Trump's damage to America is intentional, not incompetence or good faith reform

By now, people who focus on the pattern and nature of changes the Trump administration and the USSC (US Supreme Court) have imposed on government, law, commerce, American Christianity, journalism, science, and society can clearly see a corrupt authoritarian pattern and intent. Trump and MAGA elites have pushed all of those targets toward authoritarianism and deep corruption. Billionaires and big corporations have been protected, empowered and deregulated. Christianity, specifically Christian nationalism, has been empowered into aggressive arrogance and cruel, bigoted fundamentalist theocracy. By contrast, wealth and powers of citizens, consumers, and workers have been weakened or eliminated. The same has happened to protections for the environment. In short, Trump and empowered MAGA elites are building the means to move vast new wealth, power and protections from the public interest, citizens, consumers, workers and the environment to elites and special interests. By now, the evidence is overwhelming. Trump and his MAGA political movement is deeply corrupt, staunchly authoritarian, and taking wealth and power for themselves from us. Link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5, link 6, link 7, link 8, link 9

It is now clear that Trump's probably illegal DOGE quasi-agency was an intentional, sloppy effort to (1) disempower and deprotect citizens, consumers, workers and the environment, while (2) further empowering and protecting wealthy people and allied special interests, including billionaire's businesses. DOGE's mass firings at the GSA left that agency unable to perform basic functions. The IRS lost 25% of its workforce, with experts projecting $350 billion to $900 billion in lost revenue by 2036 from failure to enforce tax laws. The evidence of what DOGE did was not about fixing inefficiencies. It was about dismantling government functions that served the public interest, including stripping protections for government workers. Those functions balanced the public interest power against special interest power. Now, the public interest is weak and mostly defenseless, while special interests are deregulated and free to feed on society without most major restraints. The effects are now being documented. In Trump’s second term massive financial windfalls are going to his wealthy backers and his own businesses. Not surprisingly, that is what happens when public interest protections like anti-corruption and financial integrity safeguards are eliminated --- wealth and power flow from the public interest to special interests. Link 10, link 11, link 12, link 13, link 14, link 15, link 16

Trump and MAGA politics have inflicted enormous damage on America's domestic and foreign interests. Tariffs have imposed costs that fall almost entirely on American consumers and businesses, with ~90% of the tariff burden falling on U.S. firms and households. A 6% reduction in long-run GDP and a $22,000 lifetime loss for middle-income households has been projected. Internationally, one analysis documented 111 distinct ways that Trump and MAGA policy have weakened American security, economic standing, and global influence. Some scholars see the damage to US alliances as potentially irreversible. Before Trump, the US had allies. Now we don't. Link 17, link 18, link 19, link 20, link 21, link 22, link 23

What Trump and MAGA politics have done is not just scattered or misguided incompetence or good faith efforts to improve government efficiency or accountability. It is the a focused effort to severely weaken the public interest, and to empower authoritarianism and free special interests from laws and regulations. It's happening everywhere at once. Domestic agencies, scientific research, the military, the judiciary, international alliances, the economy and even Christianity are being bent toward kleptocratic authoritarianism. The destruction is too broad, too deep, too simultaneous, and too consistent to be accidental. Trump is doing his very best to weaken and destroy America and its system of government and laws. Link 24, link 25, link 26, link 27

Qs: Is it credible to argue that Trump and MAGA elites really are authoritarian, deeply corrupt and anti-American? If not, what is the evidence they are honest, pro-public interest, pro-democracy and pro-America? 

Woke up this morning to this headline......

 DONALD J TRUMP, 47th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, HAS RESIGNED!

Some of the People Trump Pardoned Are on a Crime Spree

Regarding presidential pardon power

A NYT Editorial Board opinion (not paywalled), focuses on the topic of Trump’s criminal pardons. Probably more clearly than anything else, the pardons show his callousness, cruelty and utter contempt for the rule of law. Under the Constitution presidential pardon powers are essentially unlimited. Before Trump, public opinion and presidential “decency” were the only meaningful checks on that power. Trump blew the old system of presidential restraint and decency to smithereens.

Trump’s pardon business

There are so many self-serving Trump pardons that the public cannot keep up. The high volume of pardons is just one small part of the MAGA strategy that Steve Bannon described years ago as “flooding the zone with shit”. People cannot easily follow the wreckage Trump’s pardons caused. He released so many criminals that no one can easily keep up with either (1) the consequences to crime victims, or (2) criminal activities once the pardoned thugs are turned loose on us.

Asdiscussed here before, Trump runs a pardon industry. Part of the wreckage is ~$1.3 billion that crime victims will be screwed out of. The pardons included nullifying court-ordered payments to the crime victims. Trump callously screws innocent crime victims, even though some of the criminals are very wealthy and can easily afford restitution. Oh well, that’s just Trump being Trump.

Trump’s racket works like this. Convicted thug-criminals pay people with White House connections in return for a pardon. It’s simple pay-to-play politics. The pardons include wealthy tax cheats, murderers, drug dealers, and dozens of fraudsters, i.e., crooks just like himself. Trump really likes fraud. Fraud is why he’s a convicted felon.

Among the drug dealers, Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras bought a pardon. That drug lord helped traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine into the US.

On the first day of his second term, Trump pardoned all the rioters and traitors who stormed the Capitol in his Jan. 6, 2021 coup attempt. He did not distinguish between rioters who were relatively peaceful and traitors who attacked police officers. All ~1,500 got a clean slate. That’s serious contempt for the rule of law.

What they’ve been up to

So, what has the happy band for criminals and thugs been doing since they were given or bought their pardons? Not surprisingly, some have been busy doing more crime. At least 12 have been charged with other major crimes, including child molestation, assault, harassment, murder plots and a vicious dog attack. That outcome was predictable. Trump’s pardons signaled that crime has no consequences. Some people who commit crimes but are absolved will become repeat offenders.

One of the pardoned “fine people” at Trump’s 1/6 coup attempt, Andrew Paul Johnson, is especially disgusting. On 1/6, Johnson entered the Capitol through a broken window and attacked police officers. In March 2026, a Florida court sentenced him to life in prison for molesting a 12-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. His pedophilia began some months after he received his pardon. He used online gaming platforms to make his initial contact with the children. Johnson kept his pedophilia victims quiet by promising to pay to them from a federal Jan. 6 restitution fund that he falsely claimed he would receive.

Andrew Paul Johnson - pedophile &

pardoned Trump supporter

The NYT opinion mentions other examples of pardoned crooks getting caught in post-pardon crimes, e.g., one 1/6 traitor who attacked capitol police with a baseball bat and a riot shield, committed felony vandalism in Minnesota and organized an illegal anti-Muslim rally in New York City that turned violent. What no one knows is what new crimes the more intelligent criminals have committed. Presumably, most of the white-collar criminals that Trump pardoned now know better how to commit crimes like fraud without getting caught again.

For the most part MAGA politicians in congress openly support most of Trump’s pardons, especially for the rioters and traitors in the 1/6 coup attempt. One congressional MAGA elite refuses to answer questions about about Trump’s pay-to-play pardons, offering the ludicrous deflection that it is “looking backward” to comment on them.

Oh Canada, time to build up some defenses, pronto!

 Donald Trump’s national security strategy proposes a "Greater North America" concept, aiming to establish U.S. dominance over the entire Western Hemisphere as a, "secured zone". This strategy focuses on controlling the region, from the Arctic to the Panama Canal, and minimizing influence from foreign powers like China. It represents a "three bully world" approach, focusing on securing the homeland from immigration and foreign interference, with an emphasis on acquiring control over natural resources and strategic locations.

Actually the idea was being presented by Peter Hegseth, but you gotta know he was just mouthing what Trump is thinking.

How should Canada respond?

With typical laid-back, don't take it all so seriously, Canadian approach? 

Hell, no.

My ideas:

Form an partnership with other nations being bullied (Mexico, hell, even China, Australia, Brazil) that includes an mutual defense agreement. Can it be done? Maybe not, but try. 

Ask the UK, since Canada is still part of the Commonwealth, to station a few warships and airforce assets in Canada. 

Canada should quickly take some of it's nuclear material and build an arsenal of dirty bombs - since actually building a real nuke would take too much time.

Enhance the military and place them in locations likely to be struck by the US. 

Canada can in no way withstand aggression from the US but we could make any attempt miserable for them.

I would even consider turning off the power that Canada supplies to some of the northern states on a short term basis to let them feel what it would feel like to lose Canadian power.

Or are my ideas too extreme and Canadians should just sit back and take laid-back, don't take it all so seriously approach?