From the Deck of the U.S.S. Sam’s Club: From the White House parking lot of economic truth, president Donald J. Trump addressed the nation today on the successful completion of America’s War on Inflation. “We did it. We won. Inflation is dead. Defeated. Gone. You’re welcome,” the president declared, standing beneath a banner that read MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: PRICES DOWN, PATRIOT! The Fed had cut rates earlier in the year, at Trump’s insistent urging. The president took full credit, explaining, “..

From the Deck of the U.S.S. Sam’s Club: From the White House parking lot of economic truth, president Donald J. Trump addressed the nation today on the successful completion of America’s War on Inflation. “We did it. We won. Inflation is dead. Defeated. Gone. You’re welcome,” the president declared, standing beneath a banner that read MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: PRICES DOWN, PATRIOT! The Fed had cut rates earlier in the year, at Trump’s insistent urging. The president took full credit, explaining, “..

In most governments, an economic crisis is a failure. In Trump’s case, it is a business model. The pain is not a malfunction of governance — it is the revenue stream. A stable public would neglect him; only a wounded one requires him. The crisis is not accidental. It is cultivated. This observation is not speculation. Recent U.S. News polling shows Americans are now more anxious about their basic expenses because the policies Trump championed — especially tariffs — raised their costs by desig...

In most governments, an economic crisis is a failure. In Trump’s case, it is a business model. The pain is not a malfunction of governance — it is the revenue stream. A stable public would neglect him; only a wounded one requires him. The crisis is not accidental. It is cultivated. This observation is not speculation. Recent U.S. News polling shows Americans are now more anxious about their basic expenses because the policies Trump championed — especially tariffs — raised their costs by desig...

Americans were not in the streets last Saturday because they are angry. They were there because, beneath the noise of politics and the numbness of repetition, they remembered something older than the Constitution: the people are the source of authority, not its audience. The “No Kings” marches were not protests in the familiar modern sense; they are the reappearance of a constitutional instinct — sovereignty resurfacing after a long sleep. Most commentary treated last Saturday’s crowds as a c...

Americans were not in the streets last Saturday because they are angry. They were there because, beneath the noise of politics and the numbness of repetition, they remembered something older than the Constitution: the people are the source of authority, not its audience. The “No Kings” marches were not protests in the familiar modern sense; they are the reappearance of a constitutional instinct — sovereignty resurfacing after a long sleep. Most commentary treated last Saturday’s crowds as a c...

[Editor’s Note: This essay is the second in an ongoing series exploring how the MAGA movement has rebranded old systems of exclusion using the tools of modern technology. What once relied on firehoses and poll taxes now operates by algorithm, targeting dissent, shaping access, and codifying control under the guise of efficiency. It’s not digital populism. It’s autocratic convenience — stripped of checks, staffed by engineers, and answerable only to the whims of those who designed it.] Introdu...

[Editor’s Note: This essay is the second in an ongoing series exploring how the MAGA movement has rebranded old systems of exclusion using the tools of modern technology. What once relied on firehoses and poll taxes now operates by algorithm, targeting dissent, shaping access, and codifying control under the guise of efficiency. It’s not digital populism. It’s autocratic convenience — stripped of checks, staffed by engineers, and answerable only to the whims of those who designed it.] Introdu...

Let us begin with the obvious: “woke” has lost all meaning—except as a political sneeze MAGA injects into every argument, no tissue required. Want to ban books? Say it’s to fight “wokeness.” Want to gut higher education? Call it “woke indoctrination.” Can’t define the term without sounding like a QVC conspiracy theorist with a flag pin? Doesn’t matter. Just repeat the word, louder, until it rhymes with liberty. In Trump’s America, “anti-woke” has become the peanut butter to fascism’s jelly: c...

Let us begin with the obvious: “woke” has lost all meaning—except as a political sneeze MAGA injects into every argument, no tissue required. Want to ban books? Say it’s to fight “wokeness.” Want to gut higher education? Call it “woke indoctrination.” Can’t define the term without sounding like a QVC conspiracy theorist with a flag pin? Doesn’t matter. Just repeat the word, louder, until it rhymes with liberty. In Trump’s America, “anti-woke” has become the peanut butter to fascism’s jelly: c...

Monarchy rarely announces itself with a trumpet. It arrives by motorcade and procurement memo, wearing the vocabulary of “security” while moving like a prerogative. It does not begin with a crown. It begins with distance — and the assumption that the public exists to watch, not to judge. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ In a republic, transportation is logistics. In a royal court, transportation is theater. A vehicle conveys authority in one system; it performs hierarchy in the other. The point is not movement b...

Monarchy rarely announces itself with a trumpet. It arrives by motorcade and procurement memo, wearing the vocabulary of “security” while moving like a prerogative. It does not begin with a crown. It begins with distance — and the assumption that the public exists to watch, not to judge. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ In a republic, transportation is logistics. In a royal court, transportation is theater. A vehicle conveys authority in one system; it performs hierarchy in the other. The point is not movement b...

It's easy to keep gawking at the clowns — that's what they're there for. Trump's second-term act is nothing if not loud: the rallies still roar, the tariffs still clatter through the midway, the press still gets pelted with rotten peanuts. The crowd laughs, boos, and hurls popcorn. Same circus, right? Just another summer under the Big Top. But look past the gaudy banners and spotlights. Underneath, stagehands in solemn black robes are quietly rearranging the tent poles. They're sawing down th...

It's easy to keep gawking at the clowns — that's what they're there for. Trump's second-term act is nothing if not loud: the rallies still roar, the tariffs still clatter through the midway, the press still gets pelted with rotten peanuts. The crowd laughs, boos, and hurls popcorn. Same circus, right? Just another summer under the Big Top. But look past the gaudy banners and spotlights. Underneath, stagehands in solemn black robes are quietly rearranging the tent poles. They're sawing down th...

In the grand forensic tradition of whodunits, Nate Cohn’s recent newsletter in The New York Times attempts to answer the question: Who killed the Democrats in 2024? And like any good sleight of hand, he pulls the reader away from the crime scene just as the murder weapon is being polished in the next room. Spoiler: it was the media with a heavy assist from Mr. Cohn himself. Cohn’s June 26 post-election piece — “The Tilt: Final Word on 2024 Turnout” — arrives as the Gray Lady’s version of a co...

In the grand forensic tradition of whodunits, Nate Cohn’s recent newsletter in The New York Times attempts to answer the question: Who killed the Democrats in 2024? And like any good sleight of hand, he pulls the reader away from the crime scene just as the murder weapon is being polished in the next room. Spoiler: it was the media with a heavy assist from Mr. Cohn himself. Cohn’s June 26 post-election piece — “The Tilt: Final Word on 2024 Turnout” — arrives as the Gray Lady’s version of a co...

Civics Unhinged is the new home for my long-form satire and political commentary — a place where essays can breathe without algorithms or paywalls. I write about the civic unraveling of our time: the absurdities of power, the decay of seriousness, and the endurance of humor as a last civic virtue. Dunnegin is a former senior federal official, policy analyst, and longtime political consultant who has advised members of Congress, federal agency heads, and corporate leaders. He has spent decades...

Civics Unhinged is the new home for my long-form satire and political commentary — a place where essays can breathe without algorithms or paywalls. I write about the civic unraveling of our time: the absurdities of power, the decay of seriousness, and the endurance of humor as a last civic virtue. Dunnegin is a former senior federal official, policy analyst, and longtime political consultant who has advised members of Congress, federal agency heads, and corporate leaders. He has spent decades...

There are headlines that make one pause in admiration at their sheer absurdity. “One in three Republicans say Trump is improperly enriching himself,” announced a recent Pew survey, as though the finding were an epiphany and not the long-delayed recognition of sunlight at noon. It is the political equivalent of reporting that a third of arsonists now concede fire might be hot. The data are simple enough: a measurable faction of Republican voters — people who have spent eight years tithing to a...

There are headlines that make one pause in admiration at their sheer absurdity. “One in three Republicans say Trump is improperly enriching himself,” announced a recent Pew survey, as though the finding were an epiphany and not the long-delayed recognition of sunlight at noon. It is the political equivalent of reporting that a third of arsonists now concede fire might be hot. The data are simple enough: a measurable faction of Republican voters — people who have spent eight years tithing to a...