American Doom

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did the best he could, but there’s just no way to win — or even compromise — with American leadership this far afield from reasonable adult behavior. A day before the world watched Donald Trump and JD Vance ambush Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had to negotiate the same environment — albeit one less fraught as the political and culture war hell that Zelenskyy walked into.

Whether you’re Zelenskyy, or Starmer, or a Democratic or Republican member of Congress, the problem with negotiating with Trump is that it’s like negotiating with a terrorist. There can be no compromise with people whose only goal is to break things, and that’s exactly what Trump, Vance and congressional Republicans are doing. They have no plan other than to break the government, then divide the pieces amongst themselves, and allow the rest of us to fight for whatever is left.

I know things are already crazy, but it’s probably going to get much worse. To support American Doom’s work cutting through the madness, please consider a paid subscription below.

It’s an odd plan because it potentially reflects a complete lack of a sense of self-preservation. If Trump and his government-breaking toady, Elon Musk, succeed in dismantling Social Security as it appears they’re trying to do, it could result in older Americans — largely Republican voters —revolting against their elected officials. I think you’re starting to see that in the form of voters at town hall events in Republican districts speaking out against congressional Republicans.

But the terrorists among us like Trump, Vance and their army of actual insurrectionists and far-right base don’t care about any of the negative consequences that could harm Americans if Musk’s breaking of the social safety net is effective. They just want to break, punish and inflict pain on anyone and everything they perceive as an enemy. In this way, they’re really are true belivers. They’re willing to sacrifice themselves for a higher cause. This makes them impossible to negotiate with, because they have nothing to fear.

Still, we must try. This seemingly impossible scenario of having to negotiate with a madman is the position that Starmer was in when he walked into the White House just a few days ago. So, I wanted to get the British perspective on his visit from Daniel Bates, a British writer and journalist based in New York who has covered some of the biggest stories of the last decade. I met Dan in Ferguson a few days after Michael Brown was killed there in August 2014, and we’ve kept in touch ever since.

These days, Dan spends a lot of time updating UK readers o court battles and other developments related to Jeffrey Epstein.

I caught up with Dan about Starmer’s visit, what American abdication of responsibility in Ukraine means for Britain and Europe, and the latest debacle involving the White House, right-wing influencers, and documents tied to the Epstein case.

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Legacy media is capitulating to Trump (just Google Jeff Bezos if you haven’t already heard). That’s why it’s important to support independent media like American Doom. The best way to support our work is through a paid subscription.

Last week, news came from Texas that an 11-year-old girl killed herself because her classmates were bullying her about being deported. She is a victim of Donald Trump and Republicans’ endless denigration of immigrants of all races, from all walks of life. May the memory of Jocelynn Rojo Carranza live on forever, and be a lesson to those of us who care enough about our fellow human beings to speak out against the ruthlessness and oppression we’re seeing from the White House.

One of those speaking truth to power when it comes to immigration is Arturo Dominguez, who runs the excellent Decolonized Journalism newsletter. In today’s edition of the American Doom Podcast, Arturo and I discuss the ways in which the Trump administration is essentially trying to stop all non-white immigration—including by military force, if necessary.

To support my work, please choose a paid subscription to American Doom or drop a few dollars in the Doom Coffee Fund. There’s a lot of news right now, so I have a lot coming down the pike. Your paid support goes directly toward helping me to continue my independent journalism here at American Doom.

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Today I’m speaking with Steven Monacelli, an independent investigative journalist based in Texas. Steven does an incredible job covering right-wing extremism. His latest pieces include an examination of what experts are calling a new form of fascism helmed by the White House, and a more complex understanding of what we’re witnessing called competitive authoritarianism. Steven also just published an explosive investigation into an ICE lawyer in Dallas who runs an anonymous, white supremacist X account.

I first met Steven in Dallas — where I lived for a couple of years while covering immigration and the border — at a QAnon conference where disgraced Gen. Mike Flynn infamously called for a Myanmar-like coup to install Trump in power. That was in 2021, which seems like a quaint time as I write this just four years later. Our previous conversation focused on threats posed to democracy by Christian nationalism, another focus of Steven’s work.

To support my work, please choose a paid subscription to American Doom or drop a few dollars in the Doom Coffee Fund. There’s a lot of news right now, so I have a lot coming down the pike. Your paid support goes directly toward helping me to continue my independent journalism here at American Doom.

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It’s becoming more and more clear that the Trump administration is simply the enforcement and policy arm of an American right that believes in a post-democratic world order. That’s why we see things like Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaking the language of autocrats like Vladimir Putin—and more or less doing their bidding.

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The dismantling of USAID has already resulted in the loss of funding for aid programs in Ukraine, like one that helps fund refugee centers in cities near the frontlines of the country’s war with Russia. But the Trump administration wants so much more. Unfortunately for Ukrainians, few of the administration’s goals appear to align with that of the war-torn country, which for the last three years has been the victim of Russian expansionism.

Today I’m talking with Tim Mak, a former NPR reporter who I first met a decade ago when he was working at the Daily Beast. Now, Mak runs the Counteroffensive, a newsletter that focuses on the human stories of war—and life—in Ukraine.

You can listen and watch today’s episode here, on YouTube and Spotify and Apple podcasts. If you’re not already a paid subscriber, I humbly ask for your support for as little as $5 a month or $40 a year. You can also throw some cash my way at the Doom Coffee Fund.

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Good afternoon and welcome to the latest edition of the American Doom podcast. Today I’m talking with Teddy Wilson, a journalist and researcher who runs Radical Reports, a newsletter focused on the far-right. I highly suggest you sign up for Teddy’s newsletter to stay abreast of all the swirling madness of domestic extremism, which is most certainly not going away and whose adherents are not sitting idly by as Trump continues his dismantling of the federal government.

You can listen and watch today’s episode here, on YouTube and Spotify and Apple podcasts. If you’re not already a paid subscriber, I humbly ask for your support for as little as $5 a month or $40 a year. You can also throw some cash my way at the Doom Coffee Fund.

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Executive orders continue to come flooding from the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Donald Trump signed a handful more on Thursday afternoon, his signature black Sharpie pen squeaking as he went.

It’s a lot to process — not just for members of the press like myself but for the public, who must then (hopefully) consume and understand scores of news reports on these many executive actions. Courts are also scrambling to keep up, as many of the orders propose novel interpretations of laws that must now be argued in front of judges. Or, as a federal judge said Thursday, “blatantly unconstitutional” orders that have come from a stroke of Trump’s pen.

That was the judge’s immediate judgment of Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the 14th amendment that was originally intended to grant the full protections of American citizenship to children of slaves. Since then, the American right has become convinced that birthright citizenship is being abused by undocumented immigrants who come here illegally, then have children who are then granted citizenship under the amendment’s provisions.

While that certainly has been the case, no one until now has ever tried to seriously argue that the 14th amendment should be done away with. But, as I wrote before Trump took office, everything bad that you can imagine happening, Trump and his people will try to make it so. Plus, all systems will be tested — including heretofore universally-accepted norms, rules and laws like birthright citizenship.

But that’s just one of the executive orders Trump signed this week. I went through many of them and have provided a brief rundown not just of what they mean, but further context that is often missing from the political press’ coverage of these actions. There’s a certain level of translation required to understand the why behind many of these orders. That’s because the American right speaks a different language rooted in the alternate information ecosystem in which they live. Luckily, I speak that language and can help shed light as to why Trump and his team are pushing for the following changes to our laws and society.

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That’s why I’m offering an Inauguration Special—a 20 percent discount on annual subscriptions to American Doom, from $50 a year to $40. This gets you access to all paywalled posts containing exclusive reporting, past posts that contain exclusive findings on election denial officials working across the country, subscriber live chats, and audio versions of posts for those times when you don’t have the time to read but still want to keep with the news. I hope you’ll join me. And as always, you can also buy me a cup of coffee at the Doom Coffee Fund if you prefer a one-time contribution.

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Before we get to the executive orders, a couple quick news items worth paying attention to. First up, House Republicans have launched a new January 6 committee — not to look into Trump’s role in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 election and the attack on the Capitol or anything like that, but instead to probe Democrats’ role in supposed security failures. It also looks like it’s a decent possibility that some of the rioters themselves will end up testifying in front of the committee. This isn’t surprising, because the real purpose of this committee is to explore conspiracy theories about the FBI or Antifa being the actual parties responsible for the violence that day. Basically, it’s only a matter of time until January 6 insurrectionists are applauded on the floor of Congress.

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Trump said he was open to the idea that some of the people he pardoned be given the opportunity to testify in front of the committee. It doesn’t look like former Trump staffer Cassidy Hutchinson, however, will be testifying to the new committee. That’s because an aide to House Speaker Mike Johnson recommended to Republicans that they not subpoena Hutchinson. If they did, the aide warned, their graphic sexual texts to Hutchinson could become part of the congressional record, the Washington Post reported Thursday afternoon.

You might remember Hutchinson as the former White House staffer who blew the doors open on Trump’s involvement in the attack on the Capitol. She’s the one who claimed that Trump tried to overtake a Secret Service agent in his furious attempt to join his supporters as they marched toward violence that day. Naturally, Republicans hate her guts for this, so one can only imagine how bad these texts must be.

Prepare for the wars to come

* Executive orders: Trump's personal army, abandoning Afghan war heroes, more expensive prescriptions

* Trump's first victims

* What comes next - Rules of procedure for the next four years

* You are not alone - On recovery.

* Feelings over facts in a new information age

Again, the whole point of this committee is to platform conspiracy theories about the attempted insurrection that could deflect from Trump’s involvement, reduce the amount of focus on the violence of his supporters and, I’m assuming, once again dig into conspiracies about the 2020 election. Yes, we’re probably headed there again.

One other quick item: Trump lied to his supporters on Tuesday night, telling them that the southern border is “closed.” It’s not, of course. Trump says this stuff all the time but what struck me is that he reiterated the point with specifics.

“As you know, the border was closed at exactly 1:05 in the afternoon today,” Trump told those gathered at the Starlight Ball, an inauguration gala. “And I don’t mean closed. I mean really closed. It’s closed.”

What Trump meant to mean is that the border isn’t just closed for asylum seekers and refugees, it’s closed. As in, you can’t go across it. I know this is a little thing but stuff like this drives me nuts. The border is absolutely not closed. Just to be sure, I texted a photographer friend at the border who confirmed he had come back from Juárez into El Paso after Trump claimed to have closed the border.

I know, Trump lies and the sky is blue. But still, the truth is the truth. Now, onto the executive orders.

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Executive orders

* Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship - This order allows for witch hunts of government officials who call out right-wing misinformation. Part of this order comes from a section of Project 2025 written by Gene Hamilton, a former DOJ official in the first Trump administration and a high-up in Stephen Miller’s America First Legal. Hamilton is also behind recommendations that the Justice Department investigate and prosecute local and state election officials if they follow state election rules that Republicans don’t like. I’m waiting for some shoes to drop on that front but will have a report soon that details this push to weaponize the DOJ to engage in voter suppression and intimidation.

* Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States - This order allows for deployment of troops to the southern border, the building or strengthening of the border wall, increases drone surveillance, and gives more leeway in use of force policies to law enforcement coming into contact with migrants.

* Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion - This looks to be the executive order that deals with Miller's attempts to identify diseases carried by immigrants as a pretext to create harsher immigration rules and laws. It prohibits entry for immigrants who "fail to provide Federal officials with sufficient medical information." Key language: “... millions of aliens who potentially pose significant threats to health, safety, and national security have moved into communities nationwide.”

* Protecting the Meaning and Value of Birthright Citizenship - This is an executive order in search of a Supreme Court case and the accompanying media coverage. It seeks to cancel birthright citizenship and will almost surely end up in the Supreme Court, where Trump and the American right will get their wishes and be able to argue to the public that immigrants are taking advantage of the 14th amendment.

* Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce - This order allows for the arbitrary firing of federal employees—i.e. career public servants who are not loyal to Trump. Key language: "In recent years, however, there have been numerous and well-documented cases of career Federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership."

* Protecting the American People Against Invasion - Rescinds a handful of Biden executive orders on immigration and orders DHS to begin contract solicitations for expanding immigration detention facilities. The order also seeks to "withhold federal funds" from so-called sanctuary cities, and advises DHS and the DOJ to undertake "any other lawful actions, criminal or civil, that they deem warranted" in relation to sanctuary cities. This likely means prosecuting Democratic officials in cities and states that don't comply with Trump's immigration plans. The order also demands the hiring of more immigration officers in several agencies.

* Securing Our Borders - Resumes construction of border wall, cancels the CBP One app that migrants were using to navigate the immigration court system, resumes the Remain in Mexico program, and removes specific protections for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

* Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program - Suspends the U.S. refugee program for 90 days except for on a case-by-case basis. Revokes a Biden-era executive order that created a program to study and prepare for the effects of climate change on migration—climate refugees, in other words.

* Holding Former Government Officials Accountable for Election Interference and Improper Disclosure of Sensitive Governmental Information - Got all that? This order reprimands the 51 signatories of a letter proclaiming stories about Hunter Biden's laptop to be the product of a Russian misinformation campaign, as well as John Bolton for publishing a memoir that the Trump administration claims contained sensitive national security information. This looks to be the Trump administration's response to him being charged for illegally possessing classified information at Mar-a-Lago.

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Next week, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as president. The ensuing months and years will bring much chaos and catastrophe. I say that not to scare you but because it’s the truth. Much of the legacy media continues to fail to meet this fraught moment by acting as if this is politics as usual — American life as usual. (See these many examples as well as the general turmoil at the Washington Post.) Needless to say, none of this is normal.

Independent journalism like the kind I produce here will be crucial to getting factual information free from authoritarian spin, which is why I’m grateful for the support of my subscribers here at American Doom. Many of you have chosen to support my work with a paid subscription, but many more of you remain on the fence. I’d like to hear from you about what you’re looking for, what I can provide for you, and what will push you over the edge to supporting my work here with your hard-earned dollars.

This week, I’m offering an Inauguration Special — a 20 percent discount on annual subscriptions to American Doom, from $50 a year to $40. This gets you access to all paywalled posts containing exclusive reporting, as well as audio versions of posts for those times when you don’t have the time to read but still want to keep with the news. I hope you’ll join me. As always, you can also buy me a cup of coffee at the Doom Coffee Fund.

Thank you for your support.

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While the fires out west have continued to rage, the American right has been in rare form, blaming any Democratic official or progressive policy they can think of for this ongoing natural disaster.

The behavior has been particularly grotesque and craven — which is saying a lot for a political party led by Donald Trump — but mostly unsurprising for those of us who have been documenting the hyper-polarized information warfare of the last decade. Naturally, Trump has led the attack, not waiting for even a hint of relief in the battle against the flames before launching a series of attacks against Gov. Gavin Newsom and others.

Republicans have fallen in line, putting on display the party’s utter lack of empathy. It’s an emptiness of the soul that is juxtaposed by the emptiness felt by so many people in California as they look around at possessions, homes, neighborhoods and lives that are now, in some cases, completely gone, as Brian Tyler Cohen put it the other day.

More from the Doom podcast

* The coming misinformation war - Meta is ending fact-checking at a time when reputable information is needed more than ever.

* Threats, harassment and intimidation at the polls with Mike Wendling of the BBC

* 'Hands up, don't shoot' - The legacy of Ferguson with DeRay McKesson

Cohen, who has called Los Angeles home for the last 15 years, has been one of the lucky ones. His home and life are intact. A powerful voice in independent media, Cohen has consistently called out the insanity, absurdity, lies, cons, and shamelessness — as the title of his recent book makes clear — of the American right in the Trump era.

I caught up with Cohen recently about the causes of the California wildfires, which have little to do with the culture war grievances being put forth by Trump and Republicans, and more to do with the issue they continuously ignore: climate change.

You can view our discussion above, listen to it here, or subscribe to the American Doom podcast on Apple and Spotify, as well as our YouTube page.

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A week from today, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as president. The ensuing months and years will bring much chaos and catastrophe. I say that not to scare you but because it’s the truth. Much of the legacy media continues to fail to meet this fraught moment by acting as if this is politics as usual — American life as usual. (See these many examples as well as the general turmoil at the Washington Post.) Needless to say, none of this is normal.

Independent journalism like the kind I produce here will be crucial to getting factual information free from authoritarian spin, which is why I’m grateful for the support of my subscribers here at American Doom. Many of you have chosen to support my work with a paid subscription, but many more of you remain on the fence. I’d like to hear from you about what you’re looking for, what I can provide for you, and what will push you over the edge to supporting my work here with your hard-earned dollars.

This week, I’m offering an Inauguration Special — a 20 percent discount on annual subscriptions to American Doom, from $50 a year to $40. This gets you access to all paywalled posts containing exclusive reporting, as well as audio versions of posts for those times when you don’t have the time to read, but still want to keep with the news. I hope you’ll join me. As always, you can also buy me a cup of coffee at the Doom Coffee Fund.

Now, welcome to American Doom, 2025.

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By now it has become clear that the world’s biggest tech companies and most of corporate America are willing to do anything to get on Donald Trump’s good side. They have been donating vast millions to Trump’s inauguration fund and, in the past week, the platform perhaps most responsible for the degradation of reputable information and the hyper-polarization of U.S. society — Facebook — announced that it will essentially act as propagandist arm of the Trump administration and the misinformation infrastructure of the American right. Yes, Facebook is doing away with fact-checking. This means you can expect even more misinformation madness than that which has roiled the nation and the world in the last decade as a result of Meta’s lax approach to stopping dangerous lies from proliferating on its platforms. Chaos will surely follow.

That’s why it’s important to get your news not just on what’s happening in the world but on what’s happening with Big Tech from reputable sources. I can think of none better than Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project. The last time we spoke with Katie, she was monitoring social traffic — primarily on Facebook — from right-wing militias preparing for violence in the wake of the election. Today, Katie and I discuss Meta’s decision to do away with fact-checking, a troubling development considering Facebook’s past role in real world violence based on misinformation and lies spreading on the platform.

You can view our discussion above, listen to it here, or subscribe to the American Doom podcast on Apple and Spotify, as well as our YouTube page.

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Note: I’m out this morning with a very in-depth look at Mother Jones at how election deniers took over Georgia in the last four years. That story has gone live as I am typing this, and I’m incredibly proud of it so I hope you take the time to read it. It’s the culmination of three years’ worth of non-stop work covering the election denial movement in Georgia and elsewhere. It wouldn’t be possible without your support.

If you want to continue that support, you can help me power through these final days before the election with a paid subscription that costs as little as $5 a month or a one-time contribution to our Doom Coffee Fund. Strap in, because things are about to get heavy.

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A man at my early voting location yesterday was wearing a shirt that said something like, “If you don’t love this country move somewhere else.” It was a way to wear a Trump shirt without wearing a Trump shirt. Some of the former president’s supporters have broken the law by wearing Trump paraphernalia. In Florida, a Trump supporter was arrested for brandishing a machete, apparently at voters who support Vice President Kamala Harris.

Meanwhile, Republican officials in some states have moved to block the Justice Department from deploying election monitors to ensure that poll workers and voters aren’t harassed or intimidated — by either side. What is becoming more clear by the day is that the American right feels they are entitled to win this election, and feel that if they need to harass or intimidate those who don’t support Trump in order to achieve that goal, they’re willing to do it. In Indiana, a former Republican congressional candidate was arrested for stealing sample ballots in a failed attempt to claim fraud was occurring there.

The madness won’t end on Election Day if Kamala Harris wins. The two months that follow will be chaos. Subscribe below to stay on top of it all.

Across the country, election workers are under threat, Mike Wendling of the BBC News reported recently. On today’s episode of the American Doom podcast, I talk to Mike about his reporting and what he learned by speaking with election officials who are under threat by Trump supporters who believe the former president’s lies about elections.

In other news, you can read my Rolling Stone dive into the election denial officials of Pennsylvania. At least 33 pro-Trump election deniers work as local election officials in the Keystone State, I reported on Tuesday. Also for your reading pleasure (or displeasure), you can read check out the Mother Jones piece I mentioned above. Many, many thanks to my editor, Daniel Schulman and my co-author, Ari Berman, for their work on this story. You can view Ari’s relentless coverage of voting and elections for Mother Jones here.

All for now.

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Yo. Today I’m in Luke O’Neill’s Hell World with a reflection on the election denier madness I’ve seen over the last four years. You can read it here and support Luke’s work by subscribing to his killer newsletter. Fun fact: I’ve been writing for Luke off and on longer than any other publication I’ve written for. The Internet can still be fun!

Also just a reminder that tomorrow night I’ll be hosting a live chat for the presidential debate. This live chat will be for paid subscribers only and I’ll be discussing election matters that come up in the debate. You can subscribe to American Doom for as little as $5 a month and join us tomorrow. Should be fun. We’ve also set up a new option for those who want to give a one-time contribution — the Doom Coffee Fund. Both subscriptions and one-time contributions are through a secure payment system and go to help fund operations here at American Doom. It’s just myself and a colleague doing enough investigative journalism here to garner mentions in the New York Times, the New Republic, on Joy Reid’s MSNBC show and elsewhere, in addition to a slew of press appearances based on our stories.

Now, on to today’s podcast. I’m pleased to be joined today by Max Flugrath of Fair Fight. Max has been instrumental in helping Georgians understand the issues affecting elections here and how they can ensure that they’re properly registered to vote even as Republicans carry out legally dubious voter purges throughout the state. Recently, Fair Fight launched PeachVote.com, which features the lovely little chatbot, Peaches, who can help you with all your voter registration questions and needs.

Today, Max and I discuss all the recent controversy at the Georgia State Election Board as well as the growing issue of voter purges and accompanying lawsuits backed by Republicans.