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Winners & Losers | The Injustice System
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Winners & Losers | The Injustice System

A loser who won, and winners who lost.

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Sam Osterhout
Jul 28, 2025
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Winners & Losers | The Injustice System
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Welcome back to Winners & Losers! To all of you who have made this piece your first weekly read every Monday morning — thank you! Reading your comments is among the highlights of my week, and reinforces the idea that we are building a community here. There are a ton of features out there that discuss the heroes of the week and the villains, the ups/downs, goods/bads, etc.

But one thing we’re not fully facing up to — and the reason I chose to call this feature “Winners & Losers” — is the fact that our Democracy is quickly losing its grip to a bunch of losers who happen to be winning.

See? It’s not just about calling out people who are doing bad things. We must actually accept that, despite our incredible efforts and our winner’s attitude, winners don’t always win.

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It sounds like I’m splitting hairs, but this is one of the most essential truths that we must march forward with. It’s not enough to think your team is great. You must always understand where your team stands on the field and be able to gauge their odds of success.

As Lincoln Project Senior Advisor

Trygve Olson
always says — we have to play the game we’re in. This week’s picks are a case study in this. The loser has won. The winners are losing. But. But! You can win the battle and still lose the war, and vice versa. Being clear-eyed is essential.


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Emil Bove III, Loser/Winner

Emil Bove is in his early 40s, but has been undead for over a thousand years (Full disclosure, only one of those facts can be fully corroborated. I can’t remember which).

Mr. Bove has been a dark figure in Trump’s orbit for years, as, among other positions, the President’s personal attorney and as the Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General until last week, when he was confirmed as a judge on the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Thus, he is, literally, winning. And if you were among, say, the undead, that would be enough, and we could move on.

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