Roundup of good writing: Lorne Warwick, Steve M, Christopher Armitage, Charlie Angus, Colin Horgan, and a Epstein-gate update

There doesn't seem to be a "big story" tonight so I'm going to go through my "save for later" file to highlight some of the good opinion pieces I have seen lately, mainly about Trump's dictatorship.

The common theme is: "OMG, what the hell is wrong with us?"

Lorne Warwick / Politics and its Discontents

No More 'Good Guys'?
When we look at the world today, it is undeniable that the most powerful countries are led by evil men. Russia's Putin, Amerika's Trump and China's Xi JinPing readily come to mind, as does Benjamin Netanyahu leading the nuclear State of Israel. And I think it would be to declare the obvious that none of the aforementioned care about their people, except as means to certain ends.
While we expect authoritarian rulers to see their people as fodder, I have never really had a sense until now of a specific war being waged against the people of the U.S. by its government. To be sure, almost all American governments have cruelly abused their poor, their disenfranchised, their minorities. And of course that demographic has always provided the bulk of fodder in all of Amerika's post-WW11 military misadventures. However, one could almost have believed the abuse was rooted in the American disdain for the downtrodden (see the American Dream) as well as its historically racist nature.
However, to me it now appears that a wider battle is being waged by Amerika against its general population, a kind of social eugenics, in which a wide swath of a credulous population will be gradually eliminated, While it might seem a conspiratorial thought, there is evidence to support my odd thesis.
Consider, for example the changes at the National Institutes of Health, led by the unhinged Bobby Kennedy Jr. Unqualified ethically, morally, intellectually or temperamentally, Kennedy, with the tacit permission of Trump, is doing his damndest to undermine the health of Americans....
...Who benefits if there is a substantial die-off of Americans? It is the real movers and shakers of society, the powerful elite, who neither respect nor need "the masses" and really don't care for the 'burden' of taxation to take care of them. With large numbers ultimately eliminated, that burden will be much reduced.
You might quite legitimately ask, "But what if substantial numbers of MAGATS perish? Who will vote for Trump or his successor if not the credulous? To that I can only say such a question is predicated on the belief that meaningful elections will continue in Amerika. That is an assumption I am not, at this point, prepared to grant you.
Who benefits if there is a substantial die-off of Americans? It is the real movers and shakers of society, the powerful elite, who neither respect nor need "the masses" and really don't care for the 'burden' of taxation to take care of them. With large numbers ultimately eliminated, that burden will be much reduced. You might quite legitimately ask, "But what if substantial numbers of MAGATS perish? Who will vote for Trump or his successor if not the credulous? To that I can only say such a question is predicated on the belief that meaningful elections will continue in Amerika. That is an assumption I am not, at this point, prepared to grant you. 

Steve M. / No More Mister Nice Blog

LET'S GIVE TRUMP'S CIVIL WAR THE CORRECT NAME
...This is America's second civil war, fought on behalf of the Republican Party, which doesn't believe members of the opposition party are genuine Americans, and has felt this way for decades. (James Watt, Ronald Reagan's interior secretary, in 1981: "I never use the words Democrats and Republicans. It's liberals and Americans.") Every city targeted will be a Democratic-run city. Immigrants are the alleged enemy, but the real enemy is Democratic rule. Recall what Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, said in a July speech:
"When we have cities like Austin, or Nashville, or other capital cities whose local government is not representative of the will of the people, de-charter them and establish them as state municipal districts in the name of common sense,” he urged.
By "the people" he meant the Republican people, who, as he sees it, are the only genuine Americans. Roberts specifically identified blue cities in red states, but every city run by Democrats is a blue city in what is now a red country, and the president of the United States believes it's his right to, in effect, "de-charter" these cities.
The naming of wars can be politicized. Some American Southerners have rejected the name "Civil War" for the conflict fought on U.S. soil starting in 1861, preferring to call it "the War Between the States" or "the War of Northern Aggression." Russians call World War II "the Great Patriotic War."
If we call Trump's urban invasions a war, we should give the war its correct name: the War on Democrats. That's literally what it is. Democrats are the real enemy -- every Fox viewer knows that -- and victory, for the aggressors, would be the eradication of Democratic power everywhere in the country.
So let's use the name War on Democrats whenever we can. History will recognize its accuracy.

Federal immigration agents were seemingly forced to retreat from a roofing job site in Rochester, NY, after being confronted by more than 100 protesters The workers stayed on the roof and agents drove away in a Border Patrol SUV on four flat tires, which had been slashed

[image or embed]

— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 3:53 PM

Christopher Armitage / The Existential Republic

What Northern Ireland Can Teach Americans Fighting Tyranny
History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, and right now, America's verse sounds disturbingly familiar to anyone who lived through Northern Ireland's three decades of sectarian violence. The Troubles, which claimed over 3,500 lives between 1968 and 1998, didn't start with bombs and bullets. They started when one group seized control of the state apparatus and used it to oppress the other....
...What happened in Northern Ireland teaches us that state oppression follows a predictable pattern. First comes the rhetoric that dehumanizes the target population. Then come the laws that strip away rights. Then comes the violence, both official and unofficial, against those who resist. Finally, the oppressed have to step up or submit.
....What made The Troubles particularly intractable was that the Protestant community couldn't see their oppression of Catholics as oppression. They saw it as maintaining order, protecting their heritage, defending their way of life. They controlled the media, the police, the government, so their version of events became official truth. Catholics who resisted were labeled terrorists, not freedom fighters.
America is building this same infrastructure of denial. Fox News and right-wing media create an alternate reality where Trump is saving America from radical leftists rather than imposing fascist rule. Those who resist are labeled antifa terrorists, not patriots defending democracy. The arrest of Democrats is portrayed as law and order, not political persecution. Mass deportation is framed as border security, not racist fire stoking.
...Perhaps the most crucial lesson from The Troubles is how quickly institutions can become tools of oppression when one side captures them. The Royal Ulster Constabulary didn't start as a Protestant militia. It became one through decades of discriminatory hiring and culture. The justice system didn't begin with internment without trial. It evolved there through gradual erosion of rights justified by security concerns.
...If America follows Northern Ireland's trajectory, here's what comes next. Political figures who resist the regime will face arrest or worse. Those who fight back will be labeled terrorists. Federal forces will establish checkpoints and control zones. Neighbors will inform on neighbors. Children will grow up knowing which side their family is on and whom they can trust. The social fabric that makes democracy possible will be torn beyond repair.
...Northern Ireland's peace process worked only after the Protestant supremacist project became unsustainable. It required acknowledging that Catholics were equals deserving of full participation in society. It required Protestant unionists to give up their monopoly on power. It required admitting that the oppression had been real, not imagined.
America will eventually face the same reckoning. The Trump regime's authoritarian project is ultimately unsustainable in a country this diverse, this dispersed, and this attached to the idea of freedom, however imperfectly realized....

Charlie Angus / The Resistance

The Second Tower Principle
Lessons from crisis in the age of Trump
Everyone remembers where they were when the planes hit the twin towers.... But years after the tragedy, I listened to a radio documentary that posed a question I had never considered:
Why did so many in the second tower carry on working after witnessing the explosion in the first tower?
...The documentary focused on one woman who witnessed the first plane hitting the north tower. People on her floor screamed in horror. They were stunned. She immediately packed her bag and headed for the stairs. Colleagues told her not to overreact — they opted to stay at their desks and carry on. In the chaos, others headed down into the stairwells but then turned around and returned to work. But she felt it was essential to do something.
She was the only survivor from her floor.
As I researched this story further, I learned of a group of bankers who left the 79th floor. When they reached the 48th floor, they heard an announcement: everything was under control. All but one person got onto the elevators and returned to their desks.
Two minutes later, the second plane hit. They were gone.
When contemplating what we would do in a moment of existential threat, we like to think that we will act. That we will seize whatever opportunity is available.
Fight or flight.
But there is an even more powerful tendency that takes hold — we go numb
We tell ourselves that things are not as bad as we think. We hope for the best. When our world is shaken up, there is a tendency to wait for someone to come along who will tell us what needs to be done. And if that person doesn't come, we reassure ourselves that the crisis is temporary and that everything will return to normal.
That denial blinds us to the real danger....
Since Trump’s re-election, I keep thinking of the Second Tower Principle.
I recognize that there is no comparison between election night and the massive heartache and loss of life of 9/11. But the re-election of a convicted felon and a man who fanned the flames of violent insurgency represented a historic moment when the world changed.
Like 9/11, there is no return to normal.
...Since election night, we have witnessed the Nazi salute on the inauguration platform. The public is getting used to the notion of people being kidnapped on the street. Trump has bragged about feeding people to alligators as he opened the first official concentration camp on American soil.
Whatever comes next doesn't look good.
But when I tune into the nightly political panels of our top pundits, I feel like the woman in the second tower. I want to shout out about the threat of gangster fascism on our unguarded border. However, the talking heads reassure viewers that "Trump is just being Trump" or that he is pulling stunts to secure a better trade deal.
And then they go back to parsing the political tea leaves of the small dramas on Parliament Hill.
It's like watching the Democrats, who are still talking about playing the long game and focusing on the midterms as democracy is kicked to the curb all around them.
Perhaps political pundits don't take Trump seriously because he seems more buffoon than strongman. While they are willing to run after his daily statements of outrage and provocation, they rarely seem to consider how the circus act is part of the larger assault on the rule of law.
....Call me crazy. Call me hysterical, but I feel as if I am sitting in the second tower of democracy. I know that if I don't do something, then much worse could be on its way.
I am not the only one.
When historian Marci Shore was asked about the reasons that she and fellow fascism experts Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder packed their bags and moved to Canada, she explained:

"The lesson of 1933 is: you get out sooner rather than later… My colleagues and friends were walking around and saying, 'We have checks and balances'… I thought, my God, we're like people on the Titanic saying, 'Our ship can't sink. We've got the best ship. We've got the strongest ship. We've got the biggest ship.' And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can't sink."

Not everyone can move. Not everyone has a ticket to someplace safer.
Perhaps there is another way to frame the Second Tower Principle.
There is no sitting around and hoping for the best. It is about getting out of the tower and into the street. It is about being a first responder in the defence of democracy and the rule of law.
But unlike 9/11, the future remains unwritten. There is nothing inevitable about the second tower going down. It only falls if we let it.
I'll take those odds.

By the way, Charlie Angus is now broadcasting at MeidasCanada as well as writing on his substack. And moving on to Poilievre:

Costanza does Magoo pic.twitter.com/xhdMIVAJOD

— 🍁NastyElbowsUpOpiesNanaFella🌻🇺🇦😷💉🐝🍁🇨🇦 (@OpiesNan) September 6, 2025

Colin Horgan / The Walrus

Poilievre’s Hallucinatory Politics
He conjures up castles and valleys of gold. But can his fevered imagination eclipse Mark Carney’s grounded reality?
... ... Whereas Poilievre is quick with an acerbic barb, a punchy clip, Carney is as deliberative and nuanced as you might expect a banker to be. His language is lawyerly, considered—his delivery that of a dad explaining the benefits of contributing to your RRSP. This has largely worked for him, as a contrast to Trump and as a figure of firm, albeit somewhat dull, solidity. While everything that’s going on is really weird, Carney is consistently anything but. He is a self-styled pragmatist, a man who deals with what is.
However, for all the differences of approach, it’s in their descriptions of reality that Poilievre and Carney differ most, and that may be the point of most friction in the coming months. For, whereas Carney likes to stick to facts, Poilievre has the tendency to stray from them.
With Poilievre returning to Parliament, Carney’s steady style will be tested in real time. The prime minister is almost assuredly in for a rough autumn. But it’s not Poilievre’s tone that will cause Carney problems; it’s his imagination.
At a stop in Vaughan, Ontario, during the spring campaign, Poilievre was supposed to highlight the deplorable state of housing affordability. It’s a subject that the polls also say is still high on the list of difficulties for Canadians, and it remains a soft, fleshy part of policy on which the Liberals are exposed.
But instead of simply and deftly twisting the knife, Poilievre spun a weird, nonsensical story about how affordable housing used to be. Noting that, nowadays, a house in the Greater Toronto Area might cost a million dollars—which was indeed true—Poilievre then seemed to slip into a waking dream. “You know, ten years ago, a million dollars would have got you a castle on a mountain overlooking a valley of gold,” Poilievre said for some reason. “It is almost hallucinogenic how badly the Liberals have destroyed our housing market.”
It’s difficult to classify this kind of thing. It’s fantastical, obviously. Yet, however much it seemed like a moment of genuine delusion, it wasn’t. This form of fanciful storytelling is a deliberate aspect of Poilievre’s rhetoric—not a characteristic of how he says things but of how he talks.
Another example: a campaign ad the Conservatives created featured Poilievre describing “our home.” It was a treacly, mythical tale of a Canadian town where a pickup-driving dad “rolls down that suburban street, driving slowly so he can hear that beautiful crackling sound of hammers pounding nails into Canadian lumber on newly built and affordable Canadian homes.”
Poilievre described the same fictitious dad heading to the countryside to “service a well” passing “the cattle grazing in the countryside.” And he “looks up and what does he see? He sees a brand-new fighter jet getting ready to defend our home and native land.” It goes on from there, but you get the picture.
Why Poilievre talks this way is certainly worth some exploration, especially because it echoes other post-COVID and post–Great Recession fabulist political language around the world, like that of the Make America Great Again movement or cross-party promise in the UK to “take back control.” Is this myth spinning a reaction to the issues or part of what creates them?
It seems like a little of both. On the one hand, it’s a kind of lullaby to soothe an increasingly anxious society watching the slow collapse of the post–Cold War neoliberal (and triumphalist) world view—a story to reassure everyone that there remains a “normal” world that we can return to. On the other, it is also the driving narrative of reactionary politics, the vernacular of a broken body politic, one that has dispensed with the familiar left wing / right wing gradient and has jankily reorganized itself around core issues, traditionalist world views, and conspiracies.
Poilievre channels this new political parlance in whichever form suits him at the time, effectively and shamelessly, likely because it’s so inherently challenging to the status quo, which Carney represents.
... Poilievre is bound to roll out more fantastical imagery of what Canada should and could be. We haven’t heard the last of the valleys of gold; Poilievre just can’t help himself. It’s not something Carney has had to directly contend with very much, and it’s unclear whether he will know what to do with it or how to respond to it, especially when required to think on his feet in Poilievre’s preferred rhetorical arena, the House of Commons. ...
As the summer closes, Canadians now say they are less likely to believe Poilievre is sincere or likable than they were in late 2023. A full half of Canadians polled by Angus Reid said that he is someone they’d be “ashamed to call prime minister.” And while Poilievre can still brag his party garnered the largest vote share in the history of the modern Conservative Party, expanding that tent may now be even more challenging. Among people who said they considered voting Conservative in the spring but didn’t, 70 percent said Poilievre didn’t articulate a clear plan for Canada and 59 percent said his campaign was too negative.
Poilievre may be able to summon castles and fighter jets out of thin air, but it won’t be as easy to conjure up a Canada that wants him in charge.

Finally, a short Epstein-gate update: 

Trump and his minions have been frantically trying to promote the story today that the birthday book letter and/or signature is a forgery. 

But nobody is buying it.

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Tomorrow they're likely going to try to find some way to blame it all on Biden.
But the MAGA cracks are starting to show too:

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