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“Doom Loop” Engaged: US Debt Hits $40 Trillion As Treasury Enters The Endgame

The largely expected news came just hours after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unexpectedly announced the Treasury’s latest attempt to rein-in long-term borrowing costs from multi-year highs, the most important component of the growth in debt. The Treasury stunned the market when it said, just two weeks after the latest Refunding Announcement where it should have made this change, that it was ramping up the support for longer-dated securities by “increasing, by at least double, the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities (the 10-year to 20-year sector and the 20-year to 30-year sector).”

The announcement that sent yields plunging, if only for the time being. 

Remarkably, it was less than 5 years ago that US debt hit $30 trillion back in January 2022, illustrating the rapid growth in federal borrowing needs. And there’s no end in sight. 

As Bloomberg notes, “Republicans have long opposed revenue-raising tax increases,” while Democrats are best known for spending like drunken sailors to maximize socialist central planning, and both parties are loathe to sign on to politically toxic cuts to healthcare and retirement benefits for seniors. Many observers anticipate Congress and the administration of the day will only act if forced by a financial-market disruption.

That won’t stop them from talking about it all the time, though, as both parties at least pretend to understand that the US is on a catastrophic collision course should debt growth continue at this pace, and if the AI bet – which is now an all-in for virtually everyone – fails to dramatically boost productivity. Bessent, for one, said a key reason he got involved in politics was to help tackle deficits running at a pace unprecedented for times outside of major wars, pandemics or depressed job markets. So far he has failed catastrophically, and worse, he is doing precisely the kind of activist issuance “Twisting” for which he bashed his predecessor, Janet Yellen.

Economists, the Congressional Budget Office and Wall Street all see little or no progress in coming years for the deficit-to-gross domestic product ratio.

“Optically, I’m sure crossing thresholds like $40 trillion will focus attention on the issue in the near term,” said Matthew Luzzetti, chief US economist at Deutsche Bank AG. “But it does not represent a magical threshold for debt dynamics, and projections have anticipated this outcome for some time.”

More important, Luzzetti said, is the climb in US Treasury yields, which is steadily increasing the cost of servicing the record debt load. Last Thursday, the department’s latest 30-year bond auction resulted in the costliest such sale in a quarter century. A 10-year auction a day earlier drew the highest financing cost at that tenor since 2007, and only today’s announcement which sent yields tumbling prevent today’s 20Y Treasury auction from pricing at the highest yield on record. 

As buyers demand higher yields, that in turn drives up the Treasury’s borrowing needs. With two months left to go in the fiscal year, the government’s tally for interest costs so far for 2026 is $1.37 trillion – a 20% increase on the same period a year before. That in turn adds to the debt, potentially fueling further investor calls for higher rates, in a pattern known as a “doom loop.”

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‘We’ll Bomb the Sh*t Out of Them’: Trump and the War on Morality

Consider this hypothetical:

Two apartment buildings share a single parking lot. Management from both Building A and Building B are engaged in negotiations over how the parking lot will be organized, painted, maintained, and paid for.

Across the street is a restaurant. The restaurant’s customers primarily come from Building A, and internal studies have shown that Building B’s tenants overwhelmingly patronize the restaurant’s competition. Therefore, the restaurant is seeking to sway the parking lot negotiations to make it easier for Building A’s tenants to get to their shop, and harder for Building B’s tenants to get to the competitor.

Through back-channel discussions, the restaurant learns that Building A may be conceding to many of Building B’s requests for how the parking lot should be organized. Worried that this will help their competition, the restaurant announces on social media that if Building A doesn’t get their act together and negotiate more aggressively, they will “bomb the sh*t out of them.”

Now, that’s quite a leap. How did we go from negotiations one day to threats of mass murder the next?

If this scenario were to occur in Anytown, USA, we would immediately see this as unhinged and immoral. No, you cannot use murder as your default method of settling disputes. The vast majority of us accept this in our day-to-day lives, and the proof of this is that the vast majority of us have never murdered anybody. We settle disputes verbally, or through contractual agreements, and if negotiations fail we tend to just walk away. But for some reason when it comes to the global stage, where the harm caused by these decisions is far greater in scale, many struggle to see the issue with this type of rhetoric.

The Hormuz negotiations

Iran and Oman have been engaged in negotiations over the future governance of the Strait of Hormuz for the past few weeks. We were told in the early stages of the talks that a deal was within reach, but it is yet to materialize. The fact that these talks are even happening seems to imply a quiet U.S. admission that Iran will control the waterway in some capacity going forward, which is a major diplomatic climb-down from Donald Trump. With this concession, the focus seems to have shifted. Whereas before the goal was to “liberate the Strait,” the objective now is to get a deal that Trump can spin into a victory.

To this end, Trump has sought to influence the Iranian-Omani negotiations. In an August 17 phone call with Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, Donald Trump said “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.”

This frustration seems to have been caused by the lack of progress towards opening the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians and Omanis said weeks ago that a deal was almost complete, only to have negotiations extend longer than anticipated. Trump, desperate for a deal that can help bring down oil prices and sooth the economic stress at home, chose to lash out at Oman, who he believes is being too favorable to Iran.

This sadly is not an unusual sentiment from Donald Trump, who has made a habit out of threatening to bomb countries as a negotiating tactic. The regularity with which Trump threatens mass murder does not make it civilized or moral, however. It makes it even more unsettling.

As a result of Trump’s loss at the hands of Iran, the American empire has been dealt a severe dent to its armor. The image of American bases scattered across the Middle East – once a symbol of military dominance – has been quite literally shattered. Trump can no longer rely on previously held assumptions about American power in order to get his way. Thus, he must lower himself rhetorically to the level of a brutal warlord.

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NATO whines it cannot fight simultaneous wars against Russia, China and Iran

NATO war planners rarely discuss their “nightmare scenarios” in public and appear even less prepared for real-life confrontations on that scale. This is particularly true when it comes to simultaneous or near-simultaneous wars in which the most aggressive racketeering cartel in recorded history has to fight in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. As the pillar of NATO, the United States would be forced to manage wars against Russia, Iran and China at once. One of the most infamous mainstream propaganda machine outlets, The Atlantic, explored this possibility, calling it “NATO’s nightmare”. The analysis largely focuses on “a coordinated assault by Beijing and Moscow” and how difficult it would be to “muster a viable defense” (obviously implying that NATO wouldn’t attack first, which is beyond laughable given its history).

The author, Simon Shuster, warns that “about a year ago, General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s top commander in Europe, publicly warned of the risk of a two-front war involving Russia and China and urged European allies to help the US prepare”. He quotes Florence Gaub, director of research at the NATO Defense College, who described it as “the scenario we’re currently not ready for”. She warns that “NATO strategists know the gap exists, but have not closed it” and that “despite growing military cooperation between Russia and China, Western governments have conducted only a handful of low-profile exercises examining what a joint attack might look like”. Although there weren’t any publicly acknowledged drills with this specific scenario in mind, Western-led military exercises in different areas of the world certainly focused on such a possibility.

However, The Atlantic admits that even when such scenarios were conducted as part of war games, the results were “less than optimistic”. The report quotes Mark Montgomery, a retired US Navy rear admiral who participated in major war games and stated that he last studied such a scenario roughly 15 years ago. Montgomery recalled that “it didn’t go well” because “even then, the US lacked the weapons stockpiles and industrial capacity to sustain a prolonged multifront war”. Even when numerous US allies, vassals and satellite states are added to the mix, “it made no difference at all”. What’s more, Montgomery warns that “those metrics have worsened, even as some NATO countries have increased defense spending”. To prove this is truly the case, one simply needs to look at the US aggression against Iran, which demonstrated remarkable resilience.

Worse yet (for America), Tehran also uncovered the Pentagon’s woeful incompetence in fighting a remotely capable opponent. A single country that the US promised to “defeat in three days to two weeks tops” has not only withstood all attacks in the last six months, but has also successfully retaliated against US occupation forces across the Middle East. It should be noted that Iran has been under Western sanctions for nearly half a century at this point. Now imagine how a direct confrontation with Russia or China would unfold, even separately, much less simultaneously. The Atlantic fears that “Moscow and Beijing have actually improved their positions”. The report points to the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict, which “pushed Russia’s massive industrial base onto a war footing and sharpened its use of drones”.

It also warns that “while China has not fought a major war in decades, it now surpasses the US in warships and long-range missiles”. Obviously, the Asian giant hasn’t fought a major war in nearly half a century because it has refused to do so. Nothing prevents Beijing from fully restoring its sovereignty over Taiwan by force. However, it seeks to resolve the dispute through peaceful means, just like it did when restoring sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao back in 1997 and 1999, respectively. This is precisely what the US fears the most, as a non-violent transition would only strengthen China and effectively break US dominance in the Asia-Pacific without firing a single shot. Washington DC would much rather see Taiwan destroyed than give up its influence there peacefully. This is why the US maintains tight control over local military forces.

However, directing “controlled chaos” is not enough for the Pentagon to “feel safe”. Namely, growing Sino-Russian ties are what really makes the political West “shiver” (or should we say, suffer panic attacks). The Atlantic is particularly concerned by the “no-limits partnership” Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced back in February 2022. NATO simply has no mechanisms to prevent Moscow and Beijing from building their alliance. On the contrary, its truly unprovoked aggression against the entire world has only strengthened their strategic partnership. The Atlantic thinks that “from Russia’s and China’s perspective, the timing may look favorable”, primarily because “the US is stretched by conflict in the Middle East, has shifted ships and aircraft away from Europe and Asia, and has depleted much of its advanced air-defense missile stockpile”.

Well, nobody forced Washington DC to wage yet another war of aggression. Neither Moscow nor Beijing forced the Trump administration to foolishly attack Iran. However, even the Middle East pales in comparison to how Western forces would fare in a fight against adversaries such as Russia and China, particularly now that the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict has turned the Russian military into the deadliest fighting force on the planet. The Atlantic concludes that “in a two-front war, the side most likely to prevail may be the one that acts with common purpose and stays united”. It would seem NATO didn’t learn from the strategic mistakes of its Axis predecessors, because that’s precisely what’s going to happen if it continues with its aggression against the entire world, which will have no other choice but to unite.

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Accuser Tells House Ethics Panel Democrat Rep. Jimmy Gomez Assaulted Her

Attorneys for an unnamed woman told the House Committee on Ethics that Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) sexually harassed and assaulted her, disputing the California Democrat’s claim that his conduct was “consensual in nature.”

The statement, released Wednesday by attorneys Lisa J. Banks and Sarah E. Nesbitt, escalates a probe the committee announced Monday into whether Gomez engaged in “inappropriate sexual contact with a House staffer.”

The attorneys said their client sat for an interview with the panel and directly contradicted the congressman’s account of his own behavior.

“We represent one of the women who was interviewed by the House Committee on Ethics about her experience of sexual harassment and assault by Representative Jimmy Gomez,” Banks and Nesbitt wrote. “Contrary to Representative Gomez’s assertion in his statement, his actions were not ‘consensual in nature’ with respect to our client. We fully expect that the House Committee on Ethics will come to the same conclusion in its investigation.”

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U.S.-Registered Drone Detected at Site of Suspected CIA Boat Strike

In the hours after a mysterious attack on an Ecuadorian fishing boat near the Galápagos Islands on March 17, a drone registered to U.S. defense contractor Shield AI was hovering just 500 meters from the burning vessel, La Negra Francisca, according to a review of flight tracking data by Drop Site News. This represents the first known vehicle to arrive at the site of the strike.

The unattributed bombing of three Ecuadorian fishing boats in January and March, and the subsequent abduction and torture of 36 fishermen, was first reported by Drop Site in April. Last week, The Washington Post, building on Drop Site’s ongoing investigation, reported that the attacks were part of a covert CIA operation.

According to flight and vessel tracking data from Radar 24 and Global Fishing Watch, the drone was a V-BAT model, primarily used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, but capable of carrying a weapons payload and switching its signal on and off to avoid detection.

The Shield AI drone matches the fishermen’s descriptions of the drones that circled their boats before the bombing, and bears the same red and green lights eyewitnesses reported seeing as they photographed the explosion.

Shield AI did not respond to a request for comment.

The CEO of Shield AI, Brandon Tseng, has publicly stated that the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy are using V-BAT drones “to interdict and destroy billions of dollars’ worth of drugs that were headed for the United States of America.” In 2024, the U.S. Coast Guard signed a $198 million contract with Shield AI for V-BAT drones; in April 2026, Shield AI announced it had received an $800 million contract for V-BAT drones from the U.S. Navy.

No drugs were found on any of the three fishing boats investigated by Drop Site—the Negra Francisca, Don Maca, and Fiorella—all of which were searched and cleared by Ecuadorian coast guard personnel prior to the strikes.

Last month, Drop Site published NASA thermal imagery consistent with an explosion at coordinates 1.5822°N, 87.6958W°, recorded at 1:02 p.m., the time fishermen say they were hit, and in the location where their transponder stopped broadcasting.

Tracking data suggests that the drone launched from a nearby boat on March 17, seven hours after the strike on La Negra Francisca and then circled near the site, its signal disappearing and reappearing. Ascending and descending patterns of movement indicate that the drone may have been landing on a boat and then resuming its flights.

Drop Site previously reported that vessel tracking data showed a U.S. Coast Guard cutter leaving a Galápagos military base a day before the Negra Francisca bombing—despite claiming it only deployed the cutter as a post-incident rescue effort. The Coast Guard vessel’s signal went dark and later appeared in Central American waters 24 hours before the fishermen were placed in El Salvador’s custody.

Video recordings, taken by eyewitnesses to the bombing, show the U.S. Coast Guard patrolling in the aftermath of the airstrike. Drop Site asked the U.S. Coast Guard in June to account for the cutter’s movements after its signal went dark. The Coast Guard responded that it “does not disclose cutter movements during law enforcement missions for operational security.”

In June, the U.S. Coast Guard told The Guardian it deployed its Bertholf cutter for a search-and-rescue operation after receiving a Mayday alert, contradicting prior statements by the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees maritime operations in the Pacific, that it had no knowledge of any U.S. involvement in the incidents. To date, the U.S. Coast Guard has not acknowledged using drones in its purported rescue efforts.

The U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Southern Command, and the Central Intelligence Agency did not respond to questions for this article.

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Disney Sues FCC for ‘Retaliatory’ Investigation of ABC

The broadcast network ABC, parent company Disney, and eight ABC affiliates filed a lawsuit today against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

ABC alleges the government is targeting the network for its speech, and it makes a convincing argument.

“Government censorship is deeply un-American,” the lawsuit begins. “That fundamental principle predates the Republic, with our Founders recognizing that ‘the freedom of the press is one of the great[est] bulwarks of liberty.'”

The filing cites NRA v. Vullo, a 2024 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the state of New York’s efforts to prevent banks and insurance companies from doing business with the National Rifle Association.

The government, wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, cannot “use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.” According to ABC’s lawsuit, “This case concerns the Administration’s sustained effort to do just that. Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts.”

Plaintiffs typically face a difficult task proving selective or vindictive treatment by the government. But this is not a typical situation: The lawsuit catalogues dozens of times that President Donald Trump suggested broadcast networks, including ABC, should be taken off the air for displeasing him.

“ABC & NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the worst and most biased networks in history, give me 97% BAD STORIES,” he wrote last year in a characteristic Truth Social post. “IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC.”

“If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party,” he complained in another, “shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES!”

Trump has said this for years, even though it’s not how it works: Networks create content, but the local affiliates that air it have broadcast licenses. Disney only owns eight of ABC’s hundreds of affiliates, meaning the vast majority are owned by third parties.

Just last month, Trump threatened to revoke ABC’s and NBC’s broadcast licenses for not airing one of his speeches.

But Trump is not the only example cited in the lawsuit. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has also repeatedly threatened Disney and ABC with reprisal over what largely amounts to hurting the president’s feelings.

In September 2025, when Jimmy Kimmel suggested in his late-night show’s monologue that slain conservative activist was killed by a member of “the MAGA gang,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr called on ABC’s affiliates to “step up” and reject the network’s programming; otherwise, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he warned. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Numerous affiliates preempted Kimmel’s show, and ABC suspended production until the following week.

This year, Carr threatened ABC’s daytime chat show The View for not following the federal “equal time” rule that says when a candidate for public office appears on a broadcast network, their opponents must be offered equal time. The FCC had exempted shows like The View from the rule for decades before Carr reversed course.

Carr also opened an investigation into Disney’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies; while Disney had already rolled back its DEI programs, “significant concerns remain,” Carr claimed.

ABC’s lawsuit calls the investigation “pretextual.” Indeed, it formed the basis of an action earlier this year, when the FCC called in the broadcast licenses of all eight Disney-owned ABC affiliates for “early renewal,” years before any of them were set to expire. Notably, though, it came just days after Kimmel made another intemperate comment at Trump’s expense.

“Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” Trump wrote on Truth Social the day before the FCC announced it was calling in the licenses.

ABC’s lawsuit seeks relief from the review, which it characterizes as completely unprecedented. The FCC “had not called for a renewal application ahead of schedule in more than half a century,” the filing claims. “Nor had it ever demanded simultaneous early renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned by a single broadcast network.”

Carr apparently agrees: “It’s probably been 50, 60 years or longer since the FCC has used this tool,” he told the Financial Times. “If you didn’t take us seriously, now you should.”

And last month, Carr suggested that ABC’s decision not to air Trump’s speech would factor into the FCC’s review.

ABC’s lawsuit says the network faces “irreparable harm” from the government, but it also suggests dire potential consequences for the entire broadcast industry. “If the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government,” it warns. “In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free.”

“The current FCC has repeatedly used its power over broadcast speech to jawbone, punish, and threaten censorship of its political opponents,” David Inserra, a fellow for free speech and technology at the Cato Institute, said in an emailed statement. “Today’s lawsuit by ABC Disney against the FCC directly challenges the broad and abusive powers that Congress and prior court decisions gave the FCC. No government agency should ever be empowered to restrict free expression based on what it thinks is fair, equal, or in the best interest of the public. In a world where the American people and press can speak through print, broadcast, cable, satellite, internet, and other forms of media, there is no justification for the FCC to continue to wield such significant power over broadcast speech.”

“Disney is entirely justified in asking a court to stop the FCC’s attempt to coerce its broadcast stations’ programming through an unlawful campaign of regulatory scrutiny,” added Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “The lawsuit makes clear that this campaign has already chilled ABC’s speech. The First Amendment prohibits the government from using regulatory threats to chill speech that the government doesn’t like, which is exactly what the FCC is doing here.”

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Fauci’s Former Advisor David Morens Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Defraud the United States by Hiding COVID Origin Records and Evading FOIA

David Morens, the longtime senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States.

Morens, 78, entered the plea in federal court in Maryland under an agreement with prosecutors.

The charges stem from Morens’ role in a scheme to evade Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Department of Justice, Morens and his co-conspirators used his personal Gmail account to hide communications about restoring NIH funding to EcoHealth Alliance’s controversial bat coronavirus grant, the same grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology that was terminated over lab-leak concerns.

Additionally, Morens co-authored papers that dismissed the lab-leak theory as “thoroughly discredited” and promoted the natural-origin narrative while protecting EcoHealth Alliance and its Chinese partners.

According to the DOJ announcement of the guilty plea:

“Morens is facing up to five years in prison for conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district judge determines sentencing after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.”

As The Gateway Pundit has previously reported, Morens worked to undermine Trump’s 2020 ban on gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called it “a profound abuse of trust” at the height of the pandemic.

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Alberta Influencer launches site to report teachers pushing ideology in schools

After an Alberta teacher promoted a loophole using Edmonton Oilers Pride flags to circumvent Alberta legislation against pushing ideology in K-12 schools, social media influencer “Berta Proud Dad” has launched a way for parents and students to report instances of activist teachers breaking the law.

Lawrence Magee, who runs the social media handle Berta Proud Dad, spoke with Juno News about an initiative he started in response to parents coming to him about teachers rebelling against the elected provincial government’s efforts to prevent ideological indoctrination in schools.

Magee was alerted by parents to an Alberta teacher, Peter Mackay, who was urging other teachers to sneak pride flags into schools by exploiting an apparent loophole in the government’s efforts to remove political flags from classrooms under Bill 25.

The bill, which received royal assent on May 14, 2026, aims to ensure instruction is balanced and neutral rather than presenting a teacher’s personal political or ideological views as fact.

Mackay shared a post on Instagram pointing out that the directive to schools on which flags were permitted to be displayed includes sports flags. He endorsed using an Edmonton Oilers Pride flag to circumvent the effective ban on Pride flags in the classroom.

Magee noted that the ban is to remove all political ideology from the classroom, including Palestine flags, antifa stickers, and anything else not connected to the province or nation’s history.

In response, Magee launched reportateacher.ca for parents to report any teachers “not following the rules that the government set out in Bill 25.

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MI Sheriff Drops Bombshell: Whistleblower Reveals How Sec Of State Is Putting Non-Citizens On Voter Rolls 

When it comes to investigating and exposing voter fraud in Michigan, Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf is arguably the most committed law enforcement official in the state.

This evening, after speaking with a whistleblower who works at the Michigan Secretary of State’s office, he dropped a major bombshell that should make every United States Senator who’s been resisting the idea of signing on to the SAVE Act, which would require every voter to prove their citizenship, think twice.

Here’s a quick summary of Sheriff Dar Leaf explaining how non-citizens are allegedly automatically registered to vote and how difficult it is to detect and remove them: 

•  A confidential informant who works for the Michigan Secretary of State’s office told him that non-citizens are automatically registered to vote when they change their address.

•  The customer and automotive records system is programmed to congratulate and inform those non-citizens that they have been registered to vote.

•  When the informant showed proof to a supervisor, the supervisor claimed the county clerk would catch and remove non-citizens. Leaf states that this is incorrect: clerks receive access to the Qualified Voter File only after the Secretary of State has already registered the person, and the QVF itself does not flag citizenship status.

•  Once on the rolls, the person can request a mail-in ballot or vote in person with an ID card; polling places do not verify citizenship.

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SO MUCH CRINGE: Liberal Media Outlet ‘Axios’ Reports Democrats’ New Midterm Strategy is ‘Bringing Sexy Back’

Ever since the 2024 election and even before that, the Democrats have been struggling with men. Male voters have been abandoning the Democrats in droves and the party has no idea what to do about it.

They basically painted themselves into a corner on this by spending years demonizing men and pushing terms like ‘toxic masculinity.’ Their efforts to turn this around now come off as hollow and desperate.

The media is trying so hard to help them. The liberal journal the Atlantic recently published a piece declaring that the era of the Democrat ‘manly man’ is back.

Now the liberal outlet Axios is reporting that the Democrats are bringing sexy back, with male candidates who are willing to unbutton the top button of their shirts on CNN.

This is beyond parody:

Democrats enter their thirst trap era

Democrats seem to be leaning into a specific midterm strategy, especially on socials: bringing sexy back.

Why it matters: The left is leaning into candidates who look young, energetic and even desirable, with fresh faces often eclipsing the older guard.

  • “We see a rise in young millennials, or the top part of Gen Z, trying to get into office,” says Grace Weinstein, a politics and culture senior correspondent at The Recount and founder of “Who Broke It.” “We’re talking about a generation that is not always image obsessed, but always image aware.”

The big picture: Democrats are working through identity growing pains between the left flank and the party’s establishment. But with moderates and progressives alike, Dems are playing the sex appeal card.

  • The party’s main TikTok page has given big names the thirst trap treatment, including: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) (nicknamed “Senator My Boo” by internet fans), Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in his tight-fitting T-shirts, a grinning NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former President Obama with a touch of gray, among others.

How is this even real?

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