Do Republicans really believe this stuff?

Getting High On Their Own Supply

There was a moment late in President Donald Trump’s first administration when I realized he might actually have been brainwashed by the far-right fever swamp he had been marinating in for the better part of a decade. My assumption up until that point, like most, I think, was that he was a troll.

I had never seen much evidence that Trump — or even his closest advisors — were actually that online. Most of the crazy stuff Trump would say in public was pretty easily tracked back to Fox News. Which was getting 4channier, but was still operating with a basic sense of respectability. At least, you know, compared to how they are now. And, during his first presidency, Trump was actually pretty insulated from the deranged influencers spearheading the disinfo campaigns and conspiracy theories surging through Facebook every day. Even one of Trump’s weirdest guys, Michael Flynn, started repping QAnon after he had resigned as national security advisor.

Plus, there was always a winking attitude to much of the way Trump and his administration used misinformation early on. Even going as far back to his earliest rumblings over former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate. You got the sense that he really just wanted an excuse to be racist. And, during his first campaign, when Hillary Clinton coined the term “fake news,” in a 2016 speech, Trump, not even a week later, stole it, threw it back against the mainstream media, and turned it into the defining slogan of his first administration. By 2018, Steve Bannon had canonized this politicalized irony as “flooding the zone with shit,” which further seemed to prove that there was a certain self-awareness at the very top of the organization. At the time, I figured, ok, these guys are gangsters and they quickly figured out that dog-whistling neo-Nazis and Facebook uncles was good cover to do crimes.

But then, towards the end of 2019, Trump tapped Attorney General William Barr to semi-officially investigate the right-wing conspiracy theory that Democrats had faked the hack of their own servers in 2016 and blamed it on Russia to undermine Trump. It stands out, to me, as the first real indication that perhaps the president and his team had been getting high on their own supply the entire time. A real tangible example of the Trump administration using the machinery of the legal system to litigate random internet garbage.

The Russiagate stuff all ultimately fizzled out, but it’s hard to imagine the current Trump administration going through all that trouble now. These days, a popular X account could post that furries at the IRS are using litter boxes in the bathroom or something and FBI Director Kash Patel, a guy who definitely knows how to look normal in a photograph, would assemble an anti-cuddle puddle squad to raid the office by the end of week. And that’s not even that much of an exaggeration of what big right-wing X accounts are posting right now to bait Trump officials into action.

“There is a battalion of male-to-female transgenders within the American intelligence apparatus,” The Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo posted on X recently. “They hate Italians and LibsofTikTok. They fantasize about pseudo-vaginas and butthole lasers.”

And, last week, Chaya Raichik, the author of the far-right Libs Of TikTok X account, posted a screenshot of what she claimed was a current medical form being given out at Lakenheath Air Force Base that is supposedly in violation of President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders. It had an optional section where a patient could note their sexual orientation and gender identity and — gasp — pronouns. “Someone there isn’t following the directives,” she wrote.

The new Trump-appointed US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth responded, writing, “All over it.”

And, that same day, Raichik shared a TikTok from a user who has since deleted her account — likely due to dogpiling from Raichik’s followers — where the TikTok user admitted to not filing taxes for eight years. (Which, yes, is probably not something you should tell the internet.) Ed Martin, the Trump-appointed prosecutor leading the retaliation against January 6th cases, quote-posted Raichik, writing, “Duly noted. Thanks for letting us know. We’ll put you in the system. Talk soon, Ma’am.”

This is genuinely different from last time. The new class of Trump appointees no longer feel the need to cosplay as legitimate. It’s a total administrative embrace of, not even misinformation and disinformation, but whatever they’ve seen on their feeds. This is also likely why President Donald Trump and Second-President Elon Musk are so obsessed with Fort Knox right now. They saw a post about it. And this is how we ended up with last week’s Epstein Files stunt.

On Thursday, right-wing influencers (that I’ve never heard of) marched out of the White House holding up binders that “The Epstein Files: Phase 1”. The binders did not contain any new information, only previously released, heavily redacted excerpts from Jeffrey Epstein’s address book and flight logs. Most of the documents have been out for almost a decade. The House Judiciary even promoted the stunt by rickrolling users with a fake link on X. But once the Trump administration realized there was nothing there, they started fighting with each other. Trump appointee Attorney General Pam Bondi accused the FBI’s Patel of hiding documents from her. She went on Fox News, sullen and dejected, telling the host, “I kept saying, ‘there has to be more. There has to be more.’” And she had spent weeks leading up to the release promising right-wing media that there was more. She is still promising more. And the reason this episode is so important is because, though they are all completely brainrotted inside their own digital filter bubble, reality can still eventually come crashing down on them. The wasted time investigating these little internet side quests can still amount to nothing. But if things progress there will be a moment where it doesn’t anymore. Where Trumpists will see something on their feeds and make it a reality, rather than admit they fell for their own propaganda. And once that happens, there’s no real going back.

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Neon Severance Evangelion

Let’s Check In On How The Democrats Are Doing

Bluesky user @akarra.bsky.social‬ asked me for my take on what the Democrats should do for the State of the Union tomorrow night. Which is a good question! Let’s see what they’ve been up to lately, shall we? Here’s how the Dems say they spent their February.

I ain't reading all that. I'm happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened.

According to Politico, Democratic leadership and a bunch of consultants got together at a retreat last month and came up with some ideas for how to grab some power back. They landed on groundbreaking ideas such as:

• “Move away from the dominance of small-dollar donors”

• Send candidates to gun shows and tailgate parties

• “Push back against far-left staffers”

• Something they’re calling “owning the failures of Democratic governance in large cities,” which feels like a euphemism for being tougher on crime

• “Embrace patriotism”

Excellent stuff. Glad to see the party has fully committed to being the “we don’t have Coke, only Pepsi” of American politics. Oh, also, the Atlanta chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America got ahold of a leaked recording of Democratic Senator Elena Parent saying she supports Republican bans on transgender healthcare because trans rights is “unpopular.” Say what you will of the Republicans, but at least they don’t need a focus group or polling to convince them to overthrow the country.

Anyways, to answer @akarra.bsky.social‬’s question, if I were a consultant for the Democrats, I would organize massive irl protests across the country at the exact same time as the State of the Union, pack them with liberal influencers and young candidates, and completely drown out whatever Trump says tomorrow night. Of course, that would have taken months of work and genuine introspection and a heavy dose of compromise to work with leftist activists and, well, it seems like the Democrats had their hands full at a retreat last month learning about tailgate parties. Oh well.

Trump’s Crypto Coin Lost $12 Billion

President Donald Trump’s memecoin — what a phrase — lost over 80% of its value in the last two months. The $TRUMP coin’s market cap peaked around $44.00 back in January and it’s currently worth about $13.00 as of this week.

Democrats in the House have put forward a bill called the MEME Act — I can’t believe we’re really going to do this — or The “Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement” Act, which would block most senior governmental officials and their families from promoting digital assets.

While Trump’s memecoin is shitting the bed, other cryptocurrencies are bouncing back right now after the White House announced a crypto federal reserve which will include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and lesser-known coins like Solana and Cardano. A bunch of big crypto evangelists are not happy about the smaller coins going in the reserve. I’d explain why they’re upset, but, honestly, we only get one life and you really don’t need to waste it reading about why one form of internet gambling is considered more legitimate than others. Oh, though in case you don’t totally get how corrupt this all is, the $TRUMP coin runs on Solana.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Midlife Crisis Gets Weirder

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg dressed up as Benson Boone for his wife Priscilla Chan’s 40th birthday party. Benson Boone, you may remember, is the guy who performed at the Grammy’s and no one knew who he was.

You know, I don’t want to knock Chan’s music taste and maybe she really is a fan of Boone, but there’s something really fitting about Zuckerberg dressing up as a guy who is, on paper, extremely popular, but actually has no cultural impact whatsoever. Really fits Zuckerberg’s whole ethos.

And, just in case you haven’t seen other people make this point, yeah, Succession is a documentary.

The TikTok Kids Are Romanticizing The 2010s Now

A TikTok user named @romulusedits made a 2013core montage that is going viral on both X and TikTok right now. And, apart from horrified millennials uncomfortable with nostalgia creeping up this far in the timeline, the reactions to it are genuinely fascinating. I think my favorite was an X user who wrote, “You don't understand. It was optimistic, fun, and cross-cultural, but everything was sprinkled with a fine dust of evil.” Which feels right to me.

A Cat Named Mischief Is Terrorizing The UK

A Facebook Group in Plymouth, UK, has been tracking the activity of a cat aptly named Mischief. Based on recent posts on the group, he’s been spotted at Lidl, in front of a local cocktail bar, at a local shoe store, and even passed out at the pub. Apparently, he breaks into people’s houses a lot.

Users have a Google Map they’re using to follow his movements because this little lad really gets around. Here’s a good TikTok with a bunch of photos of Mischief.

An Italian Guy Tries Costco Pizza For The First Time

Some Stray Links

• Vice President JD Vance got chased out of a Vermont ski resort

• “Can you sous vide sausages in a condom?”

• “Conan O’Brien Is Terrified of the Oscars. (He’s Hosting Anyway.)”

P.S. here’s a truly incredible male living space.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***