Alaska With Shrugs: Allies, Enemies, and the Art of the Rogue Listening Tour

Zelenskyy scrambles, Canada swings elbows, South Park melts faces, and D.C. tanks roll, all while Marz conquers eye surgery and we keep fighting back.

Good morning! The week is only half over, and already the stage is set for Friday’s high-drama, political matinee: Donald Trump Meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska: The Listening Exercise. In Trumpworld parlance, “listening exercise” is Washington-speak for “don’t hold us to anything we promise you, because we may sell you out while the cameras are still warm.”

Some have already joked that Trump’s so addled he might give Alaska back to Russia, a gaffe that feels a little too plausible in the current climate. That’s precisely why Volodymyr Zelenskiy spent today in Berlin in a German-hosted video conference with Trump, JD Vance, and Europe’s leadership, all trying to ensure Ukraine doesn’t get traded like a 1980s Atlantic City casino chip. Zelenskiy’s message was clear: Ukraine will not hand over the Donbas, full stop. Europe’s message was equally direct, if more polite: please don’t go rogue on us in Alaska. Whether Trump remembers any of it by Friday is an open question, especially with the “dementia” chorus growing louder on social media and why so many allies are quietly gaming out a post-summit damage-control plan.

If Trump’s mental state wasn’t already cause for concern, his domestic behavior would seal the deal. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt spent her latest podium performance bragging about federalizing the D.C. police and deploying the National Guard in a city with a 30-year low in crime. Adam Kinzinger helpfully reminded us that under the Home Rule Act, this little martial law cosplay expires after 30 days unless Congress extends it. But for Trump, the point isn’t public safety, it’s normalizing tanks near the Washington Monument. Posse Comitatus may still be technically alive, but the spirit of it is chained in the basement.

And the authoritarian to-do list is getting creative. The Wall Street Journal reports the White House will now vet Smithsonian exhibits to ensure they align with Trump’s “historical vision” before America’s 250th anniversary. If you’re wondering what that vision looks like, remember this is the man who rewrote his own family history to make his MIT professor uncle a clairvoyant who warned him about Ted Kaczynski decades before the Unabomber was even caught. Now imagine that kind of revisionism rendered in marble and dioramas.

Meanwhile, the international reception to Trump and his veep has been delightfully unscripted. In the Cotswolds, JD Vance tried to take a family vacation only to be greeted by protesters chanting “fascists off our streets” and baking him themed pastries. Across the border in Scotland, Trump was met with equally frosty hospitality. And now Canada has joined the party, only their protests come with policy teeth. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, once dubbed “Maple MAGA,” is now blasting Trump’s tariffs as self-inflicted wounds on the American economy. Prime Minister Mark Carney has declared the “old relationship” with the U.S. dead, called Trump’s bluff on threats, and doubled down on support for Ukraine. As Canadian columnist Steven Marche put it, Canada’s post-Trump reality is like “a teenager being kicked out of the house by an abusive father”, angry, independent, and determined never to move back in.

On the home front, satire is finding its mark. South Park’s new season is taking aim at Trumpworld, lampooning DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s puppy-killing scandal and melting her animated face for good measure. Noem initially played along, even using the bit for ICE recruitment, but eventually cried sexism, a move that will only guarantee another round of jokes. Vice President Vance, by contrast, celebrated his own cameo: “I finally made it. Bring back the group chat.” As one commentator noted, authoritarians don’t mind being called evil; what really unnerves them is being laughed at. Which is why Trump can’t stop feuding with comedians, and why the South Park crew will have job security for as long as this administration lasts.

By Friday, we’ll find out whether the Alaska “listening exercise” is just an awkward photo op or the geopolitical equivalent of a pawnshop swap. In the meantime, the tanks are parked, the museums are being scrubbed for ideological purity, allies are speaking in increasingly unsubtle terms, and Trump’s critics, foreign and domestic, are realizing the best weapon may be equal parts leverage and laughter.

And in the middle of all this, life and love carries on. This morning my 140-pound mastiff, Marz, goes in for a minor eye surgery. I fully expect to pick him up this afternoon groggy, handsome, and entirely too aware that he now deserves double rations of treats for his bravery. It’s a reminder that while the news cycle churns and the would-be strongmen posture, there’s a world worth defending that exists beyond the headlines: our communities, our histories, our four-legged companions who trust us to guard their well-being.

So keep showing up. Keep pushing back in the streets, in your conversations, in your votes, and in the sheer act of refusing to let lies go unanswered. The tanks in D.C., the museum purges, the backroom Alaska “listening exercises”, they only work if we get tired. We don’t have that luxury. The future we want is built one act of resistance at a time, until the noise from the palace can’t drown out the roar from the people.