For much of Donald Trump’s second campaign and the early months of his presidency, there has been an expectation that the Republican Party’s future would largely be Trump’s to shape.

The thinking was straightforward: Trump wins in 2024, governs for four years, and eventually throws his support behind the candidate he wants to carry the movement forward.

Whether that would actually happen was always an open question. But over the last several weeks, Republicans have begun revealing something they would probably rather not emphasize publicly: there is no clear agreement about who inherits Trumpism once Trump is no longer on the ballot.

And perhaps more importantly, there is growing uncertainty about whether Trump will be able to settle that question himself.

JD Vance was supposed to be the obvious answer

For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that Vice President JD Vance was the heir apparent.

Trump chose him as his running mate. Members of Trump’s inner circle reportedly supported him. Vance positioned himself as a loyal defender of Trumpism and seemed to be following the familiar path from vice president to presidential frontrunner.

But lately, that picture has become much less clear.

Vance has increasingly been assigned some of the administration’s most politically difficult responsibilities. That is not unusual. Vice presidents are often handed assignments where success benefits the president and failure sticks to the vice president.

We’ve seen versions of this before. If things go well, the president takes credit. If things go poorly, someone else absorbs the damage. The arrangement is rarely complicated.

The risk of being the designated problem-solver

The recent negotiations involving Iran illustrate the challenge.

If negotiations succeed, the political rewards almost certainly flow upward. If they fail, attention shifts immediately to the person tasked with carrying them out.

That is exactly the position Vance finds himself in.

As criticism mounts from different factions within the Republican coalition, Vance is getting squeezed from multiple directions. Foreign policy hawks remain skeptical. Isolationists are not fully convinced either. Every controversial assignment creates another opportunity for criticism, and every stumble raises new questions about whether he is really the inevitable successor many assumed he would be.

The bigger issue is not any single diplomatic effort. The bigger issue is that inevitability is a fragile thing in politics. Once people start questioning it, it tends to disappear quickly.

Enter Marco Rubio

As doubts about Vance have grown, another name has started appearing more frequently in the conversation: Marco Rubio.

Rubio has been increasingly visible during major international events and administration initiatives. He often presents himself as a more traditional Republican figure, someone who appears competent, experienced, and familiar to establishment conservatives.

Different parts of the Republican coalition may be looking for different things after Trump, so Rubio’s distinction is even more clear.

Some donors appear interested in candidates who can maintain support among MAGA voters while also appealing to more traditional Republicans who never fully embraced Trump but remain within the party. Rubio potentially occupies that space in a way Vance may not.

Whether Rubio would actually succeed in pulling off that balancing act is another question entirely. But the fact that Republicans are openly discussing alternatives tells us something important.

The succession question is not settled.

History suggests Trump may not get the final word

One of the assumptions built into the MAGA worldview is that Trump will simply choose the next leader and everyone will follow.

History suggests it rarely works that way.

Presidents often discover that their influence weakens once everyone knows their time in office is limited. Political movements that seem disciplined and unified suddenly become much more independent. Governors, senators, donors, activists, media personalities, and party operatives all begin advancing their own preferred candidates.

The reality is that succession fights are usually messy because power attracts competition.

Everyone behaves as though there is a plan right up until the moment competing plans become impossible to hide.

The secret plan may be that there is no plan

This is why the most interesting possibility is also the simplest one. Because there may not be a secret successor at all.

There may not be a consensus candidate.

There may not even be agreement about what Trumpism should look like after Trump.

Instead, what we are seeing could be the early stages of a struggle that has already begun behind closed doors. Donors are making calculations. Political figures are positioning themselves. Different factions are imagining different futures. Publicly, everyone pretends the movement remains unified because admitting otherwise would reveal how much uncertainty exists beneath the surface.

But every time Vance struggles, every time Rubio gains visibility, every time another ambitious Republican starts testing the waters, that uncertainty becomes harder to conceal.

What happens after Trump?

One of the most persistent misconceptions in American politics is that everything automatically returns to normal once a dominant political figure exits the stage.

Political movements do not work that way.

The tensions inside today’s Republican Party will not simply disappear because Trump is no longer eligible to run. The factions, rivalries, competing ideologies, donor interests, and personality conflicts will still be there.

In some ways, the fight over who comes next may reveal more about the future of the party than Trump himself.

For Democrats, there may be political opportunities in that uncertainty. But before anyone starts planning for 2028, there is still a very consequential 2026 election to get through.

For now, the more interesting story is not who inherits Trumpism. It’s whether Trumpism can even agree on an heir.

And here’s the question: if Trump couldn’t personally choose the next Republican nominee, who do you think would emerge from the chaos, and would that person actually strengthen the party or expose even deeper cracks in it?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining.
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—David

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Under normal circumstances, this would simply be an exciting milestone.

What I did not anticipate was that the pre-order campaign would begin just weeks after the Trump White House placed me on its official “media offenders” list.

The timing is striking.

Yet the book’s focus extends far beyond any one politician or administration.

Pay Attention examines something much larger: how digital platforms shape what we see, what we believe, and ultimately how we understand the world around us.

The timing could not be more revealing

Independent media is facing increasing pressure from the Trump administration.

Shows like mine are becoming more influential because millions of people are looking for something they often cannot find in traditional media: direct analysis, accountability, and coverage that is not filtered through corporate interests or political relationships.

People in power have noticed.

As a quick recap, a few weeks ago, the Trump White House published an official list of what it called “media offenders” on WhiteHouse.gov. I was included by name and even given my very own page on the White House’s official website.

Not because I committed a crime.

Not because I got facts wrong.

Not because I violated any journalistic standard.

I was included because I criticize the administration and because there is no corporate owner or executive suite that can be pressured into silencing me. The only people who determine whether this show continues are the people who choose to watch it.

That independence is exactly what makes this model powerful. It is also what makes it threatening to those who prefer loyalty over scrutiny.

This isn’t the first time

Some newer viewers may not know that this has happened before.

When my last book, The Echo Machine, was released, individuals connected to the Trump administration reportedly pushed Amazon to stop carrying books by a number of left-leaning authors. My book was among those singled out.

The goal was never to debate the ideas in the book or challenge the arguments on their merits.

The goal was to prevent people from reading it in the first place.

History offers plenty of examples of movements that attempt to ban books, restrict access to information, or narrow the range of acceptable viewpoints. It is not the behavior of people confident in their ideas.

Authoritarians do not want competition in the marketplace of ideas. They want fewer voices, less scrutiny, and more obedience.

Nevertheless, The Echo Machine still debuted on the New York Times Best Sellers list, thanks in large part to the support you, my audience, gave in the lead-up to its release.

Why I wrote Pay Attention

Pay Attention examines the digital systems we interact with every day and the ways those systems shape our beliefs, behavior, and politics.

This book is about how algorithms work. It is about recommendation engines, engagement incentives, outrage cycles, and the economic forces that reward emotionally charged content over thoughtful analysis.

If you use social media, if you have children who use social media, or if you teach students who spend their lives online, understanding these systems is no longer optional.

Many people believe they are simply consuming information when they scroll through their feeds.

In reality, they are interacting with systems specifically designed to maximize attention, reinforce existing beliefs, and keep users engaged for as long as possible.

Those design choices affect culture, but they also affect elections, public opinion, and ultimately who gains and maintains political power. If you have watched the rise of Trumpism, the explosion of conspiracy theories, or the radicalization pipelines that have become so familiar in recent years, you have already seen the outcomes.

This book explains the mechanics behind those outcomes.

And as someone who has been creating content on YouTube since 2005, I have seen the evolution of this firsthand. For example, if we want YouTube to show you our content, we have to use hyperbolic titles and thumbnails, even when the video itself is a calm, thoughtful deep dive. We’ve tested less emotional titles and thumbnails for years and time and again, they always flop. These algorithmic forces shape behavior on both sides of the screen, pulling creators and audiences alike into attention-driven cycles.

Why pre-orders matter

I’ll be honest: I’m excited about this book, but I’m also nervous.

When The Echo Machine came out, I was barely on the Trump administration’s radar. I was not appearing on official lists. Senior Trump allies were not attacking me on social media.

And despite that, there were still efforts to limit the book’s reach.

This time is different. The attacks are louder, more coordinated, and coming directly from people with significant political influence.

The last thing propagandists want is for people to understand the systems being used to manipulate them.

That is exactly why pre-orders matter.

Pre-orders send a signal to publishers, retailers, bookstores, recommendation systems, and media outlets that there is demand for independent ideas and independent voices.

They influence how many copies bookstores stock, whether major retailers prominently feature a title, and whether a book has a chance to reach bestseller lists.

In many ways, this is a direct competition between people trying to expose manipulation and those who benefit from it.

If you’ve found value in my show, if you believe independent media matters, or if you want to better understand how modern political persuasion works, I’m asking for your support.

PRE-ORDER NOW

Donald Trump built much of his political brand on the promise that he could negotiate better deals than anyone else.

That promise was central to his decision to withdraw from the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear agreement in 2018. Trump called it a disaster. His supporters described it as a surrender. Republicans spent years arguing that America had been outmaneuvered and that a tougher approach would force Iran into a far better agreement.

Now, after months of military conflict, economic disruption, and repeated demands for “unconditional surrender,” we may finally be getting a glimpse of what Trump’s alternative looks like.

And if the details reported so far are accurate, it raises an uncomfortable question: What exactly was all of this for?

The emerging framework reportedly outlines a 60-day negotiation process rather than a finalized agreement. Even if the memorandum is signed, it would simply begin a new round of talks rather than conclude them.

Read the leaked letter

Much of what is currently known about the proposal comes from a leaked memorandum that has been circulating publicly.

Read the leaked letter ➡️ click here

Based on reporting about the document, the agreement under discussion appears to place fewer restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program than the Obama-era deal that Trump abandoned.

One example involves Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

The Obama agreement imposed strict limits on the amount of low-enriched uranium Iran could possess. Reports about the current framework suggest considerably softer language, stating that the issue would need to be “adequately addressed.” That may sound technical, but in international negotiations, wording matters. The difference between a concrete limitation and a vague future commitment can be enormous.

The same pattern appears elsewhere.

The Obama deal restricted Iran’s stockpile, limited the development of certain nuclear technologies, and created an extensive inspection regime that gave international inspectors significant access to Iranian facilities.

By contrast, key questions about inspections under the current proposal appear unresolved. Administration officials have offered conflicting answers about what inspection authority would ultimately look like and how compliance would be verified.

At the same time, reports indicate that the United States could lift sanctions, release billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds, and potentially support broader economic rehabilitation efforts.

That should sound familiar.

When the Obama administration released frozen Iranian assets as part of its agreement, Republicans treated it as a national scandal. The rhetoric was relentless. Critics argued that the administration was enriching a hostile regime and giving away leverage.

Now, many of those same voices appear far less concerned about similar provisions when they are attached to a Trump-negotiated agreement.

The double standard is difficult to ignore.

But the larger issue is not hypocrisy.

The larger issue is that the justification for abandoning the original deal was always that something dramatically better would replace it.

That was the promise.

Instead, after years of escalation, months of war, enormous financial costs, rising energy prices, damage to international relationships, and the loss of human life, the result appears to be a negotiation centered on many of the same concepts that existed before.

Restrictions on nuclear activity.

Sanctions relief.

Inspections.

Diplomatic agreements.

In other words, diplomacy.

The irony is hard to miss. Trump spent years insisting that the Obama agreement was unacceptable. Yet the framework now being discussed reportedly resembles that agreement far more than it differs from it.

The difference is that the earlier deal was already in place.

If the ultimate destination was another negotiated arrangement, Americans are justified in asking whether the detour was worth the cost.

That question becomes even more important when viewed through the lens of Trump’s own rhetoric.

This was not supposed to end with compromise. It was supposed to end with unconditional surrender. It was supposed to demonstrate overwhelming American leverage and produce a dramatically stronger agreement.

Instead, the administration now appears to be negotiating from a position shaped by political deadlines, economic pressure, and growing public exhaustion with conflict.

That is not what was promised.

And if a Democratic president had withdrawn from an existing agreement, presided over months of war, and then returned with a deal that looked weaker than the one they scrapped, there is little doubt what the reaction would be.

The criticism would be immediate and relentless.

The real test is whether the same standards apply when the president involved is Donald Trump.

Because beyond the partisan arguments, that is ultimately what this story is about: accountability.

If the Obama deal was unacceptable, then why is a weaker version of it acceptable now?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining.

If you’re already paid on one platform, consider supporting us on both Substack and our website.

You can subscribe on our website and right here on Substack.

And if you’re really on fire, consider gifting a subscription—we’ve got thousands on our waiting list ready to read, watch, and fight back.

Let’s keep building.

—David

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Donald Trump campaigned on a clear promise: he was going to bring prices down.

Not just inflation, but actual prices. Gas, groceries, energy, housing, and the everyday expenses Americans face each week were all supposed to cost less.

Affordability was one of the most effective messages of his campaign because it tapped into something real: people were frustrated by rising costs and wanted relief.

The latest inflation report tells a very different story.

Inflation has now climbed to 4.2 percent year over year, the highest level in more than three years. Energy costs have been a major driver, but they are not the whole story. Food prices continue to rise, and the broader trend is moving in exactly the opposite direction from what voters were promised.

There is an important way to understand just how significant this number is.

If we set aside the extraordinary inflation spike associated with the COVID pandemic, inflation today is higher than it has been at any point in more than a decade. That is not what Americans were promised when they were told that affordability would return on day one.

And the problem becomes even more serious when wages are factored into the equation.

Inflation is rising while purchasing power falls

One of the ways economists evaluate the impact of inflation is by looking at wages adjusted for rising prices.

If inflation is increasing but wages are growing even faster, consumers may still come out ahead because their purchasing power improves. That is not what is happening right now.

Real average hourly earnings have turned negative. Real weekly earnings have also turned negative. In other words, inflation is rising faster than wages.

For ordinary Americans, that means paychecks are buying less.

This is the distinction that often gets lost in political messaging. Inflation is not just an abstract number reported on financial news programs. It affects what people can afford at the grocery store, at the gas station, and when paying utility bills.

When prices rise faster than income, households feel it immediately.

What happened to “we solved inflation”?

The political challenge for the White House is that Trump’s own statements are now colliding with the economic data.

Earlier this year, Trump declared that inflation had effectively been solved. He claimed prices were coming down and that affordability had returned.

The numbers tell a different story.

Inflation is now more than double the Federal Reserve’s long-term target of 2 percent.

That creates a credibility problem.

Voters may disagree about the causes of inflation. They may disagree about the best solutions. But if a president repeatedly tells people that prices are falling while their bills continue rising, eventually people notice the disconnect.

This was not inevitable

Every president faces economic challenges that are largely outside of their control.

The COVID pandemic is a good example. Leaders around the world were forced to navigate a global crisis that disrupted supply chains, labor markets, and consumer demand. Some handled it better than others, but no political leader created the pandemic itself.

This situation is different.

Trump's defenders often point to global factors when discussing inflation. But many of the pressures Americans are experiencing today are tied to policy choices made by this administration. The tariffs Trump championed have increased costs throughout supply chains. The administration's involvement in Iran has contributed to rising energy prices.

These are not simply unavoidable economic forces. They are the consequences of decisions made by political leaders, and those decisions deserve scrutiny.

That distinction matters.

Different coverage, similar reality

CNN and Fox News approached the inflation story very differently this week.

CNN focused on what rising prices mean for ordinary households. The report highlighted increases in food costs and noted that wage growth is no longer keeping pace with inflation. When prices rise faster than paychecks, purchasing power shrinks. People find themselves relying more heavily on savings or credit cards just to maintain their standard of living.

Fox News covered the inflation report differently.

Their reporting emphasized energy prices and disruptions tied to events in the Middle East. That explanation is not entirely wrong. Energy costs have been a significant contributor to recent inflation, and supply chain disruptions can absolutely affect prices.

But there is an important distinction that often gets lost.

Fox News presents these developments as if they are simply external events that happened to the administration. In reality, many of the factors contributing to rising costs are connected to policy choices.

Tariffs are a policy choice.

Military escalation is a policy choice.

Trade restrictions are a policy choice.

When those decisions increase costs for businesses, consumers eventually feel the effects.

One example mentioned during Fox’s coverage was fertilizer. Rising fertilizer prices matter because they increase costs for farmers. Those higher costs eventually work their way through the supply chain and appear as higher food prices at the grocery store.

In other words, some inflationary pressures have not fully reached consumers yet.

Accountability cannot be selective

One of the most revealing aspects of this debate is how standards change depending on who occupies the White House.

When gas prices increased under Biden, many conservatives argued that presidents should be held responsible.

When groceries became more expensive under Biden, many conservatives argued that presidents should be held responsible.

When inflation rose under Biden, many conservatives argued that presidents should be held responsible.

Now inflation is rising under Trump, and the explanation has shifted. Suddenly it is regional conflicts, shipping disruptions, fertilizer costs, or broader market forces.

Some of those factors are real. Economic outcomes are rarely caused by a single person or a single policy.

But if voters were told during the campaign that the president has the power to bring prices down quickly, it is reasonable to ask whether that promise is being fulfilled.

So far, the trend is moving in the opposite direction.

What voters actually notice

Political messaging can only go so far.

People know what they are paying for groceries.

They know what their rent costs.

They know what their utility bills look like.

They know whether their paycheck stretches as far as it did a year ago.

No amount of partisan media coverage can completely override those experiences.

The central promise of Trump’s campaign was that affordability would improve. Whether voters believe that promise is being kept may become one of the most important political questions heading into the midterms.

The numbers are moving in the wrong direction.

The question is whether enough voters are willing to acknowledge it.

What do you think? If voters blamed Biden for high prices, should they apply the same standard to Trump now? Or do presidents get too much credit and too much blame for economic conditions in general?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining.
If you’re already paid on one platform, consider supporting us on both Substack and our website.

You can subscribe on our website and right here on Substack.

And if you’re really on fire, consider gifting a subscription—we’ve got thousands on our waiting list ready to read, watch, and fight back.

Let’s keep building.

—David

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The White House put me on a list.

An enemies list is what authoritarian governments do, not what democratic governments are supposed to do. And for years, we've discussed the dangers of governments treating criticism as something to be managed rather than answered.

Now the Trump White House has created a section on WhiteHouse.gov called “Media Offenders,” and I am on it.

This is not a parody site. It is not a random social media account. It is an official page on the federal government’s website.

The page categorizes journalists, commentators, and independent creators that the administration apparently views as problematic. Under a section labeled “Leftist Influencers,” there is a page dedicated to me.

Here’s the link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/media-bias-reporter/david-pakman/

That should concern everyone, regardless of their politics.

Now this would be different if it were simply a politician criticizing a commentator. That happens every day. Public figures criticize me constantly, and I criticize public officials constantly. That is part of living in a free society.

The issue is that there is a fundamental difference between a journalist or commentator criticizing the government and the government creating a catalog of its critics.

One is accountability.

The other is something entirely different.

A familiar pattern

This did not happen in isolation.

Over the last several years, Trump and his allies have repeatedly escalated attacks against institutions and individuals they view as obstacles: political opponents. prosecutors, judges, universities, law firms, news organizations, public broadcasters.

Now independent media creators appear to be joining that list.

The progression is worth paying attention to because it follows a familiar pattern. When governments become hostile to criticism, they often stop engaging with the substance of what critics are saying. Instead, they focus on labeling the critics themselves.

The conversation shifts from “Are these claims true?” to “Who are these people, and why should you distrust them?”

History offers plenty of examples.

Authoritarian governments around the world have frequently relied on registries, blacklists, and public campaigns against critics, often portraying them as threats rather than responding to their arguments. In the U.S., the Nixon administration famously maintained an enemies list of journalists, activists, politicians, and donors.

No, I am not suggesting that being placed on a page on WhiteHouse.gov is equivalent to the worst abuses of authoritarian governments.

But the instinct is recognizable.

When those in power begin cataloging critics instead of debating them, it is worth asking why.

Why this matters

Some people have responded by saying this is simply politics.

“You talk about Trump, and now Trump talks about you.”

That misses the point.

The government possesses powers that private citizens do not.

A commentator criticizing elected officials is exercising free speech. The government identifying critics on an official federal website carries a very different implication because it comes from the institution that holds power.

Even if no further action is taken, the message is clear: these are people the administration believes its supporters should view as adversaries.

And if further action is taken, whether through pressure campaigns, attempts at deplatforming, harassment, or something else, the implications become even more serious.

That is why this deserves attention now rather than later.

We are not backing down

The specific issue that appears to have triggered the administration’s attention involves our coverage of Donald Trump’s health. If that coverage struck a nerve, so be it.

My job is not to avoid topics that powerful people find uncomfortable. My job is to examine claims, ask questions, and follow evidence wherever it leads.

Being placed on a government list does not change that responsibility.

If anything, it reinforces it.

I do not yet know what, if anything, comes next. We are consulting with attorneys and advisors and taking the situation seriously.

I would be naïve not to consider the possibility that publicly identifying critics on an official government website could encourage harassment or threats. When people in positions of power label individuals as enemies, some supporters inevitably interpret that as a signal. Whether the result is online abuse, coordinated harassment campaigns, or something more serious, those risks cannot simply be ignored.

Further, I am reaching tens of millions of people across all platforms. If a platform like YouTube decides to pull my channel due to pressure from the White House, my almost 4 million followers would lose access to the show.

But we are not intimidated. My team and I are going to continue doing the work.

The larger lesson here extends beyond me or this show. A healthy democracy requires independent voices that are willing to scrutinize those in power. Once governments start treating criticism itself as the problem, everyone should pay attention.

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. If platforms fold, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining.
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You can subscribe on our website and right here on Substack.

And if you’re really on fire, consider gifting a subscription—we’ve got thousands on our waiting list ready to read, watch, and fight back.

Let’s keep building.

—David

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For years, Republicans insisted that the American public had a right to know everything about the health of the president.

Every stumble mattered. Every doctor’s visit mattered. Every medical report demanded scrutiny. Every unexplained absence generated a flood of questions. Transparency, we were told, was essential because the presidency is too important a job for Americans to be kept in the dark.

Now Donald Trump has provided a fascinating test of whether those principles were ever applied consistently.

If you strip away the names and look only at the facts, the reaction should have been explosive. But instead, it barely registered.

A familiar scenario with a different reaction

Trump recently underwent yet another physical examination, reportedly his third in just over a year. The White House initially suggested the report would be released quickly, but it wasn’t.

Instead, the medical report appeared days later, late on a Friday night, which is traditionally when administrations release information they hope receives minimal attention. The report itself portrayed Trump, who is approaching 80 years old, as being in remarkable health. Critics viewed it less as a medical assessment and more as a propaganda document.

At the same time, Trump largely disappeared from public view for roughly a week. That fact alone should have generated questions.

Not because there is proof that anything serious happened, and not because every absence signals a crisis. But because the same political movement that spent years demanding minute-by-minute transparency about Joe Biden established the standard that unexplained presidential absences deserve scrutiny.

If Biden had vanished from public view for seven days immediately after another physical examination, conservative media would not have treated it as a footnote.

It would have been the story.

The presidency is a visual job

One reason these questions arise is because the modern presidency is no longer conducted entirely behind closed doors.

Presidents are constantly visible. They board helicopters, greet foreign leaders, walk across tarmacs, and deliver speeches. They usually appear before cameras almost daily.

The White House understands this better than anyone. Trump’s team, in particular, has often embraced constant visibility as part of its political strategy. When Trump is active and energetic, cameras are rarely far away.

That is why when there is a sudden absence it becomes extremely noticeable.

The administration itself has trained the public to expect near-continuous visibility. When that visibility suddenly disappears after another physical examination, people naturally ask why.

Those questions are not inherently conspiratorial. They are the direct result of the standards that have already been established.

What people are seeing

When Trump eventually reappeared, observers immediately noticed that he looked tired and sounded fatigued. Many viewers also pointed to what appeared to be increased swelling around his right eye, something that has been discussed periodically by commentators for years.

None of this proves anything, of course.

Aging is real and stress is real. The presidency has visibly aged nearly every modern president who has held the office, that’s true.

You can simply look at photographs of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden before and after their presidencies. The physical toll is obvious.

However. The idea that any president, particularly one approaching 80 years old, would somehow be immune from that process is difficult to take seriously. That may be part of the problem.

The White House appears caught between two competing narratives. On one hand, they want voters to see Trump as tireless and unstoppable. On the other hand, reality eventually asserts itself. Nobody escapes aging, including presidents.

The double standard is the story

The most important question here is not whether Trump was sick.

We don’t know.

The most important question is why the rules seem to change depending on who occupies the Oval Office.

When Biden showed signs of aging, Republicans argued that transparency was non-negotiable. Every appearance was analyzed. Every verbal stumble became national news. Every medical question was framed as a matter of public concern.

Now, when similar questions emerge around Trump, many of those same voices suddenly discover the value of privacy, restraint, and waiting for more information.

The inconsistency is difficult to ignore. Either presidential health matters, or it doesn’t. Either unexplained absences deserve questions, or they don’t. Either transparency is a principle, or it is simply a tool used when politically convenient.

The standard we choose

Maybe nothing significant happened during those seven days. Maybe there is a perfectly ordinary explanation.

But the reaction (or more appropriately, lack of reaction) tells us everything.

The people who spent years insisting that Americans deserved complete transparency about one aging president seem remarkably uninterested in asking similar questions about another aging president.

And that leaves us with a broader question about politics itself.

Do we actually believe in consistent standards for our leaders, or have we reached a point where transparency only matters when it’s politically useful and disappears the moment our own side is the one being asked the questions?

What do you think: How much transparency do presidents actually owe the public when it comes to their health? Where would you draw the line? Let me know in the comments.

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining.
If you’re already paid on one platform, consider supporting us on both Substack and our website.

You can subscribe on our website and right here on Substack.

And if you’re really on fire, consider gifting a subscription—we’ve got thousands on our waiting list ready to read, watch, and fight back.

Let’s keep building.

—David

PS: Can’t contribute right now? No problem. You can support us for free by subscribing on YouTube, listening to our audio podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or become a free subscriber to this very Substack. Every bit counts.

Subscribe now

Most Americans have had the Ticketmaster experience.

You log on the moment tickets go on sale. You enter a virtual queue. You watch your place in line crawl forward. By the time you finally get through, the seats are gone, or the only options left are dramatically more expensive resale tickets. Then you discover that the same ticket may have changed hands multiple times, collecting fees at every step along the way.

It is one of the most universally disliked consumer experiences in the country.

But the story is much bigger than Ticketmaster.

This story is about what happens when laws exist on paper but enforcement becomes optional.

Before we dive in, if you prefer to watch or listen to political news commentary, I’ve got this entire story and more over on my YouTube. Below is the video I did on this very topic:

Okay, on with the written commentary.

Ticketmaster was never supposed to become this powerful

When Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation in 2010, it was controversial from the start. The merger only moved forward after Ticketmaster agreed to certain concessions intended to address monopoly concerns. The expectation was that safeguards would prevent the company from gaining overwhelming control over the live entertainment industry.

That is not what happened.

Today, Ticketmaster and Live Nation sit at the center of an enormous ecosystem. They influence ticket sales, concert promotion, venue relationships, artist access, and much of the infrastructure surrounding live events. The company controls more than 80% of live event ticket sales in the United States.

For consumers, the consequences are familiar. Long waits. Limited choices. High fees. Secondary markets that often seem to benefit the same companies that dominate the primary market.

The frustration is not theoretical. Millions of people experience it firsthand.

The government finally acted. Then almost settled.

After years of complaints, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster in 2024. For many observers, it felt overdue.

The government had spent years building a case that the company was operating as an illegal monopoly. At long last, there appeared to be a serious effort to hold one of the country’s most powerful corporations accountable.

Then something strange happened.

In 2026, Trump’s DOJ reportedly offered a sweetheart settlement that would have allowed Ticketmaster to continue operating largely as it had before. The deal was rejected by 33 states, which chose instead to continue pursuing the lawsuit. Shortly afterward, a court ruled that Ticketmaster was, in fact, a monopoly.

The central allegation that critics had raised for years was validated.

Now the question is not whether a monopoly exists. The question is whether meaningful consequences will follow.

What is the point of a law that never gets enforced?

Imagine a driver who gets caught speeding every week for thirty years.

Eventually, penalties escalate. Fines increase. Licenses get suspended. Repeat violations lead to more serious consequences. That is how accountability is supposed to work.

Yet when it comes to monopolies, the pattern often feels reversed. Corporations grow larger, accumulate more market power, face investigations, negotiate settlements, and continue operating with relatively few changes.

The result is a growing disconnect between what the law says and what people see happening in reality.

In theory, the United States has antitrust laws designed to prevent excessive concentrations of corporate power. In practice, enforcement often appears inconsistent, delayed, or absent altogether.

Ticketmaster is only one example

What makes this story significant is that it extends far beyond concert tickets.

Google was ruled a monopoly in internet search and continues to fight that determination. Amazon faces ongoing questions about its dominance across retail, logistics, advertising, and cloud computing. Apple’s control of its App Store has generated years of scrutiny. Visa and Mastercard collectively dominate payment processing to a degree that many critics argue creates enormous barriers to competition.

Reasonable people can debate the specifics of each case. What is harder to debate is the broader trend: enormous concentrations of market power continue to emerge across industry after industry. And despite having laws intended to address those situations, enforcement often struggles to keep pace.

The problem hiding in plain sight

One reason this receives less attention than it deserves is that monopoly power can be difficult to see directly.

Modern antitrust enforcement frequently relies on what is known as the “consumer welfare standard.” Regulators often focus on proving that consolidation has directly increased prices or harmed consumers in measurable ways. That sounds reasonable in theory.

In practice, it creates a very high bar.

Most people intuitively understand that markets with multiple competitors generally produce better outcomes than markets dominated by a single company. If consumers have four internet providers competing for their business, prices are likely to be lower than if only one provider exists. Yet for many Americans, particularly when it comes to broadband service, consumers already know what it feels like to have only one or two realistic options.

The challenge is not recognizing the problem; it is proving it in court.

As a result, monopoly power can continue growing even when many consumers feel its effects every day.

Why this matters even if you love capitalism

This is where the conversation becomes larger than economics. Markets function because people believe the rules are real.

Competition only works if participants believe no company is too powerful to challenge and no corporation is above the law. When companies appear able to violate antitrust principles for decades, negotiate favorable outcomes, and continue operating without major consequences, public confidence begins to erode.

Even people who strongly support capitalism should be concerned about that.

Because once enough people conclude that markets are not genuinely competitive, they stop blaming individual companies and start questioning the legitimacy of the system itself. That is how faith in markets begins to weaken.

The bigger risk

There is an old phrase about banks being “too big to fail.”

Increasingly, some corporations appear to be approaching a different status: too big to meaningfully regulate.

The larger they become, the more resources they have to defend themselves. The more influence they accumulate, the harder they are to challenge. The harder they are to challenge, the larger they become.

It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle.

That is why the Ticketmaster story matters.

It is not really about concert tickets.

It is about whether laws that limit corporate power are actual rules or merely suggestions. It is about whether enforcement still matters. And it is about whether Americans can reasonably expect the same standards to apply to powerful corporations as everyone else.

So I’m curious what you think: if a company can be accused of monopoly behavior for years, eventually be ruled a monopoly, and still largely continue business as usual, what does that say about the state of enforcement in America today? And at what point do people stop believing the rules apply equally to everyone?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

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—David

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Donald Trump's ego just got crushed by a legal bomb. And I'm going to admit that I love this.

Trump got hit with a legal ruling that strikes at something he cares about more than tariffs, more than legislative victories, and probably more than most policy debates altogether.

His ego.

According to a new ruling, a federal judge ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center. The judge also blocked plans connected to the effort to remake the institution under the Trump brand. For many presidents, this might be an embarrassing legal setback. For Trump, it hits much deeper because it touches the one thing that has always been at the center of his public identity: the Trump brand.

The presidency as branding

For years, Trump has approached public life the same way he approached real estate: put the name everywhere.

Trump Tower. Trump National. Trump Doral. Trump International. Trump Golf Club. Trump University. Trump Steaks. Trump Water. The list goes on. The strategy, however, has always been remarkably simple: make the name itself the product. Convince people that seeing “Trump” on something is a sign of success.

That brings us back to the Kennedy Center.

Trump has never seemed particularly interested in governing for governing’s sake. The day-to-day work of policy, legislation, and administration has often appeared secondary to the symbolism of power. The military parades. The gold-plated aesthetics. The public displays of loyalty. The constant effort to attach his name to institutions, buildings, and projects.

Power is important to Trump. Visible power is even more important.

Why this one hurts

When news first broke that the Kennedy Center would be renamed the Trump Kennedy Center, Trump publicly acted surprised and honored by the decision.

The performance was familiar.

A board largely made up of people he appointed had supposedly decided, all on their own, that his name belonged on one of the country’s most recognizable cultural institutions. Trump accepted the praise with the sort of modesty that has become his trademark. He described himself as surprised, flattered, and honored.

The problem for Trump is that the ruling is not merely a legal setback; It challenges an effort to place his name on a national institution whose identity already carries deep historical and cultural significance.

And Trump is increasingly focused on legacy.

A president thinking about how history will remember him

As Trump’s second presidency struggles under economic concerns, political fights, and growing public dissatisfaction, there has been an unmistakable shift in focus.

The conversation is less about what he is accomplishing and more about how he will be remembered.

You can see it in the recurring ideas that seem to capture his imagination. The desire for military spectacles. The comparisons to historic presidents. The proposals to put his face on currency. The fascination with monuments, rankings, and symbolic recognition.

Trump appears deeply concerned with whether history will place him among the great presidents. The challenge is that legacies are usually built through accomplishments such as economic transformations, major legislation, foreign policy breakthroughs, and national moments that reshape the country.

Those things are harder to manufacture than a new sign on a building.

The Kennedy Center is different

The Kennedy Center is not a random office complex or a luxury condo development.

It exists as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy and occupies a unique place in American cultural life. It is one of the country’s most recognizable arts institutions and carries a significance that extends well beyond whichever political party happens to be in power.

That is part of what made the renaming effort feel so jarring. Even hearing the phrase “Trump Kennedy Center” sounds strange. It feels like two entirely different traditions colliding with each other.

Now a federal judge has stepped in and said the name has to come off. Whether the decision survives appeals or not, the symbolism is difficult to miss. Trump wanted his name added to one of America’s premier cultural institutions. Instead, he may become associated with a court order requiring that his name be removed.

The legacy question

The irony here is that this fight was never about improving life for ordinary Americans.

Renaming the Kennedy Center does not lower grocery prices, reduce housing costs, make healthcare more affordable, or address concerns about wages. The legal battle that follows is unlikely to affect any of those issues either.

Yet the issue is revealing because it exposes a tension that has followed Trump throughout his political career.

Is the goal governing, or is the goal recognition?

For many critics, this ruling feels significant because it speaks directly to that question. It challenges the idea that public institutions exist primarily as vehicles for personal branding. And for a president who has spent decades building an identity around putting his name on things, that challenge may be more painful than any policy defeat.

So what do you think? Can a president shape how history remembers them, or is legacy something that can only be earned over time? Leave a comment and let me know.

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

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—David

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One of the most dangerous developments in politics right now is that some of the most irresponsible voices in media are getting very good at identifying real problems.

At first glance, that might not sound dangerous at all.

If people are talking about economic anxiety, institutional failures, corporate power, or elite hypocrisy, aren’t those conversations worth having? Of course they are.

The problem is not the observation. The problem is what comes next.

Most people are not persuaded by arguments that are obviously disconnected from reality. If someone tells you that purple lizards secretly control the economy, you don’t spend much time considering it. You move on.

But if someone accurately identifies something that is genuinely frustrating people, suddenly you are listening. Maybe they point to stagnant wages, corporate consolidation, a healthcare system that is failing too many people, or a growing sense that institutions are not working as they should.

Now they have your attention.

And that attention creates an opening.

The populist trap

I have talked many times before about what I consider the trap of populist rhetoric.

Populism is not a policy agenda. It is a style of communication.

That is why very different political movements can sound remarkably similar at first.

The rhetoric often starts in familiar territory. The middle class is struggling. Corporations have accumulated too much power. Economic opportunities seem increasingly out of reach for many people.

A lot of that is true.

The problem is that two people can begin with the same diagnosis and end up in radically different places.

One person might conclude that we need stronger labor protections, more housing, better healthcare access, stronger antitrust enforcement, and tax reforms that better reflect economic reality.

Another person starts with the same frustration and somehow arrives at immigrants, universities, transgender people, journalists, or ethnic minorities as the culprit.

That is where the road splits.

The Tucker Carlson formula

Tucker Carlson is one of the clearest examples of why this trend matters.

Part of what makes Tucker more influential today than many of the traditional right-wing commentators who came before him is that he has become much better at identifying real points of public frustration. Years ago, much of his commentary was more straightforward partisan and culture-war content. More recently, however, he has increasingly focused on issues that resonate far beyond the conservative movement.

He talks about stagnant wages, opioid addiction, corporate greed, the concentration of wealth, and the growing disconnect between ordinary people and powerful institutions.

People hear that and think, finally, someone is talking about the problems I actually see around me.

And to be fair, some of those observations are correct. Many Americans do feel economically insecure. Many communities have been left behind. Trust in institutions has declined dramatically over the last several decades. These are real issues deserving of serious discussion.

The problem is that identifying a problem is not the same thing as understanding it.

Once the audience has been brought in, the conversation often takes a very different turn. Instead of focusing on labor rights, healthcare access, housing affordability, antitrust enforcement, or tax policy, the explanation shifts toward cultural grievance and scapegoating. The frustrations may be real, but the causes and solutions become detached from reality.

And Tucker is hardly alone.

Nick Fuentes uses a similar approach with young men who feel isolated, economically insecure, and disconnected from institutions they no longer trust. Alex Jones built an entire media empire by taking legitimate concerns about institutional failures and turning them into all-encompassing conspiracy theories. Joe Rogan sometimes starts with valid criticisms of media failures or corporate misconduct, only to drift into a worldview where institutional trust has eroded so completely that almost any theory begins to feel plausible.

What all of these examples have in common is that they begin with something true. That truth creates credibility. And credibility makes people more receptive to conclusions that would otherwise sound absurd.

Why this works

What makes this dynamic so effective is that emotional validation comes before the conclusion. Once someone feels understood, they become more open to accepting explanations they might otherwise reject. That does not make them irrational. It makes them human. People are naturally more receptive to information from someone they believe understands their experiences and frustrations.

That is why so many conspiracy movements begin with something that is at least partially true.

Governments sometimes lie.

Corporations sometimes conceal information.

Media organizations sometimes get things wrong.

Institutions sometimes fail.

All of that is true.

The problem is that acknowledging those realities can become the first step toward a much more extreme worldview. It becomes easy to move from “institutions sometimes fail” to “institutions can never be trusted.” It becomes easy to move from healthy skepticism to reflexive cynicism.

That is where figures like Alex Jones built their audiences. The starting point was often a legitimate concern about transparency or accountability. The destination was a worldview in which every tragedy was a conspiracy and every institution was part of a coordinated plot.

The starting point may be grounded in reality.

The destination is not.

The vacuum

The final piece of this puzzle is the one that concerns me most.

When traditional politicians, media organizations, and public institutions refuse to seriously engage with economic pain, institutional distrust, and public frustration, they create a vacuum.

And someone is always waiting to fill it.

That does not mean every grievance is justified. It does not mean every criticism of institutions is accurate. But many people genuinely feel that something is not working. There is a growing sense of disconnection from the political system, a belief that powerful interests play by a different set of rules, and a perception that those in charge are either unwilling or unable to confront obvious problems.

If credible voices are unwilling to engage with those concerns, less credible voices will.

That is how conspiracy theorists gain influence. It is how demagogues build audiences and how people who monetize anger become trusted sources of information.

The irony is that many of these movements grow not because they are especially good at identifying solutions, but because they are often the only ones willing to spend time talking about the frustrations people are already experiencing.

The challenge, then, is not simply identifying what is broken.

The challenge is recognizing the difference between someone who identifies a real problem and someone who actually understands it. Because identifying a genuine frustration can create enormous credibility, even when the answers that follow are completely detached from reality.

Understanding that process is the first step toward dealing with it.

Tell me your thoughts: Have you found yourself recently agreeing with commentators or public figures who, maybe a few years ago, you would have immediately dismissed? If so, what changed?

Prefer to watch?

I covered this story over on my YouTube. If you like my write ups on Substack, make sure you are also subscribed to my YouTube page where I cover an even broader range of topics.

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

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—David

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Scandals came and went. Controversies piled up. Predictions of political collapse repeatedly failed. Through it all, Republican voters remained remarkably loyal.

That is why the latest polling deserves attention.

The numbers Republicans usually never give

Recent polling highlighted by CNN’s Harry Enten shows a dramatic reversal on two of the issues Trump spent years claiming were his greatest strengths: inflation and fuel prices.

Among Republican voters, Trump once enjoyed overwhelming positive approval on inflation. During his previous presidency and throughout his 2024 campaign, Republicans largely trusted him to handle rising prices. Now, multiple polls show him underwater on the issue, including surveys from organizations that are not exactly known for being hostile to Republicans.

The same pattern appears on gas prices.

Again, these are not Democratic voters expressing dissatisfaction. These are Republicans increasingly questioning whether the promises they were sold are being delivered. When support begins slipping among the very people who are supposed to be the most committed members of your coalition, political analysts start paying close attention.

The reason is simple: presidents can survive opposition from the other party. They have a much harder time surviving disappointment from their own.

Economic reality eventually wins

One of the oldest lessons in American politics is that voters tend to care less about slogans than about their own experiences. A politician can tell people the economy is booming. A spokesperson can insist everything is moving in the right direction. Friendly media outlets can repeat the message all day long.

But if people are struggling to pay bills, carrying growing credit card debt, delaying major purchases, or worrying about housing costs, they tend to trust their own bank accounts more than political messaging.

This isn’t unique to Trump. It wasn’t unique to Biden, or to Clinton, Bush, Obama, or anyone else. Economic anxiety has a way of cutting through partisan narratives.

In fact, voters often become even more frustrated when leaders insist conditions are great while their daily lives suggest otherwise. Being told everything is wonderful while feeling financially squeezed can come across as dismissive rather than reassuring.

The promise gap

Part of what makes these numbers so politically dangerous is the contrast between expectation and reality. Trump did not campaign as a manager of gradual improvement. He campaigned as a transformational figure.

The promise was straightforward: prices would come down, the economy would improve, America would become stronger, and competence would replace chaos.

For many voters, particularly those who switched to Trump because of economic concerns, the question is no longer whether they like his rhetoric. The question is whether they feel materially better off. And when voters start asking that question, distractions become less effective.

And the distractions keep coming. There are bizarre cabinet meetings, discussions about conspiracy theories, claims about imaginary Social Security fraud, stories about aliens, and arguments over cognitive tests. None of it changes what people see when they fill up their gas tank or open a credit card statement.

The political danger emerges when voters begin connecting the daily chaos to the broader question of performance.

Why these polls matter

For much of Trump’s political career, controversial statements and unusual behavior often existed in a separate category from evaluations of his effectiveness. People might say, “That was strange,” and then move on. But what appears to be happening now is different.

Increasingly, voters seem to be evaluating the entire package together. They are looking at their financial situation, looking at the administration, and asking whether the promises matched the results.

That does not automatically mean electoral disaster. Polls move. Conditions change. Political recoveries happen.

But historically, presidents become vulnerable when economic frustration starts outweighing partisan loyalty. And when cracks begin appearing inside a president’s own coalition, those warning signs become much harder to dismiss.

The White House can argue that the polls are wrong. Supporters can claim the samples are biased. Commentators can debate methodology all day long. But when numerous polls point in the same direction, the broader trend becomes difficult to ignore.

Where does this go from here?

The bigger question may not be whether Trump’s approval numbers are falling. The data increasingly suggests they are. The question is whether this frustration eventually translates into political consequences.

Are voters simply expressing temporary dissatisfaction, or are we watching the early stages of a genuine backlash that could reshape the next election cycle?

What do you think: when voters feel financially squeezed, is there a point where party loyalty stops mattering, or do most people ultimately stick with their political team no matter what the economic reality looks like?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining.
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You can subscribe on our website and right here on Substack.

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—David

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Donald Trump’s Justice Department is now criminally investigating the woman he was found civilly liable for sexually abusing. That sentence alone should stop people in their tracks for a moment.

We are talking about E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the 1990s. Carroll took Trump to court, defeated him multiple times, and ultimately won multimillion-dollar judgments after juries found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

Now, Trump’s Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into Carroll herself.

According to reporting from CNN, the investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury during a 2022 deposition connected to her lawsuits against Trump. Specifically, investigators are looking at statements Carroll made about outside financial support for her legal expenses.

And this is where the story becomes much bigger than the narrow legal question being discussed on cable news panels.

The legal question versus the political reality

Legally speaking, perjury cases are notoriously difficult to prove.

You would have to establish not only that a statement was inaccurate, but that the person knowingly and intentionally lied in that moment. That is a very high bar. Even lawyers who deal with these kinds of cases regularly will tell you that proving criminal intent in a deposition is extremely difficult.

Could Carroll have knowingly lied? Maybe. Could she have misunderstood the question, forgotten details, or answered imprecisely? Also possible. That is precisely why perjury prosecutions are relatively rare and hard to win.

But the larger political optics here are impossible to ignore.

A president who was found civilly liable for sexually abusing a woman is now overseeing a Justice Department investigation into that same woman. The alleged offense centers around inconsistencies connected to litigation funding disclosures from years ago.

A lot of Americans are going to look at that and conclude this has less to do with neutral law enforcement and more to do with retaliation. And in a democracy, that should raise a lot of questions.

The “weaponized DOJ” reversal

For years, Trump and his allies claimed that President Joe Biden was “weaponizing” the Department of Justice against political opponents. That talking point became one of the central narratives of Trump-era politics. Every indictment, every investigation, every legal setback was framed as evidence that Biden was personally directing prosecutions behind the scenes.

The problem was there was never actual evidence Biden was sitting in the Oval Office orchestrating criminal investigations into Trump.

Now compare that to what is happening here.

Trump openly talks about revenge. He openly talks about retribution. He openly frames political opponents as enemies who deserve punishment. And now his administration is pursuing a criminal investigation into a woman who successfully sued him for sexual abuse and defamation. The irony is almost too perfect.

The thing Trump spent years accusing Biden of doing is now the thing Trump appears far more willing to actually do himself. And this pattern keeps repeating.

When Trump says institutions are politicized, what often follows is an effort to politicize them further. When Trump says prosecutions are unfair, what often follows is rhetoric about prosecuting critics. When Trump talks about ending political targeting, it increasingly sounds like he means redirecting the targeting toward his own enemies instead.

The Todd Blanche issue

There is another detail here that makes the situation look even worse.

Todd Blanche, who is now serving as acting attorney general and overseeing this matter, previously represented Donald Trump personally in the Carroll litigation.

Think about how extraordinary that is.

The lawyer who represented Trump in the case where Trump was found civilly liable for sexual abuse is now helping oversee a criminal investigation into the woman who defeated Trump in court. Even if every procedural rule is technically followed, the appearance of conflict is overwhelming. In democratic systems, appearances matter because public trust matters.

Justice systems only function when people believe the law is being applied consistently rather than selectively. Once large portions of the public begin viewing prosecutions as tools of personal vengeance, institutional credibility starts to erode very quickly.

The process can become the punishment

One of the realities people often miss is that even unsuccessful investigations can still inflict enormous damage.

Even if no charges are ever filed, being investigated by the federal government is financially draining, emotionally exhausting, and reputationally damaging. Lawyers cost money and public scrutiny becomes constant. The stress alone can dominate someone’s life for years.

Meanwhile, Trump is still appealing the civil judgments against him, including both the sexual abuse finding and the defamation awards. Carroll continues fighting those legal battles while simultaneously facing a new criminal investigation from the administration of the man she sued successfully.

That is going to look deeply troubling to many Americans, including people who may not even particularly like E. Jean Carroll. Because eventually the question becomes broader than Trump or Carroll individually.

What kind of system is this becoming?

The most important issue here is not whether you personally support Trump or personally believe Carroll.

The bigger question is whether Americans want a political system where presidents can direct enormous state power toward people who humiliated or challenged them personally. That is the real democratic stress test.

Does the justice system apply equally regardless of power, loyalty, or political usefulness? Or does it become something that can be turned selectively against critics and opponents?

Trump’s most hardcore supporters love this. They openly describe it as “finally getting justice.” They see revenge as strength. But outside that core base, many Americans are likely to see something darker: a president using federal power against a woman who defeated him in court and publicly damaged his image. Once a political culture starts normalizing that kind of retaliation, it rarely stays narrowly contained.

So what do you think? Is this legitimate law enforcement that just happens to involve one of Trump’s most famous adversaries, or does this cross the line into exactly the kind of political weaponization Trump spent years claiming to oppose?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

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—David

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There is new reporting suggesting that JD Vance may already be reconsidering the most obvious political trajectory available to him: becoming Donald Trump’s heir apparent in 2028.

If that sounds surprising, it should.

Vice presidents are generally not random side characters in presidential administrations. The traditional model is fairly straightforward. The president selects someone who can help broaden the coalition, remain loyal, and ideally stand ready as the natural successor. If supporters like the current administration, the vice president becomes the logical continuation of that political project.

That is the theory, anyway.

But what happens when the president does not seem particularly interested in naming an heir, the movement itself becomes increasingly unstable, and the vice president starts to look less like the future and more like an awkward placeholder?

That appears to be where JD Vance may find himself.

The heir apparent who may not actually be heir apparent

For a long time, Vance was treated as the obvious next chapter of Trumpism.

He had the ideological credentials. He had deep-pocketed allies like Peter Thiel. He was young enough to present himself as a generational handoff rather than a continuation of an aging political brand. The assumption in many political circles was that Vance would inherit MAGA and attempt to modernize it into something slightly more polished, more intellectualized, maybe even more technologically fluent.

But that assumption depends on Donald Trump actually wanting succession planning.

And Trump does not exactly operate that way.

Instead, Trump increasingly treats political advancement the way he treats casting decisions on reality television. One day it is Vance. Another day it is Marco Rubio. Then someone floats Donald Trump Jr. because why not.

That kind of ambiguity is not great if you are the vice president trying to build legitimacy.

If Trump is not clearly signaling that Vance is the future, Vance has a problem.

The bigger problem may be MAGA itself

There is another possibility here, and it may be even more politically revealing.

What if Vance does want to be president, just not next? That would be a striking calculation, but not an entirely irrational one. Because by 2028, Democrats would have a very simple argument if Vance becomes the Republican nominee: this is Trump, just younger. Whether that message would be fair is almost secondary, but it is the obvious framing.

If inflation remains painful, if foreign policy becomes more chaotic, if the Trump years continue to carry political baggage, Vance would inherit all of it. He would not be presented as a fresh face. He would be presented as an extension.

And Vance is young. If he believes Trumpism is entering a politically toxic phase, waiting could be the smarter move. He could sit out 2028, let someone else absorb the fallout, and re-emerge in 2032 or later with more distance.

Politicians are not generally known for delayed gratification, but strategically, it would make sense.

What exactly does Vance represent anymore?

This is where the ideological confusion gets interesting.

For years, MAGA sold itself as the anti-interventionist version of Republican politics: skeptical of wars, nation-building, and the old George W. Bush foreign policy model.

Vance fit neatly into that version of the movement.

But if Trump’s current political identity is increasingly more interventionist, more militarily aggressive, and more aligned with a traditional hawkish Republican posture, then where exactly does that leave Vance?

If the internal reporting is accurate, some of Vance’s closest ideological allies are already disappearing from the administration. That is not just staffing drama; it suggests that his faction may be losing relevance. And if that faction is losing relevance, what exactly is the political lane for Vance?

The anti-war MAGA candidate inside a movement that no longer seems especially anti-war? That becomes a difficult pitch.

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio exists

It is also impossible to ignore Marco Rubio’s positioning here. Rubio increasingly looks like someone Trump is comfortable elevating, particularly as foreign policy becomes a more central part of the political conversation.

That does not automatically make Rubio the frontrunner, but it does make Vance’s presumed inevitability look much less inevitable. And politics changes fast.

A few months ago, Vance looked like the obvious future. Now the conversation is far messier. Rubio is getting attention. Other names occasionally surface. The certainty around Vance has weakened.

That alone is politically significant.

The movement matters more than the nominee

The larger point is that even if Vance fades, the broader Republican political playbook probably does not.

The messaging framework remains familiar: portray Democrats as dangerous, frame elections as suspect when politically useful, promise safety, identify scapegoats, manufacture existential stakes. Candidates may change, but the operating system often does not.

Which is why succession speculation is interesting, but not the whole story.

Because the real question may not be whether JD Vance becomes Trump’s heir. It may be whether Trumpism actually needs a single heir at all.

Imagine being the vice president and already thinking, “Maybe I’ll sit this one out.” Smart move, or political red flag?

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The United States has long operated with a certain assumption about itself. We are the global superpower. The dominant force. The country that projects strength, sets the agenda, and ultimately gets its way.

That assumption has been deeply embedded in American political culture for decades.

But it is worth asking whether that image still matches reality.

Because increasingly, the gap between how the United States sees itself and how much influence it actually commands seems to be be growing.

Strength as spectacle

Trump’s recent overseas posturing fits a familiar pattern. The message is always the same: America is feared, America has leverage, America is back in control.

The optics are carefully constructed. Ceremonies. Military imagery. Dramatic rhetoric. Threats. Motorcades. The theatrical choreography of strength.

But what are the actual outcomes?

Trump’s engagement with China produced no meaningful breakthrough for the United States. No major concessions. No strategic victory. No visible leverage gained. Instead, what emerged was the image of a president clearly susceptible to flattery from authoritarian leaders who understand exactly how to manipulate spectacle without offering anything tangible in return.

And that raises a broader question.

If the symbolism keeps increasing while the results keep shrinking, what exactly are we looking at?

The difference between image and power

Real power produces outcomes. It shapes negotiations, builds coalitions, creates stability, and it improves material conditions at home.

Performance power is different. Performance power relies on declarations.

“We are respected again.”

“Everyone fears us.”

But declarations are not outcomes. China did not suddenly bend to American pressure. Trump’s trade wars did not meaningfully rebuild American manufacturing. Iran did not quickly fold under pressure despite repeated expectations that escalation would force resolution.

And meanwhile, everyday Americans are not exactly living inside the promised golden age. Prices remain painful. Housing remains brutal. Debt pressure continues to rise. Consumers are increasingly squeezed from every direction.

It’s a glaring disconnect that matters.

Because if the rhetoric says “strength” while the lived experience says “fragility,” eventually people notice.

What declining powers often do

History offers an uncomfortable pattern. Empires at their most stable do not usually need constant theatrical reassurance. They do not endlessly insist on their dominance because dominance tends to be self-evident. The performance often becomes more aggressive when confidence starts slipping.

Nationalist imagery intensifies. Military symbolism becomes more central. Leaders become more emotional, more reactive, more obsessed with loyalty displays and public spectacle. Not because power is growing, but because anxiety about power is growing.

That does not automatically mean the United States is in terminal decline. History is rarely that neat. But it does suggest that spectacle can sometimes function less as proof of strength and more as compensation for insecurity.

The contrast with long-term strategy

None of this requires admiration for authoritarian governments.

Quite the opposite.

But objective analysis means acknowledging strategic differences. China’s leadership, whatever else one thinks of it, tends to project patience, long-term planning, and message discipline.

The United States under Trump projects volatility. Impulsiveness. Emotional decision-making. Policy by outburst.

And in global politics, stability itself can become a strategic asset. That represents a meaningful shift in perception.

Because American influence has historically depended not just on military power, but on institutional credibility, economic reliability, and the belief that U.S. leadership was relatively predictable.

That belief has taken serious damage.

Polling has consistently shown America’s international standing suffering under Trump compared to prior administrations. And whether Trump acknowledges that or not does not materially change it.

The harder question

The real danger may not be decline itself. The real danger may be believing decline is impossible.

Countries that remain convinced they are at peak power can make increasingly irrational choices because the self-image no longer matches reality.

Decision-making becomes emotional rather than strategic. Displays of strength replace substance. Leadership focuses more on loyalty theater than practical outcomes.

That is when mistakes compound.

The United States still possesses extraordinary military capability, enormous economic influence, and global reach that few nations can match. But superpower status is not just about having aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons. It is also about competence, credibility, institutional trust, infrastructure, economic resilience, and strategic patience.

And increasingly, those are exactly the areas where the warning signs are flashing.

So what do you think: are we watching a temporary period of dysfunction, or is America starting to confuse looking powerful with actually being powerful?

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People keep waiting for the economic collapse to arrive with some dramatic, unmistakable moment. A stock market crash. Mass layoffs overnight. Some singular event so obvious that everyone collectively agrees, okay, now things are bad.

But that is usually not how economic decline feels when you are living through it.

More often, it feels incremental. Quiet. Frustrating in a way that is harder to package into a headline.

The paycheck still arrives. The lights are still on. You are not standing in a bread line. But somehow, every month feels tighter than the one before.

The grocery bill is a little higher. The insurance premium jumps again. A car repair becomes a credit card balance.

The daycare asks for extra supplies and suddenly that becomes another unexpected expense you were not prepared for.

And because none of these moments, in isolation, look like catastrophe, there is a tendency to dismiss what is actually happening.

The slow erosion of financial stability

What we are seeing is not necessarily traditional poverty in the way politicians often describe it.

It is financial fragility.

A growing number of Americans are technically functioning while becoming increasingly economically unstable. It’s an important distinction. Because when people hear commentary about irresponsible spending, luxury purchases, or poor budgeting, it misses what many households are actually experiencing.

This is not a story about extravagant lifestyles.

This is a story about groceries being charged to credit cards because cash flow no longer comfortably covers basic life.

It is the unexpected dental bill, the flat tire, the school expense, or the household repair.

Not because someone was reckless, but because modern life contains unavoidable costs, and increasingly, many families no longer have enough margin to absorb them.

That is how debt becomes a trap.

Not in one dramatic leap. In a hundred small compromises. You carry a balance this month. Pay some interest. Carry a little more next month. Then pay interest on that interest. And slowly, what looked manageable becomes structurally unsustainable. The numbers reflect this.

Credit card delinquencies are rising. Auto loan delinquencies are hitting alarming levels. People are not simply borrowing more. Increasingly, some are unable to even make minimum payments.

That is not resilience. That is not “winning.” That is warning.

The disconnect between economic messaging and lived reality

One of the stranger features of modern political messaging is how often economic abstractions are presented as if they should override personal experience.

GDP is up. Consumer spending remains strong. The economy is “doing great.”

But if you are standing in a grocery aisle wondering how dinner somehow costs $140, macroeconomic talking points begin to feel almost insulting.

If your insurance premium increased, if childcare remains unaffordable, if gas costs more, if basic expenses keep pushing you into revolving debt, it is increasingly hard to ignore.

Then hearing television surrogates celebrate “strong spending” because consumers continue swiping credit cards does not sound reassuring. It sounds disconnected, because spending fueled by financial desperation is not economic confidence.

That is survival behavior. And when political figures attempt to frame that as evidence of prosperity, people notice.

Why trust begins to collapse

There is a broader democratic consequence here that goes beyond household economics.

When people begin to feel that hard work no longer reliably produces stability, something deeper starts to fracture. Trust.

Trust in institutions, in political leadership, in the idea that the system, while imperfect, broadly works.

Because if you are doing what you were told to do, working, paying bills, trying to manage responsibly, and still finding yourself slowly falling behind, the natural conclusion becomes: something is broken.

And to be clear, acknowledging that frustration does not automatically mean one political party has easy answers. These are difficult structural problems. Housing affordability is not simple. Healthcare costs are not simple. Childcare affordability is not simple.

But there is a meaningful difference between not having immediate solutions and pretending the problem does not exist.

Gaslighting is not governance. And that may be the political risk here.

Not simply economic strain, but the widening gap between what people are told and what they actually experience every single day. Because eventually, enough quiet frustration becomes political anger. Collapse has not arrived all at once. Decline was allowed to happen slowly enough that people were expected to normalize it.

So what do you think: are Americans experiencing a temporary squeeze that will eventually ease, or are we watching something deeper break in slow motion?

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Democrats have a serious problem, and it is not just polling or fundraising.

It is a mindset problem.

More specifically, it is a misunderstanding about what political communication actually looks like in 2026 and what it is going to require by 2028. Because from where I sit, too many Democrats are still operating like it is 2008.

And I say that not as some abstract media critic, but based on what I am personally experiencing over and over again.

We are still getting requests from Democratic offices asking us to submit interview questions in advance. Not broad topic areas, which is perfectly normal. They want actual questions, or at least they heavily pressure us in that direction. That is not how we do interviews.

We are happy to give a general sense of what might come up. Maybe we mention five broad topics we could touch on. Nothing surprising: immigration, the economy, campaign messaging, media strategy, whatever it may be. And then during the interview, I might spend more time on one or two of those areas depending on where the conversation goes.

But we do not provide questions in advance, we do not guarantee coverage of specific topics, and we are not conducting scripted interviews.

Because that is the entire point. A real conversation requires room for follow-ups, reactions, unpredictability, and actual engagement in the moment. Otherwise, you are not really doing an interview. You are producing a controlled media exercise.

And yet we continue to encounter situations where staffers are unhappy after the fact because an interview did not unfold exactly the way they hoped.

And to be clear, this is not every Democrat we speak to. There are plenty of elected officials and offices that are excellent to work with, confident in their message, comfortable with real conversations, and not trying to choreograph every minute of an interview.

But this pattern shows up often enough that it points to something bigger than just a few isolated staff decisions.

I am not naming names because embarrassing individual offices is not the point.

The point is that this keeps happening.

And the bigger problem is what it reveals.

The politics of over-control

Political communication teams often believe their job is to eliminate risk.

No surprises. No awkward moments. No difficult follow-ups. No clips that could go viral for the wrong reason. And from a purely defensive perspective, that logic makes sense.

But politics is not just risk management. It is persuasion. And persuasion depends heavily on authenticity. The more tightly controlled something feels, the less authentic it becomes.

Short interviews. Formulaic talking points. Nervous staff hovering in the background. Conversations that feel less like discussions and more like approved messaging exercises.

Audiences can feel that immediately.

Even if they cannot articulate exactly why, they know when something feels sanitized.

And sanitized political communication increasingly just does not work.

Republicans understood this faster

During White House Correspondents’ Weekend, I spoke with producers, staffers, and political operatives across the spectrum. One consistent theme came up.

Republicans are generally not approaching media this way.

They are not obsessively pre-negotiating interviews. They are often not even demanding topic approval. They are certainly not routinely circling back afterward to complain that the conversation took an unexpected turn.

Now, let’s be clear about something.

This does not mean Republicans are better communicators in some principled sense. Trump routinely lies. Conservative media ecosystems often reward spectacle over substance. But from a purely tactical standpoint, they grasp something Democrats too often miss.

A loose, conversational appearance can feel far more persuasive than a tightly managed one.

Trump sitting with Joe Rogan or Theo Von and casually talking, however dishonest the content may be, creates the impression of authenticity.

Politics is perception. Perception matters.

The consultant-industrial complex problem

Back in late 2024, when I met with White House communications staff and even President Biden, I made this exact argument.

You cannot keep trying to control every word.

Because part of what damaged Democrats was this communications culture built around over-management.

An ecosystem of consultants, staffers, messaging professionals, and party infrastructure all operating under the assumption that communication is something to be engineered rather than lived.

That may have worked better in an earlier media era. It works much less well now.

Independent media does not function like cable news booking from fifteen years ago. Audiences expect spontaneity. They expect some friction. They expect moments that feel unscripted. If every appearance feels polished within an inch of its life, the audience stops trusting it.

And trust is already in short supply.

There are exceptions

Not every Democrat operates this way.

My recent interview with Gavin Newsom is a useful contrast. Newsom’s team simply set the time, trusted the process, and let the conversation happen.

The result?

A more dynamic interview. A more relaxed exchange. Something that actually felt like a conversation rather than a hostage negotiation with scheduling software. That is not accidental. Trust tends to produce better content.

And better content tends to produce better audience engagement.

This is not because every unscripted interview will go well. Some will absolutely go sideways. That is the tradeoff.

But politics has always involved tradeoffs.

This alone will not save Democrats

None of this means communications style is the only Democratic problem.

Far from it. Policy clarity matters. Messaging on crime, immigration, economic anxiety, institutional trust, and affordability all matter enormously. Structural electoral dynamics matter too.

But communication culture is part of the larger picture because it reflects something deeper.

Does the party trust actual messengers?

Or does it trust only systems designed to minimize uncertainty?

Because if the answer remains the latter, Democrats may continue losing a communications war they do not fully understand.

The internet is not waiting for a polished memo.

What do you think: are Democrats still trying to win a media environment that no longer exists, or is tighter message discipline actually the smarter play?

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Crime is bad, right?

That has been one of the defining rhetorical pillars of Trumpism for years. Law and order, tough on crime, no tolerance for corruption, and no sympathy for criminals. We have heard the messaging over and over again, always delivered with the implication that Democrats are soft, permissive, unserious, or somehow complicit in social decay.

That is the branding.

The reality looks a little different.

Donald Trump himself is a convicted felon, found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records. And now Trump has thrown his endorsement behind Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate Republican runoff, a man whose political career reads less like a law-and-order success story and more like a running case study in alleged misconduct.

So naturally, the endorsement makes perfect sense in Trumpworld.

Trump waited until the winner looked obvious

One of the more predictable parts of this story is the timing.

After the initial Texas Republican primary failed to produce a candidate with more than 50 percent, a runoff was scheduled between incumbent Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Trump, naturally, teased an endorsement. He would decide soon, he said. Very soon. But not too soon.

Because Trump’s endorsement strategy has rarely been about conviction or principle. It is much more often about scoreboard management. He likes endorsements that become “wins,” which means waiting until the likely victor becomes clearer before planting the flag.

That appears to be exactly what happened here.

For weeks, the race looked competitive. Once Paxton increasingly appeared to have momentum, Trump finally made his move. Suddenly the endorsement arrived, wrapped in the usual language about loyalty, strength, and personal allegiance.

And that last part needs more attention.

Because if you strip away the branding, Trump’s political worldview remains remarkably simple: loyalty is the highest virtue. Not honesty. Not competence. Not ethics. Certainly not lawfulness.

Loyalty.

The “law and order” exception clause

Ken Paxton is not exactly an intuitive poster child for anti-corruption politics.

This is a man who was impeached by members of his own party over corruption allegations. Pause there for a second, because that is not normal. Republicans are not exactly known for eagerly purging their own over ethical concerns.

Paxton has faced felony securities fraud charges, whistleblower retaliation allegations, and additional scrutiny over other legal matters. The specifics almost become secondary to the larger pattern: this is not someone whose public image aligns with the supposedly uncompromising standards of “law and order” politics.

And yet none of that appears to matter. Because the anti-crime messaging has always had an implied asterisk.

Crime is unacceptable when committed by political enemies.

Ethical violations are disqualifying when committed by Democrats.

Corruption is intolerable until one of your own is involved.

Suddenly, we are told to be nuanced. Context starts to matter.

Investigations become political.

Indictments become witch hunts.

Convictions somehow stop counting.

This pattern has become so familiar that it barely surprises anyone anymore.

What this actually reveals

The endorsement is revealing not because it is unusual, but because it is entirely consistent. Trump did not endorse the candidate with the cleanest record. He did not endorse based on some coherent ideological principle. He endorsed the person most likely to win and the person most loyal to him.

That tells you almost everything.

And there is something else happening here that may actually matter politically.

For a long time, Texas Senate races have been treated as effectively locked in for Republicans. But the conversation around the general election has become more competitive than many would have expected, which raises a broader question about whether even deeply entrenched assumptions are beginning to shift.

Whether that translates into reality is another question entirely, but the bigger issue remains the contradiction.

If “law and order” is a genuine principle, it should apply consistently. If it only applies selectively, then it is not really a principle at all. It is simply branding.

And voters eventually have to decide whether they are comfortable with that distinction.

So what do you think: Do you think voters see the contradiction here, or has selective outrage simply become normalized in modern politics?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

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Calls for Donald Trump’s removal are suddenly coming from some unusual places.

Right-wing personalities, former allies, anti-Trump Republicans, and media figures are openly talking about the 25th Amendment, Trump’s instability, and the possibility of JD Vance replacing him. Figures like Candace Owens, Alex Jones, and Anthony Scaramucci are now part of that conversation. There are others who, for different reasons, have either orbited Trumpworld, benefited from it, or at least understood its incentives.

Now, let me be clear: I do not think Trump is likely to be removed.

Even the more optimistic scenarios floating around, including the one Robert Reich recently outlined, still amount to a long shot. The mechanics alone make it extraordinarily difficult, and there is no meaningful evidence at this point that Trump’s cabinet is preparing to turn on him.

But that may not actually be the most important part of this story.

The real shift is psychological.

For years, even people within Trump’s broader orbit who privately found him exhausting, unstable, or politically dangerous mostly stayed quiet. The calculation was simple: whatever the concerns, Trump was still the vehicle. He was still the path to power. So you swallowed your objections, got in line, and repeated the talking points.

That appears to be changing.

The post-Trump thought experiment has begun

What stands out here is not the plausibility of the 25th Amendment scenario itself. It is that more people on the right are now openly imagining a post-Trump future and, perhaps more notably, imagining that future as an improvement.

That is not nothing.

Because once people inside a political movement start publicly entertaining succession, you have already entered a different phase of the story.

The hypothetical Robert Reich scenario making the rounds is political fantasy more than an imminent roadmap. JD Vance decides Trump is no longer viable, recruits Marco Rubio by promising him the vice presidency, and together they trigger a cascade through Republican leadership. It reads more like political fiction than a serious near-term strategy.

But viral political fiction often reveals something real underneath.

In this case, what it reveals is that people are increasingly comfortable asking a question that used to be politically radioactive: what comes after Trump?

Trump as mascot, not manager

There is a fairly simple explanation for why this shift may be happening.

Trump increasingly functions less like an active governing president and more like a symbolic mascot for the movement. And if that is true, the incentives become much easier to understand.

If you are inside Trump’s cabinet, chaos may actually be useful.

A distracted, erratic president creates room for everyone else to expand their own influence. Cabinet members gain autonomy. Power flows downward. Decision-making becomes fragmented in ways that may actually benefit ambitious people operating nearby.

If the president is absorbed in spectacle, grievance, or self-created drama, others can quietly build their own empires. That creates a strange incentive structure where dysfunction is not necessarily a bug. It may be a feature. Which helps explain why cabinet revolt remains unlikely.

The outsiders have different incentives

But the people speaking out are not, for the most part, the ones directly benefiting from proximity to executive power. That matters.

Candace Owens and Alex Jones are useful examples, not because their politics are principled, but because their incentives are different. The further someone drifts from the center of Trump’s immediate power structure, the less appealing chaos becomes.

If you are no longer benefiting from the machinery, the instability stops looking strategic and starts looking costly. And that may be what we are seeing. Not necessarily a moral awakening. Not necessarily a constitutional crisis.

Just a recalculation.

The actual question

So the real question is not whether Trump is unstable enough for removal.

The real question is whether the people around him still find him useful.

If Trump remains valuable as a chaotic figurehead who absorbs attention while others pursue their own agendas, then there is very little reason for insiders to move against him. If, however, he becomes more of a liability than an asset, the conversation changes quickly.

That is how power movements tend to work. Loyalty often looks ideological from the outside. Internally, it is frequently transactional.

So maybe the question is this:

At what point does a political movement decide its mascot has become bad for business?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

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There is a version of political disagreement that is perfectly normal in a democracy.

People can look at the same facts and arrive at different conclusions. One person might believe a policy is worth the tradeoff. Another might believe the costs are too high. That is politics.

But what happens when people are not even starting from the same factual baseline?

That is a very different problem.

And increasingly, it seems to be the actual problem in American politics.

When the facts themselves disappear

One of the more revealing realities of the Trump era is not simply that political divisions have deepened. It is that for many Americans, particularly within Trump’s political movement, the disagreement begins long before policy.

It begins at the level of basic factual understanding.

A recent NBC poll found that 85 percent of Republicans believe immigration causes crime. If that were true, then many of the policy positions they support would at least follow logically from that belief. If you genuinely believed more immigrants meant more crime, you would likely support harsher enforcement, broader deportation efforts, and more aggressive immigration restrictions.

The problem is that the underlying premise is false.

For years, data has consistently shown that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. That does not settle every immigration debate. It is not an argument for ignoring border policy or pretending immigration systems do not require management.

But it does matter whether the public is operating from reality.

Because once a false premise becomes emotionally accepted as truth, the policy outcomes become predictable.

Fear becomes political fuel.

And politicians who promise to solve the invented crisis become far more appealing.

The tariff illusion

The same dynamic shows up in economic policy.

Polling has found that many Republicans believe tariff-related economic pain is either justified or not especially concerning because tariffs will supposedly create long-term economic benefits that outweigh the short-term costs.

But tariffs are, functionally, import taxes.

They raise prices. That is not controversial economic theory. That is simply how the mechanism works. And yet if voters have been convinced tariffs are some kind of painless patriotic economic weapon, then support for those policies becomes easier to understand.

Not because the policy necessarily makes sense, but because the factual understanding underneath it is broken. This is where politics becomes especially difficult.

If voters believe a problem exists when it does not, they will support unnecessary or harmful solutions. If voters deny a real problem exists, they will resist solutions that might actually help. In both cases, governance becomes almost impossible.

Propaganda works

There is an uncomfortable reality embedded in all of this. The misinformation is not random.

It is working.

Beliefs about immigration and crime among Republicans did not emerge in a vacuum. They were cultivated through years of repetition, messaging, media reinforcement, and political rhetoric designed to create emotional certainty rather than factual understanding.

That is what propaganda does. Not necessarily through complexity. Often through repetition.

Say something enough times, frame it emotionally enough times, attach it to identity enough times, and eventually many people stop evaluating whether it is true at all. It simply becomes part of how they understand the world.

And once political identity becomes fused with factual misconceptions, changing minds becomes much harder because correcting the fact can feel, psychologically, like attacking the person.

The accountability paradox

There is a temptation to stop the analysis there. To simply conclude that Trump supporters do not know basic facts, laugh at the contradiction, and move on.

But that does not actually solve anything.

Mockery might feel satisfying for five minutes. It does not rebuild civic reality. The harder question is what actually causes people to reconsider. Interestingly, some of that may already be happening.

Not necessarily because people are being persuaded by opposing arguments, but because reality has a way of eventually colliding with political promises. If someone was told tariffs would quickly improve their economic life and that never materializes, some will begin asking questions.

If sweeping promises about foreign threats, economic miracles, or national restoration never produce results, some people do begin reassessing.

Not everyone. But some. And that’s important.

Because if someone genuinely believed the false premise, their political choices become much easier to understand. That does not excuse those choices. But understanding the mechanism matters if the goal is actually changing outcomes.

America’s trust problem

This may ultimately be the deeper American crisis.

Not polarization. Not disagreement. Not even ideology.

Trust.

Trust in institutions. Trust in expertise. Trust in data. Trust that some facts remain true whether they are politically convenient or not. Because democracy cannot really function if every policy argument starts with entirely separate realities.

At that point, politics stops becoming persuasion.

It becomes tribal storytelling.

And once that happens, accountability becomes incredibly difficult because evidence itself no longer carries shared meaning.

So I’m curious what you think: can people be brought back once politics becomes part identity, part alternate reality, or are we already much deeper into that spiral than most of us want to admit?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

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We often describe moments like this as political crises. A constitutional crisis. A democratic crisis. A governance crisis.

But I’m not sure that is actually the most accurate description of where the United States is right now.

What we may be dealing with instead is something deeper: a trust crisis.

And if that diagnosis is correct, what comes next may be politically and economically uglier than many people are prepared for.

Part of the challenge is that this conversation makes some people uncomfortable, because it requires acknowledging two things at the same time. First, institutions are necessary. A country the size and complexity of the United States cannot function without them. Second, many of those same institutions have failed in visible and damaging ways over the last several decades.

Those two things are not contradictory.

Being a defender of institutions does not require pretending they have performed well.

The Iraq War was sold on false pretenses. The 2008 financial collapse was caused in significant part by the very systems that were supposed to prevent that kind of catastrophe. The opioid crisis was made dramatically worse by pharmaceutical companies, failures in the medical system, and weak regulatory oversight. The Trump administration’s handling of Covid during the first term was disastrous. Legacy media has repeatedly failed the public in meaningful ways. Government itself has often failed the people it was supposed to serve.

That does not mean every anti-establishment narrative is correct. It does not validate every conspiracy theory or every cynical right-wing talking point about institutional collapse. But it does help explain why so many Americans no longer trust that the people in charge know what they are doing, or even believe those institutions are operating in the public interest.

And once that kind of trust erodes, something rushes in to fill the vacuum.

Why conspiracy culture thrives

One of the easiest mistakes to make is assuming conspiracy culture is simply about ignorance or stupidity. Certainly, some of it is detached from reality in obvious ways. But I think there is something psychologically more complicated happening.

When enough systems fail, some people begin to prefer a sinister explanation over a chaotic one.

If everything is part of some hidden plan, then at least someone is in control. If events are staged, manipulated, or orchestrated by shadowy actors, then randomness becomes easier to emotionally process.

The alternative is accepting that institutions can fail, leaders can be incompetent, and genuinely bad things can happen without anyone being fully in control. That uncertainty is deeply uncomfortable. And so conspiracy culture becomes emotionally appealing.

The problem is that once this becomes the dominant framework, institutions lose the ability to recover credibility, even when they do something correctly. Evidence stops mattering. Corrections lose their impact. Accuracy becomes secondary to emotional engagement.

Digital platforms have made this exponentially worse.

The conspiracy ecosystem is now self-financing, algorithmically amplified, and largely immune to correction. It does not need to be accurate. It only needs to be compelling enough to keep people clicking, sharing, donating, and staying emotionally activated.

That ecosystem has become one of the forces fueling Trumpism.

The collapse of shared reality

A democracy does not require universal agreement.

It does require some shared understanding of reality.

And that may be one of the most troubling parts of where we are now.

A huge number of people have effectively checked out of news consumption altogether, not necessarily because they do not care, but because they no longer trust what they are seeing or do not understand how it connects to their lives. At the same time, people increasingly distrust anyone who gets their information from different sources than they do.

That means disagreement is no longer just about interpretation. It becomes disagreement about reality itself. When that happens, democratic persuasion becomes much harder.

Because persuasion assumes some shared set of facts. If those facts no longer exist, politics becomes much more about tribal loyalty and identity than about reasoned argument.

That is not a healthy place for a democracy to operate.

The economic consequences of distrust

Distrust does not remain neatly confined to politics. It has economic consequences too.

Confidence is not some abstract emotional metric. It is part of the infrastructure of a functioning economy. If people stop trusting financial institutions, markets become more fragile. If consumers distrust the system, behavior changes. Investment decisions shift. Borrowing patterns change. Participation in the broader economy becomes less predictable.

Researchers have described this dynamic as a kind of credibility recession. And you can see how it plays out in real time.

Take Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve. There is obviously a political dimension to that story. But there is also an economic one.

Part of what gives the United States enormous economic leverage is trust in the relative independence of key financial institutions. Markets trust certain structures to operate above day-to-day political chaos. If that credibility erodes, the consequences are not theoretical.

Supply chains destabilize. Inflation risks grow. Investment becomes less predictable. Economic uncertainty deepens.

Trust is economic infrastructure, whether we describe it that way or not.

The right’s strategy and the left’s vacuum

The political right has recognized something useful about all of this.

Distrust can be monetized. Conspiracy can be monetized. Institutional collapse narratives can be turned into turnout tools and fundraising tools.

That machine has been remarkably effective, but it also creates its own long-term problem.

If you condition your political base to distrust everything, eventually they distrust governance itself. Compromise becomes betrayal. Expertise becomes suspect. Governing becomes dramatically harder because your own voters have been radicalized beyond the point of institutional legitimacy.

But it would be far too easy to tell this as a story where one side is broken and the other is prepared to step in with a compelling alternative.

The left has its own serious problems.

Part of the left wants an aggressive ideological transformation that many voters are simply not going to embrace. Another part offers a version of politics so cautious, incremental, and uninspiring that it is difficult to imagine it meaningfully addressing the scale of the problems facing the country.

And if I’m being honest, neither faction currently feels especially convincing.

I do not believe socialism is the answer.

I also do not believe tiny, carefully managed adjustments from establishment Democrats are enough. Which creates a different kind of vacuum.

Not necessarily a trust vacuum, but a leadership vacuum. A vision vacuum.

What happens next

That is why I think people may be underestimating how unstable the next phase of American politics could become.

As conversations shift toward what happens after Trump, what becomes of the Republican Party, what the midterms look like, or whether figures like Gavin Newsom or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez become central to 2028, there is a deeper structural issue underneath all of it.

Political systems do not recover neatly when trust has been eroding for years.

The uncomfortable possibility is that things get uglier before they get better. Politically. Economically. Institutionally.

So what do you think: are we actually living through a political crisis, or is the deeper problem that too many Americans no longer trust enough of the system for normal politics to function at all?

If topics like this are interesting to you, check out my book, The Echo Machine: How Right-Wing Extremism Created a Post-Truth America. In it, I examine how coordinated disinformation, media manipulation, and echo chambers have eroded shared facts and intellectual standards in modern US politics.

Get your copy at davidpakman.com/book

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining.
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Donald Trump may have just received one of the most serious foreign policy warnings of his presidency, and I’m not sure he even realizes it.

On the surface, these diplomatic exchanges can look cordial, even friendly. There are smiles, ceremonial welcomes, public compliments, carefully scripted statements, and the usual imagery designed to project stability.

But diplomatic language is often about what is implied, not what is explicitly said.

And when it comes to China and Taiwan, the implications matter enormously.

Because while Trump appears to interpret these interactions as evidence of personal rapport, what may actually be happening is something much more dangerous: China drawing a clear red line while Trump mistakes the warning for friendship.

Taiwan is not just another policy disagreement

President Xi’s message, as framed in the diplomatic language of the meeting, was not subtle if you understand how these exchanges work. The warning was essentially this: if the United States interferes in a Taiwan conflict, China is prepared to escalate, potentially all the way to direct military confrontation.

That is what makes this so serious. Trump appears to interpret ceremonial diplomacy, smiles, and public cordiality as evidence that he has some kind of personal rapport with Xi. But diplomatic friendliness does not cancel strategic warnings. If anything, that is often exactly how those warnings are delivered. The red carpet and the photo ops are the presentation. The message underneath can be much darker.

From an American perspective, it can be tempting to interpret Taiwan as simply another foreign policy dispute. A tense issue, certainly, but one that belongs in the familiar category of international disagreements that get managed through negotiations, strategic pressure, and diplomacy.

That is not how China sees it.

For Beijing, Taiwan is not merely a geopolitical disagreement. It is bound up in questions of sovereignty, national identity, historical grievance, and regime legitimacy.

China views Taiwan as unfinished business from the Chinese Civil War. Reunification is not seen as optional. It is treated as an eventual necessity. And that is an important note because when one side sees an issue as negotiable and the other sees it as existential, the margin for catastrophic misunderstanding gets very small.

China has spent years preparing for exactly that possibility.

They have invested in military modernization, naval expansion, missile systems, cyberwarfare capabilities, and airpower development. Much of that planning has centered on the possibility of a Taiwan confrontation.

This is not theoretical posturing. This is strategic preparation.

The dangerous role of ambiguity

For decades, the United States has operated under what is often called strategic ambiguity.

The broad idea is straightforward: support Taiwan, provide defensive assistance, but avoid making totally explicit commitments about military intervention if conflict breaks out. The ambiguity is intentional. Its purpose is deterrence through uncertainty. China cannot assume the United States will stay out, while Taiwan cannot assume unconditional military backing.

It is an imperfect framework, but one that has helped preserve a fragile balance.

The danger comes when unpredictability stops being strategic and starts being reckless. That is where Trump becomes a serious concern. Trump does not approach foreign policy with consistency, doctrine, or even particularly coherent strategic principles. He often approaches it the way he approaches branding: transactional, improvised, personality-driven.

One day tariffs. Another day praise. One moment questioning whether an ally is worth defending. The next approving arms sales.

That is volatility, not strategic ambiguity.

Trump thinks these are friendships. They do not.

One of the enduring defenses of Trump’s authoritarian fascination has been the argument that his friendliness toward strongmen somehow lowers the risk of war.

The theory goes something like this: if Trump has a personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, or Xi Jinping, perhaps tensions can be managed informally. But that argument only works if both sides view the relationship the same way. There is little reason to think they do.

Trump often appears genuinely impressed by authoritarian leaders. Not just diplomatically engaged, but personally admiring. Leaders who rule without opposition, without democratic constraints, without the kinds of accountability that democratic governance requires. The admiration is obvious. But authoritarian leaders do not need admiration from Trump.

They expect flattery. They know how to use it. They are not participating in some mutual friendship project. They are pursuing state interests.

That is the actual danger here.

Trump may believe personal chemistry creates stability. The other side may simply see someone who is easy to manipulate.

A war over Taiwan would look nothing like America’s recent wars

If conflict over Taiwan ever became reality, this would not resemble Iraq. It would not resemble Afghanistan. It would not be another distant military intervention that can be compartmentalized from daily economic life.

Taiwan sits at the center of the global semiconductor supply chain. A massive share of the world’s advanced chip production runs through Taiwan. A conflict could freeze supply chains almost overnight.

Shipping lanes across Asia could become militarized.

Cyberattacks would be likely.

Regional escalation could draw in Japan.

American military involvement would immediately become a real possibility.

This would not be a contained geopolitical episode. It would be a global economic and military shock. Which makes the possibility of miscalculation especially alarming. And with Trump, “miscalculation” may actually be too charitable a word. Miscalculation implies a flawed strategic assessment. What we may be dealing with instead is a fundamental lack of understanding about the stakes.

The real question

Trump’s temperament has always raised legitimate concerns in moments requiring patience, discipline, consistency, and strategic restraint. Taiwan is exactly that kind of moment.

This is not a reality television negotiation where improvisation and personal instinct can substitute for policy knowledge. This is one of the most dangerous geopolitical flashpoints in the world. And if China has in fact sent a serious warning, the question is not simply whether Trump agrees with it.

The question is whether he even understands what was being communicated.

So what do you think, does Trump actually grasp the risk here, or are we watching someone smile through a warning he doesn’t even recognize?

We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining.
If you’re already paid on one platform, consider supporting us on both Substack and our website.

You can subscribe on our website and right here on Substack.

And if you’re really on fire, consider gifting a subscription—we’ve got thousands on our waiting list ready to read, watch, and fight back.

Let’s keep building.

—David

PS: Can’t contribute right now? No problem. You can support us for free by subscribing on YouTube, listening to our audio podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or become a free subscriber to this very Substack. Every bit counts.

Subscribe now