life, liberty, and the pursuit of madness: america today and tomorrow (part 1)
To be brutally honest, for as much as I have mulled writing about the current (and future) state of my nation, the daily deluge of unfortunate news put a damper on my will to do so. It would be impossible to attempt to list each attack on the institutions which have shakily held us aloft and preserved not only our credibility on the world stage, but also our status as a free nation.
While the first Trump administration was nothing short of abysmal, Trump 2.0 managed to take the bar for American standards and drill it into the earth's mantle ... and continues to dig while we helplessly observe. The regime is characterised by an abhorrent admixture of blatant corruption, stratospheric levels of incompetence, and abject, wanton cruelty.
I will do my best to outline where we are with a few examples as well as describe where we can go in the short and long term.
That was Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor, historian, and expert on fascism. He authored On Tyranny in 2017 and released this video with Business Insider shortly after that publication. What is notable about this video is that, despite being nearly a decade old, it describes what is currently happening nearly perfectly. To boot, Snyder, having recognised what is unfolding, recently relocated to Canada.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes" -- the farce of American exceptionalism
Snyder is right: Americans, by and large, are not historically savvy. We are not only blissfully unaware of global occurrences, but also -- perhaps even more so -- our own past. This is by design, possibly: to colour the USA as a bastion of liberty, there have been efforts to euphemise and oversimplify the darkest portions of our history into mere footnotes, rather than simply recognising and decrying them as the atrocities they were. The result of these revisionist efforts is a less-than-firm grasp of the machinations which led us to this point, but also a misplaced faith in the system to be able to correct itself should anyone attempt to undermine it. Many are outright dismissive of the historical parallels between our current state of affairs and those of Nazi Germany, not understanding that the worst parts of authoritarianism do not manifest until the latter stages of their implementation.
When I have had discussions with others regarding this phenomenon, the most frequent response is that the American system cannot fail or be compromised; that we, as the pinnacle of all things free, could not, under any circumstance, become beholden to the whims of an authoritarian. I described an event, which is sometimes acknowledged, but is then brushed off in the same breath. "As long as we have been a country, we haven't had any authoritarians." I then cited examples and hallmarks of authoritarian regimes from all eras of history, even recalling our current president's declaration to become a "dictator on day one". "But they're not America," they insist. "I don't believe that." Le sigh.
Many Americans were rightfully alarmed when Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-championed draconian initiative for our nation's future, was revealed, so much so that Trump, in the lead-up to his eventual November 2024 victory, flatly denied ever hearing of the programme. Since President Trump's second inauguration, implementation of key Project 2025 goals has proceeded with abandon, and his embrace of the plan has poured gasoline onto the flickering flames of right-wing vigilantism.
The racists that Trump disavowed and that many claim do not exist
Trump declared war on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programmes, decrying them as "illegal and immoral" under the guise of restoring a merit-based system. Trump fired Gen Charles "CQ" Brown Jr, an overwhelmingly qualified Air Force general and only the second Black Joint Chiefs Chairman, to replace him with retired Air Force Lt Gen Dan "Raizin" Caine. Instructional videos which include the storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) were scrubbed by the Air Force, only to be restored after massive outcry.
An email from the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to Rev Dr Amos Brown, a close associate of renowned civil rights figures Medgar Evers and John Lewis, notifying Dr Brown of the impending return of his Bible and his copy of History of the Negro Race, both used in the museum's exhibit, Segregation.
Citing "improper ideology", the president issued an executive order which targeted the Smithsonian Institution. He also mentioned a "divisive, race-centred ideology", almost certainly referencing the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, which chronicles chattel slavery, segregation, and notable (and often overlooked) achievements by Black Americans. Efforts have been made to quietly remove significant artefacts loaned to the museum and return them to their owners.
Trump repealed civil rights-era legislation preventing contractors from engaging in discriminatory practices, including segregated facilities.
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands in the White House (Photo: unknown/Fox News)
Funding and aiding Israeli atrocities and fanning the flames of war
Vast sums of money provided by Sheldon and Miriam Adelson in Trump's first administration provided an impetus for Trump to declare Jerusalem as Israel's capital and to broker normalisation of relations between Israel and Arab nations in the Abraham Accords. A further $100 million from Miriam for his 2024 candidacy further solidified his staunchly pro-Israel stance: he has since vowed to "own" the beleaguered Gaza Strip, populated by approximately 1.8 million (down from 2.2 million) Palestinians subjected to a systematic and genocidal extermination campaign ceaselessly funded by the US and facilitated by the Netanyahu government.
As a part of this ethnic cleansing campaign, Trump has been in communication with Libya, itself a war-torn, violent nation with actual slave markets, to forcibly settle 1 million Palestinians there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on the "Trump plan" for Gaza -- the aforementioned forced resettlement and redevelopment of the enclave as a "freedom zone" -- as his condition for ending the conflict there. Nations formerly friendly to Israel, such as the UK, France, and Canada, have become increasingly intolerant of the Netanyahu regime's actions.
Though Trump himself scrapped the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and agreed to by several other nations, he has pined for a renewed agreement with Tehran, even as Netanyahu has growingly pressed for strikes against Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities in what he sees as a moment of weakness.
Trump pledged to end the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, which began with a Russian invasion in April 2022, in 24 hours. As anyone who keeps track of time might realise, more than a day has come and gone, and the fighting, characterised by World War I-esque trench warfare and high casualty counts, continues. After embarrassingly disparaging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House and instead appealing to Russian President Vladimir Putin to hash out a peace settlement to no avail, rhetoric between the frenemies has soured.
Discriminatory and racist immigration practices
On his campaign trail, President Trump championed the mass deportation of immigrants, labelling them -- in what might be the biggest projection in American history -- as the "enemy from within", accusing them of being the source of an uptick in violent offences in America, despite it being the opposite. To achieve his campaign goal of deporting 1 million immigrants per year, he has empowered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to execute this task -- with disastrous results. The haphazard, racism-fuelled, malicious, and sweeping implementation of immigration enforcement that followed has had no shortage of consequences, likely by design.
Since then, at least 233 immigrants -- the vast majority law-abiding -- were whisked away (sans habeas corpus and any due process) to El Salvador's Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), an infamous detention centre reserved for the worst of criminals, which include known violent gang members. This number includes at least 50 legal Venezuelan immigrants.
In another bizarre case, convicts from Cuba, Myanmar, Vietnam, Mexico, and South Sudan were shipped to South Sudan, violating a court order.
This is an altered photo of Abrego-Garcia's hand. As a Photoshop expert, not only can I confidently say that this is Photoshopped, it's not even good Photoshop. In fact, I can tell you that this particular edit was simply typed out letter by letter in the Tahoma font. Amateurs.
Despite the campaign rhetoric being centred around illegal immigrants, lawful residents, including permanent residents Yunseo Chung and Mahmoud Khalil, student Rümeysa Öztürk, and Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, the latter who held a protected status and was granted a work permit from the Department of Homeland Security.
Most alarmingly, ICE attempted to deport US-born Juan Cárlos López-Gómez, and only released him after his mother produced documents proving his citizenship. ICE detained another US citizen, Leonardo Garcia Venegas, at his place of employment in Alabama. The officials told him that his REAL ID on his person was fraudulent and only released him after he gave them his SSN. In many cases, ICE agents neither produced a warrant nor clearly identified themselves as agents.
Arrest video of US citizen Leonardo Garcia Venegas (Video: Telemundo Noticias)
Amid the endeavour by the Trump administration to stifle local entities who fail to adhere to federal immigration enforcement guidelines, the FBI arrested Hannah Dugan, a Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, judge, for obstructing their attempted apprehension of Mexican immigrant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was eventually caught outside of the courthouse.
In stark contrast, Trump, alleging a nonexistent "white genocide" in South Africa, expedited Afrikaners' immigration to the US, labelling them as refugees; this follows the cessation of refugee programmes for oppression- or genocide-plagued places such as sub-Saharan Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Trump even attempted to lecture South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on the completely imaginary scenario in the former apartheid state, in which Afrikaners still hold much larger portions of private land compared to their black counterparts.
Of course, there's more...
This excuse for leadership is the equivalent of sugar-fuelled toddlers zipping around a playground and playing hacky-sack with world-ending thermonuclear devices at each other as they giggle and hurl insults at each other in full view of everyone else. Never in my life have I seen this level of weaponised, reckless incompetence in a government -- and I thought the first administration would be as bad as it gets.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the patron saint of privileged sycophantic Nazi know-it-alls and single-handed ruiner of Doge memes [photo: Kenny Holston for AFP/Getty Images]
Trump got right to work on weeding out the government corruption and fraud that plague our nation, and who better to task than the esteemed super-genius nepo-baby, ketamine-addicted semi-aquatic rodent, and insecure half-trillionaire with a breeding fetish to do it! I'm sure the meagre $288 million charitable contribution to Trump's campaign had absolutely nothing to do with it and was just a mere coincidence.
Musk's cleverly named Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) got right to work hacking away at nefarious, unforgivable things, such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which performed such dastardly deeds as assisting with global health initiatives; the National Institute of Health's (NIH) heinous efforts to fund research for cancer, Alzheimer's, and many other things; and workers at the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) who perform the menial, insignificant tasks of safeguarding and maintaining our nation's nuclear warheads.
As of May 2025, DOGE has haphazardly terminated over 10,000 government contracts, all while Musk's Starlink and SpaceX services rake in billions from the government. To justify the SAVE Act, which Trump touts as combatting widespread voter fraud and abuse of the system, DOGE gained access to and illegally siphoned sensitive data from our Social Security Administration (SSA) databases.
A protester holds up a sign noting Elon's data thievery, with a nod to his ties to Nazism. (Photo: Clayton Jones Images)
A whistleblower revealed that DOGE members entered the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) facility and demanded top-level user privileges exempt from logging, which they used to exfiltrate at least 10GB of sensitive data to an unknown destination. Only minutes after, more than 20 users with Russian IPs and valid credentials for the DOGE accounts attempted access, but were only turned back due to system policies restricting non-US logins.
As has probably been made plain, DOGE's actions have done very little in the arena of actually saving the government any money, it has been extraordinarily effective at slashing and burning through obstacles to the Trump regime's aims of consolidating power.
From the war on drugs to a war on education
If you assumed that Trump's unrelenting assault on women diversity would stop at the military and museums, you would be wrong. The regime has had its sights set on colleges and universities for some time now, as evidenced by widespread threats of withdrawal of funding from institutions which fail to comply with Trump Department of Education directives against DEIA. Many states have since filed suits against the department in response.
Of particular note is the president's confrontation with Harvard University, a private institution whose 1636 founding predates the United States itself. Unlike universities such as Columbia, which folded when pressured by the regime concerning student activism for Palestine, the storied school put on its Law Suits and combat boots and went to legal war. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary, Kristi Noem, revoked the university's Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) and withdrew $2.2 billion in grants and contracts to the school, accusing the institution of "fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party". They demanded a list of legal and academic records of student visa holders, which Harvard denied, and in a humorous twist, the university promptly published a free course on constitutional foundations on its website.
Hot on the heels of the Harvard hullabaloo, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has pledged to "aggressively revoke" visas for Chinese students and ordered the Department of State to halt visa appointments for those seeking student or exchange visas. Foreign students make up a sizable portion of enrollees, and, since many pay full tuition, eliminating them from the applicant pool would also axe funding for those who require aid.
HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, the world's leading expert in nescience and arguably the least of the Kennedys (Photo: Tasos Katopodis for Getty Images)
Robert F Kennedy Jr, somehow the Secretary of Health and Human Services despite having zero medical degrees, a literal tapeworm in his brain, a past heroin addiction, and an openly anti-vaccine stance, has proposed to ban federal scientists from publishing in highly reputable scientific journals such as The Lancet. Citing widespread corruption from pharmaceutical companies, he has stated that the scientists instead publish solely in new government-run journals issued by the National Institutes of Health, which themselves lost at least $3 billion in funding and 20,000 personnel due to cuts. Additionally, the health secretary has removed the COVID-19 vaccine, which has been proven safe and effective for those six months or older, from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) immunisation regimen for pregnant women and healthy children.
Nearly 75 per cent of scientists are considering leaving for places like Canada, Australia, or Germany due to the erosion of academic freedom and a dearth in funding, among other reasons.
President Donald Trump at his January 6, 2021, "Save America March", right before his supporters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to reverse the results of an election called for Joe Biden. (Photo: Pete Marovich for The New York Times)
Rewarding those who do harm to our nation
On his very first day, he got right to work fixing all our nation's issues and prioritising what matters most -- pardoning all the January 6, 2021, insurrectionists who assaulted law enforcement and attempted to overturn a lawful election, of course. Some of the participants had lengthy criminal records, including some with prior convictions for egregious offences such as rape, manslaughter, domestic violence, drug trafficking, sexual abuse of a minor, and child porn possession. Some went on to commit further crimes, and one was killed by police mere days after his pardon.
The regime also chose to pay $5 million to settle a $30 million lawsuit issued by the family of Air Force veteran and January 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot during an attempt to breach a door in the Capitol.
A definitely-not-illegal $400 million gift from the Qatari royal family, no strings attached. (Photo: Roberto Schmidt for AFP/Getty Images)
Qatar? I hardly knew 'er: Emoluments Clause violations and flagrant financial corruption
The Trump administration formally accepted the offering of a $400 million Boeing 747-8 luxury jumbo jet from the Qatari government. Dubbed a "palace in the sky", the interior is laden with enough opulent gold-coloured furnishings to make Scrooge McDuck blush. It includes offices, guest bedrooms with their own bathrooms, and dining areas. Trump insists that this replacement for Air Force One would be going to the Department of Defence; he said it would be donated to his "presidential library" and would definitely never be used following his presidency, which is totally believable. Furthermore, for the aircraft to be viable as an Air Force One, it would need to be retrofitted with the latest defence technologies and secure communications methods available, which would take years and would likely not occur until the end of his term, conveniently.
The Trump Organisation finalised a deal with Doha's Qatari Diar for Saudi Arabian company Dar Global to build a luxurious Trump-branded golf resort in the Persian Gulf nation in what is widely criticised as a massive ethics violation -- including of his own company.
Former Binance CEO, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao. (Photo: Juliana Tan for WSJ)
The $TRUMP stablecoin, created by Trump's World Liberty Financial in commemoration of the president's electoral victory, saw its value skyrocket in the days following the confirmation of his presidency. The cryptocurrency venture, which seeks to circumvent banks, launched USD1, a USD-pegged stable coin; the Abu Dhabi, UAE, firm MGX announced they would use USD1 to secure a $2 billion investment into crypto exchange Binance. The company's CEO, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, who plead guilty to money laundering activity for terrorists, drug lords, and sanctioned entities, coincidentally pursues a pardon from the president in a bid to return to the US, all while Binance executives met with Department of the Treasury officials concerning slackening of government oversight.
The 29th US Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth. While he may not have had to pass a bar exam, he might know his way around a few bars.
Open secrets: national security threats and gross incompetence
The highly decorated and respected retired US Army General Lloyd Austin, the first Black man to hold many of the leadership positions he held throughout his Army tenure, was succeeded by former US Army National Guard Major and Fox News host Pete Hegseth. Despite combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, his having only been a low-level field-grade officer cast a long shadow of apprehension over his qualifications for SecDef ... and that's before you consider his alcoholism and espousal of Christian nationalist views.
If anything, future events confirmed people's suspicions about his capability to do the job. In March, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic editor-in-chief, was mysteriously added by then-National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to the "Houthi PC small group" chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging application not approved for classified communications, partly due to its vulnerability. With Goldberg present, Hegseth revealed details on strikes on Yemen-based Houthi targets, such as times and aircraft used, to the group, which contained national security officials, including Hegseth himself, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others. Besides obvious operational security (OPSEC) concerns, people very intimate with this type of information know that it's very classified (for a reason), and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, acknowledged as much, though she failed to place culpability for the leak on any specific individual. Waltz was since dismissed from his post and demoted was nominated for the position of UN ambassador.
Big ... and not so beautiful: foreign and domestic economic impacts
In what would be a dramatic escalation of actions taken during his first term, Trump got right to work implementing extensive and indiscriminate tariffs, promising to "enrich [US] citizens". While the previous Trump administration primarily targeted China, they enacted levies on various products and services from our northern and southern neighbours and European allies alike, prompting responses in kind. Agriculture exporters, particularly in the soybean industry, continued to bear the brunt of these actions, just as they had in the first term. The exorbitant fees have brought with them an avalanche of fraud.
(This article is continued on part 2 due to Tumblr character limits.)