ICE Out of Minnesota

 

MAD King Donald

  

25th Amendment Time for Mad King Donald

Today on TAP: His narcissism has become psychotically megalomaniacal.

BY HAROLD MEYERSONJANUARY 20, 2026

 Act I, Scene 1, of King Lear not only introduces us to the aging monarch, but makes clear that he’s lost his marbles. Rather than subject a hugely important strategic decision—the coming division of his kingdom—to rational calculation, he instead requires his pending successors (his daughters) to tell him how much they love him. The sheer volume of their professed adoration—the more over the top, the better—becomes the sole criterion by which he makes policy. It’s the kind of scene we Americans hadn’t seen enacted very often in our own high governmental circles until Donald Trump’s second term as president, when he chose it as the model for his cabinet meetings, which consist of his secretaries telling him how great he is.

More from Harold Meyerson

In Shakespeare’s version, Lear, at least, has one councilor, Kent, who persists in telling him, on pain of banishment, that he’s making a huge mistake. No such councilor can be found in Trump’s circle, or in the Republican congressional caucuses, or, for that matter, in many major American institutions. Corporations, banks, white-shoe law firms, and numerous universities have prostrated themselves before Trump. While elites have disgraced themselves, it’s fallen to the people to take to the streets in opposition.

During the 2024 presidential race, it was Joe Biden’s mental acuity that became, very understandably, the object of public concern. Trump’s mental and psychological condition was widely understood to be a little off-kilter, but the conventional wisdom was that, well, that was just Trump being Trump.

Age, narcissism, and megalomania now determine Trump’s actions and, alarmingly, the domestic and foreign policy of the United States.

Today, which marks the first anniversary of Trump’s reassuming the duties of the presidency, it’s clear that the conventional wisdom was profoundly and disastrously wrong. Age, narcissism, and megalomania now determine Trump’s actions and, alarmingly, the domestic and foreign policy of the United States. When the consequences are confined to his ordering up monuments to his assumed greatness—stamping his face on coins, engraving his name on government buildings, sizing his ballroom to dwarf anything else in D.C.—they can be dismissed as relatively harmless outbursts of ridiculously overindulged self-love.

But when, as he told The New York Times earlier this month, he views the only constraints on his actions to be his own sense of propriety and morality, rather than the Constitution that presidents are sworn to preserve, protect, and defend, then we’ve been shuttled into a different form of government than the one we’ve assumed we’ve lived in for the past 250 years: a monarchy, at least as Trump himself sees it.

And now, like George III, against whom our Founders revolted, Trump is displaying symptoms of madness. His text to Norway’s prime minister, citing his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize as a reason he wants to seize Greenland, is in the grand tradition of mad old kings making immense policy decisions based on megalomania and whim. Just believing that he was in any sense qualified for the prize should itself have been evidence enough of his derangement. After a long life of proclaiming his fictions to be fact, and of indifference to the difference between the two, he may actually believe the lies that his fearful stooges tell him about himself. He surely feels wounded when anyone dares to tell him the truth about himself, as the Nobel Peace Prize committee unknowingly did when they gave the award to somebody else.

But his determination to seize Greenland—already disgraceful, deplorable, and altogether addled even before his Nobel deprivation message—has become proof positive of his narcissistic megalomania, now that he’s linked his determination to his wounded ego. In Duck Soup, Fredonian President Rufus T. Firefly (played by Groucho Marx) takes his country to war because he imagines that the ambassador of a neighboring country has insulted him, but Duck Soup is an absurdist comedy (and a great one, at that).

Breaking up NATO on Rufus T. Firefly grounds might not be impeachable, though Trump’s violations of the Constitution surely are. But they are clearly grounds for invoking the 25th Amendment to our Constitution to replace him. Section 4 of the amendment begins:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Should the president contest his ousting, the article further states, it then requires Congress to decide the question.

I have no illusions that JD Vance and the rest of Trump’s cabinet would ever proclaim that their emperor has no clothes, or that the Republican Congress would do the same. I have no illusions that JD Vance would be even remotely a decent American president, as he has shown himself to be as avid a promoter of neofascist policies as Trump himself—in his case, more by reasons of ideology than, as is the case with Trump, psychology. But we’ve reached a moment in which even his substitution for Trump might offer a smidgen of relief.

It won’t happen, of course. Like George III, Trump has passed into madness. The parallels with the real 1776 grow stronger by the day.

 

Honor M.L. King; Fight for Democracy

Martin Luther King Jr. Day arrives this year amid a deliberate effort to rewrite American history and a wholesale assault on civil rights in America. It has been one year since Donald Trump was inaugurated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It felt cruel and grotesque that a man who represents so much of what Dr. King stood against could rise to power on a day meant to honor the struggle for racial justice and democracy. Over the last year, we have seen a devastating, sustained attack on nearly every facet of the civil rights architecture in America. We have seen the gutting of civil rights enforcement; high-profile purges of Black federal employees and a drive to functionally resegregate the federal workforce; the rewriting of history in official documents and even in Smithsonian museums; and vicious attacks on Black refugees from Haiti, Somalia, and other African countries.  As I write this email, we are awaiting a Supreme Court decision that could potentially gut the final remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act -- part of an overarching campaign to suppress Black voters and Black political power across the country. It is important to name what we are facing. This is a dedicated, organized campaign to eradicate civil rights, erase history, and enshrine white supremacy as a central governing principle. While the scale and speed of the onslaught are immense, the project itself is not new. Today’s MAGA movement is the modern heir to the racial authoritarian regime that has shaped American governance since the nation’s founding. When we look for inspiration and lessons, we often turn to struggles for democracy abroad. But the truth is that the United States has been engaged in an unfinished fight for democracy for most of its history. In a very real sense, this country did not begin to function as a democracy until civil rights organizers created the conditions for the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. That is why the first, and most important, lessons for today’s fight for democracy come from the civil rights movement here at home. In fact, many of the international movements we cite for inspiration trace their own lineage back to Dr. King and the Birmingham Bus Boycott, the Freedom Riders, and the Selma march. From successful economic campaigns like the Birmingham Bus Boycott, to the disciplined use of nonviolence, to the strategic leveraging of repression so that state violence backfired, to mass mobilization and noncooperation -- so many of the tactics and strategies we talk about today were forged by leaders like Dr. King, John Lewis, Ella Baker, Diane Nash, and countless unnamed organizers who refused to accept injustice as inevitable. The fight for racial justice in America has always been the fight for democracy in America; it’s crucial that we recognize them as inseparable. And as we honor Dr. King and his legacy, we do so not by sanitizing or reducing it, but by recognizing the fullness of his vision -- for racial justice, economic justice, and ending war and imperialism. So on this MLK Day, we ask you to do more than post a quote or take the day off. We ask you to learn and reflect on the legacy of Dr. King and the civil rights movement, and to recommit to the fight for a just, inclusive, and equitable democracy. We ask you to support organizations leading the fight today, such as our friends at the Transformative Justice Coalition and Black Voters Matter Fund, who are each organizing to protect and advance Black political power and voting rights in this crucial moment. And we ask you to commit to sustained, collective action in the months and years ahead. The arc of the moral universe does not bend on its own. It bends because people organize, resist, and refuse to comply with injustice -- again and again, even when the path is hard. Honoring Dr. King today means continuing that work. In solidarity, Leah Greenberg Co-Executive Director, Indivisible View video; MLK> https://www.democracynow.org/2026/1/19/mlk_day_special_dr_martin_luther

 

MLK and the Authoritarian State

 

Dr King and Our Authoritarian Crisis

Only when we refuse to accept the mythology around King and the Movement can we comprehend the legacy entrusted to us

WILLIAM J. BARBER, II AND JONATHAN WILSON-HARTGROVE JAN 18

READ IN APP

At memorial celebrations across the nation this weekend, Americans will cross arms, grasp hands, and sing, “We Shall Overcome.” Many will bow their heads in prayer for our country. Some – and more than many of us care to admit – will look down to consider a question that has haunted them since last Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which coincided with the inauguration of Donald Trump. 

Can America survive four years of authoritarian captivity?

Some of our fellow Americans spent the past year trying to dismiss this nagging question with the hope that things wouldn’t be as bad as it seemed they could be. But their hopes have been dashed. The White House is waging a propaganda campaign that openly lies about things everyone can see. Congress has funded a paramilitary force to occupy US cities and enforce the regime’s version of reality. Anyone who objects has been labeled a “domestic terrorist” and shown that they will be attacked, fired, defunded, arrested, or killed if they do not get out of the way. 

America has descended into a full-blown authoritarian crisis faster than almost anyone expected.

Still, millions of people have resisted – not just at mass protests in the streets, but by telling the truth as journalists, standing for the rule of law as lawyers and jurists, refusing to bow to the regime as universities and corporations, refusing to obey unlawful orders, and practicing hope as people of faith and conscience. 

We are in the midst of an authoritarian crisis and a majority of Americans are still resisting.

But for those who have not bowed, the question is often more pointed. We gather this weekend to remember Dr. King and the movement standing against authoritarians like Bull Conner, Jim Clark, and George Wallace in the South. As America marks its 250th anniversary, we recall the founders who reused to bow to a king. We remember the Union holding off the insurrection of the Confederates when, as Lincoln said, a great civil war tested whether this nation, “or any nation so conceived, can long endure.” 

But can America survive authoritarianism when it has the power of the federal government?

This is the unuttered question that many Americans who have not bowed to Trump bring with them to this year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We know because this is the question people on the front lines have whispered to us in quiet moments over the past year. We know because we’ve had to wrestle with this question ourselves.

It is an important question because, when we face it honestly, it can pierce through the mythology that keeps us from receiving the tradition that made Dr. King and offers us a way out of the authoritarian crisis we face.

We deceive ourselves if we believe King was able to face down Southern racism because he had the full support of the federal government. The fact that we are living in a national security state that has labeled people who resist authoritarian extremism “domestic terrorists” can help us understand the context Dr. King was born into almost a century ago. Most people know Dr. King was surveilled by the FBI at the end of his life, but in his new book Martyrs to the Unspeakable, James W. Douglass reveals that King’s family and community were marked as a threat to national security a dozen years before Martin was born.

How do Authoritarians Gain Power

 A year into Trump’s return, his conduct this year alone qualifies him as authoritarian by any serious definition.

Politicizing independent institutions:
Trump is blocking the full release of the Epstein files. The law says release them. He refuses. The DOJ is protecting pedophiles at Trump’s direction.

Spreading disinformation:
He calls protests in Minnesota and Portland “insurrections.” They are not. He lies so force looks justified.

Aggrandizing executive power:
He flatly ignores Congress and drops U.S. military force in Venezuela because constitutional limits mean nothing to him.

Quashing dissent:
Federal agents rough up protesters, threaten reporters, and flood the streets in Minneapolis and Portland to teach the public what happens when you resist.

Scapegoating vulnerable communities:
Immigrants and their defenders get blamed, raided, shot at, and demonized so cruelty looks like order.

Corrupting elections:
In a January 2026 Reuters interview, he said we should not even have midterm elections. He is saying the quiet part out loud.

Stoking violence:
He sends armed federal forces into cities, escalates conflict, then points to the chaos as proof he needs more power.

The situation is clear. The choice now is to comply or be brave. 

We must stop him now. 

We have been here before. 1776, 1832, 1848,S1860, 1890’s, 1930’s, until 1965 in the South,  1942 Japanese concentration camps. Democracy can win.  1952,It will require all of us working together. 

Common Sense.   December 23, 1776

THESE are the times that try men's ( and women’s)  souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. 

Thomas Paine. Common Sense

 

How To Mobilize Against Fascism

 https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/mobilizing-america?

ICE is a Terrorist Organization

 HTtps://thecoopscoop.substack.com/p/ice-storm-87d?

 https://thecoopscoop.substack.com/p/ice-storm-87d?

Fighting Fascism in the U.S.A.

On Tyranny.  Lesson 18.  Be Calm When the Unthinkable Arrives. 
 

In this week's newsletter: Ezra recaps this weekend's massive ICE Out For Good mobilization, and then we've got some critical to-dos on reining in ICE, important campaign updates (some good news!), and more. Hey Paul, Welcome back! Every week for the last year or so, I spend Sunday night to Monday morning writing up this newsletter intro with the help of Indivisible’s other co-executive director (and my spouse) Leah. We aim to do more than inform -- we want to help you take meaningful action. We continue those conversations on Bluesky (Leah here, me here), and in our weekly Thursday What’s the Plan live chats (next one here). I’m sorry to say it's clear to me that 2026 is going to get worse before it gets better -- but we’re going to make it better together. So let’s link arms and jump in.  Focusing while in the direct line of a fascist fire hose. This week I can’t help but think of a quote from the criminally-snubbed-at-the-Golden-Globes work of resistance art, Andor: “The pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand…It's easier to hide behind forty atrocities than a single incident.” So bear with me, because while we're working on all of these issues at Indivisible and have action items for many below, for this intro I'm not going to to focus on Venezuela, or Greenland, or Iran, or the federal reserve, or the Epstein files, or much of the rest of the firehose of fascism coming at us from this regime. Instead I’m going to focus on a single incident: the murder of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis last week.  We’re going to need more whistles. If you haven’t read Becca Good’s short statement about her wife, I’d like you to close this email and read it. It’s beautiful, heartwrenching, enraging, and inspiring. You probably already knew that Renee was a Minneapolis mom who had just dropped off her kid at school. But you might not have known that she sparkled -- that “Renee was made of sunshine.”  This regime shot Renee and then labeled her a domestic terrorist. They didn’t do it because they’re strong. They did it because they’re weak, and they’re scared. “We had whistles. They had guns,” wrote Becca Good. This regime is terrified of our whistles, of our signal groups, of our know your rights trainings, of our frog and unicorn costumes, of our dance circles and funny signs -- of our outrage and our historic, fast-spreading protests. They’re terrified that we’ll realize we’re not alone, and that we’ll show other people they’re not alone either. That’s why we -- together with an incredible coalition of organizations -- called for nationwide vigils and actions to remember Renee, all the victims of ICE violence, and call for action. And you answered the call, with nearly 1,200 events across the country. Leah was out in Montgomery County, and I was out in Alexandria, and you all were out everywhere else in force with a clear demand: Rein in this violent, lawless agency. The strategic logic of protest. If you were out there this weekend, you might sense like I do that we’re at an inflection point with ICE. People who do not consider themselves political or activists or organizers see what this regime is doing, and they’re pissed.  The weekend's protests serve two purposes: We're preventing the regime’s propaganda from becoming accepted reality. It’s harder for Trump and his goons to label Renee a terrorist when people in every community actively memorialize her for what she was. And there’s reason to believe her horrific murder is shifting public opinion against ICE in America, with most Americans now criticizing ICE for being too forceful, and a record number supporting doing away with ICE altogether. When we show our outrage, other community members understand they should be outraged too. We send a message to the political class that they need to act. Republicans are fracturing over this. Meanwhile, we’re in active conversation with Democrats in Congress to escalate the fight against ICE using the January 30 funding deadline. The bill that funds Kristi Noem’s Homeland Security Department is being debated right now. While Schumer and Jeffries will not lead this, they can be pushed to follow our lead. Expressing outrage through our ICE Out for Good protests give our allies on Capitol Hill leverage. The same goes for state-level reforms in blue states, where lawmakers have myriad opportunities to limit harm from ICE. If you need some fire in your belly, read Becca Good’s statement and watch this tribute. Organizing and expressing outrage is our job now -- it’s our electeds’ job to act. But doing our job well requires more than one weekend of outrage. We have to organize the opposition. And we do that best when we do it together, so please read on to the weekly action items below and do some good in Good’s name this week.  In solidarity, Ezra Levin Co-Executive Director, Indivisible Your weekly to-dos Tell your Senators: Rein in ICE NOW. The coalition behind ICE Out For Good is following our historic weekend of action by flooding Congress with calls demanding that they use the upcoming Homeland Security funding bill to rein in ICE. After calling your senators, use this link to call your representative. Send an email to your senators demanding they restore healthcare subsidies NOW. Last week, the House voted to restore the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Trump made lapse last year, leading to skyrocketing healthcare premiums for millions of Americans. Now the Senate must do the same.  Keep demanding your senators vote to stop Trump’s war on Venezuela. Last week, the Senate advanced a War Powers Resolution to pump the brakes on Trump’s war with Venezuela. Soon that resolution will come up for a final vote in the Senate. Let’s make sure it passes.

ICE Out Now

 

Last night, over 35,000 people joined an emergency organizing call to respond to the horrific killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE and the escalating violence of Trump’s secret police force in Minneapolis and immigrant communities across the country. 

Everyone on the call was clear-eyed about the huge amount of work ahead of us to confront the public menace of an increasingly lawless agency that rampages through communities, targets schools and daycare centers, and commits violence with seeming impunity. 

We need more defiance at the state and local level. We need to target ICE’s funding at the federal level. And right now, we need to be in the streets shining a light on ICE’s pattern of unchecked violence, raising our voices to demand: ICE OUT FOR GOOD. 

That’s why Indivisible and a broad coalition of partners are banding together for the nationwide ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action this Saturday and Sunday. We hope you’ll join us. 

Find an Event*

Use our toolkit to host an event

What’s happening this weekend

We’re coming together for hundreds of daytime events this Saturday and Sunday to mourn the lives ICE has taken and destroyed. Renee Nicole Good’s tragic death this week was not an isolated incident; over the past year federal agents have shot numerous people -- two in Portland just yesterday. Thirty-two have died in ICE custody. Many, many more have had their lives shattered by detention, family separation, and deportation. 

Our Weekend of Action will honor all those impacted by ICE brutality, raise awareness of this ongoing pattern of violence, and demand justice and accountability. 

The events will take a variety of forms determined by each volunteer-host. They will include: 

• Public vigils and memorials
• Silent marches and processions
• Visual actions and installations
• Faith-based events 
• And more -- hosts are encouraged to dream up creative, attention-grabbing ideas.

What we’re demanding 

Our Weekend of Action will call for: 

• Accountability, transparency, and immediate independent investigations into the killing of Renee Nicole Good
• Increased action from elected officials to rein in ICE 
• In the words of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, for ICE to "get the $&@% out" of our cities. 

What you can do 

We need the response to this week’s killing and ongoing ICE violence to be loud, peaceful, and inescapable. So if you’re physically able, we need you to be out in the streets.

• Visit the ICE Out For Good Mobilize Hub to find the event nearest you. Check back often, as events are being added by the hour. 
• No event near you? Host one. Use our event toolkit to plan your event, and then register it on Mobilize so others can find it.
• Make sure you know your rights before heading out this weekend. We encourage everyone hitting the streets this weekend (or attending any protest under this regime) to attend the ACLU’s virtual Know Your Rights training today (Jan 9) at 8p ET / 5pm PT.
• Help spread the word. Post the sign up for the Weekend of Action across your networks, send it to friends and family. 

A core principle behind all ICE Out For Good events is a commitment to nonviolent action and no civil disobedience. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values, and to act lawfully at these events. Weapons of any kind, including those legally permitted, should not be brought to events. All events should be held in public spaces or on public property.

This weekend, we'll show the regime and their enablers just how widespread the opposition to their brutality is; we'll put steel in the spines of our Democratic local, state, and national leaders; and we'll send a message to anyone targeted and terrorized by ICE: You are not alone. 

Let’s get out there together. Let’s continue the fight until we get ICE Out For Good. 

In solidarity, 
Indivisible Team 

* Events are being added all the time, so if there’s nothing near you now and you’d prefer not to host one, check back in a few hours. 

Where Are America's Leaders?

Snyder, and why democracy needs defending.

https://snyder.substack.com/p/look-on-my-works-ye-mighty-and-despair?

Venezuela: For those who advocate for peace and the rule of law

 

This has just been published by each country's foreign ministries.

"The Governments of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay and Spain, in light of the gravity of the events that have occurred in Venezuela and reaffirming their adherence to the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, jointly express the following positions:

1. We express our deep concern and rejection of the military actions carried out unilaterally on Venezuelan territory, which contravene fundamental principles of international law, particularly the prohibition of the use and threat of force, and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. These actions constitute an extremely dangerous precedent for peace and regional security and endanger the civilian population.

2. We reiterate that the situation in Venezuela must be resolved exclusively through peaceful means, through dialogue, negotiation, and respect for the will of the Venezuelan people in all its expressions, without external interference and in accordance with international law. We reaffirm that only an inclusive political process, led by Venezuelans, can lead to a democratic, sustainable solution that respects human dignity.

3. We reaffirm the character of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace, built on mutual respect, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and non-intervention, and we call for regional unity, beyond political differences, in the face of any action that jeopardizes regional stability. Likewise, we urge the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Member States of the relevant multilateral mechanisms to use their good offices to contribute to the de-escalation of tensions and the preservation of regional peace.

4. We express our concern regarding any attempt at government control, administration or external appropriation of natural or strategic resources, which is incompatible with international law and threatens the political, economic and social stability of the region."

Original: https://www.minrel.gob.cl/sala-de-prensa/comunicado-de-brasil-chile-colombia-mexico-uruguay-y-espana-frente-a-los

The Invasion of Venezuela

 

Trump's Takeover of Education is Taking A Page from the Confederacy

 Trump’s Takeover of Education is Taking a Page from the Confederacy 

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-education-department-prageru-tpusa-heritage-foundation-confederacy