“Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” - George Orwell

Authoritarians can be called corrupt, cruel, even criminal. What they cannot survive is mockery — being laughed at, being made a fool of. The Strongman Illusion depends on fear. Strip that away, and weakness shows.

Trump shrugs off “evil.” What he can’t bear is being a joke.

🧵

Hegseth just replaced the First Amendment with a permission slip. Reporters must sign a Pentagon loyalty oath — swearing not to ‘obtain unauthorized info, even if unclassified’ — or lose credentials.

substack.com/home/post/p-...

#Hegseth #Pentagon #Politics #Authoritarianism

The firing of Erik Siebert is not a personnel change, it's conquest. My new article on Substack breaks down how loyalty is replacing law and what it means for American Democracy.

open.substack.com/pub/splitroo...

#ErikSiebert #DepartmentofJustice #Democracy

Excellent Reuters special report on the exact nature of this current wave of RWE. I touched on a lot of this in my recent piece as well, but Reuters did a deep dive into what exactly this means. The key is that it's not one ideology, but a "salad bowl" of ideologies.

www.reuters.com/investigates...

The road to political violence is a tragedy in three acts: Rhetoric, Radicalization, and Ruin. My new Substack article breaks down the ecosystem that made the assassination of Charlie Kirk feel inevitable—and what could come next.

#CharlieKirk #Politics #Extremism

Just getting settled in on Bluesky. I'll soon be posting my own content (mostly long form political commentary), and look forward to finding a community for real discussion here.