| Swan Dive — January 12, 2026 Addison Wiggin “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” or at least, that’s what Newton said in 1687.
We have no reason to disagree with him today. But we do assert that Newton’s Third Law of Motion applies equally to politics and culture as it does to the physical universe.
We begin with this funny alternative view of the progressive protest movement gaining momentum (again) over the weekend: Historians of the future, grilling beaver-tail paninis over their campfires, will look back in wonder and nausea at the madness of America — and other regions of Western Civ — in the raging 2020s. It will be clear by then that it was largely a female hysteria, like other departures from social sanity in the annals of the Homo sapiens, such as the outbreak of witchery in the Massachusetts Colony, 1692, the Dancing Plague of Strasbourg, 1518, and the lunacy of Meowing and Biting Nuns that spread through the convents of Europe in the 1400s.
The Lefty-life has devised what’s called a “permission structure” for women to take the lead in acting-out the concocted grievances of their show-runners in the Democratic Party who, in times gone by, once had a coherent political program, but are now chiefly concerned with staying out of jail. I speak of those two orbiting moons, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and their many subalterns, such as John Podesta, Lisa Monaco, Norm Eisen, Adam Schiff. . . you know the huge cast of characters.
In 2020, they put their African-American clients in the vanguard, hoping to provoke Mr. Trump into a bloody suppression of the George Floyd riots. Didn’t really work, though the riots were a grand distraction from Marc Elias’s behind-the-scenes nefarious setup to queer the balloting process in that year’s election — a thumping success! All that mischief propelled brain-dead “Joe Biden” into the Oval Office, the perfect stooge to front for Hillary and Obama in their campaign to disorder the U.S. body politic.
— James Howard Kunstler
Kunstler, when he’s in full vinegar, writes like a man throwing chairs out of a saloon window.
You don’t have to agree with every syllable to recognize the architecture of what he’s describing: the strange new American phenomenon where mass “spontaneity” arrives on schedule, professionally branded, with the same fonts, the same slogans, the same portable sound systems, and — magically — the same legal defense networks already warmed up and waiting.
This week’s proof originated from Minneapolis.
Tens of thousands poured into Powderhorn Park after an ICE officer shot RenΓ©e Nicole Good on January 7. Candles appeared. Drums appeared. Rituals appeared. A sign called for “national strikes to boot out the admin.”
Police helicopters circled above like bored vultures while organizers directed traffic through the streets. The police presence on the ground was sparse. The demonstration ran itself, the way a modern protest does — like a franchise operation with “community partners” on payroll.
And almost immediately, the same question followed the chanting: who is funding this?
It’s easy to shrug and say “activists.”
It’s harder to ignore the machinery behind the curtain — the dark-money NGOs, the foreign-linked networks, the revolving door between nonprofit organizing and political campaigns.
We’ve watched this phenomenon long enough to recognize a pattern: demonstrations that may begin as organic are quickly absorbed, then amplified, then turned into a pressure tool.
The new wrinkle in 2026 is that the federal government has begun treating the protest-industrial complex in the same manner as it does sanctions evasion: as a financial network problem.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, for better or worse, is now actively involved in tracking the funding pathways that grease these pop-up operations, tracing NGO flows the same way it would trace cartel money or hostile-state cutouts.
That’s a remarkable escalation, and it signals something larger: this administration isn’t only fighting culture wars. It’s infiltrating the plumbing — funding, payment rails, nonprofit laundering, donor networks, and cutouts.
Wasn’t it hassle enough for Bessent to try to “roll over” $28 trillion in national debt at higher rates than Obama, Clinton, Biden… or Janet Yellen… had planned on? 🌍 Tehran: When the Internet Goes Dark, the Streets Go Loud While America’s streets churn in predictable spasms, Iran is splitting open in a less choreographed way.
Hundreds of protesters have reportedly been killed. Eyewitness accounts describe body bags laid out on hospital grounds. Tehran tried the usual method: shut down the internet, shut down cell service, shut down information. But the videos still leaked. The West still saw. The regime still bled.
The protests began as economic grievance — the kind that always starts in the stomach. Food. Fuel. Work. Then it escalated, the way it always does when a population realizes the rulers have no solutions other than “more obedience.”
Iran’s Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, warned the U.S. against strikes, threatening retaliation against U.S. assets, Israel, and shipping lanes. That line — shipping lanes — is the pulse point. That’s where geopolitics becomes markets.
Because Iran in 2026 is no longer a “background risk.” It is a structural variable: energy markets, global liquidity, the broader architecture of great-power rivalry. Iran sits at the intersection of volatility and opportunity, and when probability shifts, capital moves before certainty arrives. 🛢️ Caracas: The New Century’s Colonialism Wears Night Vision Goggles And then there was Venezuela — or more specifically, the removal of NicolΓ‘s Maduro, extracted by U.S. special forces and marched into Manhattan like a villain in a poorly lit courtroom drama.
Maduro called himself “kidnapped” and a prisoner of war. His lawyers are already preparing the lawful/illegal battle. The global commentariat will argue for years. Meanwhile, the market shrugged within hours.
Oil stocks rallied. Defense stocks jumped. Consultants booked flights to Caracas. Investors began talking openly about construction, tourism, and “hundreds of billions” in opportunity. A Journal of Democracy contributor called it a “partial liberation,” post-Maduro but not democratic — a rupture coordinated with remnants of the old regime.
In other words: the Emperor has returned to the hemisphere, and he’s wearing tactical gear.
One of the great lies globalists tell themselves is that imperial logic ended when the UN was created. It didn’t. It went underground and continued operating through sanctions, covert operations, financial warfare, and “partnerships.”
In 2026, the Trump doctrine is less veiled. You can see it play out on TikTok videos and through Truth Social posts.
Call it whatever makes you sleep well at night – “spheres of influence” or “gangsterism” – the reality is simple: the U.S. just demonstrated, for the 41st time since 1898, that it can intervene in the Americas at will.
And it will. Continued Below...
The mainstream media just missed the biggest financial story of the year... President Trump signed an EO to start unlocking an estimated $5.1 trillion in federal assets for the benefit of every American citizen. Most Americans have no idea this opportunity exists... But according to a former Trump advisor, it could trigger a historic "gold rush" for the American people. [SEE WHAT THE MEDIA MISSED]
💣 War Budget as Political Signature As if to underline the era shift in thick red ink, President Trump said he wants the U.S. military budget increased to $1.5 trillion — and defense stocks bounced back immediately.
We used to think of war as something governments did when diplomacy failed.
In 2026, war spending functions as a domestic signal: a job program, a legitimacy project, a display of resolve. It’s also an economic substitute — a way to paper over industrial weakness with procurement.
Caracas, like Kyiv, has become a high-tech testing ground for new weapons since 2021. Security guards at Maduro’s compound reported: "On the day of the operation, we didn't hear anything coming. We were on guard, but suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation. The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn't know how to react."
For new readers, if you haven’t read our research on the new battlefield of the 21st century, you can do so right here: The Next Elon Musk.
In short, as we warned last week, if you’re allocating capital without a geopolitical framework in this environment, you are flying blind.
This week’s Grey Swan Live! with Shad Marquitz will help us identify how the trend is likely to play out in gold, silver, platinum and uranium… as well as a whole class of “critical minerals” as designated by the government’s Flow41 program (details below). 🏠 Mortgage Bonds: The Fed-by-Proxy Era Begins Over the weekend, Trump’s populist approach to politics in 2026 extended into banking as well. Big time.
In the same week that Delta Force allegedly turned Caracas into a modern battlefield lab, the administration also made a more domestic move with long-range consequences: directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds, framed as an effort to lower housing costs ahead of the midterms.
Mortgage rates dropped to around 6%, the lowest since early 2023. FHFA Director Bill Pulte called it a “one-two punch.” Skeptics quickly countered that the move may be more optics than impact. Neil Dutta at Renaissance Macro said, “Much of the juice appears to have been squeezed.”
But the larger point isn’t how far mortgage rates fall.
The point is that Washington is treating the housing market as a lever of social stability — something to be actively managed rather than discovered ahead of the midterms. 💳 The Credit Card Cap: Populism as Monetary Policy Then came Trump’s floated proposal: a one-year 10% cap on credit card interest rates. Banks recoiled instantly. Capital One was pummeled. Synchrony and Bread Financial sank hard. Visa and Mastercard slid. JPMorgan and Citi took hits.
Even if the measure faces legal challenges or requires Congress, markets heard the signal: the administration is willing to attack the financial rentier class directly in the name of affordability.
In other words, 2026’s political economy has shifted from negotiating around the edges to swinging at the pillars. 🧠 The Throughline: July 4, 2026, Is the Deadline So what connects Tehran, Caracas, Minneapolis, the mortgage bond maneuver, the credit card cap, and the increasingly weaponized NGO networks?
The Trump administration is governing like a regime that believes history has given it a window — and that window closes on July 4, 2026.
America’s 250th anniversary is being celebrated as a birthday party…. And being treated as a symbolic deadline: a moment to cement the grand realignment while the calendar still confers legitimacy.
That realignment has three visible dimensions.
First, geopolitical. The U.S. is acting like a hemispheric enforcer again. Caracas made that clear. It was an act of imperial punctuation.
Second, domestic economic engineering. Mortgage-backed bond buying. Credit card caps. Populist pressure on institutions. It’s state power applied to affordability optics, executed at scale, in public.
Third, internal security through financial plumbing. (See: Dollar 2.0 )
All of this is happening simultaneously because the administration feels emboldened. It also feels threatened. Both conditions are producing a speed of new executive directives, which you have to hand it to the man, that require a remarkable amount of stamina for a guy his age. 🦢When This Empire Is In A Hurry, The Market Listens There’s an old Wall Street maxim: “Don’t fight the Fed.”
This year, you could add a Trump corollary.
A wise capital allocator doesn’t fight that storm. He doesn’t argue with it. He respects it the way sailors respect the sea: with preparation, with humility, and with a sharp eye for what breaks first.
In 2026, the things that break first are the stories. The narratives. The comfortable assumptions.
When Tehran blacks out the internet and the videos still leak, the story breaks. When Caracas loses its president in a single weekend, the story breaks. When Minneapolis erupts on cue, and Treasury follows the money trail, the story breaks. When Washington starts buying mortgage bonds like a man stuffing sandbags against the tide, the story breaks.
And when a government moves this aggressively — economically, militarily, domestically — markets begin to understand what history is doing beneath the headlines.
It’s a fascinating environment. And fertile, too, for Grey Swan events. Watch the calendar. Watch the bond market. Watch the streets. Watch the money. The “future” is going to arrive one way or another, whether the consensus wants to price it out or not.
We’re glued to the narratives all the same.
The third stage of Trump’s Great Reset is underway…. July 4 is the finish line the administration has chosen.
~Addison
P.S. After decades of neglect, gold, silver, and critical minerals are moving back to the center of the global chessboard.
While we’ve been well ahead of this trend, investors are only just beginning to connect the dots.
Grey Swan Investment Fraternity contributor Shad Marquitz is joining us to walk us through why the next phase of the metals cycle won’t be driven by speculation alone — but by hard constraints, federal policy, and domestic scarcity.
In fact, for more than 20 years, one company was penalized for producing antimony and copper — strategic metals that smelters treated as contaminants rather than assets.
As of January 1, 2026, that’s just changed.
If you care about domestic supply chains, strategic metals, the next growth phase for precious metals, or how federal policy is quietly reshaping resource winners…
Join us live on Thursday at 2 p.m. ET for Grey Swan Live! with Shad Marquitz. If you have requests for new guests you’d like to see join us for Grey Swan Live!, or have any questions for our guests, send them here.
How did we get here? Find out in these riveting reads: Demise of the Dollar, Financial Reckoning Day, and Empire of Debt — all three books are now available in their third post-pandemic editions. You might enjoy one or all three. 
(Or… simply pre-order Empire of Debt: We Came, We Saw, We Borrowed, now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble or if you prefer one of these sites: Bookshop.org, Books-A-Million or Target.)
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