Everything is getting worse, but the country hasn’t collapsed. This is all by design. Donald Trump is a useful idiot for the people behind the scenes and Project 2025, most notably Russell Vought. The Trump administration is using the nation’s finances like a personal piggy bank for themselves and large corporations while gutting agencies that provide critical services. The misconception is that Trump is driving things into the ground. He’s not. He’s just making things so shitty that the corporate state looks good in comparison.

Resources

ProPublica: “Their Entire Apparatus Is Exposed to Our Strategy”

ProPublica: “We Want the Bureaucrats to Be Traumatically Affected”

Yahoo: This Trump Official Promised To Traumatize Federal Workers — Watch His Words Come Back To Haunt Him

The New York Times: Two Dead and Scores Rescued as Flooding Engulfs Central Texas

IMF: World Economic Outlook Update, July 2026: Global Economy in Crosscurrents of War and Technology

ProPublica: “Put Them in Trauma”: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda

The New York Times: Why Silicon Valley’s Most Powerful People Are So Obsessed With Hobbits

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Price Index Summary - 2026 M06 Results

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Producer Price Index News Release summary - 2026 M06 Results

U.S. News: Trump Administration’s Changes to the CFPB Cost Americans $19B, a New Report Says

KFF: In Preliminary Rate Filings, ACA Marketplace Insurers Largely Propose Double-Digit Premium Increase For 2027, Following a Steep Climb This Year

National Association of Realtors: NAR Pending Home Sales Report Shows 5.4% Decrease in June

The New York Times: Cyclospora Cases Rise Rapidly, With No Source Yet Confirmed

The New Yorker: The Human Cost of DOGE’s War on U.S.A.I.D.

The Washington Post: The gaps in CDC’s public health data are creating dangerous blind spots

Axios: Measurement tweaks will make inflation data look better

UNFTR Resources

Episode: “Russputin” and the Tsar.

Episode: Project 2025.

Video: U.S. Financials in Free Fall | Graham, McConnell, and the Strait of Hormuz

Video: Trump Is a Useful Idiot for the People Behind the Scenes.

--

If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com.

Become a member at unftr.com/memberships.

Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com.

Visit our bookshop.org page at bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations.

Access the UNFTR Musicless feed by following the instructions at unftr.com/accessibility