Who voted for the U.S. Republican Party in 2024, and what do they think? A huge study by the Manhattan Institute reveals that voters like President Donald Trump and think America is too "feminized." Conspiracy theories are rife: More than half believe the 2020 election results were fraudulent, and a shocking 37% say the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated or did not happen. Here's the full analysis.
Public libraries in Tennessee have begun a review of children's collections after Secretary of State Tre Hargett (R) ordered them to remove books with LGBTQ themes or characters. Some of the state's 181 libraries will be closed for days to ensure their books comply with the recently passed Tennessee law prohibiting DEI and Trump's "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" executive order, the latter of which might not even apply here. For Popular Information, Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims break down what's happening.
Trump thinks the plan to help convicted felon Jair Bolsonaro escape from Brazil worked, and appears to tell the press that Bolsonaro is coming to the US to meet Trump.
The press then informs him that Bolsonaro was caught trying to escape, to which Trump replies, “Is that what happened? It’s too bad.”
That doesn't seem odd to me at all. That's a #MAGA#President#Trump doing the crimes that MAGA expects in order to keep MAGA happy. Everything in #America is quite MAGAishly corrupt and the #RepublicanParty just loves them some MAGA corruption.
What is it like to be a progressive in Trump country? Photographer Isabelle Zhao traveled from Alaskan outposts to the pine woods of East Texas, and discovered something unexpected: hope.
How are things going at the Heritage Foundation since its president, Kevin Roberts, defended Tucker Carlson after he platformed white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes? “It’s an absolute sh**show, he [Roberts] has lost control of the organization,” one senior Heritage Foundation staff member told @CNN. “It is open rebellion, it is disgust … 85% are totally disgusted.” Here's more.
When Tucker Carlson interviewed white nationalist, antisemitic, Holocaust-denying podcaster Nick Fuentes on Monday, even conservative outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Wire bristled. But, says @TheBulwark's Will Sommer, Carlson's platforming of Fuentes is perfectly in line with what the MAGA movement was already doing. "The right has no immune system against hatemongers and grifters. Few people in MAGA circles are willing to stand up to them — and the audiences likely wouldn’t support them if they did," writes Sommer.
It's been exactly a week since the last Republican Nazi message leak, so here comes another one. In a text chat, Paul Ingrassia, nominated by Trump to lead the Office of Special Counsel, described himself as having "a Nazi streak," said the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be "tossed into the seventh circle of hell," made many racist remarks and stated "We need competent white men in positions of leadership. … The founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal … We need to reject that part of our heritage." Ingrassia's Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for Thursday. Here's @politico with the full story.
Update: Paul Ingrassia has withdrawn from consideration to lead the Office of Special Counsel. His confirmation hearing was due to take place on Thursday but, he said in a statement, "unfortunately I do not have enough Republican votes at this time."
U.S. President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of former Rep. George Santos, who had been sentenced to seven years in prison. Trump claimed that Santos, who last year pleaded guilty to charges of committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, "has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated." Prosecutors said that Santos had conducted a yearslong scheme that preyed upon the campaign finance system and his own party, donors and family members.
Capitol Police have been called about a U.S. flag that had a swastika symbol in it, displayed in the offices of Rep. Dave Taylor (R-Ohio), @politico reports. An image of the flag was captured during a Zoom call with Taylor's staffer, Angelo Elia. Taylor claims it is the result of “foul play or vandalism."
What do leaders of Young Republican groups talk about when they think no one's eavesdropping? Leaked private messages suggest they use racist slurs, joke about slavery and gas chambers, and share violent fantasies. According to @politico: "Many of the chat members already work inside government or party politics, and one serves as a state senator."
Dominion Voting Systems, which was baselessly attacked by President Trump and his allies after the Republican party lost the 2020 election, has been sold. @npr reports that the business was purchased by Liberty Vote, a new company owned by a one-time Republican elections director, for an undisclosed sum.
From 2022 to last November, the city of Odessa, Texas, was under the government of far-right hard-liners, led by Mayor Javier Joven. During their time in government, the city council passed an ordinance declaring Odessa a "sanctuary city for the unborn," banned trans people from using bathrooms that didn't match their sex at birth, fired many officials without explanation, and began to reward allies with political appointments. What they didn't do much of is running the city — the day-to-day business of infrastructure, public safety and business development. At last November's election, Joven and his allies got the boot and were replaced by moderate Republican candidates. @TexasMonthly breaks down exactly what happened.
Geoff Duncan, formerly the lieutenant general of the U.S. state of Georgia, announced today that he has officially switched parties from Republican to Democrat. He served in his role from 2019 to 2023, but became increasingly critical of Donald Trump and eventually endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Here's HuffPost's story explaining his decision, and the possibility of if he'll run for office again, as a Democrat.
Elon Musk's promise to steer clear of politics lasted ... ooh, about three weeks. The X owner, angry about President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" wrote on his platform earlier today: “Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.” He also described the Republican party as the Porky Pig Party and called for the formation of a new political party "that actually cares about the people." Here's more from @CNN.
Refusing to meet with the Parliamentarian to discuss if your accounting scheme violates the rules amounts to overruling her. The GOP is going nuclear to get its tax breaks for the rich.
The modern Republican Party is a reverse Robin Hood, taking from the poor to give to the rich.
But maybe it's a good Christian Biblical value! "For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."
They're certainly living up to the party platform (pictured)!!
"Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
I would define the larger Project 2025 discussion that started well before the 2024 US election, as one of the most tragic and frustrating political football matches in the modern history of America. Here, on its face, you have a disturbingly plausible blueprint for installing a Christian nationalist political, social, and economic order on the United States, published by a fundie fascist think tank, and written by no less than 140 people who worked in the first Trump administration, that leaked into the public discourse months before the vote. Everything about Project 2025 was widely publicized, and doing so was probably the most effective part of an otherwise dismal Harris presidential run. Everyone, including Trump's voting based hated it; at its lowest point, the blueprint for a Christian nationalist dictatorship was polling at a 4% approval rating.
Project 2025 was thus rendered utterly radioactive during the 2024 election campaign and Trump needed a way to distance himself from it as quickly as possible, so he did what he always does: he lied. Downmarket Mussolini claimed he had no affiliation with Project 2025, wasn't planning on implementing it, and indeed didn't even know what was in it. And, perhaps because most Americans instinctively know the Klepto Kaiser ain't exactly a big reader, that worked. Which isn't to say that anyone opposing Trump already was fooled, but it was enough for the cracker Volk to ignore the story and pull the lever for the Klepto Kaiser on election day.
In fact, the strategy of "just lie your ass off" worked so well, that even as the Trump regime objectively follows the plan to install a Christian nationalist dictatorship in America almost to the letter, the larger administration is still choosing to lie about it. During a June 1st interview on CNN, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who literally co-wrote the part of Project 2025 that transforms fundie fascist objectives into policy, responded to a set up question about whether the Trump regime was openly enacting Project 2025 with "no; of course not."
Now, you know Russ is lying, and I know Russ is lying, but would you believe the raw statistical data also makes it clear Russ is lying? Of course you would, but let's check out this recent report publish by DeSmog anyway:
Analysis Finds Majority of Trump Cabinet Tied to Project 2025 Groups
"That's according to an interactive analysis published Monday by the international climate-focused news outlet DeSmog, which found that more than 50 high-level Trump administration officials have ties to groups behind Project 2025.
That figure includes many of Trump's closest advisers, including Stephen Miller and Elon Musk, who recently stepped down as the de facto head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. It also includes 14 out of 24 Cabinet-level officials, or 70% of the Cabinet.
"That's a hugely significant finding," Duke University history and public policy professor Nancy MacLean told DeSmog. "In Heritage's own longtime language, 'personnel is policy.' It shows the incredible bad faith of Trump's denials, because this is who he stocked his administration with."
So without just quoting the rest of Wilkin's article here, the two key points are that Trump's entire administration and his cabinet are littered with people associated with Project 2025 or the fascist think tanks behind it, and virtually everything the Trump administration and the ruling Republican Party have done since the Swine Emperor retook office was and is mapped out in Project 2025. These nazis lying, and we know exactly what Trump is going to do next as he progresses his fascist agenda forward because these muppets literally wrote it down.
Which of course brings us back to a current American political reality where a CNN host who knows damn well Trump is enacting Project 2025, is still playing pattycake with Russ Vought about it instead of just stating that the regime is obviously following the blueprint the Heritage Foundation laid out. Folks we are talking about printed, easily verifiable evidence of a vast, well-funded, ideological coherent right wing conspiracy in America to install a Christian Nationalist one-party dictatorship in this country; we're definitely well past the point where playing gotcha with Russell Vought on CNN is the correct play here. The reality that the Trumpenreich is a fascist regime in progress is no longer disputable, and if anyone in our establishment is still committed to doing something about that in the really real world the rest of us have to inhabit, it's probably time they started acting like they know what time it is.
After repeatedly and openly lying about how they intend to pay for a nightmare reconciliation bill that will destroy the American labor class while enriching the uber-wealthy, the GOP quietly released some of their mathematics in the dead of night yesterday and surprise: Republicans are planning to slash $715B from Medicaid over the next 10 years, just like everyone who pointed out they were lying said would happen.
'Under Cover of Night,' GOP Unveils Plan to Kick Over 8 Million Off Medicaid
"The legislation includes major changes to Medicaid that, if enacted, would kick millions from the program, including work requirements for some enrollees and new payment mandates for adults living above 100% of the federal poverty level—which, for a single individual, is $15,650 in annual income for 2025.
A snap analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the healthcare section of the new Republican bill would cut spending by at least $715 billion over the next decade and leave at least 8.6 million more people without insurance.
"Many of the Medicaid proposals from House Republicans are technical and wonky, and will be difficult for the public to absorb," said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF. "What won't be difficult to absorb: CBO's estimate that the changes will increase the number of people without health insurance by at least 8.6 million."
This discussion is going to get a little wonky, so let's just start off with the bottom line stuff you need to know:
Trump, his administration, and the entire GOP repeatedly promised that they'd deliver a permanent tax cut for rich people without touching Medicaid.
Now they've shown their work and independent analysis by the CBO says it's going to cut $715B from Medicaid funding; again, to pay for massive tax cuts for rich people.
The proposal also makes a propaganda play at implying they're coming after "waste, fraud, and abuse" by drastically increasing the amount of red tape to confirm eligibility; in practice this means a lot of people who think they're covered, are going to find out they're not at the worst possible time. Mistakes will be made, large numbers of people will be thrust into medical debt.
The scheme also increases the amount of "cost-sharing requirements" for coverage; in plain terms this means Medicaid recipients will pay more out of pocket for coverage, full stop.
The plan also adds an 80 hour per month work requirement for Medicaid coverage, despite the fact that similar efforts at the state level in GOP controlled areas have not produced the desired savings, and have been a health coverage disaster in those states.
The GOP is literally going to take life-saving healthcare and support away from 8.6M of the poorest people in America, so Elon Musk can hire more social media influencers to birth his children.
Okay, so now we get into the weeds. As mentioned above, the Republican Party is doing all of this to offset 880 billion dollars worth of tax cuts for the wealthy. Because they don't have the seats in the Senate to get a bill like this through normally, they intend to use reconciliation to force a straight majority vote; but to do that, they budge has to be spending neutral. Which means permanent tax cuts for the wealthy have to be offset by equal cuts to spending elsewhere.
Trump and the GOP promised to pay for these cuts by hunting out "waste, fraud, and abuse" through DOGE and the implementation of tariffs that were going to make us rich enough to end income tax; predictably neither of those schemes worked out. The most generous verifiable estimates have DOGE finding $50B worth of "waste" to cut, which might sound like a lot of money but is miniscule compared to what Musk claimed they'd find and also isn't $880B to pay for rich people's tax cuts. Tariffs of course, have been an even bigger joke and Trump is already trying to roll back most of his trade war. So now the war on "waste, fraud, and abuse" means throwing poor people off Medicaid and calling that efficiency.
The reason critics were able to predict the GOP would have to come for vital healthcare and social aid programs like Medicaid is because there was nowhere else to find that much money to give to rich people; and the entire Trumpenreich knew that. This was always the plan; but the question of whether or not they can even get Republicans to pass it remains unresolved. Due to how Medicaid funding works on a need basis, this is going to affect the poorest "red" states in America the most and many GOP officials, including Missouri Senator (R) Josh Hawley have indicated that they are, at least for now, strongly opposed to Medicaid cuts. Whether the Trump regime and Musk's wallet can threaten them enough to force compliance, is an open question.
I hate to keep harping on the same point, but it's almost as if the fascist GOP knows they're probably not going to be able to pass very much legislation before the midterms, so they're determined to squeeze every ounce of authoritarianism and legalized political persecution they can into what is ostensibly, a reconciliation budget bill. Take for example this recent Intercept report revealing that hidden deep inside the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" is a provision that would drastically increase criminal penalties for whistleblowers who leak unauthorized disclosures of tax records, and those who “print or publish in any manner” leaked tax return information.
Why Does GOP Budget Bill Focus on Punishing People Who Leak Tax Returns?
"As the Trump administration vows to crack down on leakers, Republicans in Congress want to hand the Justice Department even more power to punish one extremely specific type of leak: unauthorized disclosures of tax records, which in recent years have exposed the creative accounting of the Trump family and wealthy allies like Elon Musk.
A provision tucked near the end of the GOP’s massive budget bill — at page 1,081 of the 1,082-page text circulated late Sunday — would double the maximum prison sentence for leaking tax returns to 10 years and increase possible fines from $5,000 to $250,000 per violation.
Boosting penalties for leakers may seem an odd fit for a budget bill, much like the “nonprofit killer” provision that was recently nixed without explanation. Because of their tenuous relationship to fiscal matters, the provisions potentially aren’t allowed under the rules for Congress’s budget reconciliation process."
Obviously this is nowhere near as serious an issue as banning Medicaid coverage for gender affirming care, or carving a trillion dollars out of Medicaid and SNAP programs that keep labor class Americans alive, so you can give billionaire broligarchs like Peter Thiel more spare yacht money; there is however a lot of weird and repressive bullshit going on here. Most importantly, the proposed penalties for publishing leaked tax information is a clear attempt to suppress journalists and free speech rights in general; it almost certainly isn't constitutionally legal, although the jury is very much still out on how much that actually matters in Trump's brave new fascist America.
The other half of this story then is the reality that this provision is all part of a longstanding Republican grievance over Trump's leaked tax returns, and the maximum five year sentence given to the man who leaked them, Charles Littlejohn. You can check out the linked story for more details, but I would still advise against assuming this is purely just a genuflection to Swine Emperor Trump's bruised ego and vengeance complex. The reality is that what the fascist GOP is proposing here amounts to increased targeted of a form of modern whistleblowers, who are only denied that designation because they're targeting the secrets of a wealthy ruling class who employ their considerably financial power to dictate the political possibilities in our society. As climate crisis transforms into climate catastrophe, billionaires buy more Pig Empire governments, and undisclosed wealthy funders pay to disseminate anti-protest, fascist, and even eliminationist propaganda in our discourse, Charles Littlejohn will not be the last whistleblower exposing the tax records of our ruling classes; and the Republican Party clearly means to discourage that behavior with provisions like this one slipped into the reconciliation budget.
A collection of my Fediverse blog posts about fascism and current events, published from April 13th to 15th, 2025. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, I wrote a lot about the Trump regime, ICE, and nazi billionaires.
"If they get away with this, or even if they can just successfully use it to justify applying government pressure against an extremely large, well-funded news organization, there’s no limit to how far these nazis will take this. This is how a fascist regime transforms the entire media environment into pro-Trump, state news outlets and it won’t just stop with the Fox-ification of media orgs either."
Under the cover of darkness House Republicans slipped a provision into their budget bill that would, at least temporarily, allow Donald Trump to be the dictator of his wildest dreams.
"In the past I’ve written about the many ways we can observe the Trump administration trying to create a patchwork “Enabling Act” out of emergency powers, novel interpretations of decades-old legislation, and even the resurrection of rarely-invoked war powers to fight a wholly fictitious “invasion” by gangs. With the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in his pocket, the Swine Emperor might finally have the vehicle he needs to fully transform America into a fascist dictatorship. The plain truth here is that the Republican politicians who voted to ram this bill though Congress last night were already would-be thieves and murderers; this provision now makes them the willing architects of Trump’s Pork Reich."
A couple of weeks ago on the other account, I wrote a very short thread about my increasing frustration with Very Serious PeopleTM asking if Trump really means it every time he starts rambling on about all the fascist shit he wants to do. In that post I mostly noted that Trump, a fascist, literally has no idea how to tell a joke, has at least tried to do all the nazi shit people thought he was joking about in the past, and fascist in general were not known for their sense of humor. Whether or not Trump is actually able to accomplish all the nazi crap he says he wants to do, is often a matter of debate. But if he says it, he means to give it a try.
What brought that outburst on, was an article about a democracy watchdog group warning that people weren't taking Trump's threats to circumvent term limits and run for (or make himself) president again in 2028 seriously enough, and that was a bad idea - a position I agree with wholeheartedly.
I'm bringing this up now because apparently the slightly less disgusting Cuomo had noted fascist propagandist Steve Bannon on his podcast this week; Bannon remains a very close ally of Trump and a big supporter of the regime even though he's not actually working in the government this time. During that discussion, Bannon revealed that the Trumpist political movement is actively working on ways to secure a third Trump term already:
'We're Working On It': Bannon Says Planning Underway for Trump 2028
"Appearing on journalist Chris Cuomo's NewsNation podcast, far-right mouthpiece Steve Bannon demurred when asked if he had ambitions to run for president himself, replying: "No, and I'm a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028, so I've already endorsed President Trump."
When Cuomo pressed Bannon on the existence of term limits that would bar Trump from seeking a third term, Bannon said, "We're working on it. I think we’ll have a couple of alternatives, let’s say that. We’ll see what the definition of term limit is."
"We've had greater long shots than Trump 2028 and we've got a lot of stuff we're working on there," Bannon added. "We're not prepared to talk about it publicly, but in a couple months I think we will be."
Setting aside the fact that this podcast episode should not exist, because Chris Cuomo shouldn't be inviting fascists on his show to normalize fascist ideology and openly lie on behalf of the Trump regime with only mild pushback, I watched the clip; aside from what's quoted here, the only real notable addition I would make is that Cuomo let Bannon duck a question about whether or not the fascists would try another insurrection to keep Trump in power by touting how popular the regime was, and implying Trump would simply win anyway. Let's just say this wasn't Chris's finest hour, even if he did avoid literally agreeing with the nazi propagandist on his show, about nazi shit, like California Governor Gavin Newsom did.
What Bannon didn't shy away from is revealing here, is that Trump absolutely intends to run again in 2028 and his minion strategists are working on a way to circumvent the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution which would otherwise forbid that. As I've mentioned in a number of articles, we seem to be seeing a pattern of the fascist right transforming Trump's seemingly fantastical ravings, into a type of "unreality" enforced as if it were fact by the larger fascist movement, and then transformed into real and direct action by the regime itself. Given the reality that Trump has repeatedly mused about clearing the way for him to run for a third term in multiple public settings, and we now have a fascist propagandist who is closely allied with Trump revealing that the larger regime is "working on" making that a reality, I think we can safely dispense with the idea that these guys are joking.
So will the nazis get away with this? I mean, who knows; it's not easy to legally change the Constitution, but I have no idea if Trump even cares what the laws say anyway - his actions in power thus far suggest that he literally does not. Right now, the nazis seem to be in the planning and manufacturing popular support stage of this particular autocratic fuckery project, but I'd be inclined to take Bannon at his word when he says we'll be hearing more about it soon, because while Steve is a nazi liar, he rarely lies without a purpose. What I can say is that since Trump was sworn in as president, I can think of dozens and dozens of things he's done that Very Serious PeopleTM swore he couldn't do, and so far he appears to be getting away with the vast majority of it.
Alright, so we now know Trump's Justice Department is threatening election officials across the country with federal prosecution, based on fascist conspiracy theories about voting systems integrity; a redux of "The Big Lie" that fueled Trump's political rebirth after losing the 2020 US Presidential election and the failed coup (autogolpe specifically) on January 6th, 2021. Whether the Trump regime fascists ever charge anyone with this nonsense or not, we know they're actively trying to take over election boards and the election process more broadly, all over the country. All that's left is to watch them put that control into practice, and I think this Common Dreams story is a good enough place to start on that front.
As recently reported in the Washington Post, Trump's Justice Department lead by Attorney General Pam Bondi, "has taken the unusual step of asking at least nine states for copies of their voter rolls, and at least two have turned them over." These efforts appear to be particularly focused on Colorado, a former battleground state that has been increasingly shifting towards Democrats, where a local Republican operative is pushing to allow the federal government to physically inspect their voting equipment.
'The 2020 Playbook on Steroids': Trump DOJ Requests for State Voter Data Spark Alarm
"Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, called the Trump administration's efforts "the 2020 playbook on steroids."
"This all is part of a bigger ploy to further undermine our voting in this country," warned Griswold. "They are actively in a power grab."
Even some Republican election officials responded with alarm to the Trump administration's requests for voter data and access to voting equipment.
"To me, it felt like they were wanting to intervene before 2026," Justin Grantham, the Republican clerk in Colorado's Fremont County, told the Post, referring to the upcoming midterms.
Carly Koppes, a Republican clerk in Weld County, Colorado, said she rejected requests for a federal inspection of election equipment.
"That's a hard stop for me," said Koppes. "Nobody gets access to my voting equipment, for security reasons."
So, if you were wondering why Pam Bondi and the Trumpenreich Justice Department were looking for ways to prosecute election officials who don't go along with Trump's fascist conspiracy bullshit, even though the fascist right has already been quite successful at stacking election boards, including in many deeply blue counties, with Trump-humping Republicans, folks like Justin Grantham and Carly Koppes are the answer.
I think however the larger point to remember here is that absolutely none of this is actually about maintaining election integrity, and therefore none of the regime's actions have to be moored to the truth in any tangible way. For example, they're not asking to look at Colorado's voting equipment because they think they'll find something fishy. Rather, they intend to point to the investigation itself and any possible charges against Colorado election officials brought by Pam Bondi, which the Trump regime itself is creating whole cloth, as evidence that there is something fishy about a Colorado that doesn't go full fascist in the next cycle of elections. The ultimate results of those investigations and potential trials are largely irrelevant to the Trump regime's current goals of interfering with, and ultimately rigging the US electoral process.
This then brings us to the regime's ongoing obsession with obtaining access to voter rolls; attempts the Trump administration has made through a wide variety of methods, including the Department of Government Efficiency, formerly run by Elon Musk. Obviously, analysis isn't prophecy, but both the Trump regime and the larger Republican Party have aggressively been pushing conspiracy theories about undocumented migrants or deceased Democrats voting, so it doesn't really take a genius to figure out they want to use those voter rolls to generate trumped up accusations of widespread voter fraud, and then use that as a justification to purge or otherwise disqualify huge numbers of people likely to vote against them in upcoming elections. The fact that they can also feed all that data into the digital panopticon Palantir is building so Trump can find all his political enemies, is pure gravy for the Trumpenreich and Downmarket Mussolini.
For much of the past month and a half, we've all partaken of an American political discourse openly asking "why doesn't the Republican Party care about harming their own voters" in the face of an upcoming election cycle? I fear the answer to that question may well be that the Trump regime feels pretty confident about its ability to ensure they can't lose political power in rigged elections.