INTRODUCTION
As another year ends, it is time for
The Sociologist’s Dojo to rattle off the top ten Sociological films of the
year. As with the last five years, I’ve decided to once again give
readers a list of 10 events of the year that can be encapsulated in film.
Understand that this is not an exhaustive list of events, nor even the ones
that are “The Most Sociological.”
Instead, this is to provide an accounting of some of the noteworthy
happenings of 2025 and the films that epitomize their essence; either directly
or tangentially. With each event, I will provide a brief explanation followed
by how the film(s) relate to each incident. This list is obviously limited by
personal bias, the films I have seen, and my own specialties in Sociology.
2025, the first year of the re-ascension
of Donald Trump to the office of the
President, has seen many of our institutional systems fall under the weight of vast
corruption, violence and vanity. Trump’s vanity project is materialized in the
form of an opulent ballroom. Project 2025 is in full swing with 50%
completed in the first 200 days of Trump’s presidency. Deportation quota numbers has led to the Federal occupation of US cities by the National Guard and Immigration
and Custom’s Enforcement (ICE). Denaturalization is still being pursued
by the Administration in
conjunction with the suppression of speech and a lack of due process. This year highlights, as predicted, the
continued crumbling of the United States as both a superpower and a democracy.
Additionally, wars, political assassinations, and the proliferation of AI into
building relationships, emphasize what kind of year this has been. Winter has
come, and the end is nigh.
10)
Trump’s Crypto Corruption: The
Great Gatsby (2013)
To commemorate his second inauguration,
Trump in conjunction with his sons Don Jr., Eric and Barron created a Trump and Melania meme coin. This is a form of digital currency popularized among billionaires for
its lack of regulation, its versatility in financial markets, and transactional
speed. It is through this new-ish form of currency that provides the means for
a very old stock market practice- ‘the pump and dump’ schemes. A form of stock market fraud in
which ground floor investors in a particular stock manipulate its valuation through
the spread of misinformation, inflating the stock price and then selling their
stock at the highest price. During the lead up to the 1929 stock market crash,
this was standard practice for the elite class of powerful oligarchic families
and contributed to the fundamental collapse of the US economy. To be fair, the
collapse did not rest solely on the practices within the stock market, but the creation
of the credit economy in general was designed to stratify class and
non-white racial groups away
from the wealthy white elite to maintain their ethnocentrism. Trump has
expressed on more than one occasion that the time-period that he wants to go
back to is this pre-crash gilded age. To further this along, after his
inaugural meme coin netted Trump and his family billions of dollars, Trump’s
family created World Liberty Financial; a crypto currency venture. In their
first act of naked blatantly bold-faced corruption, in May of 2025, World
Liberty Financial held a dinner for the top investors at
the White House. This is paying to have access to POTUS. The second act of blatant corruption
was when the Trump administration, in a variation of the “pump and dump” scheme,
decided that a portion of US financial
reserves would now be held in crypto currency. This forces the US Treasury to buy crypto currency that
both shores up the crypto market, making it more stable, a benefit to the Trump
family, and makes the US Economy that much weaker.
Baz Lhurmann’s The Great Gatsby
illustrated the proper lunacy of the grimy glitz of the Pre-crash United States.
Much like Lhurmann’s previous work with Decaprio (Romeo and Juliet),
both collaborations have an esthetic personality without substance. This works
better for Gatsby given the subject matter, but neither film encompasses
the cautionary tale of either story. Instead focusing on surface level
aesthetics. This shallowness of Lhurmann’s adaptation strengthens the
comparison to Donald Trump. A man famous for missing the point of Citizen
Kane. Here, because Lhurmann misses the point for him, it is easy to
imagine that if Trump did see this adaptation of the Fitzgerald classic, he’d
want to replicate it. In fact, as of this writing, during the 2025 government
shutdown, on the eve of Food Stamps/SNAP benefits running out, Trump hosted a ‘Gatsby -like “ Dinner
at Maralago. It seems he is already living the dream of Gatsby
with an equally fragile veneer.
9)
Trump’s Tariffs: The Big Short (2015)
From January to April 2025, President Trump began to
implement steep tariffs on a variety of countries and specific goods. This
decision was born out of ignorance. Specifically, Trump’s ignorance over understanding
the definition of a trade deficit. A trade deficit is when a country imports
more goods than it exports to a particular country. For example, it would be
accurate to say that the US has a Trade deficit with China because we import
more goods from China than we export there. President Trump frames a country
having a trade deficit as being economically weak and a result of bad economic
trade deals. Going so far as to say that because of a trade deficit with
another country, that the United States is “getting ripped off”. That is ignoring the reality that
no country needs or wants all that another country exports. This
misunderstanding has led to one of the most misguided and baffling series of
economic decisions. Trump began to unilaterally decide seemingly randomized increases in reciprocal tariff percentages on nearly
all imported goods. But, when you dig a bit deeper, it was simple math not
done with the care and understanding of the Macro Economic impacts this would
cause...Because it seems in addition to not knowing what a trade deficit is,
Trump also doesn’t know the definition of a tariff or how it is typically used.
A tariff is a tax on imported goods
that is paid by the importer of the country that is consuming those goods.
Basically, the more goods a country imports, the more they will pay tariffs.
Tariffs are typically used as an
economic tool 1 of 3 Ways:
1. Protect and bolster Domestic
Industries and Production (To get more industries to move Production back
inside a country)
2. Generate Government Revenue (Tariffs
near permanent)
3. As a bargaining tool for Trade
Negotiations (threat/loyalty Test)
When
Trump first announced these tariffs during the 2024 Presidential Election, he
began to sow confusion on which of these ways he would be
using the tariff power, implying these ways are easily interchangeable. They
are not. Clearly, if a country wants to use a tariff to generate revenue, the
tariff needs to remain in place long enough to be able to collect a significant
amount of money. That defeats the purpose of using it as a threat or loyalty
test between countries because it can no longer be used as a negotiating tactic.
Trying to bring domestic industry back to the country also requires tariffs to
be semi-permanent in order to convince industries and companies to change their
business model, which would take years, and at great expense. Still, Trump regularly
would change tariffs after leaders of other
countries would meet with him. Therefore
it seemed that he was using it as a negotiation tactic, but when asked about
why he was using tariffs that were hurting American businesses he rejected the premise of the question by saying that they were helping the
American businesses by bringing back jobs; which would only be true if they
weren’t being used as a negotiating tactic! This intentional deflection and misdirection,
a staple for The Trump administration, convinced many of his supporters to believe that the exporting country
pays the tax. This left them with a bit of sticker shock when prices on goods
started to rise. This being the exact opposite of Trump’s successful campaign
promise to lower grocery prices.
Adam Mckay’s The Big Short, attempts
to narratively explain the subprime mortgage crisis of the late 2000’s. The
story follows people who both uncover and profit from the bursting of the
housing bubble. The callous way in which major banks inflated borrowers’ income
to put them in houses that they could not afford and then repackage and dump
those bad loans on other banks, shows more intelligence than the Trump
administrations tariff tactics. But to legitimately wreck a trusted and
financially secure market (housing) for short term gains, speaks to the same
mindset with which Trump and his cavalcade of cronies just “flipped the table”
on international trade.
8)
Algorithmic Software: Her
(2013)
When “smart phones” first came out there was a legitimate
concern that the public would soon be outsourcing their critical thinking
skills to this new piece of
technology. But during cultural lag- the time between when a piece of
technology is created and implemented and when it becomes a cultural necessity to
live comfortably, we decided to lean into the use of this new technology. The
result at first was ease and convenience (for those who conformed). And as
older technology got phased out and more organizations and businesses adopted
applications and online templates, we saw a precipitous decline in the number
of human interactions. This created an additional bureaucratic barrier to
social interactions and erected a class barrier for certain jobs as most applications
are filled out online and therefore require internet access. This is the
capitalistic process of “planned obsolescence” where the technology we’ve come
to rely on is designed to not last as long, either because of its functionality
being short lived or they discontinue the product or its parts because of newer
stuff they are trying to sell. This is the basics of consumer engineering, and
a consequence of the endless drive for profit.
This technological expanse has now
entered the “learning algorithmic software” mistakenly labeled “AI”- as the
software is not currently sentient, or self-aware…yet. Since its quick
implementation, AI software has been replacing entry level and clerical
jobs and is now being embraced by the academy. This is both ironic and sad. Ironic because for the last 10
years there was a push for academics to get their work outside of “the ivory
tower” of academia to a wider audience through more easily accessed
publications (blogs, podcasts, zines etc.). Little did we know that these open
access materials would be the primary sustenance for this new algorithmic
software to learn from. This is analogous to training a co-worker that will
eventually replace you. It is also sad because as this ‘cognitive offloading’ continues, the more reliant we will
become. Research skills, language skills and self-reliance will all be
recontextualized in a world dominated by this software, which has been shown to
be racist and promotes suicide.
A lot of obvious choices for films that could
be used to represent the expanse of “AI” algorithmic software come from the sci-fi genre: The Terminator Franchise, The Matrix Franchise etc. But considering the startling
revelation that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are now using AI chat bots for emotional support, as therapy and developing para social relationships with them, it seemed more prudent to
choose the Spike Jonze directed, sci-fi romantasy, Her. The story
revolves around the developing relationship between Theodore Twonbly (Joaquin
Pheonix) and his AI personal assistant, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson).
While a lot of the story is very monogamously and incel coded, it can give us a
cinematic glimpse into what it would be like if these parasocial relationships
continued as the software got smarter. However, unlike the dystopian
fiction where AI inevitably sees humans as the worst scourge on the planet (to
be fair there is A LOT of evidence); Samantha finds value in humanity. This can
give us a window into what a peaceful co-existence might look like, considering
humans like to be the creators of their own destruction. Shelley
knew that centuries ago.
7)
The Gaza War: Double Feature: Lord of War (2005)
Grave
of the Fireflies (1988)
In 2025, the Gaza War became a political lightening rod and supposedly ended with a ceasefire and peace plan, but not really. For the last year, Israel’s war with
Hamas was a central political issue in the 2024 Presidential Campaign which
cost Kamala Harris the election, given her unwillingness to distance herself
from the pro-Israeli position of her predecessor. It sparked campus protests resulting
in a crackdown on Colleges and Universities by the incoming Trump Administration;
which then mutated into gestapo-like police disappearing students and activists
for their political speech (more
on this below).
The double feature selected to represent The Gaza War in 2025 are two films that represent the profiteers from this war and a reminder of the everyday people that are caught in the crossfire. The Nic Cage helmed Lord of War, illustrates the necessity and the inevitable protection of arms dealers by various governments around the world. They are the needed “boogey-men” to keep up appearances of propriety and diplomacy. The true winners in any war are those that sell the weapons. The US Government supporting Israel through direct funding of their Iron Dome and US defense companies having their munitions find their way into the hands of Hamas fighters. As we learned during World War II, war is big business and we have continued to maintain our ledger in the black. Concurrently, the true losers of the conflict are the civilians living in Gaza. Often described as “an open air prison”, Gaza and the Palestinians that live there are constantly under threat of Israeli bombings and raids with flimsy justification, bordering on laughable ( the phrase “Israel has a right to protect itself.” comes to mind). Living under this kind of threat, in the face of a country that has overwhelming support from the most powerful nations and whose creation caused the region’s first modern ethnic cleansing over 70 years ago, there is a sense that Gazans are the subject of genocide. Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata’s brutal masterpiece about a brother and sister trying to survive the final months of the Pacific War during the 1940's stands proxy for the Gazans here. The raw and unflinching devastation depicted holds the spirit of the Gazan’s struggle as they have been subject to relentless bombings that have razed much of the homes and other infrastructure; making the region inhospitable.
6)
Trans Rights Backlash: The Death and Life of Marsha
P. Johnson (2017)
Of the oppressive
litany of executive orders signed into existence by the Trump Administration upon
coming back into office, some of the most reprehensible were the series of
orders that targeted the LGBTQ community.
In this collection of Anti-LGBTQAI+
EOs:
·
The US
government only recognizes two sexes (male and female) Defining sex as
something that is immutably biological and an “incontrovertible reality” Therefore,
the US is moving away from using the term “Gender ideology”- This is regardless
of the evidence by scholars in a variety of fields that show the opposite of these
claims and is overly simplistic. This means that all government
documents and ID will be re-issued based upon an individual’s sex assignment at
birth and not their preferred gender identity.
·
Reinstate
and expand Trans gender ban in the military
·
Removing
medical coverage for gender affirming care, and threatening to prosecute those that support the transitioning of
young individuals
·
A
moratorium on Trans kids in sports.
These
executive orders were the culmination of the Administration’s Anti-Trans smear
campaign during the 2024 election cycle. Apart of which was equating Trans and
others in the LGBTQ community as dangerous pedophiles. Thus, the Right’s
outrage and aggression was in the righteous service of protecting children and
women. Yet, at the time of this writing, the longest Government shutdown has
just ended, and in the coming weeks, Congress will vote on whether or not to compel the DOJ
to release the Epstein files. This is coming just after a collection of leaked e-mails from the Epstein files that allude
to Trump allegedly raping a young girl. This
caused known Fox News Personality, Megyn Kelly, to split the thinnest of
hairs in an attempt to justify
these actions by saying (about Epstein) “He was into the barely legal type. Like he liked 15-year-old
girls. There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old.” Firstly,
the phrase “barely legal”, often used in the porn industry, implies that those
that fit that distinction are of, or just over, the legal age of consent (which
is 18). Secondly, Kelly is ironically positioning herself to defend and recontextualize rape and sexual
assault from the men that she herself
was victimized by; both at Fox and by Trump himself a decade earlier. When you couple this information
with the recent comments made by RFK Jr about girls puberty, and it seems that we should be more
afraid of rich powerful Billionaires being Pedophiles than anyone within the
LGBTQAI+ community, especially those that identify as Trans.
The right-wing conservative
Christian white men have always been creepier than any other race, gender, political,
or religious combination. This is a sense of constant repression that also
seethes with venomous rage when talking about the LGBTQAI+ community. One
popular opinion is that many of these men are gay or bisexual and live in the
closet because of their religious and political beliefs. This is anecdotally
supported by the time Grindr, the gay hook-up app, crashed
in the same city, and during the same weekend as the RNC in 2024; and rumored to have surged again in the
city where Charlie Kirk’s funeral was
being held. Despite the company refuting this, it adds to the overall public
perception that closeted gay and bisexual men in the Republican party rage
against the LGBTQAI+ community because they are living the sexual freedom these
Republican men wish they could. This also gives reason to their false belief
that being gay is a choice because they choose to present as straight every
single day.
The Death and Life of Marsha P.
Johnson tells the little know story of
the titular activist. It chronicles Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera,
prominent figures in gay liberation and transgender rights movement in New York
City from the 1960s to the 1990s and co-founders of Street Transvestite Action
Revolutionaries. The film centers on activist Victoria Cruz's investigation
into Johnson's death in 1992. Johnson’s activism: her participation in the
Stonewall protests, the creation of STAR (Street Transvestite Action
Revolutionaries) and work during the AIDS crisis cement her as a important
figure in Trans liberation. Some of the policies that are currently rolling
back rights are directives and issues Johnson fought her entire life to protect
or prevent. To get back to a better place where those in the LGBTQAI+ community
feel safer, we need to channel the spirit of Marsha P. Johnson and know what
she stood for and use it as a rallying cry for our current activism.
5) The Domestic Rendition of Immigrants: Rendition (2007)
From the minute that Donald Trump took the
stage to announce his candidacy for President back in 2015, he has scapegoated
immigrants, migrants and anyone who looked or identified as Black or Brown to be
the dregs of civil [read as white] society. He has called them murders and rapists, blamed them for eating pets, and used dog whistling tactics to avoid accountability when blaming
Black people for city crime. They have been his villain to scare rural and rich
white voters into getting him in and back into power in 2016 and 2024. This
fear extended to legal immigrants and naturalized citizens who were people of color that voted for Trump
because they thought that he would just deport
people with a criminal record. The
problem is, with the implementation of Project 2025, under the watchful
eye of reanimated Nazi corpse Stephen Miller, the mere presence of an
undocumented person is considered a crime, even though the first offense without
a prior criminal record is only legally a misdemeanor and not a felony. This racist
immigration reform has led to the harassing and oppression of the Black and Brown
communities.
On September 25th 2025, after Trump declared
Antifa a Domestic Terror Organization, he instituted National Security Presidential
Memorandum Number 7 (NSPM-7). In that it identified:
“Common threads animating this
violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and
anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government;
extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold
traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
It is
important to understand that this is not an Executive Order. It is a directive
for a culture shift of National Security Operations.
We have seen similar directives in other periods of
Political Strife:
•
The
Black Panther Party experienced such surveillance, infiltration and assassination
(Fred Hampton) during the 1970’s.
•
The
Muslim community experienced greater surveillance, detention and rendition in
the years after 9/11.
However,
Trump’s NSPM-7 seems intent on being applied more broadly to include any
political dissidents of the current Administration. This is normalizing First
Amendment Violations.
During the early 2000’s as we were reeling
from 9/11 and beginning to implement what would become “The War on Terror”,
Donald Rumsfeld under the direction of then VP Dick Cheney, created “enhanced interrogation techniques.” for those suspected of terrorism.
These techniques included: Auditory stress stimuli, light sensitivity, threatening
detainees with dogs, holding stress positions, naked humiliation, rectal
rehydration, and most famously, “waterboarding”; where the experience of
drowning was simulated. After a decade and a half of using these techniques, the Senate Intelligence committee would
eventually call these tactics torture. The
most egregious of these interrogations never took place on American soil.
Instead, through a process called Rendition, a foreign criminal or terrorist
suspect is covertly detained and interrogated in a country with less rigorous
regulations for the humane treatment of prisoners, away from that person’s
family and any kind of stewardship. These detentions and interrogation were
often done at US “Black Sites” where what goes on there is not
subject to domestic or international law.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(I.C.E.) was created in the wake of 9/11. After the passing of the “Big
Beautiful Bill” Congress has increased ICE’s budget by
700%. This
has caused a major recruitment effort by the DOJ for ICE agents due to their
self-imposed deportation quotas, that not only include white nationalist rhetoric, but also lower standards for officers.
- Agents can now be as young as 18, and there is no longer an age cap for new hires.
- The
agency has also cut training time for recruits from 13 to eight weeks, by reducing Spanish lessons, firearms training and classroom hours.
- Working
for ICE does not require a high school diploma, a military background or any
law enforcement experience. An aspiring ICE agent only has to pass a
background check, meet physical and medical requirements, and complete the
abbreviated training course.
- Since
lowering these standards, new ICE recruits are failing the required physical
exams
- This
results in many of these agents not being fully vetted. Many have criminal records,
don’t pass drug tests or are unable to pass a written exam on The
Immigration and Nationality Act and The Fourth Amendment (outlining
searches and seizures).
6. The
lack of training has led to violent interactions with civilians that has
resulted in feelings and expressions of terror
The
quotas are not being reached due to a low number of undocumented individuals
not being convicted of a crime. Therefore, they have started to snatch people
off the streets, detaining them until they can determine if they have a warrant
and then if they can’t find anything to charge them with, they will be released…once
they have their name and all documented information. This is when people started to get disappeared.
In
March 2025, Mahmoud Khalil, a Graduate
of Columbia University and a Green Card holding Permanent Resident, was
Arrested by ICE and extradited to a detention center in Louisiana. The
Government alleged that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a
designated terrorist organization.” The reality
is that Khalil was the lead negotiator for Student Protest at Columbia in 2024
to help the University divest from the war in Gaza, one of the demands of the
Student Protestors. As of 9/18/25: A Louisiana Immigration Judge has ordered that Khalil be
deported to Syria or Algeria. The case is currently being
appealed.
This is an example of Domestic
Rendition: The removal of an individual to US “black sites” (in this
case the Louisiana detention center) where they cannot be reached. Thereby
impeding their right to council until they are removed. This swift
removal is in violation of Due Process Rights. Miller and the other brainrot children of Project
2025 used the Bush Administrations tactics for terrorist interrogation and
apply it to undocumented migrants and political dissidents.
The film Rendition is a story
of mistaken identity. When a terrorist attack kills 19 in North Africa, Egyptian-born
Anwar El-Ibrahimi, a chemical engineer living in Chicago with his mother, his
pregnant wife Isabella, and their young son, is believed to be linked to known
terrorist Rashid by records indicating several calls to Anwar's cellphone.
Returning from a conference in South Africa, Anwar is detained by American
officials and sent to a secret facility near the earlier attack, where he is
interrogated and tortured. While this film was released during the end of the
“official” War on Terror, the film itself indicating its own self-reflection,
The plot of this film is what is happening daily in occupied cities like Chicago and
Portland to many undocumented people.
They are being harassed by federal agents looking to vanish them.
4)
The Government Shutdown: I, Daniel Blake (2016)
On November 5th, 2025.
Donald Trump surpassed himself. On that date, his administration had exceeded
his own record for the longest Government Shutdown in US history. Granted, an argument
can be made that in his second term, Trump has surpassed himself in numerous
ways before this, particularly in abject cruelty and cronyistic
corruption with
dashes of racism, misogyny and ableism; and it would be valid. With the
government shutdown, which concluded after 43 days, cruelty was the point.
By October 1st of this year,
the Senate needed to pass a funding bill to keep the government open. The bill
that was proposed by Republicans included funding for the tax cuts passed in
the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, whose provisions state that those tax cuts were
paid for by the reduction of social programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and an unwillingness to
extend tax credit exemptions to those covered by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Rather than see millions of people’s
Health Care Coverage Premiums double
or triple,
Democratic lawmakers in the Senate held firm and allowed the government to shut
down.
During the Shutdown, Federal workers were
furloughed. Many others working without pay were promised reimbursement once
the government reopened. This affected those in the military,
people on food assistance, and air traffic controllers as the holidays are on
approach. Blame was thrown both at
Republicans and the Democrats; but according to public polling, Republicans took the brunt of it.
This could be because while the government was shut down the Trump administration attempted to fire
400,000 workers,
threatened to not pay the federal workers
retroactively, and
pushed for the elimination of the filibuster. Yet, the more that the Democratic
party uncharacteristically dug in, the more the ire of the country turned to
Republicans, culminating in one of the biggest election wins for
Democrats. The
election of Zoran Mamdani, the redistricting vote in California, House wins in
Virginia and New Jersey, flipped seats on the Public Services Commission all point
to not only public support of Democrats in the shutdown fight, but a shifting
to the left for general policies. After their remarkable electoral trouncing of
Republicans, eight Democrats celebrated by immediately caving to the Republicans, allowing the government to reopen.
In a bewilderingly masochistic move
orchestrated by human jellyfish Chuck Schumer, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New
Hampshire, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Sen.
Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Sen.
Angus King of Maine, Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of
Nevada and Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania broke party ranks to side with Republicans
to end the shutdown- without a guaranteed extension to the
ACA tax exemption; the party’s whole position. The senators listed were allegedly
chosen by Chuck Schumer because of their distance from or willingness not to
seek re-election. Cognizant of the blowback they would experience. Once again, Trump and the Republicans learned
that weaponized cruelty will break even the most sensible and publicly supported
obstructionist political tactics; and the Democrats continue to snatch defeat
from the jaws of victory.
The 2016 film: I, Daniel Blake, illustrates
many of the experiences of individuals on social services, furloughed, or
threatened with loss of their medical coverage during the recent US shutdown.
In the film, Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) is a 59-year-old woodworker who suffers
a heart attack; and then must navigate the bureaucracy of the UK welfare and
healthcare system to try to survive. What follows is an infuriating series of
events that highlight the purposefully labyrinthian process to get needed care
and support in a system that is not designed to provide either. Most of the
insurance companies, organizations, hospitals, politicians, would prefer that if
we can’t pay for a commodity or service that we should just die. We are all Daniel Blake.
3) The Trump/Musk Bromance and
Breakup: Friendship (2024)
The bromance between Elon Musk and
Donald Trump began unofficially when Elon Musk and his “Paypal Mafia” friends began to
criticize social programs, women’s right to vote and regulatory agencies. This put them on a trajectory that
would intersect the re-ascension of Donald Trump. In 2024, Trump’s running
mate, current VP, and stolen Southern valor grifter JD Vance was a protégé of fellow ‘Mafia’ member
Peter Theil.
Therefore, because Musk would not be financially solvent
without government contracts, he
often leans into the political rhetoric that will net him the most financial
security. Trump’s stance on deregulation and his promise to “Drain the Swamp”
(that he’d been a part of for nearly 10 years at that point) led Musk to
support him.
In May 2024 Musk created a Pro-Trump Political Action Committee (PAC). Publicly stating that he would
contribute 45 million dollars a month to the campaign. Musk also delivering the aggrieved cis white ‘manosphere’
vote for Trump. In return, Trump
offered Musk an official Advisory position to The Department of Government
Efficiency (DOGE) Musk promising to root out waste, fraud and abuse, that would
allegedly save the government 1
trillion dollars. That
never happened. The goal was never to make the government more efficient. Musk
helped get Trump elected so that he could secure government contracts. The
cherry on top was Trump giving Musk permission to gut regulatory agencies and
throw government operations into chaos -Trump using that destabilization to
centralize even more power by weakening the institutions that would oppose
him.
As I
mentioned in a previous essay:
Since aligning with Donald
Trump, [Musk] has seemed emboldened to express various levels and varieties of
hate speech: from misinformation, general
technocratic dehumanization (Eugenics) , Trans discrimination,
sexism, antisemitism, and white pride that culminated in Musk giving a “Roman
Salute” at Trump’s Second Inauguration that
was interpreted by White Power Groups, and most of the general public, as
the Nazi Zig Heil. At the time of this writing, The Department of Government
Efficiency (DOGE) the Agency tasked with reining in Government bureaucracy and
spending, that Musk (sort
of, but not really, only actually)
leads, is dismantling the
regulatory agencies of the government that were directly overseeing his
companies.
The Elon/Donnie Bromance began to
sour almost directly after the election with many of the Trump advisors unable to stand Musk's presence. Between the Ketamine fueled chainsaw waving
spectacle at CPAC, to
Musk’s open rejection of the “ One Big
Beautiful Bill.” Calling it a pork-filled disgusting
abomination, the
tension was beginning to build. The tipping point came in Mid-2025 when Musk
tried to influence the outcome of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election by
dumping 90 million dollars into the race. This included millions of dollars in
election fraud as he offered 1 million dollars to rally participants. After
such a costly and brutal loss, Trump started to distance himself from Musk.
Like someone wanting their ex-lovers
attention, Musk lashed out; creating The America Party ( That had a lot of White Nationalist
iconography) to oppose Donald Trump. He also tweeted out that Trump was in the
Epstein files and called for his impeachment. Something that the public already
knew, but it hits different coming from the recently scorned. In response,
Trump floated the idea of canceling Musk’s government contracts and Steve Bannon suggested that Musk be deported. Meanwhile, all the crypto ‘broligarchs’ are caught in the middle, reeling from both Tesla and crypto market stock drops.
The central characters in Andrew
DeYoung’s Friendship, have aspects of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Austin Carmichael, (Paul Rudd) is a
charismatic local Meteorologist that captures the attention of Craig Waterman
(Tim Robinson) Austin’s neighbor. After a couple of “hangs” they start to form
a friendship despite Craig’s awkwardness. They bond over music and work
stressors, then give and take each other’s advice. But as this relationship
gets exposed to other people; Craig, like Musk with Trump, feels insecure and
lashes out. Austin breaks his friendship with Craig, but Craig continues to
obsess about him, escalating his antics to such a degree that Austin feels
threatened. But it is only when Austin is vulnerable and Craig covers for him, that
the relationship eventually mends. I assume,
if their financial or political interests were ever to realign, Trump and
Musk, like Austin and Craig, could rekindle their lost friendship; to the
detriment of everyone else in the world.
2) The Assassination of
Charlie Kirk: The
Parallax View (1976)
On September 10th 2025 Charlie
Kirk, right wing political commentator, podcaster and co-founder of the
political group Turning Point USA, was assassinated. Kirk had been an outspoken supporter
of Donald Trump, and at the time of his murder was answering a student’s
question during a political debate, something he did regularly. Almost immediately, this horrific
event was politicized. The FBI director Kash Patel was making public assumptions during the open investigation,
misinterpreting the statement on the bullets to mean the suspect was on the
political Left. Further examination weeks later revealed that the statements were a part of online
meme culture. The
Trump administration was so desperate to link the shooter, later identified as Tyler Robinson, to the political Left, that they used Robinson’s relationship with his Trans roommate to indicate his political leanings;
when he seemed to not be politically affiliated with
either party.
Still, the Trump Administration politically weaponized Kirk’s assassination
during their Rally-style memorial service, and further, used it to justify the
declaration of Antifa as a Domestic Terror
organization, the
passage of NSPM-7, and the crackdown on Free Speech. Thus, the murder of Kirk became a
justification for more authoritarian-like policies from the Trump
administration.
While taking advantage of this
terrible crime is to be expected in this political climate, what is remarkable,
that few have remarked upon, is the suspected nihilism of the shooter and how
dangerous that a lack of ideology can be. In Sociology, Emile Durkheim first
introduced the idea of anomie. This is the state of normlessness that follows
any period of great social change. The upheaval caused by social change results
in a lack of understanding of what the norms are among the populace. This
uncertainty is socially and psychologically arresting. The lack of cultural and
social norms will quickly unravel the social order of a society far quicker
than the anarchic destabilization of “no laws” or “no government”. This is
because a lack of cultural and social norms fundamentally changes how
individuals interact with one another. Without established norms, we have a
much harder time building relationships, families and communities.
Thus, it is terrifying if a group of nihilistic individuals with a plan of
action and access to weapons decides to “stir the pot” of political and social
turmoil just to see its effects. Terrifying, because there is no reason or
purpose, and no negotiations to keep it from happening. Events like this
painfully illustrate the fragility of our social contract.
The Parallax View is the
second film in Alan J. Pakula’s “Paranoid Trilogy” that includes Klute and
All the President’s Men. The film
tells the story of Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) who begins to investigate a series
of political assassinations after the death of his partner Lee Carter. He
uncovers the involvement of the Parallax Corporation and their use of
scapegoats to deflect attention away from the corporations. Citing that the
assassinations were the work of a lone gunman and not part of a political
conspiracy. The way that the film uses sociological and psychological factors
to craft a narrative that allows power brokers to maintain power; parallels the
events in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
1) The Rest of the World Expels
Fascism while the US Embraces it: V for Vendetta (2005)
As the United States has leaned
into fascism with the re-ascension of Donald Trump to the office of the
President, the rest of the world has retreated from it. In 2025, a number of
former fascistic dictators were indicted by their own government, or through the
International Criminal Court (ICC), thereby holding them (at least
partially) accountable for their crimes.
·
In
March 2025 Rodrigo
Duterte was arrested under an ICC warrant for Crimes against Humanity; killing
6,000 people in his Anti-drug crackdown in the Philippines. Back in 2017, Donald
Trump Praised Duterte’s tactics stating “I just wanted to congratulate you because I
am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem. Many countries have the
problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing, and I just
wanted to call and tell you that.”
·
In
April 2025 Former Prime Minister of South Korea, Yoon Suk
Yeol was impeached
and later arrested by the country special prosecutor, charged with
incitement of an insurrection and abusing power. Yoon was considered
ideologically aligned with Trump and had even taken up golfing again after the
U.S. president was reelected last November to try to forge a bond with him.
When Trump was informed about the South Korean Special Prosecutor by US press
he said “Is
his name Deranged Jack Smith, by any chance?” referring to his own
indictment.
·
In
September 2025 Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil
was sentenced to 27 years in Prison by the country’s Supreme Court in
plotting a Military Coup to overturn an election. Bolsonaro often echoed Donald
Trump’s rhetoric about “witch hunts”. In Response, Donald Trump framed the
50% tariffs on Brazilian goods into the US as retaliation for Bolsonaro’s
conviction.
·
In
October 2025 Nicolas
Sarkozy began his 5 year prison term for conspiring to raise campaign funds in
Libia. But he only served
3 weeks before being released to appeal the conspiracy charge. Some
Frech Media outlets have blamed his release on the way that Trump and “Trumpism”
have weaponized the global justice system allowing some leaders to escape
accountability.
Meanwhile,
Trump continues to cozy
up to dictators as he fashions himself into one. The most recent examples
in 2025 are the entangled relationship Trump now has with Brutal Dictator Nayib
Bukele of El Salvador, and Donald Trump’s defense of
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the death of Journalist Shamal
Khashoggi.
Using Project 2025 as a guidebook, the Trump Administration deported and jailed US migrants in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT Prison. This became the focal point of US national news and general public interest regarding the case of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador even though he had protections from a Federal Judge. The Department of Justice and Bukele stated separately that they didn’t have the power to release Garcia. On June 6th , Abrego-Garcia was returned to the United States under the charge of human smuggling and jailed in Tennessee. He was later released in July only to be detained by ICE during a routine check in.
In November 2025, Trump hosted Saudi
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House. During a press conference,
Trump defended the prince against questions about the prince’s knowledge and
alleged culpability in the murder of Khashoggi; stating that the deceased was
“extremely controversial.” And that Salman “knew
nothing”. This is a direct contradiction to the 2018
CIA report that stated that the Crown
Prince approved the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi. This
inconsistency is largely due to the 1 trillion dollars that Saudi Arabia will
pay to the United States for new Fighter jets, a deal that The Crown Prince was
in the US to finalize.
To be fair to the US, we did try to
hold Trump accountable in 2024; he just used every loophole available to him
and ran out the clock.
As I
stated in 2024’s
end of the year essay:
In May
of 2024, during the campaign, Trump was convicted
of 34 felony counts in a hush money trial to pay off Porn Star
Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election. Additionally, the Department of
Justice appointed Special Prosecutor Jack Smith to investigate
Donald Trump’s actions on January 6th as to if it constituted
Election interference, and a separate case in Florida concerning the
mishandling of Government documents.
The
federal case was delt a serious blow in July 2024 when the
Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, decided that Trump while in office, and any
President in perpetuity, has broad immunity from prosecution for
official acts while in office. This eliminated a lot of the admissible evidence
Prosecutor Jack Smith was able to use and caused him to have to refile
the case under the new guidelines.
The James McTiegue directed, V
for Vendetta, shows a world that at the end of 2025, seems to be on the US
horizon. In the film, Britain is ruled by the Norsefire political party, a
fascist and totalitarian regime led by High Chancellor Adam Sutler. The
government controls the populace through propaganda and fear, imprisoning or
executing those deemed undesirable, including immigrants, homosexuals, and
people of alternative religions. This setting feels awfully familiar given the
way that the entire Trump administration has been able to dismantle
the system of checks and balances quicker than expected.
Thus, mirroring the Pre-Nazi Germany of the 1930’s. Thankfully, history, and the Wachowski’s
penned script based on an Alan Moore graphic novel, gives us hope in the
regime’s eventual downfall. The question remains how many will die in the
process, and who will we have to martyr and sacrifice to topple this new
American Reich.
CONCLUSION
As
I look out on the precipice of another year setting on the horizon; I was not
expecting to bear witness to the detritus of American Democracy. As
institutions continue to crumble, their collapsing debris being the last
vestigial echo of a system that, through all its racist, misogynistic, ableist,
capitalist horrors, still was semi-functional. Children of a younger
generation, without social power and investment in these collapsing bastions,
revel as they watch the social order they were set to inherit die, hoping to
quicken its descent with their detached anomic nihilism. There is not much to
be thankful for on that level, which is why it is essential for us to find love
and joy wherever we find it. Whether that be among our family, friends,
spouses, partners and ‘others of significance’, we cannot count on happiness
coming from anyone other than inside and around all of us. See you all in 2026!
