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A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

SCENE: An office at the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. One side of it is a glass window through which other offices can be seen. On the wall are a collection of citations for meritorious service. There is a plant in the corner. It needs watering. On the desk are framed photos of a smiling middle-aged woman hiking a mountain trail and of identical twin girls of high school age in front of a sailboat. In walks Special Agent HENRY DOBSON. He’s 50-ish, with a square and solid build. His salt-and-pepper hair is thinning. He’s grinning. He sits at the desk and straightens the framed photos. He picks up the phone and dials.

DOBSON [into the phone]: Shelly, Hank. They just closed the bank. It’s done. After five years. Five fuckin’ years. He’s pleading. The Brazilians have it wrapped up. Nine years, no wiggle. Pretty good, right? Now on to the next scumbag…What? C’mon, you can’t be serious. That’s not what I do…No, no, no…What do I know about street patrols?…This is nuts—.

A YOUNG AGENT pokes her head in the office and tosses DOBSON a sealed manila envelope.

YOUNG AGENT: Someone dropped this off for you.

DOBSON: Who?

YOUNG AGENT: Didn’t say. Woman. Lots of jewelry. Big sunglasses. Floppy hat. Skedaddled quickly.

DOBSON [into the phone]: Hold on, Shelly.

DOBSON opens the envelope, takes out a sheaf of papers, and starts to flip through them.

DOBSON [murmuring]: Oh shit…Oh, I said, “Oh shit.” Someone just dropped off a stash of docs. Bank account summaries. Spreadsheets. Prospectus…With a memo explaining it all…It’s crypto…Sham deal…Dubai and Antigua…Looks like a fake ICO, maybe a rug pull…$34 million…SEC filings, transfers, phone numbers…Damn, the whole shebang…Ever get a silver-platter case like this?…Yeah, it says who did it…A guy named Carl, uh…Hold on, just hold on, let me do something.

A list of Google results come up. DOBSON clicks on the first one. A large headline appears: “Crypto Entrepreneurs Gather at Mar-a-Lago.” DOBSON immediately turns off his computer.

DOBSON puts down the phone without hanging up. He boots up his computer. The wallpaper image appears. It’s Kevin Costner playing Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. DOBSON enters his password and goes to the Google homepage. He types in a few words.

DOBSON [loudly into the phone]: Hang on. Be right there. Just checking…

A list of Google results come up. DOBSON clicks on the first one. A large headline appears: “Crypto Entrepreneurs Gather at Mar-a-Lago.” DOBSON immediately turns off his computer.

DOBSON [to himself]: Oh shit.

DOBSON nervously looks around to see if anyone is watching him. He starts stuffing all the documents back into the envelope. He picks up the phone and cradles it between his face and shoulder and continues shoving the papers into the envelope.

DOBSON [into the phone]: Yeah, yeah, I’m still here…Oh, you know what? I don’t think this is anything…Yeah, I think it’s a prank…Yeah, the guys in laundering. They’re always doing shit like that…Yeah, yeah, should’ve looked more closely at first…But, please, Shelly, do me a favor: Don’t mention this to anyone, okay? Not anyone. I wouldn’t want them to know they got me…Yeah, okay, you’re the best…And, yeah, where should I report tonight?…Okay, got it. I know that Potbelly’s. It’s always real quiet around there…See ya later.

DOBSON reaches for a burn bag.

***

I don’t know if anything of the sort has happened at Kash Patel’s FBI. But it doesn’t take much imagination to wonder whether such scenes are occurring. The FBI has become a cauldron of vengeance, with scores of agents who worked on cases despised by Trump and his crew being canned—most notably, the gumshoes who pursued the Trump-Russia investigation or the January 6 insurrectionist rioters. Even bureau employees whose only sins were to be pals with agents who worked those cases have been booted.

Then there’s the absurd and troubling indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. Even though Comey’s decision to revive the Hillary Clinton email probe eleven days before Election Day in 2016 helped Donald Trump win the White House, Trump has been angling for years to take Comey down for having kick-started the FBI’s Russia investigation that morphed into the inquiry run by special counsel Robert Mueller. A US attorney and several assistant US attorneys refused to move the Comey indictment forward, contending there was no there there. So Trump forced out this US attorney, put in a lackey with absolutely no experience in prosecuting criminal cases (she specializes in insurance law), and—presto—he had his bullshit indictment of Comey. (I’ve been reading indictments for decades, and this slim two-pager is the worst and most amateurish indictment I’ve ever seen.)

If you’re an investigator at a federal agency, you’d have to be crazy to contemplate an inquiry that might involve an associate, friend, or crony of Trump, his family, or anyone in his inner or outer circle.

Comey is likely to beat the rap—perhaps easily. But this bogus act of retribution, the dismissal of all those FBI agents, and other get-even actions (such as Trump’s henchmen targeting New York Attorney Geneal Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff) are creating a chilling effect of Arctic proportions for all federal law enforcement.

If you’re an investigator at the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, or any federal agency, you’d have to be crazy to contemplate an inquiry that might involve an associate, friend, or crony of Trump, his family, or anyone in his inner or outer circle. You have 10 years until retirement, kids you want to put through college, parents that need home care—will you risk your job by looking at the possible misdeeds of a donor to Trump’s campaign or anyone with a connection to his crew, let alone Trump himself? Not even a former FBI director is safe. And Trump is now braying about going after Chris Wray, Comey’s successor at the FBI whom Trump appointed to the job.

Should you get a tip about possible wrongdoing involving anyone with a link to Trump, you’d be a fool to even mention it to a colleague or supervisor. Don’t put anything about this into an email. Find a narcotrafficker to chase instead—if you haven’t been reassigned to help round up migrants.

The Trump administration has signaled it doesn’t want the bureau bothering with whole categories of crime, such as foreign bribery or failure to register as foreign agents. Attorney General Pam Bondi shut down the task force investigating foreign influence operations. In February, the leadership of the public integrity section of the Justice Department quit instead of dropping the corruption charges that had been filed against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. After that, this section was downsized. That’s good news for dirty pols.

Should an FBI agent open an investigation that irks Trump, he or she would have to fear losing their job and more—possibly being harassed on social media by Trump and doxed by his MAGA army.

What all this means is that a host of wrongdoers, including crooked politicians and Trump chums, have a get-out-of-jail-free card—that is, license to cheat, grift, and crime with little fear of investigation or prosecution. And it’s a card that’s easy to obtain. In trouble with the law? Buy a million dollars of Trump’s crypto. That ought to keep the G-men at bay.

Should an FBI agent open an investigation that irks Trump, he or she would have to fear losing their job and more—possibly being harassed on social media by Trump and doxed by his MAGA army. And if a gutsy agent did move ahead with such a case, would the Trump Justice Department prosecute it against Trump’s wishes? Forget about it, Jake. There’s no percentage in starting such an inquiry. It will only lead to a world of hurt.

That’s the loud-and-clear signal that Trump and Patel have been sending to the FBI, while they shift agents to street crime tasks and ICE assistance. The Comey indictment is merely the exclamation point on the don’t-fuck-with-us message conveyed to all federal law enforcement. Special Agent Dobson is no fool. He knows the saying used to be that justice is blind. In Trump’s second term, it’s now justice is blind to the crimes of Trump and his gang—and if you dare take a glance in their direction, we’ll rip your eyes out.

Editor’s note: This is a developing story, and this article has been revised and updated based on new information.

President Donald Trump finally realized one of his many revenge fantasies. The Department of Justice that he has pressed to pursue his critics and political opponents on Thursday indicted former FBI Director Jim Comey. A lackey Trump appointed US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia brought charges against Comey after her predecessor—who was forced out by Trump—and career prosecutors found there was no solid case against Comey.

The brief, five-paragraph indictment is unusually vague. It alleges that Comey on September 30, 2020, lied to Congress and obstructed an investigation by “falsely stating to a U.S. Senator during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he…had not ‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an FBI investigation.”

That’s it. But there’s a big problem with this indictment: That’s not what exactly Comey said.

First, some background. This alleged false statement supposedly occurred when Comey testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee five years ago during a hearing held by Republicans as part of their ongoing crusade to depict the Trump-Russia investigation as an illegitimate Deep State plot against the president. But his remark was not about the main subject at hand. While questioning Comey, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked him about something else: the investigation of an FBI leak involving former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.

That’s the portion of Comey’s testimony that is at the center of this case. But it turns out that the indictment is actually referring to another leak.

To understand the 2020 exchange between Cruz and Comey, it’s important to know what happened in the McCabe case. This leak occurred in 2016 when McCabe authorized other FBI officials to tell a Wall Street Journal reporter about a meeting in 2016 in which McCabe had disagreed with Justice Department officials about the handling of an investigation of the Clinton Foundation. (FBI agents had continued the inquiry after Justice Department officials had concluded there wasn’t much to case, and McCabe had believed continuing the inquiry was warranted. Eventually, no prosecutions ever materialized.) A Wall Street Journal piece that included a description of this meeting was published on October 30, 2016, shortly before the election.

Later, the Justice Department inspector general investigated the leak and released a report in February 2018. According to the IG, McCabe had told IG investigators that Comey had approved of this leak. Comey, though, said otherwise. The IG, citing a long list of circumstantial evidence, concluded that McCabe did not inform Comey that he had authorized others to share that information with the Wall Street Journal. Comey, the IG said, had done nothing wrong in this episode. Still at the 2020 hearing Cruz pressed the former FBI director on this. Here’s the full exchange:

Cruz: On May 3rd, 2017, in this committee, Chairman [Chuck] Grassley asked you point blank, “Have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?” You responded under oath, “Never.” He then asked you, “Have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration?” You responded again under oath, “No.”

As you know, Mr. McCabe, who worked for you, has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and that you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it. Now, what Mr. McCabe is saying and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true. One or the other is false. Who’s telling the truth?

Comey: I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.

Cruz: So your testimony is you’ve never authorized anyone to leak, and Mr. McCabe, if he says contrary is not telling the truth.

Comey: Again, I’m not going to characterize Andy’s testimony. But mine is the same today.

That’s it. The indictment gives the impression that Comey made a remark during this testimony in which he said he had not “authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports.” But Comey never directly said those words. His response was: “I stand by the testimony you summarized.” The indictment, drawing on the question that Comey was asked at that earlier hearing, is putting words in his mouth.

But the indictment reportedly isn’t predicated on what was at the heart of the Cruz and Comey exchange, the McCabe leak. Instead, according to MSNBC and ABC News, the charges are related to Comey allegedly asking his longtime friend Dan Richman to leak stories to reporters about an FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton. That was not what Cruz had asked about.

It’s not clear how the supposed Richman leak might be related to Comey’s 2017 testimony that Cruz pressed him on. The question that Grassley presented to Comey in 2017 that Cruz cited was specific, referring only to “news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration.” Note that Grassley had mentioned the Clinton administration. Did Comey ask Richman to speak to reporters about the Clinton administration or a Hillary Clinton investigation? If the latter, Grassley’s question might not have covered that instance.

When Comey told Cruz that he stood by his previous testimony he was not addressing the McCabe leak issue that Cruz had raised. And Cruz, focused on the McCabe leak, was not referring to any possible leak through Richman. But toward the end of the exchange, Cruz did ask, “So your testimony is you’ve never authorized anyone to leak?”

Could that be read as an open-ended question unrelated to the McCabe leak and, thus, possibly cover any actions Comey took with Richman? And could Comey’s “stand-by-my-testimony” response to this query be considered a false statement if his 2017 testimony was not truthful? But what if his 2017 testimony—because of the specificity of Grassley’s inquiry—was technically not false? The case might hinge on all this.

In a video he posted on social media Thursday night, Comey said, “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I’m innocent.”

At this point, it’s hard to have a full understanding of the case because the indictment is so vague and many details are unknown. But this case is likely destined to be bogged down in word games. After all, words and precision are crucial to indictments that accuse a person of lying to Congress. And in this instance, it is no surprise that the indictment is sloppy, vague, and misleading, for this is an act of vengeance and not justice—which is what makes the case so dangerous.

A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Following the horrific murder of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump has blamed what he calls the “radical left” for political violence in the United States and has vowed to demolish it. Of course, Trump is peddling BS when he insists the left bears sole responsibility for violence while any emerging from the right is excusable. But his rhetoric never clarifies: Who is this “radical left” Trump seeks to stamp out? His use of this term has been rather elastic, affording him the leeway to pursue anyone he considers an opponent or detractor.

Even, possibly, you.

I asked Perplexity AI to help me determine when Trump first began assailing the “radical left.” It could not pinpoint the original instance, but the chatbot noted that during a press conference after the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in which one woman was killed—the event had prompted Trump to refer to “very fine people on both sides”—he remarked, “What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right? Do they have any assemblage of guilt?” At the time, ABC News reported, “It’s unclear what he meant by the ‘alt-left.’”

Before this audience of Kirk devotees, Trump insisted Democrats in charge of big cities were aligned with the “radical agenda” of the “radical left.”

During a June 22, 2020, speech at a conference held by Kirk’s Turning Point USA—in the wake of protests against police brutality that erupted across the country following the killing of George Floyd—Trump repeatedly referred to the “radical left.” He hailed the attendees for refusing “to kneel to the radical left.” He declared, “The radical left demands absolute conformity from every professor, researcher, reporter, journalist, corporation, entertainer, politician, campus speaker, and private citizen.” He asserted the “radical left” hate “our history, they hate our values, and they hate everything we prize as Americans.” And the “radical left,” he maintained, was “waging war on timeless American values like freedom of speech, which is what we’re just talking about. Anyone who dares to speak the truth is canceled, censored, de-platformed, fired, expelled, harassed, abused, boycotted, deprived of a livelihood, or even physically assaulted.”

Before this audience of Kirk devotees, Trump insisted Democrats in charge of big cities were aligned with the “radical agenda” of the “radical left.” Bedlam, he said, “will come to every city near you, every suburb and community in America, if the radical-left Democrats are put in charge.”

As he campaigned for reelection, he turned the “radical left” into his chief boogeyman. A few months later, in his acceptance speech at the GOP convention, Trump, looking to exploit the Floyd protests, which in some cities had been accompanied by looting and violence, once more leaned heavy into this “radical left” pitch. He brayed that the “election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life, or whether we allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.” He excoriated Joe Biden, the Democrats’ nominee, for not possessing “the strength to stand up to wild-eyed Marxists like Bernie Sanders and his fellow radicals.” He warned that Biden was a partner of the “radical left” and that “if the radical left takes power, they will apply their disastrous policies to every city, town, and suburb in America.” Trump was essentially saying the Democrats were a key component of the “radical left.” And it was everywhere!

In four years, according to Trump, the Democrats had shifted from being lapdogs for 1-percenters to being in cahoots with communists. Quite the 180.

Trump’s conflation of the Democratic Party with the “radical left” was a dramatic shift from his 2016 acceptance speech, when he had lashed out at Hillary Clinton for being the “puppet” of “big business, elite media, and major donors.” In four years, according to Trump, the Democrats had shifted from being lapdogs for 1-percenters to being in cahoots with communists. Quite the 180.

During the post-2020 election stretch, when Trump was conniving to overturn the election results and subvert the republic, he relied on this trope to whip up his base and sell his lie. He blamed the “radical left” for having rigged the contest against him. At the speech he gave on January 6, 2021, which incited the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol, he proclaimed, “All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they’re doing. And stolen by the fake news media.” Fact-checkers who vetted his social media posts were also part of the “radical left,” he said. And he told the crowd, “The radical left knows exactly what they’re doing. They’re ruthless and it’s time that somebody did something about it.” Put simply, anyone who had a role in the free and fair election that he lost was a member of the “radical left.”

Demonizing an amorphous “radical left” and linking it to the Democrats did not win the election for Trump, but he stuck to this line of attack when he ran for the White House again. On Veterans Day in 2023, at a rally in New Hampshire, he gave a speech that historians compared to those of Hitler and Mussolini. “We pledge to you,” he bellowed, “that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” He added, “The real threat is not from the radical right. The real threat is from the radical left. It’s growing every day, every single day. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”

After Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in the summer of 2024, Trump blasted her as a “radical left lunatic.” Months later in an interview with Fox News, he raised the prospect of “radical left lunatics” disrupting the election and noted they could be “easily handled” by the National Guard or US military. He also branded Democrats like then-Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who led the first impeachment against Trump, as “lunatics” and part of “the enemy within.” He called them “more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries.”

Trump’s goal is to cast as wide a net as possible to vilify his critics and political foes. If Kamala Harris is a radical leftist, then just about every Democrat is a radical leftist—and a prime target for their new Red Scare.

It’s no shocker that Trump’s use of derogatory and dangerous language is imprecise. He and his MAGA henchmen rail against antifa—but they can’t define it. (Does it even have an office or PO box?) Last week, he proclaimed that it was a “major terrorist organization” and should be designated as such. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order labeling antifa a “domestic terrorist organization.” But the significance of this was unclear, given that antifa is not an organized group and the president does not have the legal authority to declare a domestic entity a terrorist group.

Obviously, Trump’s goal is to cast as wide a net as possible to vilify his critics and political foes. If Kamala Harris is a radical leftist, then just about every Democrat is a radical leftist—and a prime target for their new Red Scare. Trump is trying mightily to delegitimize the Democrats and all political opposition. White House aide Stephen Miller recently snarled on Fox that the Democratic Party “is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.” He called Democrats “evil.” Anyone associated with the party is the enemy deserving of Trump’s wrath.

This is an old playbook. Since the days of McCarthyism, the right has endeavored to portray liberals and Democrats as intimately tied to radicalism or godless communism. Nixon did that in the 1960s. During the 1980s, there was a cottage industry of conservative media outlets and nonprofits that concocted elaborate wire diagrams seeking to show that Soviet-funded organizations were connected to left-wing groups in the US that were tied to mainstream liberals and Democrats.

Right-wing commentator Glenn Beck did something similar during the Obama years, with chaotic chalkboard scribbles and flow charts that supposedly depicted a vast left-wing conspiracy that ran from the far left straight into the Oval Office with predictable detours involving billionaire philanthropist George Soros. (A gunman on his way to attack the offices of a foundation at the center of Beck’s byzantine conspiracy theory was stopped by police officers and apprehended after a furious shootout.) And Sarah Palin claimed Obama had been “palling around with terrorists.” Now Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and their MAGA conspirators claim they are going to smash the networks of the “radical left” and everyone to which it is linked.

Trump grouses that he’s the victim of witch hunts every time he’s the subject of an investigation. He now seems determined to launch his own, as part of a huge smear campaign that equates Democrats with violent extremists. When anyone he considers a political threat can be called the “radical left,” anyone can become a target of the assault to come.

The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

After the past few days of jabbering about which political party is to blame for political violence, consider this:

Joe Biden, September 10, 2025: “There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.”

There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 10, 2025

Charlie Kirk, July 24, 2023: “Joe Biden is a bumbling dementia filled Alzheimer’s corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America.”

"Joe Biden is a bumbling, dementia-filled, Alzheimer's, corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America."-Charlie Kirk (07/24/23)

— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) 2025-09-14T14:49:14.176Z

In recent days, MAGA warriors, Republican officials, and conservative bellowers—led by their bellower-in-chief—have repeatedly proclaimed that harsh rhetoric from the left is the main source of political violence in the United States and led to the murder of Kirk. Some MAGA blowhards have gone so far as to call for a civil war to avenge Kirk’s death.

Even when some Republicans dare to note that it’s time to dial down the fear and loathing, they refuse to recognize how much has come from Trump and his cult, trying to both-sides the issue.

The charging document for the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, indicates that he might have developed a left-of-center perspective before this horrific murder, but there’s more to learn about him and his motivation. Regardless of how that pans out, Donald Trump and his legions are hell-bent on gaslighting the nation into believing they are the only victims of the polarization that plagues the nation. And even when some Republicans dare to note that it’s time to dial down the fear and loathing, they refuse to recognize how much has come from Trump and his cult, trying to both-sides the issue. Look at what House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox on Sunday:

People have got to stop framing simple policy disagreements in terms of existential threats to our democracy…You can’t call the other side fascists and enemies of the state and not understand that there are some deranged people in our society who will take that as cues to act and do crazy and dangerous things…So members of Congress and all public officials have an obligation to speak clearly into this and calm the waters. We can have vigorous disputes. Charlie Kirk was an expert at that. He loved debate. But Charlie also advanced another really important idea: that is that he loved the people on the other side of that table. He was never motivated by hate. He was motivated by truth and love.

Mike Johnson: "People have got to stop framing simple policy disagreements in terms of existential threats to our democracy. You can't call the other side fascists and enemies of the state and not understand that there are some deranged people in our society who will take that as cues to act."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-09-14T13:24:02.388Z

How does being motivated by truth and love propel a person to call for killing a political opponent? And where’s the truth and love in assailing, as Kirk did, four Black women—former First Lady Michelle Obama, commentator Joy Reid, the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—by saying they “do not have brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”

I could spew thousands of words merely quoting the hateful and racist comments Kirk has uttered over the years—no doubt, you’ve seen many of the clips on social media. And let’s not forget he was a prominent supporter, like Johnson, of a man who has for years baselessly claimed the Democrats are evil miscreants, communists, and radicals who stole an election from him and who are literally scheming to destroy the United States. There are no leading Democrats who have ever incited with lies thousands to assault the Capitol and beat the hell out of cops.

Show me a single speaker at a Democratic convention who called for putting a Republican to death. Kirk was a featured speaker at the GOP’s 2024 shindig.

Show me a single Democratic White House strategist or Democratic member of Congress or Democrat-appointed FBI director who has boosted an explicit call for killing a political opponent.

Kirk is hardly the only example of a MAGA star who has gone this far. In 2020, Steve Bannon called for beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and then-FBI director Christopher Wray. Before she was elected to the House, Marjorie Taylor Greene endorsed social media posts that urged murdering Rep. Nancy Pelosi and FBI agents, and she expressed support for hanging Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The current FBI director, Kash Patel, reposted a video of himself taking a chainsaw to Trump’s political enemies, including former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. (When he was asked about this hideous social media post at his confirmation hearing, Patel replied, “Senator, I had nothing to do with the creation of that meme”—a weaselly statement that did not address his amplification of the violent imagery.) In 2023, Trump suggested that Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deserved to be executed. GOP Rep. Paul Gosar did the same.

Show me a single Democratic White House strategist or Democratic member of Congress or Democrat-appointed FBI director who has boosted an explicit call for killing a political opponent.

What’s crazy is that a movement led by an autocratic purveyor of hatred, paranoia, and bonkers conspiracy theories has not been held to account for its perversion of American politics. There certainly will be violent extremists on both sides of the spectrum. But far too many commentators and politicians relish both-sides-ing this issue, insisting the problem reaches across the partisan divide. Yet it’s not even-Steven. The leader of the Republican Party has expressed, embraced, and encouraged violent rhetoric and with his J6 pardons he has promoted acceptance of violent action—violent action on his behalf. There is nothing remotely comparable to this within the Democratic Party.

By not fixating on the brazen hypocrisy, Democrats and the mainstream media permit those whose politics have been based on demonizing Democrats to escape accountability.

It’s a failure of the commentariat and the Democratic Party that Trump and the Republicans have been able to get away with it. Elon Musk and Stephen Miller incessantly try to brand the left as the party of violence and murder, and they face little opprobrium for that. Democrats and progressives have the better (and a truthful) case that Trump and the MAGA right fuel extremism and hate. But they generally have not found an effective way to land that argument.

By failing to constantly highlight and slam the extremist rhetoric of the right, they have created space for it and allowed it to become normalized. And now, by not fixating on the brazen hypocrisy of GOP cries of both-sides-do-it, Democrats and the mainstream media permit those whose politics have been based on demonizing Democrats to escape accountability, and this also helps wily Trumpists limit a potent and necessary tactic for Democrats: calling out Trump as a fascist threat to America. Such talk, Trump and his crew contend, is reckless and causes violence and could be criminal. Their goal is to stifle criticism and perhaps impose a clampdown on opposition to Trump.

Countering the GOP exploitation and embrace of extremism is not easy. For decades, stretching back to McCarthyism, vilifying Democrats and liberals as anti-God, anti-family, anti-America has been an essential part of Republican strategy. It’s how the party has been able to convince millions of Americans to vote for candidates who oppose raising wages for workers, providing health coverage to those without, strengthening social welfare programs, enhancing environmental protections, restraining corporate power, and limiting tax cuts for the wealthy. Newt Gingrich advised his Republican comrades to deride Democrats as “traitors” and perilous for children. Sarah Palin called Barack Obama a pal of terrorists and a dangerous socialist. Glenn Beck said Obama planned to wreck the economy so he could become a dictator. Trump came along and turned the volume up to 11. (See my American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy.)

The best way to address the sickness of political violence is not with anodyne blather. The remedy must be based on a clear vision of the cause.

Tragedy is a powerful shaper of narratives. In the aftermath of the horrific assassination of MAGA champion Charlie Kirk, a husband and father of two, it was natural that his allies, including President Trump, lionized him as a patriot, free-speech advocate, and activist. And political opponents somberly denounced the terrible killing, as they should, with some hailing Kirk’s devotion to public debate. There’s a tendency in such a moment to look for the best in people or, at least, to not dwell on the negatives. That can be a good thing. Yet as Kirk is quickly canonized by Trump and his movement—on Thursday Trump announced he would bestow upon Kirk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom—a full depiction of his impact on American politics is largely being sidestepped.

In promoting a story on the murder of Kirk—headlined “Charlie Kirk killing deepens America’s violent spiral”—Axios described him as a “fierce champion of the right to free expression” whose “voice was silenced by an assassin’s bullet.” New York Times opinion columnist Ezra Klein, wrote, “You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion.” Klein added that he “envied” the political movement Kirk built and praised “his moxie and fearlessness.”

Kirk’s advocacy of vigorous debate ought not be separated from what he said while jousting in the public square.

Here’s the problem: Kirk built that movement with falsehoods. And his advocacy was laced with racist and bigoted statements. Recognizing this does not diminish the awfulness of this act of violence. Nor does it lessen our outrage or diminish our sympathy for his family, friends, and colleagues. Yet if this is an appropriate moment to assess Kirk and issue bold statements about his participation in America’s political life, there ought to be room for a true discussion.

Kirk, a right-wing provocateur who founded and led Turning Point USA, an organization of young conservatives, was a promoter of Trump’s destructive and baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Two days before the January 6 riot, Kirk boasted in a tweet that Students for Trump and Turning Point Action were “Sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president.”

After the attack, Kirk deleted the tweet, and he claimed that the people his group transported to DC participated only in the rally that occurred before the assault on Congress—where Trump whipped up the crowd and encouraged it to march on the Capitol. The New York Times subsequently reported that Turning Point Action sent only seven buses to the event. Turning Point also paid the $60,000 speaking fee to Kimberly Guilfoyle, a MAGA personality, for the brief remarks she made at the rally. “We will not allow the liberals and the Democrats to steal our dream or steal our elections,” Guilfoyle told the crowd. (Kirk took the Fifth when he was deposed by the House January 6 committee.)

Even prior to the election, Kirk helped set the stage for Trump’s attempt to subvert the republic. In September 2020, the Washington Post reported that Turning Point Action was running a “sprawling yet secretive campaign” to disseminate pro-Trump propaganda “that experts say evades the guardrails put in place by social media companies to limit online disinformation of the sort used by Russia during the 2016 campaign.” The messages Turning Point generated spread the charge that Democrats were using mail balloting to steal the election and downplayed the threat from Covid. (Kirk’s group called the story a “gross mischaracterization.”)

Whatever Kirk’s group and supporters did on January 6, he was part of the MAGA crusade that largely broke US politics. Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 loss, his conniving to stay in power, and his encouragement of a lie that led to massive political violence greatly undermined American democracy and exacerbated the already deep divide in the nation. Kirk was a part of that. Yet Klein overlooks that in praising Kirk. And a New York Times piece on Kirk’s political career made no mention of this, though it did report that he had been “accused” of “antisemitism, homophobia and racism, having blamed Jewish communities for fomenting hatred against white people, criticized gay rights on religious grounds and questioned the qualifications of Black airline pilots.”

Kirk’s advocacy of vigorous debate ought not be separated from what he said while jousting in the public square. He hosted white nationalists on his podcast. He posted racist comments on his X account, including this remark: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.'” He endorsed the white “replacement” conspiracy theory. After the October 7 attack on Israel, he compared Black Lives Matter to Hamas. He called for preserving “white demographics in America.” He asserted that Islam was not compatible with Western culture. He derided women who supported Kamala Harris 2024 for wanting “careerism, consumerism, and loneliness.” Or, as he also put it, “Democratic women want to die alone without children.” When Paul Pelosi, the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, was brutally attacked in 2022, Kirk spread a conspiracy theory about the crime and called for an “amazing patriot” to bail out the assailant. He routinely deployed extreme rhetoric to demonize his political foes.

Kirk did enjoy debating others. He visited campuses and held events in which he took on all comers, arguing over a variety of contentious issues. He was a showman, and his commitment to verbal duking was admirable. He appeared proud of the harsh opinions he robustly shared. Which means there’s no reason now to be shy about them while pondering his legacy.

Moreover, as a movement strategist, he relied upon and advanced lies and bigotry—including falsehoods that fueled violence and an assault on our national foundation. That was not a side gig for Kirk. It was a core component of his organizing. He did not practice politics the right way. He used deceit to develop his movement and to weaken the United States. His assassination is heinous and frightening and warrants widespread condemnation. It should prompt reflection on what is happening within the nation and what needs to be done to prevent further political violence. It should not protect him or others who engage in such politics of extremism from critical review.

The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Of all the unqualified extremists Donald Trump has appointed to his Cabinet, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as of now, poses the most direct threat to the nation. The secretary of health and human services is devastating the United States’ public health system and promoting quack science that imperils the lives of Americans. In recent weeks, he has decapitated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, canceled mRNA vaccination research that held the potential for amazing medical breakthroughs, and loaded an important vaccine advisory panel with vaccine critics.

Kennedy is a threat to the well-being of the American citizenry. That’s why House Democrats should move to impeach him.

His promotion of vaccination opposition—don’t call him a vaccine “skeptic”; he’s a vaccine foe—has fostered an environment in which Florida this week announced it was ending all vaccine mandates for schoolchildren, with the state’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, bizarrely declaring every vaccine mandate “is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.” It’s unlikely a state would have taken this risky and outrageous step if the federal government—led by the HHS secretary and the president—would have denounced the move. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has no such worries with Kennedy and Trump.

Kennedy is a threat to the well-being of the American citizenry. That’s why House Democrats should move to impeach him.

This week, in a column for the New York Times, nine former CDC directors—who collectively served under every president from Jimmy Carter to Trump—asserted that Kennedy has waged a war on public health. Here is their summation of the damage he has done:

Mr. Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill-prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing [CDC director] Dr. [Susan] Monarez — which led to the resignations of top CDC officials—adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.

He testified that he doesn’t know how many people died of Covid and whether the vaccines prevented Covid deaths: “The problem is they didn’t have the data.” But that data does exist.

More than 1,000 current and former HHS employees signed an open letter calling for Kennedy to resign or be fired. They noted he has appointed “political ideologues who pose as scientific experts and manipulate data to fit predetermined conclusions”; selected “David Geier, supporter of debunked theories linking vaccines to autism, to lead an HHS investigation on vaccines and autism”; refused to be “briefed by well-regarded CDC experts on vaccine-preventable diseases”; rescinded “the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines without providing the data or methods used to reach such a decision”; and insulted the HHS workforce by declaring, “Trusting experts is not a feature of either science or democracy.”

On Thursday, Kennedy, appearing before the Senate Finance Committee, repeatedly lied during a contentious hearing. He insisted he had not broken the vow he previously made to senators to not do anything to limit vaccines, though that’s exactly what he has done. He falsely claimed the CDC was overrun by financial conflicts and inaccurately said that was why he fired all 17 members of a vaccine advisory panel. (His new appointees have their own financial conflicts.) He testified that he doesn’t know how many people died of Covid and whether the vaccines prevented Covid deaths: “The problem is they didn’t have the data.” But that data does exist.

Kennedy demonstrated his slipperiness by agreeing that Trump ought to receive a Nobel prize for Operation Warp Speed, which developed the Covid vaccines, though he has previously said the Covid vaccine killed many people and was a “crime against humanity.” He told the senators that “there are no cuts to Medicaid.” But the Congressional Budget Office says that Medicaid provisions in Trump’s tax-and-spending bill would increase the number of people without health insurance by 7.8 million in 2034. And RFK Jr. hurled other falsehoods.

None of this is new. Kennedy has long been shown to be a deranged liar and conspiracy theorist. He lied during his confirmation hearings to hide his not-secret agenda to annihilate the nation’s vaccine regimen. And now we can see what happens when a disingenuous crusader obsessed with crackpot notions is put in charge of the US public health system.

Medical and scientific organizations—including the American Public Health Association, the American Society for Virology, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society—have called for his dismissal. And numerous Democratic senators have done the same. House Democrats ought to do them one better and introduce articles of impeachment.

Do Americans want to Make Measles Great Again? Do they desire a wrecked public health system and severe cuts in research for cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other diseases? Do they want to be unprepared for the next pandemic?

Cabinet members can be impeached. This has happened twice in US history. William Belknap, who served as secretary of war for President Ulysses Grant, was impeached in 1876 for his involvement in what was called the trader post scandal (in which he was accused of receiving kickbacks on federal contracts). He was acquitted by the Senate. In 2024, House Republicans impeached Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for supposedly not complying with federal immigration law. The Democratic-controlled Senate dismissed the articles of impeachment, contending they did not “allege conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.”

Yes, there’s not much chance that articles of impeachment filed against Kennedy in the House, which is ruled by Trump’s cult, will get too far. But as Trump continues his authoritarian rampage and his administration implements profoundly harmful policies, the Ds need to acknowledge they are not in a conventional political battle and, most important, show some fight. Do Americans want to Make Measles Great Again? Do they desire a wrecked public health system and severe cuts in research for cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other diseases? Do they want to be unprepared for the next pandemic?

These are extreme times. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries a few days ago stated that he’d like to work with Trump on affordable housing legislation. (See Dumbass Comment of the Week below.) The desire for bipartisanship is a tough craving for some of these guys and gals to kick. But to earn the trust and votes of concerned Americans, Democrats must show that they understand the multiple crises at hand and that they are willing and able to engage in the trench warfare that the Trump threat demands. Targeting Trump’s worst henchmen (and henchwomen) is just one way they can do that.

This can be a piece of the party’s 2026 strategy. The Democrats are aiming to regain the House and have hopes—though not as high—for the Senate. The most likely positive outcome for them at this point is a win in only the lower chamber. (I’m assuming nothing exceptional occurs to prevent or hinder the midterm elections—which is not an unsubstantial assumption.) Were the Democrats to triumph only in the House, their ability to thwart Trump’s assault on American democracy would increase but still be limited. They could mount investigations and issue subpoenas, but they could not pass legislation. And it’s important to keep in mind that much of what Trump has done in the past seven months to grab and consolidate power has not involved legislation. But the Democrats would hold the power of impeachment. And laying down a marker now for a Kennedy impeachment would be a serious flex.

What’s his impeachable offense? Endangering citizens ought to count, and lying to Congress is indeed a felony. His lies are life-and-death matters.

Why not move to impeach Trump? you ask. His authoritarian, unconstitutional abuses of power and arguably illegal moves could justify that. But the country has been through this before (twice!), and impeachment of a president is a direct defiance of the electorate’s will. Another Trump impeachment would allow an unpopular Trump to rally his supporters to oppose what he will call a new Democratic “hoax.” And his brown-nosing GOP lickspittles in the Senate would have his back. Also, a Democratic attempt to impeach Trump might make it seem the Democrats are as bent on revenge as Trump.

Impeaching Kennedy would cast the spotlight on his policies—which are not supported by the public—and place pressure on the handful of Republicans in the House and Senate who still have some connection to reality and who realize that Kennedy is a menace. What’s his impeachable offense? Endangering citizens ought to count, and lying to Congress is indeed a felony. His lies are life-and-death matters.

A handful of Republicans have begun to challenge Kennedy—or, that is, express concern about his perfidy. Talking about Kennedy’s recent decisions on vaccines, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a medical doctor who has long championed vaccination, said, “This is about children’s health. This is about how we protect the children of the United States of America. There’s allegations that that that health is being endangered. We need to try not presupposing anybody’s right or wrong. We got to get to the bottom of it.”

For a Republican in the Trump era, that weaselly statement counts as criticism. The bottom is already evident. Kennedy is undermining vaccinations for children and for adults. Cassidy had the chance to stop this during Kennedy’s confirmation process, when he was a key vote. After much pondering, he chickened out, backed Kennedy, and assumed a huge chunk of responsibility for the mess Kennedy is creating.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also was grousing about Kennedy this week. She asserted that the firing of Monarez and the departure of other high-level disease experts at the CDC raise “considerable questions about what is happening within the agency. Americans must be able to fully trust that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rigorously adheres to science-based and data-driven principles when issuing policy directives. The removal of the director after such a short tenure appears to be evidence that politics are taking precedence over policy. I fully support…Cassidy’s call for congressional oversight and look forward to participating in the committee’s work.”

She, too, voted to place Kennedy at HHS. No point in crying for the barn door to be closed now. The mad horseman of the apocalypse is on a breakneck gallop.

Kennedy presents a clear and present danger. He is Exhibit No. 1 that the Trump regime is a fever swamp of fringe views, grift, extremism, and conspiracism. As the House Democrats prepare for the coming electoral battle against the forces of Trumpism, they will have to do more than highlight their gazillion policy proposals and proclaim their ideas for health care, the economy, retirement security, and you-name-it are the best. They must display fierceness—over and over. Moving to impeach Kennedy is one way to do this. And it has the benefit of being fully warranted.

The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Toward the end of The Godfather, Michael Corleone, who has risen to become the head of the crime family his father built, orders the assassinations of the heads of rival mobs—brutal murders that occur as he attends the baptism of his sister’s baby. Also on his hit list is his sister’s husband, Carlo, who has betrayed the family. Before one of Michael’s lieutenants garrotes Carlo, Michael tells him, “Today I settle all family business.”

In his second stint as president, Donald Trump has taken the same mob boss stance: settling scores with his perceived enemies. Since returning to the White House he has been on vengeance spree. He removed security details from former government officials who criticized him. He has launched or encouraged the initiation of sham investigations of former President Barack Obama, former CIA chief John Brennan, former FBI chief Jim Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former special counsel Jack Smith, and others—for having dared to investigate his 2016 campaign’s contacts with Russia (as Moscow attacked the election to assist Trump) or his attempt to steal the 2020 election.

Trump and Tulsi Gabbard, his national director of intelligence, have yanked the security clearances of dozens of current and former national security officers, some who were involved in crafting the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia assaulted the 2016 campaign to help Trump, some who signed a letter in 2020 warning that stories on Hunter Biden’s laptop could be advancing Russian disinformation (which they were). Several intelligence analysts who had worked on Russia were dismissed.

At the FBI, Director Kash Patel, a Trump toady, has fired veteran agents who were involved in the Russia and January 6 probes. The Justice Department has fired prosecutors who worked on the Capitol riot criminal cases. It is investigating two Trump antagonists—Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and New York Attorney General Letitia James—for alleged mortgage fraud. (Apparently, no Republican legislator or state official is being probed for this.)

Trump also has gone after news organizations that have covered him critically and law firms that have ties to his political rivals. 

As I have been saying for almost a decade, Trump is obsessed with retribution. In fact, if one were to list his psychological motivations, the top three probably would be revenge, revenge, and revenge.

And it’s not just a matter of settling old grudges. Trump has shitcanned current officials who challenged his pronouncements. This includes the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (which released figures showing a low level of job creation) and the chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency (which produced an assessment that questioned whether Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was a total success). Most recently, the FBI raided the home and office of John Bolton, who was Trump’s second national security adviser during his first presidency and who then became an ardent Trump critic.

The above is a partial recap. (Don’t forget Trump in 2023 suggested that Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had opposed Trump on various policy matters, deserved to be executed.) None of this unexpected. For as I have been saying for almost a decade, Trump is obsessed with retribution. In fact, if one were to list his psychological motivations, the top three probably would be revenge, revenge, and revenge. Perhaps more so than money and greed—though it’s a close competition.

During the 2016 campaign, I watched videos of speeches that Trump had delivered in the years before he entered politics on the keys to his success. He had a line he often repeated that went like this: I’m going to tell you the primary rule of business that business schools and successful execs won’t tell you—if someone screws you, you must screw them back harder. Here’s one example from a 2007 speech:

It’s called “Get Even.” Get even. This isn’t your typical business speech. Get even. What this is a real business speech. You know in all fairness to Wharton, I love ’em, but they teach you some stuff that’s a lot of bullshit. When you’re in business, you get even with people that screw you. And you screw them 15 times harder. And the reason is, the reason is, the reason is, not only, not only, because of the person that you’re after, but other people watch what’s happening. Other people see you or see you or see and they see how you react.

Trump repeated this advice to crowds of thousands who paid good money to get the inside dope on how to become fabulously wealthy. (At least, it was cheaper than enrolling in Trump University!)

After reviewing a load of these appearances, I wrote an article headlined, “Trump Is Completely Obsessed with Revenge.” I noted that revenge was “embedded in his DNA” and that his “favorite form of revenge is escalation—upping the ante, screwing ’em more than they screwed you.” And I observed that “constantly behaving vengefully is hardly a positive attribute” for a president. Unfortunately, this was a point that largely went uncovered during the circus of the 2016 campaign. In the years since, I have updated that piece again and again and again—including recently in this newsletter. (See here and here.)

“Revenge is sweet and not fattening.” – Alfred Hitchcock

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2014

Yet this pathological aspect of Trump’s personality has not fully registered with the electorate. He presents as a tough guy. But a close look reveals he’s full of rage and resentment and seethes with that desire to get even and destroy his presumed foes. Is the cause his childhood, during which he was tormented by his tyrannical father? Does this stem from the initial refusal of the Manhattan elite to welcome into its ranks this brash and obnoxious self-promoter from Queens? Whatever the reason, Trump has repeatedly displayed this twisted nature of his soul. And as the GOP has become a cult, it has embraced this fundamental—and very un-Christian—feature.

Trumpian revenge has become a rallying cry for all of MAGA. And his disciples have not been shy about this mission. In a 2023 book, Patel presented a list of the Deep State denizens that deserved investigation. It was a long roster of 60 names, including Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Merrick Garland, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, as well as Republicans Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein, who together ran the Justice Department in the first Trump administration. (Barr did much to undercut the Russia investigation and undermine special counsel Robert Mueller, but he did not go along with Trump’s plot to steal the 2020 election.) Many on the list have already been targeted by the Trump gang.

Patel ought to have recused himself from any probe related to Bolton. Yet that would have diminished his usefulness to Trump, for his job as FBI director is to extract vengeance for Trump.

Bolton was one of the so-called Deep Staters that Patel marked for revenge. And for Patel, it was personal. In his book, Patel recounts that when Trump wanted to hire Patel for the National Security Council staff, Bolton initially blocked the move. But Bolton was forced to concede and give Patel a job. Patel considered the position Bolton offered beneath him. He took it anyway and eventually gained the post he wanted—though, he claims, Bolton’s people kept trying to sabotage him.

Clearly, Patel has his own beef with Bolton. It was absurd to appoint an FBI director with a hit list. (Patel notes in his book that his Deep State roster only covers past or present officials in the executive branch; the full list includes reporters, consultants, and members of Congress. Thus, the enemies in his sights must be in the triple digits.) And it was wrong for Patel to approve the investigation of Bolton, a personal nemesis of his, for alleged mishandling of classified information—an inquiry that led to this raid. Patel ought to have recused himself from any probe related to Bolton. Yet that would have diminished his usefulness to Trump, for his job as FBI director is to extract vengeance for Trump.

In February 2024, Trump said, “I don’t care about the revenge thing…My revenge will be success.” That was a lie. Yes, one of many for Trump. But it’s a falsehood that illuminates his essence. He lusts for vengeance. He always has. And the success he has had on this front in only seven months in office is a warning that he will go much further. He must have his own list of all who have slighted or attempted to thwart him. And Trump is working his way through that call sheet. He will not stop on his own accord. As he gets away with each brazen act of revenge, he is emboldened and encouraged to continue his get-even crusade. I imagine other Democratic officials will be targeted, as will additional news organizations and, eventually, specific journalists.

Who else? Donors who have stiffed him? Business competitors who bested him in deals? If you can imagine a particular person who might be a target, I am sure Trump has already etched that name on the slate. Trump, with the expanding power he is grabbing through assorted authoritarian measures, is bolstering his ability to make his past or present foes pay for their transgressions. He will use the FBI, the IRS, the CIA, the NSA, ICE, and perhaps the military to nail his adversaries.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump exclaimed to supporters, “I am your retribution.” That was bullshit. He is his own retribution. It’s about him. In the Godfather, when Michael Corleone volunteers to kill a mob rival and a crooked police captain, he tells his brother Sonny, “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business.” For Trump, it’s not business; it’s strictly personal. When Trump was merely a reality TV celebrity, his braying about revenge was harmless. It was a schtick. Now that he is abusing the powers of the federal government to fulfill his revenge fantasies, we can see institutional guardrails crumbling. His revenge-a-thon may only be starting.

The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

I spent much of the summer of 1975 working on cars at my friend Jamie’s house. His older brother had a business renovating vintage sports coups—MGs, Triumphs, Jaguars—and Jamie and a group of his pals were the worker bees. The brother didn’t pay us—I was making money that summer pumping gas at an indie station—but every once in a while we earned a beer. Most of what we did was highly unskilled work: smoothing panels (by hand with sandpaper) and de-gunking disassembled motor parts. It was fun, and at night after quitting time there’d be the usual underage drinking in the garage behind the house or the basement rec room.

On the evening of August 15, as we were finishing up, I suggested we find a radio. A somewhat new-to-the-scene musician named Bruce Springsteen was playing with his E Street Band at the legendary Bottom Line club in New York City, as part of a 10-concert showcase, and WNEW-FM was broadcasting this performance live. Springsteen was about to release his third album, Born To Run. His first two—Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle—had garnered critical acclaim and airplay on the hippest FM stations but weren’t commercial successes. Columbia had signed Springsteen as the new next-Dylan, but so far, he had not delivered. This new disc could be his last shot. A pre-release of the “Born to Run” single—an operatic, full-throttle rock anthem that incorporated the sounds of Phil Spector and R&B—had quickly become a favorite at WNEW and other taste-making outlets, and expectations were high for the new album, for which Columbia Records was spending a ton to promote.

Yet when I said we should listen to this show, my gang—which included Deadheads and aficionados of middle-of-the-road arena rock—said, no dice. “He’s just greaser music,” one offered, which I found amusing, given that we spent our days reviving junkers—which seemed adjacent to the car-centric mythology at the center of Springsteen’s universe. I can’t recall how much of an argument I put forward, but I ended up alone in Jamie’s bedroom, sitting on the floor in the dark, with the stereo tuned to WNEW. I hung on every note, hook, and riff. Little did I realize that I—and many others listening at that moment—were forging what would be a lifelong relationship with this scruffy dude from Jersey.

His Bottom Line performances and the Born to Run album launched Springsteen into rock ‘n’ roll stardom. Two months later, he was featured on the covers of Newsweek (“Making Of A Rock Star”) and Time (“Rock’s New Sensation”). Springsteen was on his way to becoming not just a rock luminary but a guiding light for millions. He was composing what would be for 50 years the soundtrack for their lives.

His timing was propitious. After a decade or so of accompanying social upheaval, rock had become bloated. In the middle of the 1970s, it was no longer the music of peace-and-love-and-protest, as it had been in the 1960s. And much of the optimism that had accompanied the chaos of those years had evaporated. Watergate. The oil embargo and the end of cheap gas. The defeat of the United States in Vietnam. A mood of cynicism had started to take hold. Those of us who had been born at the end of the Baby Boom had missed out on the fun of the ’60s (Sex! Drugs! Revolution!). Though we had been too young for the party, we now were saddled with the morning-after hangover. After the cultural and political spasms of the previous decade, the nation was still at odds with itself and still with no direction home.

With mainstream rock having become flabby, there were stirrings of a new sound: punk music. Lou Reed (formerly of the Velvet Underground), the New York Dolls, the Stooges, MC5, and others were kicking a new jam. Just as Springsteen-mania was hitting, Patti Smith, a beat-style poet who hooked up with garage-rock musicians, was finishing her pioneering Horses album, full of dark and mystical lyrics. At the core of this rock rebirth was a sense of alienation and anarchy. The nihilistic message of much of this music: It’s all shit. In England, the Sex Pistols were being slammed as a sign of civilization’s end. Soon the Ramones would show up singing about sniffing glue and beating up brats. The arrival of The Clash would add a dose of politics to this countercultural sneer. It was all powerful stuff—especially for anyone disaffected and wondering where the hell the world was heading.

Springsteen offered something different: aspiration.

His songs captured what had been the traditional essence of rock: yearning for more. That more could be more fun, more love, more freedom, more community. What had Elvis symbolized? The ability to break free of convention. Springsteen’s songs focused on a fundamental American ideal: the pursuit of happiness. That was the main moral of the myths he created about teenage racers, street toughs, and guitar-wielding gangs. The protagonist of Born to Run was desperately seeking to escape the “death trap” of a “runaway American dream” to find “that place” where he and his love could “walk in the sun.” You didn’t have to be a motorhead who could rebuild a Chevy to identify with this compelling sentiment. In fact, as he has acknowledged, Springsteen wasn’t one either. That was just the realm where he located his poetry and storytelling. More fundamental, he was tapping into a universal desire of young people as America was experiencing an unsettling backlash to the 1960s.

He did this by embodying the spirit of early rock ‘n’ roll. During that Bottom Line performance, Springsteen played several covers, including “Then She Kissed Me” (a gender-flipped version of the Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me”), “Having a Party” (Sam Cooke), and “Quarter to Three” (Gary “U.S.” Bonds). Each had been a hit for a Black musical act. And just as significant, his long-term relationship with saxophonist Clarence Clemons, a towering Black man, rendered the E Street Band a multiracial endeavor, a not-so-common lineup in mainstream rock.

With such covers and original compositions that sought to capture the fire of his progenitors, Springsteen was honoring and building upon the past, not rejecting it—incorporating it into a modern retelling of American life. His mission was to show that music could be a positive and reaffirming spark in the lives of those who listened. As an ungainly and out-of-sorts teen reared in a home in which family love and dysfunction competed, rock had been his salvation. He believed it could be the same for others. Music was a way to cope with the disappointments, mysteries, and longings of life, as well as a source of exhilaration and delight.

Most important, Springsteen grew up with us—or we with him. On the albums that followed Born to Run, he expanded his palette from songs that chronicled the exuberance of youth to tracks that confronted the responsibilities and obstacles of adulthood. It wasn’t always pretty. His most recent album of original songs explored the sense of loss experienced by anyone who makes it into their mid-70s. Without mawkish sentimentality, he sung about the friends he had lost—including each member of his first band—and the inevitability of the final farewell.

Springsteen examined the hardships of life without ever giving up on hope. “And I believe in the promised land,” he would sing—for decades. Even though burdens and challenges only increase through the years, he constantly reminded his audience that it was crucial to seek, recognize, and celebrate moments of jubilation.

One of his basic rules remained untouched by time: Rock is supposed to be joyous. He demonstrated this whenever he hit the stage with his fellow E Streeters for one of his marathon concerts. He was always a hard-working showman dedicated to inspiring and uplifting those who cheered and applauded before him. He wanted to give them something to hang on to. On the dark and moody Nebraska, his unplugged solo album, he put it simply: “Still at the end of every hard day / People find some reason to believe.” The camaraderie he displayed with his bandmates extended to the audience. For decades and through various stages of life—his and ours—he reassured us: We’re all in this together.

As he and his audience matured, Springsteen became more attuned to the world outside the cosmos of his lyrics. He began addressing deindustrialization and the decline of blue-collar America (“Johnny 99,” “My Hometown, and “Youngstown”), the poor treatment of Vietnam veterans (“Born in the USA,” which was absurdly hailed by Ronald Reagan as a patriotic anthem), AIDS (“Streets of Philadelphia”), the cruelty of 1990s Republicans (“The Ghost of Tom Joad”), police violence (“41 Shots”), 9/11 (“The Rising”), and the Iraq War and the use of torture (“Long Walk Home”). On his 2006 album, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Springsteen offered his interpretation of 13 folk songs, including several protest songs, that Pete Seeger, the activist and folk musician, had popularized.

As a side gig, he became an articulate advocate for progressive American values. In May, during a show in Manchester, England, he introduced “Land of Hope and Dreams”—a quintessential Springsteen gospel-esque number that encourages optimism and faith—with a diatribe against Donald Trump: “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration. Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!”

The Springsteen generation came of age at a time when decline loomed. America seemed to be slipping on the world stage. The post–World War II economy that had birthed a powerful and secure middle class was no longer so mighty, and the wildness and thrills of the 1960s were heading toward the conventions and cultural conservatism of Reaganism. Fifty years ago this month, Springsteen unveiled Born to Run and offered a different path, presenting a revived rock ethos that would forge a bond with his fans for decades.

Springsteen maintained his relevance through all that time with deep respect for this relationship and with much discipline and mountains of hard work. He grabbed ahold of us long ago and took us on an exciting journey, as a ringleader and fellow seeker. It’s easy to poke fun at a certain demographic of white guys (and gals) for their devotion to Springsteen. But he mirrored our desires, transforming these notions into songs and stories that helped us better understand ourselves and our world, delivering both amusement and reflection. And he stayed with us, never letting go of that original dream, even though its contours inexorably changed as the years flew by. As an artist and an entertainer, he has been a faithful companion and a steady guide. He has held fast to that promise he presented half a century ago. He has given us a helluva ride.

These days, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is a faithful servant for President Donald Trump, going so far as to cook up a phony intelligence report so Trump’s Justice Department can pursue investigations of his perceived enemies. But not so long ago, Gabbard slammed Trump for being a warmonger supporting a “genocidal war” in order to score billions of dollars in arms sales and for pushing an “insane” policy “to protect al-Qaeda.”

These blistering criticisms of Trump came during the first Trump presidency, when Gabbard was a Democratic House member from Hawaii and a founding fellow of the Bernie Sanders Institute, a nonprofit the socialist senator from Vermont set up after his 2016 presidential campaign to promote progresssive policies. In the fall of 2018, Gabbard, who had supported Sanders’ presidential bid, recorded a video with Jane Sanders, the senator’s wife and a co-founder of the institute, in which she accused Trump of profound perfidy.

Gabbard not only blasted the Trump administration’s policy as misguided; she asserted that Trump was backing Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen to protect $2 billion in US arm sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Gabbard excoriated the “disastrous decisions” of the US government that had led to “regime-change wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Referring to the “genocidal war that Saudi Arabia” was then waging in Yemen, she noted that it had created the “worst humanitarian disaster in the world,” and she decried the Trump administration for “standing shoulder to shoulder with Saudi Arabia in this war, as they commit these atrocities against Yemeni civilians.”

Gabbard referred to this conflict as “an illegal war that the United States is waging” with Saudi Arabia. She added that Trump was using US taxpayer dollars to “refuel Saudi planes, to provide precision missiles” that were attacking weddings and school buses. She called for stopping all US military support for Saudi Arabia—a government with which Trump was striving to forge a closer bond.

Gabbard not only blasted the Trump administration’s policy as misguided; she asserted that Trump was backing Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen to protect $2 billion in US arm sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. She leveled a serious charge at the Trump White House: “These leaders are making decisions for profits on the backs of the lives of these innocent civilians in Yemen. It’s heartbreaking to see how these millions of people’s lives have just been devastated by the continuance of this war.”

Sanders turned the conversation to the ongoing civil war in Syria. Trump had recently threatened to use military force against Russia-backed President Bashir al-Assad if Assad attacked Idlib province, a stronghold of the jihadist opposition, and Gabbard assailed the president for his “beating of the war drums.”

She contended that al-Qaeda controlled Idlib and Trump’s action was a “complete betrayal of the American people, of those who lost their lives on 9/11, of the troops who have been fighting against terrorism and their families.” She said, “It’s insane, frankly, that we would hear these threats coming from the United States president and the commander in chief that they will force ‘dire consequences’ and the use of military force against these other countries to protect al-Qaeda.” (At that point, the largest rebel force in Idlib was a group with historic ties to al-Qaeda.)

Explaining to Sanders why Trump was supposedly protecting al-Qaeda, Gabbard described what was close to a conspiracy theory:

Since 2011, when the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and these other countries started this kind of slow, drawn-out regime-change war in Syria, it is terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—these different groups—that have morphed and taken on different names but are essentially all linked with al-Qaeda or [are] al-Qaeda themselves that have proven to be the most effective ground force against the government in trying to overthrow the Syrian government. So President Trump and his war cabinet recognize now that if al-Qaeda is destroyed in Syria, in Idlib, which is kind of their last stand, then that ground force will be gone, and this regime-change war, in effect, will be over.

Gabbard was saying that Trump was purposefully backing what she called al-Qaeda in order to keep the war going in Syria.

Regarding Idlib, Trump’s national security team at that time was concerned that an Assad assault on the province—with the likely support of Russia and Iran—would produce much bloodshed and chaos and cause a massive flow of refugees into Turkey. This flood could include thousands of jihadist fighters who might move to other parts of Europe. Trump’s advisers also feared that Assad in attacking Idlib might once again use chemical weapons.

Gabbard did not address these matters and focused only on her belief that the Trump administration was aligning itself with al-Qaeda to keep alive the war against Assad. She seemed supportive of allowing Bashar to proceed with an assault on Idlib—or not taking steps to prevent him from doing so.

By this point, Gabbard had already positioned herself as an outlier on Syria policy and had been branded an apologist for Assad. She had questioned international findings that Assad had used chemical weapons on civilian targets. And in 2017, she held a secret meeting with him.

This conversation with Sanders was not a one-off. In an interview with the Nation weeks earlier, Gabbard had castigated Trump for protecting “al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria,” all the while “threatening Russia, Syria, and Iran, with military force if they dare attack these terrorists.” She slapped Trump for acting “as the protective big brother of al-Qaeda and other jihadists.” She painted a dark picture of him:

The president loves being adored and praised, and despite his rants against them, he especially craves the favor of the media. Trump remembers very well that the only times he has been praised almost universally by the mainstream media, Republicans, and Democrats, was when he has engaged in aggressive military actions… Right now, President Trump’s approval ratings are dropping, and he craves positive reinforcement. He and his team are making a political calculation and looking for any excuse or opportunity to launch another military attack, so that Trump can again be glorified for dropping bombs… President Trump and his cabinet of war hawks are concerned that if al-Qaeda is defeated in Idlib, then our regime-change war to overthrow the Syrian government will be over.

During her chat with Jane Sanders, Gabbard, who was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, affirmed Sanders’ calls for Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. She bemoaned the nation’s “addiction to fossil fuels.” And when Sanders referred to the “autocratic nature” of Trump, Gabbard nodded along. She also praised the “great work” of the Bernie Sanders Institute.

Mother Jones sent Gabbard a long list of questions about her harsh criticism of Trump’s actions related to Yemen and Syria, her work with the Bernie Sanders Institute, and her support of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. She did not answer any query, but her press secretary at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Olivia Coleman, emailed, “For a publication that brands itself as ‘investigative’ and pro-peace, your inquiry conveniently ignores everything President Trump and DNI Gabbard, under his leadership, have done to keep Americans safe and advance peace since day one. Shame on you for using cherry picked remarks from seven years ago in a clear attempt to smear them.”

In December 2018, Gabbard was a featured speaker at a conference organized by the Bernie Sanders Institute, and appeared on a panel with actor Susan Sarandon, civil rights activist Ben Jealous, and progressive economist Radhika Balakrishnan. Addressing the topic of environmental justice, she said that “the most basic and fundamental human right is clean air and clean water.” She asked the audience to hold its breath. “You can’t exist for very long without air, ” she remarked.

At this gathering of leftist Democrats and progressives, Gabbard was quite at home. She noted that “so many of the decisions that are being made in regards to policy” were “being driven by greed.” She recounted her participation in the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock, South Dakota. She assailed the fossil fuel industry. She noted that economic conditions in Central America were driving people in that region to flee their countries and called for US policies to address that. She urged “economic empowerment” in the United States “based on human rights and needs, not consumerism and greed.”

Two months later, in February 2019, Gabbard announced her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. After a year of campaigning, having collected merely two delegates, she withdrew from the race and endorsed Joe Biden, the eventual nominee. Two years later, Gabbard, who had once been a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, left the party—calling it too woke and too hawkish—and endorsed several Trump-backed GOP congressional candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.

In August 2024, Gabbard, the onetime progressive House Democrat and Bernie Sanders Institute fellow, endorsed Trump, now claiming he had the “courage” to pursue peace and see “war as a last resort.” His support of Saudi war crimes in Yemen (due to a greedy desire for revenue from arms sales) and his supposed scheming to support al-Qaeda in Syria were memory-holed—as were her previous leftish views on economics, health care, and the environment.

Trump’s current stable of top appointees includes several who were once fierce critics and who dumped their harsh views of Trump in order to serve him. On this roster are Secretary of State Marco Rubio (“a con artist”); Vice President JD Vance (either “a cynical a–hole like Nixon” or “America’s Hitler”) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (“a threat to democracy”). But only one of his senior aides previously accused Trump of making common cause with al-Qaeda, betraying the nation, and supporting war crimes for the sake of profits—and that person now comfortably works for Trump and oversees the entire US intelligence community.

The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Every day, Americans are bombarded with the bad news of Trump 2.0: concentration camps; cruel ICE raids targeting law-abiding residents; health insurance being yanked from millions; elite universities, media companies, and law firms yielding to mob-like extortion; crypto deals and other brazen grifting tied to a corrupt White House; rampant abuses of governmental power and threats of sham criminal prosecutions against the administration’s critics and political foes; drastic cuts in food assistance; assaults on women’s rights; the withholding of disaster relief; the reckless shutdowns and eviscerations of crucial government services and agencies that will result in hardship (and, in some cases, death) for Americans and people overseas.

This is, of course, a partial list. And it is exhausting to keep track of and absorb each new outrage. That is the clear intent. The Trump transgressions come so fast they distract from each other. Public attention rarely remains focused on any one atrocity. We’re bludgeoned by the never-ending stream of misdeeds and affronts—which each day come wrapped in propaganda extolling a new Golden Age and assorted false glories of Dear Leader. When one is caught in the crossfire, it is hard to see, let alone address, the big picture.

Trump and his gang are deconstructing America. It is the story that must be conveyed to the citizenry.

That is to Donald Trump’s advantage. For a long time, commentators have noted that he relishes generating chaos and believes he can exploit disorder for political advantage. It’s an escape route for him. The dizzying whirlwind he creates places critics and opponents off-balance. And perhaps best of all for him and his crew, it hides their overall plan and inhibits the development and promotion of an overarching counternarrative. Their foes are stuck decrying the individual acts of villainy, one at a time, without doing what is most necessary in American politics: telling a story.

Trump and his gang are deconstructing America. This is their purposeful goal and an obvious one, if you look past the daily barrage of absurdity, indecency, corruption, wrongdoing, and abuses of power. It is the story that must be conveyed to the citizenry.

For years, Trump’s lieutenants and allies—folks like alt-right leader Steve Bannon and the arch-conservative eggheads at the Heritage Foundation—have decried what they call the “administrative state” and urged its abolition. By this, they meant the permanent civil service that does the work of government, such as enforcing laws and implementing policies, regulations, and safeguards. It’s been a long-term desire of right-wingers to smash the state and disempower these public servants—and make way for an economically libertarian and socially conservative regime that, in the case of Trump, would be ruled by an autocrat. Government would no longer have the potential to be a countervailing force to the power of corporate interests and wealth. This is the dream shared by Elon Musk and the reason he jumped aboard the Trump train. Like many of his Silicon Valley brethren, he envisions a world in which profit-driven tech overlords plot our collective future free of the pesky meddling of government.

Trump’s master plan extends far beyond government. He is seeking to weaken and intimidate other influential sections of society that might provide a check on him and a corporate-friendly state.

To achieve something of this sort, Trump, following the playbook of Project 2025, is attempting to shift the basic balance of power in the United States and revoke a fundamental agreement of American society: The rich and the powerful get to be rich and powerful, while government constrains their excesses and looks out for the common interest of the rest of us. Under Trump, that deal—which often in American history has been executed shoddily and not infrequently ignored—is null and void. Look at artificial intelligence. Last month, Trump gave free rein to the tech firms to develop this new technology—which might present a risk to humanity—as they wish. There will be no consideration of the public interest or public safety.

But Trump’s master plan—of which he is hardly the main author—extends far beyond government. He is seeking to weaken and intimidate other influential sections of society that might provide a check on him and a corporate-friendly state. Embracing a decades-long crusade of the right, he has assaulted the media, looking to discredit news outlets and undercut their ability to hold him and his allies accountable. And big guns of corporate media—ABC News and Paramount, the owner of CBS News—have buckled, agreeing to pay Trump millions of dollars in extortion fees. A wave of baseless defamation suits from Trump and his confreres have sent chilling waves through the media. Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, has issued not-so-veiled threats against news organizations and media companies that rely on broadcast licenses issued by the federal government.

Trump has gone after powerful law firms in the same Sopranos-like manner, several of which settled and agreed to pay huge fees though they had committed no wrongdoing. Now big law firms are more reluctant to take on cases that might offend Trump. This week, Reuters published an investigation that concluded, “Dozens of major law firms, wary of political retaliation, have scaled back pro bono work, diversity initiatives and litigation that could place them in conflict with the Trump administration…Many firms are making a strategic calculation: withdraw from pro bono work frowned on by Trump, or risk becoming the next target.”

The Trump White House also zeroed in on Ivy League schools. So far, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown have settled bogus cases deployed against them by the administration. Columbia will pay $200 million directly to the government and be subjected to an independent monitor. Brown escaped such an intrusion and agreed to pay $50 million over 10 years to workforce development organizations in Rhode Island. Harvard, which initially seemed to be a front of resistance, is now reportedly in negotiations to forge an agreement with Trump that could entail a payment of $500 million. Universities and colleges across the nation are undoubtedly watching all this and discussing how to avoid the wrath of Trump.

Trump and his posse are waging an inexplicable war on science. Is that because they see science as a fount of liberalism, as if reality has a political bias?

As is Corporate America. Trump has been good to many executives and firms by slashing their taxes and weakening regulatory enforcement, especially for polluters and financial firms. (Tariffs are another matter.) But the men and women in the C-suites are no fools and realize that a price will be paid if they end up at odds with Trump. (See Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post.)

Trump has annihilated one of the centers of influential thought in the nation: the scientific research community. Slashing billions of dollars in funding for medical research and other scientific endeavors, he is wiping out a generation of science and scientists. One of the driving engines of American society and the US economy is being deprived of fuel. The United States is on its way to losing its preeminent standing in the global scientific community. That means lower likelihoods of breakthroughs in the search for treatments and cures for cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases, as well as increased challenges once the next pandemic strikes. Dramatic reductions in NASA’s budget will cause a severe decline in basic scientific research. Trump and his posse are waging an inexplicable war on science. Is that because they see science as a fount of liberalism, as if reality has a political bias?

With his mass deportation effort, Trump has turned a slice of American law enforcement into a police state. He has spread fear through many towns and communities, as his masked marauders round up law-abiding residents and threaten small businesses. Why go after people who are working hard, paying taxes, and contributing to their communities? It’s difficult not to see a racial motive and a desire to reverse the demographic diversity that is a key and dynamic ingredient of American society. At the same time, Trump has moved to make the United States less secular. His IRS issued a ruling to allow churches and other places of worship to become more directly involved in elections. On Monday, his Office of Personnel Management released new guidance that would allow federal employees to display religious items in the workplace, pray in groups, and proselytize their fellow workers.

It’s an everything-everywhere-all-at-once strategy to reshape America to the fancy of an autocrat and far-right advocates who crave blowing up the foundations of America they regard as liberal, woke, or otherwise at odds with their MAGA theology.

What Trump and Co. are doing brings to mind Christian dominionism. Fundamentalists who adhere to this theology believe that Christians ought to have dominion over the vital sectors of society: family, religion, government, education, media, business, and arts and entertainment. Trump is striving for such domination. He even seized control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. (Republicans have proposed renaming it the Donald J. Trump Center for Performing Arts.) His White House has muscled the Smithsonian Institution to eschew exhibitions that in the Trumpers’ view reflect DEI concerns. As a result of pressure from the administration, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Art History removed references to Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit on impeachments in US history. In 1984, the Party has a slogan: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

It’s an everything-everywhere-all-at-once strategy to reshape America to the fancy of an autocrat and far-right advocates who crave blowing up the foundations of America they regard as liberal, woke, or otherwise at odds with their MAGA theology. And it entails amassing political clout unlike a president has ever done, with Trump illegally assuming powers he doesn’t possess (such as to impose tariffs and deport people without due process) and trying to rig the system (see the latest gerrymandering by Texas Republicans).

One huge question is how to tell this story? The individual components are so troubling they warrant their own headlines, and the conventional media is not adept at consistently portraying overarching narratives in a down-to-brass-tacks fashion. The key word in the last sentence is “consistently.” In today’s fractured and bubble-ized media ecosystem, plotlines don’t punch through unless there’s repetition and force in the presentation. It’s too easy to be distracted. Each day we are hit by thousands of impressions—social media posts, ads, emails, news stories, videos. How does an idea—such as, Trump is deconstructing American society—cut through the immense and never-ending clutter and register with a large number of people?

Before you quickly say, “The Democrats should be doing this,” I’ll note that, yes, the Democrats should be doing this. But let’s be real. There are few Democrats these days who have a national platform from which they can broadcast such a message. That’s not only because most are awful as communicators in the digital age, but also because the party locked out of the White House and the congressional majorities usually has difficulty gaining the attention of those Americans who don’t obsessively pay attention to politics.

The challenge of how to reach voters who do not engage with news or politics is the No. 1 problem for Democrats. You can’t rebrand if no one sees you trying to rebrand. Trump, a creation of reality TV and celebrity culture, commands attention—and even did so when he was not in office. There’s no Democrat with such standing. Thus, no Democrat is well positioned to inform Americans of the grand scheme underway.

The president was acknowledging he would use instruments of state power to try to lock up his political enemies. Richard Nixon musing about such things on the Watergate tapes was a massive scandal. Nowadays, it’s just another Tuesday.

That’s not to say that Democrats shouldn’t try. If enough of them use the daily outrages to illuminate the larger narrative and do so repeatedly, the message will reach some people. But this would require much repetition and discipline, as well as imagination and creativity regarding how to connect with people not looking for connections with politicians. At the moment, beating the Epstein scandal drum probably seems more effective for many Democrats, as they try to ride a wave of protest and upset created by Trump’s own base.

Reporters and commentators in the media could help share this story. But that might require breaking free of certain industry conventions. The gravitational pull within much mainstream media is toward neutral language and presentation. That aids bad-faith actors. It was shocking that when Trump recently said, “Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people,” this remark did not lead to front-page headlines and days of high-octane coverage. The president of the United States was acknowledging he would use instruments of state power—in this instance, the intelligence community and the Justice Department—to try to lock up his political enemies. Richard Nixon musing about such things on the Watergate tapes was a massive scandal. Nowadays, it’s just another Tuesday.

Perhaps “deconstructing America” is not the best phrase for this task. “Destroying America” seems a touch vague and for some it might come across as hyperbolic. The “No Kings” slogan that apparently arose organically via national protests against Trump caught on, and it works as effective shorthand. But it may be too personalized, fixating on Trump’s pathological appetite for authoritarian rule, without sufficiently covering the transformational and wide-ranging attack on the nation that he and the right are perpetuating. I’m open to suggestions.

The point remains: The full impact of Trump’s rule has not seemed to register with most Americans, even as he slips in the polls. It is a frightening tale. He and his co-conspirators are forcing profound changes upon the nation—policies that do not have the support of the majority and that will cause much damage and be difficult to remedy. This is the narrative that needs to be conveyed, for if the people do not understand the sweeping dark reality of Trumpism, they will not be able to stop it.