Staring down the zeitgeist...
In the lead up to this country’s only culturally sanctioned day of collective feasting, Americans are grappling with the aftermath of a government shutdown where a cabal of sociopaths led by a rapidly deteriorating convicted rapist, felon, and insurrectionist is doing all they can to break everything that makes this country work.
With the myriad tariffs to break the economy, Trump waged economic warfare on anyone he could, destroying alliances built over decades. Those countries then retaliated against the US and made it a pariah nation. By deploying an organized secret police force, it became clear he was trying to wage a racist war on the American people by justifying it as going after “illegal” immigrants who contribute billions of dollars to the economy. Under Trump, the agency with a mission to keep Americans safe has diverted resources from combating human trafficking and terrorism. By shelling boats that pose no threat to us and committing murder on the high seas, the regime has turned our country into a rogue state to the rest of the world. With the attempted suspension of SNAP, it became clear that Trump was trying to do all he could to make tens of millions of Americans go hungry as we head into Thanksgiving.
And of course there’s the Epstein scandal, roaring back into the headlines with the end of the government shutdown, making it clear once again the kind of character we have at the helm of our country.
But we are also seeing something else: especially since the last No Kings protest, the largest protest in American history, not only are Americans fighting back but they are doing so on a sustained basis. The lead up was months in the making, was preceded by other No Kings protests, involved multiple coalitions, and generated courage that flew in the face of fear generated by Trump and right wing media. Alongside nationwide protest, communities from Chicago and Portland to Charleston South Caroline mobilized and showed the country how to effectively foil attacks from Trump’s secret police.
At the same time that Americans are fighting back, this regime of idiocracy is increasingly racking up significant failures with every policy move they try to steamroll through our lives. Trump’s legal assaults are collapsing on multiple fronts. The DOJ cases against both James Comey and Letitia James were tossed out because prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was not lawfully appointed. And now the Pentagon is going after national hero, retired naval officer, astronaut and current Senator Mark Kelly for citing the uniform military code on the legal obligation to refuse illegal orders as a response to the Pentagon murdering people in the Caribbean. Military experts already say the case “will be dead on arrival.” It all sounds like the regime got drunk on their own hubris and kept expecting people to bend the knee, until they didn’t.
There is also increasing recognition within the Republican party itself that Trump is a lame duck president with collapsing public support and that association with him could destroy their chances at reelection. If they jump ship in the face of Trump’s clear connection to the corrupt ring of known human traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, more dominoes could fall. Thanks to being treated like shite by the White House and Speaker Mike Johnson, House Republicans are saying that morale has never been lower and that Marjorie Taylor Green’s resignation could be the first of many.
What has received less attention is how the MAGA cult appears to be cracking under the weight of its own contradictions and hypocrisy. In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder, internal battles broke open with the Groyper faction of avowed fascist Nick Fuentes. On top of that launched the scandal of Vice President and known bootlicker JD Vance and famed widower and now Turning Points USA new CEO Erika Kirk, clad in her leather pants, running her hand through his hair in public embrace at the same time Vance shames his wife for not being Christian. His subsequent public apology to her cast a bright light on their hollow narrative of Christian righteousness.
Any kind of remaining credibility the Trump administration clings to is flying directly into the cultural zeitgeist of seeing its malignant narcissism of bulldozing the White House, sending masked secret police to attack people and their communities to insulting us all with Great Gatsby banquets while the country starves. American’s disgust with this regime is broadcast to millions on national TV in the current season of South Park (“Heeeeyy Satan!”) and in the emerging progressive media network that daily mocks their cult of quackery.
We may have avoided millions of Americans going hungry, but the country is still facing the crisis of healthcare that is about to be out of reach for tens of millions of Americans, further putting the whole system at risk. Democratic voters and anyone sick of the regime’s bullshit may have been buoyed by the most recent elections, but we also saw status quo Dems like Chuck Schumer look increasingly irrelevant compared to Zoran Mamdani, Governors Pritzker and Newsom and those fighting back against illegal orders. Stronger leadership has stepped up but needs to be sustained.
Which begs the question anyone that cares about this country’s future has been asking: What’s it going to take for this national nightmare to end?
There are multiple single points of failure and potential breaking points: Trump’s increasing displays of cognitive decline (!), potential stroke or heart attack in the form of swelling ankles, discolored right hand, instability with walking, and apparent MRIs at Walter Reed Hospital. How long before we see this guy in a wheel chair? How long before the knives come out from the JD Vance faction?
This is our current existential moment, the backdrop as we head into this nationally day of feasting, its flawed mythology of national origin, the day Americans try to avoid being alone but where we also have to tolerate relatives still steeped in the cult’s Koolaid. At the same time, millions of Americans are being priced out of Thanksgiving due to the rising cost of living.
If we’re lucky, maybe all this chaos will lead to a broad-based shift away from this racist ideology of national destruction. Perhaps its visibility will be enough that no one can turn away from its atrocities, and perhaps the heroism of all that are fighting back will become contagious and crash the fascist house of cards that’s been developing for decades, culminating in this teetering tyrant and his cabal of sadistic sycophants. We have seen in horror how too many of our institutions, corporations, and elected officials have enabled or failed to stand up to all this, but the backlash that has arrived on multiple fronts might finally be turning the tide.
