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Daily-Opinion
Can America Recover From Trump-World?
For a forest to recover from a fire takes more than planting a few new trees. Rolling back what amounts to a domestic counterrevolution is a daunting task, and it is easy to be misled.
Oct 04, 2026
Humpty dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again—Nursery Rhyme
Much can be said about President Donald Trump, but it is impossible to say that he has “done nothing.” This boorish, megalomaniacal, unpredictable, and frighteningly ignorant real-estate salesman has transformed his country by unleashing an avalanche of executive orders, edicts, institutional transformations, legislative shifts, and policy changes. Whether the nation can recover its democratic roots should not be taken for granted despite its institutional resilience and civic culture.
Trump-World is about more than Trump the president and demagogic ruler of the Republican Party. MAGA stands on tradition. Its base is rooted in the same backward classes, with a similar authoritarian and fascist ideological outlook as its right-wing extremist forerunners such as the “know-nothings,” the KKK, “America First!,” McCarthyism, and the White Segregationist Councils. Whatever the president’s decline in poll numbers, his mass base isn’t going anywhere and its racist, xenophobic, chauvinistic, and anti-working class beliefs are firmly entrenched. A reactionary sword of Damocles still hangs over a Democratic Party torn between a sclerotic mainstream and an exuberant faction of democratic socialists. Republicans collapse the former into the latter and then attack this essentially “center-left” political organization as “liberal,” “socialist,” communist, “Marxist,” and “anarchist,” even as Trump followers haven’t a clue what these words actually mean.
For a forest to recover from a fire takes more than planting a few new trees. Rolling back what amounts to a domestic counterrevolution is a daunting task, and it is easy to be misled. It is not a matter of the next election or putting together a grab bag of issues that will leave the public as confused as it was before, but a readiness to change institutions, reorient economic policy, and refashion foreign policy by highlighting three or four crucial points in each domain.
This calls for shifting away from Trump, the insufferable person, and focusing on Trump-World’s devastating attack on the welfare state, neofascist battle against civil liberties, cultural parochialism, and xenophobic-imperialist foreign policy.
Trump has issued over 500 executive orders in 2025-2026 alone. These now touch upon virtually every aspect of everyday life. Every progressive social movement with a marginalized constituency has come under attack through legislative and often coercive means. Public lands have been privatized, coal has been promoted while wind and solar energy projects have been shut down. Agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security have been “weaponized;” indeed, between the beginning of June and the end of August 2026, more than 150,000 arrests were made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Meanwhile the “leftist” departments of education, environmental protection, and health and human serves have been gutted. Other regulatory agencies have been purged, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Legal gambits have insulated the presidency from criminal indictment, legal harassment of critics and “enemies” has become an everyday occurrence. The press has been intimidated, television shows have been canceled, and academic freedom is on the ropes. The threat to democracy is real and and the nation’s fabric is fraying. Drastic changes to the tax codes favoring elites and the top 0.1% have contributed to the greatest upward shift in wealth in American history. Unions have been banned from 40 federal agencies, collective bargaining agreements are imperiled, and worker health programs have been eviscerated. The new imbalance of class power is fixed, if not set in stone. Everything associaated with the “New Deal” of the 1930s, and the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s is hanging by a thread. With the Trumpist counterrevolution, the whole has become more than the sum of its parts, and everyday people find it difficult to process this avalanche of reactionary measures or the dangers that they pose. A mixture of political frustration and disorientation that provides fertile ground for nostalgia associated with the 1950s, when America was seemingly admired by the whole world.
US foreign policy has changed for the worse as multilateralism has surrendered to “America First!” Indeed, reference to the isolationist and quasi-fascist movement of the 1930s with the same name is not coincidental. Trump has identified the American national interest with his own. His personal enrichment by $2.6 billion in 2025-2026 occurred in concert with constantly fluctuating positions on the Russia-Ukraine War, the Iran War, NATO, the European Union, and Canada. The rule of thumb: Where cash is not to be made, support is not to be given. The United States has reneged on all major climate treaties. Aid to the United Nations, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the world’s most vulnerable nations has been cut to the bone. Trump has signed a sweeping bill imposing sanctions on Russia while simultaneously negotiating new “business deals” before the conflict ends, thus contradicting his previous warnings. His on-again, off-again imperialist threats to turn Canada into America’s 51st state, “protect” Greenland and Denmark, “run” Venezuela’s oil industry, create a “Gazan Riviera” (presumably based on Trump company investments), exploit Ukrainian minerals, sign a bill with sweeping sanctions and set up hotel deals in Russia, constitute the mix of personal and institutional goals that provide the president’s zigzag approach with a certain logic.
Trump’s foreign policy has no need for a state department, which has essentially been hollowed out along with the experts necessary to create prudent policies. Our president values the personal touch, and he is not above blackmail, threats, intimidation, bluster, and childish tantrums to get his way. None of this has worked. Trump has alienated NATO and the EU to Russia’s delight. Relations with Canada are at their lowest point amid a bitter tariff war. America’s squandering of military rources and diplomatic setbacks have left Taiwan and South Korea feeling increasingly uneasy as Chinese military actions linger in the background.
Trump’s record of failure is astonishing. After all the grandiose claims, mediation efforts to end the Russian-Ukraine War are stalled, policy toward Israel is an embarrassment, Venezuela has the same authoritarian regime, Iran’s geopolitical importance has actually increased, and there are rumblings about charging the United States with war crimes. Trump’s attempts to intimidate China have failed, the tariff offensive is tottering, and the president’s charismatic charm apparently hasn’t prevented North Korea’s “supreme leader” Kim Jong Un from further nuclear testing. Never has the moral and symbolic standing of the United States been lower, and never has it shown itself so incapable of distinguishing between democratic friends and authoritarian enemies.
“America First!” has turned into America last. Reversal of discrete policies is possible, restoring checks and balances is more difficult, and reigning in the charismatic presidency is likely. But this ignores the forest for the trees. Trump-World is more than the sum of its parts, and the avalanche of policies and edicts makes the counterrevolution difficult to process and threatens to overwhelm the ability of critics to prioritize their responses. MAGA will offer ongoing opposition to progressive forces and, in response, they must forward a rational and radical agenda of their own. This calls for shifting away from Trump, the insufferable person, and focusing on Trump-World’s devastating attack on the welfare state, neofascist battle against civil liberties, cultural parochialism, and xenophobic-imperialist foreign policy. That is what it will take for the United States to recover from its decade-long trauma—and even then...
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Trump Said He Wanted His Tariffs to End the 'Rip-Off'; It Hasn't Worked Out That Way
The August level of $132.6 billion is the second-highest trade deficit on record, topped only by last year’s March deficit.
Oct 04, 2026
It’s been almost a year and a half since “Liberation Day,” the day that President Donald Trump announced his “reciprocal” tariffs, slapping tariffs on imports from our trading partners to punish them for selling us stuff. Ostensibly, the goal of the tariffs was to eliminate, or at least reduce, our trade deficit.
Trump seems to believe that we are being ripped off if we buy more goods from a country than we sell to them. There can be problems caused by a large trade deficit, especially one that is rapidly growing, as was the case in the first decade of this century. But it doesn’t make sense to claim a country is ripping us off by selling us stuff.
Anyhow, whatever problems we have with trade are poorly addressed by the sort of blanket tariffs imposed by Trump. We may want tariffs to promote the development of certain industries, like solar panels or electric vehicles, or to ensure a stable supply of essential products, like steel and rare earth minerals, but such efforts have little to do with Trump’s tariffs.
He said that he wanted to end the rip-off, which he defined as our trade deficit. It hasn’t worked out that way.
The monthly deficit had been around $90 billion through 2023. (Note that these are advance numbers based on incomplete data. They are generally higher than the final data the Census Bureau releases later.) It rose gradually in 2024, as the growth of the US economy outpaced the growth of our trading partners. This caused US imports to rise more than our exports to other countries. By the election, the trade deficit was up to $110 billion. It then began to rise more rapidly as consumers and businesses stocked up on imported goods in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs. The deficit hit an all-time record of $158.7 billion in March of 2025.
The deficit then fell both due to the impact of the tariffs and also because of the advance purchases in anticipation of the tariffs. By December, the deficit had risen back to $100 billion a month, roughly the same as the pre-election level.
The deficits have increased sharply again in 2026, driven in large part by a surge in semiconductor chips due to the AI boom. The August level of $132.6 billion is the second-highest deficit on record, topped only by last year’s March deficit.
It is worth mentioning that the US runs a substantial surplus on services, collecting around $30 billion more each month on items like patent and copyright fees, insurance, and financial services than what we pay to foreigners. I’m not sure if this means we’re ripping them off, but that is part of the larger score on the trade balance.
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Five Reasons Trump Might Actually Resign
Trump, having lost much of his leverage, knows he can’t even appear to accomplish much in 2027 and 2028.
Oct 03, 2026
It is hard to read President Donald Trump’s mind—what with his chronic lies, delusions, and fake promises. His incentives to finish his term are numerous—pomp and ceremony, daily vengeance, judicial immunity, Democratic leaders, for now, opposing impeachment (see "Open Letter to Representative Hakeem Jeffries", August 31, 2026), and immensely enriching himself using the punishing or rewarding powers of the presidency.
The rewards are insatiable. This failed businessman, riven with debts and losses, revealed in his 2025 financial disclosures a profit of $1.1 MILLION AN HOUR on a 40-hour week! He probably will reap more dollars in 2026, which he has ensured would be non-taxable by his captured Internal Revenue Service (See: "DOJ Settlement ‘Forever’ Bars IRS Trump Audits, Sparks Backlash").
Then, what could be the counter factors in his mind for resignation? Foremost, he is exhausted physically and mentally, declining at an accelerating rate, worrying his physicians and family. Over 30 prominent mental health professionals—some with expert witness credentials in courts—and physicians have observed his deterioration in a disciplined statement read into the Congressional Record on April 30 by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Jack Reed (D-RI). (See also: "Midterm Countdown, 33 Days to Go: Language from Our Leader" by James Fallows.) Trump yearns for more R&R and golf and less grueling travel requirements.
He can claim that it is time to hand the great future of America to a younger generation of Republicans led by a new president, JD Vance.
Second, he would avoid the many investigations the Democrats would launch against his administration, coupled with negative headlines, disclosures by whistleblowers, congressional subpoenas, and charges of contempt of Congress.
Third, it resolves a messy presidential primary race by installing JD Vance—his present choice as successor—as a president who would maintain a compliant Department of Justice and, crucially, maintain loyalty to Trump across the board in his regime. This continuity might mitigate his base blaming him for November’s losses, since he demanded that the GOP candidates pretend that he is on the ballot. Trump cannot stand the shrinking of his MAGA base, plus the departure of his bone-tired, super loyal personal staff.
Fourth, his military intelligence and domestic advisers are briefing him on what is likely to come. Troubling scenarios would land on his desk for responses and decisions. They include the arrival of deadly drones; runaway AI Frankensteins; a possible pandemic (see: "Are We Ready for the Next One?" from Johns Hopkins University); more intensive storms, floods, droughts, and mega wildfires; all pressures that he can try but not succeed in avoiding. Moreover, there is a broad consensus that his deficits and national debt are surging from runaway military spending, corporate welfare, giveaways, huge tax reductions, and evasions by the super rich and mega corporations that will raise the hated interest rates everywhere.
Fifth, he is confident he can declare victory on every front, domestic and foreign, with rhetoric that he has been honing for years. He can say he has accomplished his pledges to the American people, showing his list of “promises made and promises kept.” He can claim that it is time to hand the great future of America to a younger generation of Republicans led by a new president, JD Vance, who is in his 40s.
Though contrary to his past boasts of being in “excellent health,” he could invoke “Drs. Orders” and wanting to spend more time with his family. Melania would certainly not object to this kind of resignation. She has not liked at all the limelight of being the first lady, and knows that the coming two years are going to be much more stressful for her and her husband.
Trump, having lost much of his leverage, knows he can’t even appear to accomplish much in 2027 and 2028, in addition to having lost his power to nominate toady judges through a Democratic Senate. Just as the obstinate Richard Nixon saw his Republican base shrinking in Congress, for a sliver of the serious impeachable offenses that Trump commits daily and boastfully. Remember Nixon resigned in 1974, saying he had lost his base of protection in Congress.
Given Trump’s propensity to double down on his crazed, often violent provocations abroad and in American cities, his base in Congress may similarly diminish and make a resignation of lame duck Donald involuntary.
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The Supreme Court's Latest Shadow-Docket Ruling Could Help the GOP Win the Midterms
Standing alone, neither the expanded SAVE program nor the citizenship lists may be capable of changing the outcome of the midterms. But they do not stand alone.
Oct 03, 2026
Just when it seemed the Supreme Court might be prepared to stop Donald Trump from sabotaging the midterm elections, the six Republican justices who dominate the court handed the president a potentially far-reaching victory on September 25 with another ruling on its emergency “shadow” docket. The ruling in Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters permits the administration and Republican-led states to use a newly expanded federal database to review state voter lists, overturning a lower-court decision that had concluded the database could not be used for the midterms because it violates federal privacy laws and the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program was created in 1986 to allow federal, state, and local government agencies to verify the citizenship and immigration status of noncitizens applying for public benefits, relying on records maintained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of State. However, in March 2025, Trump promulgated Executive Order 14248 (titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections”), that revamped the program to permit state and local authorities to verify the citizenship status of registered voters so they could purge noncitizens from the rolls—a purpose the SAVE program was never intended to serve. The executive order also directed the Social Security Administration (SSA) to make its records available to the DHS for that purpose. Two months later, the DHS, acting on its own, launched a modified SAVE program that allows state and local authorities to conduct unlimited bulk searches of multiple individuals at once.
In September 2025, the League of Women Voters, together with its affiliates in Texas, Louisiana, and Virginia, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center sued the federal government, claiming that the expanded SAVE program violated the Social Security Act, the federal Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. On June 22 of this year, District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, who sits in Washington, DC, blocked the revamped SAVE program from being used for the midterm elections. The Justice Department, led by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, took its case to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and, after failing to secure relief there, turned to the Supreme Court’s shadow docket, where the administration has enjoyed great success.
In one Texas county alone, searches conducted under the database returned an astounding error rate of 21%. There is no reason to believe the master citizenship lists will be any more reliable.
The high court granted Sauer’s request with a seven-page unsigned “per curiam” ruling, holding that the plaintiffs’ claims about the expanded database lacked merit, and that “the Federal Government has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials seeking to verify the citizenship of voters.” In their dissent, the court’s three Democrats argued that the use of the database will result in voter disenfranchisement.
On its face, as some commentators have noted, the court’s ruling appears limited in scope because the National Voter Registration Act (NRVA) of 1993 prohibits states from conducting “systematic” purges of registered voters in the 90-day “quiet period” prior to elections. If the terms of the NRVA are faithfully and literally applied, this means that states can utilize the expanded SAVE program to conduct only “individualized” (one at a time) citizenship checks of prospective voters in the weeks remaining before the midterms. Use of the SAVE program is also voluntary, as states are not compelled but only urged to use the system.
The problem is that neither the NRVA nor the Supreme Court’s shadow docket ruling defines what is meant by “systematic” purges, and that individual purges can easily be aggregated to have a mass impact. In a post for Democracy Docket, reporter Yunior Rivas explained the problem this way:
Now, a crucial voter protection [under the NRVA] could hinge on whether the Supreme Court [in subsequent cases that will surely come its way before the midterms] wants to narrow the definition of “systematic” as applied to purges. And there’s reason to fear that it does [ … by allowing states to] run thousands of voters through SAVE and then evade the NVRA’s quiet period by treating each resulting citizenship challenge as an “individualized” inquiry.
Rivas also observed that the Supreme Court’s shadow docket decision does not prevent the Trump administration from preparing master citizenship lists for each state, which GOP-led states could use to purge unlimited numbers of individual voters without even using the SAVE program.
In fact, those citizenship lists are being compiled pursuant to Executive Order 14399, which directs the DHS, SSA, and State Department to create lists of all “confirmed” citizens residing in every state who are entitled to vote. Once again, states are not required by the order to use the lists to purge their voting rolls, but the order stipulates that election officials in states that permit noncitizens to vote will be referred to the DOJ for possible criminal prosecution.
On September 14, the Supreme Court handed Trump a rare shadow-docket defeat, preventing the US Postal Service from interfering with mail-in balloting. But that decision did not address the legality of the citizenship lists. The legality of the lists is currently pending in litigation brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the public-interest groups Protect Democracy and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, but no decision has been rendered.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.
According to the DOJ, 27 states, including Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Indiana, have agreed to use the expanded SAVE database, which in practice has proven to be plagued by serious mistakes. In one Texas county alone, searches conducted under the database returned an astounding error rate of 21%. There is no reason to believe the master citizenship lists will be any more reliable.
Standing alone, neither the expanded SAVE program nor the citizenship lists may be capable of changing the outcome of the midterms. But they do not stand alone. They are part and parcel of a multifaceted plan to sabotage the elections, engineered by a president with dictatorial aspirations and a core of committed quislings determined to keep him and the MAGA movement in power through the midterms and beyond.
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