Remember Project 2025? Democrats are building their own governing blueprint, and one proposal takes aim at the “annoyance economy”: robocalls, endless hold times, hidden fees and other everyday frustrations.

The Trump family has had Albanians up in arms for over a month now, as anger over a luxury real estate development has grown into a protest movement against government corruption and what they see as a political system that protects the corrupt over its citizens. Many observers describe the demonstrations as Albania’s largest civic protests since the fall of communism in the early 1990s.

The movement, dubbed “The Flamingo Revolution,” began in late May after President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner (also moonlighting as one of Trump’s Middle East peace envoys), set their sights on developing an island in the Adriatic Sea. 

The proposed development includes a resort on Sazan Island and another luxury resort with up to 10,000 tourist accommodations that would affect the Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape on Albania’s southwestern coast. The area is home to endangered Mediterranean monk seals, flamingos, nesting sea turtles, and hundreds of migratory bird species.

The proposal has been championed by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, eliciting outrage. But for many Albanians, the Kushner-backed development is only the latest flashpoint. Protesters say years of corruption, weak government accountability, and an economic model centered on luxury tourism and foreign investment have benefited political elites while doing little for ordinary Albanians.

To better understand the protests and why so many Albanians have become disillusioned with their government, Today, Explained co-host Noel King spoke with Politico’s Jakob Weizman, who has covered the Western Balkans, including Albania, for nearly a decade.

Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify. 

What is the background on the foreign developments in Albania? 

In 2024, Albania passed these very controversial amendments which brought about change to this law on protected areas, which essentially is what critics and protesters say opened the door for this luxury tourism resort from Jared Kushner. 

Earlier this year, they began construction and it was met with fierce resistance from local residents and from activists. You could visibly see they were beginning construction, there were excavators, there were diggers, there were fences being built up. And when I went there myself, you could see that there was a road already built and you could see the foundation from the fences. So that was really what kicked off everything. People saw and they got really upset and they said, enough is enough. We’re going to take it to the streets. 

Tell us about the protected land. 

In this protected area along the southern coast of Albania, near the coastal city of Vjosa, there is this protected wildlife area which is home to endangered species of monk seals and flamingos. It’s a very popular turtle nesting site. It’s a migratory path for birds. And there’s also, it’s a special place that Albanians in that area hold dear to their heart. It’s a place where people go fishing. It’s a place where people go to the beach with their families. It’s an untouched area where you can really feel the beauty of Albania, and for that to be ruined by excavators and diggers and fences… 

And then how does Ivanka Trump get involved in all of this?

On a podcast, Ivanka Trump had described a story, how she found the island when she was on a friend’s boat and swam out to the island, and they came ashore and they started hiking to the top of the island. And she was completely enthralled by the beauty of Sazan, which is Albania’s only island. 

It’s a very unlikely story because first of all, the island used to be a military headquarters during the communist era. There’s a danger of explosive mines remaining across the island, and there’s a lot of glass everywhere. It’s not well-kept and there is a danger of snakes. When I told the locals about this story, they were like, “It’s completely false.” There’s no way she was able to do that. The island is a very rugged landscape, making it very difficult to hike barefoot to the top. 

When the protests began, the podcast really began to go viral because people started sharing and people started getting upset — just treating Albania like it’s her own personal luxury haven. 

Tell me what the protests look like and who’s involved.

It started growing from 10,000 to 20,000, and then it just became this daily routine for Albanians. You would finish work and then you would just go out on the streets and start protesting. Albania is a small country. It’s 2.4 million. And now, it’s going up to 100,000, maybe 200,000 [protesters]. And there are people driving from the UK, from Belgium, from Germany to join the protests and people driving from all across the country. I feel like it’s just an awakening of civic consciousness against this tourism boom in Albania and these foreign investments from Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump that they’re saying no to. 

It’s very important to understand that Albanians have been through a lot in the last 100 years. They were under a monarchy. They were under the Nazi occupation, and then they went through a brutal communist regime for 50 years. And finally their hopes had surfaced once more after the fall of communism. It was a very poor country. It was isolated from the entire world during communism. So the land is so important to the Albanians, and when someone like Kushner comes along, it just wakes up the entire country and says, “No, this is ours, and you’re not going to touch it.”

Is there a case that tourism and investment could actually be a boom to Albania’s economy and these protests might be shortsighted?

To be fair, there are people I have spoken to who think that tourism is good for the country. I’m not going to say that all the people in Albania think that this is a bad thing. But there is so much suspicion and there are so many allegations of corruption. The country’s track record in the last 20, 30 years is not good and does not convince people that there’s going to be trickle-down economics where you build a resort and it will create jobs and add infrastructure and bring in investment and bring money to the people. They don’t believe that. 

That’s why so many Albanians are leaving the country. The mass immigration from Albania is insane. You talk to anyone in Albania, their only dream is to leave. Edi Rama, the prime minister, is trying to bring this hope to the country: “We’re going to build these resorts and the money’s going to come down to you.”

Albanians don’t really trust the fact that this kind of development will be able to help the country. The scale of corruption that’s going on in the country is forcing people to lack trust in the government.

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President Trump is facing pushback from Republicans over his administration’s decision to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from Haitian migrants living in the U.S. following the Supreme Court’s decision last month to uphold the policy.  Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) urged Trump to “reconsider” the policy late last month, while Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) warned…

A new report from the White House Domestic Policy Council has a dire warning about the Smithsonian Institution. According to the White House, the National Museum of American History has become home to “a radical, activist cohort dedicated to reframing the American story to serve its ideological ends.” Accordingly, its authors write, President Donald Trump “has a duty and obligation to seek reforms of the Smithsonian” and restore the museum to its aims of being a beacon of patriotism.

This overwrought declaration spells out just how impossible Trump’s cohort finds it to imagine a world in which thoughtful criticism of America’s past could foster love of this country. But it’s only through examination of the unvarnished truth of where we’ve come from that we can truly appreciate where we are — and develop a vision of what we want America to become.

The council’s conclusions in the 162-page report, titled “Saving America’s Story,” are as unnerving as they are dramatic: “As it stands today, it would benefit most Americans, especially parents bringing their children for a tour, if the Smithsonian’s flagship history museum had a label at every entrance that reads: ‘Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don’t want you to love your country.’”

The American History Museum “should tell the truth, including of the Nation’s mistakes and injustices,” according to the White House. But as The New York Times wrote Monday, the truth that was on display when White House staffers reviewed the museum’s current and former exhibits was a little too, well, icky:

The report criticizes the museum for viewing “traditional patriotic narratives” with suspicion or contempt. It says the museum endorses illegal immigration and advocates transgender issues, while it focuses on Christianity as “an instrument of conquest, exclusion or cultural erasure,” rather than its “constructive role” in “shaping the nation and its freedoms.” …

The story the museum tells, the report says, “is not one of ‘the victory of freedom and genius of our country’ but one of regret, tragedy and shame.”

There is a willful blindness required to look at exhibits and educational materials that teach about the migrant experience in America, or merely acknowledge that trans people have always been here, and not see how clearly they meet the desire for “an account of a people striving, often imperfectly but more often nobly, to live up to our founding principles of liberty and equality under a republican form of government.” Instead, in the apparent view of the report’s authors, there has been simply too much room made at the table for anyone who doesn’t fit their view of who counts as an American.

Play

Trump administration threatens to pull Smithsonian funding over exhibit contents

December 22, 2025 / 07:00

The conclusion I must draw is that these White House authors don’t want history on display at the American History Museum. Instead, they want a temple to an idealized, sanitized version of America. The White House has become a real-life Tumblr page devoted to a toxic fandom, one that has appointed itself the protectors of Columbia’s virtue against anyone who would deny her innocence. 

Most fandoms simply share a joy in their chosen fictional media properties and franchises, but there are almost always pockets of obsession throughout. The resulting noxious atmosphere always finds some outlet for outrage, which can be turned toward outsiders, creators or even one another. The most common offenses in these spaces include daring to criticize a favorite character or actor or besmirching whatever headcanon they’ve developed about the fictional world and has now become their orthodoxy. In either case, these supposed fans see themselves as the true arbiters of what a franchise should be, based often only on vibes and parasocial relationships.

Similarly, the Trump administration is made up of a group of stans who will accept nothing but clear support of their favorites. Moral complexity and mentions of problematic behavior must be purged. Why have exhibits prompting reflection on the role slavery played in our nation’s earliest days when we could just have fancams of the Founding Fathers and fan fiction about the Pilgrims?

Because for “make America great again” to resonate, there must be a time when the United States was unequivocally great that listeners can cling to for hope. Restoring that fictional America is at the center of every regressive policy that has animated the MAGA movement’s base. The American History Museum has, so far, refused to pretend that such a country existed anywhere outside of the imaginations of later generations.

Trump and his followers have indicated that these attacks on the Smithsonian and its museums and galleries are an act of love. I’m reminded though of a post I saw on Twitter years ago: “A crush is just a lack of information.” It’s easy to have a crush, to paint a version of reality onto an object of desire, regardless of what imperfections they have hidden or problems they have had in the past. It’s a feeling that by its very nature lacks depth.

The same goes for the shallow patriotism that the White House would rather attendees at the National Museum of American History feel. But to really love something is to see it in all its fullness, its failures and triumphs alike, and decide that it is still worth loving. This is what historians who have dedicated their lives to telling the fullest story of America possible have done.

In truth, the proposed signs on the front of the American History Museum should rather read: “Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who want you to love your country — even through all of its mistakes.”

The post This White House doesn’t understand how to love America. The Smithsonian does. appeared first on MS NOW.