Good morning, AlterNet America family.
Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I give you my thoughts on the week’s biggest news as I consume my caffeine with you.
I’d like to take a moment to say thank you again to our paying subscribers. Your support has allowed AlterNet America to remain as one of Substack’s top 20 publications in our first few months, and it’s what will allow us to expand our coverage in the months to come.
To those of you who are not yet paid subscribers, I’m asking you to consider joining us today. Because we don’t answer to a MAGA billionaire, we can cover these stories honestly. But that’s only possible if enough of our readers chip in. An AlterNet America subscription is just 22 cents a day. That’s not even one cup of coffee. Upgrade yours today.
Trump Threw Himself a Convention and Half the Party Didn’t Show Up
The Republican Party spent two days and $20,000 a ticket to tell America something it already knew.
This week, the GOP held its first-ever midterm convention in Dallas, a two-day event that RNC Chairman Joe Gruters called “Trump-a-Palooza.” More than 100 speakers took the stage, and not one made a case for the Republican Party that didn’t begin and end with Donald Trump.
The convention had no votes on party business and no formal nomination of candidates, making it a campaign rally with a higher price tag. The Republican Party of Virginia was charging between $1,000 and $1,500 per ticket, not including accommodations, while the Denton County Republican Party in Texas advertised packages ranging from $5,000 to $20,000.
On the first night, Trump pledged a $5,000 “Trump dividend” to every American if Republicans hold Congress in November. The quick math puts the cost at over $1 trillion, and that’s not counting the $2,000 tariff refunds he previously promised that haven’t materialized either.
Vice President Vance used his closing remarks to urge Americans to support Republicans even if they disagree with the party on specific issues, asking voters not to “give the country over to a bunch of crazy people.” Senator Ted Cruz went further by openly conflating communism and Islam, saying they were “sweeping over the Democrat Party.”
Even some Republicans came away worried that the convention offered no forward-looking vision for the party beyond Trump himself. Many candidates in competitive races declined to attend, citing scheduling conflicts or refusing to pay for access to an event that was supposed to help them win. Others cited the start of football season.
A Year After Charlie Kirk’s Death, His Legacy Is a Meme
Charlie Kirk has been dead for a year, and his most lasting contribution to American politics is an AI-generated Spotify hit and a federal crackdown on people who posted memes about him.
One year ago Thursday, Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University. Since then, an AI-generated tribute song titled “We Are Charlie Kirk” topped the Spotify Viral 50 charts — not because it was touching, but because it was hilarious. A trend known as “Kirkification” took off and users edited Kirk’s face into absurd situations, from movie posters to historical photos. On TikTok, X and Reddit, users started calling the anniversary the “Kirkiversary.”
The memes are less important than what the government did about them. In the weeks after Kirk’s killing, Trump accused the left of orchestrating the assassination without evidence, and the administration treated any public mockery as a threat, revoking visas of foreign nationals who celebrated online and even arresting a man in Tennessee for posting a meme.
Kirk’s death gave the administration a pretext to pursue what it called “domestic terrorist organisations.” One year later, the man who built his career accusing college campuses of silencing conservatives has become the government’s excuse to punish people who say the wrong thing online.
Since Kirk’s death, Turning Point USA has more than tripled its number of high school chapters to over 3,500. But those figures are against a backdrop of polling that shows only 32 percent of men ages 18 to 29 approved of Trump’s performance in August, down from 43 percent in February 2025.
Kirk’s organization has never been bigger, and it has never mattered less.
Navy Secretary Admits the Iran War Is Going Worse Than Trump Lets On
The acting Navy secretary did more damage to the administration’s war narrative this week than Iran did to the base in Bahrain.
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told The Epoch Times this week that Iran “blew the hell out of Bahrain,” referring to the naval base that serves as headquarters for the U.S. Fifth Fleet. It was the first time anyone in the Trump administration admitted the base was effectively destroyed.
Cao said the Navy is evaluating whether to repair the facility or abandon it entirely, and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle, has already said the Navy won’t return “anytime soon.” At an August town hall, a displaced sailor asked Caudle whether personal belongings left behind at the base would ever be returned.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, thanked Cao for his “candor” and said that Iran’s armed forces “did indeed blow the hell out of the 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain, as well as other bases supporting U.S. aggression.” He added that “the American people deserve better than footing the bill for Israel’s wars.”
The admission comes seven months into a war that has already cost $37.5 billion and pushed oil prices above $100 a barrel. The administration has been telling the public for six months that the war is going well.
A Federal Court Just Saved Mail-In Voting for November
This week, a federal court had to remind the Postal Service that its job is to deliver mail.
A federal court on Thursday temporarily barred the U.S. Postal Service from refusing to deliver mail ballots that did not comply with Trump’s March 31 executive order limiting mail voting. The order requires states to create unique bar codes for every ballot and upload all mail voters to a federal portal that doesn’t even exist yet.
Dozens of state and local election officials told the court they could not meet the deadline to be met before November. Only one state said it could, and even that state would only commit to “likely.”
The court said the rule was probably unconstitutional and that enforcing it would result in “practically inevitable” voter disenfranchisement. The preliminary injunction is in place through the election on Nov. 3.
The Trump administration had already asked the Supreme Court to intervene before the district court’s decision, and further legal challenges are likely. The fight continues, and the only reason you know about it is because someone covered it without permission from a billionaire.
At AlterNet America, we put the facts first. And right now, the fact is the only truly independent media is the kind entirely funded by the people who read it.
If you’ve been reading for free, please consider upgrading your subscription to paid. If you’re already a paid subscriber, forward this to someone who needs to see it, or a conservative relative you’d like to ruin dinner for.
We’ll be here, delivering the news. Unlike the Postal Service, we don’t need a court order.
—Ryan Rose, Co-Founder & Managing Editor, AlterNet America