“And it always hurts to see them now that everything is different
We don’t like to see their eyes because they will never look the same.”
The Birthday Massacre, Horror Show
October 2025, following a black September I dubbed “Democracy’s Autumn,” is the authoritarian nightmare we feared. American cities are under siege by the federal government.
“Spooky season” indeed.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who ought to be sitting in booths, stamping passports, and checking suitcases for cigars, instead videotaped themselves rappelling into a Chicago apartment complex from Black Hawk helicopters. According to reports, they used a “15-inch chainsaw with [a] round blade on it” and battering rams to destroy doors. Agents pulled American and immigrant residents alike from their beds, put guns to their faces, and zip-tied them on the lawn. Victims included “terrified” and “crying” children (one agent notoriously said “Fuck them kids,” referencing an “ironic inspirational photo quote depicting retired professional basketball player Michael Jordan… sinking shots despite a crowd of summer camp kids trying to distract him.”)
ICE was so intent on being assholes that some of the people—again, including American citizens held in custody because they rented a room in the wrong apartment building—were undressed. Why not allow a person the basic human dignity to put on pants before hauling them outside, except to disrespect their humanity?
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut ordered the president not to dispatch the National Guard to Portland. He did so anyway, thinking to “trick” the court with a technicality. Mr. Trump even had a conversation with Portland’s mayor, where he learned, without an appropriate level of embarrassment, that he had mistaken clips from the year 2020 on Fox News for the present day. Ghosts! His mind did not change because: (1) he is stubborn, (2) he is foolish, and (3) the purposes of the invasion are divorced from their stated predicates, so it does not matter if the cause was fictional.
ICE Director Tom Homan is a corrupt thug who should be in jail for accepting a $50,000 bribe. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem kills puppies. Her affair partner (“AP,” as they call it on the subreddit r/adultery), Corey Lewandowski, is suspected of secretly running DHS while she cosplays every type of police. Which of them requested ICE wear masks and terrorize the citizenry?
If any blessings stay upon this country, it is that time and again this administration has shown they are brutish, sluggish morons. Their stupidity will be their undoing. They are not satisfied with wielding power; they must brandish it garishly and cruelly. They do not believe they will ever account for what they do. Following former President Joe Biden’s example, Mr. Trump probably promised to grant them preemptive pardons on his way out. Or perhaps he will bargain with their culpability.
Increasingly, the president lacks awareness of his administration’s actions. Unacceptable. His job is to be responsible for all the shit in the executive branch. But nonetheless, this motherfucker is “out to lunch.” His stream-of-consciousness rambling describes a world other than the real one. He claimed Portland was burning to the ground. It did not. Many videos on social media verify Portland is still standing.
The same rumors spread about Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. I never needed flee either city to escape a fire. What is the purpose of this hyperbole of burning cities? To create a frightening image justifying intervention. But how can that work if anybody can see, with a few taps on their phone, that those so-described buildings are unburnt, and 100% of commuters are going to and from their jobs without interruption?
It is unfashionable to blame video games for anything bad, but I swear to God somebody in this administration—Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller specifically—had his mind rotted by Sega’s The Streets of Rage.
The game’s premise: the city is a lawless hellscape overrun by criminals, and you punch everyone you encounter to “clean up the streets.” Mr. Miller’s worldview requires urban spaces to be combat zones where federal forces beat sense into Americans until they are hailed as heroes.
Conservative ghouls sells friendly news outlets on these narratives, which is odd. Fox News has affiliates in Oregon. On word the city was destroyed, Fox could call a local station to ask, “Are you all right? Did the fire get you?” But no. Fox likes their version better and will show the most dramatic old video clips they archived to validate what they know is fiction.
I have argued with family who told me DC was a warzone when I am in these streets listening to Keith Olbermann every damn day. It is fine. I sat down where that boy Big Balls was beaten and ate an ice cream sundae. Yet they believed what they heard on television. These people are bewitched.
I hate using the word “simulacrum,” especially after the excellent Elephant Graveyard video on the Joe Rogan comedy cult made extensive use of it and popularized it among my cannabis-enjoying colleagues. But what else fits? At least two versions of America exist simultaneously. One ablaze, which I cannot see, and my not-on-fire America, which Fox News viewers never see.
If I walked into a city holding hands with a Republican, would one of us disappear? Would he feel heat and smell smoke while I breathed clean air? Is it possible that a dimensional rupture occurred, or is one-half of the country playing make-believe and causing the rest of the population real pain to satisfy their fantasies?
The Republican Party cannot continue this in perpetuity. Eventually, people will realize they are not on fire.
The “stormtrooper” behavior from ICE gives me a real spook. Why are there no leaks coming from ICE? No repentant or embittered ex-employees “spilling the beans?” How has nobody quit in protest and “blown the whistle?” No government agency has been such a “black box” in my lifetime. What happens there that leaves people unable to talk about it?
I assume the answer is “fear,” that the hook and crook are chilling enough that anyone with a sense of self-preservation would stay in line. In which case, it is a mistake to count on that silence long-term. Today, Mr. Trump’s regime thinks itself all-powerful, outside of reproach. A day will come when their abilities are less, and the weak men they cowed will go to Democratic leaders to supplicate and trade information for mercy. Or where a scorned lover of one official or another finds a cause for spite that rises beyond their personal interests. Or when some damning e-mail chain or another is dragged into discovery for a court case. It is naïveté on the part of the Trump administration to believe the kind of people who would betray the American character will be loyal to them forever. Pray count how many in the first Trump administration wrote books about how awful it was.
I found it curious that Mr. Trump reiterated his bizarre and imaginary fatwa on flag-burning—a right declared by the Supreme Court to be reserved under the First Amendment. Flag-burning statutes cannot be enforced, but for some reason, the president issued a fake executive order declaring the act illegal (which he cannot do) and setting a minimum sentence of one year (he also cannot).
The president is not the legislature. For all Mr. Trump lusted for the presidency, he has mistaken it for kingship. Our Founding Fathers worked hard on our Constitution that delegated and separated powers, and this unitary executive bullshit fucked it all up.
The Republican Senate and Congress abdicated any interest in governing, leaving a limbo where fake laws that would never pass either chamber and are explicitly disallowed by the Supreme Court are announced like royal orders. These cowards will not even raise their voices and say, “Sir, Sir! You are embarrassing yourself. The president cannot decree laws.” Mr. Trump has since bragged about this too, and claimed he “took away the freedom of speech.” How ghastly! House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune allow that the president can demand the First Amendment cease? This loyalty will only earn them a place in Hell, or in the event this administration runs wild on another few amendments, a spot in the same gulag as me when their usefulness expires.
The president’s order was addressed to “ICE, The Border Patrol, Law Enforcement, and all U.S. Military.” Why does he improperly capitalize “law enforcement?” This fool thinks every other word is a damn proper noun! Neither ICE nor the Border Patrol has “flag-burning” in their purview. The president believes ICE exists not only for immigration and customs enforcement, but also as his personal enforcers, which explains why he ordered his name be signed on their cars.
ICE must have instructions to be secretive and unaccountable, to wear masks, plainclothes, cars without plates, no badges or body cameras. Sometimes they don unique hats, including cowboy hats. I do not understand what that is about. Do the hats denote rank, skill, or ability? Do they indicate combat classes or roles? Are agents allowed to pick their own hat? Why cowboy hats? Is this what passes for creative expression in ICE?
It is a mistake to imagine that ICE is a weapon that will not be pointed at citizens, because it is. The government does not countenance protest. Any uneasiness with the agency’s tactics is treated as treason, anybody holding a sign an enemy combatant. This is not the normal way government agencies react to their critics.
An anti-ICE banner in DC’s Mt. Pleasant was removed and replaced with a dildo by ICE agents. They destroyed another American’s property because a sign was mean to them. They were emboldened enough to record their vandalism and upload that video to social media.
Very recently, Illinois congressional candidate and YouTube streamer Kat Abughazaleh was picked up and tossed by ICE agents for sitting and protesting outside a facility. It appeared she was singled out as the smallest female in the lineup. It makes little sense for her to be the one made an example of unless they were aware of her status as a sort of Democratic proto-leader, or else they wanted to hurt the smallest person there.
A recent video from Maryland showed an ICE agent performing an arrest who, after dropping and scrambling for his gun, points it at the press and pedestrians. Sends shivers down your spine!
Who trains these people? This is a line of inquiry that must be pursued. How are they trained? How does their training differ from that of other law enforcement personnel, who do not do these things? At the speed ICE expanded and hired, it cannot be a professional law enforcement force. They had no rigorous academy nor gained an understanding of any law, procedure, or constitutional protection. All they developed are muscles, poor impulse control, and monstrous nature.
That must be how the president wants them. The more educated a law enforcement officer, the less likely he is to follow illegal orders or expose himself to liability and the more reverence or at least deference he gives to America’s sacred Constitution. As those positive qualities accumulate, it becomes harder to ask him to unquestioningly do anything to anybody. People will die because Mr. Trump’s ICE thugs have no regard for the world around them, nor any discipline or education. All they learned to value is force.
We are only ten months into this presidency, and the year’s longest nights still loom ahead. Without an exorcism, this country cannot survive.
Mr. Trump’s ailing health likely plays a role. The president is more frequently absent than his administration admits, and as seen in Jake Tapper’s book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, the White House has procedures to conceal a president’s infirmities. From the Biden presidency, we know the executive’s functions can be performed by advisors. And who more resembles a sinister advisor who co-opts a more popular leader’s powers than Mr. Miller, who was allegedly mentored at Duke University by neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer.
There is a rumor that Mr. Miller, Vice President Jim Dave Vance, and Project 2025 architect and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought form a ruling triumvirate which makes Mr. Trump’s decisions for him. Indeed, recent cruelties do seem like the handiwork of the vile, vampiric Mr. Miller. People on social media now Mr. Miller “President Miller,” much like the January to May 2025 period when SpaceX, Tesla, xAI Holdings, The Boring Company, and Neuralink CEO and Marquis de Sade cosplayer Elon Musk was believed to have usurped Mr. Trump’s presidency and nicknamed “President Musk.” (As I recall, there was speculation that Mr. Musk’s child, X Musk, told Mr. Trump that “[he] was not the real president and [he] needs to leave.”)
Acclimating to this nightmare on Main Street is a grave blunder. We cannot cover our eyes or look away from reports of ICE agents tormenting protesters, journalists, citizens and non-citizens alike—hosing pepper spray through the air intake of an inflatable frog costume, knocking a collared priest to the ground with pepper balls, and aiming guns at onlookers and photographers.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Xc6aKQHFGnQ?si=lwRxx2lR7_Kea_2w
It is tempting to feel deadened. While doomscrolling in queue for my morning black coffee, I saw a report of an ICE agent pelting a passing news van with pepper balls and striking a reporter. I scrolled past because of course they did.
If we see without flinching, we should be afraid of our government. Fear should not dictate our actions, but we need to be excruciatingly aware that the president puts American lives in danger to satisfy his delusions and whims. Our lives are in danger. The United States federal government has been possessed by a violent madman. Showing a fearless face reassures the public there is no cause for worry, that this will not hurt them. That is an unhelpful lie—a trick without a treat!
My gravest miscalculation was when Mr. Trump threatened in his book that he would put Mark Zuckerberg in jail, and I, cool guy that I am, scoffed and said “Fuck Zuck. He put too many ads on my Facebook feed, keeps trying to get me to buy a set of stupid Oculus goggles, and Instagram gives America’s impressionable young women bodily dysmorphia. I do not give a damn what happens to that wretch.” Well, Mr. Zuckerberg, caught between one side that merely criticizes him and another threatening to lock his ass up for life, surrendered to the accursed dictator. Rational people, even or especially the rich and powerful, will sometimes comply with threats. It disrespects reality to take for granted that everybody will be as brave and noble as I.
We must not grow inured. I told myself at the start of this second Trump administration I would not subject my nervous system to the same racking as the first. I would not scramble to jump on every scandal, panic at every indignity, and regard every crisis as deserving my full attention. I would focus on only the truly serious. That was a mistake.
However pundits now second-guess the jittery, panicky response to the first Trump administration, public outcry was often so great that the #Resistance stopped or reversed the worst crises, and gave businesses and other bodies the courage to resist. They lack that now.
This blog is not a trivial amount of work. I subject myself to every news cycle, writing, rewriting, and revising, and if I am unsatisfied with any piece, I scrap it entirely. I built up an extensive backlog of work after, in a great tantrum, destroying my IKEA LANGKAPTEN table while shouting: “He can’t keep getting away with this!”
I cannot—we cannot—win alone. I recognize there are those with government or government-facing jobs in sensitive positions, with young children or disabilities or families they must prioritize, or who belong to groups in great danger from this administration. I recognize they cannot stand up and fight without cost, and I happily bear this burden for them.
I understand the difficulty this places on some people. Others have fewer excuses for indolence. I entreat everybody to make their way to a No Kings protest on October 18th. If you are reading this, what else is worthy of your Saturday? Playing a Nintendo Switch 2? Watching Fantastic Four: First Steps on home video? Going to the pub and getting loaded? Whatever you planned, sacrifice it. Do something for the country, because unless we make some life yet flicker in the soul of America, there will be none. October 18th protests could be the largest this country has ever seen. They should be. We are in peril.
The Constitutional structure that was gifted by our framers has broken down. The White House brags that it now controls Congress. The House of Representatives has refused to convene. If we make lazy choices, this could be the closing chapter of American democracy.
In Portland, many protesters are wearing costumes—the aforementioned frog and giraffe, giant chickens, dancing sharks, Captain America, Cartman—to demonstrate claims of violence and anarchy are absurd, damn tricks, and flagrant deceptions. ICE thugs wear masks too, but for sinister reasons.
One protester in particular, kigurumi-clad rock star Robby Roadsteamer, has been a delight at rallies all over the country and on social media in recent months. I saw him at the rally for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein in Washington DC, where he dressed like a giraffe and sang that “Trump was on the Jeffrey Epstein plane” to the tune of YMCA. On October 15, Mr. Roadsteamer was several feet away from the “dividing line,” but ICE agents interrupted his heckling to put hands on him and drag him away. This has chilled me more than almost anything else—in no world was he a threat to anything except the self-esteem of fragile people, but those villains imagine they can “punish” Americans for hurting their feelings.
Please consider donating to Mr. Roadsteamer’s GoFundMe for legal expenses:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/robby-roadsteamer-has-been-detained-by-ice-in-portland/
Video below. You may have to click on it if it does not display properly:
I planned to attend a No Kings rally outside the White House dressed like an emperor penguin but realized that could get me chased away for looking kingly, so alas, I returned the costume to Amazon for my own safety. Besides that, organizers made a late request that everyone wear yellow in solidarity, which has caused quite a bit of scrambling.
I have seen many subversive Facebook “Reels” recently, including one quite entertaining video of somebody running from ICE edited to include Sonic the Hedgehog sound effects.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1147277450286567
Like and share those reels. Like and subscribe to this Substack as well. Purchase a “Trump Is a Bitch” shirt at our Partisan Hex Spreadshop (or “Donald Is a Bitch,” now that Spreadshop has unjustly censored our merchandise).
Do not let this darkest hour pass with inaction, or delude yourself into thinking someone else will act. There are no others. Nobody can be depended upon to save your democracy for you. Do what you can, or you will lose what you can do.
Two Americas cannot coexist indefinitely—one where cities burn in Fox News delirium, another where we watch that fiction metastasize into policy. The veil between these worlds grows thinner with each atrocity. This is not disagreement. This is a competing reality covering ours. Should we fail, their fake burning cities become our real burning cities. This is the threshold. Should we cross it through inaction, do not assume there is crossing back.