
Hey guys, itās JVL.
The second Trump term is here. A whole bunch of bad stuff is comingālike, now.
Trump won. He controls all three branches of government. And the forces that mobilized against him last time arenāt even putting up token opposition this time. Heck, a lot of them have actually switched sides and thrown in with the new regime.
Look at Jeff Bezos. Look at Mark Zuckerberg. For that matter, look at the Democratic former presidents yukking it up with Trump and acting like everythingās normal and five by five.
Hereās the thingāit isnāt. Our job is to spend the next fours reminding people of these facts.
Truth. Freedom. Democracy. Thatās the mission.
These arenāt separate things, obviously. You canāt have democracy without freedom. And you canāt have freedom without truth. Thatās why the first thing authoritarians do to try to undermine society is wage war on the idea of truth.
Trump doesnāt lie every second of every day because he thinks you believe him. He lies because he wants to tire you out, make you give up, make people believe that there is no ātruthāābecause everyone is just as corrupt as Trump.
Thatās why we lead with truth. Why we wonāt shut up about it. Why weāre not willing to move on and get with the program like the oligarch class has.
We called this thing The Bulwark because it turns out that our American system of norms, laws, and institutionsāthis democracy stuff we all used to take for grantedārequires defending.
It turns out that the systems are just people. And that the systems need people to defend them.
So yeah, this is a dark time. For the first time in our nationās history, we had a president attempt a coup and after his coup failed, the American people decided to send him back to the White House anyway. That sucks.
But we donāt give up. We keep fighting. And maybe something good happens.
We want you to ride with us. The Bulwark is a communityāwe spend time together every day, working through the big issues, trying to make sense of it all.
So hereās my simple ask: Ride with us.
When things are dark, the only way through is together.
ā JVL