Next Tuesday is Election Day. No matter what happens in this off-off-year election, this will produce a flurry of speculation about the current state of the political landscape in America, and what it will all mean for the election that is going to happen next year, when all of the House and one-third of the Senate will be on the ballot. As usual, though, drawing sweeping conclusions this far out is likely to prove laughably mistaken, since a year's time in a normal political atmosphere is still an eternity, and an entire year in the Trump era feels like an even longer time than that.

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For the second month in a row, the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates. This move was expected, but the Fed chair is now warning that there might not be a third drop when they meet again in December. A big part of his hesitancy stems from the fact that the Fed is now essentially flying blind, because the government shutdown has caused the flow of economic data to halt. Jerome Powell used a different transportation-based metaphor to describe this, saying: "If there is a high level of uncertainty, then that could be an argument in favor of caution about moving.... What do you do if you are driving in the fog? You slow down. I'm not committing to that. I'm just saying it's certainly a possibility that you would say, 'We really can't see. So let's slow down.'"

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At the end of this week, the federal government will have been shut down for a full month. As things stand currently, few people expect anything to change before then. No viable exit ramp has appeared yet, and none is likely to do so until Donald Trump returns from his foreign trip. This will push the shutdown into November, which will dramatically increase the pressure to come to some sort of agreement, because while some money has been shuffled around to keep certain things funded (like military salaries), it's going to get substantially harder to do so in November. This means many programs are just going to completely grind to a halt, which is going to mean more and more of the public becomes directly affected by the shutdown.

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So, let's review, shall we? Last weekend, seven million Americans took to the streets to protest Donald Trump, in the biggest political protest this country has ever seen. The theme of the protest was: "No Kings!" So this week, Trump responded by acting in what can only be described as kingly fashion, in as many ways as he could dream up -- including a rushed demolition of one-third of the White House, without consulting anyone or even attempting to get anyone's permission. He sent the demolition crews in, and within a few days the entire East Wing was nothing more than a pile of rubble. All because a royal decree had been issued.

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We are now entering Week 4 of the government shutdown, with no end in sight. There aren't any compromise solutions on the table, the two sides aren't even talking to each other in any noticeable way, and Donald Trump is getting ready for a weeklong trip outside the country. This has so far been the second-longest shutdown in American history, and it certainly looks like it is on track to top the record and become the longest.

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Tomorrow could be the biggest day of mass protest America has ever experienced. The "No Kings" rallies planned for Saturday could, collectively, add up to more than the five million who turned out earlier this year for the same reason: to protest that America was founded on the idea that we do not want to be ruled by a king who holds himself above the law, but instead by laws that all people -- even the country's highest leaders -- have to follow. That's a pretty basic premise, really. And the organizers of the rallies have reportedly gotten a much larger signup than occurred at their earlier rally, so the signs are pointing to tomorrow breaking records as well. There will be over 2,500 locations of these rallies across all 50 states, so go to their site and check out where the closest one to you is!

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Donald Trump ran on the slogan "America First," but more and more it is looking like he's morphing his foreign policy into the second coming of the Monroe Doctrine. The United States meddling in the politics of Central and South America has a long and mostly ugly history, and Trump seems to want to write a few new chapters of that history. This is already causing some blowback among his MAGA supporters, since it runs so counter to what he promised them on the campaign trail.

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So far, the people who own the biggest news media outlets in the country have not been doing a notable job of standing up to Donald Trump. The television and cable networks have largely knuckled under, with several of them paying what can only be called multimillion-dollar medieval tributes to the king. Print journalism has had its exceptions -- organizations which are still standing firm and suing Trump in court (and being countersued) -- but some have also adopted "go along to get along" policies (most notably the Washington Post, which has seen an enormous exodus of longstanding journalistic talent leave, after the paper decided their editorial board had to be more friendly to Trump). But today, virtually all of them stood together and said "No!" to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

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Donald Trump actually achieved something worthwhile this week. A ceasefire deal that will result in all the hostages being released was hammered out between Israel and Hamas, and the guns have gone silent in Gaza. Whether this results in a long-lasting peace deal remain to be seen (there are a lot of details that are still "to be determined" in the deal), but progress has definitely been made. However, Trump did not achieve what he really wanted in all this, as the Nobel Peace Prize was announced today -- for someone else. Maybe he'll be considered next year, but so far the petulance and anger from the MAGA crowd has already begun.

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As the government shutdown enters its second week, Democrats appear to have the upper hand. It's not an overwhelming advantage, but it does seem like the Republicans are losing the battle for public opinion. This strengthens the Democrats' position -- for the time being. Public opinion is a fickle thing and could easily shift as the impacts of the shutdown become more widely felt, but for now Democrats seem to be the ones winning the battle for hearts and minds.

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