He Sees You When You're Sleeping

Jun 26, 2025

July Fourth is just around the corner, and Trump’s been demanding that Congress “do the right thing” and pass his big-beautiful budget bill in time to celebrate American prosperity. Yeah, he said “American prosperity.” If the bill does pass, it will be Trump’s Christmas in July. Except for the very rich, it will crush the body politic and further undermine democracy on the backs of the most vulnerable.

Somehow, in the twisted logic of American consumerism, thinking about Trump’s bloated bill reminded me of an old image—Santa Claus speeding downhill on a triple-head razor. You have to be of a certain age to dislodge that memory from your brain, but mine came through with alarming clarity. I think I know why.

I recently replaced my old rotary razor. I’ve had it for years. The dull blades were starting to pull on my face, so I ventured out and bought the latest version. It didn’t feel or look like the same thing. My old razor pulsed yellow when the battery was low; green when fully charged. My new razor had several more LED icons blinking at me like I was piloting a small drone. I had already tossed the packaging, so I rummaged through the trash and found the 40-page instruction manual.

Forty pages? For a device whose sole job is to buzz hair off my face?

Don’t bail yet. I’m going somewhere with this.

Flipping through the manual, I read that the three pulsing LED water drops would alert me that it was time to clean the shaver. Okay, fine.

Something called a “Sense-IQ”—yes, IQ—would light up green if I was using the correct circular shaving motion; orange if my circular motions could be improved. Uh-huh.

Since I had already been using this new razor for a few days—because I never read instructions first—my shaver was only pulsing orange…never green. Apparently I was screwing up. The orange pulse was telling me I was a failure at shaving.

Then I saw another flashing icon that looked suspiciously like an iPhone. The manual stated that if the icon was slowly flashing silver, my shaver wasn’t properly hooked up to the iPhone app. Once properly hooked up, I could expect important information about improving my shaving behavior.

My what?

My shaving behavior. Apparently, I have bad shaving behavior. And all I would have to do is install the app and get detailed, personalized feedback on beard density, optimal angles, pressure optimization, and ways to stop being such a shaving behavior failure.

Now I was in hostile territory. First, my shaver scolds me for being disconnected. Then it plans to critique my grooming techniques like it’s writing a Yelp review.

And then it occurred to me. How much more data does Palantir need? They’ve already got my political leanings, my location, my purchasing habits, my biometrics—and now, apparently, they want my shaving behavior. The manual reads:

“When you have paired you shaver and smartphone, Bluetooth on your shaver is switched on automatically, even when the shaver is switched off. This allows your shave data to be synced later so you don’t need to take your smartphone with you when you shave.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want or need my shave data. Nor do I want to Bluetooth transmit my shave data to Palantir—whether or not my shaver is on or off. For the record, I have never knowingly paired—nor have I ever wanted—to pair my phone with my refrigerator or any other kitchen appliance. I want to be nearby when my oven turns on, just in case it bursts into flames.

And I don’t want to be notified by my shaver that an important message is waiting for me in the app. Hell, I don’t allow social media notifications on my iPhone. Why would I want a shaver app to notify me that I have been shaving all wrong—for decades.

To be fair, the instruction manual did provide detailed instructions how to unpair the shaver from a smartphone. My eyes darted around the manual page looking for how the shaver might feel if I never paired it at all. If I never gave it an opportunity to couple with my iPhone.

We all know that Artificial Intelligence has feelings, and we don’t want to hurt them.

Right, Hal?

But Palantir? No, sir. You will not judge me or my shaving behavior. I am a resistor, and I will never give you my shave data to be used against me.

As Emil Bove might say to courts trying to halt illegal deportations: “Fuck you.”

That’s final.

Author’s note: I started Musing one year ago on the Fourth of July. Fifty-two weeks have flown by. Authoritarianism was conjectural back then; it’s acceleration, unimaginable. The names and faces of anti-democratic forces at think tanks like Russell Vought at the Heritage Foundation and political action committees like Stephen Miller’s America First Legal are now in charge.

This week the indispensable Heather Cox Richardson reports that Rolling Stone outed Miller—Voldemort’s doppelgänger—for having a financial stake in the company helping ICE with deportations.

“White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, widely believed to be the individual responsible for the administration’s draconian immigration policies, owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, the data and intelligence software company owned by Peter Thiel. Palantir has a number of valuable contracts with ICE to track undocumented immigrants.”

Trump won’t stop with undocumented immigrants. He has all this retribution to exact on his enemies. Every citizens’ data is being scooped up for Palantir evaluation—as CEO Alex Karp might say, “looking for hidden things.” They see us when we’re sleeping. They know when we’re awake. And Congress is about to cede its oversight of this clear violation of Constitutional rights and the presumption of privacy. Never has a headline in The Onion focused so sharply on where we are at the moment.

“Congress, We Need Your Cowardice Now More Than Ever.”

It's long been known that Peter Thiel, JD Vance’s funder and mentor, has no further use for democracy. It was fine when he was making a fortune off it. But now that Trump has made a mockery of democracy, it appears that Thiel is on a Silicon Valley rampage to help Trump reduce it to rubble. He can do that with data.

This Fourth of July may well be Christmas in July for Trump.

Excuse me—my shaver is pulsing red.

Bad Santa’s coming.

Musing

He Sees You When You're Sleeping

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