No newsletter next week, as I’m on a short vacation. I’ll be back in your inboxes on Sept. 17.

I remain skeptical that Donald Trump can finish the White House ballroom before he leaves office, but with the Supreme Court blessing this illegal project, there will be a lot of construction done when his term is up in 2029. I’ve come around to the view that it has to be torn down.

One major reason for that is that the Supreme Court will suddenly discover that presidents can’t alter the White House without congressional approval, just as soon as a Democrat is in office. So any effort to transform the building into something worthwhile will be stymied. 

But Trump tore down the East Wing without asking permission. With that precedent in place, it will be easy enough to tear down the ballroom in the course of a few hours. If Republicans want to sue, let them. By then it will be too late, and I suspect everyone will be ready to move on. 

JD Vance went to Michigan to support Mike Rogers in the Senate campaign against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, and drew headlines for his unpersuasive attempts to act offended because El-Sayed noted that Vance’s racism is even uglier because he has an Indian-American wife. But another one of Vance’s dumb provocations also deserves attention: his (again, racist) description of El-Sayed as “evil.”

Vance said it’s “evil” when people “see themselves not as citizens of a common nation fighting for every single person — whether they’re Jewish or Christian, whether they’re white or Black or brown — but see themselves as fighting for one group at the expense of others.” 

At this point, I’m not even sure if Vance is capable of self-awareness, but that is pure psychological projection. (And racist.) El-Sayed’s entire political career has been about helping all people, regardless of ethnicity or class. 

It’s Vance who pushes a politics of exclusion. Vance openly gave a speech last year in which he argued against the concept of America as a creedal nation where citizenship is about the law, not your ethnic background. Instead, he strongly suggested that only people with a certain heritage should be citizens. He was coy about what that heritage is, but we all know. 

By his own measure, Vance is evil. He’s the one who doesn’t see us all as equal citizens. He’s the one who sneered that his “pawpaw” would be scared, if he were still alive, to see El-Sayed running for office, a claim Vance tried to justify with false (and racist) claims that the Michigan candidate supports “sharia law.” It’s Vance who works for an administration that is kicking out legal immigrants simply because they aren’t white. Someone is evil here, but it’s not El-Sayed. 

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One of the stranger stories of the past week or so — and one most of the mainstream media is ignoring — is about how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appears to have built an army of online trolls to push MAGA propaganda. First reported by the Bulwark and then confirmed by the Washington Post, the report found that taxpayers are paying popular far-right social media figures in secret to post White House-friendly propaganda. 

As Salon’s Sophia Tesfaye points out, this is inseparable from the censorship scandal at the Pentagon. Hegseth fired three journalists from Stars and Stripes for reporting on the USS Lincoln debacle, which was clearly illegal. He’s been abusing and trying to marginalize journalists assigned to cover the Pentagon. He’s trying to seize control of the narrative by force.

This is even more serious, however, because it sure seems like Hegseth wants to run for president. So his war on a free press isn’t just about suppressing information that makes him look bad right now. It’s using taxpayer dollars to fund a campaign built on lies. 

Ultimately, I don’t think he can be elected, although in a weak 2028 field he’s got a good shot of being the Republican nominee. Still, we should all be alarmed at this outrageous power grab. GOP officials under Trump feel fully entitled to suppress dissent, misappropriate taxpayer dollars and lie openly through channels both official and unofficial in order to get more power for themselves. That’s how Trump’s fascist movement will outlast him, and it’s very important for people who want real democracy to wake up and push back so it can’t. 

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