***. “..one of the traits that had led Trump to the White House on full display: his extraordinary capacity to say things that were not true. He always seemed to have complete conviction in whatever product he was selling or argument he was making. He had an uncanny ability to say with a straight face, things are not as you’ve been told or even as you’ve seen with your own eyes. He could commit a lie in the frame of his body and in the timbre of his voice so fully, despite all statistical and even video evidence to the contrary.”
[ Pulitzer Prize winners Carol Leonnig, Philip Rucker: “I Alone Can Fix It” ]. [NOTE: read this again, and again – for many observers, THIS is a capsule of who Donald John Trump is ]

This post presents excerpts from: “Buyer’s remorse sets in over Trump” [ Dan Merica, Cat Zakrzewski; Washington Post Weekly; 3/22/26 ]. Americans are waking up to the Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, Incompetence, Dishonesty of the Trump DICTATORSHIP !!!!! The Big Lie that “Trump cares about me” is exposed more and more. Trump is costing YOU money!!! One analysis soon to be posted: Trump’s 2027 Pentagon budget request is estimated to cost EVERY American household about $4,000. There are MANY other Trump DICTATORSHIP “costs.”

1] “Joshua Byers was hopeful when he voted for Donald Trump in 2024. The 26-year old document clerk believed the former and future president when he said he would lower prices and improve the lives of the working class….
“I feel betrayed”…”

2] “But with prices stubbornly high, a belief that Trump is overly focused on international conflict and concerns about how federal officials are implementing the president’s immigration policy, they also said they are questioning why they voted in the first place..”

3] “I wouldn’t even say it’s a living,” James Wiest, a 23-year old arcade technician from Mooresville, North Carolina, said of his life…”It’s more survival.”

***. “Trump is not Adolf Hitler, but he shares many of Hitler’s disorders, addiction to lies, and appeal to wounded followers through the dehumanization of target groups. In Trump’s case, these include African Americans, Muslims, women, Hispanics, and migrants.” [ Bandy lee, editor: “The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump” ]

4]. “A Washington Post – ABC – Ipsos poll released last month found 70 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds disapproved of Trump’s handling of the presidency, compared with 29 percent who approved.”

5] “I don’t really want to vote anymore,” Byers said…I don’t want to feel responsible for taking a vote and feeling misled, or misjudged, or making a wrong move.” [NOTE; what effect will THIS ‘COST’ have on American democracy????? ]

6] “Young voters are also more likely to disapprove of the Iran war, according to a Washington Post poll released Tuesday. a majority of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 say they oppose the military campaign in Iran…”

***. “Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.” [ Niccolo Machiavelli ]

7] “Lilly Burrow, a 23-year-old teacher from Charlotte who voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024, said..she initially supported the strikes because she thought they were intended to change the regime in Iran. But her view has since shifted, and now she believes the United States is “doing Israel’s dirty work.”

8] “Wiest, a Republican, said he feels demoralized and is unlikely to vote in the 2026 midterms. “I agree with his idea of making America great again, but the way he is going about…it’s not who I thought would be running this country,”…and he does not care about what we are mad about.”

9] “Byers and others in the focus group said they got much of their news about the 2024 election from social media, including online influencers…a constant stream of pro-Trump content..” [NOTE: so – “our’ president is elected by loads of amateur “journalists,” unqualified to say what they do, to repeat Trump’s lies without questioning….}

*** “He is incredibly suggestible, skimming ideas and thoughts and statements from other people and repacking them as his own; campaign aides once called him a “sophisticated parrot.” He has sown willingness both to believe anything is true, and to say anything is true. he has few core ideological impulses, but is often willing to suppress them when it’s useful for another purpose. He makes vague statements that allow people to project what they want in his words, so two sides he same issue could claim his support.” [ Pulitzer Prize winner Maggie Haberman: “Confidence Man” ]

10]. “Those same influencers who helped Trump connect with young voters during the election are now using their platforms to criticize the war in Iran and reconsidering their actions in the election. Rogan, who endorsed Trump after his 2024 interview, on Tuesday called the Iran war “so insane” and said Trump had “betrayed” the Americans who supported him.”

11] “Andrew Schulz, one of the cohosts of “Flagrant,” has criticized Trump since last year for doing the opposite of what he promised on the campaign trail.”

12] “Naturally, Americans are furious about it, right?” Schulz said. “Because we’re like, ‘How the f— does this benefit me? I can’t even afford to pay for college. i can’t buy a home. I can’t pay for health insurance. And we’re going to spend billions on a war in a country i can’t even point out on a map.”

***. “When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.” [ Euripides ]

13] “Ross, who wore a white MAGA hat during his 2024 stream with Trump, also has expressed regret for having associated himself with the campaign.”

14] “..Faith Peavey, a 21-year-old American Sign Language interpreter and Republican who said she voted for Trump in 2024 with ‘caution…”It has definitely been frustrating to see him doing things that were not things he promised to do and not doing things that he promised to do,” Peavey said.”

*** “In the end the Party would announce that two and two make five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it.”
[ George Orwell: ‘1984″ ]

*** “The most perfect community is one in which the middle class is in control and outnumbers both of the other classes.” [ Aristotle ]

This post will BEGIN. to discuss evidence on how the Trump DICTATORSHIP policies are negatively impacting Americans. Leaving aside damage to the environment, relations with formerly friendly countries, undermining the rule of law, undermining democracy. – this post concentrates on. SOME. reasons most Americans are struggling financially. Often a headline alone is enough.

1] “The Middle Class Is Selling Blood Plasma to Get By” [ Kurtis Lee, Robert Gebeloff; New York Times; 4/5/26 ]: “As living costs rise, collection centers are increasingly opening in wealthier areas of the country.”

2] “The Great American Heist: How Reagan, Trump, and Their Billionaire Backers Stole the Middle Class” [ Thom Hartmann; The Progressive Populist; December, 2025 ]: “Every major social program since the 1930s has been opposed by Republicans…Trump just de-unionized an additional few hundred-thousand federal workers…the middle class has shrunk to fewer than 50% of us, and it takes two paychecks to do it.”

3]. “The Town That Reveals All of Trump’s Bad Economic Ideas” [ bob Davis; New York Times; 4/26/26 ]: “The town is making a comeback..But the reasons have nothing to do with mr. Trump and his signature policies.”

4]. “Republic for Sale”. [ Sabrina Haake; The Progressive Populist; December, 2025]; “Thanks to Citizens United…Trump is indebted to hundreds of industry leaders from tech, auto, education, banking, arms, prison, healthcare, and fossil fuel sectors…Trump is targeting these federal agencies for privatization: USPS, VA, FEMA, TSA, National Weather Service, National Parks, TVA, CDC.”

***. “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
[ Benito Mussolini ]

5] “To Pay Bills, Seniors Turn To Gig Work” [ Cathy Bussewitz; Associated Press; 4/6/26 ]

6]. “VA eliminates thousands of medical jobs…Despite promises to care for veterans..” [ Nicholas Nehamas, Andrea Fuller, Danielle Ivory, Ellen Barry; New York Times; 3/4/26 ]

7] “Brisk sales at Goodwill suggest shoppers worried”. [ Kim Bhasin, Sophia June; New York Times; 2/1/26 ]

8]. “With Grids Under Strain, Blackout Risk Rises for Millions of People”. { Brad Plumer; New York Times; 2/8/26 ]

***. “No society can..be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of..members are poor and miserable..It is but equity..that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have..a share of the produce of their own labor as to themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.” [ Adam Smith; yes – THE Adam Smith ! ]

9]. April 17, 2025 – 5:30 PM CBS News: there are 50 million Americans who are food insecure.

10] November 18, 2025 – 6 PM PBS News Hour: 44% of U.S. wokers are in low-wage jobs; 60% of U.S. workers live paycheck-to-paycheck

11]. January 30, 2026 – 6 PM PBS News Hour: Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” cut back $911 million on services to adults with disabilities

12]. “Parents face tough child care choices”. [ Julie Weil, Joanna Slater; Washington Post Weekly; 1/25/26 ]

***. “We can either have a democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. But we cannot have both.” { Justice Louis Brandeis ]

13]. “Millions abandon pricier ACA coverage” [ Reed Abelson, Margot Sanger-Katz; New York Times; 5/10/26 ]

14]. “Less for Health Care, More for the Pentagon” [ Lindsay Koshgarian; The Progressive Populist; January, 2026 ]

15]. “To Make America Healthy Again, Break Up Big Ag”. [ Amanda Starbuck; The Progressive Populist; May, 2026 ]

16] “Babies become ‘sitting ducks’ in outbreaks of measles”. [ Devi Shastri, Laura Unger; Associated Press; 4/25/26 ]

*** “We will move from a society based on the pretense..everyone is given an okay standard of living in which people are expected to fend for themselves…a world where..10 to 15 percent of the citizenry is extremely wealthy [and has fantastic lives]…” [Tyler Cowen, a “pro-market” economist; in Robert McChesney and John Nichols: “People Get Ready” ]

17] “EPA won’t consider lives saved in setting rules” [ Maxine Johnson; New York Times; 1/13/26 ]

18]. “The Trump Administration’s War on Science Has A Human Cost”. [ Jeneen Interlandi; New York Times; 3/1/26 ]

19]. “Manufacturers not seeing tariff payoff…Trump’s rationale of more factories opening hasn’t materialized” [ Josh Boak; Associated Press; 3/19/26 ]

20]. “Trump’s Betrayal of His Voters Is Now Complete” [ Joe Conason; The Progressive Populist; may, 2026 ]: Trump: “I said to Russell, Don’t send any money for day care because the United States can’t take care of day care.’ That has to be up to a state.’ We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people.”

*** “His entire life Trump has been a con artist. In “The Art of the Deal” he brags about deceptions that enriched him. He has boasted about not paying banks that loaned him billions of dollars. He lost a court case, had to pay back $25. million on his Trump University scam. [ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Worse Than You Think” ]

***. “Character is the only secure foundation of the state.” [ Calvin Coolidge; Republican; 30th U.S. President ]

We have now put forward 181 posts on the Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness of the Trump DICTATORSHIP. Our job is to present to. YOU, the average American citizen. as many different facts as we can find. Our goal is to make YOU think, and most of all. to raise questions about the direction the Trump DICTATORSHIP is taking America. Hopefully, YOU, and other Americans will see the DAMAGE being inflicted. – and. – protest, oppose, – and, most of all. – vote against the Trump DICTATORSHIP in EVERY way that YOU. can.
Donald John Trump is THE man our Founders feared. he is, without a doubt, THE anti-George Washington. This site has already presented words of critics, some Pulitzer Prize winners, some former U.S. government officials, some economists. – telling YOU that the Trump DICTATORSHIP is profoundly damaging the United states – as a democratic country, as a decent civil society, as a respected moral force in the world, as a forward-looking economy, as a society that respects and listens to scientific evidence.

This post presents excerpts from: “Trump’s Second Term is a Cautionary Tale.” [ Jamelle Bouie; New York Times; 4/19/26 ]:

1] “To have spent any amount of time observing President Trump over the last month is to conclude that he is in over his head. The president is struggling with the consequences of his actions..”

11] “.. the most important question of the Trump years thus far: Will his legacy be durable and lasting? Does it represent a new template for American government going forward? or is it more like an unfortunate detour into a dark alley?……if we can escape these years intact and respond accordingly, we may find that Trump stands less as an example and more of a cautionary tale of what happens when we embrace unaccountable, unilateral authority.”

3] “..this is not a man in control of himself, or a president in control of the situation around him..so uninterested in governing that he has handed his power to a handful of deputies.”

***. “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
[ Niccolo Machiavelli ]

5] “This is not to say that Trump has been an inconsequential president, that he hasn’t presided over the wholesale destruction of large parts of the federal government, or that he hasn’t turned the sharp edge of the state against the most vulnerable people in the country.”

2] “When Trump launched his ‘short-term excursion,” he assumed that it would be. – in the words of a Pentagon official in the last Republican administration to launch a Middle East war. – “a cakewalk.” That, as Trump’s own intelligence agencies told him, was a mistake. Now, he is stuck. And lacks the skill and patience to find a way out of his self-inflicted catastrophe.”

*** “Emotionally he remains the thirteen-year-old troublemaker his father sent off to a military academy..”
[ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” ]

4]. “Months before Trump won his second term, and well before he took office, the Supreme Court handed him the reins of the unitary executive. – the promise of an active, energetic administration free of what the court deemed unnecessary constraints. The president has used this power to run wild, trampling over constitutional government. But he has also, at the same time, shown himself to be the weakest and most ineffectual president of recent memory, less a man of commanding authority than, well, a buffoon.”

6] “Trump’s White House has also slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for new medicines and technologies in a crushing blow to scientific research in the United States.”

7]. “..these grim facts of Trump’s tenure should not blind us to the way his unilateral action betrays the weakness of his regime. Trump works almost exclusively through executive orders… In areas where Trump cannot political actors to obey his demands. – where there is no legal basis for his authority. – he struggles to do anything of consequence.”

***. “Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, maybe had it more right than he knew when he said understanding Trump meant understanding Alice in Wonderland.” Pulitzer Prize winner Bob Woodward: “Rage” ]

8] “He’s doing little to nothing with Congress, period…Some of this is no doubt strategy, with destruction as a fait accompli, but most of it reflects his inability to engage the legislative process. The weakness we see abroad is the weakness we see at home, and vice versa.”

9] “Nothing underscores Trump’s weakness as a executive more than the war with Iran….It is the imperial project of a would-be authoritarian.”

10] “For as much as Trump is uniquely unsuited for the tremendous power of his office, it is also true that the idea of the unitary executive rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the American political system.”

***. “Early on, briefers were told not to send lengthy documents. Trump wouldn’t read them. Nor should they bring summaries to the Oval Office..PowerPoint was preferred because he is a visual learner…Then officials were told that PowerPoint decks needed to be slimmed down. The president couldn’t digest too many slides. He needed kore images to keep his interest. – and fewer words. Then they were told to cut back the overall message [on complicated issues such as military readiness or the federal budget]. to just three main points. Eh, that was still too much…Come in with one main point and repeat it. – over and over again, even if the president inevitably goes off on tangents. – until he gets it. Just keep steering the subject back to it. ONE point.” [ Anonymous: “A Warning” ]
[NOTE: Remember. – this is President Trump he’s talking about, in his FIRST term, NOT a kindergarten student!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Does this “thought process”. of an American president, related on pages 28-34, help YOU understand why this article said: “Abroad and at home, the president is in over his head.” ?????]

*** ‘people who don’t believe evil exists have clearly never encountered a psychopath, sociopath or narcissist.”
[ Morgan McKean ]

There have been multiple attempts to evaluate Donald John Trump as a human being. Bandy Lee’s. “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”. provided analysis of “37 psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts”. [2017, 2019]. Then other mental health experts analyzed Trump’s speech patterns over a fairly long period of years. Omarosa Manigault Newman, in Trump’s presence for 15 years, wrote “Unhinged,” discussing the ways he changed “mentally and physically.” Mary Trump, Trump’s niece and a trained clinical psychologist, wrote. “Too Much and Never Enough.” Adam Gabbatt, in the Guardian, wrote. “Is Trump Mentally OK?,” providing a long list of 25 specific examples of Trump’s ‘unusual behavior in 2025,” some quite startling.

This post presents excerpts from: “Trump Is Turning America Into A Psychotic State” [ Jonathan Rauch, Peter Wehner; New York Times; 4/12/26]:

12] “Institutional psychosis is ultimately self-defeating and unsustainable. Reality checks will return because reality always asserts itself. But severe damage will have been done, damage that may take a generation or more to repair.
As the Trump era winds down, the country may relearn something that never should have been forgotten. Institutions need to be reformed, not destroyed; governing well requires skill and careful attention to detail rather than leaders acting on impulse and ignorance; and character and mental stability matter perhaps most of all.”

2] “The issue is that the administration as a whole lacks a consistent attachment to reality and the ability to organize its thinking coherently. Mr. Trump’s grandiosity, impulsivity, inconsistency and outright breaks with reality have become state policy.”

11] “America and its allies have dealt with a lot of presidential imperfections and failings, but there is no precedent or even category for the institutional psychosis displayed by the second Trump administration. Precisely because the psychotic state is so unpredictable, setting up systems to manage it will not work.”

5] “Incoherence is not incidental in this administration; it is the administration’s modus operandi. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency caused chaos in federal agencies by sacking, then sometimes rehiring employees without any evident rationale. – and without making a serious dent in government spending. Mr. Trump flipped from “no more wars”. to waging war…using and threatening military force..seemingly every other month.”

***. “Emotionally he remains the thirteen-year-old troublemaker his father sent off to a military academy..Being stuck in the awkward year between childhood and maturity for nearly six decades..has twisted Trump’s personality and explains much of his narcissism..” [Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Imagine”]

1]. “It has been clear for a long time that President Trump is a person with a disorganized mind and a disordered personality. What the past few months and especially the past few weeks have brought into focus is how his pathologies have cascaded downward and outward through his administration. They have become institutionalized.The reason the administration so often does not act coherently is that it cannot.”

3] “It is the Iran war that has most vividly demonstrated the scope of the problem. In this conflict, the most potent antagonist has been the administration’s own incoherence. The Trump administration chose to wage a war without deciding on its aims, mapping out a strategy, planning for contingencies or even being able to explain itself. The goal was regime change. – until it wasn’t. The demand was unconditional surrender. – until it wasn’t. Deadlines were issued and then erased. Threats of total destruction were made and then pulled back.”

4] “THe administration might have been readier had it not chopped back the State Department’s Middle East desk, gotten rid of its oil and gas experts and eliminated its dedicated Iran office. the administration handicapped its own National Security council by firing staff members, some at the behest of a conspiracy-minded internet personality, and undercutting its independence.” [Note: this is often called ‘shooting yourself in the foot” !!!!]

*** Dictionary and thesaurus definitions of ‘psychotic”: “insane, mad, psychopathic, crazy, schizophrenic, maniacal, unbalanced, unhinged, mentally unsound, bereft of reason, deluded, disordered, nutty, screwy, half-cocked, unglued, not playing with a full deck…” [NOTE: this is what the above paragraphs – and much more, discuss and imply when t hey discuss Trump’s mind, and that of those around him.]

6] “Normal administrations set up policy processes that assemble evidence from varied sources, collate viewpoints and priorities across multiple agencies and ensure rational deliberation before options reach the president. one of us served in three Republican administrations and participated as interagency reviews took place in a cabinet department, in an executive agency and the White House itself. a single line in a presidential foreign policy statement might require the input of 20 or more people..” [in a “normal administration’..”

7] “The policy review process can be tortuous and sometimes mistaken. It can’t substitute for wide presidential judgment. But it is vital. It asks hard questions and assesses competing arguments. It ensures expert input in specific domains, anticipates how policies may ramify and prepares for contingencies. In all those ways, the systematic review of policy amounts to an institutional mind; a cognitive process that organizes the government’s deliberations to keep them rational and anchored in reality.” [NOTE: does a Psychotic State” operate rationally???]

8]. “In Mr. Trump’s second term, those functions still exist, but they can be disrupted, circumvented or just plain abandoned at any moment on the say-so of the president and his senior officials. In that respect, the Trump administration is mindless….irrational processes produce inexplicable outcomes, and that is what we have seen, again and again. The only rhyme or reason is the principle that Mr. Trump proclaimed when explaining his policy toward Cuba: “I think I can do anything I want with it.” That is the principle by which his administration governs.”

***. “Whatever big crisis comes, the one thing we know is that Donald Trump lacks the deep knowledge, critical thinking skills, emotional maturity and ability to separate sound advice from nonsense that are needed in a crisis.”
[Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “The making of Donald Trump”]

9] “..until a coherent policy process is restored under a chief executive who understands the need for it, we should expect geysers of mindlessness to keep erupting in unforeseeable ways and places.”

10] “As one of us has argued, he is a patrimonialist. – a leader who believes the state is his personal property. And both of us have said that his administration displays the hallmarks of fascism. Ultimately, however, institutional psychosis defies rational categories. Predicting this administration’s behavior is impossible under any framework. And if Mr. Trump becomes more desperate as he grows more unpopular, the danger only increases.”

*** “People should not vote for ANY Republican because they’re dangerous, dishonest, and self-serving…Republicans care most about those who will only get richer because of government help. The government is truly broken, particularly in dealing with national security, and another four years, and heaven forbid not eight years under the Republicans, and our grandchildren will have to build a new government, because the one we have will be unrecognizable and unworkable.” [NOTE: these words were spoken by a “lifelong Republican’ who knew G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney personally. He spoke anonymously because one of his sons had an important nonpolitical government post “and we both know that Republicans will seek revenge wherever they can find it.” it is the closing quote in John W. Dean’s. “Broken Government,” published in 2007. It was the last of three books Dean wrote about the corruption of government by Republicans.”

***. [NOTE: The United States is now one year into the 5th year of the 8 years under Republicans that this man feared.We have 3 years more of the Trump DICTATORSHIP. Under “Project 2025” guidance, Trump and his “Project 2025′ Rasputins ARE destroying the American system of democratic government. – as the man predicted. – making YOUR American government “unrecognizable and unworkable.” AND. – YOUR children and grandchildren WILL have to build a new government that works ‘of the people, by the people, for the people”. – OR American democracy WILL. “perish from the earth.” ]. [ What are. YOU. going to do ????? ]