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This Trump fool is the reason for Savannah Guthrie's continued misery

Until Sunday, it wasn’t clear to me why Savannah Guthrie’s mom was still missing nearly a month after her disappearance. Then came images of the FBI director, Kash Patel, partying with members of the US Olympic hockey team after they won the gold medal.

Then it all started to make sense.

Why wouldn’t Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping remain unsolved given the country’s leading lawman doesn’t take the law seriously? He thinks the FBI gives him access to things other people can’t, as if law and order were an exclusive membership card to an elite club.

Meanwhile, real people suffer.

For all we know, Nancy Guthrie could be dead.

If you haven’t heard, Patel took a taxpayer-funded jet to Italy to watch the men’s hockey final. His office said he was checking on security. His people accused reporters of lying when they reported the news. Their boss, with images of his partying, exposed their lies.

Sunday’s episode was only one instance of a larger pattern of lawlessness that's getting so big that the Times noted that Patel has “shown little willingness to curb or even conceal his jet-setting." He "has offered comparable explanations" (ie, lies) "to provide SWAT team protection for his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, a country singer and rightwing activist, as well as for his heavy use of federal resources for travel that has at times appeared to blur professional lines.”

The Times said that "over the summer, he flew on a government jet from the Washington area to Inverness, Scotland, for a getaway at the exclusive golf resort, the Carnegie Club, with friends ... He has also taken flights, at taxpayer expense, to a private hunting ranch in Texas and to a wrestling match in State College, Pa., to watch a performance by Ms. Wilkins.

The Times and others say Patel’s bad behavior comes in spite of “multiple, fast-developing crises.” These include Americans in Mexico being told to shelter in place after a drug cartel leader was killed by the military. Closer to home, police killed a Florida man who tried to enter Mar-a-Lago with a shotgun and a gas can. Scott MacFarlane added more context:

The FBI is being pushed by Epstein survivors to do more to investigate some of the people … that have come out in the released batch of Epstein files, which show the circle that surrounded Jeffrey Epstein as he prayed on girls and young women … All these things, not to mention crime nationwide, opioid crisis, gun crimes, child pornography, drug running, gun running, are happening as the FBI director is ... partying with his buddies.

But I think it’s the other way around. It’s not that Patel’s lawlessness is happening in light of these crimes. They are happening in light of his lawlessness. Why care about the law, or criminal consequences, when the country’s leading lawman shows so much contempt for it?

The Times reported that Patel was cheering Team USA when he tweeted that the FBI would dedicate “all necessary resources” to investigating the Mar-a-Lago incident. The implication is that he’s falling down on the job, as “all necessary resources” clearly didn’t include him.

But consider the message he's sending — that law enforcement is just empty talk. That's more consequential than falling down on the job. With his actions, Patel is saying that as long as you’re hooked up to the right people, you can do all the criming you want. Even if you’re not hooked up, just wait. When the cops are away, the criminals can come out to play.

This message was deepened by Patel’s (almost certainly fictional) claim that he was invited by the men’s hockey team to celebrate their victory with them. A different FBI director would have refused such an invitation out of concern that accepting it would not only compromise the bureau’s standing with the American people but also appear to encourage lawlessness. But public trust means little to a man who acts like he will never face public accountability.

Lawlessness isn’t harmless.

An FBI director who properly feared public accountability would never have let an Arizona sheriff investigate Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance without the FBI’s aid. He or she would have given Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos a choice: save yourself the humiliation of failure by accepting that the FBI is “the premier agency to deal with kidnappings,” as one expert described the bureau, or I will open my own investigation and guarantee your humiliation.

Instead, the FBI joined the investigation many days after Guthrie went missing, a debilitating loss of time, critics told the New York Post, that allowed for serious errors — for instance, surrendering the crime scene too soon, “with everyone from reporters to true-crime sleuths able to walk right up to Guthrie’s front door with no security or crime scene tape.”

As things stand, Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is now approaching a month in duration. Her family seems increasingly desperate. Savannah Guthrie herself is forced to make public pleas to her mom’s kidnappers that yield no results. Nanos and Patel are both humiliated, but only Nanos, who faces future reelection as a sheriff, will be held accountable. Meanwhile, Patel jet-sets on the taxpayer dime, hastening the decline of public faith in law enforcement.

Trump was caught pulling off the biggest heist of the 21st century

On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s tariff scheme, because the power of taxation goes to the Congress, not the president. “The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court’s majority.

The news was framed as a loss.

“The 6-3 ruling is a major blow to the president’s signature economic policy,” NPR said.

It “represents a stinging political setback,” the Washington Post said.

“The first major piece of President Trump’s broad agenda” has been upended, the AP said.

In truth, the court probably saved Trump from himself.

Hours before the court’s ruling came news of the US economy slowing down to a degree much greater than economists expected, because consumers pulled back so sharply. They did so, of course, because Trump’s tariffs scheme amounted to the biggest tax increase of the last three decades, according to the Tax Foundation. (JP Morgan Chase, in an assessment published last April, said it’s the biggest since 1968.)

The New York Times said the government collected nearly $290 billion in custom duties last year, triple what was collected the year before. Last week, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York issued a report saying more than 90 percent of that came out of the pockets of American consumers. (This quarter was shaping up to be worse than the last, as consumer confidence “collapsed” last month to its lowest level since 2014.)

So the court probably stopped Trump from burning up the rest of the American middle class, and sparking a broad-based backlash against him in this year’s midterms, threatening to take his party down with him. (Even people who do not pay attention to politics, indeed, who know almost nothing, rated his handling of prices at -40 percent.)

Still, in saving Trump from himself, the court made something clear to Americans that may not have been clear before Friday morning’s ruling — tariffs are taxes. Not only that, thanks to the court, everyone now knows the biggest tax hike since the Clinton administration was illegal.

So you could say the court saved Trump, but you could also say it gave his enemies strong grounds for accusing him of pulling off the biggest heist of the 21st century, and, because of the massive scale of the burglary, the economy came to a crawl. Again, we’re talking about nearly $290 billion, almost all of it paid for by you, me and everyone we know. (I’m using that figure. Others estimate upwards of $1 trillion.)

Even Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested, though without meaning to, that there’s been a robbery and victims are entitled to just compensation. In his dissent, the associate justice said that Trump’s tariff scheme is too complicated to unwind, with the primary complication being “refunds.”

“The court’s decision is likely to generate other serious practical consequences in the near term,” Kavanaugh wrote. “One issue will be refunds. Refunds of billions of dollars would have significant consequences for the US treasury. The court says nothing today about whether and if so how, the government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers, but that process is likely to be a ‘mess,’ as was acknowledged at oral arguments.”

Of course, Kavanaugh is talking about refunds to importers, which deepens the injustice of it all. They didn’t ultimately pay! We did!

I think Democratic leaders should make a deal with voters: Give us the Congress in November and we’ll pass a law forcing Trump to give back the money he stole from you. Moreover, I think the Democrats should dare their GOP counterparts to codify Trump’s tariffs and risk the allegation, entirely justified, that not only did the president pick the people’s pocket but his party now wants to make pickpocketing legal.

The Republicans probably won’t have to go that far given that Justice Kavanaugh, in his dissent, actually suggested ways for the president to get around today’s ruling, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s what Trump is going to do. In his press conference, during which he said he was “absolutely ashamed” of the high court, Trump announced a new set of global tariffs under a different law that restricts levies to 150 days.

It’s often said Trump doesn’t understand how tariffs work, but he does. He gets what they really are: leverage against rich people, corporations and countries he’s seeking to extort. It was reported today that he was angry with the court, but it wasn’t because it “set back his agenda.” It was because it took away his most powerful tool for seeking bribes.

The president’s criminal intent snapped into focus during the presser, though it was so subtle that it went mostly unnoticed. A reporter asked why Trump didn’t work with the Congress to establish import taxes, rather than pursuing another round of tariffs that will end up being challenged in court again. Trump’s reply: “Because I don’t have to.”

“I have the right to do tariffs,” he said. “I’ve always had that right to do tariffs. It’s all been approved by Congress. There’s no reason to do it.”

Rewind: The Supreme Court had just said he can’t do tariffs unilaterally, that “the Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” and that actions to the contrary are illegal. (Plus: Congress has not, and almost certainly will not, approve new taxes.)

Even though the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s tariffs are illegal, the criminal intent behind them hasn’t changed. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, in so many words, that the theft of the American people will continue through 2026. As for the money already stolen from us, he said: “I got a feeling the American people won’t see it.”

We must attack these Trumpist election lies — or their diabolical aim will succeed

Last week, Larry Kudlow, the Fox personality and former Trump advisor, was on the TV.

You will be shocked to learn he lied.

“I vote in the state of Connecticut. You don’t need a photo ID. You could vote if you just show them a credit card or a debit card, which anybody can get their hands on. I think it’s a scam."

The context was “election integrity” and voter-ID laws. At the time, the House was debating a bill that would nationalize elections to an alarming degree. (The so-called SAVE America Act passed the following day.) Kudlow’s “commentary” primed Donald Trump to respond.

“Connecticut is an extremely corrupt voting place,” he said. “That's why a guy like [Sen. Richard] Blumenthal can keep getting elected. He admitted he cheated on the war. I went to Vietnam for a couple of days and I spent two more days than he did there. He was never there."

All but one thing above, which I will get to, is a lie.

I also live in Connecticut. I vote in Connecticut. You cannot walk into a polling station, present a credit card and vote. I don’t know if that would be illegal. I do know it would fail.

You are permitted to vote without photo-ID, but the documents you are required to produce are the same ones you are required to produce to get a Connecticut drivers license.

In other words, proof of residency.

According to the New Haven Register, those documents include …

… a utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or government document that shows their name and address; a Social Security card; or any form of identification that shows the voter’s name and address, name and signature, or name and photograph.”

But Connecticut’s election laws don’t stop there.

Even if you have photo ID, or produce the same documents required to get photo ID, you still have to go through an additional process. Volunteer poll workers find your name and address on a list of voters. That list is maintained by Republican and Democratic registrars. It is created via voter registration, a process that happens in advance of Election Day.

So there are at least two stages, registration and verification.

Here’s Connecticut’s top elections official with the rest of the details:

“Every community has both a Republican and a Democrat responsible for running elections. We use paper ballots. Our voting equipment is not connected to the internet. We conduct rigorous preelection testing and post-election audits. And when an issue is identified, it is investigated and addressed through law and not rhetoric."

Here's an example of “when an issue is identified”: In 2023, the state's media was abuzz with news of an attempt to stuff mail-in vote boxes in favor of Bridgeport’s Democratic mayor, Joe Ganim. The perpetrators, all Democrats, were found, prosecuted and convicted. The state’s legislature, which is dominated by Democrats, tightened rules to prevent future abuse.

It’s safe to presume that Larry Kudlow knows the same things I know given that we both live and vote in Connecticut. I think it’s therefore reasonable to conclude not only that he’s lying, but that he knows he’s lying. And I think it's important to say that plainly.

A lot of time is put into fact-checking in a valiant effort to defend the truth, but the lies themselves are worth paying attention to, because without them, the true position of the GOP would be indefensible. Achieving their goals would be impossible without deceit.

The liars know election fraud is rare. States and localities have multi-stage verification processes. They know that rarity is due to state laws holding criminals accountable. And liars know Americans prefer tradition. We prefer states and localities be in charge of elections.

What do the liars really want?

To stop Democrats winning.

To do that, the president and his allies need to put in place a system with rules that suppress voters who favor Democrats. To do that, they need to take away voting authority from localities and states. That’s the point of the SAVE America Act. (It is also the point of a lawsuit against Connecticut and other blue states to force them to turn over voter rolls.) If successful, the effort would give the GOP a means of voiding Democratic victories.

That’s what they want, but they can’t say that. So they lie.

They ask “questions” about “election integrity,” as if manifesting the will of the American people were their highest value. They talk about “election security” as if threats by Russian or Chinese aggressors were of actual concern. They do this not to raise awareness of problems, or to search for good-faith solutions, but to sabotage trust in free and fair elections.

And they smear.

That brings me to Richard Blumenthal.

Before he ran for the Senate in 2010, Blumenthal was Connecticut’s attorney general for 20 years. He was popular. Everyone knew running for the Senate was a foregone conclusion.

In the run up to Election Day that year, the Times ran a story documenting a few times when Blumenthal seemed to suggest he served “in” Vietnam. He didn’t. He served stateside for six years in the US Marine Corps Reserve during the Vietnam War. But most Nutmeggers, as we sometimes call ourselves, were already familiar with his biography. It was widely understood what Dick Blumenthal meant to say. The allegations of “stolen valor” fell flat and he won.

Trump often comes back to this moment when Blumenthal is in the headlines criticizing him. This time, however, the president didn’t just smear Blumenthal. He smeared the whole state. After all, only an “extremely corrupt voting place” like Connecticut would keep electing a senator who “admitted he cheated on the war … He was never there."

That’s the only true thing Trump said: Blumenthal wasn’t there. Otherwise, his every word was a lie designed to project onto enemies his own criminal intent in the belief they will chose to protect themselves and the truth rather than go on the offensive against him.

Liars expect us to defend the truth.

They don’t expect us to attack them for lying.

This Trump clown just became the laughingstock of his administration

From where I was sitting, it looked like the attorney general pretty much invited the United States Congress to impeach her. Here’s how the New York Daily News put it, summarizing the AP’s coverage of her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week:

Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defense of President Donald Trump Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from relentless criticism of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, repeatedly shouting at Democrats during a combative hearing in which she postured herself as the Republican president’s chief protector.

I emphasized that last bit not only to highlight the key fact of the news, but also to suggest it’s all the reason you need to impeach.

The attorney general is the top law enforcement officer of the United States. The attorney general is not the president’s defense counsel. Anything short of that standard is dereliction of duty and betrayal of the oath, high crimes demanding she be removed from office.

I mean, ranking member Jamie Raskin’s opening statement could be used later in drawing up articles of impeachment against Bondi. The Maryland congressman enumerated all the ways the attorney general “ignored the law” passed by Congress to release the Epstein files.

Watching clip after clip, I was surprised to see Bondi didn’t bother hiding it. In behavior unbecoming of a high officer, she screamed, she pouted, and she insulted the Democrats, all without apparent concern that doing so revealed the intent behind her actions — that Trump’s interests are her interests, those of the people be damned.

Immediately, Bondi’s theatrics raised more questions than answers, according to New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

“She was screaming and thrashing, and I think that’s because she knows that she is implicated in a massive coverup to protect a powerful ring of pedophiles through the redaction of the names of perpetrators, the holding of 3 million files, the unexplained moving of Ghislaine Maxwell into a new cushy facility — all of these things are what she personally oversaw. That’s before even digging into whatever questions may arise from her history in Florida, and I think that her thrashing and her very erratic performance today pointed to the fact that there are real questions that point to the DOJ under her leadership specifically.”

Clearly, Bondi's performance was strategic. It was part of her goal of deflecting attention away from the president and the fact that his name appears more than a million times in files related to Jeffrey Epstein that were released by the Department of Justice, according to Raskin.

She beclowned herself and perhaps it worked. Most headlines I have seen about her testimony are a variation of the Daily News: “Bondi shouts down Democrats in hearing on Epstein files release delays.”

At one point, the attorney general said instead of criticizing Trump, we should be glorifying him, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke a new record this week. She spoke as if she were a fan girl.

“They said it couldn’t be done in four years, yet President Trump has done it in one!”

At another, instead of answering a question from Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) about how many of Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirators she has indicted, she all but knocked the pitcher over to avoid saying the embarrassing truth: none.

Bondi even allowed herself to be seen thumbing through “flash cards with individualized insults,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said. “But she couldn’t memorize them, so you can see her shuffle through them to find the flash-cards-insult that matches the member.”

Bondi humiliated herself for Trump’s sake, but we shouldn’t just move on. We should dwell on that choice. As Raskin said, in response to her petulance, Bondi was trying to “filibuster” the Congress in order to prevent it from manifesting its will, in this case, getting answers from the attorney general about delays in releasing the Epstein files.

That is contempt. Contempt of Congress is a crime. When you show contempt for Congress to Congress — to the actual faces of elected members while under oath — Congress cannot overlook it without expecting such crimes to continue. Nip it in the bud. Impeach Bondi.

It’s important to say that plainly. Too often, liberals get bogged down in debates over intent. Why did Bondi play the fool? Ron Filipkowski, at Meidasnews.com, said her “reprehensible performance was to please an audience of one who expects reprehensible performances.”

I have no doubt that’s true, but I also think the reasons are secondary to the behavior itself. It doesn’t really matter that her clown act was intended to protect Trump. More important is holding her accountable so future officials know clown acts come with a price.

Impeachment isn’t possible right now. The Democrats do not have the numbers. Even if they did, there’s no guarantee her indictment by a House majority would lead to conviction by two-thirds of the Senate.

But that, too, is beside the point. Fortunately, some Democrats appear to understand the point is saying she’s unfit, right now, to build momentum toward retaking the House, and once achieved, using that majority power to advance the cause of justice. As Raskin said: “If [the Democrats] had the power, we would subpoena [Bondi], and we would require her to answer our questions.”

He went on to say:

“So that is the importance of who’s going to be in control in Congress after the 2026 elections because we would like the subpoena power, so we don’t see this kind of phenomenal disrespect of Congress.”

The way I see it, the Democrats seem to be building up to a position from which they can send a message to future toadies: Pam Bondi might be spared in the end, but not before we make her life hell.

MAGA's revolting meltdown gave the game away

At this point, you have probably heard enough about the effect of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show on the president and his coalition. While there are plenty of details to debate, including the ludicrous allegation that the Grammy-winner’s performance was “pure smut,” I think it’s important to keep your eyes fixed on what’s really at stake.

Rightwingers don’t mind “indecent acts,” as their protection of “the Epstein class” should attest. What they mind is a global superstar, who originates from Puerto Rico and whose native language is Spanish, making affirmative claims about who belongs in America.

Bad Bunny’s halftime show was an extension of remarks he made two weekends ago after winning six Grammys.

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” he said. “We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”

His argument in favor of kindness and common cause, and in defense of diversity and inclusion, was later immortalized on words written on a football — “Together, we are America” — and it lay beneath a spectacle seen by 135 million, according to the Daily News.

The strength of Bad Bunny’s argument was enhanced by the impotence of its counterpart. Turning Point USA, the hate group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, organized an alternate musical event. Emceed by Kid Rock, the show’s message was, more or less, America is for “us,” not “them.” According to the Daily News, just 6 million watched it.

That’s their beef.

Donald Trump and his rightwing allies will not believe their vision of America — essentially, a racially exclusive club — is unpopular.

They will never accept that America has fallen in love with a man who was born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, who was bagging groceries a decade ago before rising to Spotify’s top global artist, who welcomes everyone and whose life embodies the American Dream.

So they smear him, accusing him of involvement in a criminal conspiracy to somehow force Americans into loving him against their will. That’s the thinking behind a new complaint by US Congressman Andy Ogles. The Tennessee Republican described the Super Bowl halftime show as "pure smut" featuring "explicit displays of gay sexual acts, women gyrating provocatively, and Bad Bunny shamelessly grabbing his crotch while dry-humping the air."

Ogles continued, saying Bad Bunny "openly glorified sodomy and countless other unspeakable depravities." Ogles said "these flagrant, indecent acts" break federal law regulating television airwaves. He called for an investigation in a letter to the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees broadcast regulations.

But such allegations are decoys. Rightwingers do not care about “family values.” If they did, they would not tolerate the incarceration of babies. (The youngest person in the Dilley Detention Center in Texas is 2 months old, according to Univision.) Rightwingers do not care about higher-order things, only whether they can be used to accomplish their goals.

In this case, the goal is discrediting a global superstar who is popularizing a new and dangerous idea of belonging in America. You don’t need to pass a test. You don’t have to know the rules. You don’t even need the correct paperwork. If you’re here, you’re American.

Because “together, we are America.”

“Together, we are America” is new, as it casts immigration in the context of brotherhood, so the burden of government is finding ways of turning a fact of life into a fact of law.

It is dangerous, as it upends a decade of rightwing effort to move public understanding of immigration away from a matter of freedom and opportunity to a matter of crime and punishment. The burden is now entirely on individuals. They’re presumed guilty until proven innocent. “Together, we are America” has the potential of turning that around.

Bad Bunny’s ethic of belonging is dangerous for another reason. It comes as the logical conclusion to ten years of fear-mongering and hate speech is coming into view: families ripped apart, communities shredded, citizens murdered and concentration camps opening.

Even respectable white people, or “independent voters,” are recoiling (mostly because they are shocked to learn that an “immigration crackdown” includes them). Thanks to the horrors the country has witnessed over the last month, they are now open to alternatives, especially alternatives being advanced by the most popular performing artist on the planet.

Right now, the focus is on ICE and its crimes. That, however, is like the allegation that Bad Bunny’s show was “pure smut” — it limits politics to terms favorable to Trump. “Abolish ICE” should be part of a bigger picture so the meaning of belonging is radically redefined.

Immigrants are Americans. They might not speak the language. They might not know the rules. They might not have the right papers. But they are here. That makes them American.

The question is not if they are, but when it becomes official.

These Trump worshipers know he's really at war with their faith

In Washington last week, at the National Prayer Breakfast, the president actually took credit for the Bible being a bestseller.

“In 2025, more copies of the Holy Bible were sold in the United States than at any time in the last 100 years,” Donald Trump said.

In and of itself, this is not amazing. I remember as a child watching a commercial on Sunday afternoon TV about how “The Good Book” sold more copies than any book in human history.

What is amazing is Trump taking credit when that credit would traditionally be given to the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, especially by the traditional folk at the National Prayer Breakfast.

It’s also amazing that someone as religious as, for instance, House Speaker Mike Johnson can tolerate blasphemy when such tolerance would be inconceivable for a Democratic president.

You would think that Don the Evangelist would understand the power and the glory of the Word, given his suggestion that his presidency is why America is returning to God. (Sources told Publisher’s Weekly “the sales boom” is attributable to “people seeking spiritual footing amid today's tensions and troubles.”)

That would be a mistake.

“Mike Johnson is a very religious person,” the president went on to say. “He does not hide it. He'll say to me sometimes at lunch, 'Sir, may we pray?' I'll say, 'Excuse me? We're having lunch.'"

I’m sorry to point out the obvious. Trump claimed to be ignorant of the reason why “a very religious person” would call for the religious practice of praying before a meal at an event named after the religious practice of praying before a meal.

Even if Trump were only playing dumb, and I don’t know that he was, it’s again inconceivable that ignorance of a traditional religious practice, even in jest, would be tolerated if he were a Democrat. Yet Johnson lets it slide. The Republicans let it slide.

Indeed, if a Democratic president were to claim credit for God’s handiwork, there would be a nationwide outcry beginning with the rightwing media, spilling into the Washington press corps, before occupying highly visible pages in op-eds sections of elite papers with headlines echoing the GOP view of godless liberals not only looking down on Christians, but claiming to be God.

I think it’s worth asking why.

A typical explanation is bad faith — that the Republicans don’t mean what they say. It’s OK to blaspheme if a Republican does it. (Another explanation is power is religion to the GOP. As long as the blasphemer is powerful, his blasphemy is sanctioned by God.)

But I’m not satisfied with that answer. It fails to explain why there are so many good people of religious conviction in this country who are fighting tyranny on expressly religious grounds, but who are not getting credit for their religious expression. Pastors, ministers, rabbis, imams — there is a huge multifaith resistance taking shape, especially against Trump’s immigrant purge.

And you probably never heard of it.

That would not be the case if the roles were reversed — if, say, a “liberal” government were murdering or disappearing people and “conservatives” were protesting on expressly religious grounds. I have no doubt the narrative would be framed as good versus evil.

The entire anti-abortion movement can be described as such, with “the unborn” being those murdered or disappeared by the state, and “conservatives” being those crusading against God’s enemies. No one in America has any doubt about which side of the abortion debate claims to be on the right side of God.

While there is a smattering of news reports about Christians being divided over Trump, there is nothing like the tidal wave of coverage you would otherwise expect. Remember what it was like after Sept. 11, 2001? The framing was, more or less, God and America against the infidels. That’s what it would be like if the roles were reversed. That’s what it should be like now.

The best explanation is often the simplest. Some religions count. Some don’t. And, of course, the difference depends on who.

If you live in a rural community in a rural state, or if you live in an area associated with white conservative politics, yours is an authentic religion entitled to national attention and respect.

If, however, you live in a city (even a small one) or in a state associated with multiracial liberal politics, your religion isn’t authentic. It might be given lip-service now and then, as is happening now, but there’s something not quite real about it. Anyway, it’s not as real as the religion of good country folk.

For their protest of crimes against immigrants, a broad spectrum of faith leaders have been intimidated, manhandled, arrested, and denied religious expression, all at the hands of the state. Their sanctuaries have been profaned, congregants terrorized. One pastor was shot in the head with pepper balls while praying.

Yet all serve “blue” communities. That’s why you don’t know about their holy rebellion. Their religion doesn’t count.

Here’s how Mike O'Malley put it, in a different context.

The reason is the “iron journalist rule.”

“Some people are authentic and some people aren’t,” the George Mason University historian wrote. “Farmers? Authentic. College professors? Not. There are around 1.9 million farms in America, and 1.5 million college teachers. Farmers aren’t authentic because there’s more of them. It's because journalists love cliches.”

These clichés, myths and tropes – Thomas Jefferson famously declared that “those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God” – mean genuine acts of religious expression by nonwhite or urban-dwelling believers won’t be represented as such by the Washington press corps. Instead, their religious expression will be downplayed and represented as political.

This tradition of privileging “authentic” Americans over everyone else among professionals tasked with representing reality favors bad actors who are bent on distorting reality to their advantage.

Consider what happened last month in the aftermath of what has been called the Minnesota church protest. On Jan. 18, it was reported that a group of anti-ICE demonstrators “rushed” into a southern baptist congregation in St Paul during Sunday services to protest a church leader who is also a field director for ICE. Attorney General Pam Bondi swiftly vowed to prosecute those responsible for a “coordinated attack” on religious expression.

Missing, or minimized, in news reports of the protest was the religion and religious expression of those who protested. Virtually absent was the fact that one of the group’s leaders, Nekima Levy Armstrong, is herself an ordained minister.

Here’s what she told CNN.

We did not rush into that church. We actually went and sat down and participated in the service. And after the pastor prayed, that is when I stood up and asked him a question in response to his prayer. And then he responded to me. And then I proceeded to ask him about Pastor David Easterwood and how is it possible for him to serve as both a pastor and the director of ICE for Minnesota?

And instead of responding to me, as soon as I said the name David Easterwood, the pastor said, ‘Shame, shame.’ And that is when I led us in chants ‘Justice for Renee Good’ and ‘Hands up, don’t shoot.’ So I want to clarify that we didn‘t rush in. We didn’t bust in. We were a part of the service until I got up and posed that question to the pastor.

Knowing this, it’s clear the framing of that story — anti-ICE protesters versus devout Christians — is problematic at best. A more accurate framing would be devout Christians versus devout Christians, with one side objecting to David Easterwood preaching “love thy neighbor” and “snatch thy neighbor” in the same breath, while the other uses the Gospels to defend ICE.

Such a framing might have invited us to see the church protest as the reason why we have the First Amendment right to religious expression, as religions can and do disagree so fiercely over matters of faith that conflicts arise. When they do, each side has certain inalienable rights that shall not be infringed by the state.

But such framing does the regime no favors, as it contravenes its preferred narrative of godless liberals not only looking down on devout Christians, but claiming themselves to be God, and on the strength of that narrative, its plan to use the power of the state to persecute religious people who are challenging the regime.

The regime wants us to believe multiracial democracy threatens religious expression when, in fact, it’s the regime that’s using a phony defense of religion to threaten all faiths everywhere.

There is, quite literally, a rebellion bubbling up from below in the name of God. The regime knows its potential. It knows it can inspire even more resistance. And it’s taking steps to crush it.

That goal might be obvious if the press corps treated everyone’s faith as equally authentic, hence equally legitimate, but it doesn’t.

It distorts reality.

And in doing so, it enables the persecution of religion.

One leader's anti-Trump profanity is telling

A lot of attention has been given to Hakeem Jeffries recently on account of him dropping the f-bomb. In reaction to the president reposting a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, the House minority leader, in his own video, said “f--- Donald Trump.”

I think it’s worth asking why Jeffries did that beyond the usual explanations. The conventional wisdom is that Trump’s video was so disgustingly racist that Jeffries was expressing an appropriate level of emotion in calling on his Republican colleagues to condemn it.

But while emotion would explain the reaction of a normal person, Hakeem Jeffries is anything but. He’s a party leader in the United States Congress. As such, emotional reactions are typically taboo. For him to say “f---- Donald Trump,” something in the political landscape must have changed so that saying it is not only OK, but good for his party.

What has changed? Consider the following example of Trump’s behavior since ICE and Border Patrol killed two middle-class white people in Minneapolis. Referring to Alex Pretti and Renee Good in an interview, he said: “He was not an angel and she was not an angel.”

When I heard the president say that, I immediately thought of a Times article published in 2014 reflecting on a white police officer killing Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The Times reporter accepted as true propaganda provided by the Ferguson police department pushing the view that the 18 year old was somehow deserving of his death.

“[Brown] lived in a community that had rough patches, and he dabbled in drugs and alcohol,” the Times reporter said. “He had taken to rapping in recent months, producing lyrics that were by turns contemplative and vulgar. He got into at least one scuffle with a neighbor.”

In addition to Brown stealing a box of cigars, the above details were enough for the Times reporter to conclude that he “was no angel.”

What was done to Brown was done in accordance with what you might call the rules of white power – the law should protect inpeople (in this case, a white cop) and punish outpeople (in this case, a Black man). That he did nothing to deserve death by the state is incidental to enforcing the rules of white power. Michael Brown was already seen as guilty. Smearing him was merely an effort to prove “the truth” after the fact.

After Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by ICE and Border Patrol, respectively, they were smeared the same way that Michael Brown was, all in an effort by the regime to justify their deaths by the state. The difference, obviously, is that they aren’t outpeople. Anti-Black racism was never supposed to be directed at them. Trump may be the paragon of the white-power social order, but he’s breaking the rules.

And white people don’t like it.

According to a poll released Feb. 4, Trump’s approval rating dropped 11 points over the last month. Just 41 percent approve, with 57 percent disapproving (an increase of 12 points). This poll is important to note because it’s Rasmussen. The most Trump-friendly poll, Rasmussen tends to reflect the views of America’s white majority. Forty-one percent in Rasmussen is like 31 percent in a more legitimate poll.

I think implicit in such polling is a concern white people have rarely if ever had before — whether their own police departments will shield them from the same violence that killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Occasionally, a viral video will show state and local cops doing what’s expected, but those seem to be overwhelmed by the number of videos showing state and local cops appearing to take the side of the regime.

Compounding matters is a largely unknown effort by the Trump regime to co-opt state and local law enforcement. Called “Task Force Model,” the program pays salaries and benefits to state and local cops who aid ICE and Border Patrol. During an appearance on MS Now, Matt Lewis said the arrangement could be detrimental to the midterms. His larger point, however, is “the person who pays you becomes your boss.”

It is an article of faith among respectable white people (the term I prefer) that state and local police departments are there to serve and protect everyone. This faith is rarely shaken, even when white cops kill Black men. Indeed, such moments usually serve to deepen that faith.

The only way imaginable to undermine that trust would be if the institutions of law enforcement started treating respectable white people the same way they have historically treated everyone else — in other words, if inpeople no longer receive the unconditional protection of the law and are instead punished the way outpeople have been.

I wouldn’t say that faith has been shaken, but Trump is creating potential for it by wedging two camps no one imagined could be wedged. In doing so, I think he risks white power backfiring on him. Not because respectable white people will become anti-racists, but because they are unlikely to tolerate being treated like Black people.

That’s what’s changed. That’s why someone like Hakeem Jeffries, a Democratic leader whose job depends on his skill in finding the middle of the middle of the road, a man who was until last month focused on affordability and nothing else, suddenly has the confidence to cuss out Trump. He believes he’s speaking with the blessing of a new majority.

He probably is, but don’t be fooled as to why. It’s not because Trump has “lost the culture.” It’s not because he has “lost the country.” Those are euphemisms for a backlash among respectable white people to a president whose authoritarian impulses did not stop at the color line, as they were supposed to, according to the rules of white power.

Lots of white people are, at best, indifferent to anti-Black politics. They want to be seen as “above politics,” because that’s what makes them “respectable.” However, that indifference melts into the air when anti-Black politics is directed at them. The shock of that kind of immorality and injustice is enough to turn them into revolutionaries.

Trump's naked hypocrisy on this key subject may be key to breaking MAGA

I think most liberals are probably familiar with what has become known as Wilhoit’s Law — that the true goals of the right are inequality, injustice, repression and control. This is how composer Frank Wilhoit put it in 2018:

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.”

I think liberals are probably less familiar with another part of Wilhoit’s “law” — that these goals are so indefensible in a country founded on liberty and equality that it is necessary for conservatives to cover them up with lies.

“As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly,” Wilhoit wrote, “it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny.”

On the right, US citizenship has always been a matter of race and white power. The overarching objective of conservatism since the founding has been maintenance of a social order in which rich white men are on top. But that can’t be plainly said in the land of freedom and opportunity, where everyone has an equal shot at success if they work hard and play by the rules.

So the right lies. The Republicans say “illegal immigration” is a matter of law enforcement. They say “border integrity” is a matter of national security. They say liberal immigration policies that fall short of enforcing the law and securing the border debase what it means to be a law-abiding US citizen.

They make endless appeals to higher principles in order to cover up for the fact that their true goal is the abomination of those same principles.

But as the right expands its power, it sometimes requires new and better rationalizations. It occasionally finds it necessary to slough off the old lies.

Since the 1990s, for instance, nothing has been more “sacred” than the Second Amendment. We were told the freedom to bear arms “shall not be infringed.” On the strength of this apparent conviction, little if anything has been done to address the spread of shooting massacres over the last decade.

Yet when the Trump regime needed an explanation for why Border Patrol officers were forced on Jan. 24 to kill Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis, the sacredness of the Second Amendment was easily forgotten.

“You can't have guns,” the president said in the aftermath. “You can't walk in with guns. You just can't. You can't walk in with guns. You can't do that.”

Alex Pretti was legally permitted to conceal carry. (He did not brandish his weapon. CBP disarmed him before he was shot.) That, however, wasn’t enough.

“You bring a gun into the District, you mark my words, you're going to jail,” said US attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro. “I don't care if you have a license in another district and I don't care if you're a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else. You bring a gun into this District, count on going to jail.”

The right refused to act on a decades’ worth of shooting massacres because it was in the right’s interest to allow terror to spread across the land. That could never be plainly said, of course, so it covered up that objective with the Second Amendment. Once gun rights were no longer useful — terror is the intention of a paramilitary going door-to-door searching for “illegals” almost exclusively in states run by Democrats — they could be easily discarded.

There is, however, risk in throwing away the old lies. The Republican Party is the white man’s party but its viability in a multiracial democracy like ours depends on most white people not really understanding the truth. The party’s future depends on most white people continuing to believe lies about, say, immigration being about the security and integrity of US citizenship.

If a majority of white people come to believe that what the Republicans really mean by citizenship is whiteness, not legal status, the GOP could risk losing parts of its coalition in ways it can’t afford. I think the risk is especially acute if white people understand that patriotism itself is racialized — that white people who defend the American Dream are seen as traitors to their race.

I don’t want to overstate this risk. Whiteness is resilient. Even if most white people unite to punish Trump in some way, I wouldn’t expect such unity to last. Yet the more the right uses its power to achieve its goals, the more it throws away the lies that it told to gain that power. And the longer that pattern holds true, the more chances there are for the truth to be revealed.

Consider the above clip by white supremacist Nick Fuentes. He says Renee Good and Alex Pretti were “race traitors,” who were "not acting like citizens.”

Are people waking up to Wilhoit’s Law?

Alan Elrod thinks so. He’s the president and CEO of the Pulaski Institution, a think tank in Arkansas. In his latest for Liberal Currents, he looked at Fuentes’ statements, as well as those by other far-right commentators, to explain that whiteness isn’t the protection that many white Americans believe it is.

In a follow up interview with me, he explained further.

“Enemies can be excluded and treated however the state deems fit,” he told me. “This was at the heart of Nazi juridico-political theory, and I think we are seeing it play out today. I think that the murders of two white, middle class people in a Midwestern city is absolutely driving that message home.”

Here’s the rest of our conversation.

JS: Nick Fuentes isn't the first to link whiteness with citizenship, but he might be the most honest about it. Others, like Matt Walsh and Megyn Kelly and Glenn Beck are much better at lying about their intentions. Thoughts?

AE: I think they're more invested in layering their prejudices beneath what they see as more socially appealing calls for law and order, child safety and cultural concerns. But these are pretty recognizable tropes in racist politicking. I'd also say that Kelly and Walsh in particular are becoming less inclined to hide their bigotry. Walsh repeatedly talks about "Third World" people with total contempt on his show. Kelly has praised Fuentes. The big difference, I think, is that they still want to be seen as important, popular media figures. There's the occasional coyness you don't get with Fuentes.

When I saw Fuentes' reaction to Good's and Pretti's murders, I thought of Wilhoit's Law: inequality and injustice are the point of conservatism. That's indefensible in a country founded on freedom and equality. So conservative must lie. Are Good's and Pretti's murders opening people's eyes?

I think so. Wilhoit's Law, which I believe is derived from a blog comment by Ohioan Frank Wilhoit, is essentially a pithy distillation of Carl Schmitt's friend/enemy distinction. In this sense, the state is not obligated to extend protections or presumptions of innocence to all people, only those it considers friendly. Enemies can be excluded and treated however the state deems fit. This was at the heart of Nazi juridico-political theory, and I think we are seeing it play out today. I think that the murders of two white, middle class people in a Midwestern city is absolutely driving that message home.

It seems to me that people like Rand Paul understand the stakes much better than Trump and his gang — that the long-term viability of a white man's party depends on most white people not really knowing that it's a white man's party. Suddenly Paul is saying the DHS can't be trusted to investigate Pretti's murder. Perhaps there's even potential for getting rid of Trump. Thoughts?

I think Paul is an outlier. He certainly appears to be genuinely committed to some of his non-interventionist and civil libertarian beliefs. But I don't think there's appetite among Republicans for getting rid of Trump. This is both because I think many Republicans are on board with him and because the remainder are too cowed by the political realities of party politics. The fact that even people like Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is retiring, and Sen. Susan Collins, whose state of Maine is also being targeted by ICE at the moment, won't take any serious steps toward checking Trump is evidence of this.

I can't remember another time when rightwingers subjected white people — or "race traitors" — to the same kind of denigration that we saw given to Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd and dozens of other victims of state violence. Good and Pretti are getting "no angels" treatment, with the help of the press corps. I'm told "the normies" are waking up. True?

I think a lot of people who don't pay close attention to politics are repulsed by stuff like this. My friend Nicholas Grossman wrote a great piece at Liberal Currents about how the Pretti discourse is breaking through in traditionally apolitical parts of the internet. But I also think Americans have short memories, and our politics remains discouragingly thermostatic. I thought January 6 would have woken up the normies. It did for a minute, I think. But then we re-elected Trump.

Trump has done more to discredit gun rights than any president in my lifetime. He's so focused on smearing Pretti that he suggested he deserved death for carrying a gun. These lies — in this case the inviolability of the Second Amendment — are very important to keeping what I call respectable white people in the Republican camp. What do you make of it?

I think the hypocrisy here is pretty important. I'm from Arkansas. I grew up around gun owners, and I know plenty of gun owners today. No one with any appreciation or respect for guns and gun ownership can look at what happened in the Pretti murder and see anything other than the gross violation of someone's Second Amendment rights by impulsively violent and thuggish goons.

However, I think that the hypocrisy that's been revealed on this issue by Republican elected officials and policy groups is just one more snowflake in the blizzard. Under MAGA, this is just another application of the friend/enemy distinction. Everything is.

These killers tell us something disturbing about America under Trump

Turns out the Border Patrol officers who murdered Alex Pretti are of Hispanic lineage. Their names and ages are Jesus Ochoa, 43, and Raymundo Gutierrez, 35, according to Pro Publica.

This appears to be causing some confusion among people of good faith. How can men of Hispanic lineage work for a paramilitary organization dedicated to terrorizing Hispanics?

The news is also, I presume, being used by people of bad faith. Donald Trump’s critics say ICE and CBP are purging Latinos in order to achieve his real goal — to make America white again. His defenders can point to this news to say the “crackdown” has nothing to do with race. See? Latinos want what Trump wants.

While racism is real, race isn’t. Talking about a thing that isn’t real can cause real confusion. Confusion provides opportunities for bad actors who search for ways to exploit it. So let’s clarify our terms: White doesn’t mean white race. It means white power.

Specifically, it means an unequal and unjust racial caste system with rich white men at the very top. They are protected the most by the law. They benefit the most from the economy. Everyone else in this pyramid-shaped hierarchy is subject to decreasing degrees of protection and economic benefit, going all the way down to the bottom where everyone is Black or brown, no one is protected by the law and no one benefits from the economy.

Sadly, this is what some Hispanics want, no matter how long their families have been in the US. They want to be white, that is, to stake a claim on white power. Instead of fighting oppression, they aim to sit with the oppressors, as if they were equals. They seek for themselves a warped, corrupt version of the American Dream.

However, they have to prove themselves. Immigrant history is full of stories of nonwhites gaining access to positions of authority and using them to demonstrate to people they believed were their superiors (ie, white people) that they were not only “good immigrants,” but also deserving of the blessings of whiteness.

So it’s not ironic that Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez work for Donald Trump’s paramilitary. It’s in keeping with American history. They’re like some Irish cops in 19th-century New York who beat down other Irish to prove they left behind the Old World to be loyal to the whiteness that was assimilating them.

In the case of Alex Pretti, this dynamic has another dimension. According to the either/or logic of white power, the ICU nurse was disloyal. He rejected his birthright by choosing to fight for people brutalized by an unequal and unjust racial caste system.

In defying CBP, Pretti thought he was being true to the soul of America. According to the logic of white power, however, patriotism isn’t loyalty to one’s country. It’s loyalty to one’s race.

“You feel bad for this race traitor?” said white supremacist Nick Fuentes. “We are thoroughly in the Trump era. If you don't get it at this point, you're irredeemable. If you're out there throwing yourself in front of ICE to die for these dirt bags, let them.”

(Nick Fuentes is also of Hispanic lineage. His dad is a biracial Mexican. Fuentes speaks fluent Spanish. He works harder than any other white supremacist to prove he’s truly white, because the white race is, for him, a thing of such importance that it must reign supreme over every other thing, including self-love.)

As for Ochoa and Gutierrez, the CBP officers who murdered Pretti, what better way to prove you are worthy of whiteness than by punishing a privileged white man for turning his back on the social order that gave him so much? Pretti was not worthy.

But Ochoa and Gutierrez are.

I suppose the real irony is that this pursuit of the blessings of whiteness by Hispanic men in positions of authority is demonstrating to their fellow Hispanics a stone-cold truth: No matter what they do, how hard they work, how obedient they are, or how much excellence they achieve, they will never be white enough to white people invested in the orders of white power.

Poll after poll suggests that the inroads Trump made with Hispanic voters in the 2024 election (as well as with other minorities) have been wiped out since unleashing ICE and CBP on America. Back then, he said only violent criminals would be targeted. This week, he said the same thing (“really hard criminals”). The difference is few people of Hispanic lineage believe him.

Virtually everyone now understands the “illegal” part of “illegal immigrants” has nothing to do with legal status and everything to do with whiteness, as in: if you’re not white, you’re “illegal.” Even if you are white, you might still be “illegal,” as was evidenced by the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. They were guilty of treason against their “country” (ie, their race), a crime undeserving of due process, instead straight to execution.

In an interview today, JD Vance was asked if he would apologize to Pretti’s family after an official investigation of his death had been completed. The vice president responded: “For what?”

But perhaps the biggest irony is what the pursuit of the blessings of whiteness is doing to white people, especially respectable white people who usually avoid the appearance of being political.

It’s forcing them into greater awareness of their race, which is something respectable white people hate thinking about. And it’s building future conditions in which they may end up consciously choosing between whiteness and the values that make it possible for respectable white people to be respectable white people.

Their status and race are increasingly in conflict.

No one knows how that’s going to go.

This horror finally launched the anti-Trump insurrection — 'The time is now'

The facts are so damning that it’s unclear to me why moderate Democrats are being careful about their reaction to them.

Renee Good was shot in the face. Alex Pretti was shot in the back. Their deaths were not accidental. They were not the result of poor or insufficient training. They were the result of intent.

Why are moderates worried about seeming extreme when the context is murder by the state? In that setting, there’s no such thing as an overreaction. Call on Kristi Noem to resign. Call on Stephen Miller to resign. Call on the president himself to resign.

The real danger is under-reacting. Noem shouldn’t only be impeached and removed. She should be arrested and tried.

In addition to murder, ICE and CBP are going house to house, kicking in doors, terrorizing people. They are taking babies from mothers. They are preventing fathers from grieving their dead sons. They are letting sick kids taken from their parents die in custody.

These are crimes against humanity that everyone would recognize as such if they were taking place in Iran. It’s a sick joke to suggest they wouldn’t happen if ICE had proper “guidance.”

Sadism doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It is accepted. It is condoned. It is encouraged. It is a choice originating from the very top. Without criminal accountability, sadism as policy will continue.

Fortunately, moderate Democrats are not most Democrats. Some in the Senate are threatening to shut down the government if Donald Trump and the GOP do not accept their reforms. More important is what’s happening among House Democrats.

The leadership there is now calling on Noem to resign or face impeachment proceedings. It also seems to be bridging the gap between opposing factions within the party — between Democrats who believe they should pursue accountability and Democrats who believe they should pursue “affordability.”

I’m going to quote the full statement by Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar so you can see that, in their view, accountability and “affordability” seem to be the same.

Taxpayer dollars are being weaponized by the Trump administration to kill American citizens, brutalize communities and violently target law-abiding immigrant families. The country is disgusted by what the Department of Homeland Security has done.

Republicans are planning to shut large parts of the government down on Friday so that the DHS killing spree unleashed in Minnesota can continue throughout America. That is immoral.

Dramatic changes at the Department of Homeland Security are needed. Federal agents who have broken the law must be criminally prosecuted. The paramilitary tactics must cease and desist. Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for everyday Americans, not kill them in cold blood.

The violence unleashed on the American people by the Department of Homeland Security must end forthwith. Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives.

We can do this the easy way or the hard way.

Personally, I have never seen Jeffries speak so aggressively.

Neither has Jill Lawrence.

She’s the author of The Art of the Political Deal and a contributor to The Bulwark. Jill used to be an opinion editor at USA Today.

“It's inspirational,” she told me.

“Jeffries is using their language (‘the easy way or the hard way’), making irrefutable points, and talking about impeachment from a position of strength, given the swell of Democrats who are co-sponsoring an impeachment resolution against Noem.”

She went on.

“If you want to talk about affordability, after the GOP let health insurance subsidies expire and passed nearly $1 billion in Medicaid cuts coming next year, this is a dramatic way to make the point: ‘Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for everyday Americans, not kill them in cold blood.’”

“I think the statement generally is an acknowledgment that people really care deeply about these abuses of power,” Jill said.

The last time Jill and I discussed accountability was in May. Back then, she said talk of impeachment was premature. In a recent piece for The Bulwark, however, she changed her mind. The time is now, she told me, not only for Trump but for his cabinet, too.

The breaking point, she said, was murder.

Moderate Democrats take note.

JS: Last time we talked about impeachment, you said the key is timing. You were concerned about the Democrats moving too quickly, risking the appearance of playing politics. In a recent piece, you say the time has come. What changed your mind?

JL: The breaking point for me was the ICE killing of Renee Good, and the pile-up of impeachment articles filed against Trump and members of his cabinet. Impeachment talk was growing, and even as I was working on the piece, Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly announced she would file articles of impeachment against Kristi Noem.

In part, I thought it was time to stop ridiculing and dismissing people who, quite justifiably, thought Donald Trump should be impeached for any one of many, many reasons. In truth, I found those articles – against Trump and against several cabinet members – to be interesting and clarifying reading. I liked the idea of publicizing them in formal investigatory hearings, like January 6, and decided to make a public argument for that.

What do you say to those who say there's no point in impeaching Trump if he can't be convicted by the Senate?

I don't think Democrats should try to impeach Trump right now, and maybe not even this year. The idea would be to build up to it after making cases against several cabinet members who have earned impeachment by any objective standard. My thought was that Democrats should lay the groundwork for an impeachment proceeding against him next year, when they seem likely to control the House. And by then, who knows who will control the Senate, or how many Republicans will have had it.

I suggested starting out with Robert Kennedy Jr, because his policies are literally deadly, and he's nowhere near finished unspooling our progress on public health. But Noem seems more urgent at this point. It was reported that at least 145 Democrats have co-sponsored the impeachment resolution against her. And Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin says he will hold investigatory hearings to fill in and expand the articles.

I agree with your view that there's no need to pick between accountability and "affordability." That, however, is not the view of influential Democratic strategists. They believe winning means picking "a kitchen table issue." Yet there are people out there saying golf becomes political when an agent of the state can murder you. What are these strategists not getting?

I am as puzzled as you are. I don't think the strategists get how deeply these killings and tactics have penetrated into the public consciousness. Or how intensely people feel them. Or how it's obvious to the public that Trump is not prioritizing prices, he cares about Greenland and ICE and the ballroom and the Board of Peace charade. I wrote last year and still believe that the most important thing is for candidates to be true to themselves, their beliefs, their communities. There is no reason not to talk about the dangers we face now, as well as all the idiotic Trump policies that are raising prices, from food to health care to electricity.

The people of Minneapolis have proven something important — attention moves public opinion and public opinion moves the Democrats. Even Chuck Schumer seems to be growing a spine (threats to cut DHS funding). It seems to me impeachment hearings, whether official or not, can do the same thing.

I totally agree. And Raskin agrees as well. He just said today that unless Noem resigns or is fired, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan needs to launch impeachment proceedings against her. And if he doesn't, Raskin said he will do it to create a record of "fact-finding, public hearings, and committee reports."

One commenter on my original story suggested an interesting way Democrats could proceed: Work with legislators in a state Democrats control so the hearings can be part of an official record. Minnesota would be a perfect place to start.

I'm seeing a lot of talk among prominent liberals about how something deep is shifting. The suggestion is that the American people are moving away from Trump and toward something better. The skeptic in me says hold on. We said the same thing after George Floyd's murder. Then came the elite backlash. Then came Trump's reelection. What do you say to that?

First, I'll mention another suggestion from a commenter, who said House Democrats should start an impeachment website that publishes all the articles of impeachment filed against Trump and his administration to date. Other material could be added as necessary. The popularity of such a site would be one gauge of public interest. I think it would be high.

I think this could really be a hinge point for a few reasons. Tragedies breaking through. Trump's age and massive overreach. The lower federal courts. Younger Democrats in the Congress and White House pipeline. And one more thing.

I feel like I'm a pretty mainstream center-leftie, and fiscally conservative on debt, but I have changed. I am interested in a lot of fundamental change geared not only to guarding against a repeat of this awful period, but also to getting done some of the business that Americans want done on issues like health and gun safety.

So, curb the dependence on presidential character in our system, because it's a demonstrable and tragic failure. And end the legislative paralysis, in the Senate in particular. Sorry about the soapbox. You did ask!

Trumpism has reached its tipping point — even this hardcore conservative knows it

In today’s edition, I’m going to try something different. Instead of an essay or analysis or an interview, I’m going to offer diary-like entries. The reason is practical, but also artistic, if you will indulge the term. These diary entries reflect how my mind works — vestiges, observations, random thoughts — sometimes interconnected but more often not. I wrote them on Bluesky before they appeared here, but have expanded and modified nearly all of them in order to give the impression of a beginning, middle and end.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Saturday, Jan. 24, before Alex Pretti was murdered

  • I wish white Americans would connect the dots: between a cop murdering George Floyd and an ICE officer murdering Renee Good. Most white people didn’t believe they’d be subject to institutional evil. They ignored a racist backlash that reelected Donald Trump. Will they see and prevent the next backlash? I can’t say I’m hopeful about it.
  • White American should educate themselves on the meaning of “race traitor” and what white power has done, and is currently doing, to those of us who are disloyal to it. White power does not recognize a diversity of opinions and interests. You are a friend or an enemy. Even sympathy can be seen as an act of betrayal. I think liberals generally underestimate the role of “race traitors” in white supremacy.

Saturday, Jan. 24, after Alex Pretti was murdered

  • Key details: ICE shot Pretti in the back. He was on the ground, on his knees, restrained. He did not “brandish” his gun. He was unarmed. One of the ICE officers took it. (Pretti had a legal permit.) Another officer stood directly over him and shot him in the back. He was shot again and again after collapsing. Then one asked “Where’s the gun?”
  • In my view, the focus on the “poor training” overlooks intent. It’s said that if ICE officers had better training, they wouldn’t have killed Good and Pretti. That’s wrong morally and politically. They intend to kill. They are merely looking for opportunities. They must be forced to prove otherwise. Even George Will gets it. Why can’t some Democrats?
  • When moderates focus on training, they give ICE the benefit of the doubt. Why do that? What outcome do moderates hope for with “better training”? As of now, the murder and mayhem in Minneapolis is amateurish. With “better training,” it would become professional.
  • The worst thing about the "better training" criticism of ICE and Border Patrol is that it leaves a political opportunity unexplored. Moderate Democrats should accuse them of the worst intentions to force the regime to prove the allegations wrong. That would control the debate.

Sunday, Jan. 25, in the aftermath of Pretti’s murder

  • If ICE/CBP continues its campaign of violence without resistance from local law enforcement, all cops are going to be met with skepticism from the very people — white, middle-class, property-owning NIMBY types — who have stood by them every time one of them killed a Black man. There’s potential for state and local business elites to be in open revolt against their own police departments. That hasn’t been conceivable but it is now. No one knows what chaos would be in store.
  • This is an opportunity for liberals to push back against the “originally stated goal” of deporting only immigrants who have committed violent crimes. That was a lie. The murder and mayhem in Minneapolis is the evidence of that. It’s time to end the era of immigration understood as a matter of crime and punishment, and begin a new era in which immigration is understood as a matter of freedom and opportunity.
  • I think Noah Berlatsky is right. “Communities targeted by ICE should be granted citizenship immediately,” he said. “This is both a matter of justice and an imperative if we're going to crush fascism.” That should be the moderate position. These people want to be Americans. They want to work for it, even pay for it (indeed, they are paying for it with their taxes). Make them all Americans now to end this crisis.

Monday, Jan. 26

  • Economist Trevon Logan said: “I once asked my late uncle what he thought ended the legal Jim Crow era. He immediately responded that the murders of [civil rights workers] Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in 1964 were the moment Jim Crow died. When I asked him why he said: “When white folks fight white folks, it changes everything. Enough was enough.’”
  • Historian Kevin Kruse said: “When I teach Vietnam, I explain that opposition to the war really grew in fits and starts. Some big rallies and visible protests, but also a steady stream of celebrities and ordinary folks breaking with their priors and taking a new stand. This last month, this last week, feels like a real shift.”
  • I don’t mean to be a killjoy but we all felt a shift after George Floyd was murdered and the whole country seemed to be waking up. That energy combined with anti-Trump energy to elect Joe Biden. Then came the racist backlash by elites, softening the ground for Trump’s revival.
  • The biggest difference between the Floyd era and now is that the murder victims are white, and white people won’t put up with being treated like George Floyd. I suppose something is shifting, but it won’t last if white people keep hoarding equality and justice. Can they make the connection between a cop killing Floyd and ICE and CBP killing Good and Pretti? Can they see the same evil affects them, too?

Tuesday, Jan. 27

  • Composer Frank Wilhoit in Crooked Timber in 2018: “As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny.”
  • Restated, Wilhoit says the law protects inpeople and punishes outpeople. That is the goal of conservatism. Inequality is not only good, but equality itself is against “natural law.” Once you understand that inequality is the goal of conservatism, it’s easy being a liberal.
  • Once you understand the goal of inequality is indefensible in a country founded on the principle of equality, you understand the importance of lying – or as Wilhoit put it, maintaining “the elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy.” With Good’s and Pretti’s death, many lies told to keep “respectable white people” in the GOP camp could fall to pieces.

Wednesday, Jan. 28

  • “Respectable white people” are white people who place the highest value on their social status and reputations for being respectable in the eyes of other respectable white people. More commonly known as swing voters or independent voters, they represent the great globular middle of American politics. They are essential to the long-term viability of the Republicans, but key to holding them is preventing them from being fully aware that the GOP is a white man’s party. This is why conservatives in the United States invest so much in lying.
  • We really should not underestimate the impact of two white people getting murdered by the state. The Republicans are recoiling. The Democrats are on a war footing. (In the Senate, threats of a government shutdown. In the House, threats of impeachment.) For God's sake, Trump suggested Pretti deserved death for possessing a gun. White people getting murdered by the state could upend a lot.
  • Respectable white people are now keenly aware that the logical conclusion of a decades' worth of anti-immigrant hatred includes murdering white people and they don't like it. They are shocked to discover that authoritarianism did not stop at the color line.

Vanquishing Trump means smashing this enemy first

I have previously said liberals should face the fact that the Democrats can’t do it alone. The viability of democracy requires some Republican buy-in. I said, “liberals have to work more to create conditions in which the Republicans choose to behave.”

About those conditions.

I didn’t mean taking a phony middle position on something like immigration to appear moderate compared to a blood-and-soil Republican. I have said before and will say again: accepting lies as if they are true is not centrism. It’s just another form of deceit. There’s no reward in it, because most voters can tell it’s fake.

What I had in mind was something Professor Matt Seyhold of Elmira College told me in my recent interview with him. We must expand the tent of freedom to beat “totalitarian kleptocracy,” he told me. To do that, we must include “a whole lot of dumba-----.”

Those are the conditions liberals should work to create.

How do we bring in the “dumba----”?

First, Professor Seybold said, by recognizing that nonvoters decided the election. About 90 million eligible voters stayed home on Election Day. He and his colleagues call that “couch.”

“Couch cannot be defeated on a Tuesday in November every couple of years unless couch is being defeated on the regular.”

And how do we do that?

Make community – “take a night course at a local college, join community theater, volunteer at soup kitchen, start a book club.”

“If more people are making community, that’s bad for any politics which depends on feelings of isolation, fear and powerlessness,” Professor Seybold told me. “A precondition to political empowerment is simply feeling seen and heard.”

He went on:

“If you want better electoral outcomes, but you don’t want to try to ‘convert Trump voters,’ just make community. My greatest hope for the 2020s has nothing to do with Donald Trump. My hope is that we all win a lot more days against couch. If that happens, our politics will start looking a lot more sane.”

Seybold is a professor of American literature. He’s also a Mark Twain scholar and the host of a Twain-inspired podcast called The American Vandal.

In the first part of our two-part conversation, Professor Seybold explained at length what he meant by “dumba----.” He meant Americans who just don’t know any better as well as Americans who do know better but can’t or won’t do anything about it.

In this second part, he focuses on a solution to each.

Your comment [about dumba----] speaks to the problem of hope. At least my problem. America saw Trump, didn't like him, threw him out. Then we put him back in. And the dumba---- were central to that. Why should I put my faith in them?

By Mark Twain’s definition, hope is precisely what “the facts refuse,” and it is the only remedy to suicidal depression - from which he himself suffered - in the face of the “incurable disease” of our mortality.

For my part, I will simply argue the dumba----- didn’t put Trump back in office nearly so much as the kleptocrats did.

And, so long as our system of free and fair elections holds, the project of making fewer dumba---- and defeating kleptocracy will be the same project. Intelligence is just access to information, the existence of expertise, and the time and wellbeing necessary to avail oneself of each.

So, if we turn our attention to supporting education, healthcare, journalism and libraries, the project of undumbing is underway.

It has been said that Trump's abuse of power — what I think of as the ongoing insurrection — is radicalizing people. It's snapping them out of their ignorance, complacency, apathy. Do you agree? If so, what can liberals do to take advantage of it?

Let’s forgo “taking advantage.” There’s that intrinsic criminality in the language of US party politics again.

I just saw a poll this morning in which the percentage of people in favor of “abolishing ICE,” which was a pretty fringe position under Joe Biden, is now higher than Trump’s approval rating.

If there are people being “radicalized,” we don’t have to worry about motivating them. They don’t need nudging. Being “radical,” whether you see that as a positive or negative, is not compatible with inaction. Your moral urgency compels you.

Hopefully, there are a rather large number of people who, though they will never be radicals, are being broken of their complacency by the events of the past year.

My friend, Anna Kornbluh, is fond of saying, “Donald Trump didn’t win the 2024 election. Couch did.”

Eighty-six million eligible voters decided the difference for them wasn’t great enough to get to the polls. That’s 9 million more than voted for Trump.

Couch cannot be defeated on a Tuesday in November every couple of years unless couch is being defeated on the regular.

If more people are touching grass, if more people are making community, that’s bad for any politics which depends on feelings of isolation, fear and powerlessness.

Getting people to rallies, phone-banks, marches, and explicitly political gatherings is great, but honestly, if they take a night course at the local college, join community theater, volunteer at soup kitchen, start a book club, I think that’s almost as good.

A precondition to political empowerment is simply feeling seen and heard. If you want better electoral outcomes, but you don’t want to try to “convert Trump voters,” just make community.

My greatest hope for the 2020s has nothing to do with Donald Trump. My hope is that we all win a lot more days against couch. If that happens, our politics will start looking a lot more sane.

The phrase "new deal" appears to have come from Twain. Liberals think they know what it means. What did Twain mean? What does his meaning of the word say to our moment?

I’ll just give people some context and they can interpret it for themselves.

FDR got “The New Deal” from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. The Yankee arrives in feudal Britain, and this is what he says after getting his lay of the land:

Here I was, in a country where a right to say how the country should be governed was restricted to six persons in each thousand of its population. For the 994 to express dissatisfaction with the system and propose to change it, would have made the whole six shudder as one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid black treason. So to speak, I was become stockholder in a corporation where 994 of the members furnished all the money and did all the work, and the other six elected themselves a permanent board of directors and took all the dividends. It seems to me that what the 994 dupes needed was a new deal.

I wish I had said “dupes” instead of “dumba----.”

Twain’s still a helluva lot better at this than me.

We are living in a kind of dark ages in which fear, ignorance and superstition are encouraged by those in power. What can a regular person do? What do you tell your students?

I don’t talk about contemporary partisan politics barely at all. And not because of the recent witch-hunting of professors either. I never have. But two things have changed about my philosophy of instruction in recent years.

One, I teach as much history as I possibly can, supported by as much primary source documentation as I can, if possible getting students to lay hands on those primary sources, and to think about the media environments of previous eras in comparison to their own.

Two, I try to give students (and myself, frankly) a break from the surveillance. No phones. No laptops. Paper and ink. Chalk and slate. Human voices and human ears. Make community first.

Don’t take it for granted.

Learning will follow.

These morons are essential to beating Trump

I think one of the hard and inconvenient truths that liberals need to hear is that the Democratic Party cannot save democracy on its own. There is no future in which the Republican Party loses forever. That’s not realistic. That’s perhaps not even desirable.

Liberals have to work more to create conditions in which the Republicans choose to behave. Obviously, one way of doing that is defeating them as often as possible. But while that’s an immediate and necessary end, it can’t go on indefinitely. At some point, a Republican will be in the White House again. Then what?

But that’s only one hard and inconvenient truth. The other is about America itself. Fact is, there are a lot of people who are not that bright, who are not paying attention, who are not informed, who don’t care about politics, or who feel like democracy is a lie.

Put another way, I don’t think liberals, including myself, have thought enough about what we might call the paradox of liberal democracy. We need to expand the tent to fight tyranny and rebuild, but doing so means bringing in people who don’t know they need to be in the tent or who don’t care whether they are.

They’re “dumba----”

That’s Matt Seybold’s term. About three months ago, while liberals were flushed with the anti-imperial energy of the No Kings rallies, Seybold poured the following pitcher of ice water:

“Imperative to remember, any big tent, including one that defeats totalitarian kleptocracy, must have a whole lot of dumba---- inside it. To spurn the American dumba-- constituency is to lose.”

To which I responded: “Jesus, this feels true.”

Matt Seybold is a professor of American literature and media at Elmira College in upstate New York. He’s also a Mark Twain scholar and the host of a podcast called The American Vandal.

In an interview with me, Professor Seybold said that he might come to regret using the word “dumba----.” His answer to my first question was very long, he said, because he felt like he should explain himself better. That answer was so lengthy and illuminating I decided to break our interview into two parts.

Here’s part one.

But before I leave you with Professor Seybold’s thoughts, I think I should say one more thing about liberals. We tend to see the dumba---- as part of the problem. (I have said as much in various ways.) But perhaps they are the solution — or at least part of it.

After all, dumba---- don’t seek power. Only the insane do, Mark Twain believed. As Professor Seybold told me, Twain believed “the only people who … will ever stand for election to the executive or legislative branches at the federal or even the state level are sociopaths, narcissists, monomaniacs and greedheads.”

Professor Seybold added: “Those who, by choice, seek to put their hands on the levers of power cannot be trusted. They should be presumed to be criminals by temperament.”

Liberals tend to see the Democrats as the Good Guys.

But recent events should spur us into rethinking that.

JS: You have said the Democrats are going to be in trouble in the long term if they don't make room for "dumba----." Your word. I'm guessing you're drawing on your knowledge as a Twain scholar. What did you mean?

MS: You are right that I used the term “dumba----,” which I may come to regret (more on that in a moment), but first I want to quickly point out a term I didn’t use, which is “Democrats.”

While obviously Democrats remain practicably the sole opposition party in most elections, especially at the federal level, I’m pretty cynical about establishment Democrats’ plans (and even their intentions) to build the “big tent” coalition that will be necessary to defeat “totalitarian kleptocracy,” as I put it. I think the Abundance Bros, for instance, are giving lip-service to inclusive politics, but are actually building a veil for fascism Lite, which will obviously fail.

The project of defeating totalitarian kleptocracy cannot rely on the Democratic Party as it is currently comprised, but “big tent” coalitions are being formed at the grassroots level for the purpose of activism, protests, labor movements and local campaigns (see, for instance, Zohran Mamdani, who was rejected by the Democratic establishment, but backed by democratic socialists).

My rare moments of hope are based on things like the Debt Collective, Higher Ed Labor United and the litany of disperse municipal, neighborhood, professional and special interest groups whose successes are often premised on paying little or no heed to the binaries – liberal/conservative, progressive/centrist, red/blue, etc – which have become useless for anything beyond activating our lizard-brain tribalism.

Which brings me to the “dumba----,” a word-choice more befitting a 25-word skeet than a reasoned defense, but which I would divide into two categories.

The larger — as Twain puts it, “the ignorant are the chosen of God,” by which he means, the majority — are those who are stuck in information deserts, the victims of long-running attacks on education, libraries, local and public media, and are subjected perpetually to micro-targeted misinformation and parallel journalism. This constituency, sizable at every moment in US history, is arguably growing.

The other category of “dumba----” are those who do not lack for access to information or education, who possess the tools to see the dangers of totalitarian kleptocracy, but who lack the will. Perhaps they are cynically planning to go along to get along, or they are just placing too much faith in the incremental, business-as-usual of US governance, presuming a pendulum swing is inevitable. This is a smaller, more frustrating constituency, but also one that tends to be possessed of greater resources and position.

My view of U.S. political history and its theory of governance is, indeed, deeply influenced by Mark Twain (perhaps too much so!). Twain believed intensely in electoral democracy, although he also believed human nature was such that authoritarianism was always, inevitably lurking. He also supported labor unions, social justice activism and many varieties of secular organizing that expanded the conception of the democratic masses (to include women, for instance, and Blacks and Jews). In these respects, he’s not especially different from a left-liberal American of our time.

Where Twain is ingenious, I think, is in understanding the federal system as reflecting a misanthropic vision of human nature and society. Twain does not believe that any sane person will ever want anything to do with national government. The only people who he can imagine will ever stand for election to the executive or legislative branches at the federal or even the state level are sociopaths, narcissists, monomaniacs and greedheads. Those who, by choice, seek to put their hands on the levers of power cannot be trusted. They should be presumed to be criminals by temperament.

For Twain, the ingenuity of the American System is that it puts the most craven seekers of power in furious competition with one another, limiting the damage any one of them can do, forcing them into constantly shifting rivalries and alliances, reducing the likelihood that a true authoritarianism can emerge.

I’m not as down on humanity as Twain is, but I have a pretty hard time arguing against this vision of governance. Which is not to say that I cannot imagine a strong and egalitarian state, but rather to say that such a state is not arrived at by trusting those who seek its employ, but rather by being vigilantly suspicious of them, demanding extensive checks on their power, and strict accountability for violations of law and custom.

Trump's devotees are petrified about what's about to come

I confess. I don’t fully understand why anyone steeped in the culture of MAGA would be having doubts. Donald Trump is the same man he was the first time he was elected. Literally nothing about him has changed. If you didn’t mind what you saw after 2016, why would you mind what you’re seeing after 2024?

And yet it appears to be the case that MAGA is cracking. It hasn’t broken apart. It hasn’t crumbled. Not yet. But cracks are discernible not only in polling (Trump’s approval rating has been underwater for more than 300 days), but in the U.S. Congress.

The Republicans appear nervous about the fact that Trump is paying more attention to Venezuela’s problems than America’s. More importantly, they appear nervous about his broken promises. He said he’d bring down the cost of living on Day One. Nope. He said he’d release the Epstein files. Nope. He said he’d focus on America and leave the rest of the world alone. Nope.

In general, he said he’d make America great again, but even to his most devoted followers, America still doesn’t feel that great.

Republicans in Congress have reacted with a pace that seems to be increasing. First, it was the Epstein files. All but one voted for their release. Then it was health insurance. Seventeen House Republicans voted to renew ACA subsidies for three years. (That bill now goes to the Senate.) Then it was Greenland and Venezuela. The Senate is poised to vote on a war powers resolution aiming to restrain a president gone rogue.

Cracks, however, are just cracks. The edifice of MAGA stands firm for now. Trump can send his paramilitary (ICE, CBP) to execute frightened widowed mothers but still expect at least 33 percent of the population to back him. (The most recent Gallup survey that I have seen shows his approval rating to be 36 percent.)

And yet something is happening. Trump’s blatant abuse of power really does seem to be radicalizing moderates and causing Trumpers to experience cognitive dissonance (a mental collision of diametric beliefs). I haven’t seen Republicans this anxious since a mob sacked and looted the Capitol. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) voted for the war powers resolution faster than he ran away from insurgents.

If congressional Republicans are indeed scared, maybe there’s an opportunity. What that might be, exactly, I really don’t know. What I do know is that, in the long term, the Democrats cannot save democracy on their own. They need some Republicans to join them. Perhaps now is the time to help some MAGA voters step away from the edge, for their sakes and everyone’s sake.

This is the hope of Rich Logis. He’s the founder of a group that helps MAGA voters betrayed by Trump to come to their senses, though he doesn’t put it that way in this interview with me.

Instead, Rich told me that some issues, like the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its leader, are so contrary to the MAGA worldview (in this case, “America First”) that “over time, more and more in MAGA will realize that Trump's actions are not for the benefit of most Americans — including his supporters.”

I got in touch with Rich, because he himself reached out to liberals. In a piece for Salon in November, he explained his own indoctrination in MAGA, why it held him until about 2017, why it still holds millions more, and how liberals can help get them out.

I went fairly hard on Rich, as you will see. But I think his answers are strong. You might find them persuasive. Anyway, he’s right.

“If we are going to successfully fight back,” Rich told me, “against the administration's anti-democratic (lower-case d) and unconstitutional actions (defying court orders, apprehending and deporting without due process, among others), it will require unlikely, but necessary alliances.”

JS: Liberals believed the Epstein files are breaking MAGA. The president is struggling to regain the previously unconditional support of his base. Is that true? What signs are you seeing?

RL: I do think there are fissures within the MAGA community. Our organization, Leaving MAGA, has been approached by remorseful 2024 MAGA voters. It would seem from recent polling (even though I am somewhat skeptical of polls) that Trump is losing support among Latinos in particular. What is remarkable about the Epstein story is: in our current media environment, in which stories tend to come and go, the Epstein saga isn't going away. I believe many in MAGA are experiencing cognitive dissonance over the story, and are beginning to wonder if Trump has been lying to them.

In Salon, you said: "I believe most in MAGA are good people who have been led astray, exploited and manipulated." Trump hasn't changed. His first term showed who he is. Are you letting his supporters off the hook?

I will not defend my, or anyone else's, ignorance. I, like all MAGA Americans, support(ed) Trump of our own volition. None of us were coaxed or coerced into voting for Trump and defending him. One of the reasons MAGA is an extremist group is because vilifying, demonizing and dehumanizing those with whom we disagree is encouraged.

It is also important, however, to acknowledge that all of us are susceptible to being influenced. Personally speaking, I allowed myself to be inculcated into the MAGA black-and-white way of thinking, primarily because I consumed only MAGA-friendly media and spent most of my time with other MAGA supporters.

You say liberals must create conditions in which MAGA apostates are welcomed? You can understand that liberals often don't want to welcome those who can't or won't take responsibility for their actions. What's your advice?

Liberals are not wrong about the damage MAGA and Trump have wrought. I understand why liberals may be weary to befriend MAGA voters. Trump has traumatized America for more than a decade.

But if we are going to successfully fight back against the administration's anti-democratic (lower-case d) and unconstitutional actions (defying court orders, apprehending and deporting without due process, among others), it will require unlikely, but necessary alliances.

I don't ask that MAGA Americans be coddled. But if one believes all is not lost — after all, many of those in MAGA are our friends and family — then I would ask my fellow anti-MAGA countrymen and women: what is gained by publicly judging and ostracizing them? I guarantee that invective against MAGA supporters strengthens the already-strong tie that binds them to Trump.

You mention MAGA media. It is everywhere and it's on all the time. It is why otherwise decent and intelligent people believe lies. It is why MAGA adherents stay adhered to MAGA. There are rich Democrats who could create their own media universe. If you had five minutes of Warren Buffet's time (for example), what would you say to him?

I'm biased, since our organization features stories of those who left MAGA. What is needed is more content and media about those who have left, as well as those having doubts about their support for Trump.

If I started a well-funded media company, I would craft my content to find MAGA Americans who are feeling remorse over their past votes, not to censure them, but to give them a voice that legacy media doesn't seem much interested in providing. There are plenty of published reports focused on reasons Americans had for supporting Trump. But what about those who are now questioning their beliefs? They are among us and we need to get in front of them, and go to where they are.

MAGA media and MAGA influencers have a stranglehold on the national political discourse. Mis- and disinformation were the primary reasons Trump was reelected. To combat this, there need to be more efforts to engage the apolitical, who follow and consume very little political news.

Apoliticism is its own bubble, and effective pro-democracy media would seek to pop it.

Many liberals believe MAGA wants what its getting — a president who is trying to make America white again. And I think this is largely true. What you're saying is there are some MAGA who are reachable. How can they be reached if they didn't see the bigotry that was obvious to others? What kinds of policies are appealing? What values?

I have no problem with people enduring the consequences of their electoral choices. This is how the real world works. And, like any large group, there are some in MAGA who revel in bigotry and hatred. But I think for the balance of MAGA supporters, there are deeds and rhetoric of Trump's that have given them pause. In my case, one of the earliest such moments was Trump's response to Charlottesville.

For so many, MAGA is their identity, and they are heavily personally and politically invested in MAGA, which is why they justify the unjustifiable. I am not defending them, but I cannot emphasize enough how MAGA has shaped their being and personhood, and how frightening it is to admit that one erred in one's ways and allowed one's self to believe lies.

I understand why someone might say, "Trump voters are getting what they deserved" or "how could they not have known what Trump would do?" However, many MAGA voters didn't know much of what Trump would do because the information sources they consume didn't tell them.

MAGA media didn't tell them that American citizens would be kidnapped by ICE. Many didn't know that they would be personally and financially harmed by tariffs, as examples.

Having lived a MAGA life for seven years, I’m unsurprised by anything that has happened this year. Perhaps that is cynical of me to say. But I am still optimistic headed into 2026, because I believe that more and more people in the MAGA community are having doubts about their support for Trump and the movement.

It will take time, but please remember that epiphanies usually occur gradually, and then suddenly, all at once.

These lethal Trumpists may act with impunity now but it cannot last forever

There’s something we need to talk about before talking about anything else related to Renee Nicole Good’s murder.

The likelihood of convicting her killer is very low.

No matter how damning you may think the video evidence is — and it is damning — Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who shot Good in the face, is still a cop.

Put that with another fact — this is America. Together, they paint a picture of the difficulty of bringing him to justice. Ross is a cop. America reveres cops. Convicting a cop of any wrongdoing, much less murder, is an enormous task.

“It’s like trying to convict Jesus,” Ken White said.

“If you think it is obvious that the videos prove murder and nobody can say otherwise, your view is based on how you want the system to be, not how it is,” he said. “It will be brutally hard, fighting inch by inch against what America is, to convict Jonathan Ross. Your feelings don’t enter into it.”

And that’s under normal circumstances.

These circumstances are not normal.

First, Ross fled the scene of the crime.

Second, the FBI barred state investigators from accessing evidence.

Third, there have been reports of federal agents entering the home of Jonathan Ross, in greater Minneapolis, and removing stuff.

Fourth, the US Department of Homeland Security has “shadow units” dedicated to destroying evidence of crimes committed by immigration officials.

That’s on top of relentless and malicious lying. As Stephen Colbert said, the message is only the administration has the authority to determine the truth. Well, it’s also going to try making sure there’s no evidence to prove them wrong.

Oh, and then there’s the misdirection.

That’s the point of the video of the shooting taken by Ross that he appears to have released to Alpha News. (See above.) Apparently, Ross believed it would show that he was forced to kill Good in self-defense. What it actually does is reinforce conclusions drawn from analyzing the original videos, including this key detail flagged by the Washington Post: “Ross crosses in front of the vehicle as it moves in reverse.”

From there, he took a stance, aimed and fired.

I don’t mean to be cynical. My intent is to be realistic. This is the country we have. Accountability for Ross is going to be as difficult as accountability for the man at the top, Donald Trump, who set this crime wave in motion.

That doesn’t mean good people shouldn’t try. Local prosecutors, though at a disadvantage without the aid and cooperation of the FBI, still opened an inquiry Friday, asking the wider public for any evidence it might have.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, moderate Democrats are experiencing something rare: a spine. Some are moving toward impeaching Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem. (Hakeem Jeffries called her “a stone-cold liar.” He did not endorse impeachment, but notably did not rule it out.) Others have raised the question of whether they’ll vote to fund ICE. On the margins are those wanting to abolish it.

For everyone else, there’s democratic politics. The most important thing right now is gathering and disseminating video evidence of abuses of power by ICE for the purpose of discrediting not only Trump but all federal authorities.

That won’t be hard, and not only because everyone has a smart phone. According to an editor at the Star-Tribune, locals feel like they’re under siege.

“Not an exaggeration at all to say that the feeling in Minneapolis is that the entire metro area is being treated as occupied territory by federal agents. Impossible to overstate how overwhelmingly people here do not like it. This does not feel sustainable.”

Indeed, something seems to be shifting.

Whereas the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, took weeks to grow into a national narrative, the murder of Renee Nicole Good, a widowed, white and blond-haired mother of three, who had stuffed animals in the glove box, whose wife wailed in despair and whose dog needed its leash, has triggered a virtually instantaneous backlash.

America is still a majority white country and a lot of those white people, especially white women, are apparently seeing themselves in Renee Nicole Good. It’s to the point that even respectable, middle-class white people are asking themselves if their local cops are going to protect them against ICE or if they’re going to take Trump’s side.

Those doubts and fears are deepened every time ICE is captured on video showing Americans what it believes is the true meaning of law and order: Comply or die.

Indeed, ICE officers appear to believe altogether that that’s the lesson it was teaching the American people with the murder of Renee Nicole Good — we can do whatever we want, to whomever we want, and the moment you object, we can deem you a criminal who’s deserving of whatever punishment we deem appropriate at that moment.

As this ICE officer tells a woman who is filming him:

“Have you not learned?”

(Then he grabs the woman’s phone.)

My point here is not to be cynical of the likelihood of Ross seeing justice. That could happen, but only if state prosecutors are careful and only if they are lucky. This is still America, even if many of us no longer recognize it.

My point is expanding the idea of accountability so that failure in one area doesn’t seem like failure everywhere. Obviously, it would be better if Renee Nicole Good were alive, but in death, she might finally show people who didn’t believe it, or were focused on their wallets, that Trump is an evil man, and that other evil men are drawn to him.

Evil might be the most important thing to emerge from the video that Ross leaked to Alpha News. In it, Renee Nicole Good can be heard saying to him: “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” Seconds later, after he shoots her in the face three times, Ross can be heard saying: “F------ b----.”

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