Historians can probably correct me, but I cannot recall any time in history when a new leader emerged in a country that was widely acknowledged to be running the best economy in the world, and in so short a period of time, so thoroughly trashed the economy that it was now widely acknowledged to be the worst in, at least, the developed world. He has done this by applying tariffs in the mistaken belief that other countries pay the extra fees and money flows into our country from outside, when in reality it is domestic companies that pay the fee and in most cases compensate by charging higher prices, thereby applying an effective tax to anyone who buys the products. What is most astonishing is that this same leader applied the same tactic during his first term, under the same mistaken belief, and with similar bad consequences, and in the past eight years no one has bothered to disabuse the president of his wrong ideas. He has such a massive and simultaneously fragile ego that he cannot tolerate ever being told that he is wrong, and has managed to find the very few economists who agree with him and chose them as his advisors.
While doing this to the international economy, he has also managed to upend most of our alliances around the world, to the point where no one will make any kind of deal (either economic or political) with our country for fear that it will be ignored or invalidated on the whim of our leader. Diplomacy, both domestic and international, used to be “You do this for me and I’ll do that for you.” Now both kinds are “You do this for me or else.”
Domestically, he has decimated almost every aspect of our national structure that that made our nation so envied. Veterans can no longer get help at the VA. When natural disasters strike, there is no FEMA to respond, and many of the people whose job it is to prevent, find, and fight forest fires are no longer employed. Under the banner of “Make America Healthy Again,” our Secretary of HHS has eliminated a large percentage of the employees whose job it was to do just that, and our country is demonstrably sicker as a result. There are 500 (and growing) cases of measles, which was until recently nearly non-existent, and almost all can be deposited on the doorstep of our national health leader. Medicaid is under attack. The CDC no longer protects us from diseases and the EPA no longer protects us from pollution. University scientists, who often make the discoveries that lead to the next wonder drugs, have lost their funding and the nation has lost the knowledge that their research would bring—and likely their talents as well, since many of them will escape to friendlier turf in Europe or Asia. Libraries are losing funding—heaven forbid people should be able to read books they don’t already have. National parks have no rangers to show you around, or even let you in, and soon they will be sprouting with oil rigs. Air accidents began happening almost as soon as the president was inaugurated, and the response has been to decrease the number of controllers. Medicare and Social Security are in their sights. Basically, every federal program that benefits people who are not already so rich they don’t need it, is on the way out. This is what happens when rich people make all the rules.
Prestigious law firms and universities are going hat-in-hand to beg the president for mercy from his policies, as are Republican legislators. Indeed, it has been posited that this is the very behavior he seeks—king-like, sitting on his throne, offering merciful relief from his own draconian policies in return for obeisance. He could never get away (although, probably, he could) with enacting punitive policies that apply only to Democratic states, to punish them for voting against him, but he can get a national policy that punishes everyone and then grant exceptions to it, but only for Republicans who kiss the right places.
History is being erased. Native Americans no longer helped us win WW2 by speaking their own language. A black woman no longer took us to the moon by doing math that no one else could do. Slavery was probably a benefit to our African guests. Any minority in a position of authority is now assumed to have gotten there by unjust preference-hiring rather than (most common reality) by excess work and ability. It’s almost as if he read “1984,” but the last time I checked it was longer than one page.
People who disagree with the president, some foreigners who are legally here and some actual US citizens, are being snatched off the street by masked and unmarked people who will not tell you who they are or why they are taking you. Then they are whisked to prisons far away, often in other countries, with no recourse to lawyers who might argue that they did not do what they are accused of or are not who they are suspected of being. “Disappearing” is what we have come to expect of third-world dictatorships, not American behavior. And of course it is unconstitutional, like most of the above.
Basically, they are destroying everything that made America great, in the name of making it great again.
Throughout all this the Republican congress has stepped aside and either tacitly or actively approved every measure and appointment. Some have argued that they are afraid of the president and his gang, either afraid of being primaried from the right (which has been threatened explicitly) or afraid for the physical safety of their families (which has been implied, and explicit threats have been received). This is half-decent cover, but I tend to believe that Republicans are standing aside because the president is doing exactly what they themselves have been longing for but have been afraid to do, because they know their constituents disagree. It is virtually impossible to get to the high levels of government as a Republican without swearing allegiance to the belief that lower taxes are the cure for all our problems and that the country is overwhelmed by socialism that is destroying us. Everything that is happening now is a result of those false beliefs. God help us if we don’t vote them out in 2026.
