The Lists We Keep: On Satan’s Bedsheets, Unmarked Vans, and the Paper Trail of Power
By Earl Cotten For The Earl Angle Newsletter
Los Angeles, July 2025. On screens large and small, a familiar, cartoonish grotesquerie unfolds: a former President, rendered in crude lines and primary colors, shares a bed with Satan. The Prince of Darkness, propped on a pillow, voice dripping with a bored malevolence, poses the question hanging over this summer like smog: “Are you on the list or not? It’s weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax.” The line lands not with the thud of punchline, but with the cold precision of a scalpel slicing through taut skin. It is South Park, of course, returned after an absence that felt less like hiatus and more like a collective holding of breath. They have always held up the cracked mirror, but this season, the glass seems sharper, the reflection more grotesquely immediate. “Relax.” It echoes now, a brittle mantra offered against the rising tide of Gallup polls showing 37% approval, against the 81% of Americans demanding the release of that particular list – the one concerning a dead financier and his island, the one that seems to exert a peculiar gravitational pull on the current administration, bending light and truth around its event horizon. To watch this cartoon in the summer of 2025 is to understand that “relax” is not reassurance; it is the locking of a door.
The episode aired late. There were delays. Paramount Global, that vast and nervous entity, was preoccupied with the intricate, billion-dollar ballet of securing streaming rights – a cool $1.5 billion for Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators who trade in expletives and exorcisms. Fifty new episodes and the weight of the past catalog, secured in a deal announced amidst a different kind of tension. Paramount had recently settled another matter: a $16 million payment to the same former President depicted in Satan’s boudoir, stemming from an edited 60 Minutes interview. An edit. Sixteen million dollars. And then, shortly after the check cleared, Stephen Colbert’s show vanished from the CBS schedule (Paramount owns CBS). Coincidence? South Park’s Jesus, pressured into public schools under threat of lawsuit, offered its own bleakly satirical answer. The network’s official explanation – “purely a financial decision” – hangs in the air, as insubstantial and yet as defining as the smog. The creators’ fury over the delay, expressed reportedly in terms as colorful as their animation, feels less like petulance and more like the last honest reaction in a landscape polished smooth by litigation and fear. The White House, predictably, dismissed the show as “irrelevant” and “fourth-rate.” The reflex is telling: attack the messenger when the message is inconvenient, when it arrives not in a sealed subpoena but in the vulgar vernacular of Comedy Central. The timing, however, is the knife twist: it lands precisely as the polls crater. Thirty-seven percent. The lowest of this second term. Irrelevance, it seems, has a curious resonance.
We keep lists. Client lists. Guest lists. Deportation lists. Nielsen lists (10.5 billion streaming minutes for South Park in the first half of 2025, they tell us, the 20th most streamed). Approval ratings are lists, meticulously compiled by Gallup, Pew, YouGov. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the tariffs. Fifty-five percent disapprove of the gutting of federal departments. Fifty-six percent specifically disapprove of the handling of the Epstein investigation. Sixty-nine percent believe in a cover-up. Sixty-one percent oppose the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a legislative behemoth that cannibalizes Medicaid to fund tax breaks and border theatrics. These are not mere statistics; they are the brittle parchment on which the current moment is inscribed, a palimpsest of discontent layered over the frantic scribbles of policy. The economy, that former bulwark, shows hairline fractures, confidence dipping to 45%, a low not seen since the anxious days of 2019. People feel the tariffs at the grocery checkout. They sense the coming chaos of dismantled agencies, suspecting – half of them, according to the pollsters – that the promised savings are a mirage, that the long-term cost will be extracted from their own futures. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is less a piece of legislation and more a forced relocation of resources, a shifting of burdens onto the already burdened. It is governance by subtraction, a hollowing out.
And the Epstein list. It hangs there, unignorable, a spectral presence. The Satan-bed scene in South Park resonates precisely because it taps into a profound, poll-verified unease: 81% want it released. The administration’s obfuscation – the reflexive “relax,” the legal maneuvers shrouding the documents in secrecy – reads not as prudence but as guilt by opacity. It fuels the 69% who smell cover-up. It directly feeds the 56% disapproval rating on the handling of the probe. In a time when trust is the rarest currency, the refusal to illuminate this particular darkness reads as a confession whispered in the dark. It becomes the subtext of every other policy, the shadow falling across the tariff tables and the budget cuts. It is the unspoken question at the heart of the Gallup number: not just “Do you approve?” but “What are they hiding?”
Meanwhile, in the machinery of enforcement, the lists take on flesh. Consider Kilmar Abrego Garcia. His name is on a list. An immigration judge placed him on a different list in 2019 – a list of those who could not be deported to El Salvador, because to do so would expose him to danger. In March of this year, ICE – an agency operating with a new, unsettling vigor – deported him anyway. An “administrative error,” they called it. A phrase that suggests a misfiled form, a clerical oversight, not the violent severing of a life from its precarious moorings in Maryland. His wife, clinging to the paper shield of the court order, sued. The courts, ascending finally to the Supreme Court, agreed: the deportation was illegal. Bring him back, they ordered.
The return, when it came last month, was not an apology, not a restoration. It was an ambush. Stepping back onto American soil, Abrego Garcia was immediately arrested in Tennessee on federal human smuggling charges. The basis? A 2022 traffic stop. Passengers in his car. Speculation by officers. No charges filed at the time. The timing felt retaliatory, punitive, a bureaucratic sleight-of-hand substituting one list for another. Prosecutors painted lurid pictures: dangerous, MS-13. They fought to keep him jailed. Judge Waverly Crenshaw, in Tennessee, saw through the performance. “The government’s general statements… do not prove Abrego’s dangerousness,” he wrote. The MS-13 claims “border on fanciful.” Witness accounts “evolved.” He ordered him released. On the same day, hundreds of miles away in Maryland, Judge Paula Xinis delivered the second blow. Restore his status, she commanded – back to supervised release in Baltimore, not a detention cell. And crucially, impose guardrails: if ICE intends to try deporting him to some third country (El Salvador being off-limits), they must give 72 hours notice. Time for his lawyers to fight. Due process. A concept seemingly as antiquated as parchment to the current Department of Homeland Security. Their spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, erupted online, labeling Judge Xinis “unhinged,” her ruling “LAWLESS AND INSANE.” The administration’s message was clear: the courts are an obstacle, not an arbiter. The lists – their lists – will be enforced, judicial parchment be damned.
ICE now operates with a theatrical menace. Reports accumulate: masked agents, emerging from unmarked vehicles. Tactics, The Guardian noted grimly, reminiscent of “Vladimir Putin’s Russia.” Neighborhood apps and encrypted chats buzz with warnings: “ICE sighted near the market.” “Unmarked van circling Elm.” Fear is the intended product, meticulously manufactured and disseminated. This is not precision enforcement; it is terror as policy. Collateral damage is accepted, even weaponized. Remember the four-year-old U.S. citizen with cancer, deported with her family to Honduras? The administration’s response, channeled through former border czar Tom Homan, was a chilling shrug: “that’s on you” – meaning the parents. Farms wither as workers vanish. The targets are increasingly those like Abrego Garcia, individuals with court orders supposedly shielding them, their protections dissolved by administrative fiat or retaliatory prosecution. The courts push back – the Crenshaws, the Xinises – but the agency, emboldened, publicly defies them. The DHS rhetoric escalates: “LAWLESS AND INSANE.” The propaganda revives: a recent DHS image, chillingly retro, urged citizens to “Help your country locate and arrest illegal aliens.” It feels like 1942, the echoes of darker lists. Experts like Columbia’s Jeffrey Fagan warn of the blurring lines, the impossibility of keeping federal immigration enforcement separate from local policing when the former adopts the tactics of an occupying force. Los Angeles witnessed it: protests against ICE raids met not with dialogue, but with 4,000 National Guard troops deployed against the state’s wishes. Heidi Beirich’s assessment cuts through the euphemisms: ICE has become “weapons for the Trump regime to violate rights and literally disappear people.” The unmarked vans are the physical manifestation of that disappearance.
Paramount Global navigates this landscape with the brittle grace of a tightrope walker over a chasm. Their $1.5 billion bet on South Park – securing the streaming future of the very show that just eviscerated the President who recently cost them $16 million – is a study in corporate survivalism. The merger with Skydance proceeds, a consolidation of power and content, even as Trump-appointed FCC officials cast long shadows over the network landscape. Creating satire that mocks a litigious President, whose base was sicced on their news division (CBS, hence Paramount, hence the $16m settlement), requires either extraordinary courage or a cold calculation of audience metrics. Ten point five billion minutes. Libertarian creators mocking all sides, yes, but this season, the laser focuses on one target. Paramount paid the fortune. They absorbed the delays caused by their own billion-dollar bargaining. They will air the episodes. The money, it seems, speaks louder than the threats, louder than the lawsuits, louder perhaps than the fear. It is a different kind of list: the Nielsen list, the balance sheet. In the end, for Paramount, it appears to be the only list that truly matters.
The Abrego Garcia rulings, delivered in tandem by Judges Crenshaw and Xinis, felt momentarily like a reaffirmation of parchment. Crenshaw’s dry observation cut deep: “the irony of the Government making this argument [flight risk] when it... created these circumstances is not lost on this Court.” Xinis’s demand for the 72-hour notice period was a direct attempt to pierce the opacity, to force the machinery of deportation to operate in the light, however briefly. They highlighted the courts as the remaining, straining guardrail. The Supreme Court had already ruled the initial deportation illegal. Yet the administration’s response – McLaughlin’s “unhinged” and “LAWLESS AND INSANE” broadside – was not mere disagreement. It was a deliberate, corrosive attack on the legitimacy of the judiciary itself. This matters. Seventy-eight percent of Americans believe an administration must halt an action deemed illegal by a federal court. Eighty-eight percent demand compliance with the Supreme Court. This includes 65% of Republicans for lower courts, 82% for the highest court. The administration’s defiance, its vilification of judges, places it profoundly out of step, not just with the opposition, but with a fundamental expectation of its own supporters. The judges invoked due process – notice, restoration of status. It stands in stark, almost quaint, opposition to ICE’s ethos of disappearance. Whether this parchment barrier can hold against the sheer force of institutional contempt and the rolling thunder of unmarked vans remains the central, unresolved tension.
The third-country option. Judge Xinis saw the danger. Hence the 72-hour notice. Why? Because deportation is no longer merely return. Under this administration, it is becoming exile. Abrego Garcia cannot be sent to El Salvador. The solution? Send him somewhere else. Anywhere else. South Sudan. Eswatini (Swaziland). Places documented for grotesque human rights abuses in their prisons. To deposit a human being with no ties, no history, no support system into such a maw isn't deportation; it is a potential death sentence dressed in bureaucratic language. It is the dumping of human refuse. The Supreme Court, in its temporizing way, has allowed this practice to continue while challenges wind their slow way through the system. Think of the Venezuelans freed from El Salvador's CECOT prison – the reports of torture, the inhuman crowding. Sending anyone to nations operating such facilities, especially without connection, shreds the principle of non-refoulement – the promise not to return people to danger. ICE, empowered and unleashed, treats the world as its dumping ground. Xinis’s ruling was a frail attempt to block a midnight flight to oblivion. The administration’s intent, however, is naked: remove them. By any means. To anywhere. The list of acceptable destinations shrinks to nowhere, expands to include everywhere terrifying.
And the base? Thirty-seven percent approval is a stark number. Yet within it pulses a harder core. NBC tells us 36% of registered voters now identify with the MAGA movement, up significantly from just months ago. It is a base that cheers the masked raids, accepts the deportation of the child cancer patient (“that’s on you”), believes the “unhinged judge” narrative, likely supports the third-country exile tactic. They see strength, not cruelty; resolve, not lawlessness. This base, growing denser even as the broader approval evaporates, fuels the administration’s defiance. It licenses the attacks on judges (“unhinged!”), the dismissal of polls (“fake!”), the scorn for satire (“irrelevant!”). It creates a closed loop: cater ever more fiercely to this core, escalate tactics to satisfy their demand for visible action, disregard the disapproving majority and the inconvenient parchment barriers erected by courts. The growth of the MAGA identity within the GOP grants the administration a peculiar freedom: the freedom to disregard the political costs paid in Gallup percentages, because the loyalty of the base is absolute, a wall against the rising tide of disapproval. It is a recipe not for moderation, but for acceleration. More masks. More unmarked vans. More attempts at midnight flights to third-country gulags. More attacks on the judges who say "no." More lists drawn in the dark.
We end where we began: with a list. The one Satan inquired about. The one 81% want revealed. The one that casts its long, inky shadow over the 37%, the deportation orders, the $1.5 billion streaming deals, the rulings labeled “LAWLESS AND INSANE.” In the California dusk, the lights of Paramount’s lot glow, processing the vulgar, vital satire that names the unease. On the streets, the unmarked vans cruise, hunting names on different lists. In Tennessee and Maryland, two judges tried to assert the power of parchment against the tide. And in Washington, the word hangs in the air-conditioned chill: Relax. It is not a comfort. It is the sound of a system straining at its rivets, the prelude to the tearing of paper, the squeal of van tires rounding another corner in the gathering dark. We keep the lists. They keep us. The question, as the summer deepens, is who controls the pen.
Trump's Chaos: Lists, Satire, and Judicial Backlash
By Katherine Mayfield For The Earl Angle Newsletter
Key Takeaways
* South Park's Trump satire returned with explosive premiere mocking Epstein list avoidance, Paramount lawsuit, and Colbert cancellation
* Trump's approval hits 37% (Gallup) – lowest of second term amid policy disapproval and Epstein file secrecy backlash
* Federal judges ordered release of wrongly deported migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, blocking ICE from immediate re-detention
* ICE faces court rebukes and public fear campaigns as agents use unmarked vehicles and masks during raids
* Paramount merger delayed South Park season amid $1.5B streaming deal, prompting creators' expletive-laced statement
The Tangled Web: Epstein, Satire, and Trump’s Legal Quagmire
Okay so let’s get straight into it – that new South Park episode? Wild. Like, they really went for it this time. Trump literally in bed with Satan, right? And Satan’s grilling him about the Epstein list: “Are you on the list or not? It’s weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax.” Oof. That line kinda cuts deep when you think about recent polls showing 69% of Americans believe the government’s covering up Epstein evidence . The show didn’t hold back on the Paramount stuff either. Remember Trump sued them over that 60 Minutes Harris interview edit? Got a $16 mil settlement. Then poof – Colbert’s show gets axed. Coincidence? South Park sure thinks it’s sketchy, showing Jesus basically forced into schools cause of lawsuit threats . Pretty brutal commentary.
And timing’s everything yeah? This episode finally aired after weeks of delay cause Paramount was scrambling to lock down that $1.5 billion deal with Trey and Matt for streaming rights . Felt like forever waiting for it. White House shot back calling the show “irrelevant” and “fourth-rate” – classic Trump playbook when mocked . But here’s the kicker: this satire lands harder because Trump’s ratings are tanking. Like, Gallup has him at 37% approval now . That’s low. And get this – 81% of folks polled want all Epstein docs released . When South Park and polls agree you’re handling something badly? That’s trouble.
Table: South Park Episode "Sermon on the Mount" Key Trump Jabs
Poll Numbers Nosedive: Tariffs, Cuts, and Mounting Distrust
Alright, let’s talk polls cause man, they’re rough. Pew Research showed back in April only 40% approved of Trump’s job performance . Fast forward to July? Gallup clocks him at 37% . Ouch. His signature stuff? Not popular. 59% hate the tariff hikes, 55% think cutting government departments is a bad move . Even on the economy – usually his strong suit – confidence dipped to 45%, lowest since 2019 . People see these policies hitting their wallets. Half reckon the cuts will actually cost Americans more long-term, not save cash .
Why the drop? Well, the Epstein thing isn’t helping. Like at all. A YouGov poll found 56% specifically disapprove of how he’s handling that investigation . And get this – 69% think there’s a cover-up happening . That’s huge distrust. His big “One Big Beautiful Bill” mega-policy? 61% oppose it, partly cause it slashes Medicaid to pay for tax breaks and border stuff . Even Republicans aren’t fully on board with ignoring courts – though way more than Dems. 65% of GOP voters say if a federal court rules something illegal, the admin should stop (jumps to 82% for SCOTUS) . So when courts smack down his immigration moves? People notice.
Table: Trump Policy Disapproval Rates (Selected)
Abrego Garcia Saga: Courts Slap Down ICE Overreach
This Kilmar Abrego Garcia case? It’s messy. Shows how immigration enforcement’s going off the rails. So, quick recap: Guy’s living in Maryland, right? Has an immigration judge order from 2019 blocking deportation to El Salvador cause he’d face danger there . March this year? Boom – ICE deports him anyway. Govt called it an “administrative error” . Total violation. His wife sued. Courts, including eventually the Supreme Court, ruled the deportation illegal and ordered him back .
But get this – instead of just bringing him back, the Trump admin drags its feet. Then suddenly, when they do return him last month? They hit him with criminal human smuggling charges in Tennessee . Based on what? A 2022 traffic stop where he had passengers in his car. Cops speculated about smuggling but brought no charges then . Feels retaliatory, no? Prosecutors pushed hard to keep him jailed pretrial, calling him dangerous, MS-13. But Judge Waverly Crenshaw saw right through it: “The government’s general statements... do not prove Abrego’s dangerousness.” He noted the MS-13 claims “border on fanciful” and witness stories “evolved” . Ordered him released!
Meanwhile, in Maryland, Judge Paula Xinis dropped another ruling. She said restore his pre-deportation status – ICE supervision in Baltimore, not detention . And crucially, put up guardrails: If ICE wants to try deporting him to some third country (not El Salvador), they must give 72 hours notice so his lawyers can fight it . DHS went ballistic. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin blasted Xinis as an “unhinged judge” in a rant on X, insisting Abrego Garcia “will never walk America’s streets again” . Judges say due process; admin says nope. Scary disconnect.
ICE Unleashed: Masked Raids, Fear, and Eroding Checks
Let’s talk about ICE’s vibe right now. It’s... intense. Under Trump, they’re acting like a “domestic enforcer for Maga’s agenda,” as The Guardian put it . Think masked agents, unmarked vehicles – tactics feeling borrowed from “Vladimir Putin’s Russia” . Neighborhood apps and chats blow up constantly with ICE sighting warnings: “Hey all... A little birdie just told me ICE is out.” . People are scared.
They’re not just picking up targets. There’s collateral damage. Remember that four-year-old U.S. citizen with cancer deported to Honduras with her family? Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, shrugged it off: “that’s on you” – meaning the parents . Farms are rotting because workers vanished. And the targets? Often people like Abrego Garcia, with court orders supposedly protecting them. Courts keep ruling against ICE tactics – like those judges blocking Abrego’s immediate re-detention – but the agency and DHS publicly defy judicial authority, calling rulings “LAWLESS AND INSANE” .
It’s becoming a constitutional crisis. Professor Jeffrey Fagan (Columbia) warned when federal immigration actions get this aggressive and blur with local policing, “keeping them separate will become increasingly difficult” . We saw it in LA – protests against ICE raids got met with 4,000 National Guard troops deployed against the state’s wishes . The DHS even revived creepy WWII-style propaganda, posting an image urging people to “Help your country locate and arrest illegal aliens” . Feels like they’re normalizing something really dangerous. When experts like Heidi Beirich call ICE “weapons for the Trump regime to violate rights and literally disappear people” , we should listen.
Paramount’s Billion-Dollar Bargain Amid Political Fire
South Park’s comeback wasn’t smooth. That Season 27 premiere we talked about? It was delayed weeks because Paramount was in mega-negotiations . Parker and Stone were reportedly furious, dropping an expletive-filled statement about the holdup . Why the drama? They landed a $1.5 billion deal with Paramount for streaming rights – 50 new episodes plus the whole back catalog landing on Paramount+ . Huge money.
But Paramount’s been in Trump’s crosshairs. Remember CBS (owned by Paramount) edited that Kamala Harris interview pre-election? Trump sued, won a $16 million settlement . Then boom – Stephen Colbert’s Late Show gets canceled. Network said “purely a financial decision” . Sure. South Park nailed that hypocrisy, showing Jesus pressured: “You guys saw what happened to CBS? Yeah, well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount. You really want to end up like Colbert?” .
The timing’s awkward. Paramount just merged with Skydance , right as Trump’s FCC appointees are scrutinizing networks. Creating shows that mock the president who just cost you $16 million and sicced his base on your news division? That takes guts. Or maybe just good business – Nielsen says South Park was the 20th-most-streamed show first half of 2025 with 10.5 billion minutes viewed . The creators, Parker and Stone, are libertarians. They mock everyone. But this season? Trump’s the main target. And Paramount, despite the merger stress and political pressure, paid a fortune to keep them. Shows where the real power lies – follow the money.
Judicial Pushback: Courts as the Last Guardrail?
The Abrego Garcia rulings feel significant. Two Obama-appointed judges, Waverly Crenshaw (TN) and Paula Xinis (MD), delivered a “one-two punch” to the administration on the same day . Crenshaw didn’t just order release; he mocked the government’s argument that Abrego might flee ICE: “the irony of the Government making this argument when it... created these circumstances is not lost on this Court.” . Xinis went further, demanding his status be rolled back pre-wrongful-deportation and imposing that 72-hour deportation notice rule .
This highlights a broader trend: Courts increasingly serve as the primary check on executive overreach, especially immigration. Remember the Supreme Court also ruled Trump’s initial deportation illegal . But the administration’s response is telling – immediate, aggressive public attacks on the judges. DHS’s McLaughlin didn’t just disagree; she called Xinis “unhinged” and “LAWLESS AND INSANE” . This rhetoric matters. It undermines judicial legitimacy.
Public opinion leans heavily toward respecting court rulings. 78% of Americans believe an administration must stop an action if a federal court deems it illegal. That number jumps to 88% for Supreme Court rulings . This includes 65% of Republicans for federal courts and 82% for SCOTUS . So when the admin ignores or attacks courts (like calling them “unhinged”), it’s out of step, even with its own base. The judges in Abrego’s case emphasized due process – the notice period, restoring prior status. It’s a direct counter to ICE’s “disappear them fast” approach . Whether this judicial pushback can hold against an admin willing to publicly vilify judges is the real test.
The Global Gulag: ICE’s Third-Country Deportation Play
Here’s a scary twist in the Abrego Garcia case: Even though he can’t be sent to El Salvador (court order), the Trump admin is openly planning to deport him to a third country instead . Somewhere he potentially has zero ties. Judge Xinis highlighted this risk, hence the 72-hour notice requirement . Why’s this a big deal?
Look where they’ve been sending people: Places like South Sudan and Eswatini (Swaziland) . Countries flagged for serious human rights abuses in their prisons . Dumping someone with no connections there? It’s potentially a death sentence or torture. The Supreme Court recently let this practice continue temporarily while legal challenges wind through courts . Chilling.
This isn’t isolated. Remember the Venezuelans freed from El Salvador’s brutal CECOT prison in a swap? Reports detailed horrific conditions there – torture, overcrowding [citation:11][citation:13]. Sending anyone to nations with such facilities, especially without ties, violates the spirit of non-refoulement (no return to danger). ICE under Trump seems empowered to treat deportation as exile, not just return. Abrego’s lawyers specifically fear this – being shipped somewhere unknown and dangerous with no chance to claim fear of torture . Xinis’s ruling tries to block that sneak attack. But the admin’s intent is clear: Use any means, send them anywhere. The world becomes a dumping ground.
The MAGA Base: Loyalty Amidst the Slide?
Trump’s polling is bad. Really bad. 37% approval (Gallup) is brutal . But his core MAGA base isn’t collapsing. NBC polling shows something wild: 36% of registered voters now identify with the MAGA movement. That’s up sharply from 23% in March polls during the first term and 27% in 2024 polling . How does that square with the low overall approval?
It suggests intense loyalty within a shrinking, more hardcore base. They’re the ones still cheering the ICE raids, even the ugly stuff like the deportation of a 4-year-old cancer patient (where Homan said “that’s on you” to the parents) . They’re the ones likely believing DHS’s “unhinged judge” rhetoric over the actual court rulings . They likely support the third-country deportation tactic, seeing it as tough enforcement.
This base empowerment fuels the administration’s defiance. When courts rule against them, they attack the judges . When polls show disapproval, they dismiss them as fake . When South Park mocks them, they call it “irrelevant” . This creates a dangerous feedback loop: Cater policy and rhetoric even more fiercely to the base, disregard broader disapproval and institutional checks (courts, Congress norms), and escalate tactics (masked ICE raids, third-country deportations). The MAGA movement’s growth within the GOP gives Trump less incentive to moderate, even as his overall political standing weakens. It’s a recipe for continued, perhaps escalating, confrontation and constitutional strain.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did the South Park season premiere say about Trump and Epstein?
The episode “Sermon on the ‘Mount” depicted Trump in bed with Satan, who confronted him about his name being on the “Epstein list”, noting “It’s weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax.” This satirizes Trump’s refusal to release Epstein-related documents, which 81% of Americans support releasing according to polls .
Why was Kilmar Abrego Garcia ordered released by the courts?
Two federal judges ruled on July 23, 2025:
* Judge Waverly Crenshaw rejected Trump admin claims Abrego Garcia was dangerous or a flight risk, ordering his release from criminal custody in Tennessee.
* Judge Paula Xinis ordered ICE barred from immediately detaining him upon release, restoring his pre-deportation supervised status in Maryland. She also mandated 72 hours notice before any attempt to deport him to a third country .
How low is Trump's approval rating and why?
Gallup reported a second-term low of 37% approval in late July. Key reasons include:
* 59% disapproval of increased tariffs
* 55% disapproval of federal agency cuts
* 56% disapproval of his handling of the Epstein investigation
* 61% opposition to his “One Big Beautiful Bill” policy .
Why are ICE raids causing so much fear?
ICE tactics under Trump include:
* Masked agents using unmarked vehicles during operations
* Public DHS propaganda urging citizens to report “illegal aliens”
* High-profile cases like deporting a 4-year-old cancer patient (U.S. citizen)
* Defying court orders, as seen in the Abrego Garcia case, and publicly attacking judges who rule against them .
What was the outcome of Trump's lawsuit against Paramount?
Trump settled a lawsuit against Paramount Global (CBS's parent) for $16 million, claiming “misleading editing” of a pre-election 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Shortly after this settlement, Paramount canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which South Park satirized as politically motivated.
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