Rotten to the Core: America Under Siege by Its Own Government

From deporting honor students to excusing traffickers, Trump’s collapsing regime turns cruelty into policy while the country foots the bill, welcome to the end stage of empire.

Good morning, friends and sticklers, especially the sticklers who love to catch a missing “former.” Yes, I hear you, and I see you. Yesterday’s mention of Mark Rutte gallivanting through NATO came without his proper title of former Dutch Prime Minister, and my inbox was immediately transformed into a Dutch civics seminar. Duly noted, correction accepted. Now, let’s move on to the continuing implosion of our own government, where titles are increasingly meaningless because no one seems to be doing their job anyway.

We begin with the rotting figurehead at the center of this disaster. Donald Trump spent the last 24 hours demonstrating to the nation that his mind is unspooling as quickly as his waistband. His latest ramblings—from conflating AI investments with Uncle John’s imaginary Unabomber lectures at MIT, to declaring the Epstein scandal “boring”, are as telling as his ballooning ankles. Physically and politically, Trump is disintegrating, and the country is expected to hold the mop. New polling shows a majority of Americans finally calling it like it is: Trump is a very weak man. His approval is cratering to a net negative seventeen, his support is underwater on every issue from immigration to crime to the economy, and somehow, despite all this, he’s still finding time to burn what’s left of America’s international alliances while stuffing his face at soccer tournaments he refuses to leave.

If that wasn’t enough, Trump is actively laying the groundwork for Ghislaine Maxwell’s retrial by calling the Epstein files a grand hoax cooked up by Obama, Clinton, and Comey. Maxwell’s lawyers are sprinting toward the Supreme Court, waving Trump’s nonsense like a golden ticket and citing “government misconduct” based on the deranged ramblings of a man whose neurons are clearly held together with Gorilla Glue and Diet Coke. Meanwhile, actual survivors of Epstein’s abuse have been entirely erased from the conversation, traded in for MAGA influencers flaunting “Free Ghislaine” merch and bootlicking podcasters begging to be made special counsel. The government is literally being re-engineered to protect child traffickers while victims are shunted aside, America, 2025 edition.

Out west, the Trump regime’s militarization of California is finally cracking under the weight of lawsuits and mass outrage. Half of the 4,000 National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles after ICE raids are being sent home. Yet 2,000 remain, alongside 700 Marines, apparently tasked with “protecting” federal buildings from a public that wants nothing more than to be left alone to go to work and live in peace. California pays more into federal coffers than almost any state, yet Trump treats it like an occupied enemy territory. The courts have ruled it unconstitutional, but in true Trump fashion, the unconstitutional drags on because appeals move slower than Trump’s decaying metabolism.

The human wreckage of this regime isn’t limited to courtrooms and protests, it’s playing out in the most heart-wrenching ways imaginable. Nory, a high school honor student, deported mid-school year after a decade of life here. Jackie Merlos, a mother of four U.S. citizen children, imprisoned in a windowless cell for the crime of hugging her sister at a border park. Narciso Baranco, father of three U.S. Marines, beaten bloody by Trump’s jackbooted ICE squads while tending shrubs at an IHOP. Farm workers across California staging strikes because they’re being hunted down like animals while the crops they pick fill our stores. This is Trump’s America: families shattered, children terrorized, and working people brutalized while the president brags about imaginary AI investments.

Speaking of which, Trump’s fabricated $15 trillion AI bonanza is, shockingly, not real. What does exist is Project Stargate, a $500 billion venture backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle. There are other tech investments scattered in the tens-of-billions range. But the alleged $15 trillion? Smoke, mirrors, and Trump’s pathological need to invent numbers bigger than his ego. Meanwhile, the real numbers are much grimmer: inflation ticking up to 2.7%, grocery costs soaring under tariff pressure, 30-year Treasury yields breaking the 5% barrier, and wages stagnating while the deportation machine whirls to life. The White House calls this “very low inflation.” Americans call it: “Why can’t I afford groceries?”

If you thought that was grim, buckle up. Yesterday the Senate, with JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote, advanced Trump’s demand to gut humanitarian aid and defund NPR and PBS. Because nothing says “Make America Great Again” like starving malnourished kids and muzzling Big Bird. Billions in HIV/AIDS relief, maternal health, and child nutrition programs are on the chopping block because Trump’s grudge against “woke Elmo” must be satisfied. Republicans who dissent have been threatened with exile from Trump’s endorsement roster, which these days seems to be made up exclusively of indicted felons, failed podcasters, and coup plotters.

Abroad, the consequences are cascading. Trump gave Putin a de facto green light to carpet bomb Kyiv, and missiles started falling while Trump’s envoy was literally in the city pretending to negotiate peace. Our closest allies, Canada, Mexico, the EU, are forming new strategic alliances, effectively walling off the United States as the petulant failed state we’ve become.

And because this horror show isn’t complete without a violent, cultish undercurrent, Trump’s own MAGA messaging has now spawned homegrown terrorists like Justin Mohn, a man radicalized by Trump rhetoric who beheaded his own father on YouTube because he thought a U.S. Army engineer was a traitor for… working for the government. This is where the fever dream leads: fascist cosplay turning into real-world fascist violence, enabled by a government that prefers stomping farm workers to lifting a finger for everyday people.

In short, the empire is crumbling, the economy is fraying, our global standing is cratering, and the only thing flourishing is the industrial complex of cruelty that Trump has meticulously built around himself. But at least, dear readers, you can rest assured that I know Mark Rutte is the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands. Small victories, I suppose.