower onto him.

But for the love of God, stand up and be counted for once. Hold the line. Force them to shut it all down, over "a bill that enables Trump's money grab."

Jason Miciak is a former Associate Editor at Occupy Democrats, author, and American attorney. He can also regularly be found on Politizoom