Incremental Madness
Political Analysis
By Lorraine Evanoff, October 25, 2025 – 475 Words
This article was going to be about Trump’s incremental destruction of environmental protections. One of the perks for me owning an electric vehicle (non-Tesla) for 10 years was having access to the HOV lane. But Trump ended federal EV HOV lane access as of October 1st. California legislators scrambled to pass a state law, but not in time. My prediction is that Trump will end federal HOV lanes entirely.
But that’s nothing compared to what has happened since then. On No Kinds Day, madman Trump shot live artillery over Interstate 5, resulting in his own VP almost being hit with shrapnel. If California’s governor Newsom hadn’t forced Highway Patrol to shut the section near Camp Pendleton, it could have been much worse. Then, Trump threatened President Zelenskyy with total annihilation of Ukraine if he didn’t surrender to Putin. Next, Trump demolished the 120-year-old East Wing of our White House.
Trump is a genocidal madman. The illegal construction of a 90,000 square foot “ballroom” atop a White House bunker seems more like a panic room for his family and friends. Granting Pentagon “press” passes only to right-wing extremist podcasters, while literally testing the waters on our military’s willingness to commit murder in the Caribbean seems more like gearing up to murder Americans. Just as genocidal Netanyahu starves thousands of Palestinians to death, maniacal Republicans are giddy about ending SNAP benefits and starving Americans.
Trump is incrementally destroying our legacy and the rule of law, abetted by Congress, and SCOTUS, (who are about to deliver a ruling on Louisiana v, Callais that would completely gut the Voting Rights Act). We are witnessing firsthand what it’s like to give unchecked power to a madman by a power-mad political party.
I knew this would all be horrific beyond our wildest nightmares. But I could never imagine all the madness these monsters could conjure. In recently revealed chats, one Young Republican said they want to drive their enemies to suicide.
But we are driving them mad with our mass protests and election wins. Republicans are so desperate, they are considering nuking the filibuster on a kamikaze mission to take the whole country down with them.
But as Robert B. Hubbell warned, to assume the SCOTUS voting rights ruling would doom Democrats is defeatist bullshit. Jamie Raskin compared Trump tearing down the East Wing after our massive No Kings protest to the British burning down our White House, which we rebuilt. Democrats are allied with the very countries who defeated Hitler, and our military is still on our side. Republicans and Russia are the enemy.
Meanwhile, there is a LOT we can do right now. On November 4th, VOTE! In New York City, vote for Zohran Kwame Mamdani. In California, vote YES on Prop 50. In New Jersey, vote for Mikie Sherill. In Virginia, vote for Abigail Spanberger and Jay Jones. In Ohio, donate to Sherrod Brown.
TIMELINE CLEANSE
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NAMASTE 🙏🏻
I vacillate between rare moments of hope and overwhelming impending doom.
I feel both the urgency and exhaustion that pulse through every line. What you describe carries the kind of madness that seeps into daily life until it begins to feel almost normal—and that’s what frightens me most. From here, watching the U.S. unravel feels like looking at a familiar landscape through fractured glass. The echoes reach us too: the erosion of law, the language of hate, the constant testing of how far power can go before conscience intervenes. What your last paragraph stirs in me is the tension between despair and agency. When you say there is a lot we can do right now, I hear both a call and a question: how do we act meaningfully when the system itself feels hijacked? For me, the answer begins smaller—inside conversations like this one, where awareness becomes choice again. So thank you for holding the line where you are. From across the ocean, I’ll keep amplifying the voices that still stand for dignity, reason, and care.