A Year of Living Dangerously

I will be out of the country for a few weeks and wanted to leave you with my summary of 2025. 2026 will be a bumpy ride, but I think the tide has turned. Keep up the resistance in anyway you can.

The first year of The Don’s second term has been a shit-show. The man who lies like he breathes, actually told the truth: he promised a shit-show, and boy did he deliver. The Don, with the help of his fawning sycophants, has been a destructive chaos machine whose intent is to dismantle the government and run roughshod over the rule of law. His presidency is laced with cruelty and vengeance, which he meets out on a daily basis, most recently in his vile comments about Rob Reiner’s death. His administration has been defined by a quest for absolute power supported by dangerous and spineless nincompoops (think Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi.) It features a legislative branch that lives in fear of retribution and has abdicated much of its power and relevance as a co-equal branch of governance. All of the above has threatened the very core of our democracy.

Under The Don’s rule, the Department of Justice has lost all independence and functions like his personal legal team; it is merely a tool of the whims and vagaries of man who threatens to punish anyone who is a perceived enemy.

The Don and his 2025 underwriters has promulgated a White Christian Supremacist agenda, attempting to whitewash Black American History and dismantle any and everything that has a whiff of “wokeness.”

It has done serious damage to our position as the leader of the world in scientific research, slashing funds and by appointing a vaccine conspiracy theorist to run HHS, putting children’s lives in danger.

The Don has supercharged an already established oligarchy and kleptocracy widening the divide between those who have and those who do not. The corruption at the top is mind blowing; we have never seen the likes of such brazen corrupt deal making, which has led to The Don, his family and his besties making billions of dollars.

He has ruptured our relationships with our allies and forced them to question whether they can trust us.

He, with the assistance of Elon Musk, has worked to dismantle the infrastructure of our government, firing thousands of federal workers, neutering agencies, letting go of Inspector Generals, who oversee and identify corruption.

And guess what? Though some will claim that what happened this year was even worse than they expected, he and Project 2025 told us he would do this.

The irony is the Don won because people were disillusioned about the economy and the cost of living. He promised to change that. And how is that working out? According to him, our economy is A+++ and affordability is a dumb word; the entire discussion about a failing economy is just a hoax started by Democrats. Tell that to the people who have given him a 33% approval rating on the handling of the economy! Tell that to the people who can’t feed their families.

Here are a few more highlights.

Let’s start with something that happened before The Don took office. The originalists of the Supreme Court decided to do something exceptionally original by giving the president total immunity, standing behind the concept of the “unitary theory of power.” In essence, they gave The Don (and future presidents), carte blanche to do whatever they want without impunity or as The Don might say: “My beautiful Supreme Court has given me the greatest get out of jail free card ever created.”

Knowing the havoc he would create and his stated desire to model himself after autocrats like Victor Orban, makes this Supreme Court supremely a co-conspirator in the dismantling of our institutions. They gave a fox free reign in the chicken coop, a permission slip to do whatever he wanted, no matter what the consequences were to the American people and the rule of law. The most important legal entity in this country, gave a sociopathic malignant narcissist the right to break the very laws they were entrusted to uphold. I told you it was an original idea.

The founding fathers, the original originalists, are screaming from their graves: “This is a desecration of all we believed in, what we intended the constitution to be; we were adamant that there would be no kings, that there were three equal and separate branches of government that would create checks and balances. C’est la vie.

Richard Nixon, who resigned the presidency in ignominy after the Watergate scandal (which seems such small potatoes now), when interviewed by David Frost after he left office, still claimed that “If the president does it, it is not illegal.” That wasn’t true then, but because of these supremely awful people, it is now. Given what The Don has wrought, is there any remorse on the part of those who voted to give him this power. Lost sleep? Don’t hold your breath.

The Don came charging out of the gate and pardoned all 1,600 “patriots” for their heroic actions on January 6th. He pardoned people who admitted guilt; he even parted those who were convicted of sedition. That decision augured what he planned to do with his executive power. Rumor has it that he offered Enriquo Tarrio, leader of the “Proud Boys,” a job as head of White House security, but he couldn’t pass the security clearance.

“My favorite word is “tariffs.” Turns out that is one of American;s least favorite words. The Don just can’t believe that we don’t “love, love, love,” that word. It’s such a beautiful word. It will make us great again. You will see. America will have economic growth like it has never seen. So you’ll have to buy only 2 dolls, two pencils. I always hated anyone who played with dolls. Girls, yeah girls. Even from an early age I loved to take their dolls and break them. Girls are so pathetic. Me and Epstein knew that. We knew we could do anything we wanted to them and they loved it. The ones that played with dolls became our dolls. Isn’t that a clever turn of phrase. So screw two dolls. No dolls, None. Nada.

And then there is the Epstein files.

Rolling out the red carpet for Putin, The Don believed he could woo him into making peace with Ukraine. Rumor has it that after The Don legitimized him to the rest of the world, Putin reneged on his lunch date and on the way back to his plane, he took a piss on the red carpet.

And then there was the Epstein files.

Universities capitulated to his threats to cut off funding, practicing the worst thing you can do with an aspiring authoritarian: obey in advance. Law firms did the same for fear of being denied access to Federal buildings. Imagine what they could have done if you all band together? So disappointing.