Keep voting with your wallet

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The news, in brief …

• Newsmax settles for voting machine defamation lawsuit for $67 million

  The settlement comes after Newsmax spread claims about Dominion Voting Systems and the 2020 elections. Read more.

• Sydney Sweeney’s “Americana” bombs amid American Eagle controversy

  The "Euphoria" star's latest failed to crack 7 figures over the weekend. Read more.

• In Zelenskyy meeting, Trump jokes about starting a war to halt 2028 elections

  The president made a crack about calling off the next presidential election during his meeting with Zelenskyy. Read more.

Make me smarter …

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America: “Nah”

In the early months of the second term of an incredibly unpopular president, just months after one of the least popular pieces of legislation ever floated in the halls of Congress made it up to the Resolute Desk, it can feel increasingly difficult for the average American to make their voice heard.

This is by design. The thinkers behind Trump’s second spin in office don’t want anything so messy as a democracy, preferring a system where the amount of influence an individual holds can be measured using their bank statements. If there’s a bright side to this arrangement, it’s that money still talks. The scions of the S&P 500 are looking to downplay the influence of 345 million Americans, but they have to listen when they walk away with their wallets trailing close behind.

Americans soundly rejected Sydney Sweeney’s latest film shortly after she became a cause célèbre of the conservative movement for starring in a denim ad with more than a whiff of eugenics. The neo-western “Americana” flopped on its opening weekend, failing to crack a million dollars at the box office and cruising along behind weeks-old releases and special screenings of a nearly 10-year-old monster movie.

It might seem a bit small to celebrate these faceplants. That’s because it is. But the conservative thinkers and politicians who currently rule this country are equally petty, carrying out an agenda largely based on grudges and their long-simmering resentments over failed screenwriting careers.

The president himself is taking over cultural institutions and tearing apart our system of presidential elections because of a deeply held belief that neither one ever loved him enough. They want to be adored, and it drives them nuts when the average, red-blooded American they claim to champion meets their art with a shrug or calls them “weird.”

We might have to live in a fascist hellscape. Even the soon-to-be-rigged midterms and possibly-not-happening 2028 elections might not save us from that fate. But no one is going to make us drop $20 on a terrible movie from people behind The Daily Wire. Last we checked, this is still America.

What do you think? Will Trump’s next executive order force us all to buy a copy of “The Sound of Freedom”? Will the illustrated adventures of Trumpy Bear be the Little Red Book of a flatlining United States? Click the speech bubble icon at the top of this email to sound off in the comments.

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