Trump’s America: Lies, Loyalty, and Lawlessness

Just after lunch today, Donald Trump appears to have stepped away from golf, television, and official duties to issue yet another propaganda-filled and hate-driven post on Trash Social. This time, he zeroed in on a single House race in Tennessee and told his followers not to vote for the Democrat on the ticket, among other reasons, because she “disdains country music.”

This might make some of us laugh if it weren’t coming from the man currently occupying the presidency. But it is. And this special election is important. If Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn wins, the GOP majority shrinks. Hence why Trump is so rattled.

Here is his post in full:

“I am asking all America First Patriots in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, who haven’t voted yet, to please GET OUT AND VOTE on Election Day, Tuesday, December 2nd, for a phenomenal Candidate, Matt Van Epps. Matt is fighting against a woman who hates Christianity, will take away your guns, wants Open Borders, Transgender for everybody, men in women’s sports, and openly disdains Country music. She said all of these things precisely, and without question — IT’S ON TAPE! Do not take this Race for granted. The Radical Left Democrats are spending a fortune to beat one of the best Candidates we’ve ever had, Matt Van Epps! You can win this Election for Matt. GET OUT AND VOTE FOR MATT VAN EPPS, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” -Donald J. Trump, November 30, 2025, 1:56 PM

On the surface, it reads like just another one of his rants. In reality, it’s a clear preview of what the next year will look like. This is the method. We’re going to see more of it as the midterms get closer. Invent threats. Wrap them in religion and culture war panic. Trick the least savvy among us into believing the sky is falling. Tell voters that only absolute loyalty to him can keep them safe. He’s done this before. Back in September 2024, he said: “In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating, they are eating the pets of the people that live there.” There were never any credible reports of pets even going missing, let alone being eaten. But that’s not the point. The point is the fear. The panic. The illusion that danger is everywhere and only he can stop it.

If we’re serious about winning back even one chamber and pulling this country off the edge, we can’t treat posts like this as background noise. We have to hear them for what they are: sirens. Warning flares. Signals that tell us what’s coming and what kind of daily pressure we’ll need to apply just to hold the line. This is not about one race in Tennessee. It’s a strategy. Turn every election into a referendum on who “hates Christianity,” who “wants open borders,” who is supposedly out to hurt your kids and your way of life. Turn every Democrat into a cartoon villain, someone to be feared and destroyed. That’s how you train people to see enemies in every neighbor, especially if that neighbor dares to run for office against a Republican.

Trump loves to take the worst of what has happened in the past and put his own spin on it. And you can see echoes of the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 50s in the way he communicates today. Back then, it started with “un-American” lists and loyalty tests, and suddenly teachers, actors, and everyday workers were branded as enemies of the state because a politician needed someone to point at. It didn’t make the country safer. It just made people afraid of each other. That’s how you get people ready to excuse anything done in the name of “saving” them. Today, he calls Democrats, immigrants, Black and brown communities, journalists, liberals, even veterans, anyone who doesn’t bow down to him, an enemy. And when he says it, his followers repeat it. You can see it in the comment sections. You can feel it in how people talk to each other online. The cruelty, the suspicion, the dehumanization, all of it flows directly from the way he paints anyone who disagrees with him as a threat that must be dealt with.

And when I see that, I stop and ask myself what those who fought for freedom in World War II would think of what’s happening now. What would the lawmakers of earlier generations say if they could see so many in the GOP bowing to a dictator without even blinking? What would the Founding Fathers say if they could see what we’ve allowed this country to become? It was never perfect, not even close, but it was never this hollow. It was never this fragile.

If we had the midterms today, it’s hard to believe those tactics would be enough to keep Republicans in control. I think most people who are not fully maggotized are tired. They see the chaos, the instability, the constant noise from the president. They see the price of groceries. They see the endless drama that never delivers anything good for their families. A poll from December of last year found that 65% of Americans said they were exhausted by politics. And I can’t help but think that’s part of why so many didn’t vote in the 2024 election, and how much more exhausted they must be now, with everything that’s happened since.

If we voted tomorrow, I think we would have a real shot at taking back at least one chamber of Congress, and maybe both. But we don’t vote tomorrow. We vote after another long year of Trump meltdowns and threats. A year is a long time to keep people scared, divided, and drained. That’s their edge, and it always has been.

So the question for the year ahead is simple and hard at the same time. Can we keep our side alert without burning out? Can we stay fired up without losing our grip on reality? Can we hold on to enough joy that we still have something worth fighting for? That’s the balance we have to hold if we want to pull this country back from the edge. Not just one more time, but for good.

And we have to hold that balance while he keeps doing exactly what he did today. While talking about “law and order,” he commuted the sentence of David Gentile, a private equity executive who defrauded thousands of investors in a $1.6 billion Ponzi scheme. Gentile had just started a seven-year prison term when Trump cut it short. The conviction remains, but the consequences disappeared. And every time he does something like this, you have to wonder if it’s just another move to build a financial army behind him.

And that wasn’t the only example. Today, Kristi Noem confirmed that she personally approved deportation flights despite a court order that, in essence, grounded them. “The decisions that are made on deportations, where flights go, and when they go are my decision at the Department of Homeland Security,” she said. This court case is ongoing and will be an important test: a rare instance where someone inside the regime could face real accountability.

But we should be under no illusions. The administration has pushed back, arguing the court’s written order didn’t explicitly force the recall of flights already airborne. The fight now depends on legal technicalities, timing, wording, jurisdiction, not on a clear moral reckoning. If this doesn’t turn into real consequences, it will only prove how fragile oversight is when the executive branch chooses to ignore courts.

That’s what we’re up against: a corrupt regime that ignores the law, rewards loyalty over truth, and uses every lever of power to protect itself. But what they fear, what they’ve always feared, is that we’ll remember who really holds the power. That we’ll remember what it feels like to have a government by the people, for the people.

Because they don’t win by strength. They win by exhaustion. By dragging us through so much filth and chaos that we forget what we’re even fighting for, or worse, start turning on each other. That we start seeing enemies where we used to see neighbors.

If we stay focused, we have a chance to do more than just survive the next election. We have a chance to take back more power than we’ve held in a generation. To prove this country still belongs to the people. To rebuild it as a place for all of us, and better than it ever was before.

I’ll see you tomorrow.
Heather

P.S. If you’ve made it this far, chances are we see things the same way. You can help keep this work going by subscribing to my Substack; there’s a free option, or you can become a paid subscriber for just $5 a month. Paid subscriptions help me reach more people, cover more ground, and keep telling the truth about what’s happening to our country.