Red Hats and Jackboots

Bolton today, you tomorrow — because authoritarianism always eats its own.

It’s felt relentless lately. Like the country’s been trapped in a rerun nobody asked for — Trump: Season Two, the reboot nobody wanted but everybody’s forced to binge. Every day is another headline, another outrage, another punch in the gut until the air feels heavy and the walls start closing in. The man who should have been a disgraced footnote is back on stage, spray-tanned and snarling, treating the presidency like his own grotesque reality show revival. And just when you think it can’t get any darker, Kash Patel — Trump’s pet errand boy turned FBI director — sends agents to raid the home of John Bolton.

Bolton. The mustache of American empire itself. The neocon ghoul who never met a war he didn’t want to climax over, now reduced to watching federal agents rip through his desk drawers because the sitting President wanted vengeance. Banana republic? Try banana plantation, with a dictator in a rhinestone-bedazzled “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING” hat running the show. Idiocracy on steroids. Revenge of the Dumbasses.

Now let’s be clear: I don’t agree with John Bolton on a single thing. Our politics are galaxies apart. And I really, really hate that instead of testifying to Congress when it mattered — when Trump was actively shredding the Constitution in real time — Bolton stayed silent so he could drop it all in a memoir and cash his checks. That’s cowardice and greed wrapped in one ugly package. But none of that fucking matters right now. Because this raid isn’t about whether Bolton is a hero (he’s not) — it’s about authoritarian power using federal muscle to punish dissent. If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone.

And Trump? He’s out here doing his mob boss kabuki, swearing he “didn’t know” about the raid. Which in Trump-speak means he knew exactly what was happening. He always does. The man micromanages ketchup placement on his Filet-O-Fish but somehow doesn’t know when his handpicked flunky Kash Patel is kicking down doors? Please. This is the old mafia trick: I didn’t order the hit, but hey, accidents happen. Plausible deniability smeared in bronzer, perched on a red hat.

Republicans, of course, have spent the last decade screaming about “weaponization of government.” Remember Roger Stone? Strutting around in his Roger-Rabbit-in-Florida cosplay, hauled off by the FBI, then convicted by a jury of his peers? Cue the Republican waterworks. Trump found liable for sexual abuse, nailed for business fraud, and convicted on 34 felonies? Cue more waterworks. They whined like toddlers denied a Happy Meal: “It’s a witch hunt! The system’s rigged!” But now? Now that the FBI is literally kicking down the doors of Trump’s enemies at dawn? Suddenly, it’s justice served cold with a side of fascism. Because every accusation out of their mouths is a confession. Every. Single. Time.

This is the whole playbook. Normalize political raids until no one blinks. Today it’s Bolton. Tomorrow it’s a journalist, a critic, a meme poster who didn’t kiss the oversized ring. The intimidation is the point. The fear is the point. The message is: fall in line or wait for the knock at your door.

Bolton himself predicted this. He warned that if Trump ever got back in office, his entire administration would be consumed with vengeance and retribution against perceived enemies. That prediction just showed up at his front door with a warrant. And it’s not just Bolton. It’s all of us. Because that’s the horror of Season Two — there’s no cliffhanger rescue, no tidy ending, just an endless spiral of retribution that eats everyone in its path.

And don’t kid yourself — this isn’t about Bolton “betraying Trump.” That’s just the MAGA excuse, the cult liturgy. Trump loyalty is the only law. Cross him, and Kash Patel’s FBI will paw through your sock drawer at sunrise. Loyalty replaces justice. Fear replaces law. Democracy becomes a prop.

The hypocrisy is radioactive. These are the same Republicans who sobbed on Fox News because Merrick Garland’s DOJ dared serve a subpoena at Mar-a-Lago. Remember the pearl-clutching? “If they can do this to a former president, they can do it to you!” Well congratulations, assholes: they took your prophecy and turned it into policy. If they can do it to Bolton, they can do it to anyone. Including you. That’s fascism. That’s the point.

And the cherry on top? Trump parading around in that “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING” hat, like the world’s saddest Times Square mascot. Imagine Mussolini hawking merch on QVC. Imagine a dictator so insecure he has to print his own report card on a baseball cap. He swears he didn’t know about the raid — which, in Trump’s world, is the surest sign that he did. That’s the beauty of the scam: he doesn’t have to confess. The machine runs on loyalty and sycophancy. He smiles, they smash. He shrugs, they raid. Everyone else gets the message.

Because Trump isn’t shocked by any of this. He’s tickled pink. This is all he’s ever wanted — the strongman narrative, the Kim Jong-un cosplay, the Putin playbook, the dictator’s fantasy of absolute rule with an iron fist. This isn’t about law enforcement. This is about retribution for a small, broken creature consumed alive by avenging his critics. And Season Two has made that obsession the plot of the entire country.

This isn’t creeping authoritarianism — it’s jackboot authoritarianism, blunt and loud. They want you to see it. They want you to know that if John Bolton isn’t safe, no one is. That is how autocracies work: choke off dissent, make examples of critics, and dare the public to pretend it’s normal.

So don’t. Don’t normalize this. Don’t let them gaslight you into thinking it’s just politics. This is a test: how much open authoritarianism will America tolerate before it finally says no?

The election is next November. That makes the fight right now even more urgent. That’s why what Gavin Newsom is doing in California matters so much. He’s not just fighting for his state — he’s drawing a battle line for the entire country. Redistricting, accountability, resistance to Trump’s creeping authoritarian empire: it all ties back to whether Democrats can claw back the House before it’s too late. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

We either stop him now, or we admit we’ve traded democracy for a gold-plated dictatorship in a novelty hat. And if you think you’re safe because you’re wearing one too? Think again. You won’t feel so defiant in your stupid red hat when they decide they don’t give a damn what’s on your head — only whose neck they’re stepping on.