Chicago knows a hustle when it sees one. Edwin imagined funding the city’s pensions by selling tickets to watch Trump’s name torn off the tower and tossed into the river — a laugh, but also a release valve for the anger of being treated like a stage set. The threat isn’t just federal agents; it’s the performance of chaos, with Proud Boys in masks posing as protesters to gin up violence. That’s the circus act Trump keeps trying to export.
The courts are playing their own role in the show. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ fantasy of a colorblind America collapsed the moment the justices blessed racial profiling for ICE raids. Pretend neutrality all you want — it’s still targeting people for speaking Spanish. Edwin called it “a Supreme Court lie,” the latest in a series of rulings that protect Trump while hollowing out the rule of law. The umbrella’s gone, and everyone’s left in the rain.
The moral void runs deeper than policy. A jury branded Trump a predator, and an appeals court agreed, yet here he is, excusing domestic abuse as a “private matter.” Susan’s reminder — “we reelected a man who was found in a court of law to be liable for sexual assault” — hit with force. From Carroll to Daniels to Epstein, the pattern is grotesque but consistent. Power for him is license, and women are collateral.
Defiance, though, is everywhere. “We are not helpless,” Edwin said, pointing to networks protecting neighborhoods from raids, to rallies in D.C. and Chicago, to reporters refusing to be silenced. Even stadiums are drawing lines against ICE. The organizing is gritty, local, and loud, and it insists the country belongs to more than billionaires, bullies, and their court enablers. That’s the fight that’s already underway.
Tune in for this week’s conversation with Susan J. Demas and Edwin Eisendrath — and let us know what you think in the comments.
AND COMING UP THURSDAY … DON’T MISS EDWIN’S SHOW ON LINCOLN SQUARE!
Censorship on Steroids | It's the Democracy, Stupid with Edwin Eisendrath & Hadar Harris of PEN America
“Censorship isn’t people being mad at your take,” Hadar Harris tells Edwin Eisendrath. “It’s government deciding which speech is acceptable.” She walks through the authoritarian playbook: Executive orders that put political appointees over grantmaking, museums and national parks pushed to sanitize history, even what shows up on federal websites scrubbed…
