Latest posts

  • The Commander in Brief: How Trump v. Illinois Might Create A Trump Army

    The Commander in Brief: How Trump v. Illinois Might Create A Trump Army

    It’s a strange moment in the American experiment when the question before the Supreme Court is whether the President can send troops to Chicago because someone held up a sign too close to an ICE office. But here we are: Trump v. Illinois, a case that could turn the National Guard into the president’s personal

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  • The Ministry of Make-Believe: Karoline Leavitt and the Art of the Manufactured Enemy

    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 Surveillance Suburbia: When the “Perfect Neighbor” Is the Watchtower of Fear

    The Surveillance Suburbia: When the “Perfect Neighbor” Is the Watchtower of Fear

    There’s a palpable hum in the night of suburban America—the 21st-century soundtrack of kids laughing under street-lamps, sprinklers buzzing, and the infinite ping of Ring-cams catching everything except the lives they claim to protect. In The Perfect Neighbor, directed by Geeta Gandbhir, this quiet suburban soundtrack becomes acoustic evidence of paranoia. The film chronicles a

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  • Trump’s Gilded Palace: The $250M White House Ballroom That Bulldozes History And Resembles What He’s Doing To the Country

    Trump’s Gilded Palace: The $250M White House Ballroom That Bulldozes History And Resembles What He’s Doing To the Country

    Privately funded, process-dodging, and Rose Garden–erasing: a donor-built venue turning the people’s house into a pay-to-play stage while democracy waits behind the construction fence. The White House is supposed to be a workplace. Not a logo. Not a set. Not a gold-plated stage for a man who buys property and slaps his ugly name on

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  • The Hunger Games: Trump’s SNAP Shutdown

    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”

    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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  • Trump the Wannabe King and the Sludge: A Royal Flush from the Sky of Delusion

    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

    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

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  • Operation Campaign Reel: The War That Started Because Trump Got Bored on a Yacht

    Operation Campaign Reel: The War That Started Because Trump Got Bored on a Yacht

    The Caribbean has always had a cinematic allure: turquoise water, tropical breezes, and now, apparently, a naval blockade that could double as the trailer for a Michael Bay reboot of Bay of Pigs. Since early September, President Donald Trump has pushed the United States to the brink of open war with Venezuela, cloaking the move

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  • Shutdown, Smear, & Scapegoat: How GOP Messaging Became the Crisis

    Shutdown, Smear, & Scapegoat: How GOP Messaging Became the Crisis

    There’s something theatrically grotesque about a nation grinding to a halt while its communications director snarls into a microphone that the party in control of half the electorate is really a coalition of “Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.” On October 17, 2025, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt breathed those words on Fox

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