Nobody likes a bully. Not even the human parasites who lurk by his side, snickering nervously as he picks on people who are (temporarily) unable to defend themselves. In the end, the bully has no friends or allies. Everyone fears and despises him, biding their time until the bully is weak and exposed, ready to be overthrown. That moment of reckoning has come for every bully, strongman, and dictator who has ever lived. See History.
Trump does not understand this lesson. In his sick mind, threatening and punishing Americans is the way to make friends and influence people.
Moreover, bullies are not smart. If they were, they wouldn’t need to be bullies. See, e.g., Donald Trump.
In Trump’s feeble mind, he can “punish” Democratic states by unlawfully withholding funds appropriated by Congress to states whose electoral votes were awarded to Kamala Harris.
The problem for Trump—and all Republicans—is that states are not “red” or “blue”—they are amalgams of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Did Not Vote, and more. Below is the simplistic model that Trump and Republicans carry in their heads as they plot “revenge” against Democrats:
Copyright: 270toWin
As the saying goes, “Land doesn’t vote, people do.” The actual dispersion of votes for and against Trump is more accurately depicted by the map below, with the size and density of the circles showing (by county) votes for Trump and Harris:
Copyright: Engaging Data
As can be seen by the second map, when Trump “punishes” sixteen Democratic states by unlawfully withholding funds appropriated by Congress, he is also punishing millions of Republican voters who live in those 16 states—23.7 million Republican voters, to be precise. (See chart below.)
Moreover, those sixteen states (currently) send 34 Republican representatives to the US House—each of whom must now explain to Republicans in those states why Trump is punishing them in his effort to exact revenge on Democrats. See the chart below.1
As I said, bullies are not smart. If they were, they wouldn’t need to be bullies. See, e.g., Donald Trump.
But it gets worse. Trump now claims that he will cancel “Democratic agencies” within the federal government. That boneheaded move is even worse than this first idea because every agency in the federal government serves voters from every party, including Republican voters in the reddest states in 2024.
Take, for example, the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, a program designed to preserve clean water by funding wastewater treatment, nonpoint source pollution control, and stormwater management. The program advances Democratic priorities, i.e., improving the environment by reducing water pollution. The program was passed over a veto by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.
Guess which states that voted for Trump in 2024 receive part of the $2 billion in annual subsidies from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund? All of them! See the EPA Memo FY 2025 Allotments for State Revolving Fund.
So, if Trump decides to axe the “Democratic tree-hugging clean water program,” he will punish every “Republican state” that awarded its electoral votes to him in 2024. In playing the vengeful bully, Trump is sowing the seeds of Republican defeat in 2026 and 2028.
As the above analysis shows, there is no simplistic way to withhold funds to punish Democrats without also punishing tens of millions of Republicans. Moreover, even as Trump exacts revenge on “Democratic states,” he is making it more difficult for Republican representatives in those states to hold onto their seats.
Logic suggests that Trump’s bullying tactics to end the shutdown should backfire on him. And it appears that it is. At the moment, more Americans “blame” Trump than “blame” Democrats for the shutdown. (As I have written previously, I believe “blame” is a useless metric in guiding Democratic strategy in the shutdown.)
My point is not that the polls are “correct” in assigning blame, but that they align with the common-sense observation that people do not like to be bullied and threatened—especially by their president and especially not if you voted for that president!
As I said, bullies are not smart. If they were, they wouldn’t need to be bullies. See, e.g., Donald Trump.
Opportunities for Reader Engagement
Conversation with Latino Victory & Rep. Mike Levin: The Fight for Prop 50
I will be moderating a special Substack livestream conversation with CA-49 Congressman Mike Levin and Latino Victory President & CEO Katharine Pichardo on Monday, October 6th at 4:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM PT.
We’ll dig into California’s Proposition 50 special election — a historic fight that could reshape Congress by redrawing the state’s maps to counter Trump’s mid-decade gerrymander in Texas. We’ll cover why Prop. 50 is essential to defending democracy and stopping Trump’s power grab, how the campaign is being waged on the ground and in the airwaves, the pivotal role of Latino voters who make up 40% of California’s electorate, and how to help in these final weeks before ballots are cast.
We will also hear from Rep. Levin, who has been a leader in the fight for Prop. 50 and brings a unique perspective as the son of a Mexican-American mother and Jewish father, representing California’s 49th District since 2019. A former clean energy attorney, Levin has built his career on tackling climate change, expanding veterans’ services, and advancing progressive priorities in Congress.
I hope you will tune in, and I would also encourage you to subscribe to Latino Victory’s substack for free as they work to build a platform to uplift Latino candidates running in important races this election cycle.
You will receive an email or notification in the Substack App as the livestream begins on Monday, October 6, 2025 at 4 PM Eastern / 1 PM Pacific.
Concluding Thoughts
Today’s newsletter is briefer than usual because I was tending to family matters. Thanks for your understanding.
I have belabored the point about Trump’s bullying tactics (and tried your patience) to make an important point: Trump literally controls the bully pulpit and is using the power of the federal government to “punish” his political adversaries—and that feels bad. It “feels” as though we are powerless to stop Trump’s mean-spirited, spiteful, unlawful mode of governing.
The sense of powerlessness is an illusion because we are using the incorrect timeframe to measure the success or failure of Trump’s tactics. As I hope I have demonstrated above, Trump is not only punishing Democrats, he is punishing all Americans, including Republicans who voted for him.
Every grant he withholds and every program he shuts down will hurt Republican voters. But for 250,00 votes in three states, Trump would have lost in 2024. He holds a razor-thin margin in the House.
He can ill afford to alienate any Republicans, much less tens of millions of them.
He can ill afford to alienate any of the Latinos he convinced to vote for him based on the economy, and yet he is now detaining Latino Americans on the street based on their skin color (thanks to Justice Kavanaugh).
He can ill afford to alienate any of the angry men he convinced to vote for him based on his promise to release the Epstein files, and yet is doing everything he can to conceal those files.
He can ill afford to alienate any of the independents and disaffected Democrats who voted for him because he would “lower prices on day one,” and yet is imposing consumer taxes on all Americans through tariffs.
None of this—the bullying, the racist detentions of Latinos, the concealment of the Epstein files, or the punitive tariffs—suggests that we should relent. Rather, we should use these issues to sharpen our political attacks on Trump and every Republican official. The trend in polls shows that Americans agree with us. They feel angry, betrayed, and motivated to express their outrage.
So, as we endure yet another day of Trump’s bullying tactics, remember that no one likes a bully—not even the human parasites who lurk by his side. Every taunt, every threat, and every punch alienates voters who now regret their support for Trump in 2024.
Stay strong!
[Note: I will hold my regular livestream, Weekly Dose of Perspective, on Saturday, October 4, at 9 a.m. Pacific / Noon Eastern. Instructions on how to join, here.]
Protest Photos
A note from Malissa R. from Baltimore about the photo below:
Our Northeast Baltimore City sign wave has been going for 23 consecutive Wednesday afternoon rush hours (5-6). Attendance has ranged from 21 to 75 through pouring rain and Baltimore heat and humidity, yesterday 44. We’ve branched out to distribute flyers to receptive drivers/passengers (stopped at a light) on how to get involved (see attached) and yesterday, October 1, we (spur of the moment idea) made a large sign to publicize the upcoming action on October 18. No way anyone driving by can claim they weren’t notified!
Santa Rosa, CA:
Oakland, CA:
Below, Somewhere in America:
Below, Indivisible San Jose supports Measure A:
Santa Clara County’s emergency measure to save our county hospitals from draconian cuts of $3 billion over the next few years. Reaction from motorists was very, very positive.
Photo below, with note from Elaine B.
“I live in a blue town, yet there are very unpleasant and nasty pro-Trump messages chalked on the path where I bike every morning. This morning, I added my two cents. Others respond via chalk, too. It’s a protest of a certain kind.”
*[*Note: I used Photoshop to remove an offensive term referring to liberals—which Elaine B. was responding to with her “No Kings” message.]
Daily Dose of Perspective
Galaxies M65, M66, and NGC 3628 form the “Leo Triplet.” They are roughly 35 million light-years from the Milky Way and exert gravitational influence on one another.
The above chart is my first use of “AI” to create content for this newsletter. I used Microsoft Copilot to create the chart. I entered this prompt: Prepare a table that includes the following columns: (a) the sixteen “Democratic” states that Trump proposes to punish by withholding funds appropriated by Congress; (b) the number of voters in each respective state that voted for Trump in 2024; © the number of voters in each respective state that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024; (d) the Percentage of the vote for Trump in each respective state; and (e) the number of Republican Representatives in the US House for each respective state. Include a header and a total for each column.
As an interesting aside, to verify Microsoft Copilot’s answer, I ran the same query in ChatGPT (the free version) and GROK. ChatGPT was unable to complete the task and gave up. GROK took much longer to complete the task and yielded slightly different numbers than CoPilot (for three states). I then fed the GROK chart into CoPilot and asked it to reconcile the discrepancies between the two charts. In each case, CoPilot indicated that GROK’s numbers were accurate. I then had CoPilot re-run the query to correct the errors, which produced the chart above.
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