Fourth & Democracy | Lindsey Graham Has No Shame, Epic Games Layoffs, & Tiger Wood’s Latest Crashout
Last weekend’s No Kings protests were a success, with news outlets reporting an upwards of 8 million people showed up across the country to speak out against the Trump regime. People are sick and tired of paying outrageous prices at the pump and the checkout line while being ruled by accused child traffickers willing to risk the lives of thousands of service members in the mountains of Iran. It’s pure hell for the psyche, and it’s starting to feel like the system doesn’t give a shit who gets caught in the middle.
Because it doesn’t. Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, just laid off over a thousand employees, including people dealing with serious health issues as a reminder that even when you’re fighting for your life, you’re still part of the bottom line. In the middle of all that, there’s a former White House staffer that was just arrested under suspicious circumstances after killing his girlfriend in their apartment. Nothing about American life feels stable right now, like everything is beginning to boil over.
Then there’s Tiger Woods, checking the box on another car crash that resulted in him in handcuffs for DUI. Woods is dating a Trump (Don Jr.’s ex-wife, Vanessa), so at this point, there’s probably a Kalshi market somewhere on whether he gets a pardon. That’s where we’re at – mass protests, economic anxiety, people dying in avoidable ways, and the wealthy taking no consideration for others.
1st & 10: Epic Games’ Casual Cruelty
Epic Games laid off more than 1,000 employees last week, and buried inside of that is a story that tells you everything you need to know about how broken our capitalist system is for working Americans. It’s not just Epic, layoffs are going up across the country with hundreds of thousands of jobs cut over the past year and tens of thousands already gone in 2026. Especially in tech because people are the easiest thing to cut.
Mike Prinke is what that looks like when it hits real people. A technical writer who had been with Epic Games since 2019, was let go while battling terminal brain cancer. Now his wife isn’t just trying to take care of her dying husband, she’s trying to maintain a home, protect their son, and figure out how to afford a funeral and a life after her husband is gone. All of this while losing access to life insurance he can’t replace because his condition is now considered preexisting. This isn’t some unfortunate oversight in HR; it’s exactly how the system works.
Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney said they would “solve the insurance” and pointed to severance and extended healthcare, but that doesn’t change the reality of abandoning someone at the end of a terminal illness while they’re trying to prepare their family for life after them. This is a system where human lives are numbers on a spreadsheet and bottom lines to be tinkered with. A system where someone fighting for their life can be reduced to a cost-cutting decision without anyone stopping to ask what happens to the people they leave behind.
Mike Prinke isn’t just a number – he’s a father, a husband, and a reminder that when companies say “it’s just business,” what they really mean is that people are expendable, even when they’re dying.