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Today is the last day
before Donald Trump is sworn in again as President of the United States.
We have chosen the devil
we know all too well.
The American majority
voted. He didn’t cheat. There was no voter fraud. He won; she lost. Millions of
Americans cast their ballots for Trump, not out of hope but to punish those
they see as undeserving of America’s blessings. We, the people, wanted this.
And we’re going to get it—good and hard.
But before this battle
enters its endgame, I want you to remember the America that exists today.
Remember This America
Remember this America:
flawed yet remarkable, filled with cruelty and compassion, selfishness and
selflessness, folly and genius. Remember that this nation’s principles, values,
laws, Constitution, and history—imperfect at its founding—still bound and blessed
us to a slow but steady climb toward a better nation.
Remember America, which
weathered upheaval, conflict, and calamity in every generation, only to rise
again. Recall the America that saw liberty, freedom, human dignity, and equal
justice as aspirations worth praising rather than mocking.
Remember an America
almost unique in its capacity to balance entrepreneurial ambition with the
understanding—however begrudging at times—that extending a helping hand to the
needy makes us stronger, not weaker.
Hold this vision tight
because come noon on Monday, the war to erase that America begins.
Yes, it’s a riff on the old Tory poster.
A Feast of Crows
As the monster stands in
the Capitol Rotunda, remember that the changes of his final term won’t move us
toward greatness or innovation. Instead, they’ll plunge us into a dangerous,
chaotic feast of crows. It’s going to be uniquely terrible.
Our lives, liberties, and rights will face immediate and systemic
threats. The radical transformation he and his allies plan aims to create a
post-democratic (and most certainly, post-Democratic) nation.
There’s almost nothing of merit or goodness in the plans they’ve
made public, much less in the dark dreams of Trump and his claque.
Yet the news isn’t
entirely hopeless. There’s a chance that we can turn this second term into a
grim but survivable object lesson with vigilance, courage, and strategy.
Elon, Zuck, and the
Oligarchs: A Bad Bet On Trump
Trump’s enablers among
Wall Street and Silicon Valley’s kleptocratic class have forged an unholy
alliance with the screeching hordes hyped on a steady diet of Trumpian
agitprop. Fueled by the fantasy of a Final Battle before some imagined rapture,
these supporters believe absolute loyalty will protect them.
However, as Russian
oligarchs learned since the 1990s, the jets, yachts, and houses in Kensington
and Brickell could only offset the uneasy truth for so long: their power and
wealth depend on the whims of a single leader, and so did their lives and physical
safety.
The exact mercurial nature Trump displays everywhere else will, in
time, turn on the tech barons, billionaires, and cronies. There are always
windows to fall out of, mysterious car accidents to suffer, and demands for
board seats to grant his family. Think it can’t happen? Google “Russian
executive deaths” some time.
Though their portfolios
and 10Qs might get a short-term bump, it’s the fruit of a poison and corrupted
system. Silicon Valley looks at Trump as a system that can be hacked, but the
system itself is liable to explode and kill you at the oddest moment. They’re
also becoming the poster boys of a new generation of kleptocrats in a moment of
monstrous economic inequality. That always ends well.
Extortion only grows: Once he owns you, he owns you. Those lavish
tax cuts or regulatory breaks come with a gun to your head.
Trump’s Base Should
Lower Its Expectations to Zero
Within the Never Trump
movement, some argued we should treat Trump’s followers more gently as if they
were reachable. Experience and polling showed otherwise.
They’re not merely
“deplorables”—they’re irredeemables.
They’ve embraced the most un-American idea since the Civil War:
that one man should wield near-absolute power, imposing his will simply because
they believe he will win a culture war against people unlike themselves. He is
the avatar of their rage, the king who will finally scratch the itch of their
discontent.
They’ll soon discover
they’ve been conned. As Trump continues to sell them merch, meme-coins, and
pipe dreams, it will gradually dawn on them—some never will—that he’s making
their lives materially worse, not better.
When gas prices don’t
magically plummet, when tariffs squeeze their pocketbooks, and when his
cabinet’s policies favor billionaires like Elon Musk over working-class voters,
the cognitive dissonance will be staggering. “Sorry we couldn’t deport 20
million people you hate, but we did slash your Medicare!”
Trump Is Not
Well—Physically or Politically
He may reduce our nation
to something smaller and uglier, but if we’re strategic, we can transform his
second term into a cautionary tale. He’s older, frailer, and more mentally
erratic than ever. Susie Wiles and company can mask it only so long before someone
in the White House says, “Let Trump be Trump”—and the unraveling begins.
He will fail to pass grand
legislation. He will blow crises and challenges at home and abroad. His cabinet
appointments will break the law, lie to the public, and enrage even their own
allies in Congress. You can also expect them to be the kind of embarrassing
weirdo drama MAGA excels at producing. Start the clock on dozens of stories
along these lines: “We had NO idea Appointee Jones at the Department of
Homeland Security also goes by @JewSlayer999 on Twitter.” “Well, Deputy
Secretary of Commerce Smith was a youth pastor, so we could have never imagined
he’d run a child trafficking ring!”
Don’t be shocked if Pete Hegseth wakes up in a wrecked rental car
outside Tijuana with a dead hooker in the trunk, and the less you hear about
Kash Patel and the Real Doll, the better.
When Trump sides with China, betrays Ukraine for Putin and tries
to destroy NATO, he’ll usher in a darker and more dangerous world. Trump’s
national security team is inexperienced, lacks character and judgment, and has
primarily been selected for their willingness to say, “Yes, sir. How high?”
When “no more wars” Trump bumbles into a choice of conflict or capitulation,
America will lose no matter how he plays it.
The Supreme Court will occasionally defy him, not from loyalty to
the Constitution so much as recognition that even they can’t rubber-stamp his
wildest excesses. Executive power has its limits, even for this crowd. (Expect
the Court’s TikTok decision to be a massive battle soon.)
He’ll continue his
grifting, hawking merch, meme stocks, and knockoff cryptocurrencies. His second
term's vulgarity will proudly testify to his unquenchable thirst for quick
cash. It will be breathtakingly corrupt—an exponential leap from the first
term’s crude scams and hotel upcharges.
The GOP Is a Sack of Vipers
For nearly a decade, all
the jockeying, preening, and scheming within the GOP was suppressed by Trump’s
dominance since 2015. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley tried in 2023 and 2024, but
their arguments were laughable; the party still worshipped its Mad King.
Trump is a lame duck,
and the 2028 jockeying has already begun. The big prize awaits, and every
senator, governor, and wannabe is quietly building a donor list and picking
staff. Their ambitions will collide with the Trump family, the billionaire
kleptocrats, and the culture-war machine.
As of Monday, January
20th, the easy days are over for the ambitious replacements to the Blood
Throne.
Trouble on the Horizon
Trump’s promises are
gospel to his base and big donors, yet he can never satisfy the far-right
thirst for more extremity. The Project 2025 crowd will keep moving the
goalposts, constantly testing how far he’ll go. DOGE isn’t cutting a damn thing
with real zeroes behind it. Slash every DEI program in government, and it’s
going to save almost nothing except the fragile egos of white bros.
Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson can’t fully deliver if he’s
continually glancing over his shoulder at hardliners. The chaos agents who
thrive on destruction have discovered that even Trump applauds their anarchy.
We’re entering a new era
of danger. Some of us can’t walk away from this fight. Some of us won’t take
the king’s silver. We still believe in the America for which heroes of every
generation, race, and origin have sacrificed.
Remember the America we
see today because the lessons ahead will be stark, cruel, stupid, corrupt,
vile, divisive, and transformative.
It’s on all of us to fight back smartly because this isn’t about
party or politics anymore. The GOP is now a personality cult, and the
Democrats, lost and demoralized, may not be the bulwark we need.
This battle is for a free, strong, and good America —an America that
learns Trump's hard lessons, fights him to a standstill, and lives on after his
long shadow has passed.
Let’s get to work.
