Photo by Elizabeth Jamieson, Unsplash
Photo by Elizabeth Jamieson, Unsplash
It is looking now more like a tsunami than a mere high tide is coming in November. But the removal of Trump and his band of crooks can happen even sooner if we can persuade Congress to do its job.
Probably the most important thing to remember about Victor Orbán’s election loss this month is that he had stacked every possible deck in his favor and still lost in a rout.
Trump’s shrinking far-right faction here has used the examples of Orbán’s reign as a model for their operations here. It should be noted that these also parallel the activities of Putin. Here are the key elements:
- Control of media outlets by cronies.
- Control of the judiciary and appointment of favorable judges.
- Extreme gerrymandering to ensure districts could not lose elections.
- Focusing on immigrants as an external threat to be feared and guarded against.
- Massive, open and obvious corruption and influence peddling.
Sound familiar?
Trump is well on the way to having media control by cronies with the upcoming purchase of Warner by Skydance/Paramount, whose owners, Larry and David Ellison are devout Trumpies. The comments by the self-named Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, that he couldn’t wait for the Ellisons to take over CNN are illustrative of this point.
Any agency that has shown the audacity to question the actions or comments of Trump or one of his henchmen gets branded instantly as a fake news outfit or just nasty and rude for doing their jobs. But the reality is that Trump’s backers already control significant portions of the news media landscape. The destruction of CBS News under Bari Weiss is an example of possible things to come.
Trump has appointed more judges that can easily be counted, including three on the Supreme Court that have already significantly degraded Constitutional freedoms. And he’s drooling to appoint more. But surprisingly even some of his SCOTUS and lower court appointees have been pushing back on some of his extremes. Though Trump will attack any judges who rule against him whether he appointed them or not. Even John Roberts, who granted Trump extra-Constitutional immunity in the Trump v United States case, has not been spared attacks. The fact of the matter is that Trump sees courts as an impediment to his desire to rule by decree.
We are all now familiar with the horror stories of the ICE Gestapo rounding up everyone they can with Hispanic surnames, Black people who sound foreign and even an 85-year-old French woman and putting them in the hurt locker of their concentration camp detention system. They have murdered citizens on the street and generally distributed mayhem across the country in the name of “saving us from the immigrant invasion” Trump harped about for years. The basic lie in the whole operation is that they were going after the “worst of the worst.” In the mind of the white supremacist anyone of color is the worst. But the stats show that only 2 percent of detainees actually have significant criminal records. Many ICE agent have far sketchier backgrounds than the people they were detaining.
But Trump and his supporters want us to somehow forget that the people they are kidnapping off the streets are actually people. They cannot overcome the fact that in any group of people anywhere the majority are actively good and productive individuals ready to get on with the daily work of living and contributing to society. This of course leads to the fact that contrary to all logic of running a country, Trump and his people haters like Stephen Miller and Tom Homan are forcibly expelling a population segment that pays billions in taxes.
Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants over the years has been a close parallel to that of Orbán recently and Hitler in the past. Calling out immigrants as somehow subhuman, poisoning the blood, “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats,” etc., are just some examples. This way we the “humans” are not supposed to feel bad about their mistreatment. The lack of humanity in this thought pattern is chilling.
Trump demanded Republican-led states redistrict to add more Republican seats in Congress. Some have complied. The idea here, it least in his limited mind, was to prevent a looming third impeachment proceeding. But to date this effort has backfired. Some Democratic-led states did the same thing, most notably California which exactly offset new Republican seats from Texas with Democratic seats. Lawsuits by Republicans to block Democratic states from taking these retaliatory actions were laughed out of court.
But right here we come to perhaps one of the most important factors in Orbán’s loss. The extreme gerrymandering he did in Hungary did exactly nothing to keep him in office. And it may well be the same case here.
With the abuses of the Trump administration against society in general, it is a possibility that there is no longer any such thing as a “reliable” Republican district.
One of the other things that turned Hungary away from its wannabe dictator was the corruption. One of the campaign activities the opposition effectively used was to transport people to the palace where Orbán lived. They set up ladders so that people could look over the high fences to see the unrestrained opulence.
Over here, we have been bombarded with images of the gaudy gold-painted ornamentation Trump has covered the White House and Oval Office with. But with Trump there is always more. The insane lawsuit he filed against the IRS demanding $10 billion for the leak of the tax returns he promised to release is moving forward. He is essentially negotiating with himself on a settlement. Wonder how that will turn out…
Or … hereabovethelaw.com/2026/01/trum…
— Liz Dye (@lizdye.bsky.social) 2026-04-17T16:41:49.686Z
But there are more examples of the Trump grift operation. Let’s not forget the accounts in the Middle East that he controls where Venezuelan oil revenues are being deposited. Or the funds given to his “Board of Peace” which are again controlled by him. The settlements—really bribes—from CBS, Google and others.
Naked corruption did nothing to keep Orbán in office. It is unlikely that it will help Trump and his posse.
Recent local and state-level election losses by Republican and Trump-endorsed candidates also throw down some tea leaves toward what is coming in November.
It is looking now more like a tsunami than a mere high tide is coming. But the removal of Trump and his band of crooks can happen even sooner if we can persuade Congress to do its job. No doubt Republicans have arrived at a similar calculus about the loss Orbán, their buddy, experienced.
We need to do more phone calls, exert more pressure and demand. We can be rid of Trump well before November. Let’s get to it.
Marty Kassowitz is co-founder of Factkeepers. As founder of Interest Factory and View360, he brings more than 30 years experience in effective online communications, social media management, and platform development to the site. He is a writer, designer, editor and long time observer of the ill-logic demonstrated by too many members of the species known as Mankind. After a long history of somewhat private commentary on a subject he totally hates: politics, Marty was encouraged to build this site and put up his own analyses as well as curate relevant content from other sources.
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