The Autocrat’s Harvest

From weaponized databases to Russian bombs, Trump sows sabotage while the rest of us plant for the future

Good morning. The machinery of American democracy is creaking, not from lack of grease but from being repurposed into a weapon. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee for governor, is now juggling campaign events with credit-freeze paperwork because the Trump administration illegally coughed up her unredacted military records, including her Social Security number and family data, to her Republican opponent Jack Ciattarelli’s team. Ciattarelli’s operatives were told no when they asked through normal channels, but after a “helpful” insider took a call, the gates swung open. The files were literally stamped “PII – do not release,” but when Trump wants it out, it’s out. Sherrill called it “shocking and disgusting,” but it’s more than that: it’s a test run for turning federal databases into opposition research tools for MAGA loyalists.

The looming government shutdown is more than a Beltway squabble, it’s a deliberate hostage-taking of the federal workforce and, by extension, the American public. Trump canceled meetings, sneered at Democratic proposals as “ridiculous,” then suddenly agreed to meet congressional leaders only after his approval ratings sank to a humiliating low. But behind the theatrics is a raw power play: House Speaker Mike Johnson is openly stalling to prevent the swearing-in of the 218th Democrat, a move that could swing votes toward releasing the Epstein files. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of federal employees are bracing for furloughs and missed paychecks, contractors are staring down layoffs, and local economies that depend on government wages are tightening their belts. Agencies are drawing up “contingency plans” that translate into shuttered offices, frozen research, and halted services, all while ordinary workers calculate how many weeks of rent or groceries they can cover without income. It’s sabotage, wielded as leverage by a president who sees every paycheck and pension as another bargaining chip in his extortion racket.

The FBI is being hollowed out. Twenty agents who were photographed kneeling during the George Floyd protests in 2020 have now been fired, veterans among them. At the time, kneeling wasn’t some act of rebellion, it was a tactical move to deescalate tense encounters with protesters, a gesture meant to calm a volatile situation before it spiraled. For Kash Patel, Trump’s hand-picked executioner, that act of restraint and humanity was unforgivable. He’s turned the bureau into a loyalty test, shoving aside people who once led counterterrorism operations because they dared show solidarity with the public instead of wielding raw force. The FBI Agents Association has called the purge “unlawful” and “egregious,” and they’re right: this isn’t discipline, it’s retaliation. Andrew McCabe, who once ran the bureau, confirmed on his podcast that it’s not a fluke, it’s a systematic campaign. Trump doesn’t want justice; he wants retribution, and he’s bending the FBI, DOJ, even the National Archives into cudgels against his enemies. From Comey to Sherrill to late-night comedians, the list grows by the day. Eight months into this presidency, law enforcement isn’t independent, it’s a weapon.

The clown show is not confined to the Hoover Building. In Portland, Trump declared the city a “war zone” and ordered his cosplay Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to send in the Marines with “full force.” The Pentagon was left blinking in confusion: there is no such term in military doctrine, no rebellion underway, no reason for the Insurrection Act. On the ground in Portland? Empty streets, quiet ICE facilities, weekend farmers’ markets. Senator Ron Wyden called Trump’s bluff with videos showing the supposed “hell on earth” was just…Portland. But Trump’s lies don’t need reality; they just need retweets.

The same propaganda machine is grinding away at January 6th. Trump claimed the FBI secretly embedded 274 agents in the Capitol crowd to stage the insurrection. Patel, instead of calling it a lie, issued a “clarification,” spinning that agents were only sent in after the riot was declared. This is how gaslighting works: invent a hoax, force your lieutenants to retrofit it into half-truths, and count on the base to swallow it.

While the domestic firehose of disinformation drowns out reality, the administration’s actual governance veers into slapstick corruption. Twenty billion dollars of taxpayer money just went to bail out Argentina, whose government promptly thanked us by undercutting American farmers and selling cheap soybeans to China. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins had to explain this disaster to the Treasury Secretary using screenshots of social media posts. Keystone cops with nuclear codes. Trump, meanwhile, is posting cartoons of himself firing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, while openly flirting with doing it for real. Markets don’t laugh off this kind of chaos. And behind the curtain, Jared Kushner is positioning his Saudi- and Emirati-backed private equity fund for a $50 billion buyout of Electronic Arts. In this regime, even the video game industry is just another slot machine for the Trump family to siphon cash from foreign sovereign funds.

If this all feels like loser behavior you wouldn’t tolerate in a fifth-grade group project, you’re right. Unfortunately, the middle-schooler has nuclear launch codes.

While Trump’s White House churns out paranoia and corruption, NATO is straining to hold the line abroad. In the early hours of Sunday, Poland scrambled fighter jets after Russia launched one of its largest aerial barrages against Ukraine yet. Dutch F-35s and German Patriot batteries joined the mission. Poland locked down its southeastern airspace near Rzeszów and Lublin, a hair’s breadth from NATO’s Article 5 tripwire. By morning, Warsaw declared no breach, but the message was clear: Moscow’s escalation is pressing ever closer to NATO’s red lines. Nearly 500 Iranian-made drones and more than 40 missiles, including hypersonic Kinzhals, tore through Ukrainian skies overnight, killing four, including a twelve-year-old girl, and leveling a five-story block in Kyiv. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “vile terror.” He’s right. This is terrorism by long-range bomber.

And what does Trump offer as NATO girds for winter escalation? A three-page “peace plan” for Gaza that reads like it was drafted on a cocktail napkin at Mar-a-Lago. Freeze battle lines, trade hostages for prisoners, disarm Hamas, slap together a “temporary governance” of “qualified Palestinians and international experts,” maybe bring in a stabilization force, then dangle the faintest whiff of Palestinian statehood at some unspecified future date. Netanyahu is already bristling. Hamas hasn’t even been handed the plan. The White House is spinning “broad strokes,” while Trump boasts, “I think we have maybe a deal.” Like a branding exercise: the “Trump Development Plan” for Gaza, complete with ribbon-cuttings and photo ops, while the rubble still smolders.

At home, government databases are being weaponized against political opponents, workers face shutdown chaos, and the FBI is purged of anyone insufficiently loyal. Abroad, NATO scrambles to stop Russian bombs from spilling over the border while Trump sketches half-baked peace plans and posts cartoons firing central bankers. The through line is clear: when institutions are bent toward one man’s grievances, reality itself is collateral damage.

That’s the state of play this morning: databases weaponized, workers threatened with pink slips, allies scrambling jets, and a president still scribbling fantasies about firing the Fed chair in cartoon form. The world spins faster, the institutions bend further, and the danger grows sharper with each day Trump clings to power.

On that note, I’m stepping away to help Marz tuck a couple of rose bushes and a lace-leaf maple into the soil before the weather turns. A little fall planting feels like the right antidote to all this rot, because even in a season of upheaval, putting down roots is its own quiet act of defiance.