The Last Sunday

Note: I’ve been sidelined for a week with a terrible flu—arguably the sickest I’ve been in years. My apologies for the light posting.

Today is the last day before Donald Trump is sworn in again as President of the United States.

We have chosen the devil we know all too well.

The American majority voted. He didn’t cheat. There was no voter fraud. He won; she lost. Millions of Americans cast their ballots for Trump, not out of hope but to punish those they see as undeserving of America’s blessings. We, the people, wanted this. And we’re going to get it—good and hard.

But before this battle enters its endgame, I want you to remember the America that exists today.

Remember This America

Remember this America: flawed yet remarkable, filled with cruelty and compassion, selfishness and selflessness, folly and genius. Remember that this nation’s principles, values, laws, Constitution, and history—imperfect at its founding—still bound and blessed us to a slow but steady climb toward a better nation.

Remember America, which weathered upheaval, conflict, and calamity in every generation, only to rise again. Recall the America that saw liberty, freedom, human dignity, and equal justice as aspirations worth praising rather than mocking.

Remember an America almost unique in its capacity to balance entrepreneurial ambition with the understanding—however begrudging at times—that extending a helping hand to the needy makes us stronger, not weaker.

Hold this vision tight because come noon on Monday, the war to erase that America begins.

Yes, it’s a riff on the old Tory poster.

A Feast of Crows

As the monster stands in the Capitol Rotunda, remember that the changes of his final term won’t move us toward greatness or innovation. Instead, they’ll plunge us into a dangerous, chaotic feast of crows. It’s going to be uniquely terrible.

Our lives, liberties, and rights will face immediate and systemic threats. The radical transformation he and his allies plan aims to create a post-democratic (and most certainly, post-Democratic) nation.

There’s almost nothing of merit or goodness in the plans they’ve made public, much less in the dark dreams of Trump and his claque.

Yet the news isn’t entirely hopeless. There’s a chance that we can turn this second term into a grim but survivable object lesson with vigilance, courage, and strategy.

Elon, Zuck, and the Oligarchs: A Bad Bet On Trump

Trump’s enablers among Wall Street and Silicon Valley’s kleptocratic class have forged an unholy alliance with the screeching hordes hyped on a steady diet of Trumpian agitprop. Fueled by the fantasy of a Final Battle before some imagined rapture, these supporters believe absolute loyalty will protect them.

However, as Russian oligarchs learned since the 1990s, the jets, yachts, and houses in Kensington and Brickell could only offset the uneasy truth for so long: their power and wealth depend on the whims of a single leader, and so did their lives and physical safety.

The exact mercurial nature Trump displays everywhere else will, in time, turn on the tech barons, billionaires, and cronies. There are always windows to fall out of, mysterious car accidents to suffer, and demands for board seats to grant his family. Think it can’t happen? Google “Russian executive deaths” some time.

Though their portfolios and 10Qs might get a short-term bump, it’s the fruit of a poison and corrupted system. Silicon Valley looks at Trump as a system that can be hacked, but the system itself is liable to explode and kill you at the oddest moment. They’re also becoming the poster boys of a new generation of kleptocrats in a moment of monstrous economic inequality. That always ends well.

Extortion only grows: Once he owns you, he owns you. Those lavish tax cuts or regulatory breaks come with a gun to your head.

Trump’s Base Should Lower Its Expectations to Zero

Within the Never Trump movement, some argued we should treat Trump’s followers more gently as if they were reachable. Experience and polling showed otherwise.

They’re not merely “deplorables”—they’re irredeemables.

They’ve embraced the most un-American idea since the Civil War: that one man should wield near-absolute power, imposing his will simply because they believe he will win a culture war against people unlike themselves. He is the avatar of their rage, the king who will finally scratch the itch of their discontent.

They’ll soon discover they’ve been conned. As Trump continues to sell them merch, meme-coins, and pipe dreams, it will gradually dawn on them—some never will—that he’s making their lives materially worse, not better.

When gas prices don’t magically plummet, when tariffs squeeze their pocketbooks, and when his cabinet’s policies favor billionaires like Elon Musk over working-class voters, the cognitive dissonance will be staggering. “Sorry we couldn’t deport 20 million people you hate, but we did slash your Medicare!”

Trump Is Not Well—Physically or Politically

He may reduce our nation to something smaller and uglier, but if we’re strategic, we can transform his second term into a cautionary tale. He’s older, frailer, and more mentally erratic than ever. Susie Wiles and company can mask it only so long before someone in the White House says, “Let Trump be Trump”—and the unraveling begins.

He will fail to pass grand legislation. He will blow crises and challenges at home and abroad. His cabinet appointments will break the law, lie to the public, and enrage even their own allies in Congress. You can also expect them to be the kind of embarrassing weirdo drama MAGA excels at producing. Start the clock on dozens of stories along these lines: “We had NO idea Appointee Jones at the Department of Homeland Security also goes by @JewSlayer999 on Twitter.” “Well, Deputy Secretary of Commerce Smith was a youth pastor, so we could have never imagined he’d run a child trafficking ring!”

Don’t be shocked if Pete Hegseth wakes up in a wrecked rental car outside Tijuana with a dead hooker in the trunk, and the less you hear about Kash Patel and the Real Doll, the better.

When Trump sides with China, betrays Ukraine for Putin and tries to destroy NATO, he’ll usher in a darker and more dangerous world. Trump’s national security team is inexperienced, lacks character and judgment, and has primarily been selected for their willingness to say, “Yes, sir. How high?” When “no more wars” Trump bumbles into a choice of conflict or capitulation, America will lose no matter how he plays it.

The Supreme Court will occasionally defy him, not from loyalty to the Constitution so much as recognition that even they can’t rubber-stamp his wildest excesses. Executive power has its limits, even for this crowd. (Expect the Court’s TikTok decision to be a massive battle soon.)

He’ll continue his grifting, hawking merch, meme stocks, and knockoff cryptocurrencies. His second term's vulgarity will proudly testify to his unquenchable thirst for quick cash. It will be breathtakingly corrupt—an exponential leap from the first term’s crude scams and hotel upcharges.

The GOP Is a Sack of Vipers

For nearly a decade, all the jockeying, preening, and scheming within the GOP was suppressed by Trump’s dominance since 2015. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley tried in 2023 and 2024, but their arguments were laughable; the party still worshipped its Mad King.

Trump is a lame duck, and the 2028 jockeying has already begun. The big prize awaits, and every senator, governor, and wannabe is quietly building a donor list and picking staff. Their ambitions will collide with the Trump family, the billionaire kleptocrats, and the culture-war machine.

As of Monday, January 20th, the easy days are over for the ambitious replacements to the Blood Throne.

Trouble on the Horizon

Trump’s promises are gospel to his base and big donors, yet he can never satisfy the far-right thirst for more extremity. The Project 2025 crowd will keep moving the goalposts, constantly testing how far he’ll go. DOGE isn’t cutting a damn thing with real zeroes behind it. Slash every DEI program in government, and it’s going to save almost nothing except the fragile egos of white bros.

Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson can’t fully deliver if he’s continually glancing over his shoulder at hardliners. The chaos agents who thrive on destruction have discovered that even Trump applauds their anarchy.

We’re entering a new era of danger. Some of us can’t walk away from this fight. Some of us won’t take the king’s silver. We still believe in the America for which heroes of every generation, race, and origin have sacrificed.

Remember the America we see today because the lessons ahead will be stark, cruel, stupid, corrupt, vile, divisive, and transformative.

It’s on all of us to fight back smartly because this isn’t about party or politics anymore. The GOP is now a personality cult, and the Democrats, lost and demoralized, may not be the bulwark we need.

This battle is for a free, strong, and good America —an America that learns Trump's hard lessons, fights him to a standstill, and lives on after his long shadow has passed.

Let’s get to work.