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north korea
Can We Stop Donald Trump From Crashing Air America?
Having hijacked American democracy, Trump and his cronies are under the impression that they are flying ever upward, but they have not been blessed with a good sense of direction.
May 20, 2026
Ever since North Korea suffered through the death of its first leader in 1994, a loss magnified by an economic collapse and a devastating famine, outside observers have likened the country to an airplane experiencing a serious malfunction. The major question they posed: In the end, would North Korea experience a soft landing or a catastrophic crash?
Perhaps a reformer would come along—say, a North Korean version of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev—who could right the airship of state and guide it toward the runway of reunification with South Korea.
More direly, the North Korean regime could collapse all of a sudden, like the Communist governments in Eastern Europe in 1989. Those were relatively peaceful affairs, but North Korea’s worst-case scenarios might involve violent power struggles, the return of famine, and a free-for-all scramble for the country’s loose nukes. US analysts have gamed out the consequences of just such a hard landing—and so has the Pentagon with its OPLAN 5029—and they all add up to a tragedy not only for North Koreans and the region, but also potentially for the United States and the rest of the world.
The North Korean government has, however, defied such scenarios by somehow surviving, while rejecting reunification with the South and turning up its nose at conventional versions of reform. Despite additional challenges—a sustained Covid-19 quarantine, several distinctly hostile governments in South Korea, and a flatlining economy—the regime has so far avoided collapse and, if anything, tightened its control over its population. For the time being at least, the North Korean plane evidently has no intention of landing, much less crashing.
Given the state of the airplane—a malfunctioning altimeter, compromised landing gear—it might not matter who the pilot is anymore. Air America may well be heading for a crash landing regardless of who’s in charge.
Today, in an improbable plot twist, however, Donald Trump’s United States is starting to seem ever more like an aircraft in distress.
After all, the present pilot of Air America, exhibiting signs of psychosis or perhaps dementia, has begun to dismantle the cockpit under the delusion that it’s his to transform into a ballroom. The crew—and indeed much of the supporting infrastructure on the ground below—has been decimated by budget cuts. The airline itself is fast taking on debt. Many of the passengers are praying for a soft landing and hoping that, if the plane does touch down for a risky layover, they will get a new pilot.
But another fear lurks in the background. Given the state of the airplane—a malfunctioning altimeter, compromised landing gear—it might not matter who the pilot is anymore. Air America may well be heading for a crash landing regardless of who’s in charge.
Those of us on board, gripping our armrests in terror, are asking ourselves one question above all else: Is it too late to avert catastrophe?
Trump’s Totalitarian Tendencies
North Korea has come closer than any country in the modern era to building a totalitarian state. Beginning with the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, its leadership has eliminated all oppositional politics; suppressed virtually all signs of civil society; and tolerated no freedom of the press, speech, or assembly. Nor is there any freedom of religion, unless you count the personality cult attached to the Kim family leadership, which is now in its third generation.
But all totalitarianism is aspirational. The Soviet Union had its dissidents and underground samizdat literature. The Confessing Church movement attempted faith-based resistance to the Nazis. Likewise, the North Korean government’s control over the population is not total, as can be measured by rising levels of private enterprise and covert enthusiasm for South Korean culture.
Really, the only way to explain such an attraction of opposites—an elected US leader and the North Korean dictator—is to point out that the two distinctly have something in common: their desire for total control.
So, too, are Donald Trump’s totalitarian tendencies aspirational. He would like to achieve total control, but he’s hemmed in by institutional limits. Still, he prefers to bypass Congress with rule by executive decree. He has attempted to control the media, rein in the power of universities, and tilt the electoral playing field to benefit his party. He has aligned himself internationally not with democrats but with autocrats. He has had a particular fondness for authoritarian leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Javier Milei of Argentina who consolidated their power within democracies. But he has also gotten cozy with the likes of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, who doesn’t bother at all with elections.
The most inexplicable friendship Trump developed while in office is certainly with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the founder’s grandson. Having traded escalating threats during part of Trump’s first term in office, the two leaders grew closer after several in-person meetings and a raft of exchanged letters. “I was really being tough,” Trump explained in 2018. “And so was he. And we’d go back and forth. And then we fell in love. OK? No, really.”
Really, the only way to explain such an attraction of opposites—an elected US leader and the North Korean dictator—is to point out that the two distinctly have something in common: their desire for total control. Whether intentionally or not, Trump has applied some of the features of the Kim family playbook to his own governing style. In doing so, he has also damaged, perhaps irreparably, the very idea of America.
Different Beds, Same Dreams
One of the key elements of North Korean politics is the personality cult of the Kim family, which casts a long shadow over the country’s culture. Drawn in part from northern Korea’s earlier Christian heritage—through the development of a trinity of founding figures, the 10 commandments of Kimilsungism, and pervasive themes of sacrifice and redemption—that personality cult has generated so much fervor among many North Koreans that even defectors have spoken of their pride in founder Kim Il Sung and his ideology.
Trump, too, has tried to construct such a personality cult—by placing his name on public buildings (the Kennedy Center), putting his face on US coins (the semiquincentennial dollar), inserting his image in future passports, and planning a golden statue of himself at his presidential library that resembles one of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang. So far, however, outside of the MAGA faithful, his cult seems to have generated little more than ridicule.
Another aspect of Pyongyang’s governance that probably attracts Trump is its overemphasis on the military. North Korea devotes 34% of its gross domestic product to military spending (compared to Russia at 6% and the United States at under 4%). Although it hasn’t launched any wars of its own for more than 75 years, Pyongyang has dispatched thousands of troops to help fight Russia’s war in Ukraine. Since the 1990s, the government has spoken of a songun—military first—doctrine to justify the sacrifices made to maintain a huge standing army, a range of missiles, and a small but significant nuclear arsenal.
Trump is guiding the United States toward the kind of triple whammy that hit North Korea in the 1990s, when environmental disasters and political criminality combined with rising energy prices to bring its manufacturing and agricultural sectors to a virtual halt, while killing an estimated 1 million people.
Similarly, the prevailing theme of Trump’s second term has been war and military spending. Despite his once-upon-a-time promises not to become involved in “forever wars,” particularly in the Middle East, Trump joined Israel this year in an attack on Iran, a conflict that cost over $11 billion in its first week alone. He has proposed an astonishing $1.5 trillion military budget, an increase of 50% over last year’s already bloated total, and that sum doesn’t even include the costs of the Iran War.
Then there’s Trump’s economic thinking, if you can call it that. He has repudiated the free market orthodoxy of his fellow Republicans to embrace a form of economic nationalism: high tariff walls to reduce trade imbalances, a focus on rebuilding American manufacturing, and the repudiation of international rules of the road (like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) in order to drive a dagger into economic globalization. In such respects, Trump’s approach resembles North Korea’s path of import substitution and defiance of the international rule of law.
In North Korea’s case, such an economic strategy has been partly born of necessity, given the economic embargo imposed on it after the Korean War of the early 1950s. Trump, however, is steering the US economy into a tailspin without provocation. If you add together the costs associated with his kamikaze tariffs, the follow-on effects of the Iran War and boosts in military spending, the gutting of government programs investing in the economy, the watering down of environmental regulations, and reductions in government revenue because of tax cuts, Trump is guiding the United States toward the kind of triple whammy that hit North Korea in the 1990s, when environmental disasters and political criminality combined with rising energy prices to bring its manufacturing and agricultural sectors to a virtual halt, while killing an estimated 1 million people.
But, you might point out, Wall Street is still on an upward ascent. The US economy is still growing, however modestly, and, while US food insecurity is rising, famine isn’t on the horizon. To return to the airplane analogy, the in-flight experience has become more uncomfortable for those who can’t afford business class, but that doesn’t mean a crash is imminent.
Or does it?
A Soft vs. Hard Landing
Whether he is consciously modeling his efforts on North Korea or not, Donald Trump wants to make an indelible imprint on the United States. He aspires to fundamentally change the demographics of the country, the structure of the economy, and the nature of its politics. To do that, he aims to ensure that his MAGA personality cult, his anti-government crusade, and his self-defeating economic policies outlive his own tenure in office. That will certainly require a substantial dismantling of democratic safeguards given that such policies don’t attract majority support.
In other words, much as Kim Il Sung destroyed anything that could have challenged his authority—the church, the intelligentsia, landowners, rival political factions—Trump has now launched a scorched-earth policy to ensure that his successors can’t undo his damage. If the Democrats regain Congress in November and even the White House in 2028, they will inherit an enormous bill for Trump-era damages (and count on a chorus of Republican voices improbably blaming them for the disaster).
Any incoming reformers will face an uphill battle to convince the public to restore funding for infrastructure, whether green or otherwise. And they will have to deal with a terrifying erosion of faith in government, resulting from the incompetence, lies, and malpractice of the Trump administration. At the international level, US allies will think twice about concluding any deals with this country, given the possibility of another political swing in subsequent elections.
If Trumpism can be likened to a devastating depression (which it could still precipitate), the obvious recourse for any successor would be to embark on an immediate course correction comparable to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Trump’s tactics, in other words, are designed to make a soft landing ever more difficult. An inveterate gambler, he is betting that his extreme approach will enable Air America to climb into the very stratosphere, even if he is far more likely to force an emergency landing.
Nightmare scenarios have long haunted American consciousness. The sheer size of the US debt—at nearly $40 trillion, it’s the highest absolute amount in the world—could put the country into receivership if the dollar slips from its status as the global currency. Default could tear apart an already polarized society. Such a hard landing could look like what analysts of North Korea have often predicted for that country.
But North Korea hasn’t collapsed. With its considerable resources, surely the United States, too, can avoid such a scenario.
True, no one is going to make any money at Polymarket predicting the imminent fall of the Kim regime. But North Korea is not exactly following a recipe for long-term success either. Even if it limps along for another decade or two, with leadership passing to Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter, any country that follows its policies of personality cult, autarkic economic policies, massive corruption, military-first approaches, and ruthless suppression of dissent is not likely to prosper over the long term. Just look at how Vladimir Putin has steered Russia into a terrifying nosedive.
Substantial reform could head off such a scenario for the United States. If Trumpism can be likened to a devastating depression (which it could still precipitate), the obvious recourse for any successor would be to embark on an immediate course correction comparable to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Whatever it’s called—not a Green New Deal, given the irrational resistance of a large section of the US electorate to anything “green” except greenbacks—such an American renewal plan would need to restructure the US economy to favor the bulk of American workers rather than the current generation of robber barons. Implemented with a much better promotional campaign—led perhaps by future Chief of Reconstruction (and now New York Mayor) Zohran Mamdani—it would link concrete benefits to identifiable government programs and services. It would offer a striking real-life illustration of your tax dollars at work.
Such a reform plan would have to restore trust in government by punishing corruption, enlisting the public as watchdogs, and taxing the super-wealthy into semi-submission. By shifting away from war and aggressive military spending, such a project of renewal would also have to work with partners overseas to promote policies of cooperative prosperity and sustainability in order to restore a measure of trust in US actions globally. Soft landings require soft power, leaving hard power to those determined to crash and burn.
The North Korean case is a reminder that awful policies may not themselves precipitate collapse. Trumpism will not go away simply because it is on the verge of winning multiple Darwin Awards for its counter-evolutionary policies. Having hijacked American democracy, Trump and his cronies are under the impression that they are flying ever upward, but they have not been blessed with a good sense of direction. Sheer inertia could keep Air America in the air—though with steadily deteriorating conditions on board (as in North Korea). Such a “MAGA ‘til we drop” option would not be much of an improvement over a hard landing.
In 2016, arch-conservative Michael Anton published a piece in the Claremont Review of Books arguing that it was Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who had hijacked America. In “The Flight 93 Election,” Anton imagined that Trump, aided by an energized electorate, could rush the cockpit—just like the passengers on Flight 93, hijacked on September 11, 2001— and save the country. (It was certainly an infelicitous analogy, given that Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.) Trump’s 2016 victory, however, turned Anton into a dark prophet and vaulted him into the subsequent administration, despite (or because of) the absurdities of his arguments.
In yet another stomach-churning reversal, Anton’s analogy has now finally become all too applicable. Trump has gained the cockpit not once but twice. Having failed to crash Air America the first time around, he seems determined to put his Flight 93 doctrine of heroic self-destruction into practice today. There is no guarantee that a hard landing can be avoided either now or after his departure from office. But this country, its egalitarian ideals, and its democratic traditions (if not much of its dismal history) are certainly worth fighting for.
We’re losing altitude fast. Elections approach.
Let’s roll.
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Forget the World Cup—the Most Important Soccer Match Is Happening in Korea This Week
A rare inter-Korean women’s soccer match offers something the Korean Peninsula desperately needs: hope.
May 18, 2026
As the world begins turning its attention toward this summer’s FIFA World Cup, an even more meaningful soccer event is taking place this week in Korea.
Pyongyang-based Naegohyang Women’s Football Club faces Suwon FC Women in the semifinals of the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Champions League in South Korea—marking the first time North Korea has sent athletes to South Korea to compete since 2018. Some 200 South Korean civic groups have formed a 3,000-strong cheering squad for the historic inter-Korean match, and South Korea’s government set aside 300 million won ($202,000) in government funds to support the cheering squad.
For many, this may sound like a niche sports story. But Korea peace activists recognize this as one of the most hopeful openings in years.
For decades, inter-Korean relations have been defined internationally through the language of crisis: missile tests, nuclear threats, military drills, and sanctions. Diplomacy, meanwhile, has too often been treated as politically risky or naïve.
As Korean peace advocates, we know that openings are few and far between, and we cannot afford to miss this window of opportunity. Soccer may be a spectator sport, but people-led peacebuilding efforts require us all to participate.
But history tells a different story.
Time and again, engagement between North and South Korea has succeeded in reducing tensions and creating opportunities for dialogue. The last major period of inter-Korean diplomacy began not with weapons negotiations, but with athletes marching together.
At the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, athletes from North and South Korea entered the opening ceremony side by side under the Korean Unification Flag after a series of talks between then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The image captured global attention and helped catalyze one of the most diplomatically active periods on the peninsula in years, including inter-Korean summits at Panmunjom and unprecedented US-North Korea diplomacy.
Soccer, in particular, has long served as a bridge. North and South Korean men’s and women’s teams have faced each other numerous times since 1946—even before the Korean War officially began. North Korea also sent women footballers to compete in South Korea during the 2014 Asian Games, and North Korean athletes last traveled south in 2018 for an inter-Korean table tennis event. In their 1996 World Cup run, North Korea men’s team challenged Cold War stereotypes as they made a stunning upset victory over Italy’s team, an episode explored in the documentary The Game of Their Lives.
These exchanges allow ordinary Koreans to encounter one another—and the global community—outside the framework of hostility and forever war. Moments like this have the power to catalyze efforts for change.
As Korean American women advocating for peace in Korea, we have seen firsthand how engagement efforts can break through where militarized approaches have failed us repeatedly.
The Korean War never officially ended. Americans are often shocked to learn that the war was only temporarily suspended with a ceasefire armistice in 1953, making it the United States’ longest-running overseas conflict. For over 70 years, divided families and everyday people have borne the costs of ongoing conflict.
Relentless sanctions and isolation have failed to produce denuclearization, reconciliation, or lasting stability. Instead, they have entrenched mistrust, division, and forever war. In recent years, discussion about North Korea in the United States has become trapped between cynicism and alarmism.
This has all culminated in today’s bleak political landscape: Inter-Korean relations are deeply frozen. North Korea has renounced reunification, and under South Korea’s former administration, Seoul increasingly labeled the North a principal enemy. Communication has stalled, tensions have escalated, and diplomacy has all but disappeared.
But political landscapes can change quickly. Following the impeachment of far-right leader Yoon Suk Yeol and the election of Lee Jae-myung, Seoul has increasingly called for renewed inter-Korean dialogue with Pyeongyang, and Pyeongyang has indicated some willingness to engage.
That is why this week’s soccer match matters.
Of course, no single game or summit will solve the security crisis in Korea. But the game demonstrates the importance of engagement—especially during periods of deep political freeze. And importantly, this moment comes through women. Women have consistently been at the forefront of peacebuilding efforts on the peninsula—from family reunification advocacy to feminist peace movements calling for a formal end to the Korean War.
These developments raise the question: Will Washington continue defaulting to the same failed approach of maximum pressure and isolation, or will it support the growing desire among US voters who want an end to forever war and peace with North Korea?
As Korean peace advocates, we know that openings are few and far between, and we cannot afford to miss this window of opportunity. Soccer may be a spectator sport, but people-led peacebuilding efforts require us all to participate.
Policymakers should build upon this moment to support initiatives that lower tensions, remove the threat of nuclear war, and expand opportunities for contact between ordinary people—including cultural exchanges, athletic competitions, humanitarian cooperation, and renewed inter-Korean dialogue. This includes ending the US travel ban to North Korea, which is up for renewal this August.
Peace is not built in a single summit or event, but gradually through relationships, trust building, and repeated acts of engagement. While this week’s match in Suwon will last only 90 minutes, if we are wise enough to recognize its significance, its meaning could endure far longer.
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US Navy SEALs 'Slaughtered' Civilians During Botched 2019 North Korea Mission
Congress was reportedly never informed about the covert attempt by the first Trump administration to plant a listening device in North Korea during high-stakes nuclear negotiations.
Sep 05, 2025
US Navy SEALs shot dead a number of civilians during a botched secret mission to plant a listening device inside North Korea during tense nuclear negotiations between the first Trump administration and the government of Kim Jong Un in 2019, The New York Times reported Friday.
Dave Philipps and Matthew Cole reported for the Times that President Donald Trump personally approved the covert operation, which was tasked to SEAL Team 6's Red Squadron, the same unit that assassinated Osama bin Laden. Although the elite sailors rehearsed the nighttime mission for months, things fell apart when a small fishing boat appeared out of the dark in what the SEALs thought was a deserted area.
"Flashlights from the bow swept over the water. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire," wrote Philipps and Cole. "Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead. The SEALs retreated into the sea without planting the listening device."
Officials familiar with the mission told the Times that the SEALs then pulled two or three bodies from the boat, punctured the victims' lungs with knives so their bodies would sink, and threw the dead fishers into the sea.
It didn’t “leave them dead.” Navy SEALs slaughtered three innocent people.
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— Daniel Malmer (@malmer.com) September 5, 2025 at 6:10 AM
According to the Times:
The 2019 operation has never been publicly acknowledged, or even hinted at, by the United States or North Korea. The details remain classified and are being reported here for the first time. The Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission. The lack of notification may have violated the law...
The aborted SEAL mission prompted a series of military reviews during Mr. Trump's first term. They found that the killing of civilians was justified under the rules of engagement, and that the mission was undone by a collision of unfortunate occurrences that could not have been foreseen or avoided. The findings were classified.
It is not known whether or how much North Korea's government knew about the mission. While Trump's erstwhile untried tactic of direct negotiations with Kim averted escalation of the 2018-19 standoff, the high-profile summits between the two leaders yielded no substantial progress toward denuclearization or a peace treaty.
The US and North Korea are technically still at war. Between 1950-53 US forces killed an estimated 20% of all North Koreans—around 1.9 million men, women, and children—according to Gen. Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay, who served as strategic air commander during the war after overseeing World War II firebombing raids on Japanese cities that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
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