Crypto Crash – The Serious Money Is Betting Trump Will Fail

Posted on February 6, 2026 by davej@nuthouse.com

The crypto crash means the “serious money people” are betting that Trump will fail.

When crypto started to become big money serious investors got involved. Serious investors do real analysis and usually know what they’re involved in. Sure, there are the dupes out there who think crypto has real “value.” But the real money in crypto comes from real investors putting millions into it and doing some degree of actual analysis of the risks.

Crypto’s only real use is crime. Its “use case” is ransomware, organized crime, bribery, fraud. With Trump there is the “rug-pull” fraud use case where you “issue” crypto coins, people place bets, and the issuer pulls the rug and cashes out. (Note – When you buy crypto you are giving crypto owners liquidity – backing the ability of criminals to cash out after their ransomware/bribery/whatever score.)

“Investing” in crypto is really just a bet on criming going up.

Crypto’s price went up and up because the real money made bets that Trump is going to be able to keep the crime racket going, even increasing it. They also believed the US government would step in and back it, buying up billions and maintaining its liquidity. A bet on crypto was a bet on Trump’s success at imposing a mafia state on the world.

So by pulling out and crashing the price, the “prediction market” of crypto – the big players – are betting that Trumpism isn’t going to succeed.

There Is No Line

Posted on January 20, 2026 by davej@nuthouse.com

If you think there is a line Trump will cross and lose his supporters, please Google “Jim Jones” or “drinking the Kool-Aid”.

It’s a cult. There is no line.

This is a photo of Republicans in Congress reaching their crossed “line”:

This Is America Now

Posted on January 16, 2026 by davej@nuthouse.com

This is what the world sees. Read it.

ICE ‘throw flash-bang at family car’ as 6 kids hospitalized including a 6-month-old baby,

She further explained: “ICE agents began tear-gassing a residential neighborhood after shooting a man nearby. As the gas spread, a family got into their vehicle to escape the tear gas. In the video, a man is seen standing in front of a car with airbags deployed on all sides, explaining that he told the agents he was trying to leave his house, with his family because of the tear gas. It comes after an out-of-control ICE agent yelled a disgusting 3-word slur before shooting a woman 5 times.
“Despite this, an agent threw multiple flash-bang grenades at the vehicle anyway… while children were inside.
“Inside the van was a 6-month-old infant who stopped breathing after the attack. EMTs were called and taking the baby in an ambulance.

Once this stuff gets started it only gets worse.

It Was Never About Immigration

Posted on January 12, 2026 by davej@nuthouse.com

The vast “immigration” apparatus is quickly migrating to a political enforcement apparatus.

The original excuse for building a vast “enforcement” apparatus was to deport “immigrants.” (People who are not white.) The pretense was “immigration” but the purpose was political — they sent them to “liberal” states and cities.

Now the right and their propaganda apparatus have drummed up a fake story about “fraud” in Minnesota. So guess what? They’re sending more agents to terrorize Minnesota over “fraud”, not “immigration.” NYTimes, Noem Says ‘Hundreds More’ Agents Will Be Sent to Minnesota Over ‘Corruption’,

Minneapolis crackdown: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News that “hundreds more” federal agents were being dispatched to Minneapolis to uncover “true corruption,” citing a yearslong federal investigation into social program fraud in the state. The deployment, to be carried out Sunday and Monday, comes after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman, Renee Good, there on Wednesday. On CNN, Ms. Noem again claimed that Ms. Good had attempted to “run over” agents.

Building the vast apparatus was never about “immigration.” It was about building a vast apparatus to enforce fascism.

It Always Starts With The Immigrants

Posted on December 26, 2025 by davej@nuthouse.com

It always starts with the immigrants. They’re “not us.”

Extreme measures and abuses become OK. Because “they” are “not us.”

Bradley Balko, writing in ‘Trump’s Immigration Nightmare: It Is Happening Here‘ at The New Republic,

We’ve seen rapid normalization of abuses we once associated with authoritarian regimes or the old Iron Curtain countries. It’s now routine for masked, unidentifiable government agents to sweep people off the street and whisk them away in unmarked vehicles. Some of those arrested have been quickly shuttled off to detention facilities in other parts of the country without any notification to their families or attorneys. Others have been sent to a third country, often a country in the developing world to which they have no connection. Still others have been explicitly targeted for their political opinions, their activism, or their journalism.

Then it moves to the minorities – as the definition of “us” is whittled down. “We” don’t want “them” making demands, getting benefits, etc.

Then the opposition is targeted because they’re in the way. Of course the activists and unions are targets. And YOU certainly don’t want to become a target by being opposition.

What Stage Is The US In?

The US is at the targeting-minorities stage already. I mean more than the usual persecution and discrimination. Now, if you “look like” you “might be” an “illegal” then it is accepted that you should be stopped and checked, and taken away if you can’t “prove” you are a “citizen.” The Republican Supreme Court already OK’d this. This is already happening all the time. “DEI” – which just means employing women and minorities – is considered criminal and the unemployment rate for non-whites is already almost double that for whites.

They have started on the opposition. Opponents are being “investigated” and prosecuted. For the rest they are sending a message.

What About You?

So do YOU want to be opposed to them? It’s time to decide if you are going to let them go any further down this path. They can be stopped if enough people stand up and refuse to go along with it.

2026

Posted on December 22, 2025 by davej@nuthouse.com

I suspect 2026 might be the year the shit hits the fan for the US. It’s clear their grip on power is threatened. The coming election will bring in the Dems if it is allowed to be free and fair. And that will mean some amount of accountability. The resistance is finding its voice. AND the economy is faltering. So they will feel threatened.

I think they will feel it is take it or lose it time. They’ll want a real clampdown to get things under control. Send dissenters to camps. Shoot protesters. Turn your neighbor in. A war could give them legal powers for that.

I really do suspect Putin advised not to move too fast and be too public about the takeover by the Putin/MBS/Oligarchs etc. cartel because of the resistance that would bring, but now that MAGA is dividing it’s maybe time to advance the project.

They don’t have the machine built up yet for mass detention of people (immigrants are a cover story). They’re hiring and buying equipment. So I wonder if they have the ability to make people afraid enough. There is a tradition of resisting this stuff in the US… On the other hand, if they just go for it and start shooting and rounding people up for disloyalty, all bets are off.

That’s my year-end look back at 2025. Have a Happy Holiday!

Later-State Capitalism

Posted on December 14, 2025 by davej@nuthouse.com

Late-stage capitalism is horrific inequality as billionaires harvest the rest of us.

Later-stage capitalism is fascism funded by billionaires who want to keep it that way.

Polls Only Measure Headlines

Posted on December 12, 2025 by davej@nuthouse.com

Polls measure one and only one thing: headlines. (Or however things are being circulating at a given time.) This is something the right’s apparatus of media outlets and lobbying/PR firms figured out a long time ago. This is why owning local news stations and bot networks and the control of the social media that amplifies them are now so important to the oligarchs.

People get worked up about what they’re TOLD to get worked up about. Marketing actually works.

Polls used to consistently show the public believe most of the US budget goes to “foreign aid.” Under Biden polling showed the public believed the “border crisis” was the #1 “problem.” Past top polling concerns have included “Obama phones,” jury awards to people harmed by spilling extremely hot coffee in moving cars, Satanic cults abusing children, “the national debt” (when Democrats want to spend money to make people’s lives better), … It comes down to whoever is paying big bucks to get the pubic to believe something. This is how politics works right now in the US.

MAGA Ballroom 2028

Posted on October 4, 2025 by davej@nuthouse.com

Trump Isn’t The Collapse, Trump Is A Consequence Of The Collapse

Posted on May 25, 2025 by davej@nuthouse.com

People say America and its democracy are being collapsed by Trump. I have come to believe that what we have been calling “late-stage capitalism” was a system that had already collapsed.

Trump isn’t the collapse, Trump is the consequence of the collapse.

The Rule of Law had departed some time ago. The Constitutional system was nonfunctional. The economic system was rigged. The political system benefited only the wealthy and their corporations. That was collapse.

Accountability had long ago disappeared. (A pardon for Nixon? What?) Executives at corporations are never prosecuted. Instead the company itself would be fined – as if companies are sentient entities that can make decisions and do things. White-collar criminals were rarely prosecuted. This is how Trump was able to even be on the scene in the first place to run for office, instead of imprisoned for sex crimes, money laundering, fraud, etc.

The collapse was how Reagan was able to get away with the deal with Iran, and the later Iran/Contra deal.

The collapse was how the Supreme Court was able to make Bush president.

The collapse was how the Iraq War happened.

The collapse was how the climate crisis came about in the first place, how the companies were allowed to continue to put carbon into the air after scientists warned us of the harm it was causing, and how the executives at the companies that caused it got rich instead of being prosecuted.

The collapse was how tax cuts for the rich & corporations, with budget cuts for things government does to make people’s lives better happened.

The collapse was how no bankers were prosecuted for fraud after the financial collapse, and Wall Street but not the public was bailed out.

Rule of Law and accountability had long since disappeared from the United States. That was the collapse.

This wasn’t “late stage capitalism,” it was collapse.

People called these things “late stage capitalism.” This wasn’t late stage capitalism at all. We were already living with the collapse of the Constitutional system, the collapse of Rule of Law, the collapse of accountability. It was corruption taking over. It had been happening for decades.

Trump is just a consequence of that collapse.

In 2017’s Democracy and Corruption I wrote about “democracy off the rails” and democracy “corroded,” not realizing Trump was only possible was because the collapse had already happened.

Trump didn’t just come out of nowhere. The road to Trump goes back a long way. Trump comes out of a steady and intentional undermining of rule of law, norms, equality, civility and democracy.

They say these things happen slowly, then all at once. The collapse was happening for decades, then all at once with Trump.

Government Cheese

Chronicling the collapse of democracy