Letters from an American

October 19, 2026
Ten years ago, Hillary Clinton, who was running for president against Donald Trump, warned that Vladimir Putin hoped to have a “puppet” in the White House, and that Trump was that puppet, Trump protested, but ten years later he is openly embracing Putin and working to destroy the strongest and most successful alliance in human history, Meanwhile, support for Republicans has fallen to historic lows, Tariffs, the war in Iran, soaring costs of gasoline and diesel, and blatant corruption have meant that firm Republican districts are now up for grabs, Republicans are refusing to hold town halls or debate their Democratic challengers, In Texas, Kansas, North Carolina and South Carolina, and Maine, Republican candidates are being revealed as extremely weak, The Republican Party acts like a dying party that is no longer bothering to compete and is facing a rising one whose candidates are ready and willing to work, It is not unlike the 1850s, when the Democrats were so confident that they assumed they were entitled to their seats, The Democrats were trounced by the Republicans, who would dominate the political system for the next 70 years. 
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October 18, 2026
Putin has proposed a meeting with Trump and Xi Jinping to decide the fate of Ukraine, Such a summit would formally acknowledge that the US has broken from Europe and allied with Russia, In just over a week, Trump has lifted sanctions on the sale of Russian oil, i which will send desperately needed money to fund Russia’s war on Ukraine, Additional sanctions that Congress demanded in a recent law named for Lindsey Graham were waived just before they were to go into effect, Outrage over Trump’s actions has come from across the political spectrum, In response, Trump posted a screed on social media suggesting that Ukraine was to blame for the high costs of diesel, and claiming that Ukrainian president Zelensky doesn’t want to end the war, Tom Nichols wrote that a world in which the US was allied with the Kremlin was the “stuff of paranoid fiction…” The Framers of the Constitution thought they had designed a system that would prevent the rise of a tyrant, The Framers didn’t anticipate that senators would put party over country and stand aside as a president captured its prerogatives, And yet, here we are.
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October 17, 2026
People around the US and the world gathered at more than 3,000 No Kings:Vote Early events, Events were designed to encourage people to vote early, Republican dominated state legislatures have restricted access to the vote since 2020, Since the 2024 election, 22 states have passed laws that make voting more difficult, Just at the height of the pre-voting events, Meta took down the No Kings organizing page on Instagram for about 4 hours, Meta claimed the issue was technical, but a report out of Brazil claims that in internal communications, Meta employees acknowledged that the company had restricted the Instagram accounts of Brazilian president Lula da Silva during the country’s recent election while recommending accounts related to his challenger, No Kings organizer Ezra Levin said the shutdown will not stop early voting, and that “No Kings means no kings in the White House,” he wrote, “or in Silicon Valley.”
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October 16, 2026
Chaos reigns in the Trump administration with the resignation of new pick for WH press secretary after 5 days. Trump has walked back from braodcasting the execution of Nidal Hasan, The debilitation of Ukraine’s military defenses by SpaceX has led a bipartisan group of senators to demand answers from the Department of Defense, Trump claims that neither he nor Elon Musk are responsible, but it appears that they both were in on the decision, Musk has donated $158 million in September to a super PAC backing Ken Paxton, Trump is waiving more sanctions on Russia, defying congressional intent, Trump’s DOJ is demanding that California review a list of people it suspects are not citizens, California will not conduct this review and the administration is suing election officials and threatening election workers, The No Kings events on Saturday will be about boosting voter participation and making sure every eligible voter has a plan and know their options and is ready to  make their voice count.  
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October 15, 2026
The idea that when a democratic system is taken over by a single party it quickly becomes corrupt describes what is happening in Trump’s orbit, In the last few days, multiple examples of corruption have emerged, Kimberly Guilfoyle was forced to resign from her post after allegedly trying to extract money from a donor, In response that donor is suing her for defamation, Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba is claiming that Richard Grenell wanted to divert a donation from her husband intended for the Kennedy Center, Paolo Zampolli, appointed by Trump to be a special envoy at the State Department was accused of trying to get custody of his son by asking ICE to deport his son’s mother, and he has now been fired, Trump's new press secretary describes herself as a general counsel, but she appears never to have passed the bar, Rhein Amacher who started the rumor that James Talarico had been hospitalized in Ohio for mental health issues, is backing off that claim, The majority of the funds donated for Trump's ballroom have come from companies and individuals with interests before the federal government, The White House is claiming that conversations about plans to renovate the Kennedy Center are covered by executive privilege and can be kept secret, a dramatic expansion of the concept of executive privilege, All of this corruption is affecting voters, Corruption tops inflation and high prices as their primary concern, Growing numbers of Republicans are backing Democrats in the midterms.
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