Trump’s endless web of lies

In 1993, I was sixteen and a brand new driver when I was pulled over for going six miles over the speed limit at the bottom of a steep hill. It was the first time I’d ever been stopped by a police officer. And I was so nervous I started to shake because I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t realize I had picked up that much speed. The officer was hostile and irritated by my shaking hands as I passed him my license and registration. So much so that he made me get out of the car and sit on the curb as he interrogated me with inappropriate questions that no man, let alone an officer of the law, should ever ask a 16-year-old.

I was finally released when he got another call, and he tossed me a ticket before driving off. A neighbor had seen the whole thing and told my parents before I even got home. They called the police department, trying to understand what had happened. His supervisor later called back after speaking with him and said the officer had acted outside of protocol. There was no reason for me to have been pulled out of the car, no reason to be questioned the way I was, and no excuse for what he said. And to their credit, they didn’t defend him. The officer personally called me to apologize. He admitted he was in the wrong and that he was just having a bad day. But the way that this professional was held accountable mattered. Because there were standards being upheld. There were still people within the system willing to say: this was not okay.

And that’s what makes what happened to Renee Nicole Good so terrifying. Because I’ve felt a flicker of that confusion, that moment where nothing makes sense, where you’re trying to stay calm, trying to follow instructions, trying to make it out of the situation safely. But what I experienced was a shadow of what she must have felt. One percent of it, if that. Renee was surrounded by masked agents, with no warning that this would end with her being shot in the face while sitting in her car next to her partner. She wasn’t a threat. She wasn’t armed. She was a 37-year-old mother trying to get away from a scene that never should have unfolded in the first place. Because professional, well-trained law enforcement officers do not roll up to a woman in her car, hide their identities, crowd her vehicle, and execute her in broad daylight. But ICE did and does.

And this administration keeps trying to get us to forget that. Rewriting it into something else entirely. But we know the truth. And the more details that keep coming out, the more horrific it is.

“That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” Those were Renee’s final words to the masked ICE agent just before she was shot. Her words were calm. An attempt to de-escalate a moment that never should have existed. And the agent who killed her, what did he say right after he fired? “F*cking b*tch.” That was the last thing she heard. That’s the truth they want erased. Because remembering it forces us to confront who they really are, how much power they’ve seized, and how far they are from anything even resembling law and order.

When the truth is this damning, which it is with most things in this administration, they know there’s no way out without looking like the corrupt, authoritarian regime that they are. So they lie. And they’re not even hiding it. Trump isn’t just rewriting history through propaganda, though. He’s rewriting the physical world around us, too.

This is what fascists do: they don’t just try to make us forget what they’ve done; they change the landmarks and the things we see in our everyday lives. They tear down the buildings that remind people of what used to be, and replace them with monuments to themselves. They don’t want you to remember that the White House belongs to the people, so they knock down a historic wing and build a bigger one with their name all over it. They don’t want you to think of the Kennedy Center as a space for public culture, so they stick their own name on the front to make the point: This belongs to me now. The whole country belongs to me.

That’s how fascism operates. Not just through violence, but through symbols. Through slowly convincing people that the country was always like this. That Trump has always been the central figure. That the rules have always worked this way. It’s slow, intentional memory-wiping.

And when he can’t physically change something, he changes it online. Even if he can’t erase January 6 from our memory, he’s created a new version of it on the White House government website. Where he replaced facts with lies and blamed Democrats for the carnage. And even though most Americans won’t read that page, his crooked administration knows AI will. Search engines will. And people searching for information ten years from now will. The official White House recap will rise to the top of search results, and it will be a lie. But it will look real and trustworthy. And that is how history is rewritten.

That’s how fascism works in the modern day. It’s propaganda built for the digital age. He’s using the White House itself as the content farm. He isn’t just feeding people disinformation. He’s feeding the machine that teaches the machine.

And here’s the part that should make every American sick: Congress could end this. Right now. They could impeach every corrupt appointee. Cut funding to ICE. Pass emergency legislation to rein in executive overreach. Hold hearings. Issue subpoenas. Demand resignations. They could restore checks and balances immediately. But they won’t. Not because they can’t, but because they are choosing not to. Because too many of them are calculating what they might lose if they stand up instead of weighing what the country is already losing while they stay complacent. They are choosing the survival of their careers over the survival of the republic.

And we can’t let them get away with their betrayal of our nation. Accountability and consequences are the line that we must hold for every elected official who chose this corrupt administration over their oath to the Constitution. If they supported any part of this, if they voted for anything Trump signed, ordered, funded, or forced through, if they confirmed it, protected it, or stood by while it happened, they must be voted out and then held accountable. Democrat. Republican. It doesn’t matter. The party label means nothing if you sold out the people you swore to serve. Your job was to defend the Constitution, not enable a regime that lets federal agents kill people and then dodge accountability.

We need to demand that this end now. An end to the killings and the ICE raids. It is erasing lives. Congress needs to shut it down. And when this chapter ends, and it will end, we don’t need unity. We don’t need healing. We need prosecution.

I heard someone say recently they’d vote for anyone who runs on holding every last one of them accountable. And I agree. That’s the platform I want to see. I’d vote for anyone who runs for office on the promise of prosecution. On the commitment to make them pay for what they’ve done, legally, fully, and without delay. Because without real consequences, it will happen again, just like it’s happening again right now. Elected officials need to understand that loyalty to this administration means nothing if it comes at the expense of justice, human life, and the rule of law. If you’re not running to stop this, undo it, and prosecute those who made it possible, then you’re not serious about saving this country.

And don’t let anyone tell you that everyone involved is beyond reach because of pardons. Yes, the president can issue federal pardons, even preemptively. But that only covers federal crimes. It does nothing to erase state charges. It doesn’t protect anyone from a state prosecutor willing to step up and do their job. Every one of these people must be investigated to the fullest extent of the law, not just in D.C., but in every state where harm was done.

And if I sound riled up tonight, it’s because I am. I’ve watched too many videos today of atrocities I never could have imagined would happen in the United States. This beautiful country we call ours. Our ancestors would be horrified by what one man and his corrupt cronies have done in less than one year. They would demand that we rise up and fight back, peacefully and with conviction not seen in centuries. This was the land of the free because of the brave. We were built on the backs of immigrants and meant to be a safe place for all. We have had dark moments in our past, and we have risen, often broken but always working towards better days for all. We’ve missed the mark over and over again, but we’ve never stopped trying.

And even with everything we are up against today, I still have hope in America. Not the version they’re trying to build, but the one we’ve fought for, the one that remembers, resists, and refuses to be rewritten. I believe most people in this country still want what’s right, even if they’ve forgotten how to fight for it. And I believe we can still hold the line, as long as enough of us refuse to let go of the truth.

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 make a difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. There is a free option and the option to help me reach a wider audience with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country.