Yep. And there is, by design, no clear successor. Vance was chosen precisely because the base would never accept him as the next MAGA savior, and the base is already fracturing too quickly for any one faction leader to find a path to uniting the movement. When he goes: chaos.

And you know what else. I don't pretend to understand the old guard GOP and its selective sensibilities around military honor. But if they slice deep enough on this one, even a lot of these coward Dems are gonna scent the blood in the water and think some interesting thoughts

Any sign that actual consequences still exist will REALLY freak out a not-insignificant percentage of the current DC elite

It really speaks to Hegseth's overall density that he doesn't seem the least bit troubled knowing Trump is out there doing a Mariah bit about him

He's talentless and anti-charismatic, his undisguised psychopathy is what makes him useful to Trump. It also makes him a liability to everyone else once this enterprise collapses (it's going to), and an obvious first target for prosecution if Dems ever grow a spine.

That's the thing, Miller is absolutely the lowest hanging fruit here because he has no friends, freaks people out, and also (importantly) ordered a bunch of criminal human rights abuses. If you're trying to look tough as a Dem in a post-Trump era, he'd be the logical place to start.

incredibly funny how people will be like "did you see that the census bureau posted a nazi dogwhistle? their last post was 14 words long. and the value of the characters added up to 88" and then the post was "adolf hitler was very very very very very very very very very very good"

College students who can’t handle their strictest instructors need to grow up, which is part of what they’re there for. TPUSA and OU are ironically doing the triggered snowflake participation trophy shtick and harming everyone’s ability to grow up in the process

And upper-level admins will be to blame. This is happening on their watch and their response is basically "University mission? Fuck the mission"

We had a higher ed system that was the crown jewel for the world, and by the time these knuckle-dragging freaks are done, it'll be a roadside bible colleges and fake law schools

JFC Oklahoma you fuckin cowards. Now every Jesus-freak right-wing student who can't get a passing grade for a bunch of bible quotes masquerading as an essay is going to file a 1st amendment complaint. You gonna suspend the whole Biology department for teaching about evolution? (Don't answer that)

I'm sure this really reassures any brass currently wondering if the regime is taking potential future legal repercussions seriously, here

Trump: I'm going to pardon massive drug kingpin Juan Orlando Hernández, bc I don't think former leaders should be held accountable for their crimes. Also Trump: But I'm going to make thinly sourced claims that Maduro is a drug kingpin so I can rationalize an illegal war based on that claim.

Chief Bovino is not a political appointee. He is a civil servant, subject to the same requirements to be nonpartisan as any other employee. These messages are being broadcast from an official government account.

He gives even Trump the creeps and I don't get the sense that he really has allies. Even the sadistic weirdos who execute his agenda (Noem, Lewandowski, etc) mostly know him as an abusive, temper tantruming boss

I wonder what Stephen Miller thinks his future will be

He literally told people he was going to do this. Democrats told people he was going to do this. Did folks think it was a joke? Did they not know what a tariff is? The tariffs could be rolled back TODAY but prices will never go back completely down. www.businessinsider.com/tariffs-boos...

The president may or may not have a complete command of the on the ground facts here, just saying

you can’t ask the president about things he clearly does not have the power to do, because he is physically incapable of admitting he is not allowed to do something

IMO it’s that there is no legal fig leaf whatsoever and also the issue was ripe and salient because of the Trump administration’s focus on the Dem lawmakers’ video about illegal orders. Serendipity of timing, basically.

pretty clearly a bunch of these guys are pulling for a schism for reasons that are somewhat but not entirely opaque to me (they think they can run countries, plural, with a friendly American Catholic Papacy in South Bend)

So, reading between the lines of all of this, Mark Kelly et al clearly got wind of this specific thing just a little before it came out publicly and shrewdly figured theyd exploit what was going to be a festering wound for the administration by messaging about illegal orders, right?

"humanities = socialist and good, STEM = capitalist and bad" is not only dumb as rocks but, quite ironically, completely ignorant of history like, do you think it was the semiotics majors who came up with every Five-Year Plan?

Speaking as someone who was cast as "alarmist" for accurately predicting the GOP mainstreaming of outright fascism, that sort of attitude is the flip side of those earlier alarmism accusations. These folks are so petrified of change and the unknown that they wishcast a permanent status quo.

the reason he’s lying about this is because whatever the truth of it is, he knows it’s worse

oh man just baacckk that bus up

oooohhh Cassidy is not someone they can afford to alienate

the next Dem president should literally roll up on day one and take the first whack at it with a wrecking ball personally get a license and everything it’ll be worth your time

your grocery bills are through the roof and all he cares about is his stupid ballroom that’s the crux of it

I think there's a really important reason Trump hasn't fired anyone yet (despite people like Kash making him look like an idiot), and it's because his team knows they can't get chosen replacements through the senate anymore.

I spent a long time pontificating about the sort of "do we get rid of the incompetent idiot for a more competent (but still evil) replacement?" earlier, and the answer imho, is "always yes." Because politics is about constraint, and constraining the Trump admin is massively important.

Yeah, but also this is the wrong mindset imho. You take wins when you get them because they're wins and they cut against the administration. Trump being forced to get rid of Hegseth, even if his replacement is worse, is humiliating and shatters his hold on the GOP.

The very palace intrigue-y and "oops all viziers" part of this story is that it's coming out now, when the caucus is falling apart and Trump is looking incredibly weak.

I think people do understand this. Owning the libs, etc. by whatever means necessary is popular online, but people recoil in person. Even people who may tacitly agree with you.

i mean there's also just the fact that this is utterly unhinged and sociopathic behavior by said bacon eaters. It's not even meaningful protest, just trying to be as absolutely unhinged as possible.

the pardon power as it currently exists has to go, man, there just isn’t any way that the way which trump has used it can be consistent with small-d democratic governance, it just can’t.

It’s also notable that TPUSA employs rabid Islamophobes like this person. Imagine what the Trump admin would do to a university if they allowed an organization that said this about Jews and pork to establish themselves on campus.

I like how every six months or so we get a big "This Obscure Fasicst Thinker Is Key To Understanding The Modern Right" and without fail every one of those is the biggest loser you've ever heard of writing the stupidest articles you've ever read for Racism Monthly

Yeah. Friday really came across as total flailing and a compete inability to shape the narrative.

Also a distinct possibility that the media has decided that it's now time to stop pretending like Trump is actually doing Jack shit and it's not just Oops all viziers.

Like NYT still rolling with this story instead of letting it get buried in whatever Trump truth is a hmmm

also: trying to get the professor fired because you got a bad grade on a paper is pathetic behavior! I failed a class in college because I turned my homework into the wrong place and I had to deal with the consequences of being a dumbass, I turned out fine loser shit

even if you want to give in, there is no level of appeasement that will satisfy these people and get them to leave you alone they don’t even want to take over your institution, they want to burn it to the ground and replace it with homeschooled propaganda

you have to be able to look bad faith in the eye and say absolutely not, even if that bad faith is coming from the highest levels of government if you can’t, you do not - in any meaningful sense - have an institution, and all the kids who go there will learn is to weaponize bad faith themselves

While this usually isn't the intent, "no one will ever be held accountable for this" doomerism is an excuse not to try. There'll be at least some accountability if enough Americans work for it. And this time really is different. Doesn't guarantee the aftermath will be, but it increases the chances.

Feels like the media incentives may be switching somewhat. Trump did his best hits (auto-pen, facist ramblings, Trump 2028, etc.) and all the questions are basically: Did Hegseth commit war crimes? Is Noem in contempt? Plus repeated dunkings on Hassett.

They’re trying to make it too dangerous for trans people to have these jobs. The response should be to make it too dangerous for some dipshit student to attempt this. They should fear doing it. Get on it.

We need to start building a list of universities that do this stuff, so that academics know not to publish with them and prospective students know not to apply there.

it is *part of your responsibility as a leader* to exercise judgment, there’s nothing more to investigate here, this whole situation simply does not merit your involvement at all, and if you believe it does, you are unqualified for leadership and should resign from it in disgrace