A stark report from one of the main independent European think tanks says there is no going back to any sort of pre-MAGA America, and warns that even after the Trump years, unless drastic action is taken, the “core fascist” political beliefs of the MAGA movement won’t quickly disappear.

“By the 2030s, the vulgarity, corruption, buffoonery, cult-like loyalty to Donald Trump and gratuitous cruelty of this regime may fade into history,” writes Lincoln Mitchell for the Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS). “As these most visible aspects of MAGA disappear many will choose to believe that the country has been reunified, but the core fascist political beliefs of the MAGA movement are unlikely to fade away so quickly.”

“As the Trump regime continues to sink into fascism and corruption, it is increasingly evident that the US will be forever changed by this era,” he continues. “If the US emerges from the Trump years as a functioning and cohesive, just in the legal sense, country, something that cannot be easily assumed, it will look very different than it did before Trump announced his candidacy in June of 2015 and almost immediately became the dominant figure in American political life.”

READ MORE: ‘Political Stunt’: Trump Admin Rages After NYC Re-Raises Pride Flag at Stonewall

Mitchell, a political analyst, essayist, and lecturer at Columbia University, points to other times of crisis in American history, such as the Civil War or the 1960s and 1970s, and warns against those who “say that if we survived that, we can survive this.”

“That view cannot be ignored, but if we take it seriously, we must push back on the idea that the US simply survived those crises,” he writes. “The social movements that led to greater racial equality and expansions of rights for women, people of color, LGBT people and others-and the backlashes to all those movements that soon followed-still drive much of our political life and political conflicts.”

He says that even if, post-Trump, “the MAGA fervor cools a little,” it will be possible for Americans to reform the political system just enough to say to themselves that the fascist MAGA threat has passed — but they may be fooling themselves. The issues that spawned the MAGA movement will still be “central to our political life.”

Mitchell says it “should be clear” to all that now, more than a decade after Trump launched the MAGA movement, “there is no going back.”

He suggests that the question Americans need to answer is whether they want to return to “ineffective center-left administrations” or “fascist or fascist adjacent ones.”

Mitchell warns that to defeat MAGA, a few Democratic Party wins at the ballot box will not suffice.

“It will require an earnest rethinking not just of what American democracy can be, but of what the US is. It means accepting that the Constitution is no longer the core document that governs the US, so our political imaginations must not be bound by it.”

READ MORE: ‘Politically Toxic’: Voters Say Biden Was Better Than Trump

 Image via Reuters 

New York City elected officials and activists re-raised the LGBTQ+ pride flag on Thursday at the Stonewall National Monument in defiance of a Trump administration edict that led to the iconic emblem’s removal. In response, the U.S. Department of the Interior called re-raising the flag a “political stunt.”

The flag’s removal became a national flashpoint after the National Park Service quietly took it down over the weekend from the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ civil rights movement, drawing hundreds of locals to protest this week and prompting elected leaders to vow to raise it again.

PIX11 News’ Henry Rosoff reported that elected officials had aimed to add the flag to a pole that was currently flying the American flag, wanting to “avoid a conflict” because they “believe they’ve been baited by the Trump administration.”

As the pride flag was re-raised, one attendee, USA Today reported, “attempted to pull down the adjacent U.S. flag, as some chanted ‘take it down’ and ‘burn the American flag.’ The local elected officials left immediately after the pride flag was raised and did not give speeches.”

Democratic New York State Senator Erik Bottcher told MS NOW on Thursday, “We’re going up against the federal government, and we’re going to continue doing it until we win.”

READ MORE: ‘100% Exonerated’: In Wild Rant Trump Ties Bondi’s Epstein Hearing to Russia Probe

Earlier, he had written, “removing the Pride flag from Stonewall is not a minor change. It is erasure. It is an act of exclusion. It sends a message that LGBTQ+ visibility is negotiable, even at the very site where our community fought back. Stonewall is sacred ground. The Pride flag is not partisan. It is history. It is belonging. And we will not be intimidated into silence.”

Other elected officials, including Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, and others have publicly condemned the removal of the flag this week.

The U.S. Department of the Interior issued a scathing statement in opposition to the flag being raised again.

“Hundreds of families in New York City went without power during this year’s severe cold weather, people are being found dead on the streets, and trash has piled up so high it towers over city residents,” the statement reads, as ABC Eyewitness News reported. “This is Mayor Mamdani and city officials’ New York City. While today’s political stunt is a distraction from their recent deadly failures, it would be a better use of their time to get the trash buildup off city streets, ensure there are no more avoidable deaths, and work to keep the power on for the people of New York City. Today’s political pageantry shows how utterly incompetent and misaligned the New York City officials are with the problems their city is facing.”

More here 👉️ https://t.co/HtRJtbqjcM | Local leaders have re-raised the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument on Thursday afternoon after the Trump administration replaced it with an American flag this week. pic.twitter.com/oyezsOQQem

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) February 12, 2026

READ MORE: ‘Politically Toxic’: Voters Say Biden Was Better Than Trump

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In a Truth Social rant President Donald Trump on Thursday praised Attorney General Pam Bondi’s widely-criticized and combative performance at Wednesday’s congressional hearing on the Epstein files and declared that it totally exonerated him of any charges surrounding Russia.

“AG Pam Bondi,” the president began, “under intense fire from the Trump Deranged Radical Left Lunatics, was fantastic at yesterday’s Hearing on the never ending saga of Jeffrey Epstein, where the one thing that has been proven conclusively, much to their chagrin, was that President Donald J. Trump has been 100% exonerated of their ridiculous Russia, Russia, Russia type charges.”

It was not immediately apparent why he conflated the Epstein files with allegations of Russian interference, but he went on to declare that, instead, it is “the SLIMEBALL Democrats” who “have been proven GUILTY!”

READ MORE: ‘Politically Toxic’: Voters Say Biden Was Better Than Trump

The president also attacked “’Republican’ Loser, Sanctimonious RINO Congressman, Thomas Massie,” who has been leading the charge on the GOP side to release the Epstein files.

Trump claimed the Republican lawmaker “made a total fool of himself yesterday, fighting aimlessly against a hopeless agenda of Hate and Stupidity, as most clearly stated by his crashing Job Approval Numbers in the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky, where a Military Hero Opponent, Ed Gallrein, is crushing him in the Polls.”

Trump has vowed to “lead the charge” to primary Massie.

Despite campaigning on releasing the Epstein files, Trump claimed, “Nobody cared about Epstein when he was alive, they only cared about him when they thought he could create Political Harm to a very popular President who has brought our Country back from the brink of extinction, and very quickly, at that!”

Trump did not explain how the Epstein files might create political harm for him.

“In fact,” he concluded, “this attempt by the Democrats to take away attention from tremendous Republican SUCCESS is backfiring badly. Maybe they should focus on their quest to Open our Borders to the World’s Greatest Criminals, have Transgender for Everybody or, get Men, no matter their size or strength, to play in Women’s Sports. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”

READ MORE: NYC Officials to Defy Trump Admin Over Pride Flag Removal From Stonewall National Monument

Image via Reuters