Life During Trumptime — 2/16/26 - 2/22/26
When I think about the future right now I think about James Fishback.
Fishback is a Groyper running for governor in Florida and currently fighting to win the Republican primary. He’s one of the most avowedly “4Chan” candidates I’ve yet seen. He inveighed against junk food in a recent speech at the University of Central Florida, calling it “goyslop,” and has promised to bring back public executions.
The success or failure of Fishback in the primary will tell me how much appetite America has for the politics of weirdos spouting online bullshit. Sometimes my wife will catch me laughing at a post I see online and ask what I think is so funny. Startled, I’ll look up from my scroll and realize that explaining the joke will require a long conversation about stupid online bullshit that will, once it’s finished, destroy the joke and make me look completely insane.
And so it is with “goyslop” and any number of other Groyper idioms. Once it moves from the message board to the sidewalk, it’s obvious how deranged it’s always been.
February 16, 2026
It was President’s day. Here’s a picture Nicki Minaj posted of herself sitting next to a pastel festooned AI-generated President Trump.
Just to even out the left-right divide of cringe President’s Day Posts, here’s a picture Hillary Clinton posted of herself hanging out with a drone in Ukraine.
I can think of no better way to celebrate President’s Day in 2026.
AI company Anthropic got into a fight with the Pentagon this week. Anthropic’s Claude is the only LLM cleared for sensitive government data, the company has a close working relationship with the government, and the Pentagon used Claude during the Maduro raid. Anthropic wants to make sure its tech isn’t used for mass surveillance of autonomous weapons. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth won’t give Anthropic those assurances and threatened to cut the company off from government contracts.
February 17, 2026
HHS posted a video of secretary RFK Jr. hanging out with Kid Rock. Set to the 27 year old Kid Rock song Bawitdaba, the video depicts the two men working out and drinking whole milk together in a pool. Kennedy submerges himself into water multiple times while wearing blue jeans.
February 18, 2026
CNBC aired an interview with Donald Jr. and Eric Trump where the brothers talked crypto and defended the Trump family against accusations of corruption. They didn’t deny the corruption so much as claim it was a necessary and inevitable reaction to being bullied by banks and social media companies.
“We were the most cancelled people in the world in 2020, 2021, and it’s really great to almost have this retribution where all of a sudden we start pushing an agenda,” Eric said. Both talked about the shock of being pulled off Twitter and getting “cancelled” by major banks. The result was going into DeFi.
February 19, 2026
The Vibe War with Iran began.
The state of American military equipment in the Middle East looks an awful lot like it did ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As of this writing, the war is still vibes-based. Will America attack Iran? Only the President, constrained only by his own morality, knows.
While he weighed the possibilities, Trump stopped in at a fast food restaurant in Rome, Georgia for a photo-op. Trump is ever in his element when surrounded by cheeseburgers and he glowed behind the cash register at a chili dog place called The Varsity.
“THIS is what putting American workers first actually looks like. 🇺🇸🔥” Boasted the official White House X account. “The comeback is real.”
According to The Varsity’s website, starting level managers make around $33,000 a year.
February 20, 2026
The Supreme Court told Trump he couldn’t just issue tariffs at-will and he didn’t take it well. We tend to consume Trump in soundbites: a post there, an excerpted piece of a speech here. Lately I’ve been trying, as much as I have the time for, to watch his remarks in full. Trump can sound cogent when edited down. He’s much less so when you listen to him at length. His speech racing to the SCOTUS ruling is a good one to watch if it’s been a while since you’ve listened to Trump at length.
“I am allowed to cut off any and all trade or business with that same country. In other words, I can destroy the trade, I can destroy the country. I’m even allowed to impose a foreign country-destroying embargo. I can embargo, I can do anything I want, but I can’t charge one dollar because that’s not what it says, and that’s not the way it even reads. I can do anything I want to do to them, but I can’t charge any money. So I’m allowed to destroy the country, but I can’t charge them a little fee. I could give them a little two cent fee, but I cannot charge under any circumstances. I cannot charge them anything.”
February 21, 2026
The week closed out as it began: with Nicki Minaj posting cringe. The starstruck pop-star posted a picture of a Donald Trump branded Bible signed by the man himself on X. “One of the most meaningful gifts I’ve ever received in my entire life,” she said.
February 22, 2026
The US men’s hockey team defeated Canada in the Olympics and took home a gold medal, the first since 1980. Team member Dylan Larkin livestreamed the celebration from the locker room after the medal ceremony and caught FBI Director Kash Patel hanging out with the team. Video of Patel circulated on social media that showed the director pounding beers and chanting.
Earlier in the week, the FBI’s public affairs people insisted that Patel was flying to Milan for a previously planned work trip and wasn’t there to attend the Olympics. Footage of Patel chugging a beer with the Olympians seemed to run counter to the PR.
“For the very concerned media - yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys- Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth. 👊🏼🏒🇺🇸” Patel said in a post on X.