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It starts with a photo. Not of a protest in Portland, but of a riot in South America; rebranded by Oregon Republicans as proof of domestic chaos. It’s a lie, of course. But in Trump’s America, lies aren’t mistakes. They’re strategy. Welcome to the Deepfake Presidency: where truth is optional, enemies are algorithmic, and the state is being retooled into Trump’s truncheon: a cudgel of suppression, vengeance and division.

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ICE, Inc.: The Hammer of the New State

Trump’s second term has turned ICE into a domestic paramilitary force. Not metaphorically; literally.

• Over $45 billion earmarked for ICE in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
• Private prison giants Geo Group and CoreCivic donated $2.7 million to Trump’s campaign and PACs.
• Their reward? Contracts to run 86% of immigration detention facilities, now housing over 60,000 people.
• CoreCivic’s stock price nearly doubled post-election. Geo Group’s jumped 65% in a week.

This isn’t compromise; it’s corporate capture. ICE raids aren’t just policy; they’re profit. And the crackdown isn’t about border security; it’s about building a fear economy where dissent is criminalised, detention is monetised and labour is cheap, insecure and terrorised.

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Project 2025: The Blueprint for Authoritarian Expansion

Formally titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page manifesto for dismantling democracy one agency at a time.

• Half of its proposals are already in play, including defunding DEI programs, gutting environmental protections, and militarizing executive power.
• Russell Vought, Trump’s former budget director and Project 2025 architect, boasts about drafting executive orders to deploy the military against protestors.
• His goal? To “traumatise” bureaucrats and “crush adversaries” using the Insurrection Act.

This isn’t policy; it’s a purge. A systematic plan to replace civil servants with loyalists, weaponise federal agencies and turn governance into a loyalty test.

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Trump as Construct: The Billion-Dollar Deepfake

Trump is not a deepfake in the technical sense. But he is a synthetic persona; engineered through bankruptcies, birtherism, and bravado.

• Over 30,573 false or misleading claims documented during his first term.
• Inherited wealth spun into a “self-made” myth, despite losing billions and relying on foreign bailouts and shady deals with Russian banks.
• Legal jeopardy reframed as persecution, with indictments marketed as martyrdom. Trump’s the avatar of grievance, not its origin. A walking algorithm of resentment, calibrated to provoke, distract, and dominate.
• And then there’s the Russian money. When U.S. banks cut him off after his casino bankruptcies, liquidity arrived through the back door:
• Deutsche Bank became his last major lender, even as it was fined for lending billions in Russian funds.
• Russian oligarch purchases: At least $100 million in Trump condos were bought by Russian nationals between 2003–2017, often through opaque LLCs.
• The Rybolovlev deal: In 2008, oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev bought Trump’s Palm Beach mansion for $95 million—more than double what Trump had paid just four years earlier. The house was later demolished, suggesting the purchase was less about real estate and more about moving money.
• Trump Jr.’s admission (2008): “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
• No “smoking gun” loan document has surfaced showing Trump signed directly with a Russian bank. But the pattern is unmistakable: when U.S. credit dried up, Russian cash flowed in. Trump’s empire was propped up by oligarch money, and his political persona; “the successful billionaire outsider”; was built on that scaffolding. He is, in effect, a financial deepfake: an artificial construct sustained by foreign capital, marketed as self-made success.

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The Gospel According to MAGA: Trump as God’s Anointed

No illusion is complete without divine endorsement. Trump’s followers have been told, repeatedly, that he is God’s chosen vessel:

• Paula White declared him “anointed by God.”
• Michael Flynn urged followers to “fight like the army of God.”
• Trump himself posed with a Bible outside St. John’s Church after tear-gassing peaceful protestors.
• At rallies, Trump has said, “I am the chosen one,” while supporters wave banners proclaiming “Jesus is King, Trump is President.”

This is not faith. It’s messianic marketing. A fusion of nationalism and pseudo-religion that turns Trump into a golden calf; worshipped not for virtue, but for vengeance.

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CODA: Turning Out the Lights—Trump’s War on Knowing

Robert Reich calls it for what it is: Trump is turning out the lights. Not just metaphorically, but literally; by dismantling the agencies, data systems, and reporting mechanisms that allow Americans to know what’s happening in their own country.

• Bureau of Labor Statistics: Commissioner fired for publishing inconvenient job numbers.
• USDA food security survey: Defunded.
• Climate disaster tracking: Suspended.
• Maternal mortality data: Scrapped.
• Poverty guidelines: No longer updated.
• Economic indicators: Delayed or deleted.
• Quarterly earnings reports: Slashed to biannual, leaving investors flying blind.

This isn’t bureaucratic neglect; it’s epistemic sabotage. A deliberate campaign to blindfold the public, so Trump can lie without contradiction, govern without scrutiny, and fail without consequence. When you control the data, you control the narrative. When you erase the metrics, you erase the accountability.

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The Final Insult: Normalising the Narcissist

And yet, even as Trump deepfakes the state and turns out the lights, we’re told to treat him like a normal head of state. Our self-destructive opposition of ineptitude make political capital out of the PM’s slow progress toward an official meeting with the least reliable, most unethical, and greatest malignant narcissist in the history of the U.S. presidency.

This isn’t diplomacy; it’s delusion. You don’t shake hands with a wrecking ball. You don’t roll out the red carpet for a man who’s actively dismantling the institutions that make democracy possible.

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Resistance Toolkit: How We Fight Back

We don’t need permission to resist. We need imagination, coordination, and a refusal to be gaslit. Here’s how:

• Satire: Cartoons, parody accounts, mock press releases; make the absurdity visible and laughable.
• Ridicule: Strategic humiliation. Turn Trump’s bravado into punchlines.
• Lampoon: Viral content that exposes contradictions. Meme the hypocrisy.
• Citizen Media: Independent platforms, livestreams, shadow dashboards.
• Independent Scrutiny: Fund watchdogs, elevate whistleblowers, support investigative journalism.
• Data Resurrection: Archive what they delete. Rebuild what they dismantle.
• Cultural Subversion: Art, music, theatre, literature; truth told sideways.
• Digital Guerrilla Tactics: Hijack hashtags, flood comment sections, bury propaganda under parody.

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Mock Investment Pitch: Project 2025 Holdings™

“Welcome, investors. Today we present the hottest authoritarian growth stock on the market: Project 2025 Holdings™. Our portfolio includes:

• ICE raids as recurring revenue streams.
• Detention centers as scalable infrastructure.
• Executive orders as high-yield instruments.
• Data blackouts as brand protection.

Projected ROI: 400% in grievance capital, 200% in authoritarian dividends, and priceless returns in unchecked power. Invest now; before democracy collapses and the market closes permanently.”*

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The Last Word

Trump’s America is a place where the lights are going out; not because any problems are solved, but because the data is deleted. America and the rest of the world are being asked to fly blind, feel rage, and trust the pilot who’s already crashed the plane once.

We don’t have to accept that.
We can refuse the fantasy.
We can reject the normalization.
We can fight back; with facts, with satire, with solidarity, and with the kind of civic creativity that authoritarianism can’t predict or suppress.

Because when the lights go out, the first thing we do is light a match.

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