Cruelty politics lose potency the moment voters feel real-world pain.
Affordability isn’t abstract anymore; it’s hitting households everywhere.
The electoral map is shifting in ways Republicans did not build for.
Sam Osterhout and Joe Trippi set the stakes the moment they surface the idea that Trump keeps people like Hegseth and Patel precisely because they do what he wants, a point that strips away the fiction of competence and exposes a governing style built on permission for harm. Once you see that clearly, the rest of the political landscape snaps into focus: a president insisting affordability is a “scam” at the exact moment families are staring down medical bills, grocery spikes, and collapsing rural health systems. When Joe points to the turnout this week in the special congressional election in Tennessee mimicking a midterm, it reinforces how quickly authoritarian theatrics lose their grip when voters are forced to confront lived costs rather than online spectacle. The deeper truth is that a coalition built on intimidation will always fracture once fear stops suppressing agency, and that’s what’s happening as independents, young voters, and Latino communities peel away in response to mass-deportation threats and state-sanctioned cruelty.
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War, Criminals, and War Criminals
There is a point in any declining republic where foreign and domestic policy stops looking like strategy and starts looking like a racket. We are well past that point.
