Welcome to the Resistance, Driving Range Guys

Tim Apple and Sam Altman absolutely gagging on boot.

Author

Rusty Foster
January 28, 2026

Adam Serwer wrote the best thing I’ve read about the resistance to ICE in Minnesota. I think everyone should read it, so that’s a gift link in case you don’t subscribe to The Atlantic, which: understandable. Serwer wrote:

If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn’t be more extreme. Vice President Vance has said that “it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’” Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America.

Later, after describing how the resistance works and what it has accomplished so far, he returned to the theme of values:

Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs.

The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

This felt like an update to my own piece for the Washington Post about the presidential election way back in November, 2024, when I was hiking. Here’s a free archive link in case you don’t subscribe to the Post which, again: understandable. I wrote:

The [Appalachian] trail isn’t just a path through the woods; it’s a society organized around some of the best and most characteristically American virtues: spontaneous helpfulness, neighborly concern for a stranger, collective work for the common good. These virtues aren’t restricted to the trail; I’ve seen them all over the country. I’ve lived in Massachusetts, Maine, Virginia, D.C., San Francisco. I’ve driven across the country several times. Everywhere, people are friendly. If you need help, someone will help you. I’m sure we can all think of exceptions, but they are exceptions: We’re famous around the world for our outgoing cheerfulness and willingness to drop everything to help someone we just met. These aren’t just “small-town virtues.” I’ve watched half a dozen New Yorkers, all unknown to each other, convene an impromptu colloquy on a busy sidewalk to determine the optimum route for a lost tourist to reach his destination. In Union Station in D.C., I saw an elderly woman fall and cut her face and a dozen passengers hurrying for their own trains stop to help her. Everywhere, as individuals, this is how Americans act.

I ended with a question: “How can we reconcile living our lives with such openness, such abundant kindness, but governing ourselves with such fear and hate?” I still don’t have a good answer, but the predations of Trump and Stephen Miller’s secret police have sharpened the question to a killing point.

Nikita Gill posted “This hit so fucking hard today.” above a screenshot of the Charles Rafferty poem “The Problem with Early Warnings” which reads: “People don't like to leave a party unless the house is actually on fire. Even then, if the flames are far enough away to be pretty, they'll finish their drink, take one more pass at the hors d'oeuvres. How things happen has always been unclear. Hurricanes begin in a place where no one lives. Agents of the government start to wear masks. Fascism is a word my neighbors won't use yet. They are following the law, they say, and the sirens are coming for someone else.”

The poem is from The Southern Review, Winter 2026, available online at Project Muse.

That turned out to be the last piece I would publish in the Post, as Jeff Bezos was already in the process of destroying the newspaper’s Opinion section, preliminary to destroying the newspaper itself. My editor left the next month and her editor left in February, 2025. Many more reporters and editors have left since, but it’s still not enough for Jeff Bezos who is preparing to cut “as many as 300” more staff this February, according to Natalie Korach in Status. Rumor has it the whole sports section will be cut, and on Saturday Benjamin Mullin and Erik Wemple reported that the “Washington Post Tears Up Plans to Cover Winter Olympics” before further reporting on Monday that the Post had torn up the plans to tear up the plans to cover the Winter Olympics, and would now send “a small contingent,” presumably to cover only the most diminutive Olympic events. Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $266 billion dollars, to him this is the budgeting equivalent of deciding whether to get a small fry or a medium.

Last Saturday, a few hours after a group of masked and still-unidentified gunmen slaughtered Alex Pretti in the street, the current CEO of Bezos’s company Amazon attended a special White House premiere of the Melania Trump movie, a $75 million sweetener gifted to our historically corrupt President by Amazon and directed by the otherwise unemployable accused rapist Brett Ratner. Rolling Stone’s Tessa Stuart reported that “some two-thirds of the crew members who worked on the film in New York had requested not to have their names formally credited on the documentary,” and more have since regretted not requesting the same.

Also at the White House’s “Melania” premiere was Tim Apple, the tech CEO and corporate submissive who was critical of Trump in his first term but has consistently sided with the new, more vicious, second term Trump. Mr. Apple reports that he “had a good conversation with the president this week where I shared my views.” Those were very close-up views of the boot he was licking, I can only assume. Apple employees hate it, according to Sam Biddle in the Intercept, and they should quit, according to me. Right down there sucking boot with Tim was AI huckster Sam Altman, who told his employees that “President Trump is a very strong leader, and I hope he will rise to this moment and unite the country.” I asked ChatGPT and it told me that if Sam tilts his head back to really open the airway, he can probably fit the whole boot all the way down his throat.

Alex Pareene checked in at Defector with a great idea for a “mandatory long-term residential retraining program” for ICE and CBP. We miss you Alex! Welcome to the resistance, New York Times Editorial Board. “When Will He Resign?” asked Jonathan Katz, and me, and everyone else I hope. Welcome to the resistance, big dick subreddit. ICE officers are having big feelings about how much everyone hates them, reported Ken Klippenstein. Boo hoo. Welcome to the resistance, Woke Bill Kristol. Tom Homan reassigned to Minnesota by Fox News. Welcome to the resistance, driving range guys.

John Ganz posted “They're gonna call it Stancilgrad”

In Other News: Rosa Lyster’s Harper’s story about the pair of weirdos who killed the Sycamore Gap tree is a delight. Also Today in Ol’ Knifey: punters who don’t ‘alf fancy a wank will soon find themselves cock-a-leekie and right mugged off by Porn’ub innit bruv. Imagine if British people were real? Happy Feast Day of Saint Bugle. Aujourd'hui en Les Douches de Laval: “Quebec apartment turns into ‘ice castle’ after tenant turns off heat.” Netflix only paid Alex Honnold “mid-six figures” to broadcast what could have been his horrific death live. Cooooooool with at least eight o’s. Alex I am begging you to get a better agent. Square February starts this Sunday. Don DeLillo‘s long-lost hockey erotica. Jeremy Runover is back in the saddle.

And Finally: What the heck is going on with this insanely bitchy AirMail post about the extended Gould-Gessen family by Substacker Jessa Crispin, channeling the ghost of Ed Champion for no apparent reason? I love mess but this sucks.

Today’s Song: SPRINTS covering Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon”

I can’t imagine anyone else is having an easy time doing their work right now considering… gestures vaguely at everything. So when I know I should write Tabs on Tuesday but don’t find the wherewithal to actually do it until Wednesday, I just keep telling myself that no one is mad at me. So, here I am telling you: no one is mad at you. Do whatever you can, and the rest will wait.

If you did notice that Tabs wasn’t in your inbox yesterday, maybe that’s a sign you should become a paid subscriber?

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