The U.S.'s political landscape - and our daily lives - are increasingly shaped by repression and violence, amplified by a media cycle designed to keep us fearful in the present, uncertain about the future, and depleted. Exhaustion is not a side effect of this system. It is one of its core tools. Last year, I wrote that Donald Trump's attacks were designed to exhaust us. Over the past year, I've watched communities build movements and adapt their organizing under this reality.
Over the course of the roundtable, President Donald Trump suggested that protests against him had been organized by mysterious funders, who he hinted could soon be in 'deep trouble.' He complained about television networks that were biased against him but praised CBS, whose parent company had recently been purchased by a Trump-friendly billionaire. And he touted an executive order that demanded the Justice Department bring charges for burning American flags.
Now, a new book details the campaign of coercive control waged against the late Tina Satchwell, and the deep extent of his manipulation. 'Beneath the Stairs' written by Paul Byrne and Ralph Riegel details the sheer cruelty of convicted killer Richard Satchwell and features extensive interviews conducted with Satchwell after his wife went missing in 2017, as he tried to portray himself as a victim and claimed she had run off with €26,000 of their life savings.
The film unpacks how, in an age before social media but already steeped in digital illusion, a young artist managed to deceive one of Europe's most powerful critics and an entire institutional ecosystem. In 1999, Flash Art magazine published a ranking of Italy's top fifty artists. Toscani, famed for his boundary-pushing Benetton campaigns, appeared second to last, just above Marco Lavagetto, dubbed 'the poor man's Cattelan.'
"There appeared to be a kind of vortex in the middle of the table in the meeting room; it sizzled and gave off sparks. Some paper clips flew into it and disappeared. "Her? Who?" "Melania Trump!" the voice yelled. "The future first lady!" "Future?" "First lady?" "There's no time to explain! Just put her on it! Put her on as many of them as you can! Trust us, you don't want to know what they'll do to get a cover!
