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Welcome to another edition of Fourth & Democracy.
We’re not going to lie – things look dark in America right now. The land of the free and the home of the brave is starting to feel like the land of the greedy and the home of the hateful. Hate groups are popping up in broad daylight, corporations are cutting jobs by the thousands, and more families are facing homelessness as we head into the holidays.
All of this is unfolding while alliances shift abroad – like Putin’s recent visit to India – reminding us how unstable the world is becoming. Overcoming it will take a monumental effort, but if you’re reading this, you’re already the type of person we need in this fight.
Let’s get started.
1st & 10: Are They Trying to Kill Us?
Rumblings of Peter Thiel’s post-human future – a world where AI is god, democracy doesn’t exist, and tech-lords rule like pharaohs over the remaining serfs – are starting to seem a little more real. They’re beginning to look like policy. The ruling class of right-wing billionaires, corporations, and the Trump regime are making material moves that point toward a future where the working class isn’t simply exploited.
They’re culled.
Through its vaccine advisory committee, the CDC just voted to end universal Hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for newborns. For decades, every baby born in America received a birth-dose automatically because it saved lives. Now, under Trump guidance, only infants of mothers who test positive (or whose status is unknown) receive the recommendation. Everyone else? Optional. Delayed. A ‘maybe’ if the parents decide to go that route in two months.
And here’s the thing RFK Jr. and the Trump regime aren’t talking about:
Medicare and Medicaid only cover vaccines that are recommended by federal bodies like the CDC. If you cut the recommendation, you cut the coverage. And when you cut the coverage, vaccinations become a commodity. The wealthy will pay out of pocket to protect their kids. The poor will hope and wait – and hope doesn’t prevent liver cancer.
It isn’t accidental either. It’s part of a larger pattern we see from Trump.
Health protections shift from public good to private luxury.
Preventative care becomes something you buy, not a human right.
The rich get immunized while the poor get sick.
And when you zoom out, it becomes even more clear …
The Trump administration has already pushed policy after policy that raises healthcare costs for families, reduces Medicaid access, increases premiums and deductibles, and pushes the burden onto individuals who can’t keep up with the costs. They have attempted to roll back school based mental health programs. This winter, corporations are openly replacing thousands of jobs with AI and firing people by the droves – proving that executives view human labor not as essential, but as an inconvenient overhead.
Americans have now watched 1.1 million jobs vanish in 2025 – the most since 2020 – with Amazon alone cutting as many as 30,000 corporate positions. Not part-time workers, but white-collar analysts, engineers, and project managers who were told they would be insulated from the automation. And rather than sounding the alarms, the Trump regime has been covering for their billionaire buddies. Jobs reports? Non-existent, because the truth is politically inconvenient when corporations are firing workers in droves during the holidays.
And in a country where healthcare is tied to employment – where those who lose work fall back on Medicaid, and Medicaid only covers vaccines recommended by the CDC – the consequences compound quickly. If parents can’t access affordable healthcare, can’t find work, can’t afford fresh food, and can’t protect their children from preventable disease, then the future looks less like a safety net and more like a prison shiv. A slow attrition of the working class. A world where the wealthy live longer, healthier lives while everyone else is riddled with disease, hungry, and desperate.
Which raises the question no official will say aloud, but one policy after another forces us to consider:
Is this the collateral damage of incompetence, or the blueprint of a ruling class preparing for a future where most of us just aren’t needed?
Because if the plan is a post-worker America, a post-public health America, and a post-democratic era like Peter Thiel wants…
Then they’re doing a damn good job.
2nd & Short: Putin Looks to New Delhi for Love
Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t just drop into New Delhi last week for a photo op, he was there for business. After receiving a full ceremonial welcome usually reserved for historic allies, not war criminals, India and Russia reaffirmed their “special and privileged strategic partnership,” by outlining plans to increase bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030 and deepen cooperation in energy, nuclear power, weapons development, and minerals. India is already Russia’s largest buyer of seaborne crude, and the visit signaled that the relationship isn’t weakening, only growing.
And that is a problem for the United States.
India is the world’s largest democracy and one of America’s most strategically essential partners. For decades, Washington assumed New Delhi would naturally lean west – especially after Russia invaded Ukraine. But instead of isolating Moscow, Western sanctions pushed Russia further toward India, where cheap oil and arms deals serve both nations’ interests. With Trump throwing economic punches at allies and creating chaos in the headlines, India keeps buying Russian energy and inviting Putin for tea. Meanwhile, pipelines, trade corridors, and long term security agreements are being built without us.
This is global realignment in motion. Outside the D.C. chaos being livestreamed by Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem, the world is quietly rearranging itself. BRICS is expanding. The dollar’s dominance is no longer guaranteed. U.S. influence, especially without the soft power from USAID and diplomatic stability, is no longer assumed and sure as hell isn’t being earned. Instead, Trump is reignites trade conflicts with Canada and Mexico, turning once reliable allies into cautious question marks.
As the U.S. edges toward authoritarianism at home, other nations are preparing for a world where America is unstable, unpredictable, or openly hostile. If Washington is known more for tariffs and tantrums than partnership and diplomacy, countries will do what all smart ones do – hedge. Because no matter how powerful we think we are, the world is always watching us. Allies and adversaries alike are preparing for the possibility that the U.S., once the north star of global order, may become a satellite of its own decline.
If we continue drifting into isolation and cutting bridges while others build them, we may wake up to find the world has simply moved on without us. One trade deal at a time. One ally lost. One red-carpet handshake in New Delhi that should’ve been ours.
The question isn’t why Putin flew to India – it’s what it means for America’s future.
3rd & Long: We Need Your Help. Yes, You!
In the words of Lincoln Square’s Maya May:
“If you’ve been disassociating for 2025, I’m gonna need you to tap in for 2026, because your politically active friend is exhausted.”
She’s right. We shouldn’t be carrying this alone. This regime is attacking the American way of life on every front – healthcare, jobs, civil rights, global stability, personal security – and the only way we win is if everyone pays attention now, not later.
If you thought year one of Trump (Round 2) was rough, year two will be even worse. The administration has normalized masked, armed, militia-adjacent men patrolling American streets while we wait for news of war with Venezuela like it’s a weather report. Extrajudicial boat strikes barely crack headlines before the next one hits. The wealthiest people alive are building yachts to escort their yachts while the rest of us are wondering if we can afford rent and groceries in the same week.
So, yes – we need you. Lincoln Square needs you. The pro-democracy movement needs you. And the country needs you actively engaged, talking to people, organizing, supporting journalists, volunteers, and activists who are running on fumes.
Start small and start closest to you. The quiet teenage nephew you assume is just moody? Ask him what he’s watching, what he believes, what he fears, and what he dreams of. The daughter anxious about politics and her rights? Show her a local meeting and ask if she’d like to volunteer or help register people to vote. And your loud, misinformed uncle? Don’t let him spew talking points unchallenged. Tell him how Trump is cutting programs he depends on. Tell him that Social Security won’t be around when it’s time for you to retire. Tell him democracy isn’t a spectator sport, especially when you reap the rewards.
Not to win any fights or score debate points, but to win back reality and stop this shit before it gets way too dark. Because as Maya said, “They’re enjoying democracy too.” And if we stop defending it, or get complacent – we lose. Not in a dramatic collapse, but quietly and one disengaged citizen at a time.
The involved are exhausted and we are coming up on more chaos and a midterm election cycle. The stakes are rising and it’s time we spread this workload across the American public, not burn out the same people in every group chat.
Democracy is not a security blanket. It’s work – and everyone has to carry a piece.
4th & Democracy: The State Hate of America
It didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow, methodical long game – nationalist Christians light on morality and high on grievance choosing a con man as their Trojan horse. What should have been disqualifying was treated as entertainment. “Locker room talk” was what they called it when the topic was sexual assault. Anti-immigrant rhetoric was rebranded as border security and hate has been sold as patriotism. Civil penalties escalated into extrajudicial boat strikes and masked men patrolling American streets became reassuring for those who needed someone to aim their fear at.
We all knew it was bad, but never thought it would end up like this:
A Cinnabon employee calling Somali immigrants “n*****” while bragging on camera that she’d “say it to the world.”
Students at a San Jose High School contorting themselves into a human swastika and posting it on Instagram with a Hitler quote.
A college junior getting a Fox News hit and newfound celebrity after publishing an incoherent essay wrapped in religious bigotry.
Men circling the Minnesota governor’s mansion yelling the r-word at the top of their lungs for likes.
Hate groups taking Sunday strolls through Little Rock with Nazi insignia.
That was just last week. And the through line leads all the way to the Resolute Desk.
The country is becoming a reflection of the man leading it – a seething, cornered animal obsessed with shiny objects, incapable of empathy, conditioned to see anyone outside his reflection as an enemy. And as power trickles downward to his base, so does permission.
What was whispered is now shouted.
What was shameful is now live-streamed.
What used to get punched in the mouth, now marches in broad daylight.
So the question for those of us who still believe in democracy, dignity of human beings, and the truth is simple:
How much longer do we let this go on?
Because it isn’t just politics anymore. It’s our American identity and culture. It’s the foundation of who we are – and it’s being overtaken by a small, devious minority who know no bounds in their pursuit of domination and greed. Their vision of America is not democratic. It is not pluralistic or progressive. And it sure as hell isn’t free.
If we want something better, then those still sitting on the sidelines need to get in the game.
Stay loud. Stay active. Stay engaged.
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