It’s not working.

But Capt. Cody Khork still paid for it with his life.

The countries Donald Trump terrorized with tariffs are not playing ball. The media he belittled aren’t playing ball, either.

And the problem with propaganda, any propaganda, is once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

And with Trumpaganda, everyone can see the face of the impetus for distraction: Jeffrey Epstein.

What regular citizens have started to figure out on their own is that Epstein was no ringleader: he was the middleman, and bombs and recessions aren’t stopping them from seeing senseless murders used to hide it: not Capt. Cody Khork, not Alex Pretti, not Renee Good.

Not Maj. John A. Klinner, Maj. John A. Klinner, 33, of Auburn, Alabama, Tech. Sgt. Ashley B. Pruitt, Capt. Seth R. Koval, Capt. Curtis J. Angst, Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, Sgt. Declan J. Coady, Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, or Sgt. Benjamin Pennington.

One of the most telling signs that Trumpaganda is failing is a single quote from Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons’s cousin from NBC4i:

Alongside their grief, Simmons’ family is making a plea and calling on the United States to stop the war with Iran.  

“This could have been prevented,” [Stephan] Douglas said. “We didn’t need to be in this war. This is uncalled for, and this is what we get.” 

Simmons’ family encouraged people to register to vote if they’d like to see change. 

When emotional destruction brings clarity and not blindness to your target audience, propaganda fails.

When your own citizens die while your deluded and talentless gold digger nobody wife has a vanity film tank at the box office while your vapid granddaughter is wasting taxpayer money dragging Secret Service Agents to Erewhon to blow hundreds of dollars on a couple of crappy items while the rest of the family lines their pockets, people are not going to be distracted.

They are going to get focused. They will have a clarity of vision as they align perceptions with reality.

You cannot terrorize them with insults, war, threats of prosecution, or economic hardship.

In life, there is a version of Paper, Scissors, Rock. The person fighting to win will beat the person fighting not to lose, but neither can defeat the one with nothing to lose.

Trump is now fighting not to lose, and he is now up against people fighting to win, like Gavin Newsom, and citizens who now have nothing to lose.

And he’s just made the conditions for those two groups to form an alliance.

All while his own protective bloc are at each other’s throats because he couldn’t deliver when he arrived.

It is a tintinnabulation.

And the downfall of a man who never knew when to quit when he was ahead.