Trump’s Lawless Administration

Posted: January 28, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Alex Jeffrey Pretti, the Veterans Affairs (VA) ICU nurse executed by federal agents on the street in Minneapolis on 24 January 2026. (Official portrait for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.)

The lawless and out of control Trump administration continues to destroy and abuse the bedrock principles of our country. It is difficult to keep up with all that is happening because it is continuous, unrelenting and horrific. Not to mention embarrassing. From Minneapolis Minnesota to Davos Switzerland with stops in between, Trump is ripping our country apart. Fundamentally, he has destroyed the trust necessary to protect us internationally and to govern as a functioning democracy. Without trust, there is no legitimacy. Without legitimacy, there can be no governance. Our allies and our fellow citizens never know from one day to the next as to what mood swing or perceived insult will cause Trump to lash out unpredictably. One day we are on a particular path and the next day he reverses course and then lies about all of it. Trump and his cabinet lie as easily and instinctively as they breath. All trust is gone.

For the second time in a matter of weeks, federal agents killed a peaceful protester in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti a U.S. citizen, was murdered by violent extremists, this time by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents. Without hesitation or investigation the senior members of the government called the innocent victim a “domestic terrorist” with the intent to “massacre law enforcement.” Most of us have seen the numerous videos capturing the horrific incident. Alex was trying to help a fellow human being at the scene of a peaceful demonstration when he was attacked by seven CBP agents, taken to the ground, beaten and then shot ten times. The federal government, our government, immediately went into reflex mode to outrageously lie about what happened and to immediately blame the victim. Don’t believe your lying eyes, only believe what we tell you. He had a gun! (He had a permit to carry a concealed weapon.) Protesters are not allowed to carry weapons! (Just like in the state house in Michigan, or the march in Charlottesville, or at the insurrection in Washington D.C. or countless other right-wing demonstrations?) After the murder, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to Governor Tim Walz in Minnesota to inform him that she would have the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP agents withdraw if the state turned over all voter information on the citizens of the state as well as for those receiving public assistance. That data would include driver’s license numbers, social security numbers, addresses, party affiliations and other deeply personal information. It was in essence a blackmail letter as it clearly shows the real motive behind the surge of unidentified people in tactical gear and face masks roaming the streets and breaking into people’s homes.

I clearly remember right wing zealots claiming that during the presidencies of Bill Clinton, and later Barak Obama, that the federal government was going to send unidentified masked men in tactical gear to break into people’s homes, whisk them away and take away everyone’s guns. It never happened. But it is now. Where are all those people that protested what did not happen, now that it is happening?

For the record, according to court records and legal challenges our government has violated the First (Freedom of Speech), Second (Right To Bear Arms), Fourth (Unreasonable Search and Seizure), Fifth (Due Process), Tenth (State Sovereignty) and Fourteenth (Equal Protection) Amendments in the name of “safety.”

It appears that the Trump regime is going to try and pull a public relations stunt by firing the senior CBP official Greg Bovino and replacing him with the “Border Czar” Tom “CAVA Man” Homan in Minneapolis. (The same Tom Homan that was investigated for taking a $50,000 bribe in cash carried out in a CAVA bag. The Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) quietly dropped the investigation when they took over.) There is no change in policy. Mass deportations are still the goal. The administration’s white nationalist and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is still calling the shots. We will see if the tactics change, not just in Minnesota, but everywhere ICE and CBP agents are operating. Will they still detain five year old boys like they did Liam Ramos in Minnesota and send them to a detention center in Texas?

All of this came days after Trump tried to destroy NATO by insisting on taking over Greenland. Fortunately, his TACO instincts (Trump Always Chickens Out) kicked in, but the damage was done. In his rambling, nearly incoherent speech at the conference in Davos Switzerland, including insulting several heads of state by name, it was clear to our European allies and friends throughout the world, that Trump could not be trusted. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave one of the greatest speeches in recent history, and directly challenged Trump. Canada recently entered into a massive trade deal with China and pointedly rejected U.S. entreaties not to do so. The European Union and India just concluded a different trade agreement. That means two billion people are now in economic relationships that do not include the U.S. At least Trump has his Board of Peace which he alone controls. It only costs one billion dollars to join (c’mon, are you sure it isn’t Dr. Evil demanding this?). At the ceremonial signing of the treaty creating the Board were officials from the following countries: Argentina, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Qatar, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Paraguay and Pakistan. Our closest European allies have consistently rejected joining. Russia and China expressed interest in joining. Trump thinks this will be a replacement for the United Nations. To me, it looks like another of his scams to make money for himself. The fee to join, along with the oil money from Venezuela, is going into off-shore accounts controlled by Trump. Yep, everything is just normal. Nothing like giving a convicted felon, adjudicated sex offender and instigator of an insurrection a multi-billion dollar slush fund to control.

Speaking of the insurrection, former Special Counsel Jack Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday. He was in charge of investigating the attempt to overthrow the government and investigating the theft of highly classified documents that were stored in a bathroom at Mar-A-Lago. It was compelling. He concluded that, “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat. No one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did.”

It is exhausting. It is tempting to throw up my hands and just quit. Let it all go by and take solace that it doesn’t impact me directly. Yet. We must remain vigilant and push back hard in any way that we can. There is no over-arching entity that can save us. It’s just us. Talk to friends and family members. Contact your Representative and Senator. When possible attend peaceful demonstrations. Assist immigrants. Work in a food bank. There are lots of ways to help. To me this is not a political issue. It is a matter of humanity and morality. Heroic Minnesotans are peacefully pushing back and loudly declaring their total disgust with the way an entire city is treated. I hope they soon can get back to their normal lives, but I fear that Minneapolis is a testing ground for further violations of our Constitution. Stay tuned.

An Insecure or the Most Insecure President?

Posted: January 19, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. (Getty Images)

Today is a federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, despite the current administration’s efforts. Thanks to Trump’s anti-DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) efforts, you cannot get into a national park today without paying, which we used to be able to do today and as is done on several federal holidays. However, for the first time you can now get in for free on June 14. Although that is Flag Day in the United States — which is not a federal holiday — one can get in for free because it is Trump’s birthday, according to the official website of the National Park Service. Nothing is awarded to anyone without Trump becoming jealous and trying to take it for himself. We have a six year old for a president. I am sorry he is so insecure about how people view him, but his insecurity is ruining our country.

Like most bullies, nothing is ever enough. The primary opposition leader in Venezuela Maria Corina Machado earned the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize that Trump insisted should be his. Last week Ms. Machado presented her Nobel medal to Trump, hoping that he would help her to get rid of the Maduro regime in Venezuela and help to move the country towards democracy. Instead she got a bag of Trump “merch” and a photo op. Trump prefers to work with the murderous Maduro regime — every member of that dictatorship remains in power except for Nicolas Maduro himself — rather than to help the people of Venezuela improve their lives. Taking someone else’s Nobel Peace Prize and pretending it is your own is cringe worthy. I am embarrassed for the man and for our country.

But it gets even more ridiculous and yet serious. It could be the focus of many a psychiatrists’ case study, but this has real world consequences.

Trump sent a text (!) to the Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Store informing him that because Norway did not give him the Peace Prize — as we all know, the government of Norway does not pick the winners, an independent five member committee decides, as it has since 1901 (“life is hard, but it’s harder when you’re stupid”) — he was going to take Greenland, which is a semi-independent territory of Denmark. The text was later put into a demarche, or letter, to other governments and delivered to their Ambassadors. Here is the text (punctuation, grammar and capitalization as in the original):

“Dear Jonas, Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United State of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only a boat that landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT“

Wow. There is so much to unpack there it is hard to know where to begin. Once again, it shows a complete and utter misunderstanding — ignorance? — of how NATO works. We have military access to Greenland and Denmark has been our staunchest ally for over two hundred years. If we want to build more bases, they would allow it. You have heard the arguments before, so, what is really going on?

One explanation might be what always drives Trump. Money. Greenland is rich in natural resources, and probably has vast deposits of rare earth minerals which are crucial to burgeoning industries. But again, through diplomacy and cooperation the U.S. could get access to those minerals.

As the sea ice continues to recede due to climate change, year round passages are beginning to appear in the Arctic region. This opens up new commercial shipping routes and also has military implications. The solution, again, is NATO. Obviously Russia has a long coastline on the Arctic Ocean, but so does Canada, a member of NATO as well as the U.S. and Scandinavian countries.

The Artic map created by U.S. State Department geographers.

In 2023 to prevent a president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO, Senators Kaine (D-VA) and Rubio (R-FL) (hmmm) successfully included a provision in the 2024 National Defense Appropriations Act that requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate or a law passed by the entire Congress in order to withdraw from NATO. Legal experts differ as to the effectiveness of that provision and possible efforts to litigate it in court. Trump claims that as president, he alone has the power to withdraw.

But there is another way. Get kicked out.

This is what Trump’s game plan may be and it is back to Russia, Russia, Russia again. Nothing would please Vladimir Putin more than to see the U.S. withdraw from — or get kicked out of — Europe and Trump always defaults to what Putin wants. If the U.S. leaves NATO, under any circumstance, there will be many “Ukraines” as Putin endeavors to re-create the Russian Empire. In the worst case scenario for most of the world — but the best case for Russia — if the U.S. tries to take Greenland by force, and Denmark invokes Article Five of the treaty which says that an attack on one country is an attack on all, and other former allies respond to the U.S. attack, fighting could break out. The U.S. would be at war with its allies. Unthinkable? Of course. At least until the last few months. Reporting indicates that senior military officials in the Pentagon are pushing back hard on any use of the U.S. military in Greenland or anywhere else protected by NATO. It is not clear whether they will be listened to at all. Numerous NATO countries have already moved military forces to Greenland for “exercises.” Even if no fighting breaks out, irreparable harm has been done to our relationship with Europe. Put simply, we are no longer trustworthy or a reliable ally.

Trump threatened to put tariffs on the nations leading the resistance to his taking Greenland. (Which is an entirely different area of discussion as we await a Supreme Court decision as to the legality of existing tariffs.) Perhaps the European Union (EU) will respond in a way that creates a financial crisis for the U.S. They could impose their own tariffs, or sell U.S. assets or bonds or block U.S. firms from doing business in Europe. If other former, but not NATO, friends and allies do the same our economy will collapse.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that several NATO countries are limiting or stopping their intelligence cooperation with the U.S., especially with respect to Ukraine, because of suspicions that the information may be shared with Russia by U.S. intelligence agencies. We are markedly less secure than we were one year ago.

The lawlessness continues in other areas. Last Friday the Department of Justice (DOJ) told a federal judge that they do not have to follow the law and release the Epstein files because the law has no enforcement mechanism and no entity or person has standing to sue them to force their release. All that I can think is that there must really be something that they want to hide.

Meanwhile, in addition to 3,000 Immigration and Border Patrol agents terrorizing the streets of Minnesota, the Department of Defense (DOD) issued a Warning Order (notification to prepare to deploy) to 1500 paratroopers to move from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage Alaska to Minneapolis. The DOJ also announced that they are pursuing a criminal investigation into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for allegedly conspiring to obstruct federal immigration enforcement, despite their mostly successful efforts to keep protests peaceful. The Trump regime is clearly trying to provoke a serious incident so that they can take over a major American city as an “example” to the rest of the country to stay in line with their repressive policies.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in deep trouble.

As our government acts in our name to prop up a murderous dictatorship, attack our allies, suppress our fellow citizens, and break the law, we can try to take a moment on this day meant to honor a great American man of peace and remember his thoughts on peace and justice.

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.“

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.“

Dr. Martin Luther King (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes

Posted: January 10, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An “X” post by Katie Miller, White House staffer and wife of Stephen Miller Deputy Chief of Staff, regarding questions about the U.S. taking over Greenland.

The new year is only ten days old and already I am exhausted by all of the shenanigans pulled by the Trump regime. Trump and his advisers are dropping any pretense of trying to persuade us, as citizens, that their actions are in our best interests. From Venezuela to Minnesota we now know that they have only their own best interests guiding them. International, national or local laws are only guidelines. If the law is not convenient to get what they want, then damn the law, they will do it anyway. Am I exaggerating? No. Let Stephen Miller, the power behind Trump’s throne explain the world view of Trump and his advisers. In an interview earlier this week with Jake Tapper of CNN he explained (actually he shouted, as he does in every interview I have seen) how they will act towards Greenland.

“The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States. There’s no need to even think or talk about this in the context that you’re asking, of a military operation. Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.” Then he added more.“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.”

Will we really invade Greenland? I have no idea. There is no strategic reason to do so, despite the lies coming from the administration. Greenland is a semi-independent Danish territory. The Danes are, perhaps, our strongest and most supportive ally in NATO. There are treaties and agreements that go back to the early 1950’s about the use of Greenland for military activity. If the U.S. wanted to build another base there (we have one already called Pituffik Space Base formerly known as Thule Air Force Base) we could and the Danes and Greenlanders would welcome it. Greenland is on the western flank of the Greenland, Iceland, U.K. Gap (GIUK Gap). That gap is the avenue used by Russian naval forces, especially their ballistic missile submarines, to get from the ice free year-round port in Murmansk to the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. NATO has significant anti-submarine warfare (ASW) assets monitoring the gap. There is no military reason for the U.S. to occupy Greenland or to take it away from Denmark.

There is only one real reason and it is the same as for our incursion into Venezuela. Trump wants it. He wants to dominate the Western Hemisphere and he wants to demonstrate his domination. He also wants to make money off any endeavor that the U.S, undertakes, but that is almost a given after nearly a year of watching his policy decisions from tariffs to oil to the rare earth elements believed to be in large deposits in Greenland. Trump has no desire to be a part of, or abide by any international treaty. Last week he withdrew the U.S. from sixty-six international organizations.

Everything that Trump and his minions said about Venezuela were lies. Many of us knew it at the time, but now the whole world knows it. It was never about drugs, or democracy or giving Venezuelans a better life, it was simply another grab for money in the form of oil. We sent our sons and daughters and husbands and wives into full-fledged combat so that Trump can look tough and steal oil. Does that make our military forces mercenaries? Fighting for money? Of course, as usual, he did not know what he was talking about because either none of his Cabinet members did their homework, or because Trump did not listen, but the truth remains, U.S. oil companies have mostly moved on from Venezuela and have no intention of going back.

As usual, as multiple oil executives explained to him yesterday as to why they were not interested, Trump waved his hand and promised to make the real world problems go away. As one of my favorite sayings goes, “nothing is impossible for the person that doesn’t have to do it.” (I am no geologist or oil industry expert, but even I know that Venezuelan oil is hard to extract, hard to refine, the infrastructure would have to be rebuilt costing at least 100 billion dollars and the government and internal unrest are not conducive to safe operations any time in the near future. Not to mention that the cost of oil right now is low and therefore barely profitable and U.S. producers use a lot of U.S. and Canadian shale oil.)

Here is the real “tell.” At last count we have already seized five “ghost” tankers that are headed to the U.S. worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump announced that Venezuela will “give” us the oil now in storage in Venezuela because of the embargo. All together, that oil could be worth several billion dollars. Earlier he announced on Truth Social, “this oil will be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” CNN reports that the money will not go into the U.S. Treasury. Instead it will “utilize a collection of international oil traders and offshore bank accounts to sell the oil and manage the resulting cash.” A billion dollar slush fund for Trump! What could go wrong? Does anyone still doubt what the real purpose of the incursion into Venezuela was all about? Does Congress remember that we have a Constitution? Article I gives control of the purse strings to Congress, but I have little hope of anything coming from them to check his power.

This same lawless exercise of raw power is evident in our domestic policies as well. One example is ignoring the law — not a request, not a subpoena, not a committee hearing — to turn over the Epstein files. They were to be turned over by 19 December and now the Department of Justice (DOJ) is saying that they have released less than one percent of the documents in the file. We should not expect to see any real progress on that front anytime soon, if at all. Stonewall. Deflect. Ignore. We know the routine by now.

More tragically are the efforts to remove immigrants from our country. Many, not all, that are being rounded up and hunted down are here legally, either through the Temporary Protective Status (TPS) program or because they followed the rules and officially applied for asylum. A mere fraction are “the worst of the worst.” As reported in the New Republic, on New Year’s Eve the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency announced a new 100 million dollar recruitment effort that ICE called “a wartime recruitment” strategy that will target people “who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear.” Starting last summer, they used social media to advertise the hiring of more agents as a chance to “Serve your country! Defend your culture! No undergraduate degree required!” Since then they have reportedly hired 12,000 new agents, more than doubling the size of the agency. I will not speculate on the quality of the hires, or the extremely shortened training they receive, but when it is all put together, there is a troubling theme to the recruitment effort. Think about the term “defend your culture.” Do you honestly believe that they are appealing to Jews, Muslims, Latinos or any other minority group in our country? There is a very specific type of person they are hiring and while the horrific killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis has sparked protests around the country, we can probably expect more killing. Our highest government officials lied about the situation before her body was removed from the scene. The ICE agent that shot her is on tape after he shot her and as she crashed saying “f***ing b*itch.” As if she deserved to get shot in the face three times for trying to help her neighbors. There is a sense for those within this administration that they are untouchable. No one is held accountable. If there was any doubt that a cover-up would ensue, that doubt was erased when the FBI announced that no Minnesota or Minneapolis law enforcement agencies would be included in the investigation of the murder of Renee or be allowed access to evidence.

We need to protest, peacefully but clearly. This is not the America I love and served for twenty eight years. It is important to remain calm but resolute. My gut tells me that Trump is hoping that these various confrontations result in a major escalation of violence so that he can declare martial law and cancel the upcoming elections, or at least severely inhibit them, under the guise of national security, their go to explanation for everything illegal that they do. But, don’t take my word for it. Here is Trump talking to a gathering of Republicans. “You gotta win the midterms ’cause, if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be – I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me, I’ll get impeached.”

He is weaponizing the government and his supporters. When his administration tells ICE and other instruments of repression that “we’ve got your backs” he is telling them that anything goes. For proof, look no further than pardoning all of those that tried to overthrow our government. Then, last week on 6 January, the fifth anniversary of the coup, an official website of the United States of America went up that repeated every lie ever told about that day. (You can find it here. Be ready to be disgusted.) According to the official government website, “peaceful patriots” were framed that day. The attempted coup was really staged by Democrats with the help of the law enforcement officers at the capitol.

There are no limits. Trump believes that he can do whatever he wants and take whatever he wants. Or as he said in response to a New York Times question about obeying international laws and treaties, “I don’t need international law, I’m not looking to hurt people.” He was asked if there were limits to what he could do and he replied, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Stay vigilant.

“Slip Sliding Away”

Posted: April 4, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“We won with the poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”

— Donald J. Trump in a victory speech after the Nevada caucus in 2016

While I, and many others, warned of the likely devastation that a second Trump administration would bring, I, at least, while not surprised at what is happening, am shocked at the depth and breadth of his total frontal assault on our democracy. He told us what he would do, but I was not sure that he would be able to pull it off, especially in such a short time frame. Of course, shortsightedly on my part, I did not foresee a complete capitulation from the Congress, giving Trump full leeway to do whatever he pleased.

Only the judicial system has resisted his most unconstitutional moves and we have yet to see how that plays out. Early indications are that the Trump administration expects that the Supreme Court will totally, or mostly, rule in his favor citing the power of the Executive in ways that such power has never been defined in our history. Should the Supreme Court not support the president as being able to do whatever he feels like doing, I fully expect him and his administration to ignore the ruling. We already see that in the way that they ignore and disparage federal judges everyday and claim that a single judge cannot overrule the president, especially when the president is acting in the role of commander-in-chief. As a result, Trump and others in his administration call judges that rule against him, “radical leftists” and that they are issuing “unlawful” orders and that they have “no authority” to block the executive branch. As a result, Trump and many others have called for the impeachment of many of those that have ruled in favor of the Constitution rather than in favor of Trump. As we all know, the federal judges thus far have been issuing temporary restraining orders in order to further understand the government’s case and to have a full hearing, where, you know, actual facts can be presented. If the government does not like the decision, there is recourse to an appeal.

It is worth reminding everyone, because apparently we have collectively had the wool pulled over our eyes, that Executive Orders are not laws. They do not have the force of law unless we react to them as if they are. They are policies. Policies can be over ridden in Congress or deemed unconstitutional by the courts or changed or cancelled with the stroke of a pen. Additionally, an unelected South African co-president has no power under the Constitution.

All of this is emblematic of a plan I did not fully appreciate. When Trump and his Project 2025 acolytes talked about removing the “deep state” I knew what they were talking about but did not appreciate the full extent of what that meant — even though they told us straight out what that meant.

It was not just weeding out allegedly unproductive federal workers or political appointees that tempered Trump’s most weird policies, it meant getting rid of the entire bureaucracy and replacing it with a small cadre of loyalists. Period.

It also meant that “deep state” really meant what they call “elite.” The Project 2025 zealots are using Trump to reshape America. In their view, everyone in a position of power or influence in the fall of 2024 (and for decades before that) were members of the deep state. Universities, cultural institutions, museums, entertainment companies, television programs, public schools, law firms, military organizations, and on and on have all been instruments of the so called radical left. They all must be destroyed and then reimagined to match the Project 2025 vision and become subservient to the all powerful executive. I knew it intellectually, they told us over and over they were going to do it and Trump campaigned on it, but I don’t think I internalized it. In their minds, those around Trump are literally on a mission from God. (We can discuss whether Trump is using them, or they are using Trump. He has no ideological underpinnings. His goals as president are uninhibited power, money and retribution.)

They have attacked nearly every corner of our society and now it is the economy. They want to party like it’s 1897. (Trump has become enamored of our 25th president William McKinley. I am not sure he knows that President McKinley was assassinated in 1901 in Buffalo NY.) He said as much in the Rose Garden when he announced the tariffs aimed at destroying the world order that served us so well for the last eight decades. He clearly has no understanding of history as he claims tariffs made the U.S. prosperous (the Gilded Age — he calls it the Golden Age) and that income taxes implemented in 1913 ruined the country. We can see where this is going. The Robber Barons of his “Golden Age” were the rich, powerful white men that ran the country and became fabulously wealthy on the backs of the working class (much of America). Think the cottages of Newport RI. So, following his logic, he and today’s robber barons (the billionaires with which he has surrounded himself) should run the country. Taxes equal socialism. It is taking money from the rich (billionaires) and giving it to the poor (in the form of roads, public schools, food banks, health care, social security, regulating pollution, and so on.)

Thus, his stated plan to eliminate or reduce income taxes because tariffs will make up the difference. (The math does not work. The US collects just over 3 trillion dollars a year in taxes. The best, some say wildly optimistic, projection by his administration is that tariffs will bring in about 600 billion dollars a year.) However, if one eliminates aid to the poor people overseas, aid to Americans, and just about every social program that we have come to rely upon as a nation — the DOGE-bros at work — that saves money for the billionaires because taxes won’t be needed anymore. (Salaries to the workers are a very tiny fraction of the overall budget, not enough to meet their goal.)

It also saves money so that tax dollars can go to subsidizing Trump’s weekly golf outings at his own courses. So far he has spent 19 of his 74 days in office golfing (just over 25% of his time as president this term), at a cost of roughly 28 million dollars. So far.

At the end of the 19th century, Trump believes, the US got along quite nicely, thank you, without any entangling trade or security or military alignments. Why do we need them now? Let’s see how many of our friends and allies we can drive away from us. America First! We don’t need allies or trading partners. Of course we should go back to that era where most people had no running water, there was rampant disease, the lack of regulations resulted in the deaths of countless workers on the job, we built the Panama Canal (by God!) at the cost of thousands of lives, and the maximum range of weapons was about three miles. Just like now!

Whether through ignorance or Manifest Destiny, Trump’s fascination with Greenland shows his basic misunderstanding of a lot. Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark. Denmark is in NATO. The US is in NATO. An attack on one is an attack on all. There is a 1951 treaty between Denmark and the US for the defense of Greenland. If he is actually concerned about the vulnerability of Greenland, there are multiple existing ways to improve its defenses. Since he continues to insist that military force is an option, does he really intend to attack a NATO ally which would precipitate the rest of NATO coming to Denmark’s defense? (Putin is so excited at this idea that he can hardly sit still.)

Do you remember Trump’s logic during the pandemic? He wanted to stop all COVID testing because if there were no tests, there would be no COVID. So of course he still has that logic. Fire all the scientists and there is no climate change. Fire all the medical researchers and we do not need vaccines. Fire all the weather prediction folks and there are no more major storms, therefore it is possible to fire the folks at FEMA. Cut scholarships and poor people won’t have to get a higher education. Privatize K-12 schools and only the right people will be able to send their kids to get a good basic education. Want to go to a museum to learn about your heritage? Want to read a book about our black, brown, Asian and women heroes? Why? There is only one America so fire all the “woke” people working at the Smithsonian Institution and only allow Trump approved exhibitions. Subversive plays at the Kennedy Center? Make Trump the Chairman and only allow what he wants to be performed there. Prestigious law firms are defending people or issues you don’t like? Put out an Executive Order that essentially puts them out of business. Want to control the admissions policies at Ivy League Schools? Withhold billions of dollars in grant money, threaten to put them out of business and they will come around. Want to spread fear among the populace? Start abducting legal residents on the street because they co-authored an opinion piece in a college newspaper a year ago and send them to jail without access to an attorney, in defiance of a court order and hold them without due process. Accusations and “trust us” are enough to put anyone in jail without having committed a crime. And so it goes.

All of these things are happening now.

The most disappointing and discouraging thing of all? Prestigious law firms, Ivy League colleges, news organizations, businesses, groups with the fiscal and physical ability to resist these unconstitutional actions of the executive are caving to the Dear Leader. Not just giving in to Trump, but actually paying out millions of dollars in thinly disguised extortion money. Trump has a pretty good mob boss business going while the Project 2025 folks are achieving their goals. A symbiotic relationship between two forces that are destroying our Republic as we have known it for at least the last 80 years and ignoring the principles that have guided us from our earliest days as a nation.

So far, the dark forces are winning. Our democracy is “slip, sliding away.”

(Title from Paul Simon)