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INTRODUCTION – JULY 2025 EDITION

The American President is shaping up as being the most dangerous autocrat in recent history. He has the power and madness to not only bring down American Democracy but also to cause panic, mayhem and pain all around the world. That’s why our July edition devotes three pieces to explore how America got into the mess it’s in….and why we should all raise our voices to support those fighting to constrain America’s 47th. President. 

Good reading.As always, your feedback is welcome.

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ESSAY 1: AN AUTOCRAT’S PLAYBOOK

Many feel what’s happening in America is an aberration, an unprecedented horror story. It’s not.

America is a young country. It’s just 250 years since the signing of the US Constitution.

Many, many types of government have been tried over thousands of years in various parts of the world before the model of American democracy became widely regarded (primarily after WW2) as the ‘golden ideal’, the ideal system the whole world should strive to emulate.

Governing systems, it’s often argued, develop in a Darwinian-like way, evolving over the eons from systems based on raw power to those where decisions were guided, rationalised or sanctified by the assumed whims and demands of Mother Nature, then a pantheon of Gods (or a single God), then the Divine Right Of Kings which, in turn, was increasingly constrained by various theories of racial and class superiority/inferiority, secular ideologies and human right demands born of rising living standards and the fruits of technology – to culminate in the ideal of Liberal Democracy; the promise of government of the people, by the people for the people.

Many countries in the past have claimed (and still claim) to be democracies. Some, in part, are. But few have the three, functioning institutional pillars required to qualify as true Liberal Democracies – viz. the rule of law, a strong and effective state and political accountability.

Americans have long believed their country epitomises that ideal. Most Americans still believe in American exceptionalism – the belief that the USA is unique and superior to other nations and therefore has a special role to play in international affairs. Trump certainly does.

It would come as a surprise to ordinary Americans to learn that in 2024 (pre Trump) the Economist Intelligence Democracy Index ranked USA 28th, well behind many Nordic and European counties. In 2016 the US was downgraded by the Economist from “full democracy” to “flawed democracy”. Over the past two decades democracies have been in retreat, autocracies on the rise. Trump Mark 2 has quickly moved in the direction of authoritarianism .

After only three months in office American democracy is already on one knee and trembling in front of this would be dictator’s assault.

FROM DEMOCRACY TO DICTATORSHIP.

What’s likely to happen under Trump and his clique? Before hazarding an answer to that question it’s helpful to look to the past for a few helpful clues. No grand theory can explain all. There are too many complexities and idiosyncratic variables involved. Better to restrict our investigation to only include what’s happened since WW1 in Russia (from Stalin to Putin), China (from Mao to Xi), the Middle East (from Nasser to Netanyahu) . Best to look at what’s happened closer to home – and, in particular, to those countries where its leaders have been democratically elected only to move onto running authoritarian governments or dictatorships. The resultant sample includes Mussolini (Italy), Hitler (Germany), Franco (Spain ), Marcos (Philippines), Peron (Argentina) to name only the better known.

All these leaders had pretty much the same deck of cards to play with –  the cards of race, religion, gender and class, a suite of ideological cards, the cards of boom times and economic hardship, the distributive cards of income and wealth equality/inequality, the power card to favour friends and punish foes by way of jobs and business contracts, the cards of the personality cult-leader and persuasive propaganda machines, the universally powerful cards of fear, anxiety, threat and hope, the external/ foreign enemy card, the ace card of ‘who’s to blame’ rounded off with the enforcement cards of police and military power, the compliance cards.

Democrat-to-authoritarian leaders (like Trump) share a common strategy in playing those cards to take control.

STEP 1. WIN POWER LEGITIMATELY.

First, the would be autocrat waits for a time of deep and rising dissatisfaction in the general population before seeking public support via the ballot box.

They then work to harness such discontent by convincing a sufficiently large part (or parts) of the electorate they fully agree with voters’ anxieties and complaints, that the demands of citizens are just and reasonable – in short,they amplify and identify with their base’s calls for improvement.

Step two is for the aspirant is to build a motivating story (Mussolini: Make Italy Great Again, Hitler: Make Germany Great Again, Franco: One, Great and Free) and promote it via a personality cult (a media image) which positions the would-be leader as their base’s ‘hero-warrior’, a saviour who has both the commitment and resources needed to pull off victory on their behalf. The populist leader further bonds with his base by identifying who is to blame (in Trump’s case criminal and illegal immigrants, Washington’s bureaucratic ‘swamp’, an elite political system – and most nations who “>trade with America) for their ripping off America before castigating all those countries and people for their sins against the good, hard working victims s/he champions. The more theatrical, charismatic, emotionally stirring and entertaining the persona the leader projects the better their chance of becoming a Duce, a Fuhrer or a Caudillo that the masses will follow.

Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Marcos, Peron (and several others) successfully played such games of seduction well enough to destroy the very democratic systems that won them power in the first place.

Winning enough votes to claim a mandate is all that matters at this stage of an autocrat’s career.

Lying, the making unrealisable promises, the substitution of fake data for fact, the playing of hate and blame cards, the formation of unholy alliances are all legit tactics. None of such transgressions matter, the end justifies the use of any means. Trump, for example, pulled off a second win in 2024, a feat that could be classified as a miracle given his abysmal first term performance. Such a result attests both to the gullibility of American voters and the weakness of Trump’s political opponents.

At the end of his first term Trump’s intentions should have already been very clear to all. Here was an egoist who did everything he could to overturn legitimate 2020 election results, including inciting a violent march on The Capitol in a bid to hold on to power. These are not the actions of a true democrat. The fragility of American democracy was in open sight yet a majority of American chose to ignore those neon-blinking and vote for Trump yet again.

Task completed, the mask of the faux democrat comes off to reveal the autocrat, dictator or madman beneath.

STEP 2 : NEUTER ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF POWER

Once in control the latent autocrat/dictator moves as quickly as possible to eliminate other sources of power and influence within the system, before they can reorganise and fight back.

Hitler did that. He even went as far assassinating one of his own strongest supporters, Ernst Rohm, the leader of the Brownshirts who were instrumental in bringing the Nazis to power. Franco’s early days were brutal and bloody .Executions, torture and labour camps ended the lives of hundreds of thousands of Spaniards. National troops were given permission to publicly humiliate and rape Republican women.

Nearly all such regimes are at their most violent in the beginning stages of their ‘takeover’, before they’re securely ensconced in power. The early days are those when most autocrats behave as dictators. Once in firm control, such leaders sometime relax to become authoritarians who, sometimes, go on to do good for the people. Peron built schools, public hospitals and social housing – and revitalised the Argentinian economy. His second wife, Evita (remember Webber and Rice’s “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina ?”), reached near Sainthood status for her work with the poor in general, and poor women in particular. Franco (in association with Opus Dei) effected a post war ‘economic miracle’ that materially lifted the living standard of ordinary people. By contrast those dictators who go for broke in attempting to control countries other than their own usually end up dead by their own hand (Hitler) or assassinated by their own countryman (Mussolini and his mistress). 

But I digress. Having (hopefully)demonstrated the US President is playing a familiar game, let’s move on to assess how well he’s doing second time around.

STEP 3: CLEANING OUT THE STABLES

Having taken office Trump moved at Blitzkrieg speed to weaken institutions under his control by removing key personnel with any allegiances or beliefs or expertise he judged might challenge his decisions or lead them to reject his infallibility.

The Chief of Staff (the most senior post in the military) was fired. All Inspector Generals (those responsible for rooting out inefficiencies and corruption in Federal government departments and instrumentalities) lost their jobs. So too did the heads of the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and US Cyber Command.

Overall Trump fired or pressured the resignation of 92% of ‘A Team’ personnel in the Administration within three months of his inauguration – a record ( see Brooking Institute review for details, it’s available online).

Trump filled those key posts with people willing and eager to tow the Trump line. Other than loyalty to The Chief, few have the credentials or experience to merit such high appointments. America now has a ‘Yes Sir’ group of sycophants trying to run America -and the world, Trump’s way.

It would be tedious to list the names, backgrounds and credentials of Trump appointees. Suffice it to say that a more than somewhat deranged RFK Jr. has been appointed Czar of America’s health system. This is a man with no scientific, research or medical credentials, a propensity to believe (like Trump) in wacky folk remedies, a person who’s highly susceptible to conspiracy theories that paint ‘medical scientists’ as the bad guys. He should be in analysis not office.

Trump has cleaned out a stable of thoroughbreds and proven performers and replaced them with real-estate moguls, donors, billionaires, bigots, weirdos, would-be’s and favour seekers. This is a B grade team that has no chance of making America great again. Its antics will weaken America both domestically and abroad.

STEP3: NEUTER THE TWO OTHER ARMS OF GOVERNMENT 

While putting his own house in order Trump still had time and the puff to effectively castrate Congress. It proved a surprisingly easy task. He simply told Republicans what he wanted and they did it. He simply wrote Executive Order after Executive Order and proceeded to implement them. He made no significant concessions to Congress. After all the Republican Party was really the Trump Party. If Republicans didn’t show him the fealty he thought he deserved they’d risk losing his support in the midterm elections. Most Republicans didn’t want to take the risk of losing office.

Whether it was out of fear, shock or sheer gutlessness Democrats failed (with the exception of very few like Bernie Sanders, A O Cortez, Cory Booker and Gov. Newsom) to take to the street and fight for democracy. Where was “Yes We Can” Obama? It looked like the Democrats were hiding under their beds, shaking at the prospect of being pointed at by Trump.

Game over.  So far Congress has behaved like a paper tiger. It capitulated. Trump’s Great, Big Beautiful Bill was passed by The House. Oops! One of the three essential components of liberal democracy had collapsed.

Only the judicial system (the Rule of Law) now stands in the way of Trump having his own way on everything.

Trump tries to play and circumvent the law. He doesn’t passively accept its decisions. A man who had been involved in around four thousand court cases before 2025 isn’t going to be intimidated by judges and their rulings. He’s confident he knows how to play the system, tie it up and delay things. Trump uses the law as a business tool to advance his own interests. And he’s very good at doing it.

When ICE et al. started picking up ‘illegal’ immigrants (the so called drug runners, rapists, criminals, job stealers and mentally defectives) and deporting them to overseas hell-holes without due process, the Courts issued cease and desist orders which the Administration appealed with fanciful interpretations of obscure statutes, or tried to circumvent by advancing simplistic arguments and lying – or simply ignored. Trump’s minions just got on with the job of ‘round up and fly out’.

Trump will continue to try and outfox the law unless and until his base starts to agree with what the courts are saying – ie. until his approval rating in his base starts to fall. Until then he’ll play his usual game.

Those who challenge Trump about the legality of his tariff initiatives will meet with similar responses. The law alone won’t stop Trump.

STEP 4: SILENCE ALTERNATIVE VOICES

There are many other institutions in Trump’s gunsights.
The President definitely likes everything his own way. He intimidates and strong arms anyone who’s disrespectful enough to suggest not all he says is right or wise.

• Universities are being told what they can and can’t teach to whom, what opinions their students can and can’t express on campus, what research is and isn’t worthwhile.

He advocates troublesome Professors should be removed, overseas students closely monitored, bursaries and scholarships to overseas students stopped and given to Americans…and on it goes. Only ‘Big Brother’ approved courses should be taught in American universities and schools.

• Federal Government staff who have attended DEI classes (and those deemed to have been promoted because of DEI programmes) are given demerits by DOGE when drawing up their ‘firing criteria’. Federal Government departments have been ordered to no longer to run DEI programmes.

• Many Federal departments such as FEMA (disaster relief), Environmental Protection, Disaster and Long Term Weather Forecasting, Education, Veteran Affairs have been closed or suffered budget or proposed budget cuts. The $ savings won are piddling but big enough to leave significant holes in the safety net that’s there to support the less well off.

• 83% of US overseas aid organisations budgets have been cut.  USAID (the world’s largest supplier of humanitarian aid) has effectively been closed down.  PEPFAR (the world’s largest and most successful HIV-AIDS disease prevention and treatment programme) has suffered the same fate. Trump cares little for anyone who’s not rich. Nor does he put much value on the ‘soft power’ the (goodwill) such aid wins for America in the developing world. Unless there’s a profit in it why (Trump asks) should America bother? Waste of time.

[note: The US  spends around 0.24% of its nation’s income on overseas development assistance. That figure includes humanitarian aid]

• Trump sees himself as a cultured man (Frank Sinatra singing ‘My Way, I did it my way’ is one of his favourite musical numbers-and when it comes to bathroom fittings he has a penchant for fine, gold plated tap ware). Many an unkind person thought he fired the chairman of the iconic Kennedy Centre in an act of revenge for the centre declining his request to hold one of his rallies there. Surely not. Trump installed himself as Chairman in a selfless gesture to lift standard in American Art.

‘My way or the highway’ is a fit epitaph for America’s 45th and 47th President. He is a would-be dictator. He’s mad, bad and dangerous to know.

He’s well down the path on his way to autocracy

BACK TO INTRO

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ESSAY 2: HOW ONE MAN’S DREAM MADE NIGHTMARES FOR OTHERS

ASK TRUMP WHAT WOULD PLEASE HIM MOST

Ask The President what motivates him and you’ll get very pious and worthy responses, the sort of do-gooder responses every politician can recite in their sleep. Besides, if he tried to tell the truth he may not be able to oblige, even if he wanted to. Not everyone is aware of what drives them.

It can be far more revealing to approach such an quest by finding out what Trump would like to see happen, what outcomes, or happenings, would please him most. A little sodium pentothal or a couple of drinks would help to lower his strong, automatic defence mechanism and make that task easier. The so called ‘truth drug’ is, however illegal and Trump doesn’t drink. Nonetheless everyone provides clues (by way of side remarks, slips of the tongue, body language, jokes etc) as to what they’re really about.

Let’s look at a few of those giveaways.

DREAM ONE

Trump promised to settle both the Israeli-Palestine and the Russia-Ukraine wars on day one of his second term.

He would love to pull off that double for reasons other than world peace.

Wow! That (he’d say) would be terrific, great! If I did that they’d have to give me the Nobel Peace Prize.

Only three American Presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize while in office – Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama.

Winning the Prize would put me up there alongside the great Presidents. I’d move up in ‘the-great-president ratings’ from near bottom (where I am now) to near the top. I might even get my face carved on Mount Rushmore. Wouldn’t that be a slap in the face for that smug, superior SOB Obama who took great pleasure in making fun of me in public, saying I wasn’t up for the job. If I won the Prize I’d certainly end up with more TIME magazine covers than he’s got (at the moment he’s been on the cover 32 times, me 29 times). I’d love that.

Winning the Prize would also boost my world image, bigly… I’d be side by side with greats like Martin Luther King Jr, Mandala and Gorbachev. World leaders would show me more respect. None of the other guys in Big Bully Boys Club (Putin, Xi, Kim Jong Un, …) will ever get a Peace Prize. I’d be the only one. Terrific. They’d have to take me more seriously. So too would all those Ivy League liberal, leftie, woke professors who look down their noses at me with distaste, shaking their heads as if they were listening to a village idiot. Best of all I’d be invited to every A-list event and party as their guest of honour not just as a parvenu from the Bronx. Yes, I’d certainly love to win a Nobel Peace Prize …or two. (One for ending the Israel-Palestine war, one for saving part of Ukraine).

In reality, Trump the peacemaker, is a myth.

⚰️Trump has failed. Both wars have become bigger with prospects of peace fading.

⚰️Trump has no real interest in or empathy for or understanding of what’s happening to the people of Gaza. He (in a televised White House sit down with Netanyahu) quite casually announced he had no problem with the suggestion of moving Palestinians (maybe forcibly) out of their homeland to other “beautiful” nearby countries for permanent resettlement. He went as far as to say it might be a good idea for America to “take over” (“own”) Gaza to then, maybe, reconstruct it to become an American Riviera open to the “people of the world.” Pina coladas anyone?

Trump failed to constrain Israel on all fronts. He has failed to get Israel to allow humanitarian aid (food, clean water, medical supplies, fuel ) into Gaza. He has failed to constrain Israel’s constant bombing of civilian areas in Gaza – ie. genocide. He has not cut back on supplying Israel with military intelligence, munitions and sophisticated weaponry. By using the US’ veto in the Security Council he has blocked every UN resolution to sanction Israel.

⚰️In his bizarre courtship with Putin Trump has favoured Russia (the aggressor) and pressured, strong armed and humiliated Zelensky and Ukraine (the victim) to make all the concessions. Trump consistently exaggerates (by about factor of 4 in $ terms) how much military and other support the US afforded Ukraine. He also, retrospectively, argues that US only ‘loaned’ (not gave) those assets to Ukraine and that they have to be repaid or offset by giving America a 50% share of Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals. Again Trump sided with Big Guy Putin at the expense of the innocent victims of aggression. He repeatedly does that.

⚰️Trump (via Musk-DOGE) clearly showed his lack of compassion for the poor, starving and ill of this world by all but closing down both of America’ biggest overseas aid agencies.

⚰️He is equally indifferent to the millions of illegals he’s promised to throw out of America in chains (without due process) often into countries unknown into prisons or communities without any safety net provisions or protections. He’s prepared to just dump and leave them. Bon voyage! problem solved. Success.

Trump only feels real compassion for the man who’s face he sees in the mirror while shaving, his own. Beautiful.

DREAM TWO

The President’s second (‘wouldn’t it be lovely’) dream has to do with a mishmash of things, economic, monetary and distributive, some sound ideas and some unrealistic fantasies.

His grand vision is three pronged. Prong one is tariffs. Prong two is DOGE .Prong three is his BBB (the Big Beautiful Bill that has already passed the House (and now sits waiting in the Senate). These prongs are meant to work in conjunction with each other. If one prong fails it’s serious. If two prongs fail it’s game over. One prong can’t support, yet alone lift, the economy.

ECONOMIC PRONG 1: TARIFFS

Tariff is not only Trump’s favourite word, it’s his favourite economic tool. Trump is pissed off that virtually every country in the word sells more to America than they buy. These deficits have been allowed to run for too long (he says); they’ve helped increase America’s national debt to dangerously high levels, ruined American industries and stolen jobs from hard working American workers by ‘sending’ them overseas. His tariffs will fix that (he says).

Foreigners will pay all those tariffs to flow billions and billions of dollars into ‘our’

government’s coffers, monies that will be spent to modernise infrastructure, build the military and decrease national debt. Tariffs will help America rebuild its industries, provide jobs and attract overseas companies to invest in making things in the USA. That’s Prong 1. Hot!

ECONOMIC PRONG 2: DOGE

Everybody knows the government is bloated, too full of unproductive employees. That’s not fair to taxpayers. Everybody (says Trump) also knows that too many freeloaders exploit welfare. DOGE (under Musk and his IT stars) will stop the bloating and help stop welfare fraud/excesses. That’s another $2 trillion or so saved. Genius. That’s Prong 2.

ECOONMIC PRONG 3: MY BBB

My Big Beautiful Bill will pass Congress, rounding everything off to win further savings so we can afford the tax cuts needed to encourage our big businesses and entrepreneurs to invest more and so grow the economy to make America great again . That’s prong 3, the wealth building part of my ‘everyone wins’ programme. 

All the above is nonsense, a con job that will collapse in the real world.

🍋It’s nonsense to pretend that foreigners will pay tariffs. The vast majority of those bigger tariffs will eventually be paid for by American consumers by way of higher prices-inflation (and the small businesses which will have no option but to close down). While Trump’s tariff rates go up and down as quickly as a yo-yo it’s impossible to calculate the likely impact of his tariffs on working to middle class families, but even at moderate levels (around the10% to 20% range across a typical basket of goods) rough estimates suggest a AU$5,000 to AU$ 8,000 reduction in real purchasing power. American export markets will shrink as other nations retaliate with tariffs of their own. American farmers are particularly vulnerable. In short, Trump doesn’t understand how tariffs work. His beliefs are, (in economists’ eyes) both naive and damaging.

🍋Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) turned out to be a disaster. Initial promises of $US 2 trillion savings quickly shrunk, to $US 1 trillion. They ended up at around the $US 150 billion, before expenses.

Worse, DOGE’s young and inexperienced ‘tech-babies’ fired people without rhyme or reason. Nor did they explain to most of those fired why they were fired. In some cases jobs had to be re-offered to those fired because government departments could not function without them. That’s a dumb modus operandi, not an efficient one. Trump acts intuitively and recklessly. So did Musk, both are glitzy, no substance showponies.

🍋 Trump’s BBB reveals his true intentions; get American consumers, American workers, America’s small businesses and America’s poor to pay for tax cuts for the already very rich (his big donors and supporters) and big business. If he gets his way his success will be a betrayal of the voter base that made him President. His words seduced them, his actions betray his perfidy.

Trump isn’t focused on the economic growth of the nation. He’s all about accumulating wealth for his friends, the people who can make him a senior billionaire rather than leave him a junior one. His greed is insatiable. Even his wife has her own meme-coin. This guy would do deals with the Devil if there’s a dollar to be won.

All up, Trump acts like an economic fumbler, just as he was when running his casino, hotel and resort businesses. He was a mediocre businessman at best. He made his big money out of TV (The Apprentice) and by becoming President. The rest he inherited.

DREAM THREE

Trump dreams of being seen as a strongman, a much admired icon of strength. His top five movies reportedly include The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Clint Eastwood), The Godfather (Marlon Brando) and Bloodsport (Jean-Claude Van Damme).

Trump was mightily impressed by a French military parade he attended with President Macron in 2017. He said America oughta do that sort of thing too. He’s been trying to arrange one ever since.

Why shouldn’t the leader of the Greatest Nation on Earth have his parade? Xi (standing in front of a giant portrait of Mao in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square) takes the ‘eyes right’ from goose stepping troops as they march by. The Russians have their huge May Day parades in Moscow…even the Queen of England (as Colonel in Chief) took the salute a-top a horse in Trooping the Colour at Buckingham Palace.

The 250th Anniversary of American Army gave Trump the excuse to mount a parade of his own…on the same day as his birthday. In his mind’s eye he could picture himself as a much-admired Commander in Chief, the centre of the Nation’s attention, taking from (as well as paying homage to) the military, his military. In Trump’s dreamworld he’d be standing in front of his troops and a huge cheering civilian crowd, like a latter-day General Paton. In reality he looked like a tired man in a mid-blue suit reading a flowery B-grade movie script on a teleprompter. The Parade lacked authenticity, it lacked energy. It was perfunctory, flat.

 .
George C Scott playing Paton. Sorry, DJT. 

In reality,

🍅The crowds that attended the Parade were smaller than expected, thin and unanimated. By comparison those who attended the nearly 2,000 ‘NO KINGS’ rallies across the County drew large crowds, were peaceful but energised.

🍅The front row of those sitting on the review dais of the 250^th year Army Anniversary Parade were civilians, Trump’s men and a woman (The First Lady). Military leaders were in the second row. Trump’s front row dignitaries looked rather disinterested at times. They failed to exhibit the hand-over- heart solemnity and gratitude demanded by the occasion.

The Defence Secretary (left f the President) solemnly taking the salute at Army Anniversary Parade 2025.

🍅Trump may have hoped this show of strength would show all Americans he had the muscle to enforce his edicts by force (as he has done in Los Angeles against the wishes of its Mayor and Newsom (the Governor of California). It didn’t work out that way. Quite the reverse. It fed the fear this President might end up behaving like a Banana Republic dictator. The tactic backfired.

🍅The Army did their duty and performed to brief. But you could sense the Army would have preferred a different kind of parade, one that didn’t use them as puppets for boosting Trump’s image. It was meant to be their day not his. Their uncomfortableness was palpable. When troops called out ‘Happy Birthday Mister President’ it had a hollow ring. There was no gusto in their voices.

🍅 While Trump salutes the Army on their 250 (and his 79 birthday ) Anniversary Parade his BBB will reduce the funds allocated to Veteran Affairs and the weaken the safety net many rely on (Vet hospitals and clinics, tax concessions, education to health insurance assistance, access to SNAP, CHIP, Medicare and Medicaid).

Oops! Once again Trump had overestimated his appeal and underestimated the intelligence of ordinary Americans.

Trump’s dreams are quickly becoming nightmares for the rest of the world – with the exception of Putin, Xi and Netanyahu.

Time for us to wake Donald up!

BACK TO INTRO

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ESSAY 3: END GAME IN AMERICA

The Trump Administration has already damaged The USA both at home and abroad. The longer it stays in power the worse the damage will get .The sooner Trump and his henchmen go (or are constrained) the better. The wounds Trump has already inflicted on US Democracy and America’s standing among the Nations of the world have been been severe. America is not the Nation it was Pre-Trump. It will take a long time for America to regain the ground it has so quickly and easily lost. America is currently on one knee and trembling against the assault of this home-grown barbarian.

Fortunately Trump has turned out to be a rather inept would-be authoritarian/dictator. He’d rank poorly in any ‘best dictators of all time’ poll, well down toward the bottom, just as he does in ‘best US President’ polls. He is a blustering bully, an egoist of (at best) limited intelligence, a fact he masks with street-cunning, demagoguery and braggadocio – ie. populist bullshit. Those are his strengths.

His weaknesses are his intellectual laziness and very poor implementation skills. He has no eye for learning, no ear for listening, no interest in detail or planning. He shoots from the hip. He delegates the tiresome tasks of getting things done to his lackeys. Sadly for Trump most things his henchmen have attempted to do they’ve executed badly. If you look at their credentials it not hard to see why. They’re a bunch of misfits and would-bes. They’re hardly America’s Best and Brightest .Their main ‘virtue’ is their loyalty to Trump, the man who owns the gravy train they’ve hooked onto .Without Trump they have no future, no careers and much harder paths to tread in pursuit of greater personal wealth.

Unfortunately for Trump his first step was a bad one. He made the mistake of attacking too many of his phantom enemies all at once.

He (via Vance) lectured Europe that it would have to pay its own way from now on. He lambasted NATO, slapped Canada in the face, declared his intentions to ‘acquire’ Panama, Greenland and Gaza, hit China (and nearly everyone else) with absurdly high tariffs. He withdrew from The Climate Change Paris Agreement, ignored the rulings of International Courts, abused the UN and blocked Assembly Resolutions in the Security Council.  He denigrated Heads of State in televised ‘talks’ in the White House (remember Trump and Vance’s bullying of Zelinski). He cancelled overseas US humanitarian aid programmes.

At home Trump unleashed DOGE (to randomly fire tens of thousands of Federal employees) and ICE (to deport hundreds of thousands of ‘illegal’ immigrants without due process), ignored or tried to outmanoeuvre the Courts, pardoned those jailed for attacking The Capitol in 2021, opened the door for the Cryptocurrency lobby (even launching his own meme-coin), intimidated big law firms, used his big black pen to shut down DEI and LBGTQI programmes, sent edicts to American Universities threatening both them and their students with all sorts of punishments unless they follow his edicts and curriculum guides.

That’s a lot of people to rile within the first six months of taking office. When they all fight back, which they eventually will in a wave of resistance, Trump’s days will be numbered. It’s just a matter of time.

Nearly all polls show Trump’s ‘approval policy ratings’ are in negative territory across the board – only a minority now support the way he’s conducting even his most popular programme, controlling illegal immigration. Americans are growing immune to his rhetoric, more sceptical about his promises and more suspicious about his motivations. They’re growing more and more aware of his transgressions and heavy handedness. His ratings are rapidly falling to atypically low levels. This can’t, and won’t, go on forever. The resistance wave will, hopefully, build into a tsunami that will wash Trump away.

How quickly that will happen nobody knows, but when it does happen how his end will come about depends a lot on how Trump reacts to that mounting fightback. His unpredictability makes it hard to judge which way he’ll break.

Trump may dig his heels in and go for broke, fighting to the death using as many evasive, postponing, blame deflecting and spiteful tactics as possible. He may even resort to overt violence. If you believe Trump is the Strong Man he pretends to be you might feel he’ll choose this path, taking as many people down with him as he possibly can, friend and foe alike. Many an autocrat-dictator believed that none deserved to survive if they can’t.

The problem for Trump, if he were to go down in a blood and guts fight, is he’d enter history books as the most malignant President ever, the one who attempted to wreck American democracy. He’d hate that epitaph. As long as he lived he’d be shunned by the very elites he craves admiration from – he’d hear them talk about him as a loser, a traitorous conman, a social outcast, a fool. He’d become a social pariah. No A-list invitations would come his way, only sycophants would play golf with him, few would likely attend his funeral. His star would be completely snuffed out, extinguished. There is no worse fate for a narcissist than being alive and ignored.

That’s why I think Trump is more likely to retreat than stand his ground. Let me elaborate a little on why I think that.

First and foremost Trump sees himself as the world’s greatest deal maker. He admits that’s the only real skill he has. He loves the art of making deals. To reassure himself he is indeed the ‘master’,  he needs to have continuous access to a table, any table, where he can mix and play with other deal makers, be they heads of state , money men ,crypto pushers, politicians,  property developers or resort (preferably golf) visionaries. Trump wouldn’t want to jeopardise a future in which he could go on doing that after his Presidency ends in just over three years time. Certainly I don’t believe he’ll resign as Nixon did, I think he’ll choose (as the acronym TACO -Trump Always Chickens Out – suggests) to make concessions to hang onto the Presidency for as long as possible to retain some of the prestige and trappings of office that are granted to all who once held the highest position in the land. My guess is Trump (unless summarily removed by impeachment) will ameliorate his autocratic behaviour over the next couple of years so he’ll have sufficient, kudos, curiosity value, notoriety and money in his retirement years to keep on playing his ego pumping games. After all being a small, spluttering star is better than being no star at all. Trump would rather be a bit actor on the stage than not be on it, at all. He craves the spotlight. Trump , I think , will sacrifice power to maintain his self-image .

Whatever Trump does we can be sure of one thing, Trump is a President America will not miss.

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