Minneapolis law enforcement authorities along with the Texas Rangers apprehended ICE agent Christian Castro May 29th after he shot an INNOCENT Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis in January. Castro lied about the shooting then fled Minnesota to Texas.
Castro faces four felony charges of aggravated assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.
I hope they lock this violent ICE asshole up for a long time. Get him on state charges so that Trump cannot pardon him.
And even in the moments when the words do come, they almost immediately feel obsolete. It’s become nearly impossible to wake up and comment on any specific human rights atrocity, any precise illegality, any single bastardization of the Christian faith, any individual act of Congressional malpractice. In the time it takes to assess one unprecedented act of governmental malfeasance, stop the spinning storm inside my head, and string together something resembling coherent thoughts, a half dozen infuriating, nauseating, heretofore nonexistent abominations will have already swallowed them up.
This is, of course, by design, yet knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to navigate.
There’s very little that comes with any surety these days. The only thing I am certain of as I watch and listen and walk through this season alongside my 342 million neighbors is that there is mourning in America.
The grief is ever-present, sitting like a boulder on our chests, crushing our hearts and rendering our breathing shallow.
A heavy dread hovers in the background of our nervous systems, leaving us continually ping-ponging between fight, flight, and freeze.
We vacillate wildly from heartbreak to outrage to hopelessness, battered by manufactured crises, curated madness, and genuine emergencies.
And that’s just the damage coming from above, from the repugnant legion of sociopaths and predators who’ve hijacked the very sacred halls that their treasonous foot soldiers desecrated on a January afternoon. In any other iteration of our nation, those helming it would at least have feigned decency, offered some ceremonial lip service of unity, and provided a modicum of care for its constituents. Those days feel like a lifetime ago.
The entirety of a President’s Cabinet and its gutless Congressional coconspirators have abandoned any allegiance to the Constitution, to morality, to the common good. They are professional parasites, voraciously sucking every bit of progress and promise from this flawed but beautiful beacon of Democracy that the world once aspired to emulate.
Bearing this alone would all be difficult enough. It would be a Herculean task to endure such prolific brutality from our alleged leadership and remain tethered to sanity.
But then we look to our left and to our right; to the people around us who are, at best, silent enablers of this violent historic farce, or, at worst, willing collaborators. We inventory the ever-expanding list of human beings we share holiday tables with, make small talk with over the fence, work, study, and worship alongside, and once felt an easy affinity with, mourning the blackened hearts we’ve come to realize they harbor.
And perhaps most devastating of all, there are the people who raised us to be human beings of empathy, who taught us to love our neighbors, who instilled us with a respect for the Rule of Law, who called us to lean upon our better angels. Over the past ten years, we have watched them abandon every ideal and precept they passed down to us, jettisoning God and Country, while continually broadcasting their supposed allegiance to both. We now find ourselves ridiculed, mocked, and demonized for becoming the very loving, open-hearted, generous humans they told us to become.
The wreckage of this relational warfare is everywhere:
In the room-clearing arguments, the protracted emotional cold wars, the social media disconnections, the text chain ghostings, the slow but now undeniable attrition of affection, the silences and empty holiday chairs. These are as heartbreaking injuries as anything this white supremacist vampire colony at the Capitol has thrown at us.
I don’t know quite what to say to those of you reading this who grieve America as we approach its 250th year, because on most days, I’m not even sure what to tell myself. I wish there were words in our lexicon that I could string together that would magically lift the burdens from your shoulders, quiet the chaos in your mind, and swiftly usher peace into the warzones of your heart. All I can do today with any honesty is to name the grief and hope that will bring some comfort. Naming it helps me.
In fact, perhaps, that shared sorrow is the connective tissue that will hold us all together as we endure this impossible to fathom or describe nightmare. Maybe, our collective tears over the America that is will water the seeds of the America we can still be.
This morning, despite the losses that seem endless, I cling to the hope that we, the multitudes who lament how far we’ve fallen as a nation, will find a way to pull us from the seemingly endless darkness we’re immersed in and into the dawn of better days.
To every American mourning, know you do not grieve alone.
YouGov’s surveys subdivide Republicans into those who do and those who don’t support MAGA — and the economic views of these two groups are very different. A remarkable 65 percent of non-MAGA Republicans say that the economy is getting worse, while only 11 percent say that it is getting better. […]
Aside from MAGA Republicans, Americans are bunched at the upper left, with few people seeing the economy getting better and the vast majority seeing it as getting worse. Non-MAGA Republicans are much more similar in their views to independents, and even to Democrats, than they are to MAGA.
So how big is the group that believes that we have a good economy? Only 19 percent of Americans.
The MAGA/non-MAGA split amongst self-identifying Republicans is striking. Non-MAGA Republicans have views on the economy that almost exactly mirror those of independents — neither of which are that far from those of Democrats.
It’s rather depressing that 20 percent of the US population is in this cult. But I choose to be edified by the fact that it’s only 20 percent. That’s not that much higher than the 13 percent who believe “Bigfoot / Sasquatch is a real, living creature”. This whole thing is a political boil that is starting to burst. Rats leave sinking ships.
“Shut up you ugly f—.” That’s what the Democratic Party’s official account told Stephen Miller, after he mocked a Senate candidate as “transgender” to insult his looks. And honestly? Good.
Here’s the full exchange, because context matters.
On Wednesday, the DNC posted a photo of Talarico, the Texas Senate candidate, with the caption “Fired up. Ready to go. It’s time to take back Texas.”
Stephen Miller, the architect of family separation and the cruelest immigration policies in modern memory, quote-tweeted it: “The Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate,” needling Talarico over his appearance.
For the record, Talarico is not transgender. He’s a straight, cisgender Christian man with a girlfriend.
Miller knew that. The “joke” wasn’t really about Talarico. It was the same tired playbook: use “transgender” as a slur, treat an entire group of people as a punchline, and dehumanize for sport.
So the DNC fired back. “Shut up you ugly f—.”
Predictably, conservatives clutched their pearls. “WHAT THE F—? DEMOCRATS TURN TO PROFANITY INSTEAD OF POLICY,” screamed Fox News.
The party of “f— your feelings,” the people who turned cruelty into a brand and put it on hats and flags, suddenly discovered the importance of civility the moment someone gave it back.
Yes, some Democrats winced and called it embarrassing.
That’s the instinct that’s gotten the party steamrolled for a decade. The endless belief that if they’re just polite enough, dignified enough, the other side will play fair. It never does. Stephen Miller is not owed politeness. He’s owed exactly what he dishes out.
You cannot shame people who have no shame. You cannot out-civility a movement that mocks the dead, the disabled, and entire minorities for fun. Sometimes the only language a bully respects is being told to sit down.
For once, a Democrat didn’t bring a strongly worded statement to a knife fight.
today is Memorial Day. you’re going to hear a lot of mouth-farting from the Usual Republican Suspects about how much they honor and respect our nation’s fallen heroes.
they’re going to be all over social media, tweeting out the same old boilerplate platitudes about duty and sacrifice.
it’s all bullshit. the GOP fucking hates our veterans.
as always, watch what they do, not what they say.
soldiers, sailors and marines are useful props whenever some asshole wingnut needs to burnish their ‘patriot’ cred, but when it comes time to actually support them — say, by helping them when they’re in need — it’s a completely different story.
need proof? let’s go to the video tape, from July 29, 2022:
here we have a bunch of Republican Senators fist-bumping. why? because they just blocked a billthat would have expanded healthcare coverage for military veterans exposed to toxic burn pits during their service.
who the fuck celebrates that?
awesome job, you evil soulless hypocrites — because nothing says ‘we support our heroes’ so much as ‘just fucking die.’
fast forward to 2025. in April of that year, the Space Nazi’s merry band of pimply DOGE incels showed up at the Department of Veterans Affairs and said good news, everyone — you’re all fired. they then took a wrecking ball to the place.
right now, the VA is so understaffed that veterans calling in with need for assistance can’t get anyone to answer the phone. that’s “just fucking die” on steroids.
listen up, shitheads: if you send a person into a war zone and tell them to fight for their country, and they come back injured and permanently disabled, you fucking well take care of them — forever.
it’s basic human decency.
head-trauma poster boy Tommy Tuberville is a complete bag of shit in every way. he’s posted an eight minute video about how super fucking grateful he is for our troops. don’t bother watching it, you’ll just get stupider.
“It’s Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day is about more than just grilling out by the lake. It’s a time to reflect and be grateful for the tremendous sacrifices that have been made for our freedom.”
ugh.
let’s not forget that Mr. Should Have Worn A Helmet When He Played Football single-handedly blocked all military promotions for the better part of a year. why would T-Tubes do this? because he had worked himself up into a big hissy over a Pentagon policy that paid the travel expenses of raped soldiers in need of abortions.how dare they.
but sure, Tommy — please tell us once more about how you’re “grateful for the tremendous sacrifices that have been made for our freedom.” no, wait — don’t bother.
just fuck all the way off.
here’s something that white supremacy’s middle manager, Steve Scalise, tweeted out on Veterans Day 2023:
“America is the greatest nation in the history of the world because of the bravery and sacrifices of our veterans. Join me in thanking and honoring all those who answered the call to serve our country and defend our freedoms—because without them we’d have neither. #VeteransDay”
Steve, with all due respect, you too can fuck straight off into the sea.
you voted against the VA Employee Fairness Act, the Veteran Service Recognition Act, the PACT Act (twice), the Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act, and the Ensuring Veterans Smooth Transition Act.
for a guy who claims to honor those who made sacrifices, you have an odd way of showing it.
last Veterans Day, six-time international lap-hockey champion Handy Oakley took a minute off from vigorously beetlejuicing her latest conquest to post this drivel:
“Without our Veterans the American Dream would not be possible. To anyone who has ever worn the uniform, thank you!”
sit down and shut the fuck up, you vapid bobblehead.
let’s see how you show your appreciation: in your first term in Congress, you made 15 anti-veteran votes. in 2023, you voted to cut funding for the 49,000 veterans in your district by supporting a bill that would gut their health care.
now let’s move on to the googly-eyed director of the Federal Bureau of Guzzling As Much Bourbon As You Can, As Quickly As You Can — the always steady on his feet Kash Patel.
this atrocity should be fresh in your mind, as it was first reported on a couple of weeks ago. I’m talking about the day that Krazee-Eyes Kash got it in his head to invite a bunch of his besties to have a snorkel party within splashing distance of one of America’s most sacred war memorials — the sunken remains of the U.S.S. Arizona in Pearl Harbor.
this memorial is such a hallowed place that no one but the divers who inter the remains of fallen heroes are allowed to go into the water. you can’t even walk around in a bathing suit. they will throw your disrespectful ass right out of there — but that didn’t stop Kash and his posse from jumping right in for some snorkely hijinks.
who the fuck thinks this is appropriate behavior?
and don’t even get me started on this rotting diaperload.
Cadet Bone Spurs has spent his entire life finding new and inventive ways to insult and dishonor our troops. back during the 2024 presidential campaign, the Biden-Harris HQ assembled this greatest hits video:
here’s what this dipshit posted last Memorial Day, on his own crappy app:
“Happy Memorial Day to all, including the Dumocrats, who disrespect our Military and all of the tremendous success that it has had over the last year. God Bless those that have made the ultimate sacrifice. I love you all! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
awesome. Donny can’t even post a simple Memorial Day message without turning it into some broken-inside grievance-fest.
let’s not forget that in November 2018, as world leaders gathered at a cemetery in France to honor the memory of US soldiers killed while fighting in World War One, Donny blew the whole thing off — because it was drizzling lightly and he didn’t want that weird tangle of piss-colored bullshit on top of his fat head to get wet. instead, he spent the day rage-tweeting from his hotel room. good times, bro, good times.
let’s also not forget that in conversations with his chief of staff John Kelly, Donny referred to prisoners of war as “suckers” because “there is nothing in it for them.” he also called soldiers killed in action “losers.”
what kind of overgrown diaper-baby gets mad at a fucking boat?
let’s not ever forget that incident in 2024, when Donny barged his way into Arlington National Cemetery to do a disgraceful thumb’s-up campaign photo-op while trampling over the graves of fallen heroes — and grinning like an asshole the whole time.
“Where’s her husband? Oh, he’s away. … What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone,” Trump said at his rally in Conway, his first visit to the state this year.
Michael Haley is deployed in Africa with the South Carolina Army National Guard in support of the United States Africa Command, his second active-duty deployment overseas.
hey, remember that Pentagon policy that got Terminally-Concussed Tommy Tuberville so upset — the one that paid the travel expenses of raped soldiers in need of abortions? Tommy should be happy now, because Donny shitcanned it four days after taking the oath of office.
now I want to repost something I wrote on September 24, 2023 — because of all the shitty episodes regarding Little Donny Fuckface’s callous treatment of our troops, this one just might be the rock-bottom worst:
At his welcome ceremony at Joint Base Myer–Henderson Hall, across the Potomac River from the capital, Milley gained an early, and disturbing, insight into Trump’s attitude toward soldiers. Milley had chosen a severely wounded Army captain, Luis Avila, to sing “God Bless America.” Avila, who had completed five combat tours, had lost a leg in an IED attack in Afghanistan and had suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, and brain damage as a result of his injuries. To Milley, and to four-star generals across the Army, Avila and his wife, Claudia, represented the heroism, sacrifice, and dignity of wounded soldiers.
It had rained that day, and the ground was soft; at one point Avila’s wheelchair threatened to topple over. Milley’s wife, Hollyanne, ran to help Avila, as did Vice President Mike Pence. After Avila’s performance, Trump walked over to congratulate him, but then said to Milley, within earshot of several witnesses, “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.”Never let Avila appear in public again, Trump told Milley. (Recently, Milley invited Avila to sing at his retirement ceremony.)
what a cold-hearted prick.
“why do you bring people like that here? no one wants to see that, the wounded.”
imagine you’re a severely wounded soldier. after five combat tours, sacrificing yourself for your country — you find yourself in a military hospital, minus one leg, your life permanently altered. you live though months of hell — bedridden, undergoing multiple operations and grueling physical therapy — and when finally you’re discharged, you’re confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life.
and what does the President of the United States — your Commander in Chief — say about you?
“no one wants to see that, the wounded.”
fuck you, Donald Trump. you piece of shit.
let’s look at how a real patriot honors our troops.
two years ago, President Joe Biden gave the commencement address to West Point’s graduating class. afterwards, he spent over an hour saluting and shaking the hands of each one of the 1,036 graduates. he didn’t ask what was in it for them. he didn’t call them suckers and losers. no one had to hide any warships.
at last year’s West Point commencement ceremony, after rambling incoherently about trophy wives to mystified cadets, Preznit Fuckwit teetered off stage and hurried the fuck out of there. the MAGA-cap-wearing shithead didn’t shake a single hand.
he then spent the rest of the day cheating at golf at his New Jersey ex-wife cemetery.
this year, Donny didn’t even bother to show up for the West Point Commencement. he sent his piss-drunk Secretary of Skateboards in his place.
Donny, Tuberville, Scalise, Handy Oakley, Krazee-Eyes Kash, the whole worthless lot of them — the next time any of these grandstanding hypocrites starts going on and on about how much they love the shit out of our troops, remember: watch what they do, not what they say.
this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:
practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.
to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.
we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.
When Donald Trump announced earlier this week that his son Donald Trump Jr was getting married, he initially appeared to say that his son was “someone I’ve known a very long time.” Upon closer inspection, a mumbly and barely coherent Donald Trump actually said that his son has “got someone I’ve known a very long time.” Not much better. Trump clearly has no idea what the woman’s name is, in spite of how long he’s known her.
Somewhere in there Trump revealed that he wasn’t going to attend his son’s wedding, blaming his presidential duties. Then his babysitters reportedly booked a trip for him to his own resort in New Jersey for the weekend. So he’s got time for that, but not time to go to his son’s wedding. Or maybe he’s just not well enough to travel to the Bahamas. Given that his trip to his resort has since been canceled, who knows? Something isn’t right with him.
But the larger underlying story here may be that Donald Trump simply can’t remember anything. And not in a forgetful, aging brain, “I can’t think of the word I was about to say” senior moment kind of way. No, this is something different entirely. It’s not that Trump momentarily couldn’t remember his son’s bride’s name. It’s that he has no recollection of having ever known it. How do we know this?
When Trump tried to give a speech yesterday, he came to the word “dumb” and then stopped to announce that a lot of people don’t know that the word “dumb” has a “b” on the end of it. No really, he said this. And it wasn’t a one-off, either. Recently Trump came across the word “sea” and then stopped to announce that a lot of people don’t know the word is spelled “sea” when referring to a body of water. Before that he announced that he’d never heard the word “groceries” in his life. Before that it was “corner store” that he’d never heard of.
No one would ever describe Trump as being particularly literate. But he’s certainly seen the word “dumb” enough times in his life to know full well that it has a “b” on the end of it. He also knows full well that “see” and “sea” are pronounced the same. And he’s spent a lifetime hearing words like “groceries” and “corner store” even if he’s never done his own shopping in his life. He knows these words. Or at least he did. But not anymore.
It’s pretty clear what’s happening here. Trump’s brain is dying one area at a time from dementia, and in the process he’s losing an entire lifetime’s worth of memories and experiences. His dying brain clearly no longer has any recollection of any of the thousands of instances in which he’s seen the above words. That’s all gone. And so when Trump is seeing these basic common words now, what’s left of his brain thinks it’s seeing them for the first time. Hence why he’s so surprised to learn how some of them are spelled.
. . .
Trump is trying to deflect his own frustration and insecurity by projecting all of this onto unnamed other people out there who have no prior recollection of having ever seen the words “dumb” or “sea” in their lives. And yet this fully senile individual, who has now lost most of his lifetime’s worth of recollection, is somehow President of the United States.
holy shit, the unthinkable is happening: Republicans are beginning to openly revolt against Mad King Donny’s corrupt agenda.
over the past couple, Senate Repubs have served up multiple slices of Fuck You Pie to Dear Leader. they’re refusing to fund the Epstein Dance Hall — and they absolutely want no part of this business of enriching the shitheads who did January 6.
Glitch McConnell unfroze long enough to actually say“so the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? utterly stupid, morally wrong — take your pick.”
reporter: “are you attending your son’s wedding this weekend?”
Donny: “uhhhh. he’d like me to go. I’m gonna try and make it. I’m in the midst— I said, ‘you know, this is not good timing for me.’ I have a thing called Iran and other things. he’s a person I’ve known for a very long time. hopefully they’re going to have a great marriage.’”
wait, what? did Donny actually refer to his eldest son as ‘a person I’ve known for a very long time’? I mean, technically, that’s an accurate statement — but what in the hallowed name of Cognitive Collapse Jesus is going on inside this imbecile’s big dumb pumpkin head?
if Junior stands up in public and asks his father ‘what the fuck is wrong with you,’ I say he gets that lifetime Pulitzer. after all, you just know he’s said it in private countless times.
how does Donny have ‘other things’ more important than a child’s wedding? any normal human parent would jump at the chance to attend that shit, but not Donny — not when there’s an entire holiday weekend full of cheating at golf in front of him.
the Trump family — going all the way back to bordello operator Frederick Drumpf — has essentially been a multi-generational experiment in ‘what would happen if a parent actively hated his children?’
well, obviously, not all his children.
but you get my point.
before we move on, can I take a moment to introduce you to America’s latest sweetheart? I’m talking about the outie belly button of the dude standing behind Donny.
look at that thing. that is fucking adorable — and check out what goes on at the 27 second mark of that clip.
go, man, go! how long before that navel is a featured speaker at CPAC? I want that thing to have its own show on Newsmax. I’d watch the shit out of it.
voters don’t want this don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war on Iran that’s made gas unaffordable. nor do voters want some ginormous vulgar Epstein Dance Hall, with its sniper nests and what Donny calls a ‘drone empire’ on its roof. and this business of enriching the January 6th insurrectionists with taxpayer money is just too blatantly in-your-facedisgusting for words. as I said the other day, ‘there’s corruption, and then there’s holy fucking shit corruption.’
News — Nearly 2-hour meeting with Acting AG Todd Blanche and Senate Republicans was incredibly hostile, per multiple attendees. As many as 25 GOP senators spoke (this is very rare for these meetings), all in opposition to weaponization fund. R’s pitched specific ideas such as dictating how the 5 commissioners are chosen & not allowing people convicted of violence against cops to be eligible for a payout.
the thing about Todd Blanche is that everyone fucking hates him, because he’s a sleazy little shitweasel. ask Todd what two plus two is, and he’ll dance around and prevaricate for half an hour without ever answering the question.
In the end, Republicans were so angry about the slush fund and immunity agreement that Senate leadership decided not to try to pass $72 billion of funding for immigration agencies, left out of an earlier funding package, out of fear Democrats would force Republicans to vote on the slush fund.
Even before they decided to avoid the vote, Republicans had dropped from the measure the $1 billion Trump wants for security for his ballroom.
so, no money for masked ICE thugs, no money for the heavily-militarized Epstein Dance Hall — oh, and a few days ago four Republicans broke ranks and voted with the Dems to finally send that Iran war powers resolution to the House. (where Holy Mike had yank it at the last minute from a scheduled vote because it was certain to pass there, too.)
you love to see the GOP and Donny at war with each other — bring it the fuck on! — but let’s not get too happy. after all, these are Republicans we’re talking about. at the end of the day, they still fucking suck. they love to talk big, but they could still TACO out and end up doing a Reverse Lucy: swear they’re going to yank the football away, and then end up holding it down for Dear Leader to kick a mile.
it wouldn’t be the first time.
oh, and fuck Senator Glitchy McTurtlehump and all his ‘I do declare it’s morally wrong’ outrage. dude could have put an end to this shit five years ago, by whipping up enough votes to convict Donny when he got impeached for doing January 6 in the first place. but Glitch wimped out, and here we are, trapped in the timeline he created. get back in your terrarium, Turtle Man.
and, of course, we still have the entire Moron Wing of the Republican Party to deal with.
here’s one dumbfuck who’s totally down with the idea of doling out millions to traitors, because he thinks the whole January 6 thing was staged.
South Carolina Rep. Ralph: “look, January 6th is an issue that was made up in the first place.”
reporter: “made up, sir?”
Norman: “that was a staged thing from day one … there was a riot there but it was a self-made riot by members who hate Trump.”
fact check: fuck off, Ralph.
Rep Norman has forced himself to chug an entire tanker truck full of Kool-Aid. his current premise is that Capitol Cops allowed people who hate Trump to fake a riot — but he sung a very different tune back on the day that it happened.
‘the riots were fake’ is a conspiracy theory that doesn’t make one lick of sense — because riddle me this: if the rioters were all Democrats who ‘hate Trump,’ then why the fuck does Ralph Norman want to give each of them millions of dollars?
“my most exciting is the Reflecting Pool between the Washington Monument and the— uhhhhhhhhhhh, the— the— Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, it’s uh— [gestures with his hands] two hundred— two thousand, five hundred feet long by almost two hundred feet wide. it’s a massive— structure, if you think of it. it’s taller than the tallest building in the world.”
that’s right, folks. the refurbished Epstein Reflecting Poll — which I guess I need to point out is flat and at ground level — is taller than the tallest building in the word. he’s so fucking dumb.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is about 2,029 feet long, not “2,500 feet long.” Also the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, is about 2,717 feet tall.
this weak and insecure halfwit is such a bottomless pit of need that he has to exaggerate the size of a pool he didn’t even build.
but what else is new?
this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:
practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.
to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.
we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.
After 11 years and over 1,800 episodes, the final installment aired this week to great fanfare and emotion. The show’s premature demise was, of course, the direct result of Donald Trump’s eggshell-fragile ego and his complete inability to withstand criticism of any kind.
The joyless, narcissistic Man-Child-In-Chief has always despised people like Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jon Stewart; guys who possess a comfort in their own skin that he will never know, a razor wit that will always escape him, and an easy humanity that he is simply incapable of. Though he positions himself as an overconfident Alpha Male, his raging insecurity and naked resentment have always exposed him as a terrified fraud who knows he doesn’t measure up.
Trump has spent an embarrassing amount of time during his two presidential terms trying to silence and de-platform any members of the media who do not bend the knee and kiss the ring: leveraging his social media platform, weaponizing the FCC, and begging his billionaire buddies to purge the airwaves of dissension or critique.
With his surrogates now overseeing CBS, the thin-skinned wannabe despot was finally able to shutter The Late Show, something his similarly morose disciples have hailed as a kind of righteous victory. In reality, though, all it really did was illustrate why MAGA will always lose: it is a misery movement of deeply unhappy human beings.
Colbert began his series finale with a poignant, heartfelt monologue, addressing the home and studio audiences simultaneously about the genuine gratitude he felt for those who have traveled this journey with him.
Speaking about the small army of collaborators responsible for making The Late Show possible five nights a week for over a decade (writers, booking agents, crew members, musicians, artists), the host described their collective endeavor as ‘The Joy Machine,’ saying:
”We call it the Joy Machine, because to do this many shows, it has to be a machine, but the thing is, if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears.”
Manufacturing joy.
When you hear Stephen Colbert deliver that simple, elegant mission statement, you can rewind through those 1,800 shows and realize that this is exactly what he and his team have been doing all along. The Daily Show helped us all face the terrifying, infuriating, grief-worth reality around us by helping us stay emotionally buoyant enough to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Colbert, leading by example, never let his hateful adversaries win by becoming them. It has been his resiliency and optimism that have made him the perennially sanguine counterpoint to Trump’s unceasing nihilism.
Continuing, the host said of his team:
“I cannot adequately explain to you what the people who work here have done for each other and how much we mean to each other.”
Joy. Gratitude. Affection. In just over two minutes, Colbert exhibited the kind of quiet, confident humanity that the current president has never had access to.
Over the last decade, though he has quite literally never shut up, Donald Trump has never expressed any kind of genuine appreciation for other people, never centered anyone but himself, and never offered humility of any kind. He has never been anything but a sad, insult-hurling, grievance-wielding malcontent who will never find peace in this life because his self-hatred will not allow it.
And this unrelenting unhappiness is something his followers are similarly afflicted with. It’s the reason that, although they have their president in the White House, a chokehold on Congress, a compromised Supreme Court, and a near-complete monopoly on the media, they are all still miserable. They continue to be in perpetual war with the world, and the rest of us need to pay attention.
Yes, while Colbert’s cancellation is certainly a sad milestone, another tangible sign that we are approaching the throes of authoritarianism, we can take heart in being reminded that in inhumane times such as these, victory is found in holding onto our humanity. We are not fully defeated when we lose platforms, have rights stripped away, or face corrupt power’s persecution, but when we forfeit the love of life and of the people around us, that they have long since discarded.
Trump can continue to abuse his office to attempt to silence criticism. He can leverage the power of the presidency to try to steamroll dissenters. He can marshal every resource at his disposal to remove voices that ridicule him, and his hateful acolytes across this country can celebrate all of it.
But none of these things will deter those of us who refuse to fall prostrate before him.
They will not break us down or shut us up.
We will continue to traffic in laughter and beauty and connection.
We will continue to dance and dream and create.
We will continue to give and celebrate and embrace.
We will not become as miserable as the people who seek our demise.
Friends, be encouraged, be courageous, stay human… and let the Joy Machine roll on.
Donald Trump returned from China on May 15th claiming strength, dominance, and another “historic success,” but the reality looked far different to much of the world watching. What unfolded during the visit often appeared less like a display of American power and more like a carefully managed spectacle orchestrated entirely on China’s terms.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is known for discipline, control, and strategic patience. Trump, by contrast, frequently appeared impulsive, distracted, and overly eager for praise and optics. While Chinese state media projected calm authority and national confidence, Trump spent much of the trip creating headlines centered on himself rather than meaningful diplomatic achievements.
For critics, the visit reinforced a growing perception that Trump walks into high-stakes international situations believing theatrics can replace preparation and substance. The awkward moments, exaggerated praise, and constant need for attention only fueled the image of a leader more focused on performance than policy.
Meanwhile, China gained exactly what it wanted: powerful visuals, global exposure, and the appearance of stability and control beside an American president many already view as chaotic and unpredictable.
Whether supporters admit it or not, the trip did little to project strength for the United States. To many observers around the world, it looked like Donald Trump had wandered into a geopolitical chess match while still believing he was starring in reality television.
