Back in Georgia, MAGA populism has eaten its own tail. A congressional hopeful bragged about calling ICE on Hyundai’s $7 billion EV plant, and ICE dutifully detained over 300 South Korean engineers. Those workers are now home, recounting horror stories of duress forms, rancid food, and guards mocking their accents while they wore prisoner uniforms. The fallout? Hyundai has frozen construction, Seoul is fuming, and industry insiders warn the entire U.S. auto supply chain could be disrupted since Korean technicians set up and program the machinery for virtually every major car plant. Tens of thousands of American jobs didn’t just vanish with a bang, they’re evaporating in indefinite delays. The real winners? GEO Group, the private prison operator that profited from the detentions and once counted Pam Bondi as a lobbyist. This is a literal racket: arrest foreign technicians, enrich private prisons, and leave American workers holding pink slips. […]
Taken together, today’s headlines show a government more interested in suing reporters, punishing NGOs, retaliating against doctors, blowing up fishing boats, chasing away auto jobs, and groveling for TikTok than actually governing. Abroad, he’s greeted with Epstein banners; at home, farmers and workers are left to wonder how many more self-inflicted wounds they can withstand. Trump wanted to rule like a dictator, John Kelly warned. Turns out he’s ruling like a dictator and a clown: thin-skinned enough to sue the Times, reckless enough to terrorize allies, and vain enough to think the Apprentice ratings count as evidence in court.
This is America, September 2025: a nation where the president files a $15 billion tantrum, the vice president plots purges, insurers crush surgeons, fishermen flee the sea, and the UK greets us with billboards of Jeffrey Epstein. If it feels like the walls are closing in, that’s because they are…