Alexandra Chandler

The underlying tension haunting the 2025 election And what it could mean for 2026

Do you want me to tell you about how elections next week fit into protecting the 2026 election against Trump’s future attempts to rig them? Of course you do.

I wrote a thing with my brilliant teammate Emily. It’s a scary movie, but a predictable one. And I do believe the good guys will win.

Opinion | I resigned from the military because of Trump I could not swear to follow a commander in chief who seems so willing to disregard the Constitution.

Thanks to (now retired) Col. Krugman for this. So well said. Though I wasn’t active duty but a civilian DoD intelligence analyst, his reasoning echoes mine when I left in ‘17.

Our best natsec people should keep serving as long as they can, but it’s also important to draw lines and know when to go.

Former Republican members of Congress file amicus brief supporting the Voting Rights Act in the U.S. Supreme Court The brief emphasizes that Section 2 represents a durable, bipartisan legislative achievement that reflects Congress's constitutional responsibility to protect voting rights.

As SCOTUS weighs further gutting the Voting Rights Act, we filed a brief on behalf of Republican members of Congress who last voted to reauthorize it, warning the Court not to disregard decades of bipartisan congressional fact-finding and Congress' role. protectdemocracy.org/work/former-...

Good for my alma mater. I was furious when they surrendered to the Administration’s blackmail settlement and made trans students and staff 2nd class members of Brunonia.

This is a step away from capitulation and toward academic freedom and civil rights.

And a step toward earning back my trust.

"I think in a free country we should be able to post onto the internet, 'hey, there are masked agents on Broadway and Vine and not have the government or the tech oligarchs prevent us from doing that.' Shame on you, Tim Cook."

@radiofreetom.bsky.social joins @timmiller.bsky.social:

We need more of this. Not the all caps part.

We must make universities who would sell out students more afraid of accountability for their actions than of this Administration. As Disney learned.

As others in business and govt must learn. There aren’t enough sweetheart deals or pardons for all.

As if irony isn’t already dead, the Hatch Act violation on the DOJ website, which blames Democrats for the shutdown, appears on the page advising DOJ employees they are subject to the Hatch Act. joycevance.substack.com/p/a-note-abo...

Kash Patel fires FBI agent trainee for displaying gay pride flag The FBI employee was fired on the first day of the government shutdown as President Trump threatened more terminations.

Dismissed because a pride flag is “political.”

While federal employees can now wear MAGA hats at work.

Someday, Republicans will regret silence at this Administration’s brazen favoritism and targeting. Each disgrace makes it harder for a future Democratic president to resist turning the tables.

H/t to my father in law who pointed out that contrary to SECDEF* Hegseth, we’ve had some excellent “beardos” in the military over time. Like at Antietam.

*he says “dudes in dresses”, I’m not using his preferred name as SecWar or indulging his delusional hyper masculine gender performance as policy

As usual with this Administration, every accusation is a confession— Trump and Hegseth are bringing the “toxic ideological garbage” to DoD and making it in their chest thumping, weak image.

Russia, China, and foreign terrorists are thrilled with their speeches today and will eat our lunch.

My takes from Trump and Hegseth’s disgraceful speeches:

- They are trying to turn the military against the American people

- The generals are not having it

- Trump and Hegseth are weak bullies, who wouldn’t be tough enough to face one day in the life of a trans person, woman, or Black person.

On Tuesday, hundreds of U.S. generals and admirals are scheduled to attend an emergency meeting called by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Our own @alexandrachandler.bsky.social, a former intelligence analyst, outlines the stakes. Read her full take here: https://protdem.org/42SBgzU

Taken just a few minutes ago outside the ICE facility in Portland that Trump claims is under siege. My message to Donald Trump is this: we don’t need you here. Stay the hell out of our city.

Every single one of these clips was taken today in downtown Portland. Portland doesn’t want or need a federal takeover. If Trump insists on sending federal “resources” he can start with funding health care, bridges, affordable housing, and wildfire protection to name a few.

Your correspondent here in war ravaged Portland, at the moderately busy airport where lackadaisical travellers are headed to Disneyland or Spokane, no doubt fleeing for their lives. Relief supplies down to essentials like cold craft beer and marionberry jam.

Trump’s TruthSocial order to send troops to Portland is ridiculous. He is trying to look tough after losing badly in the attempt to use tragedy to cancel Kimmel and others, and for the shutdown. If he really wanted to help local LE deal with ICE protests, he’d ask.

But he wants fear and violence.

As a resident of #Portland it is impossible to capture how unhinged this is. We are a low crime city and the ICE protest "siege" consists of one auxiliary ICE office that normally has at most a dozen weirdos debating what performance art they should use to block a single driveway

Troops to Portland? Illegal and absurd. But the absurdity is the point. Trump policy is to ignore real threats to US security coming from abroad and use the armed forces to pursue imaginary threats from within, thereby creating an atmosphere suitable for personal rule. (1/2)

OUR BATHROOM MIRRORS ARE VITAL TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY

Nothing says limited government, affordability, and national security in one go like a president making cabinets, vanities and furniture more expensive.

My trio: release the Epstein files, end your police state, and don’t shut down the govt because you want to take healthcare from millions.

Trans people also invented mail in ballots, in 1798. And Hunter’s laptop. We cancelled Infrastructure Week 47 times.

We hid the remote. And we’re why your phone dies at 12%.

A possible shutdown is about millions of (non trans) people’s healthcare costs skyrocketing to pay for billionaire tax cuts.

If there is more and more of Trump playing medical doctor to the country echoing a lot of his “bring light inside the body” ivermectin / bleach advice energy from 2020, I wonder if that does anything to hurt his popularity beyond the hard MAGA-MAHA core.

According to Tom Homan, for the crime Tom Homan allegedly committed, Tom Homan should have his citizenship stripped away and be renditioned to a foreign prison without receiving due process in the courts.

Sorry, Tom Homan, but those are Tom Homan's rules.

Oh, and we cancelled Disney Plus and Hulu because even though I hadn’t finished Andor (don’t judge, I’m busy) there was no way to keep watching it on a platform owned by those capitulating to our would be dictator.

Meanwhile, I subscribed to @wired.com because they are unafraid. Market forces FTW.

Domestic deployment blues The National Guard deployment to Memphis might be easy to ignore — don’t

Read @ansleyskipper.bsky.social on the National Guard deployment you're probably not paying much attention to — and why you should be following more closely www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/domestic-d...
@protectdemocracy.org

Russian fighters over Estonia, drones over Poland and Romania, Xi eating our lunch with India, and unchecked death in Ukraine and Gaza.

Our crack LE/natsec govt leadership?

Considering a Heritage proposal to label all trans people are a terror threat.

And still haven’t released the Epstein files.

They are literally canceling culture

Bondi Prompts Broad Backlash After Saying She’ll Target ‘Hate Speech’

Trump-MAGA-Musk are tripping over themselves competing for who can use this tragedy to most ruthlessly grab power and punish enemies. (trans people, democracy orgs,etc)

Yet Bondi has united left, center, even far right that her attempt to define illegal speech/wrongspeak is ridiculous.

Slow clap.

Winning the fight, and defeating the authoritarian threat, demands that we rise to the challenge of solidarity and refuse to bend to efforts to break apart our coalition by attacking our most vulnerable allies. Trans and nonbinary Americans — and our democracy — depend on it. Subscribe at IfYouCanKeepIt.org

Scapegoating trans and nonbinary folks is right out of the authoritarian playbook to gain and consolidate power. Here’s how to fight back against the scapegoating to protect our communities and defeat the authoritarian threat. https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/protecting-democracy-requires-protecting

And following jealousy of the British for a govt that holds predators and associates accountable rather than covering up for them— here is Brazil holding their president accountable for plotting a coup. Like South Korea did.

Must be nice.

Yet democracy will still prevail here too, eventually.