***. “You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.”
[Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th U. S. President, World War ii Commanding General ]

“In social media posts near midnight on thanksgiving, [Trump] threatened to strip citizenship from naturalized migrants “who undermine domestic tranquility.” [“Shooting sets Trump on angry path”; Shawn McCreesh; New York Times; 11/29/25]

Stop laughing! Think hard – is there ANYBODY in the United States of America, who, since 2015, has dome more to “undermine domestic tranquility” than Donald John Trump ???????

***. “Dictators are the popes of nationalism.” [ Aldous Huxley ]

“Gov. Walz knows how bullies operate.” [ Jennifer Brooks; Minnesota Star Tribune; 11/29/25]:
1] “Trump’s words and deeds – the time he mocked a reporter with with a physical disability; the times in recent weeks that he called women “stupid,” “ugly,” and “piggy” – tend to get shrugged off as Trump being Trump.”
“This is not both-sidesism,” Walz said. “This is clearly one side – Donald Trump – hat is clearly trying to divide this country and thinks that it’s beneficial to him, politically.”

2] “There’s a pattern to Trump’s holiday greetings: Subject. + verb +. insult.”

***. “It is the old practice of despots to use part of the people to keep the rest in order.”
[. Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President; 1798 ]

3] “Trump’s tradition of wrapping holiday greetings around insults dates back at least to Memorial Day. 2015: “I would like to wish everyone, including all haters and losers [ of which, sadly, there are many ] a truly happy and enjoyable Memorial Day!” “Mother’s Day? “Happy Mother’s Day to ALL, in particular the Mothers, Wives and Lovers of the Radical Left Fascists, Marists, and Communists who are doing everything within their power to destroy and obliterate our once great Country.” “Christmas. 2024: “Go To Hell!”

4] “People who do things like this, you don’t associate with,’ Walz said. “I really wish America would start to understand that this has nothing to do with conservative tax policy, it has nothing to do with climate change. “It has everything to do with – at heart – just being cruel,’ he added. “The cruelty is at the center of the agenda.”

*** “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” [ Thumper, 1942, Disney’s “Bambi” movie ]

*** “No circumstances can repair a defect of character.” [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

***. “The best index to a person’s character is [a] how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and [b] how he treats people who can’t fight back.” [ Abigail Van Buren; 5/16/ 1974 ]

***. “At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” [ Abraham Lincoln, 1837 ]

The murderer of America, as a great nation, as a society – is Donald John Trump. The STUPIDITY and DESTRUCTIVENESS of his rhetoric, his actions, his policies is. UNMATCHED in American history. He just might be the real. “Manchurian Candidate,” or, perhaps, “the useful idiot.”
Ponder the thoughts below:

This post – “America’s Formula for Greatness Is Under Threat” – is inspired by Nicholas Kristof’s 11/16/25 New York Times article of that title. Excerpts follow:

1] “What’s the secret formula that has made the United States the dominant superpower in the world today? I’d point to three fundamental ingredients, each of which is now being weakened. When I think of the historical legacies of our generation and of President Trump, I wonder if they will be less about the political battles in the headlines and more about the slow shriveling of America’s global standing. Patriotism is less about waving flags and more about defending these three that over two centuries have made America pre-eminent:

A] A commitment to education at every level, resulting in global leadership in science and technology.

1] “America became the world’s leading nation largely because of its emphasis beginning in the 19th century on mass education….later, American research universities became global leaders and nurtured technology hubs….American excellence in science drives economic competitiveness and well-being. Yet Trump is winding down mRNA vaccine programs that are full of promise for tackling cancer and has slashed investments in medical research.

B] An inclination toward free markets and free trade, supported by the rule of law.

1]. “Trump has systematically chipped away at some of the underpinnings of a market economy. Markets thrive with prudent fiscal and monetary management, yet his tax cuts lead to a soaring national debt even as he tries to crush the independence of the Federal Reserve. Corruption is a bane of capitalism, yet his family has seemed to use the presidency as a A.T.M.”

2] “And the rule of la?….Trump has periodically defied lower courts and used the Department of Justice to punish his political opponents. Mark l. Wolf, a federal judge appointed by President Reagan..[resigned]…to be able to speak openly about the Trump administration’s “assault on the rule of law” and the way that it poses an “existential threat to democracy.”

C] Immigration and the absorption of some of the brightest minds from around the world.

1]. “..Four of the Magnificent Seven tech companies are led by immigrants, and 46 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children..”

AGAIN – if doubtful of this commentary – we refer YOU to the Constitution’s Preamble and the goals of the Founders: “..Union..Justice..Tranquility….promote the general Welfare..secure the Blessings of Liberty..” Few, if ANY, Trump policies, actions, and most of all his hateful rhetoric pass the Founder’s test. BUT. – YOU don’t need to believe me. – read comments from around the world on the STUPIDITY and the DESTRUCTIVENESS of Trump’s policies, actions, rhetoric. Her has routinely offended former friends and allies – symbolized by Canada. Trump has, single-handedly, managed to sabotage a 200 year friendship UNMATCHED. anywhere in the world with Canada.
He is sabotaging the security of Europe by giving Vladimir Putin whatever he wants – a point Europeans are now openly saying and working to offset.
America won World War II and the Cold War. – because w had friends and allies. THE threats to world peace, democracy, stability. – are. Russia and China. Trump is sabotaging America’s ability to have the NEEDED support to combat the threats of Russia and China

Trump is sabotaging. YOUR present, future, economic security by ‘giving away the farm” to his main friends – America’s and the world’s. billionaires. His 2017 and 2025 tax cuts are THE single most destructive attack in American government’s ability to finance NECESSARY functions. America now has a record number of billionaires. Trump’s 2017 tax cut for them is responsible for 25% of our, YOUR, ballooning national debt. Making PERMANENT his 2017 tax cut for the obscenely rich. – will soon be used to cut YOUR Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid benefits. [that YOU worked for].

*** “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: When he first appears, he is a protector.” [Plato]

***. “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed before they are promulgated, or undergo.such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow.” [ James Madison, Founding Father, 4th U.S. President – 1788 ]

This post presents excerpts from Matthew Purdy’s “The Fog of Trump” [New York Times Magazine; 11/16/25]. READ. THE ENTIRE. ARTICLE!!! It describes how the Trump DICTATORSHIP is INTENTIONALLY vague so it can apply government power against. YOU. – if YOU make Trump unhappy.

2] “..Trump is creating a system of rules and punishments all his own. And when those rules are vaguely defined – unlike, say a speed limit or even compex financial regulations – there is no assurance that anyone can be safely outside the zone of violation. Therefore, there is no telling who might be found out of bounds next and what punishment might be imposed.”

5]. “Vagueness has been seen as antithetical to due process and the rule of law since the earliest days of American democracy…. Vagueness thrived in the dark corner of anti-vagrancy laws. Under the post-Civil War Black Codes, the authorities arrested and sometimes effectively re-enslaved Black people…A hundred years later, vagrancy laws allowed police to detain people for such broadly defined crimes as “wandering or strolling around from place to place without any lawful purpose or object……In 1972, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the concept that laws could be “void for vagueness”…the law furnished “a convenient tool for ‘harsh and discriminatory enforcement by local prosecuting officials, against particular groups deemed to merit their displeasure.'”

3] “Vagueness breeds trepidation, perhaps the desired result. “We want you to fear,’ Steve Bannon, a former Trump aide and prominent cheerleader, said last year, anticipating a second term. Tom Ginsburg, an international law professor at the University of Chicago who has written about the decline of democracies around the world, says inducing worry is effective. “You get a lot of anticipatory compliance, which is cheap. And vagueness is part of the tool kit.”

***. “I do not see why men should not be just as cruel as nature.” [ Adolf Hitler ]

1] “..[Judge Young]..said diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in particular were set up as “some sort of boogeyman” in Trump’s executive orders, with “no operative definition.” Administration officials, he concluded, “decided they are going to ‘eradicate’ something that they cannot define.” Federal District Court judges across the country and across the political spectrum…have echoed Young’s critique, faulting the administration for using broadly cast executive orders and policies to justify “arbitrary and capricious” actions…..But vagueness has become fundamental to the way Trump operates.”

4] “Fear can seep in anywhere…its depth is perhaps best measured in more ordinary spaces, like middle school classrooms. Valerie Wolfson, the 2024 New Hampshire history teacher of the year, is wrestling with a federal order accusing all schools of “indoctrinating” students about racism…it remains a quandary for Wolfson, whose post-Civil War curriculum includes Reconstruction, the rise of the K.K.K. and the Jim Crow era. “I do not know how I could discuss them without creating a risk of being accused of presenting a narrative of the United States as racist”..”

*** “Every tyrant who ever lived has believed in freedom – for himself.” { Elbert Hubbard ]

7]. “For decades, the United States has held itself out to the world as the paragon of ‘laws not men” governance. During the first Trump administration, as vague laws aimed at suppressing dissent spread in Eastern Europe and beyond, the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, issued a statement underscoring that tradition. The statement, titled “Authoritarian Regimes’ Unclear Laws make Anyone a Suspect,” distinguished between vague laws used by authoritarians and American laws designed to guard against arbitrary power……Today, the ruling of some American judges critical of Trump administration policies echo the language in that statement.” [ Irony, anyone !!!!! ]

8]. “Trump did not hide that he was seeking revenge, nor was it lost on the judges. In the case of another law firm, WilmerHale, Judge Richard J. Leon, a George W. Bush nominee, said he agreed with the firm’s assertion that the executive order left “no doubt that WilmerHale is being punished because it has represented some of the president’s political opponents and advanced positions with which he disagrees.” “The order essentially leaves it to WilmerHale to predict which causes and which attorneys the president personally dislikes and then steer clear of those causes and attorneys,’ he wrote. “This chilling effect triggers serious vagueness concerns.”

*** “The tyrant confuses those he can’t convince, corrupts those he can’t confuse, and crushes those he can’t corrupt.” [Anonymous]

{NOTE: a reminder – this site has often said. – THE TEST. – of any president, of any American government is this: from the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution: “We the People…more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility….promote the general Welfare..” We have now provided 78. examples of WHY the Trump DICTATORSHIP is a threat to American democracy, American national security, America itself – because it has, usually deliberately, FAILED to provide Union, Tranquility, Justice, promote the general Welfare. As bad as the first Trump administration was, the 2025-2029 Trump DICTATORSHIP is a PLANNED assault on all hat America became, 1933-73, because. “Project 2025,” written by far right reactionaries – many of its major authors hold positions of power in Trump’s administration are working to implement that infamous plan. Their goal; make America a plutocratic theocracy. They’ve had numerous successes already. THE QUESTION: What are YOU going to do to protect YOUR family?????????????? ]

***. “Just tell your readers that you have a source who knows a lot about the Republican Party from long experience, that he knows all the key movers and shakers, and he has a bit of advice: people should not vote for ANY Republican, because they’re dangerous, dishonest, and self-serving… I have come to realize the Democrats really do care about people who most need help from the government; 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 Republicans, and our grandchildren will have to build a new government, because the one we have will be unrecognizable and unworkable.” [commentary “by a lifelong Republican…who voted for Bush and Cheney twice, because he knows them both personally,” in John W. Dean’s “Broken Government…How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches}

{NOTE: America did NOT listen – and we have now had 4 years, 9 months of Republican rule this man FEARED. AND – from daily headlines, the Trump DICTATORSHIP. IS working to make American government, America itself, “unrecognizable and unworkable.” ]

This post presents excerpts from Ka Vang’s. “Americans go hungry while Trump parties like Gatsby” [ St. Paul Pioneer Press; 11/6/25 ]:

1] “President Donald Trump threw a “Great Gatsby” party this past weekend at Mar-a-Lago while millions of Americans lost their snap benefits. It’s one thing to eat cake and drink champagne while others starve; it’s another to rent a jazz band, pour champagne into a tower, and rub it in our faces while calling it presidential leadership.”

2] “Trump’s Gatsby soiree was his Marie Antoinette let-the-eat-cake moment, except the cake was gold-leafed, the cavier imported, and the guest list limited to people who don’t know the price of a gallon of milk.”

3] “Meanwhile, the SNAP program – born in the 1960s as a bipartisan way to ensure Americans didn’t starve in one of the richest countries on Earth – was being gutted. SNAP isn’t charity. It’s the reason millions of children, seniors and working parents eat.”

*** “Wherever there is lost the consciousness that every man is an object of concern for us just because he is a man, civilization and morals are shaken, and the advance to fully developed inhumanity is only a question of time.”
[. Albert Schweitzer ]

4] “With the payments cut off amid the federal government shutdown, many families across Minnesota are going down to one meal a day. The Trump party didn’t just ignore them. It mocked them with every bottle of $500 champagne that could’ve fed a family of four for a week.”

5]. “I keep picturing Trump dancing with Melania in a designer sequined gown, pretending to be Gatsby and Daisy, when really they’re more like Edgar Allen Poe’s Prince Prospero and his courtiers in “The Masque of the Red Death.”

6] “On Monday, Trump’s administration said it will partially fund SNAP for November, but only after two judges issued rulings requiring the government to keep the nation’s largest food aid program running. It didn’t feed hungry families out of compassion; it was forced to do it.”

7]. “And in real life – and in books – the party always ends when the people outside get tired of starving. Just ask Marie Antoinette and Jay Gatsby how their parties ended.”

*** “There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward the Party. Tere will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy…..Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face – forever.” [ George Orwell: “1984” ]

{NOTE: The Trump DICTATORSHIP story is on of CONTEMPT. While there is chaos in airports and 42 million Americans worry about their next meal. – “your” president is playing golf. While 300 million live paycheck-to-paycheck. – “your” president DEMANDED. hat his. IMMORAL 2017 tax cut for billionaires be made permanent. The boot that is stomping on human, non-billionaire faces, FOREVER, is worn by Donald John Trump, who views America democracy, the rule of law, and YOU – with CONTEMPT. ]

{Note: If YOU have ANY doubt about what a truly rotten, selfish, dishonest, damaging, antidemocratic ‘person” Donald John Trump really. IS. – read just a part of any of the following books written by Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporters:
– “It’s Even Worse Than You ThinK – David Cay Johnston
– “Confidence Man”. – Maggie Haberman [“The Making of Donald Trump and The Breaking of America”]
– “Injustice” – Carol Leonnig, Aaron Davis [ how Trump has DESTROYED ‘the rule of law’}