The failures are piling up. Sometimes we can see them with our own eyes. Sometimes we can hear them in the lies that are spewed.
The mounting tragedies and shame could be reason for despair. After all, the damage to our country will take a long time to fix.
But I believe the growing cacophony of chaos is convincing more and more people that they’ve had enough. As there are just 45 days until the midterms—with the voting already begun in some states—this expanding determination to stop Trump’s unfettered rule seems to be peaking just in time.
To be sure, given recent history, it makes sense to be cautious in predicting the future. But honestly? I can almost taste the champagne.
Still, let’s not speak too soon. There’s plenty of work to be done over the next month and a half. For now, let me remind you what level of sickness we’re dealing with here, as well as share several encouraging examples of defiance from this week.
Deranged, disordered, destructive
How does a lifelong abuser talk? If he can't possess the Kennedy Center and do what he wants with it—and that includes stamping his name on it—it should be closed and “ripped down.” Never mind if he’s told that’s illegal.
How does a malignant narcissist—that is, someone who cannot face his own failure—behave? He will repeat over and over that he won the war against Iran and he will hide evidence to the contrary.
How does a career criminal—fearful of being held accountable—act? He will demand his operatives to find ways to deny mail-in ballots and other means by which the people express their will. And when he realizes he’s failing and grows more desperate, he will tell his followers to “cheat like hell.”
And how does a man with a deranged, disordered and destructive mind—fueled by enablers to assume he’s free to do anything—spend his “spare” time? He will turn our historic Capitol City into a dumpsite, then blame innocents when his imagined achievements devolve into embarrassing eyesores.
“This is major damage”
The scale of Trump’s wreckage became more visible this week when CBS News reporter Jonah Kaplan shared photos of U.S. military bases damaged by Iranian drone and missile strikes. These images—sent anonymously by service members—are a sad and stunning display of failure, emanating from his ill-conceived, badly executed and unauthorized war of choice with Iran.
They are also a tiny indication of just how much Trump and Killer Pete Hegseth—two of the most incompetent humans to ever hold top offices in our government—have hidden from the American public in their effort to deny the truth.
“This is major damage to our bases that hasn't been communicated to the American public,” a deployed service member told CBS News. “We're standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face.”
Here are three examples:
This week the inspector general of the Defense Department released a 44-page report to Congress, a mandatory accounting of the physical costs of the Iran war (in addition to the human cost in soldiers killed or wounded).
Limited to Feb. 28 to June 30, the report cites “hundreds” of buildings and “dozens” of aircraft damaged or destroyed, as well as $22.3 billion in used munitions and $3.7 billion in equipment losses. That total does not include the costs of damage to buildings and other structures at U.S. military bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.
With no end in sight and the daily economic hardship deepening for most Americans, these revelations belie the fiction told by Trump and Hegseth. So much for their comments dating all the way back to April.
“Total and complete victory. 100 percent. No question about it,” Trump lied to Agence France-Presse.
“Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield, a capital-V military victory,” Hegseth lied several days after Trump at a Pentagon press conference.
Have you noticed that they aren’t beating their chests and boasting “total and complete victory” these days?
The bullying is backfiring
The reckless depravity and ever-stunning incompetence can feel overwhelming. But two events this week, while tragic for America, also demonstrate that good and honorable people are refusing to be abused and fighting back.
The defiant Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meant it last month when he said that Canada would not “fall in line” in response to bullyboy Trump’s moronic 50 percent tariffs. He has not only retaliated; our longtime ally’s leader has pursued greater integration with the European Union.
On Wednesday, EU President Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada to become the EU’s first “associate member.” Yesterday, before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Carney said he welcomed the offer. “Canada and Europe should secure our strategic autonomy through deep cooperation in the full range of strategic capabilities.”
Note the word “autonomy.” He’s positioning Canada to not be at the mercy of a madman and his childish impulses Inevitably, America’s vengeful toddler called the plan “laughable” and then threatened Europe with “very serious tariffs.” Never mind that Trump would be digging a bigger economic hole for Americans.
Asked by reporters about Trump’s threats, Carney said, “Canadians are united that nobody is going to tell us what language we speak. No one is going to dictate our culture or with whom we can strike agreements internationally.”
That’s the spirit, Mark Carney. Sane Americans are with you.
“He picked the wrong person”
And then there’s Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex-officio Kennedy Center board member. She joined the trustees’ meeting after a federal judge ruled that poor Donald could not have his name on the building.
The response of Trump and the board: Then shut it down. Trump even threatened that the beloved performing arts center—in fact, a memorial to a slain president—should get “ripped down.”
Beatty has opposed the center’s shuttering and filed a motion to stop an illegal closure. Trump insulted her before the board. But the congresswoman was not having it.
“He picked the wrong person to try to attack my character and berate me. I was not going to let him tell me that he thought I was incompetent,” Beatty told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “He wanted to blame me if someone died, if something happened, if the ceiling fell in.”
She was not done, not about to be intimidated by his temper tantrum. “It was like an immature child,” she said, amazed by his yelling.
“I reminded him: He has us at war, and people are dying. He has tariffs and taxes that are preventing people from buying food or being able to have affordable housing and other things.”
We can take heart from people like Rep. Beatty, Prime Minister Carney and the anonymous service members who are speaking out and pushing back. They are tired of the lies, tired of the efforts to hide the truth, tired of the assumption that might makes right and that a bullyboy can force us to do his will.
We can soon prove that we agree—that we the people have collective power that is stronger than a weak and broken loser desperate to convince us that he is great and all powerful.
One more thing: Check out the latest Six Questions with Steven Beschloss, in which I talk with Scott MacFarlane, the former CBS News reporter and now independent journalist working with MeidasTouch. On the agenda: the failures of legacy media and its culpability for Trump’s fascistic rise, the promise of independent media to provide honest and unfiltered insight, as well as the fact that Jan. 6 is not “history” but a continuing reality of our political life. (Scott’s wi-fi is glitchy, but the words are clear.)
As we head to the midterms, it’s more important than ever to support the survival of democracy. I remain committed to raising my voice as vividly and fiercely as I can. I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber for just $50 a year or $5 a month to show your support and enhance your engagement—to share your thoughts in the comments sections and access all content.
These are but a few (albeit important examples) of the serious reckless harmful destructive behavior of the current administration. It does not need to continue. It cannot continue. We can effect change by voting out the rot. Vote! Have a plan! Help others. Vote!
I watched the entirety of Mark Carney's speech yesterday to the EU Assembly. It was both gratifying and heart breaking. Gratifying because it reminded me that there are fine, competent, compassionate, strategic and wise leaders in this world who will not be bullied, who value and nurture democracy and who heed the will of their electorate. Heart breaking because I could see how far trump has felled this nation. Without directly condemning trump he was still the elephant in the room and the assembled group was having none of it. Carney spoke of an oak grove planted by Goethe in Germany before WWI. He spoke of how a Canadian soldier gathered up some of those acorns and planted them in Canada. And how those oaks are now a canopy, protecting Europe and Canada, grown from the same roots. It was beautiful, a tour de force of oratory. I've no doubt we will staunch the bleeding this November, but I also have no doubt that we are now a weaker nation, scorned by many, a joke to some. The fever dream will begin to cool in November but we have a long, hard recovery ahead of us. Let us all redouble our efforts to find our footing and our place, although diminished, in this world.