What frightens is not just this single moment of violence, but the machinery that made it foreseeable. Governments do not wake up one morning and discover they have thugs roaming their streets. They manufacture them. They take administrative agencies, arm them, strip away restraint, replace training with ideology, and aim them politically. When that process is complete, brutality is no longer a breakdown of the system. It is the system doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Tag: Defy the Crown (Page 2 of 4)
At a December 2025 meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump publicly aligned with Benjamin Netanyahu in endorsing a plan that would uproot the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Reporting on related policy discussions cites proposals for voluntary relocation of Gaza’s population as part of postwar planning. Language matters. When starvation, blockade, and battered shelters leave […]
Marjorie Taylor Greene is once again making the rounds with her “I have regrets” routine, a performance of reflection, gentleness, and Christian humility that materializes only when she’s politically cornered. She thinks we’ve forgotten. She thinks we don’t keep receipts. She thinks we’ll believe her simply because she whispers Jesus like it’s a magic word […]
Karoline Leavitt reminds us so often it practically counts as a devotional ritual: The Trump administration is the most transparent administration in American history. And who are we to question this gospel? Let us instead examine the brilliant examples of this legendary transparency, many examples drawn from just the past few weeks, where Trump’s openness […]
There is a particular kind of contempt in America that makes my blood boil. It isn’t the kind that comes from hate. Hate is at least honest. It’s the kind that comes from smugness, that quiet moral sneer reserved for those who rely on government assistance to eat, to live, to keep the lights on. […]
“All we want is voter ID. You go to a grocery store, you have to give ID. You go to a gas station, you give ID” — President Donald J. Trump It sounds simple — obvious, even. That’s the trick. Authoritarians have always loved the obvious answer because it disguises the malicious one. The United […]
Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump on the greatest nine months in the history of the presidency. Truly, what a time to be alive — assuming, of course, you can still afford to be. Congratulations, Mr. President, even though inflation is at its highest since February. Prices are soaring like your poll numbers in your […]
I have seen your beauty, America,and I have seen your cruelty.They live side by sideand I tread the road between them. brutus X I. Invocation: The Wound and the Wonder America, my beloved and bewildering country, you are forever suspended between the wound and the wonder. You are not an institution but a condition of […]
Bare, reflective, and waiting for mercy to be restocked. On November 1st, the federal government is set to halt SNAP benefits for millions of Americans. It’s a quiet act of cruelty—bureaucratic, bloodless, and devastating. In response, online chatter has erupted with threats of coordinated shoplifting sprees, a kind of desperate revolt against hunger and neglect. […]
The filibuster is not a law of nature. It’s a self-inflicted wound used to turn cowardice into strategy and accountability into myth. Make no mistake, my friends: the Republican Senate majority wants the government shut down. They always did. Everything you are witnessing is a charade. Whatever nonsense you may have heard, the United States […]