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A vital struggle just exposed the breadth of this dark Trump threat

If Ukraine ends up capitulating to Russian demands to end the war, give the self-proclaimed peacemaker Donald Trump the lion’s share of the credit. Since he took office, Trump has done nothing but strengthen Russia’s hand while putting Ukraine in its weakest negotiating position.

Trump is far from an honest, impartial broker. He has been a great admirer of Russia’s murderous dictator, Vladimir Putin, for more than a decade, and in 2022 called Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “genius” and “savvy.” Trump has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — thereby putting the U.S. in league with countries including China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, and Nicaragua.

On the other hand, Trump has treated Ukraine’s courageous president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as a minor-nation inferior, someone purely to bully. In 2019, Trump withheld military support from Ukraine for 55 days while trying to extract damaging information from Zelenskyy on political rival Joe Biden. In March this year, Trump berated and humiliated Zelenskyy at the White House.

He has called him a “dictator,” and criticized him for not showing sufficient gratitude for U.S. peace efforts.

Since Trump took office, the U.S. has reversed course on support for Ukraine. Under Biden, commitment to Kyiv was unwavering. Biden harshly condemned Putin, provided essential, reliable military aid, and was a unifying force in ensuring NATO support.

The Trump administration suspended military aid to Ukraine, saying it was “pausing and reviewing” the aid to “ensure that it is contributing to a solution.” Trump has splintered the NATO alliance by going it alone, presenting a pro-Putin peace proposal rejected strongly by European countries and Ukraine. He has put the burden of funding military aid to Ukraine on European allies.

When Trump and Putin met in Anchorage, Alaska, in August, they ostensibly agreed that Putin’s wish list for ending the war would be part of a U.S. peace proposal. This wish list included the industrial-heavy Donbas region of Ukraine becoming a part of Russia, the Ukrainian army reduced significantly, and Ukraine never being allowed to join NATO.

To Ukraine, these demands landed in a 28-point peace proposal like exploding drones.

Naturally, Ukraine rejected the proposal, European NATO nations huddled quickly to reject it, and Trump re-framed the proposal as a starting point for talks. A second, 20-point U.S. proposal was next offered — containing the same poison pills. It was another pro-Putin proposal, aimed at getting Ukraine to capitulate.

As Ukraine refused to meet Russian demands, Trump implied that Zelenskyy was the obstinate party that didn’t want peace and bore responsibility for the war dragging on, by not agreeing to Trump’s Russo-centric peace proposal.

“It takes two to tango,” said Trump — meaning that to end the war, Zelenskyy must dance the Russian polka.

Music to Putin’s ears, Trump has been telling Zelenskyy and the world that Ukraine can’t win, that Russia “has the cards,” and that for Kyiv, fighting on is a lost cause. Trump has put Ukraine in a weakened military and political position, empowering Putin to press the battle with renewed vigor. At some point, Zelenskyy may have no choice but to capitulate and cede a part of his country to Russia. If that occurs, a brutal aggressor will have been rewarded for invading a sovereign nation — with a huge assist from Trump.

Had Trump not been elected, the U.S. no doubt would have continued its commitment to helping defend Ukraine and working within the NATO coalition to put maximum military and economic pressure on Russia. Ukraine would be in a much better place today to sue for a just peace, one that doesn’t reward the invader and that addresses the horrendous atrocities committed against Ukraine and its people.

When Trump was elected in 2025, Putin was given the greatest gift he could ask for since his invasion of Ukraine: an ally in the White House. Putin knew Trump’s loyalty would lie with Russia given Trump’s friendship, his long-time business dealings with Russian banks, and Russian elites’ investments in Trump properties. He also knew that to Trump, Ukraine was a small, dispensable piece of the political puzzle.

Trump’s insatiable quest for a Nobel Prize drives him to seek peace at any cost to Ukraine. In addition, he has accomplished what Putin could never do by himself: splintering the NATO coalition, pitting Trump’s pro-Russian peace efforts against European nations’ pro-Ukrainian works. Thanks to Trump, Putin could now blame NATO for hindering U.S. peace efforts and claim European nations are “on the side of war.”

While Trump is selling out Ukraine, European allies are increasing military aid to help fill the gap left by U.S. disengagement. Unlike Trump, leaders in Germany, France, Britain, Sweden, and Demark, along with Canada and Australia, refuse to turn their backs on an ally in its time of greatest need.

Historically, though imperfect in its efforts, America has been a staunch defender of democratic countries against totalitarian aggression. Under Trump, the U.S. has aided totalitarian aggression against a sovereign democracy by cutting off support essential for an ally’s defense.

If a perfidious land-for-peace appeasement agreement is reached, who would rule out Putin rewarding Trump with a deal providing U.S. access to critical minerals in Russia’s new Donbas region? One filthy hand washes the other.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

This grift was exploited for years by Republicans — until Trump came along

Donald Trump and his allies are using the long-employed tactic of demonizing a targeted population to turn public opinion against them. In carrying out ICE deportation raids on undocumented immigrants, they are using dehumanizing rhetoric to portray their targets as undesirables whose deportation cleanses the country.

Trump began by smearing undocumented immigrants as “murderers and rapists,” inspiring fear among Americans and creating a fictitious bogeyman. Nearly two centuries ago, Southerners used similar rhetoric, characterizing Black men as biologically inferior brutes, a nightmarish threat to every white woman.

Rather than using neutral terms such as “undocumented” or “unauthorized” in referring to immigrants, Republican politicians and conservative commentators use the dehumanizing pejorative “illegal alien” or just ”alien.” Trump has called them “animals” and “invaders” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” The vile intent is to inspire fear, create negative public opinion, and justify mass deportations.

Along similar lines, during World War II, racial epithets were used to instill fear and hatred of Japanese-Americans and justify their incarceration in relocation camps. Hitler and the Nazis referred to Jews as “vermin,” “rats” “parasites,” and untermenschen (sub-human) to foster hatred among Germans as a prelude to unspeakable atrocities.

Hitler also attempted to erase from German minds the contributions of Jews to culture, science, business, law, and medicine. Similarly, Trump and his allies are trying to erase from American minds the contributions undocumented immigrants have made.

There are approximately 14 million undocumented immigrants in the US; 94 percent of undocumented immigrant households have at least one working adult, compared to only 73 percent of U.S.-born households; over half of undocumented immigrants have lived and worked in the US for a decade or more.

If there were a supply of Americans willing to labor in the fields, work in slaughterhouses and on poultry farms, clean America’s 1.8 million hotel rooms, and buss tables and clean kitchens in America’s half-million restaurants, employers would hire them. Undocumented immigrants have provided the essential low-wage workforce which major industries depend on.

In 2023, undocumented immigrants paid $89.8 billion in taxes and contributed $299 billion to the economy as consumers. The amount spent on undocumented immigrants for medical, educational, and police services is significantly less than their contribution.

That undocumented immigrants come to the US for the free services is a favored falsehood of the right. Mexican immigrants have been coming to the US since the 1940s to escape poverty and find work. When there is a significant drop in job opportunities in the US, such as in the recession of 2008 or during the COVID-19 pandemic, undocumented immigration drops. When job opportunities rise, immigration rises too.

American employers have not only welcomed undocumented immigrants, they have recruited them. For decades, farmers have used farm labor contractors to recruit workers from other countries, predominantly Mexico. American employers have been complicit in keeping the border crossings of undocumented immigrants flowing.

It is unlawful for any US employer to recruit or hire undocumented immigrants, yet thousands have done it with relative impunity for decades. While undocumented immigrants are being deported in record numbers, employers suffer no consequences aside from a growing shortage of workers.

Many of these employers are Republicans, including the vast majority of farmers who have been among Trump’s most faithful supporters. For years, Trump has employed undocumented immigrants. The man who calls undocumented immigrants “murderers and rapists” has gladly employed them unlawfully for his personal gain.

The Trump administration’s claim that deportation of undocumented immigrants focuses on those with criminal records is a lie. Less than 10 percent of deported undocumented immigrants have criminal records beyond traffic tickets and non-violent misdemeanors. If undocumented, Trump would be among the criminal deportees based on his record as a convicted felon and a convicted sexual abuser.

Over 90 percent of undocumented deportees have no criminal record, and the vast majority have been employed in the US, abiding by the law and filling the employment needs of American businesses.

Deportations are tearing apart families, separating mothers and fathers from their American-born children. The children have the option of leaving with their parents, remaining in the US under guardianship, or being put in foster care. Not surprisingly, many end up leaving with their parents, torn from their country of birth, facing poverty in a foreign country.

Rather than being dehumanized and deported by the heartless, hypocritical Trump administration, undocumented immigrants should be recognized by all Americans for their decades-long contributions to the country. They boost the US economy, provide essential workers for major US industries, enrich the culture, exemplify strong family values, and have helped put food on the tables of the American people for over half a century.

For Americans who condemn undocumented immigrants for the “crime” of entering the US illegally, they must equally condemn the thousands of employers who hire them and a government that has turned a blind eye for over 70 years.

All undocumented immigrants who have lived and worked in the US for years, abided by the law, and paid their taxes have earned a pathway to citizenship, a belief shared by Republican president Ronald Reagan. As a nation, we owe them no less. Today, however, they must live in the shadows, under constant threat.

The way undocumented immigrants are being treated by the Trump administration is a disgrace, bringing shame that history will record. Men and women who for decades have provided their labor to help enrich the country and make a better life for themselves don’t deserve to be vilified and thrown out.

As Hitler rounded up the Jews, most Germans remained silent. As the US government forced Japanese-Americans into camps, most Americans remained silent. As Trump-instructed ICE agents round up undocumented immigrants for deportation, will we remain silent too?

If unjust treatment of a people by a government is met with silence, that treatment will grow and flourish. As John Stuart Mill said in 1867, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.” Time and again, history has proven him right.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

In one key way, Trump has united us all

I have always thought of Donald Trump as the most divisive U.S. president in modern history, causing the greatest political polarization among Americans. Now I have to take that back. Based on nearly a year in office, Trump is turning out to be the Great Uniter.

Thanks to our president, the large majority of the American people are uniting in their disapproval of Trump, cutting across party lines like never before. According to the AP-NORC poll, 67 percent of Americans disapprove of the job that Trump is doing — a much higher percentage than only Democratic disapproval could account for.

Among Republicans, 32 percent disapprove of how Trump is doing, a huge 13 percent increase from March. That degree of disaffection among Republicans, coupled with the high percentage of Democrats and Independents who disapprove of Trump, reveals the greatest oppositional unity across party lines since Trump first took office in 2017.

Not surprisingly, Trump’s high disapproval rating is tied strongly to the economy and cost of living, which polls consistently show as the most critical issue for the American people. Today, low and middle-income Americans are feeling the budget pinch from increasingly higher prices with tens of millions struggling to make ends meet.

A large majority of Americans say that their costs have increased for groceries, utilities, health care, housing, and gasoline, with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents in agreement. Trump’s attempt to convince people that they are doing just fine doesn’t wash with the bleak economic reality that Americans are experiencing.

Higher consumer prices hurt lower and middle-income Americans across all political persuasions. Nearly 70 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy which includes 94 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of Independents, and 32 percent of Republicans.

Most Americans agree that the cause for the increased consumer prices is Trump’s tariffs. In March, according to Gallup, 66 percent of Americans believed that the tariffs were “very likely” to increase prices and 23 percent more said they were “somewhat likely.” Among Republicans, 36 percent believed the tariffs were “very likely” to increase prices and 46 percent believed they were “somewhat likely.”

Overall, 89 percent of Americans proved prophetic about the impact of tariffs. Trump’s tariff policies have contributed directly to their economic pain as businesses have frequently passed the cost of tariff import taxes on to consumers.

That Americans are more united against Trump than ever is revealed in more results from the recent AP-NORC poll. Just 33 percent of respondents approve of how Trump is managing the federal government, a 10 percent drop in his approval rating from March — 68 percent of Republicans approve, down from 81 percent in March. Only 25 percent of Independents approve, down from 38 percent in March.

While Democrats’ disapproval rating of Trump has consistently remained about 90 percent, Republicans’ and Independents’ disapproval ratings have increased significantly, representing growing negative sentiment across the political board.

Among US voters, 43 percent declare as Independents while approximately 27 percent register as Democrats and Republicans respectively. Applying those percentages to Trump’s approval ratings in the AP/NORC center poll, 65 percent of probable voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing.

In March, that percentage was 52 percent on average among polls, a remarkable 13 percent increase. Since Democrats' disapproval rating has remained constant, the significant increase in Trump’s disapproval rating comes from Independents and Republicans, again revealing a more unified anti-Trump electorate.

Of the 43 percent of voters who are Independents, about half lean Democratic and half lean Republican. However, 78 percent of Independents today disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy. That means that over half of the Republican-leaning Independents have joined Democratic-leaning Independents in their disapproval of Trump.

Thanks to Trump, we are seeing a united opposition to his job performance that has never been seen. When 78 percent of Independents and 32 percent of Republicans join 90 percent of Democrats in disapproving of Trump’s economic job performance, we are seeing a huge potential bloc of voters whose common experience is stronger than any ideological differences that may divide them.

The strongest uniting factor among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents is a shared understanding that Trump’s tariff policies are inflicting economic pain. Of all the issues that concern Americans, nothing hits families more directly than the cost of living, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike.

Of course, Trump won’t be on the ballot in the 2026 midterm elections. But the most united disapproval of Trump ever seen may have a huge impact on the election as Americans use their most powerful constitutional right to express their anger and frustration.

Not only do the vast majority of Americans rightfully blame Trump for their economic hardship, they are revulsed by cowardly Republican politicians who dance obediently to Trump’s tune, spreading and amplifying his lies to justify the sorry state of the economy. The Vice President, Republican Congress members, cabinet appointees, and red-state governors are complicit in enabling Trump to undermine the economic welfare of Americans.

The Great Uniter may rue the day that he brought Americans across the political spectrum together in common purpose: to send the craven political scoundrels packing on election day and condemn Trump to the depths of lame-duck hell.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

Even Trump's most fawning fans are dumbfounded by this brainwave

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the zombiest health-care program in the country. No matter how long or hard Republicans have tried to kill it, it just keeps humming along.

Republicans’ obsessive, 15-year hatred of the ACA, aka Obamacare, is not hard to understand.

First, it was created by Democrats and signed into law by their arch nemesis, Barack Obama.

Second, it smacked of dreaded socialized medicine, ignoring the fact that America’s highly successful government-managed programs, Medicare and Medicaid, have been around for more than 60 years.

It is also not hard to understand why Republicans can’t kill Obamacare, even when they control the government: 45 million lower-income Americans depend on the ACA for their health insurance, with federal government subsidies making it affordable. Added to that, 64 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of the ACA, according to a KFF health-tracking poll.

In addition, Republican-controlled states have among the highest rates of ACA participation. Since the program was enacted, more than half of the national growth in ACA participants has come from Texas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina.

In Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, and West Virginia, enrollment has more than tripled in the last five years. The popularity of ACA, its tremendous success in providing health care for 45 million Americans who couldn’t otherwise afford it, and the fact that a large portion of ACA participants reside in Republican-controlled states make Republican politicians extremely leery of messing with Obamacare. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene’s support for extending ACA subsidies to help her constituents didn’t cause a massive MAGA earthquake.

Since ACA subsidies were not approved as part of the deal to reopen the government, Republicans have had another opportunity to huff and puff over that horrible Obamacare before they inevitably approve the subsidies as they have done annually for more than a decade. With the most consequential mid-term election in modern history looming in 2026, they will do as little as possible to upset millions of their constituents who depend on Obamacare.

Naturally, President Trump inserted himself into the health-care discussion. Trump proposes that the subsidy money being sent to the “money sucking insurance companies” be sent instead to ACA participants so they can get “much better” insurance on their own. So instead of the government providing subsidies directly to the health-care providers to make the insurance plans affordable for lower-income Americans, the participants themselves would provide the money to the “money sucking insurance companies” to purchase their health insurance.

Am I missing something?

First, the “much better” insurance outside the ACA doesn’t exist. The same major companies provide health insurance both inside and outside ACA, including Kaiser Permanente, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and Anthem. In addition, under ACA, no participant can be denied coverage due to a preexisting condition, all plans must include essential benefits including prescription drugs, maternity care, and behavioral benefits, and insurers are banned from setting annual or lifetime limits on benefits.

Second, since the subsidies pay for a set percentage of the cost of the insurance plan, the amount of the subsidies rises annually with any premium increases. If money is paid directly to participants, it can be eaten up quickly if an annual inflator isn’t provided. In addition, there is no guarantee that such payments would exist from year to year, as have the ACA subsidies.

Cash payments are a bad idea that would ultimately make health insurance less affordable for lower-income Americans. Like most unsound, half-baked ideas for which Mr. Bleach Injection is famous, it was first spread in capital letters on the Truth Social propaganda platform complete with the customary misinformation.

As to those money-sucking for-profit insurance companies, they are the companies who Trump and Republicans have supported at least since Republican president Dwight Eisenhower campaigned against “socialized medicine” in 1954. They have been the Republican bulwark against the socialized healthcare programs common among advanced democracies in Europe and Asia as well as Canada and Australia.

Unfortunately, the long-standing Republican belief that America’s free-market competition would keep health care affordable is a myth. The major insurance companies form a virtual oligopoly that controls prices and supply. The for-profit health insurance industry does what every successful capitalist industry does: maximizes profits. For our grifter president to rail against these “money-sucking” insurance companies is knee-slapping hypocrisy.

The ACA was always intended to be a bridge program between the traditional for-profit health-care system and a future universal health-care system which the majority of Americans support. The ACA is far from perfect since it still utilizes for-profit companies to provide the health insurance, but for 45 million Americans, it’s the best we’ve got for now.

For decades Republicans haven’t come up with a workable plan to reduce health-care costs. They are tied to the for-profit health-care system where solutions simply don’t exist. Attacking Obamacare has been all they have had in their arsenal, which does absolutely nothing to fix America’s broken health-care system.

Medicare has proven a much less expensive health-care system than the private insurer system since it doesn’t exist to make money and has the power and leverage to pay considerably less for hospital and physician services than private insurers.

Expanding government-managed Medicare to all Americans would reduce health-care costs, remove for-profit insurers from the system, and guarantee coverage for all Americans like citizens in every other advanced democracy. The next step could be offering a government health-care option like Medicare alongside traditional for-profit insurance programs for Americans to choose between.

In the past, Republicans have complained that offering the government-sponsored option would eventually kill off the for-profit insurance companies since it operated at an unfair advantage and would be cheaper. Advantage the American people.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor.

This massive Trump stumble could be what finishes him — and it's not Epstein

Economists by and large have agreed that tariffs are harmful, ultimately producing no positive results for either the tariff-enacting country or the recipients. Arguably the hardest-hit victims of Donald Trump’s 2025 tariff war are the American people.

Trump’s tariffs have resulted in the most brutally regressive tax possible on Americans. U.S. businesses pay the import tax on foreign goods they purchase and have passed 55 percent of that cost onto consumers in 2025, according to Goldman Sachs.

According to the Tax Foundation, the tariff tax has amounted to an average tax on U.S. households of $1,300 in 2025 and a projected increase to $1,600 in 2026. The working poor are taxed at the same rate as millionaires, as the cost of goods are the same for every American.

The difference, of course, is that to lower-income Americans, a $1,300 tax increase in the form of higher prices can create a monthly budget dilemma while to the upper-middle class and the wealthy, it is flicked off like a piece of lint.

The result of Trump’s tariffs is that a McDonald’s worker making $15,000 a year is taxed at the same rate as a large-company CEO making $23 million a year.

Trump brags about the billions of dollars that his tariffs are bringing into the federal coffers. What he fails to say is that these billions of dollars are coming out of the pockets of the American people and American businesses, not the foreign countries the tariffs are levied on. They are the equivalent of Trump imposing a huge tax increase on the American people without congressional authorization. Taxation without representation.

Small business owners have filed lawsuits to be reimbursed for their losses due to Trump’s tariffs, claiming the imposition of tariffs is beyond executive authority and unconstitutional. The Trump administration is bleating that if the Supreme Court rules for the plaintiffs, the federal government will lose billions of dollars in import tax dollars, failing to mention that the money was fleeced from American businesses and the American people.

Similarly damaged by Trump’s tariffs, the American people could use the same legal arguments of small businesses to file a huge class-action lawsuit to demand their money be returned beyond the price of goods prior to Trump’s tariff enactments. The lawsuit would undoubtedly fail with a Trump-packed Supreme Court, but the political impact could be momentous.

That Trump’s tariffs are hurting the American people comes as no surprise. Tariffs in Trump’s first term cost American consumers $7.2 billion by the end of 2018 due to the increased cost of goods, according a university economist's report. The American people bore the brunt of the tariff import taxes, as they did in 2025.

In addition, Trump’s first-term claims of the economic wonders of tariffs proved illusory. The tariffs supposedly were going to return thousands of manufacturing jobs to the U.S. Tariffs imposed on Chinese goods had a net negative effect on manufacturing jobs as well overall U.S. employment according to the Federal Reserve Board.

Trump claimed his tariffs were going to reduce significantly the U.S. trade deficit. The deficit rose from $481 billion in 2016 to $679 billion in 2020.

The increase reflected the decades-long reality that the deficit is due primarily to the U.S.’s consumption demands being much greater than its production capabilities. The deficit is not the result of Trump’s claim that countries worldwide are ripping off the U.S., Trump’s raison d’etre for imposing tariffs.

Trump also claimed that U.S. industries would profit greatly as tariffs made imported goods more expensive. The reality is that the tariffs hurt many U.S. industries with agriculture among the hardest hit, losing $26 billion in exports in 2018-19.

The Federal Reserve Board concluded that the tariffs had a net negative impact on most US industries. Retaliatory tariffs, shrinking foreign markets from countries shopping elsewhere, disrupted global supply chains leading to increased costs for US companies, and the fact that many industries relied on foreign components for their products all impacted US industry production and sales.

Of course, we cannot expect the exact same results with the Trump 2.0 tariffs as the country experienced during his first term. We can expect worse.

As Trump is slapping much larger and less target-specific tariffs on more countries in 2025, we are seeing a larger increase in consumer prices across a broader range of products. Americans will continue to pay more for coffee, meats and seafood, general groceries, restaurant meals, foreign-made cars, airfares, furniture, appliances manufactured outside the US, clothing and shoes, electronics including iPhones and TV’s, and basic necessities such as toothpaste and toilet paper.

Of course, the 37 million Americans below the poverty line are most cruelly burdened by Trump’s tariffs, spending 82% of their budgets on basic needs. This population, the majority of whom are women, children, and the disabled, holds little interest for Trump or historically for Republican politicians in general.

It is no coincidence that practically all federal programs to help the poor were established during Democratic administrations: Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Health and Human Services Programs (HHS). Trump's federal budget proposal included eliminating or reducing funding for several social service programs that help lower-income Americans.

Trump’s tariffs are contributing to the generational poverty that has plagued the poorest Americans for over half a century, making it more difficult for people to meet their basic needs. It puts a tax burden on those who can least afford it without Trump or his allies shedding a tear.

But why does Trump continue imposing tariffs when anyone who buys groceries knows that they are causing Americans severe economic pain? To Trump, the American people are just collateral damage in his demented, victim-syndromic crusade to pay back the world for treating the U.S. unfairly. Trump is going the full monty in pursuing his greatest pleasure: revenge.
  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

Massive backlash now threatens to burn down everything Trump has worked for

Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy has been devastating. Equally devastating, however, is the impact that it is having on democracy around the world.

Historically, America had been viewed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, democracy in the world, an example to which all nations could aspire and which offered hope to all oppressed people. Ronald Reagan called America “that shining city on a hill,” a nation that would be a light unto all nations seeking freedom, democracy, and individual rights.

In today’s America, the light has gone out, a troubled democracy to which no nation would aspire, where no oppressed people would turn for hope or optimism. The authoritarian darkness that is threatening democracies around the world has cast an ominous gloom over America unseen in the country’s history.

America's democracy is foundering. The Economist’s Democracy Index rates America a “flawed democracy” while 26 countries are rated “full democracies.” The Global State of Democracy Initiative ranks America the 47th strongest democracy in the world. In the Freedom House World Report, the US ranks 48th in the world based on its citizens’ access to political rights and civil liberties.

America’s lowly democratic rankings correspond with the perception of President Trump outside America. The Pew Research Center polled 28,000 adults across 24 countries and found majorities in 19 of 24 countries expressing “little or no confidence” in Trump’s ability to “do the right thing in world affairs.” In a YouGov survey of Europeans, Trump was viewed the least trustworthy of the thirteen world leaders on the survey along with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Instead of championing democracy around the globe, Trump has supported authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Victor Orban, and Recep Erdogan whose countries’ democracies have been demolished or badly eroded. While quick to bash the leaders of America’s strong democratic allies, Trump is reluctant to condemn the anti-democratic behavior of his autocratic chums.

Instead of helping to strengthen fledgling or struggling democracies, the Trump administration has stopped funding practically all U.S. government programs supporting democracy, human rights and freedom of the press internationally. Instead of championing human rights around the world as former presidents have done, Trump is busy trampling on them at home.

Once the champion of fostering and defending democracy around the world, under Trump, America now exports by example its brand of political authoritarianism.

Tactics used by Trump and his allies to shred America’s democracy – election manipulation, undermining the free press, demonizing the political opposition, violating the Constitution and rule of law, broadening executive power, usurping legislative authority, weakening judicial oversight - are not lost on anti-democratic right-wing political parties intent on moving their countries towards authoritarian rule.

When the president of the most powerful free country in the world embraces authoritarianism, that helps to legitimize it in countries where democracy is under siege by the extreme right. Rather than helping democracies withstand the ominous spread of right-wing authoritarianism, Trump provides a chilling example to emulate.

It is little wonder that authoritarian leaders ingratiate themselves to Trump. He is blithely doing the work of authoritarian regimes to help emasculate democracy and bring countries under autocratic governance. Vladimir Putin and China's Premier Xi Jinping are surely rubbing their hands with glee, the leader of the free world helping them pursue their anti-democratic mission.

However, while Trump is emboldening anti-democratic forces around the world, there is cautious optimism that democracy will ultimately survive the onslaught.

Voters in a number of countries are increasingly rebuffing right-wing extremism. In countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Mexico, The Netherlands, Austria and France, the election of centrist and progressive candidates has shown extreme-right party influence waning.

There is also the fact that, by and large, most humans crave individual freedom, the freedom that they can only enjoy in a democracy. While Trump provides sustenance to the anti-democratic far-right movement, millions of Americans are doing the opposite: strongly protesting the assault on democracy by Trump and his allies that threatens every American’s freedom.

While the world is watching Trump’s brazenly monarchical behavior, it is also watching the fierce resistance of millions of Americans and protesters in Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany, Colombia, Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, and Great Britain who have rallied in support.

If Americans can save their democracy, it can help to inspire others to continue the fight for democracy in their countries and perhaps ignite a worldwide pro-democracy movement to counter the authoritarian movement on the right.

Thanks to the American people, that shining city on the hill may yet provide a glimmer of hope for the world.

This looming contest may be our last chance to stop Trump's march to one-party rule

Perhaps like most Americans, I didn’t take seriously enough the significance of the rousing welcome that Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, Victor Orbán, received from Republicans at their 2022 CPAC conference in Texas. In retrospect, it was an alarming portent of the authoritarian direction in which the GOP was determined to take the country.

It also dispelled my naïve belief that Americans were united in their reverence for American democracy and commitment to preserving it. Millions of Trump supporters are more than willing to see America moving in the direction of Hungary’s “illiberal democracy,” as characterized by Orbán.

An illiberal democracy is a faux democracy where the government manipulates electoral processes, restricts civil liberties, suppresses dissenting voices, bends the rule of law, destroys checks on government power, and institutes virtual one-party rule.

In Hungary, Orbán’s Fidesz party has been in power for 15 years. In that time, Orbán and his allies have dismantled Hungary’s democracy: undermining checks and balances, taking control of the country's media, civil society and universities, and consolidating power.

Trump and his anti-democratic allies are trying to accomplish at breakneck speed what Orbán accomplished over considerable time, hoping to secure a tight enough grip on the country by the 2026 midterm elections to ensure a Republican victory and authoritarian future. To accomplish his purpose, Trump has yet another year to continue his election rigging, with every extrajudicial scheme on the table.

Some political analysts have posited that the 2026 midterm elections could be the last free and fair elections Americans will see. In fact, we may have already seen America’s last free and fair election.

A great deal of rigging has already occurred to skew voting results in 2026 in Republicans’ favor.

Trump has demanded red-state gerrymandering to create more Republican-dominant districts. Republican-controlled states have enacted voter suppression laws that include shortening the time period for mail-in ballot returns, limiting drop box locations, disqualifying all legally dated ballots received after Election Day, changing an individual’s registration status to “inactive” after missing one election, adding documentation requirements in order to vote, limiting polling hours, banning drive-through and overnight early voting, and empowering partisan poll watchers.

The worst may be yet to come. The House has passed a bill requiring proof of citizenship for all federal-election voters, which could disenfranchise more than 21 million legal voters.

Cleta Mitchell, an anti-voting lawyer involved in Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election, believes Trump could declare a national emergency in 2026 to allow the federal government to take control of national elections from the states. Who would put it past him?

While Trump has a year to plot more ways to rig the midterm elections, states committed to democracy have been expanding access to voting. In 2023, 47 new laws expanding voter access were enacted in 23 states, 13 of which are controlled by Democrats and four which have split control. At least six Republican-controlled states expanded voter access.

At least 80 national organizations are also working to ensure that no legal voter is deprived of his or her constitutional right to vote, including the League of Women’s Voters, the NAACP, AARP, ACLU, Alliance for Youth Organizing, Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, The Voter Participation Center, VoteAmerica, and Voto Latino Foundation.

Countering the voter-suppression movement of the authoritarian right, these organizations are working overtime to ensure that no voter suppression hurdle will prevent any American from exercising his or her constitutional right to vote.

The 2026 midterms will be more than a referendum on how Americans feel about Trump’s presidency. They will be a referendum on how committed we Americans are to preserving our democracy.

If submissive Republican legislators hold their congressional majorities in 2026, American democracy as we have known it for 238 years will no longer exist, the constitutional checks-and-balances system demolished. Trump’s assault on democracy the last 10 months would be but a small preview of the chilling authoritarianism awaiting the country the next three years.

Americans who truly want to help save our democracy will not only vote in the midterms but will help to register voters, participate in GOTV outreach, advocate for voters’ rights legislation, and work for pro-democratic candidates.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy inspired a nation by asking, “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” May we be so inspired.

Uncertainties abound. Do the 7-8 million Americans protesting at No Kings rallies represent the over 75 million Americans who constitute the majority of voters? Does that portion of voters who support a more authoritarian Trumpian government extend well beyond the MAGA faithful? Could a rigged election preclude a fair outcome? Is preserving our democracy even a significant voting issue for most Americans?

Only the 2026 midterm election results can answer those questions — as the fate of America’s democracy hangs perilously in the balance.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

Palestinians cannot know peace till Trump and his fellow ghoul finally leave the stage

Before Donald Trump is officially canonized for ending the Israeli-Palestinian war and bringing peace to the Middle East, let’s do a reality check on Trump’s role and on the ultimate long-term impact.

First, it was past time for Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war and he knew it. He had accomplished his goals: severely degrading Hamas, killing or injuring 10 percent of Gaza’s Palestinian population including over 20,000 children and 10,000 women, displacing nearly 90 percent of the population, and destroying Gaza’s infrastructure to ensure the displaced would come home to cataclysmic, unlivable ruin. He was also losing support in Israel every day the onslaught continued.

Decades ago, Netanyahu was heard on tape as saying of the Palestinians, "We must beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it's unbearable."

Netanyahu accomplished his goal.

As the war raged on in 2025, Trump’s disdain for the Palestinians was evident. Trump offered to turn Gaza into a real estate magnate’s Shangri-La, assumedly free of Palestinians. He continued to supply Israel’s mighty military force with more weaponry against a woefully inferior opponent. Under Trump, the US voted against United Nations resolutions demanding a ceasefire in the Israel-Palestinian war, killing the resolutions.

Trump refused to condemn Israel’s massacre of Palestinian civilians while the world’s International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, for using “starvation as a method of warfare,” restricting humanitarian aid, and intentionally targeting civilians. Under Trump, the US has refused to join the 147 nations that recognize Palestinian statehood or even commit to supporting a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution.

Trump has been Netanyahu’s boy since the beginning of the war, enabling Netanyahu to carry out his scorched earth campaign until the Palestinians were ground into the Gaza dust, their territory destroyed. Netanyahu was more than happy to reward Trump’s unconditional support by giving Trump an uncontested slam dunk: ending the war after Netanyahu had accomplished all he wanted.

Of course, there will be no just peace agreement coming out of negotiations. Israel will maintain its military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, further increase its stranglehold on the territories, build more Jewish settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law, and prolong the misery under which Gaza residents will suffer for decades.

A two-state solution, which any just peace agreement must include, will remain sheer fantasy until Netanyahu is no longer in power. As Netanyahu said in 1999 after sabotaging the Oslo Accords, which provided a roadmap for Palestinian statehood, “I’m proud I blocked a Palestinian state.” A two-state solution has always been anathema to Netanyahu, the Palestinians unwanted interlopers on lands rightfully belonging to Israel.

An elaborate diplomatic charade will occur among participants in the peace negotiations that will ultimately end in Israel maintaining iron-clad control over Palestinian territories and making no significant concessions. Trump will brag about the settlement bringing peace to the Middle East when all it will do is ensure decades of subjugation of a badly broken Palestinian people to their brutal occupier.

The entire world is thankful that the slaughter of Palestinian civilians and devastation of their homeland has ended. Netanyahu, however, should never be forgiven for his brutally asymmetrical response to the Hamas attack on Israel, resulting in 82 percent of the war’s casualties being Palestinians, 56 times as many as Israelis.

It should also be remembered that Trump never wavered in his support for Netanyahu, that he refused to condemn the annihilation of Palestinians, that he continued providing weapons to Israel, that his administration killed UN ceasefire resolutions, and that his end-the-war overtures came after Netanyahu had demolished Gaza and killed 67,000 Palestinians.

Netanyahu and Trump are kindred spirits, comrades in corruption, in extreme-right politics, in authoritarian rule, in undermining their countries’ democracies, and in their indifference to the suffering of Palestinians. In a 2001 tape discussing sabotaging the Oslo Accords, Netanyahu wasn’t concerned about the US response because the US, he said was “easily manipulated.” That remark was certainly prescient regarding his relationship with Trump.

Netanyahu knows that as long as Trump is staunchly in his corner, he can do whatever he wants and the rest of the world be damned, including the UN, the International Criminal Court, international law, and the 149 nations that recognize Palestinian statehood. Trump’s loyalty has proven unshakeable throughout the war and will continue throughout the peace talks.

Trump did not end the Israeli-Palestinian war. He was handed the “honor” on a silver platter by his grateful political doppelgänger. Until both men have mercifully left the political stage, Palestinians will be left twisting in the bitter wind.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

Why didn't Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? Let me count the ways

I’ll admit to great relief that Donald Trump didn’t receive the Nobel Peace Prize, something for which he’d been shamelessly campaigning for months. I was firmly in the “anyone but Trump” camp but also heartened to see that the Nobel committee chose a worthy recipient, Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela.

Ms. Machado is everything that Trump isn’t, based on the criteria for which Nobel recipients are evaluated.

Machado was awarded the prize according to a Nobel press release for “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.” Trump tried to destroy the democratic rights of Americans by attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and invalidate the voters’ constitutional right to elect their president.

Machado was recognized for “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” Rather than facilitate a peaceful transfer of power when he lost the 2020 election, Trump refused to accept the results and incited a violent riot at the Capitol to attempt to halt congressional certification of the duly elected president.

According to the Nobel committee, Machado “has been a key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided.” Trump has been a sharply divisive figure. Within the Republican Party, anyone who didn’t agree with him was labeled a RINO, a traitor to the party, and effectively banished. Trump has characterized Democrats as the “enemy of the people,” and “the enemy within,” turning the parties against each other and deeply dividing the country.

As a founder of Súmate, an organization devoted to democratic development, Machado has stood up for free and fair elections for more than 20 years. Trump is doing everything possible to undermine America’s free and fair election process. He has encouraged gerrymandering to add more Republican-dominant districts in red states. He is attempting to skew elections in Republican’s favor, including opposing mail-in ballots, supporting paper ballots only, requiring proof of citizenship, and opposing voting-day registration.

The Nobel committee said, “We see the same trends globally: rule of law abused by those in control, free media silenced, critics imprisoned, and societies pushed towards authoritarian rule and militarization.”

The committee was not ignorant of the fact that under Trump, the US is part of this global trend: a president who consistently abuses the rule of law, undermines the free media, criminally indicts critics, asserts authoritarian power, and militarizes cities.

The Nobel press release continued, “When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist. Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, … and who remind us that freedom must always be defended.” The Nobel committee was referring to people like Maria Corina Machado, who if an American, would not silently stand by and watch American democracy be destroyed.

It could not be lost on the Nobel committee that the person who was campaigning relentlessly in his egotistical quest for a Nobel was among the authoritarian leaders that the committee was condemning for threatening democracy worldwide. If there was ever an automatic disqualifier for the prize, that could be it.

Trump receiving a Nobel Peace Prize would have been a travesty. People don’t receive peace prizes who undermine their democracies and attempt to create autocratic rule. Maria Corina Machado received the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting courageously against people like Trump and defending Venezuelans’ right to democratic rule.

As to the case that Trump makes for his deserving a Nobel, it is based on his claim that he personally ended seven wars since he was reelected president. Like most of Trump’s claims, this one is a hodgepodge of lies, exaggerations and half-truths.

According to FactCheck.org, some of the conflicts are still ongoing, some agreements haven’t been ratified, and at least one conflict Trump played no role in. What success he did have was based on coercive threats of tariffs rather than diplomacy.

Trump is trying out the role of great international peacemaker to deflect from how he is attempting to unravel democracy at home and bend the judicial and legislative branches, cities, states, universities, and media to his will. The Nobel committee wasn’t the least fooled and awarded a person the peace prize who represents the greatest obstacle to the Donald Trumps of the world taking over.

Outside of everyone residing in the MAGA-world echo chamber, few in the country will lose sleep over Trump not winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I suspect millions will sleep much better.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

We might finally have found Trump's most ludicrous and dangerous lie

Donald Trump is declaring war on Democratically-controlled states. He has no purpose in sending military forces into blue-state cities other than to exercise his imperial power over cities and states who reject his anti-democratic agenda.

Military intervention in neighborhoods filled predominantly with people of color does nothing but terrorize residents and can increase civilian deaths and undermine effective, on-going crime-prevention strategies. It has no lasting impact on the violent crime rate in a city and is nothing more than a political show of authoritarian power worthy of Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, or Xi Jinping.

If Trump really cared about reducing violent crime, he would start with the 10 states with the highest gun-death rates in the country, all controlled by Republicans. He would learn what the federal government should be doing to reduce violent crime from the 10 states with the lowest gun-death rates, nine of which are Democratically controlled, including California and New York.

Rather than sending troops into New York City, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., or Chicago, Trump should hold up these cities as models for violent crime reduction, each having lowered their gun homicide rates significantly. He would encourage cities in Republican-controlled states such as New Orleans, St. Louis, Birmingham, and Kansas City to follow the best practices of the blue-state cities that are making their citizens safer from gun violence.

If Trump cared about reducing violent crime, he should do what President Bill Clinton did in in 1994 through the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Clinton provided $14 billion in federal funding to add 100,000 new community police officers across the country, reducing crime over the next 10 years well below its projected level.

If Trump cared about reducing violent crime, he would employ evidence-based measures at the federal level proven to reduce gun violence. He would start by enacting federal gun control laws that have proven most effective in other countries and in states with the lowest gun violence rates: universal background checks, licensing for gun buyers, Red Flag laws, safe storage laws, and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Trump would take steps to reduce poverty in America’s inner-cities, a leading cause of gun violence throughout the world. To that end, he would provide federal funding to help create inner-city jobs and reduce the high unemployment rate among young Black men. He would increase funding for historically underfunded schools and for communities to clean up blighted areas, creating a more inviting environment that has proven effective in reducing criminal activity.

Trump would provide more federal funding for community anti-violence programs. Through the collaborative efforts of social services, police departments, healthcare providers, and community leaders, communities are reducing gun violence through on-going violence intervention programs. The federal government could help to fund such programs on a national scale.

Of course, Trump will do none of those things to reduce gun violence because first, they are supported or have been implemented by Democrats, and second, he doesn’t care.

In fact, by opposing all gun-control legislation, supporting a national concealed-carry law, stripping Medicare coverage from millions of low-income Americans, and cutting federal funding for a number of social services programs, Trump will make America’s gun-violence problem only grow worse.

Trump’s first term of office revealed his impact on reducing gun violence. From 2019 to 2020, there was a 15 percent increase in US gun deaths. 2020 saw the largest number of gun deaths ever recorded in the US: 45,222. For Trump’s second term, we can expect more of the same save the gun violence reductions a number of blue states are making.

Trump characterizing himself as a “law and order” president is among the biggest frauds he has perpetrated. No president has ever personally assaulted the rule of law like Trump. No president has ever pardoned more than 100 convicted criminals who violently assaulted Capitol police officers. No president has ever done less to make America a safer place for every American to live.

Siccing the military on cities in blue states is a perfidious scam, conning people into believing that Trump is making a difference. It is yet another tyrannical power play to punish and vilify blue states and to rev up MAGA followers who relish Trump’s every outrage.

Millions of Americans who have participated in anti-Trump rallies in blue states have chanted and held aloft signs reading “NOT MY PRESIDENT!” How right they are.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

Trump's UN rant shone a harsh spotlight on his most alarming belief

During his speech to the United Nations in New York this week, President Donald Trump claimed many countries were “heading down a path of total destruction.”

In Europe, said Trump, “many countries [are] on the brink of destruction because of the green energy agenda.” Along with immigration, Trump said, “the high cost of so-called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world.”

Trump went on: “Countries that cherish freedom are fading fast … the carbon footprint is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions, and they’re heading down a path of total destruction.”

Based on Trump’s assessment, it would be hard to imagine the abysmal conditions in countries who have bought into the carbon footprint hoax. They have invested heavily in clean-energy development and weaned themselves off of fossil fuels, the “traditional energy” sources Trump believes that every country needs to be great.

One country in particular has arguably gone farther down the path of total destruction Trump envisages than any other: Denmark.

Denmark has long relied heavily on clean, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and bioenergy, which produce over 80 percent of its energy. Over 80 percent of its new car sales are electric vehicles. America’s sales total 8 percent. Denmark's reliance on fossil fuels for energy and vehicle fuel is among the lowest in the world. From Trump’s perspective, Denmark should be on the brink of collapse.

First, let’s take a look at Denmark’s economy.

The Independent Australia, which ranks all major economies on eight indicators, ranks Denmark as the best-performing economy in the world in 2025. The US economy ranks 24th. According to FocusEconomics, Denmark boasts one of the strongest and most resilient economies in Europe, with a high standard of living and strong fiscal management. The country has a diversified economy, with key industries including pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, and shipping.

How about quality of life?

According to US News and World Report, Denmark has the number one quality of life among all nations based upon its broad access to food, housing, quality education, health care and employment, job security, political stability, individual freedom and environmental quality. The United States: 22nd.

What about average individual income?

According to a WorldData study, Denmark’s individual income ranks 13th in the world at $76,357 while the US’s average income ranks seventh at $83,660. According to World Population Review, Denmark has among the lowest income inequality among all nations while the US has among the highest. Therefore, the US income average is skewed towards higher-income individuals while Denmark’s individual income is spread more evenly.

How healthy are Denmark’s residents?

According to the World Population Review, Denmark is the 16th-healthiest country in the world to live based on the Global Health Index for 2024 while the US is ranked 65th. Denmark’s excellent quality of life, expansive social programs, good work-life balance, strong health-care system, and safe environment all contribute to a healthy citizenry.

How happy are people in Denmark?

The World Population Review’s World Happiness Report uses statistical analysis to determine the world’s happiest countries. Based on its findings, Denmark ranks as the second-happiest country in the world. The US isn’t among the top 12. Northern European countries, many of which are leaders in clean, renewable energy development, dominate the top countries in the happiness rankings.

Trump’s asinine assertion that clean energy development is destroying countries was delivered to an audience of UN representatives from countries committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions as members of the Paris Climate Accord.

It was delivered at an international organization committed to building a global system to fight climate change coming from greenhouse gas emissions. One can imagine how many minds were changed by Trump’s laughably false, anti-science claims.

Trump of course is dead wrong about everything related to climate change and green energy development. Increased production and usage of clean, renewal energy sources not only doesn’t destroy countries, it helps them to thrive economically and provide a superior quality of life to countries like the US which remain doggedly, ignorantly dependent on fossil fuels.

It was a welcome sight for Trump to embarrass himself beyond belief on a world stage so that every nation could hear the kind of outlandish malarky that Americans have to put up with every day. That Trump’s every remark was met with stone-faced silence by the UN’s international audience spoke volumes. They weren’t buying it.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

We're in danger of forgetting Trump's worst crime of all

Donald Trump’s ultimate presidential legacy will be one of the most shameful in US history. It will no doubt include his attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, inciting the first violent attack on the Capitol since 1814, responding irresponsibly to the COVID-19 pandemic, dividing the country profoundly, creating a political climate that fosters violence, and disgracing the office of the presidency with his dishonesty and corruption.

One thing that may get lost in his abysmal legacy, however, could arguably have the most dire and long-term consequences: Trump’s record as an environmental criminal.

Trump is a climate-change denier at a time when man-made climate change is wreaking havoc across the globe.

Climate change is driven by global warming responsible for melting glaciers and ice caps, rising sea levels, abnormally high temperatures, and changes in wind and precipitation patterns.

The effects of climate change can be seen in more frequent and powerful hurricanes, unprecedented coastal flooding, longer, more frequent droughts, massive wildfires, and unprecedented heat waves.

The resulting harm caused by man-made climate change is devastating. In 2023, a record 2,300 Americans died from heat-related deaths. Since 2020, 400 Americans have died per year as a result of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods.

In 2024, 4.3 million Americans were displaced by hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes, and wildfires. In 2024, there were 27 confirmed climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each. In the 44 years from 1980 to 2024, 41 percent of the extreme climate events occurred during the last five years.

Water-dependent industries are the most affected by climate change. Agriculture is the hardest hit, as a result of water depletion in the western states caused by severe droughts, hotter temperatures and excessive drilling. Climate change’s impact on agriculture includes greater water scarcity, reduced productivity, the spread of insects, invasive weeds, and diseases affecting crop yields, reduced incomes for farmers, and greater health problems for agricultural workers.

There is no question among scientists that the handprint of man-made climate change is evident in the greater frequency and destructiveness of extreme climate disasters. There is also no question that the emission of greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, chief among them CO2, is responsible for global warming and climate change.

Global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is essential for reversing global warming and preventing the world from reaching the internationally agreed upon tipping point of 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to scientists, to prevent worsening and potentially irreversible effects of climate change, the world’s average temperature should not exceed that of preindustrial times by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Being the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, the US plays a major role in reducing emissions and at the very least, preventing the devastation of climate change from growing worse. However, not only is Trump doing nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he is increasing their output.

By gutting federal regulations to reduce industrial emissions, creating greater US dependence on fossil fuel industries that are the largest CO2 emitters, and ending federal funding for alternative clean-energy development and electric vehicle-purchase rebates, Trump is doing everything possible to increase the US’s carbon footprint while the vast majority of countries are working to reduce theirs.

By ignoring climate change, Trump is complicit in every American life lost to climate change, the displacement of millions of Americans by extreme climate events, the billions of dollars of economic loss, and the increasingly unlivable conditions caused by severe heat in many regions, with lower income Americans the most severely affected.

Trump doesn’t care about the thousands of Americans dying from climate change, or being displaced from their homes, or in financial ruin. He is indifferent to the severe ecological degradation that is occurring globally. Trump has made his devil’s pact with Big Oil.

Trump was bought and paid for by millions of dollars of campaign contributions from the oil industry. His end of the devil’s deal was to repeal all emission-reduction regulations, support increased oil production, and impede the production of clean, less expensive energy sources that cut into Big Oil’s profits.

While Trump ignores climate change, 23 Blue states and Louisiana have established 100 percent clean energy goals with aggressive programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Trump and Big Oil aren’t happy.

Trump’s Department of Justice has sued New York and Vermont for laws making fossil fuel companies liable for costs dealing with climate change. It is suing Hawaii and Michigan over their climate-related lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. Trump is working to end California’s stringent motor vehicle emissions standards and its cap-and-trade program.

These states’ climate-change programs are keeping the US from having among the worst CO2-emissions’ record in the world, and Trump is doing all that he can to stifle theirs and America's progress.

In ignoring climate change, Trump is willing to risk leaving future generations with an apocalyptic environment and worldwide human suffering at an unimaginable level, all for the sake of political gain. That is far beyond irresponsible. That is far beyond criminal. That is pure evil.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

The Art of Criminality — and other ways Trump might make amends

Perhaps the wisdom of Trump voters has been greatly overlooked. What better way to fight crime in America than to put a convicted criminal in the White House? No one understands the criminal mind better than our current president, after all.

Donald Trump knows what lurks in the minds of his fellow felons. He understands their disdain for acting within the law and for refusing to live within the accepted norms of right and wrong on which our justice system is based.

Found by a civil jury to be liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, Trump understands exploiters who forcefully take what they want — in his case, also including classified government material — without concern for those they harm.

He understands criminals who feel no guilt or remorse for their despicable acts and are stopped only when caught and prosecuted. He also, as the Carroll case shows, has direct experience of defamation and its perils.

Found civilly liable for massive bank fraud, and convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, Trump understands the minds of white-collar criminals whose moral turpitude and monumental greed lead them to commit acts of fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, tax evasion, and bribery.

Trump resides in a world where white-collar crime often goes undetected. With a lifetime's knowledge, he could educate banks, other corporations, and the Internal Revenue Service on how to detect the most common types of white-collar criminal activity.

Trump understands how violence in the criminally oriented can be triggered. He knew which buttons to push to unleash his most violent supporters on the Capitol on Jan. 6 2021, knowing that assaulting the undermanned Capitol police was necessary to breach the building.

Trump understands how potentially violent criminals can be goaded to action, whether by an MS-13 gang leader, a Mafia don, or a losing presidential candidate.

Trump understands political crime — the illegal schemes that destroyers of democracy employ to put themselves in power by ousting a country’s elected leaders — better than anyone. Trump knows everything political criminals will try to achieve their goal: violence, coercion, false claims of rigged elections, and enlisting corruptible federal and state officials to carry out their schemes. No one is in a better position than Trump to sniff out illegal, anti-democratic plots.

If Trump used his criminality for the good, he could help atone for his own crimes and rehabilitate his blackened image. Trump could become the law-and-order president he brazenly proclaims to be.

Up to now, though, Trump has personally contributed more to crime than he has to bringing it down. His forays into law and order have been chilling shows of authoritarian power.

He called out the National Guard in Los Angeles, unlawfully according to a federal judge, to quell predominantly peaceful protests. He called out the Guard in Washington, D.C., where the violent crime rate had dropped 35 percent, to its lowest level in 30 years.

In addition, it’s never a good look for a law-and-order president to pardon violent criminals convicted of assaulting police officers at the Capitol; to pardon husband-and-wife reality show stars convicted of massive bank fraud; and to refuse to rule out pardoning sexual predator Ghislaine Maxwell, who despicably lured young women into the evil clutches of Jeffrey Epstein, to whom the nature of the president’s connection remains undetermined.

But people can change, and plenty of terrible criminals have turned around their lives and contributed to society.

As Trump gets ever closer to meeting his maker, he may undergo a religious epiphany. A greater inducement, however, may be the lure of financial gain: The Art of Criminality, a sequel to The Art of the Deal, would be a potential bestseller that could also benefit the government, law-enforcement agencies, businesses, communities, and individual citizens.

Frank Abagnale, one of the greatest conmen and forgers of all time, was ultimately caught by the FBI and given the option of prison or working with his captors. Abagnale chose the FBI, examining suspicious checks and showing banks across the country how to spot forgeries. Working for the FBI for 36 years, the erstwhile criminal helped to catch thousands of forgers and saved banks hundreds of millions of dollars.

Donald Trump has the opportunity to be another Frank Abagnale, possessing a motherlode of knowledge that could help bring criminals to justice. Like Abagnale, Trump could reinvent himself by using his personal expertise to help make America a safer place. No people love a redemption story more than Americans. Trump’s would rank among the greatest.

This damning lesson would dump Trump on the ash heap of history

There is one thing that tens of millions of zealous Donald Trump detractors get wrong. We try to judge him through the lens of normal human behavior — which simply doesn’t apply.

We don’t need to be psychologists to understand that Trump suffers from overlapping disorders of sociopathy and megalomania accompanied by grandiose thinking. Behavior that to most people appears outrageously deviant is perfectly normal to a person in Trump’s mental state.

Trump lies as frequently and effortlessly as most people breathe, a common characteristic of sociopaths. Pathological liars often convince themselves they are telling the truth and completely ignore obvious evidence to the contrary.

In his demented state, Trump may actually believe that the 2020 election was stolen from him, that voter fraud among noncitizens was widespread, and that Democrats controlled voting machines. The consummate liar, Trump spreads these falsehoods with such adamant conviction that they take root among his followers.

Other characteristics of sociopaths include an inability to feel empathy, to feel guilt or remorse, or to distinguish right from wrong. During the COVID pandemic, Trump was less troubled by the over 1 million Americans who died, many due to his irresponsible, cavalier response to the virus, than by the pandemic’s economic impact and his approval ratings. He has greenlighted Israel’s assault on Palestinians in Gaza, unmoved by the wholesale slaughter of women and children and the massive starvation.

Don’t expect Trump to feel sorry for millions of poorer Americans struggling with rising consumer prices caused by his tariff wars or by 4.4 million American children who aren’t covered by health insurance. Trump reserves such empathy for himself, consumed by feelings of victimization common among sociopaths.

The inability of sociopaths to distinguish right from wrong is at the heart of their illness. For example, in separate trials, Trump was found civilly liable for sexual abuse and bank fraud, and found guilty on criminal charges related to his scheming to influence the 2016 election. He was indicted but never faced trial on further criminal charges, for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results and absconding with classified documents.

In Trump’s warped mind, he did absolutely nothing wrong.

Lacking a moral compass, sociopaths are guided by their uninhibited desires to do whatever they want for personal gain, no matter how immoral or hurtful to others.

Megalomaniacs have a strong desire for power and control, which they are reluctant to share with anyone. They believe in their grandiose state that they are exceptional, above all others, singularly responsible for anything good that happens while blaming others for their failures.

Trump has little acquaintance with the pronoun “we.” He claims that he personally ended seven wars in seven months, that his tariffs are bringing great wealth to the country, and that he saved Los Angeles by calling in the National Guard.

In Trump’s grandiose projections, only one man holds the key to America’s future and the future of the world, despite mounting evidence that Trump often makes bad situations worse.

Trump disdains coalitions like NATO, the United Nations, and the Paris Climate Accord. Trump believes, deludedly, that he can accomplish more on his own than any coalition, and longs for the individual acclaim and admiration that megalomaniacs feel they deserve, including a Nobel Prize.

Megalomaniacs are insufferable braggarts. In Trumpworld, not a day passes that he doesn’t brag about greatly exaggerated or falsely claimed successes. At the apex of grandiose thinking, Trump often laughably characterizes his achievements as the greatest the world has ever seen. Of course, apologies, admittance of mistakes, and expressions of remorse never pass his lips.

So here we sit, with a mentally unhinged president whose outrageous behavior is difficult for normal people to comprehend.

Megalomaniacs are attracted to politics because of the power and control they can exert. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao rank among the most destructive in history. In the US, it took 240 years for Trump to come along and con a nation. Germans keep the horrific memory of Hitler’s reign alive today to make sure that German history never repeats itself. Americans must do the same.

It is every democratic-loving American’s responsibility to do everything within the law to hamstring Trump’s presidency before he causes irreparable harm to the country. In a democracy, only we the people can change the country through the awesome constitutional power of the ballot.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

Only one thing can stop Trump turning the US into Russia

Governor Gavin Newsom is doing exactly what he had to do with his redistricting plan in California: attempting to stop Donald Trump rigging the 2026 midterms election in Republicans’ favor.

When you have a president bent on maximizing his autocratic power and positioning his party to dominate federal elections and create virtual one-party rule, no response is too extreme.

Newsom didn’t choose to create five Democratic-leaning House districts out of territory currently held by Republican lawmakers. He threatened it as a tactic to get Trump and his obeisant Texas governor and lawmakers to back off their gerrymandering scheme to rig the election.

Since Texas went through with the redistricting, Newsom had the choice of allowing Trump’s attempt to steal the House to go unchallenged or to counterattack and re-level the playing field.

That Trump would attempt to rig the 2026 midterms should shock no one.

This is the guy who lied that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — who coerced governors, state legislatures, and election officials to change votes, who created fraudulent elector slates to cast fraudulent electoral votes, who tried to get Vice President Mike Pence to subvert the electoral certification process, and who incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol in an attempt to halt the presidential certification of Joe Biden.

It is also no coincidence that three of Trump’s most admired political pals – Vladimir Putin, Victor Orbán, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — enjoy virtual one-party rule, their parties having long-established strangleholds on election results and governmental power. Thinly veiled autocracies today, the erstwhile democracies of Russia, Hungary, and Turkey have been crushed.

This is exactly what Trump and his Project 2025 chums have in mind for the US.

Trump is attempting to kneecap the Democratic Party’s chances in all future elections through gerrymandering and voter suppression. Measures such as eliminating mail-in voting, disallowing voting machines, reducing the number of polling places, eliminating election-day registration, and requiring proof of citizenship are all aimed at suppressing the vote of minorities who traditionally support Democrats.

Trump’s successful ploy to add five Republican districts in Texas is part of a grander scheme to reshape America’s governance system and render the two-party democratic system defunct.

In virtual one-party systems, the ruling party controls all branches of government, Trump’s obvious goal.

In one-party rule autocracies, opposition parties and shows of public dissent are often suppressed through legal, political, or violent means. Power is centralized within the ruling party and its authoritarian leader, with no democratic system of checks and balances to restrain it. Constitutions are reinterpreted or rewritten to help the ruling party and its authoritarian leader remain in power indefinitely.

This is the direction the US is headed. We have an overreaching, power-grasping president and a rubber-stamp Republican Congress that obediently does his bidding. Atop the judicial system is a pliant Supreme Court filled with Trump appointees. Federal judges who rule against Trump’s unconstitutional executive orders are maligned and served with lawsuits.

Authoritarian bullying is rampant. Trump punishes universities and states that refuse to bend a knee to his demands. He calls out the national guard to militarize Democratic-controlled cities and launches sham investigations of Trump’s critics conducted by the servile heads of the DOJ and FBI. Trump signs executive orders that violate states’ and the federal legislature’s rights. These anti-democratic acts are just the beginning.

Trump may steal the 2026 House election by other red states following Texas’s gerrymandering lead coupled with repressive voting laws that disenfranchise traditional Democratic voters. Republicans’ one-party rule would then be given two more years to entrench itself in the manner of Putin’s, Orban’s, and Erdogan’s parties. Democracy as we have known it would no longer exist.

With his redistricting plan, Newsom is pushing back. Other Democratic states may follow suit. But Trump’s election scheme has created a chillingly dark day for American democracy. Thanks to Trump, the winning party in 2026 must out-manipulate the other, since winning fairly is no longer an option.

Democrats must win the House by hook or by crook in 2026 to save America from becoming an autocratic, one-party rule country. Every anti-democratic act that Trump commits provides more striking evidence of the intent.

Governor Newsom did not stand by and let Trump’s dirty election tricks go unchallenged. If other Democratic leaders and the vast majority of voters follow suit, Trump’s second attempt to destroy American democracy will be his last.

  • Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor

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