And will he take Republican candidates with him?

 

During the 2024 campaign, Trump told one audience “Be sure to vote because you won’t have to vote any more.”  He is well on his way to ending elections in the US.  Oh, we may still hold elections but the results will be pre-determined for Republicans.

While millions of Americans peacefully protested for “No Kings Day” this weekend, Donald Trump’s administration was busy working to undermine the upcoming midterm elections. Late Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that prominent election denier Kurt Olsen has joined the White House to focus on investigating the 2020 election and voting machines. This is just the latest step in the administration’s ongoing war on free and fair elections.

Though less well-known than some of the more high-profile election deniers, Olsen is no less committed to spreading false conspiracy theories about voting equipment and election results. His emergence as a government employee is just more evidence of Trump’s planned assault on the midterms.

Olsen has a rich election denier backstory. He was part of the 2020 post-election legal effort that asked the Supreme Court to throw out the election results in four states. When that failed, he tried to convince the Department of Justice to file its own lawsuit — an effort that even Trump’s DOJ refused.

His work since then has been no less dangerous.

In 2022, he represented Arizona’s Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, in a series of cases surrounding her failed election. In one case, the Arizona Supreme Court sanctioned Olsen and Lake’s other lawyers for making claims that were “unequivocally false.” In another case, a federal court sanctioned Olsen and another attorney for making “false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions” and acting “in bad faith.”

In the run-up to 2024, Olsen was once again in Trump’s orbit, reportedly laying the groundwork to challenge the results if Trump lost. Despite being considered a “fringe figure” in the past, he is now a federal government employee seeking access to sensitive information about voting equipment and the 2020 election.

Olsen’s latest gig in Trump’s White House isn’t surprising. The president loves to surround himself with election denialists who are sure to be loyal soldiers for his cause. Recall that after losing in 2020, Stephen Miller — now Trump’s top aide — founded a legal organization deeply involved in efforts to alter voting rules and curtail voting rights in 2022 and 2024.

Now-Attorney General Pam Bondi likely caught Trump’s eye when she was promoting election denialism in the aftermath of the 2020 election. And, of course, it’s hard to imagine Kash Patel would be in his current position as head of the FBI if he had not been such a vocal proponent of the Big Lie.

From top to bottom, this administration is staffed with vocal election deniers and committed vote suppressors eager to help Trump cling to power — no matter how illegal or unethical.

And now, with election conspiracists taking center stage, Trump is slowly but surely desensitizing the public to a brand of authoritarianism aimed at subverting the will of the electorate.

His election-related executive order is designed to make voter registration more difficult and mail-in voting more restrictive. The administration is trying to decertify voting equipment and take control of key federal agencies. Most troublingly, Trump is asserting a presidential power over election administration that does not exist.

And just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. Trump is defunding and firing key parts of the government that ensure elections are free of foreign interference — while deploying the National Guard and masked federal law enforcement in major U.S. cities with large Democratic-leaning populations. He has promised to expand those efforts.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has been turned into a weapon of war against Trump’s perceived opponents. He is normalizing direct presidential control over hiring and firing decisions within the DOJ, including who gets investigated and prosecuted.

Just as he is using the threat of criminal prosecution as a hammer against his foes, he is also using the pardon power to reward his political allies. The combined effect is to force Democrats and their supporters to act with excessive caution while emboldening Republicans to behave with reckless aggression.

And that’s only what Trump has done so far. The midterms are still more than a year away — it’s going to get worse.

He is already threatening to go after funders of Democratic candidates and causes. We should expect those efforts to expand and intensify as the midterms approach. He aims to target the critical infrastructure that allows Democrats and progressives to raise funds to oppose him. He will undoubtedly continue to pressure private companies — including media organizations — to tilt the playing field in Republicans’ favor.

He has claimed that additional executive orders are in the works. He says he plans to ban most mail-in voting, impose strict photo ID requirements, and mandate only using paper ballots. Most ominously, he wants to usurp the power to count and tabulate election results by turning states into his vassals.

Then there are the voting laws being enacted by the states. Trump has demonstrated his dominance over Republican-controlled legislatures as they enact grotesque new gerrymanders at his direction. When the architect behind Texas’s new map testified in court, he confirmed that he took his direction from the White House — not the Texas legislature.

This will not end with Texas, nor will it stop at redistricting. As we approach 2026, Trump will begin dictating specific voter registration, voting, counting, and certification laws, policies, and actions to compliant state Republicans.

To help him, the DOJ is already seeking to collect sensitive voter data on every single American. States that refuse to turn this information over willingly are being sued. I predict that those who cooperate will be rewarded.

In short, the Republican voter suppression and election subversion machine will have both state and federal components. It will have civil, criminal, and administrative tools at its disposal. It will have masked federal agents and the military. It will be ruthless and act as if it is above the law.

I am laying this out today — immediately following No Kings Day — because I want us to understand what the fight against authoritarianism means for the future of free and fair elections. When we marched, we were not only protesting Trump’s assaults on civil liberties and the rule of law; we were standing up for the right of citizens to choose their own leaders.

This morning, two things stuck out as I was scrolling around the ‘net.

The first was the results of new Trump approval rating polls. Sure, his overall approval is incredibly low, with 93% of Democrats and 75% of Independent voters disapproving of the job Trump is doing. But what is nevertheless unfathomable is that 77% of Republicans approve of the job he’s doing; 80% specifically approve of masked, plainclothes ICE agents abducting people off the streets in front of their families and young children and disappearing them to who-knows-where. 71% of them approve of the skyrocketing costs for everyday items like groceries (3% up from a year ago), coffee (21% up from a year ago), beef (up 14% from a year ago), school supplies (up 7% from a year ago), due in no small part to Trump’s wildly erratic tariff policies (to even call them policies seems overly generous). 65% of Republicans approve of a health care policy that will increase family premiums by anywhere from $840 extra (for those earning already just barely above the poverty rate) to $3200 extra, something that only 16% of Independents and 5% of Democrats approve of.

The second thing that caught my eye though, just a few posts below, was this heartwarming message from the Governor of Minnesota and former Democratic nominee for VP, Tim Walz (who I thought was a terrific pick for VP).

A lovely thought, and it would be great if it were true. But frankly, it’s giving “very fine people on both sides” vibes to me. Because Republicans–both those elected to public office and those showing up to vote–have shown us time and time again that they are not, in fact, good people. That some of our neighbors are, in fact, the problem.

I wish like hell it weren’t true. I always assumed that George W. Bush, John McCain, even possibly Mitt Romney (well maybe that’s a stretch) truly wanted the best for the country–all of her people–and just believed in different solutions to get there. I wish we all cared about “the least among us” and simply had alternate visions of what tide would lift all boats.

But I think it’s been pretty clear, certainly since the rise of Trump in 2015 (and maybe since the “Tea Party” starting in 2009) that it’s time to stop believing in that fairy tale, and it’s time to stop repeating this false rhetoric — there are NOT “good people on both sides” . . . THERE ARE NO GOOD REPUBLICANS. In fact, it is actually downright dangerous–to our democracy, but more importantly to those least among us–to keep putting our faith in the “good people” in the Republican Party to join us in doing the right thing, or even in engaging in any serious way in genuine policy discussions and negotiations to find the right thing to do. Whatever is left in this Republican Party is entirely obeisant to the dictator Donald Trump and his band of Nazis.

This is the world we now live in, and the sooner we learn how to operate in this new world, the better our chances of survival.

 

 

How about some nepotism served with a side of fraud, Barron Trump has apparently decided to follow in Daddy’s slimy footsteps. The boy isn’t even old enough to legally rent a car, but somehow he made eighty million dollars shorting Bitcoin right before hi9s father announced a policy that made crypto value plummet.

You know what that’s called? Insider trading. It’s illegal. It’s also not being investigated, because corruption apparently comes with a family discount.

And now there’s talk that he’s being considered for some top position at TikTok. Because when you’re rich and unqualified, you just fail upwards like it’s a generational sport.

Remember when Republicans spent years losing their collective minds over Hunter Biden’s art sales? I do. But sure, Barron can rake in millions overnight from crypto and line up a TikTok gig, and that’s just fine. The double standard is so blinding it should come with a warning label. The rest of America is out here juggling bills, paying more for groceries thanks to Grandpa Trump’s tariffs, and watching their jobs evaporate—while the Trump kids keep treating federal crimes like family game night.

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ Racist chat

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-young-gop-club-members-00592146

NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n–ga” and “n–guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chairman of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.

“I’m going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued.

Robotics has catapulted Beijing into a dominant position in many industries

“It’s the most humbling thing I’ve ever seen,” said Ford’s chief executive about his recent trip to China. After visiting a string of factories, Jim Farley was left astonished by the technical innovations being packed into Chinese cars – from self-driving software to facial recognition. “Their cost and the quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West,” Farley warned in July. “We are in a global competition with China, and it’s not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.”

The car industry boss is not the only Western executive to have returned shaken following a visit to the Far East. Andrew Forrest, the Australian billionaire behind mining giant Fortescue – which is investing massively in green energy – says his trips to China convinced him to abandon his company’s attempts to manufacture electric vehicle powertrains in-house.

“I can take you to factories [in China] now, where you’ll basically be alongside a big conveyor and the machines come out of the floor and begin to assemble parts,” he says. “And you’re walking alongside this conveyor, and after about 800, 900 meters, a truck drives out. There are no people – everything is robotic.”
-snip-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/10/12/why-western-executives-visit-china-coming-back-terrified/

On October 9, President Donald J. Trump’s office issued an official proclamation declaring Monday, October 13, “Columbus Day.” The proclamation says that the day is one on which “our Nation honors the legendary Christopher Columbus—the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth. This Columbus Day, we honor his life with reverence and gratitude, and we pledge to reclaim his extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory.”

The proclamation goes on to present a white Christian nationalist version of American history, with much more emphasis on Christianity than Trump’s previous, similar proclamations. It claims that Columbus was guided by a “noble mission: to discover a new trade route to Asia, bring glory to Spain, and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to distant lands.” “Upon his arrival,” it says, “he planted a majestic cross in a mighty act of devotion, dedicating the land to God and setting in motion America’s proud birthright of faith.”

“Guided by steadfast prayer and unwavering fortitude and resolve,” it goes on, “Columbus’s journey carried thousands of years of wisdom, philosophy, reason, and culture across the Atlantic into the Americas—paving the way for the ultimate triumph of Western civilization less than three centuries later on July 4, 1776.”

Then the proclamation turns to MAGA’s complaints about modern revisions of this triumphalist history, saying: “Outrageously, in recent years, Christopher Columbus has been a prime target of a vicious and merciless campaign to erase our history, slander our heroes, and attack our heritage.” Our nation, the proclamation says, “will now abide by a simple truth: Christopher Columbus was a true American hero, and every citizen is eternally indebted to his relentless determination.”

This proclamation completely misunderstands the fifteenth-century world of expanding European maritime routes that entirely reworked world trade—including trade in human beings—and the role of Italian mariner Christopher Columbus, who worked for Spain’s monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, in that expansion.

It also misses what historians call the “Columbian Exchange”: the transfer of plants and animals between the Americas and the “Old World”—Europe, Asia, and Africa—after Columbus’s first landfall in the Bahamas in 1492. That exchange went both ways and transformed the globe, but its effect on the Americas was devastating. When Columbus and his sailors “discovered” the “New World,” they brought with them both ideologies and germs that would decimate the peoples living there.

Estimates of the number of Native people living in North America and South America in 1490 vary widely, but there were at least as many as 50 million, and possibly as many as 100 million. In the next 200 years, displacement, enslavement, war, and especially disease would kill about 90% of those native peoples. Most historians see the destruction of America’s Indigenous peoples as the brutal triumph of European white men over those they perceived to be inferior.

Historians are not denigrating historical actors or the nation when they uncover sordid parts of our past. Historians study how and why societies change. As we dig into the past, we see patterns that never entirely foreshadow the present but that give us ideas about how people in the past have dealt with circumstances that look similar to circumstances today. If we are going to get an accurate picture of how a society works, historians must examine it honestly, seeing the bad as well as the good. With luck, seeing those patterns will help us make better decisions about our own lives, our communities, and our nation in the present.

History is different from commemoration. History is about what happened in the past, while commemoration is about the present. We put up statues and celebrate holidays to honor figures from the past who embody some quality we admire.

The Columbus Day holiday began in the 1920s, when a resurgent Ku Klux Klan tried to create a lily-white country by attacking not just Black Americans, but also immigrants, Jews, and Catholics. This was an easy sell in the Twenties, since government leaders during the First World War had emphasized Americanism and demanded that immigrants reject all ties to their countries of origin. From there it was a short step for native-born white American Protestants to see anyone different from themselves as a threat to the nation.

The Klan attacked the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization. Klan members spread the rumor that one became a leader of the Knights of Columbus by vowing to exterminate Protestants and to torture and kill anyone upon orders of Catholic leaders.

To combat the growing animosity toward Catholics and racial minorities, the Knights of Columbus began to highlight the roles those groups had played in American history. In the early 1920s they published three books in a “Knights of Columbus Racial Contributions” series, including The Gift of Black Folk by pioneering Black sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois.

They also turned to an old American holiday. Since the late 1860s, Italian Americans in New York City had celebrated a “Columbus Day” to honor the heritage they shared with the famous Italian explorer. In the 1930s the Knights of Columbus joined with media mogul Generoso Pope, an important Italian American politician in New York City, to rally behind the idea of a national Columbus Day. In 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aware of the need to solidify his new Democratic coalition by welcoming all Democratic voters, proclaimed Columbus Day, October 12, a federal holiday. In 1971 the day became unfixed from a date; it is now the second Monday in October.

The Knights intended for Columbus Day to honor the important contributions of immigrants—and Catholics—to American society. But in the 1960s a growing focus on the lives and experiences of Indigenous Americans forced a reckoning with the choice of Columbus as a standard bearer. Currently, seventeen states and the District of Columbia use the official holiday to celebrate Indigenous history. Some Oklahoma tribal members simply use the day to honor their tribe.

As society changes, the values we want to commemorate shift. In the 1920s, Columbus mattered to Americans who opposed the Ku Klux Klan because celebrating an Italian defended a multicultural society. Now, though, he represents the devastation of America’s Indigenous people at the hands of European colonists who brought to North America and South America germs and a fever for gold and God. It is not “left-wing arson” to want to commemorate a different set of values than the country held in the 1920s.

What is arson, though, is the attempt to skew history to serve a modern-day political narrative. Rejecting an honest account of the past makes it impossible to see accurate patterns. The lessons we learn about how society changes will be false, and the decisions we make based on those false patterns will not be grounded in reality.

And a society grounded in fiction, rather than reality, cannot function.