Like any bully, Trump is fundamentally a coward. When he feels humiliated, he lashes out. Every authoritarian action he is taking must be understood against the backdrop of his declining popularity. He feigns strength, but he's operating from a place of weakness.

Two people are murdered and this is how the president responds. Not with empathy or leadership, but with mockery and self-worship. It’s a moral abyss and he keeps digging. Anyone still defending this ethically bankrupt, frightened, sad little excuse for a man is telling you exactly who they are.

On Writing While Listening to Miles Davis as My Family Watches Batman in the Next Room thetruthabouttigers.com/2025/12/14/o...

Beautiful: youtu.be/nZoHuoFQyrI?...

I don’t always write poems about Trump and creeping authoritarianism. See? Here’s a lighthearted one about a naked philosopher telling a king to get out of his sunlight… shit. There might still be a metaphor in there somewhere. thetruthabouttigers.com/2025/12/11/m...

My daughter Phoebe and I had a poem published at Collaborature this week. We wrote it together when she was 9, using those little magnets you arrange to form sentences on the fridge, which of course makes it my favorite poem ever! "Mad Dark Winter Sky" collaborature.blogspot.com/2025/12/mad-...

Huge thanks to Melissa at Collaborature for the chance to guest-judge the November contest. Judging poetry is never easy, but The Carpenter at St. Ignatius by Chiwenite Onyekwelu stood out to me: collaborature.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-... collaborature.blogspot.com/2025/11/meet...

Spot on, Mr. Rather. 🎯 💯

Sometimes, to fight the system, one must make temporary peace with its distribution channels. "Record of Dissent" on sale here: a.co/d/6VS5ZgR Reviews would be helpful for visibility too! #protestpoetry #trump #dissent thetruthabouttigers.com/2025/12/07/t...

Inspired by @nickallison80.bsky.social's poem in light of 47's dismal Gallup numbers.

In response to Gallup’s new poll reporting Trump’s approval has dropped to 36%

FIFA gave #Trump the geopolitical version of a youth-soccer participation medal. The “you tried, champ, but please stop yelling about the Nobel Prize now” award. ⚽🏅 He’ll probably throw another super-rad military parade to celebrate his "great achievement." newrepublic.com/post/204033/... #nobel

It’s almost refreshing to watch these bargain-bin fascists finally drop the racist dog-whistle act and admit that this was never about “violent illegal immigrant gang members.”

I’m not anti-technology or “anti-progress,” but more and more often these days, I find myself thinking of Chris Ryan’s line from his book, Civilized to Death: “When you’re going in the wrong direction, progress is the last thing you need.” www.theguardian.com/society/ng-i...

Excellent piece: “What started out as a campaign promise to deport gang members like MS-13 has progressed to a full scale purge of any non-white, non-citizen. Trump is now talking about ‘denaturalization’ and ‘re-migration,’ two terms that are right out of the Great Replacement Theory playbook.”

Here’s a fun little game if you grew up back when most of your #music still came from the radio: open Apple Music (or whatever you use), search (insert genre here) hits from the year you got your driver’s license (for me: alternative/rock/punk 1996), and hit shuffle. Instant time machine!

I attack with love, pure bug beauty, curl my lips and crawl up to you. Hide your soft skin, your sorrow is sunshine Listen to my eyes They’re hissing radiator tunes I'll curve my flight Under your bended knee And I will always die So you can remember me - JT #wilco youtu.be/yvmBy_pSiMo?...

If anyone’s in the mood for some light reading, I published a piece last week about unlawful orders, military oaths, Trump, the Mark Kelly “sedition” nonsense, and what service members are actually obligated to follow. tcspress.com/2025/11/25/t... #Trump #MarkKelly #Sedition #Oath #UnlawfulOrders

Excited to share that my poem "Notes Toward an Autopsy of a Republic" was nominated for a #PushcartPrize by Mobius: The Journal of Social Change. Huge thanks to @fjbergmann.bsky.social and the Mobius team. mobiusmagazine.com/news.html mobiusmagazine.com/poetry/notes...

While I’m not the biggest fan of Florida, there is something to be said for walking along the beach in shorts and a t-shirt in late November. Happy turkey day, or whatever you celebrate, friends.

Turns out you can quit drinking without crashing a car into a Waffle House, or whatever. Who knew? Here’s a poem and a short essay I scribbled. I don’t often write personal pieces or air my laundry in public, but today felt like a good day for it. thetruthabouttigers.com/2025/11/26/q... #sobriety

That sound you heard was every GOP elected official with a lick of sense absolutely SHITTING themselves thinking about the visual of Mark Kelly back in uniform before a military court as Whiskey Pete's handpicked chucklefucks try to railroad him on bogus charges.

“Jesus is the answer to all your problems.” Unless your problem is a car wreck. Then you’re gonna need Gordon. #GordonSaves

Even if you somehow ignore every authoritarian red flag or say you just like his policies, at some point you’ve gotta admit the obvious: he’s an obnoxious, juvenile, pernicious, entitled, narcissistic, boorish human being. Just a small, petty “man” and all around shitty person. #Trump #Piggy

“It's a hard time to be human. We know too much and too little.” ― Ellen Bass, The World Has Need of You www.bethanyareid.com/ellen-bass-t...

I stand in solidarity with the Starbucks workers on strike. When a corporation can pay $96 million to its CEO for just four months of work, it can afford to pay its workers a living wage and decent benefits.

I guess this should be pretty simple and self-evident, but I’ve noticed over the years that the quality of my mental health is directly tied to the intensity of my physical effort and the consistency of my meditation practice. thetruthabouttigers.com/2025/11/11/w... #poetry #ptsd #mentalhealth

Ahead of Veterans Day, I was honored to welcome a flight of veterans and their families as they arrived in DC.

In 2004, my mom wrote about what war costs—not just for those who fight, but for those who wait, worry, and live with the aftermath. Twenty years later, I’m sharing her words again, along with my reflections as a veteran, son, and father. tcspress.com/2025/11/11/t...

All before 8:30am : ✔️ Dropped kiddo off in carpool (on time today! 😅) ✔️ Took kittens to sterilization appointment ✔️ Arrived at coffee shop to edit the Chaos Section Poetry Project volume 2 that @nickallison80.bsky.social put together and to work on the intro! 🥳 @chaossectionpoetry.bsky.social

Maybe, just maybe, working-class people struggling to buy food and pay bills know a little more about prices than a billionaire autocrat who’s never seen a grocery aisle in his life. Gaslighting people not to believe what they see with their own eyes isn’t economic policy, you petulant man-child.

@sethandrews.com being rational and making sense, as usual.

Garage jam with my bad-ass 12 year old drummer. I’m sure my neighbors really appreciate the slightly off time Social Distortion and Pixies covers!

Day 2 of the @texasbookfest.bsky.social. Come down, check out the vendors, grab some good street food, say hi to Sarah at Lioness Books, and if you spot me wandering around, I’ve got a few free copies of “Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age” to give away. #texasbookfest

At the #TexasBookFestival? Swing by and see Sarah at #LionessBooks, Austin’s fiercest indie bookshop on wheels, parked at the corner of 9th and Congress today. She’s built something special and was kind enough to carry Record of Dissent.

Thanks to the best editor ever, @noahmichelson.bsky.social

#Austin friends: at the #TexasBookFestival. One of the best weekends in this city for anyone who loves words and ideas. No TCS Press booth this year, but if you see a guy wandering around in a Vets Against Trump shirt, Wilco cap, and blue backpack, say hi! I’ve got free copies of Record of Dissent.

Hegseth has purged more than two dozen top generals and admirals, in many cases counter to the advice of senior military leaders who fought alongside the officers in combat www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...

Like every project at TCS, this book of protest poetry is available to download or read for free online. Also a paperback version available.

This is what oligarchy looks like: If you're Elon Musk, the richest man alive, Tesla gives you a $1 trillion pay package & Trump gives you a huge tax break. If you're a poor kid on SNAP, Trump appeals a court decision that would have prevented you from going hungry. Obscene.

A few folks have asked where I got the Veterans Against Trump t-shirt from the @huffpost.com essay: www.teepublic.com/user/cat-cat...

New essay live today at @huffpost.com Personal about seeing past stereotypes, tribal thinking, and the lazy stories our brains tell us. As always, very grateful to editor @noahmichelson.bsky.social who is a joy to work with. www.huffpost.com/entry/vetera...

New piece up at @thefulcrum-us.bsky.social this morning. thefulcrum.us/democracy/us... #SpeakerJohnson #NoKings #HateAmericarally

Finally sharing this! I sat down with Melissa Lemay for an interview on Collaborature back in Sept and somehow missed when it went live—totally on me. We talked Record of Dissent, writing, parenting, politics, music, and creative community. Thanks Melissa! collaborature.blogspot.com/2025/09/frac...

Honored to have a new #poem, “Notes Toward an Autopsy of a Republic,” in the November issue of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, published alongside such amazing work from @julielmoore23.bsky.social, David Lee, Jim Tilley, and more. Great fiction and editorial too! mobiusmagazine.com/index.html

Hey North Austin friends, dropped by #HalfPriceBooks in Cedar Park to grab a couple books and found #RecordOfDissent rubbing elbows with Frost and Cohen. They still have 4 copies left on the #poetry shelf, just four bucks apiece! thechaossectionpoetryproject.com/record-of-di... #protest #resist

Jeff Tweedy on creation for creation’s sake, the joy of making stuff just to make it. tcspress.com/2025/10/29/t... #JeffTweedy #Wilco #Art #Songwriting

Review of Broken Rengay: Unruly Poetry, a sharp, playful collaboration by Melissa Lemay, Nolcha Fox, and @barbaraleonhard.bsky.social, published by #ProlificPulsePress. It’s inventive, funny, and full of life. Like jazz in verse. thechaossectionpoetryproject.com/2025/10/28/b... #BrokenRengay #Poems

We’re open for #essay #submissions again. Political, philosophical, personal, somewhere in between. We like writing that says something real, makes people feel something, cuts through noise, challenges power, feels lived-in. If it’s honest, sharp, and human, we'd love to read it. tcspress.com/write/

Been helping out some with "Critical Mass: Three Point Five," a project focused on disciplined, nonviolent resistance and civic participation. It’s more of an info and research hub than an organizing site for now, but I think it’s worth checking out if you’re interested: criticalmass35.org #protest