Why It Seems 'Normal'

If you’re waiting to see this👆🏻 in your comfortable middle-class suburb before you think there’s a problem, it’s already too late. Our history lessons about World War II from school and those endless History Channel biopics about Hitler and Stalin may be why so many Americans still don’t grasp that something is terribly wrong. Wrong here. Wrong now.

Because this👆🏻 is what we think fascism looks like. And it does. But not at the beginning. Or at least, not at the beginning for most folks. It starts with the people deemed expendable—undocumented immigrants, criminals, the mentally ill, the homeless, the ‘other.’ But before long, those definitions change. ‘Undocumented’ is removed. ‘Crimes’ are made up. Personal choices become ‘mental illness.’ ‘Homeless’ shifts to ‘poor’ or ‘low-income.’ And always, always, there’s a justification made.

And right now? Everyday life for a lot of people still looks ‘normal.’ You’re still working, looking after your kids, shopping, watching TV, taking a weekend trip, and wondering why everyone is getting hyper for no reason. If that’s you, remember this: World War II-era fascism didn’t look like this👆🏻 at first either. What it looked like was the rapid and systematic destruction of every institution ever created to prevent it.

The very essence of this country—democracy, freedom, and the rule of law—is under attack. No matter how things look or feel at this moment, these are not normal times. Don’t act in normal ways. Protest. Boycott. Make calls. Write letters. Go to town halls. Talk to your family and friends. Make them hear us.

In Today’s Issue

• The Social Briefing: Heroes of the Week

• Good Reads for This Week

• The Social Spotlight: Guest Post by Pete Poggione

• What Can You Do?

• The Social Calendar

This Week

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Amid all the bad, awful, dumb, stupid, embarrassing, demoralizing, infuriating, outrageous, terrible, horrible, Constitution-defying news of the past few days, we have to acknowledge the heroes among us…

• THE JUDICIARY. The third branch of government continues to put the second to shame by working overtime to protect the Constitution from the first. A Trump-appointed judge ruled that Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is unlawful. Another said the national security reasoning for his anti-union EO was 'pretext for retaliation.’ Another put the brakes on his Guantanamo migrant deportations. Another freed the Columbia University student activist whom Trump wants to deport. And another ordered Trump officials to disburse funding for Radio Free Europe. Keep it up!

• JAMES TALARICO. This Texas congressman calmly and coolly exposed the state’s proposed FURRIES Act to be the sham that it is. If you don’t know what ‘furries’ are, you’re lucky. But do watch the video to find out about this ridiculous piece of legislation that’s based entirely on an Internet rumor.

• SCOTT PELLEY. Kudos to the 60 Minutes host for having the courage to call out his own employer on national television. Pelley revealed that Paramount attempted to “supervise our content in new ways” in order to preserve a merger deal that needs the approval of the administration. Watch here.

• CANADIAN VOTERS. No one motivates liberals to vote more than Donald Trump does. And it worked in Canada, where his tariffs and asinine “51st state” threats turned around an entire election. Well done, Trump.

• JALEN HURTS. Kudos to the Super Bowl-winning NFL quarterback and his fellow Philadelphia Eagles who refused to normalize Trump by going to the White House to be honored with the rest of the team. I hate the Eagles (sorry, Philly, I’m from Chicago), but I begrudgingly extend my respect.

• HONORABLE MENTION. No Republican who supports Donald Trump is a hero. Period. But at least Sen. Rand Paul tried to halt Trump’s economy-wrecking tariffs. Unfortunately, the rest of the GOP decided to let Dear Leader get his way, as usual.

Did we miss anyone? Send your heroes our way!

Good Reads for This Week

• Dear MAGA: It's Time to Stop Believing Trump's Lies and Gaslighting —The Back Room with Andy Ostroy

• There Can Be No Compromise with MAGA —The Banter

• Democrats Have Fallen into a Narrative Trap with Kilmar Abrego Garcia —The Hill

• Donald Trump Has a Family Policy. Stop Laughing —The xxxxxx

• Fake Democracy Feels Better Than the Real Thing —The Rip Current by Jacob Ward

• Democracy Needs You: 10 Actions to Protect Our Republic —Jack Hopkins Now

• How Much Injustice Will America Take? —America America

• Remembering What’s Real —Notes from the Circus

• Butterflies with Broadband: How Small Acts Defend Democracy —The Chuck Kyle Show

• LISTEN: The Crises of Due Process –The Atlantic

The Work After the Wreckage

By Pete Poggione

You’re right, Joe. I’m sick of him too. But the part that really exhausts me — isn’t just Trump. It’s what we’ve let him do to us.

We’ve mistaken rage for action, headlines for history, and social media for citizenship. And now? We’re emotionally waterboarded, politically feral, and spiritually bankrupt — fighting over who gets the last word in a democracy we barely show up to maintain.

But here’s the thing: I don’t want a nap. I want a blueprint. And a hammer.

Because if this country’s going to survive, we don’t just need to beat Trumpism. We need to outgrow it. And that means confronting the real damage — not just the orange spray tan of it all, but the rot beneath: cruelty as entertainment. Power without principle. A public that treats civic duty like a group project they forgot to show up for.

Trump didn’t invent that. He just monetized it better than anyone else.

So now we face the hard part. What comes after the scream? What do we build when all we’ve got left is grief, distrust, and broken furniture?

The answer isn’t sexy. It’s not a viral quote or a savior candidate or a fiery takedown on MSNBC. It’s slower than that. Harder. More local.

It looks like running for school board instead of rage-posting on Facebook.

It looks like teaching your kids how the Constitution actually works.

It looks like refusing to let your friends “both-sides” their way out of accountability.

It looks like showing up. Not just for elections — for community. For truth. For the messy, unfinished work of being a citizen.

The hard truth is: we are the cavalry. And we’re late.

So yes, I’m sick of him. But I’m also sick of the way we’ve used him as a shield — to excuse our own disengagement, our own laziness, our own fear of facing how much we’ve let slide.

The Founders gave us a republic — if we could keep it. Well, we didn’t. Not really. We pawned it off for comfort, outrage, and algorithmic dopamine. And now we’ve got to buy it back with something real: time, energy, presence.

Because you can’t rebuild the social contract if you won’t even make eye contact with your neighbor.

So here’s my contract, Joe. I’ll keep teaching, writing, shouting when I need to — and listening when I don’t. I’ll use whatever tools I’ve got — satire, truth, even the occasional fart joke — to remind people that democracy is a verb. Not a vibe.

And I’ll do it knowing that if we don’t figure out how to live together after all this? We won’t be living in a democracy much longer.

We’ve had our tantrum. Now it’s time to rebuild.

Pete Poggione is the author of The Skippy Doctrine—part satire, part civics deep-dive, part therapeutic scream into the void. He writes through the voice of Skippy—a character who serves as a kind of amplified conscience. Skippy doesn’t pull punches and mocks the absurdity of American politics, while taking the Constitution dead seriously.

What Can You Do?

1. WANT TO ORGANIZE IN YOUR COMMUNITY? Action Network has everything you need. Visit actionnetwork.org to get started.

2. GET YOUR #NOKINGS MERCH! If you’re going to protest, you might as well have the right gear. Click here for the #NoKings store at One Flag Initiative!

3. Here’s a cool suggestion from a subscriber…

A Modest Proposal for a New Form of Resistance

Write to middle management, assistants, people making 5-star meals at the White House. Tell them—kindly but firmly—that if they’re not seeking other employment, they’re complicit in what the people they serve are doing.

Example: the GEO Group is one of the largest for-profit prison companies in America. Their stock price doubled after Trump got re-elected. They are massively profiting off of Trump’s crackdown on immigrants.

The company’s founder, George Zoley, has seen the value of his stake increase by $60M. I presume he’s a sociopath who’s sold his soul. But who runs investor relations for GEO—the guy whose job is to sell the GEO “story” to Wall Street? This guy: Pablo Paez

Pablo Paez is presumably just a nice family man trying to make a living, and resolving the cognitive dissonance of how he does it by telling himself some bullshit that absolutely no one ever calls him out on, least of all his friends, family, and colleagues. He thinks he’s clean in all this.

Yet he has power. Not the power of Trump or Musk, but the power of an IR person who can resign and maybe inspire others to do the same; he can force the company to explain his departure to investors; he can create a headache by leaving a vacancy in a key public-facing role. THAT’S who I write.

But why stop there? Pablo Paez is a proud trustee of Florida Atlantic University. Who’s an identifiable person involved somehow in that relationship? One Andrew LaPlant.

Andrew LaPlant is the liaison of the FAU board of trustees, and is another presumably nice family man trying to make a living, and it hasn’t occurred to him that treating Pablo Paez like someone any more respectable than the founder of Only Fans is a CHOICE. So, let him have mail, too.

Why this strategy?

1. It gums up the system. No dictator, from Genghis Khan to Hitler, could be effective without an EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT. One low-level person turning over is a headache. A thousand of them turning over grinds everything to a halt. Let’s use the banality of evil to our advantage!

2. It’s easier to get a letter that’s likely to be read in front of these lower-level people. They have LinkedIn profiles, they have FB/Insta pages, they have addresses on websites. You can FIND them. And they don’t normally get such mail. Who doesn’t read mail addressed to them personally?

3. The head honchos have too much to gain by staying to be persuaded to leave. The lower-level people can more easily say, “Yeah, maybe fuck this shit.” Stephen Miller will never, ever get another job like the one he has now. Stephen Miller’s assistant? Probably.

Is this effective? Who knows! I know it combines three of my favorite things: writing, sleuthing, and righteous indignation. And as AJ Muste said during Vietnam, “I don’t do this to change the country. I do this so the country won’t change me.” Resistance is about one’s relationship with one’s self.

Rules of engagement:

• Be professional and normal, not creepy and profane.

• Don’t get into people’s personal physical space or damage property. As Sly Stone sang, “My only weapon is my pen.”

• Don’t send mail to home addresses. Triggering someone’s “fight or flight” response will only close their mind.

Spread the word, and above all, DO NOT GIVE UP. How about we tear down these paper tigers before they morph any further into real tigers?

Here’s the letter I sent to the Head of Investor Relations at Tesla:

Dear Mr. Axelrod,

I write to you with no personal animus, and indeed, I genuinely do not envy those whose careers have collided with current events in a way that could not have been foreseen. That being said, Elon Musk is doing more than any individual besides Donald Trump to misuse government power toward ends that range from the merely self-serving to the gratuitously evil. My guess is that you know this, do not endorse it, and are simply trying to make a living—a choice that, on a human level, I do not find at all difficult to understand.

I urge you to consider that every powerful person, for good or for evil, relies on the support of their staff and others around them. Even history’s worst dictators would have struggled to achieve their goals if they couldn’t retain a competent executive assistant. Tesla’s valuation is the soft underbelly of Elon Musk’s power and mythology. The inability of Tesla to attract and retain competent IR would be, at the very least, a headache for Elon Musk, and perhaps something worse.

I sympathize with the difficulty of walking away from a good living, from unvested equity, from the comforts of a tightly rationalized story about oneself. Bluntly, however, if you are not actively seeking other employment opportunities, then you are complicit in enabling the damage being done to this country by an unbound Elon Musk.

We all enjoy privilege of one form or another. We can either put that privilege at some degree of risk in order to resist tyranny, or we can trade our souls for the preservation of that privilege. Only one of these choices will we be proud to remember when this madness is over.

Sincerely,

Name

• HEY, LOUDOUN COUNTY! Join me for this event THIS WEEKEND, if you can!

• THIS WEEK’S QUOTES…

  • Trump’s First 100 Days: How Has He Done? —Newstalk

  • A White House Correspondents’ Dinner Hangover —The Spectator World

  • Speaking Truth to Power: Brian Karem Talks Free Speech at KidScoop Fundraiser —The Argonaut

Hey, I want to hear from you!

What do you think of The Social Contract with Joe Walsh? What are your thoughts about what’s happening this week? How can we fix the political mess we’ve created in our country? How do we mend our frayed social fabric and rebuild an America that works?

Tell us your story and share your ideas with us. Email our editor at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.