***. “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’}

*** “The accumulation of all power, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many; whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” [James Madison, 1788}

THE GOOD NEWS: on October 18th, 7 million PATRIOTIC Americans turned out for 2000 rallies held in all 50 states. Other rallies occurred in foreign nations. The NO KINGS” rallies showed Americans are waking up to Madison’s warning. King Donald I NOW controls all 4 branches of the U.s. government – House, Senate, Executive, Judiciary. Daily examples of STUPIDITY, CRUELTY, CORRUPTION, CRAZINESS are reported. Many more not reported.

THE BAD NEWS: The Trump DICTATORSHIP’s war on the “rule of law” continues. This post centers on Emily Bazelon”s “Bow To The Emperor” article in the 10/19/25 New York Times Magazine. If YOU. are a patriotic American – this is a MUST read. Some excerpts presented here. Read the entire article. Look at WHO is talking – 50 members of the legal establishment, 25 Republicans, 25 Democrats. look at WHAT they’re saying – the Trump DICTATORSHIP is a BIG threat to American “rule of law.” Look at WHY they say this. look at the fact their level of CONCERN has increased in Trump’s 9 months in office. Look at their FEARS.

*** “The most odious of all oppressions are those which mask a justice.” [ Justice Robert Jackson]

1] “A majority of our respondents told us they were alarmed about a potential second Trump term given the strain he put on the legal system the first time around……”What’s happening is anathema to everything we’ve ever stood for in the Department of Justice.”…..almost universal fear and anguish over the transformation of the Justice Department into a tool of thenWhite House.”

2]. “Just as chillingly, the new survey reflects near consensus that most of the guardrails inside and outside the Justice Department, which in the past counterbalanced executive power, have all fallen away…..But many of them – more so than last year – don’t want to speak on the record. These are people with stature in their world…But now they’re worried about retribution, for their law firms or their family members, if they draw Trump’s ire

3] “All but one of the respondents rated Trump’s second term as a greater or MUCH greater threat to the rule of law than his first term. They consistently characterized the president’s abuses of power – wielding the law to justify his wishes – as being far worse than they imagined before his re-election…….And every single one of the 50 respondents believe that Trump and his attorney general, Pam Bondi, have used the Justice Department to go after the president’s political and personal enemies and provide favors to his allies.

*** “Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.” [George Bernard Shaw]

4] “To measure the degree to which the Department of Justice has changed…at the end of his first presidency, Trump insisted that the department investigate ‘fact free claims”….Barr had been Trump’s close ally. but in late December 2020, he resigned rather than give in to the president’s demands….other remaining top officials said that they too would resign rather than use the department to seek to overturn the election….”No one in the room now will say no,” said the Justice Department official from Trump’s first term.

5]. “Several legal experts told us they began worrying on the day Trump retook office…pardons and commutations to the Jan. 6 rioters – unraveled the work of what prosecutors have said is the Department of Justice’s largest-ever investigation. Trump alsofired lawyers who worked on the Jan.6 cases.”….
“..in February, Emil Bove..was appointed second in command at the Justice Department, ordered Danielle Sassoon..to drop an active corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams. Sassoon resigned, saying…It was a clear example of quid pro quo….At least 10 more career prosecutors resigned…..”

6] “In June, Trump nominated Bove for a lifetime appointment to a federal judgeship…..Several respondents raised Bove’s ascension as a sharp break from the past. Trump also stunned many of them when he issued a flurry of executive orders in march and April targeting big law firms perceived as being aligned with Democrats.”

***”Great is the mischief of a legal crime.” [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

7]. “Just as notable, in the eyes of many of our respondents, is the work these firms and others are NOT doing for fear of Trump….Thirty-three said that big firms as a group are doing little or nothing to constrain excessive uses of presidential power.” [Note re-read this, think what it means]

8} “More than any step the president has taken, according to a lawyer from the Reagan solicitor general’s office, Trump’s bullying of law firms has undermined the rule of law.” [NOTE: read THIS again, PATRIOTIC American}

9]. “In Trump’s Justice Department..retribution has been institutionalized. In February, Bondi created a “weaponization working group” to investigate “abuses of the criminal justice process.” She instructed the group to look into people who prosecuted Trump. To the dismay of some of our respondents, the head of the working group, Ed Martin, promised to smear the reputations of any target he couldn’t indict…a clear violation of Justice Department policy.”

***. “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]

10]. “In September, Trump trampled whatever remaining hope prosecutors had of exercising their judgment independent of the president. Trump forced the resignation of Erik S. Siebert, the U.s. attorney in Eastern Virginia who had concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Comey….On social media, Trump ordered Bondi tontake action ‘NOW!!!” against Comey…Adam Schiff…Letitia James……The next day, news broke that Trump’s Justice Department COLSED an investigation into Tom Homan, Trump’s so-called border czar, who was recorded last year accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash in an undercover F.B.I. investigation.” [NOTE; read this again – this is “justice’ in Trump’s “America.” ]

11]. “The firing of the Jan. 6 prosecutors, the resignations over the Adams case, Martin’s conduct and the indictment of Comey – each step corroded the Department of Justice in the eyes of our respondents. “It’s all about dismantling the institution”…”And the message to everyone in the department is that if you speak up, something could happen…you’d better bow to the emperor.” [Note: read this again – patriotic American]

12] “..all 50 believe that Congress, which framers intended to be the most powerful branch…is doing very little – or nothing at all – to fulfill its role of restraining the president. “The greatest threat,’ said Stuart Gerson, an assistant attorney general for President George H.W. Bush, “comes with the probability that the president is on the road to assuming autocratic powers and that the Congress has allowed its countervailing constitutional powers to wither.”

*** “Power may be justly compared to a great river which, while kept within its due banks is both beautiful and useful; but when it overflows its banks, is then too impetuous to be stemmed, it bears down all before it and brings destruction and desolation wherever it goes.” [ Alexander Hamilton ]

13]. “Some former officials said the Supreme Court set the country up for disaster by ruling in July 2024 that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for most of their official actions…Nancy Gertner ..[said].. “I believe that they are fully on board with enabling him.” {NOTE: Patriotic Americans, knowing that “impeachment’ is in the Constitution by SPECIFIC Founders’ intent, think on this – which MANY other scholars have said}

14] “All but one of our respondents said they were concerned or very concerned about Department of Justice attorneys failing to tell the truth in court, which judges across the country have complained about….The reactions of judges like Alsup signal how lawyers who used to uphold the standards of the legal profession are compromising them to adapt to the Trump era. “ThenD.O.J.’s loss of credibility is devastating to the rule of law,” said William Yeomans..”

15] >>”>>>Trump is cowing people and institutions in a way that could change the foundation of America’s system of government.” [NOTE: PATRIOTIC American, think on THIS]

*** “Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.” [ John Locke ]

*** “I have always tried to treat white-collar criminals like other criminals. It still bothers me that Richard Nixon escaped that equal treatment….If Nixon had had the character of President Eisenhower, or any honest president, this scandal [Watergate] would never have happened….I hope no political party will ever stoop so low as to embrace the likes of Richard Nixon again.” [ John J. Sirica, former federal judge ]

This post presents excerpts from Jacob Silverman’s. “Teapot Dome and Watergate: They’re Nothing Next to this”. [New York Times; 10/19/25]:

1] “If you were an authoritarian seeking to influence another head of state, you might offer him a luxuriously appointed Boeing 747 airplane. You might spend big at his hotels or invest in one of many companies owned by him and his children. You might buy his sneakers, NFT’s and other branded products. In the case of President Trump, a potential influence peddler has a vast menu of choices.”

***. “No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the man who can build his greatness upon his country’s ruin.” {George Washington; 12/12/1778]

2] “With World Liberty, Mr. Trump has created a powerful vehicle for those seeking influence. Anyone – you, me, an Emirati prince – can put money in his pocket by simply buying the tokens the company issues. The key is the convenience factor.”

***. “..no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” [ U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9 ]

3]. “We’ve never seen anything like this before. You can tick off notorious executive branch scandals…but none of them featured this scale of mixing of personal and government interests, much less the sheer accumulation of profit, of Mr. Trump’s multibillion-dollar crypto windfall.”

***. “Uncontrolled power, in the hands of an incensed, imperious and rapacious conquerer, is an engine of dreadful execution; woe to that country, over which it can be exercised.” [ Thomas Paine, 1780 ]

4]. “But the greater risk concerns Mr. Trump and the huge amount of money that powerful overseas actors can potentially funnel toward him. if you are a head of state, it is in your direct political interest to buy Mr. Trump’s tokens or invest in one of his crypto ventures.” [ Question – just asking – Vladimir Putin is said to be one of the world’s richest men. “Our” president has consistently refused to REALLY stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Just asking. – do YOU suppose Putin has bought a considerable of Mr. Trump’s “crypto ventures”? – Just asking………… ]

***. “There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.” [Ludwig von Mises]

5] “In another era [in other words, a few years ago] we would have already had congressional hearings and law enforcement investigations into the president’s crypto business interests. But the Supreme Court’s recent decision related to presidential immunity signals that such moves could end up being practically superfluous.”

***. “The point is you can’t be too greedy.” [ Donald John Trump – “The Art of the Deal” ]

6]. “>>>to start his term, Mr. Trump fired 18 inspectors general, who might otherwise have been able to investigate and shine light on the crypto activities of this administration. In February, he ordered the Justice Department to suspend enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits the bribery of foreign officials.” Note: items 1-6: Jacob Silverman: “Teapot Dome and Watergate; They’re Nothing Next to This”; New York Times; 10/19/25]

***. “Wherever there is power, greed, and money, there is corruption.” [ Ken Poirot ]

We close this post with words from Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston’s. “It’s Even Worse Than You Think,” written in 2018 about Trump’s first term:
“Our Constitution is not written to handle someone like Trump,” the political scientist Jason Johnson told me. “That is the greatest danger and harm he is to our country.”………….
“For the next thirty-five years or so, the standard for what you can get away with as long as you are in power and stay in power has been lowered to a level I don’t think any of us can fully appreciate today,’ he said.”
[Note: Trump ordered the demolishing of the White House’s East Wing – without going through proper procedures – AND – despite his assurance that nothing like this would happen – AND – supposedly, it is being paid for by his billionaire friends !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]