Latest posts
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First They Came for the Punchlines: A Modern Adaptation for the Age of Selective Outrage
Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous warning, “First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out…” has been printed on everything from posters to classroom walls to dorm room tapestries. It has become a kind of moral shorthand for complicity, a poem that whispers to history students, “Don’t wait until it’s your turn.” And
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The Red Scare Remix: Why “Democratic Socialism” Is Not Communism, and Capitalism Was Never Pure
There’s a certain irony in the fact that Americans can’t define “socialism” but they can sure yell it. It’s our national reflex: hear a policy that sounds vaguely public-minded, grab the nearest flag, and shout “Communism!” as if Khrushchev himself were hiding under your Medicare card. So let’s do something rare for this political century—define
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The Man Who Sued Himself: How Trump Turned “Equal Justice Under Law” into “Cash App Me, DOJ”
If late-stage empire ever needed a mascot, Donald Trump just nominated himself—and sent the bill to the Justice Department. According to The New York Times (and verified by outlets that still remember what fact-checking is), the President of the United States is currently pressing his own Justice Department to pay him $230 million. Not for
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Watchdog? More Like Watchdogged: The Tanking of Trump’s “Nazi-Streak” Nominee
You’d think after a year of government face-plants, someone in Trump’s orbit might nominate a watchdog who didn’t actively bite democracy. Instead, the White House delivered Paul Ingrassia—a 30-year-old law school graduate with the résumé depth of a TikTok bio—to run the Office of Special Counsel, the federal agency designed to protect whistleblowers and keep
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The Ministry of Make-Believe: Karoline Leavitt and the Art of the Manufactured Enemy
There’s a rhythm to authoritarianism, and Karoline Leavitt has perfect pitch. Every press secretary inherits a tone from the boss they serve, but Leavitt’s isn’t mere mimicry. It’s weaponized performance—an acceleration of Trumpism’s original sin: confusing cruelty for clarity. The job isn’t to inform. It’s to injure with flair, to convert talking points into shrapnel,
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The Hunger Games: Trump’s SNAP Shutdown
There’s a moment every fall when America pretends to care about food. Usually it arrives in the form of syrupy commercials: laughing families in sweaters, grocery carts brimming with abundance, the phrase “holiday spirit” hovering over a table that looks sponsored by a butter manufacturer. This year, that tableau feels like parody. Because as the
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Trump Tariff Tantrum: How “Make It Here” Became “Pay More There”
It’s a strange feeling to live inside a macroeconomic cautionary tale while your grocery receipt doubles as documentation. From North Carolina’s Walmarts to Oregon’s farmers’ markets, the new national pastime isn’t baseball—it’s comparing the price of eggs like it’s insider trading. Somewhere between the auto aisle and the frozen section, America’s grand experiment in “decouple-by-diktat”
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Blood, Synergy, and Severance: How Paramount Skydance Turned Layoffs Into a Business Model
There’s a certain elegance to corporate cruelty when it’s delivered in PowerPoint. The font is soothing, the charts are blue, and the word “transformation” is used at least three times before anyone says “job cuts.” Paramount Skydance, the newly merged media hydra now helmed by David Ellison, has decided that the best way to impress
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Trump the Wannabe King and the Sludge: A Royal Flush from the Sky of Delusion
Some men crave legacy. Others crave power. And then there are those who crave the cinematic experience of dumping digital sewage on protesters while “Danger Zone” blares in the background. Donald J. Trump, patron saint of grievance and green screen, has once again redefined leadership—not as the art of governance, but as a content genre.
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Soap Operas, Talk Show Thrones, and the Gospel According to Drew Barrymore
There’s a special kind of American optimism in handing out golden statues while the world burns. On October 17, the 52nd Daytime Emmy Awards beamed from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, where a theater full of people in sequins and spray tans cheered for the institutions that have taught us to cry at noon, gossip at