Sunday Wrapup: The Week the System Started Fighting Back

Grab your coffee and let's get to work.

Good morning, Raw America family, I’m writing this over my Sunday coffee, reflecting on what’s been another wild week in American politics. And honestly? For the first time in months, I’m feeling something I haven’t felt in a while. Hope.

Thank you if you’ve joined us as a paying subscriber. Your support allowed us to hire another full-time writer who’s joining us on Monday. As the corporate media crumbles, we’re just getting started.

If you’ve yet to join, please consider signing up. We’re still near the top of Substack’s growth charts, which allows us to reach more progressive voters. If you can, I’d love to have you here with me, building this powerful movement.

Now let’s get into it. This week, we finally saw a Trump-appointed judge do their job. Unlike the Supreme Court, Judge Nancy Brasel — nominated by Trump in 2018 — dismantled the administration’s excuses for denying detained migrants access to legal counsel. Her words were wonderful: “The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights.”

This marks the 45th time a Trump-nominated judge has ruled against his own administration’s policies. That’s not a coincidence; it’s the rule of law working.

Perhaps even more encouraging: a Washington, D.C. grand jury refused to indict six Democratic lawmakers who made a video telling soldiers to follow the Constitution. Grand jury rejections are rare. But when citizens hear the evidence, they’re seeing through the political theater.

These lawmakers, all veterans or former intelligence officials, said nothing more than what military law has required for generations: you may refuse an unconstitutional order. Trump called it “seditious” and “punishable by death.” A jury of his fellow citizens said no.

Meanwhile, the rot at the top is becoming impossible to ignore. Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski have turned Homeland Security into their personal playground, firing a Coast Guard pilot after Noem’s blanket was left behind. (They were forced to rehire him to get home.) When Noem’s own ICE director was asked repeatedly whether she should resign, he wouldn’t even defend her.

Here’s a statistic that tells the whole story: habeas corpus filings by detained migrants have increased 10,000 percent since Trump took office — from 66 per month to over 6,600. Lawyers are winning 95% of these cases, proving the detentions are unlawful.

We also learned this week that Trump spent over $40 million deporting people to the wrong countries, including $1 million per person to send seven migrants to Rwanda. Most have already returned to their actual home countries. This is expensive human trafficking, nothing more.

I’ve been covering politics for two decades, and I’ve never seen anything like what we’re witnessing. But this week proved something important: institutions matter. Judges still read the Constitution. Grand juries still protect citizens from political prosecutions. And when enough people demand accountability, even Republican members of Congress will break ranks, as six did this week to vote against Trump’s tariffs.

That’s exactly why Raw America exists. The corporate media doesn’t weave these stories together for you. We don’t answer to billionaire donors or oligarchs. We answer to you.

This fight is far from over. Trump’s authoritarian instincts haven’t changed, and neither has his willingness to shred constitutional norms. But this week showed that resistance is possible, that institutions can push back, and that Americans still believe in the rule of law when they hear the facts.

I like to include one of our Substack notes in my weekly email. Here’s an incredible video of a protest in Orange, CA, where individuals carried signs with the words SIGNS OF FASCISM. The signs? Controlling the media. Detaining without due process. Rewriting history. Rejecting election results. Punishing free speech. Accusing others of crimes you committed. This is fascism exactly.

The question is whether independent media can survive long enough to keep telling these stories. Corporate outlets are being captured in real time — just look at what’s happening at CBS under Bari Weiss. We’re literally watching journalism transform into propaganda.

Raw America will keep fighting. But we need you with us. Every subscription, every share, every conversation you have about these stories matters. Democracy doesn’t defend itself; it requires active participation from citizens who refuse to let authoritarians normalize corruption and chaos.

Thanks for being part of this fight. Thanks for supporting independent journalism. And thanks for refusing to let them gaslight us into thinking this is normal.

Enjoy your Sunday. We’ll be back tonight with more truth-telling.

—In solidarity, John Byrne
Founder, Raw America