US President Donald Trump is in Asia this week for trade talks, including negotiating a trade deal with China that he will declare a historic victory in his tariff wars. Meanwhile, he dispatched a high-level team – his vice president, secretary of state, special envoy, and son-in-law – to shore up the Gaza ceasefire he brokered.
Trump wants to be seen as the peace president, even if the Nobel Committee doesn’t, while back at home, he is waging an all-out war on American democracy. Abroad, he lectures rivals to put aside old grievances and pursue cooperation and compromises, just the opposite of what he’s doing at home.
Whatever his achievements in recent diplomacy, his administration remains one of the most inept, unqualified, corrupt, and dangerous in American history. It is no secret that Trump put loyalty ahead of quality and competence when forming his government.
An administration at war with its own democracy
He and the Republicans in Congress are keeping the government closed until Democrats agree to drop funding for Obamacare insurance subsidies. That means some 17 million Americans can expect their premiums to soar about 30%.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has been on vacation since September just to avoid voting on releasing the Epstein files. That suggests they contain something so damning for Trump in his pedophile pal’s papers that Republican leaders are willing to close the shop to conceal them.
Trump sees the shutdown as a “unique opportunity” to reshape the government. That includes firing thousands of government workers, with special attention to women and blacks in senior positions, notably in the military.
The government may be unfunded, people are not getting paychecks, and inflation is rising, but that doesn’t deter Trump from tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build his gilded ballroom.
Don’t believe him when he says it won’t cost taxpayers anything. We will be repeatedly reimbursing his rich friends with government contracts, benefits, and tax breaks. Those millions are not contributions; they’re down payments on future favors.
Trump has put stewardship of the nation’s health in the hands of a dangerous quack – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – who thinks circumcision and Tylenol cause autism, and that Ashkenazi Jews got a free pass on COVID.
He is waging war on the media with his trademark insults, lawsuits, threats, and regulatory pressure. The Pentagon has instituted Soviet-style rules restricting access not only for reporters but also for members of Congress and their staffs.
The president is engaging in a full-court press to change the way we vote. He wants to curtail mail-in ballots, require proof of citizenship, and weaken the Voting Rights Act. Republican states are gerrymandering congressional districts, at his urging, to shrink black representation. It’s all designed to make it more difficult for the poor, the elderly, minorities, and new citizens to vote.
His appointees fired FBI, Justice Department, defense, and other officials who, in their official duties, were part of investigations of Trump’s first term and the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Some are being threatened with prosecution. Meanwhile, the violent insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol got presidential pardons and were called heroes.
He has denied FEMA disaster assistance for three blue states but announced he was sending millions to five states that had voted for him.
Trump has done what he falsely accused his predecessor of doing, weaponizing the Justice Department. He publicly ordered his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to indict several of his enemies, which she did. When professional prosecutors balked, he fired them and appointed inexperienced and unqualified replacements.
Trump has been keeping his vow of retribution. So far, three at the top of his enemies list – New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI director James Comey, and his former national security advisor John Bolton – have been indicted. Attorney-General Bondi announced she’s investigating former House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Trump has also called for the arrest of the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois. “I think there’ll be others,” Trump told reporters.
Administration officials have been using personal mortgage records to investigate and possibly indict Trump’s enemies for cases of mortgage fraud. As part of the cover-up of malfeasance, nonfeasance, crimes, and plain old incompetence inside the administration, most inspectors-general, watchdogs, and whistleblowers have been fired.
Reshaping the federal workforce
Tens of thousands of career federal workers were stripped of civil service job protection so they could easily be fired and replaced with MAGA loyalists. Child nutrition and food assistance programs for America’s poor have also been slashed.
His anti-immigration campaign is xenophobic, racist, and brutal. Heavily armed, masked ICE agents raid homes, hospitals, courts, and churches. Roundups have often been indiscriminate, even handcuffing children, grabbing people seemingly because of skin color and accents, and sweeping up American citizens in the process.
Trump isn’t against all immigrants. After all, two of his wives were immigrants. Now he’s planning to bring in 7,000 or more White Afrikaners from South Africa.
Trump’s increasingly authoritarian administration and his preference for ruling over governing led more than 7 million Americans to take to the streets this month for the peaceful No Kings protests. In Washington, DC, alone, the crowds dwarfed those at Trump’s birthday parade in June and his inauguration in January.
To show his contempt, Trump posted on his social media account an AI video of him piloting a jet as it emits a massive sewage dump onto his fellow citizens. It was consistent with his history of posting cruel, vulgar, violent, and mean-spirited messages on Truth Social.
A streak of fascism among Young Republicans went public this month with the publication of racist, antisemitic, misogynistic, and assorted bigoted messages on Telegram. Vice President JD Vance shrugged it off as “that’s what kids do.” Just kids being kids and Republicans being fascists.
The administration has been dismantling environmental protection and opening federal lands and parks to the exploitation of natural resources. Trump has threatened to defund schools that teach about the evils of slavery, and ordered the Smithsonian Museums to scrub displays to “remove improper ideology” deemed by his thought police to “distort” American history.
The old draft dodger seems particularly excited about sending the military to take over law enforcement in Democratic-run cities on false and bizarre claims that they are crime-ravaged “hellholes.” “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” he publicly advised his defense secretary.
The New York Times editorial board pointed out what most people already know – that Trump puts his personal interest ahead of the rule of law and national security. In fact, he believes they are the same. That, along with unprecedented governmental incompetence and a fawning Republican Party, represents the greatest threat ever to American democracy.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.