By Kenneth Tiven

Donald Trump’s bewildering and uneven attack on world trade and peaceful international relations, and his control of nuclear weapons, makes the US president the most dangerous political leader on earth.

Do not mistake it for chaos or naiveté. In reality this is the planned destruction of the United States as a democracy. The replacement is a monarchical dictatorship enforced by a newly established national police force. Americans and a portion of the federal court system are in a desperate fight against this with a judicial response thwarted by the Trump administration’s refusal to obey court orders. The Supreme Court’s Republican 6-3 majority generally concurs, finding a way to support conservative points of view. The slim Congressional Republican majority is hopelessly complicit. The MAGA minority has triumphed for now. Evidence is everywhere if you connect the dots. It starts with a president’s lifetime of business malfeasance beginning in 1979 when he destroyed a landmark building in New York City without regard to demolition, labour, or safety rules. His real estate career includes some 35,000 lawsuits involving this attitude towards construction, sales management, and the law. He is the first felon ever elected president, although other presidents have been financially or intellectually dishonest, but in less visible ways.

Trump, looking old, tired, and frequently sounding disconnected about fact and fiction, is merely the front man. The brains and planning are with others on the White House Team, and related positions. Most everyone else in “authority” is a yes-man.

Punishing India for buying Russian oil makes no sense, damaging a long-time relationship with India and now with recent White House visitor Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For someone who fawns over Russian President Vladimir Putin and just treated him to a “nothing burger” meeting in Alaska, this is a surprise. But then Trump is transactional. His attitude against solar power as a solution to a climate crisis reflects who donates the most to Republican fundraising. India’s solar energy sector has grown in the last decade, but Trump’s anti-solar machinations aren’t helping it.

The federal government is the largest “business” in the nation. Trump’s efforts for total control over every aspect is a megalomaniac’s dream, but not a part of the modern presidency. To accomplish this goal, any semblance of intellectual skill or competence must be erased. He clearly started this with his cabinet choices. Turning Elon Musk loose to erase leadership in as many government agencies as possible was a start. Now he is after the specialists, trying to replace competent people like the medical scientist running the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) because she pointed out the obvious—that Robert F Kennedy Jr, a non-medical person, is against scientific evidence as head of Health and Human Services.

The CDC is a major component of the global system to deal with pandemics. Kennedy’s attack on vaccinations runs against three centuries of medical research and recent breakthroughs in vaccine creation. All national borders are crossed in the event of a pandemic.

Multiple bankruptcies mark Trump’s business record, so he wants to bring that “skill” to control the US monetary policy. That was specifically forbidden with creation of the independent Federal Reserve Board by Congress in 1913 to prevent presidential meddling. The Fed Governors are approved by Congress and protected against casual firing. Trump wants to replace Lisa Cook, a female governor and an economist, to gain control of fiscal policy. She says she isn’t leaving.

Trump’s mental state means only people who agree with him 100 percent are suitable appointees. That metric was obvious in cabinet selections, as most of the men and women appointed are short on experience, but fully subservient. This is clearly true for Peter Hegseth at Defense, Howard Lutnick at Commerce, Scott Bessent at Treasury and most of the others. Trump adores Kristi Noem at Homeland Security and Tulsi Gabbard at Intelligence, both women with sketchy background experience.

His frontal attacks on universities, law firms, and multiple policies all have global implications beyond trade issues. Immigration without due process in this term appears to be a cover story for the merger of the US military with other quasi-law enforcement units in the federal government to form a domestic national police force, despite being specifically prohibited by law. Trump has flooded National Guard troops into the capital district of Washington on grounds that there is a crime wave, which is the opposite of statistical reality over the past decade.

In this made-for-TV cabinet meeting, he rambled forth on lower food prices and $2 a gallon gasoline, neither of which exist. He is a man immune to contradictions, so while he blames India for buying Russian oil, he also casually defends Russian President Putin and condemns Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the cabinet meeting.

At that televised cabinet meeting, Trump again volunteered his dictatorial ambitions, saying: “I have the right to do anything I want,” echoing Richard Nixon’s infamous 1977 comments about presidential power. Trump added: “So the line is, I’m a dictator, but I stop crime. A lot of people say, if that is the case I would rather have a dictator.” Later he brought it up again: “Most people are saying if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants.”

The only issue that did not come up were the Epstein files. However, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was Epstein’s imprisoned confidant, is now at a more comfortable prison with work release privileges. She told Trump’s lawyer, now a Justice Department boss, that she never saw Trump with any underage women at Epstein’s home. Trump promised on the campaign trail to release everything about Epstein that MAGA folks believe points to a government conspiracy protecting elites. Still not done and unlikely to be done. 

—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels

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