Whether you like President Donald Trump or not, you must give him his flowers. Trump is the best at what he does. America never had a president like Trump, and America may never again have a president like Trump. It took Trump only eight months to unmake America in a manner that even all the doomsday prophecies about Project 2025, in the build-up to US 2024 presidential election failed to capture. No American president could have achieved that in such a short time.
Since 1789, the United States has been blessed with many giants as presidents, but it has also had the misfortune of a few gnats occupying the White House, in spite of the fervent prayer of President John Adams. President Warren Harding, the 29th President of the United States stands out as one of the few gnats that graced the White House and he is the closest in comparison to Trump; yet, in many defining aspects, even Harding pales in comparison to Trump. Like Trump, Harding was from the conservative stock of the Republican Party and like Trump, Harding did not serve in the US military, nor did he have any education worthy of note. WW1 had just ended and Harding ran his campaign on the slogan “return to normalcy,” but there was nothing normal about Harding’s three-year reign in the White House. Harding was a compulsive womanizer and a weakling who abdicated his responsibilities as president while the “Ohio gang” bled the United States. Untimely death saved Harding from facing the consequences of the many scandals that blighted his administration (Harding was the third US president to die of natural causes while in office).
Before his death, Harding expressed remorse and anger at the shameful dealings of his friends who took full advantage of his lapses. However, should there ever be an inquest into the many scandals that is bound to follow Trump 2.0, Trump would deny all and write off the inquests as political witch-hunt. Trump’s rebuttal of the many legal battles and scandals that trailed Trump 1.0 is a pointer. Alarmingly, Trump has three years and four months to completely unmake America in a manner that would ensure he is never held to account. After only eight months in the saddle, like Napoleon in the Orwellian Animal Farm, Trump goes around American cities with a cap that says in bold letters: “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!”
In Manor Farm, Napoleon took care to raise nine attack dogs from infancy that terrorized all the other animals and forced them to imbibe the message: “NAPOLEON IS ALWAYS RIGHT!” Unlike Napoleon, Trump did not have to go through the trouble of raising lackeys, he sought them and found them, and for the right price, these adult Americans are willing to outsource their brains to their benefactor, they are willing to spit on America’s constitution and values, and are eager to subdue every dissenting voice as a demonstration of unflinching loyalty to the MAGA king.
A week ago, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the entire US-Mexico border wall will be painted black to make it hotter and harder to climb. Kristi Noem made sure to give Trump credit for the idea: “The request is specifically at the request of the president. He understands that in the hot temperatures down here, when something is painted black it gets even warmer and it will make it even harder for people to climb,” That is not such a hot idea, is it? Kristi Noem, like all other Trump appointees, including Vice-President J.D. Vance, is doing her best to project President Trump as omniscience. All Trump appointees now talk like Trump, “make a deal,” Trump’s favorite catch phrase is a regular refrain among Trump appointees.
Trump appointees are also doing their best to walk like Trump, “law and order,” a term made popular by segregationist, longest-serving governor of Alabama and two-time presidential candidate, George Wallace is the euphemism for lawless crackdown on dissenting voices and rooting out all forms of resistance to the emerging autocracy in America. In America under Trump, even data and investigations have to conform to the president’s expectation and pronouncements. Pentagon’s intelligence agency chief, Lt General Jeffery Kruse is the latest to be sacked after his report of assessment on the impact of American strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites contradicted President Trump’s superlative qualification of the exercise. The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) dared to make known that the strike only set Iran’s nuclear programme back by a few months, puncturing Trump’s assertion of the strike as unqualified success. Two other senior military officers in the Pentagon were also sacked. The chief of US Naval reserves, Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore and the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Admiral Milton “Jamie” Sands 111, were also sacked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Lt General Jeffery Kruse’s sack was due to “loss of confidence,” no reason was provided for the recent purge in the Navy high command. In America under Trump, you could lose your job for any reason or no reason at all.
One month after Trump took office, Air Force General C Q Brown and other navy admirals and generals were fired. In April, there was a purge in the National Security Agency (NSA), General Timothy Haugh, director of the NSA and other staff were fired. Since Trump 2.0 began in January, the US has lost over 400 years of military experience due to wanton sacking of senior military officers. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concern about the recent sackings: “The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country.”
Elsewhere, another Trump appointee, Secretary of State US will review 55 million visa holders for potential violations. Part of the exercise include monitoring what the holders post on social media. Like Napoleon’s dogs, Trumps appointees are everywhere, at home and abroad, stalking, spreading fear and issuing threats. Like Americans at home, the International Criminal Court (ICC) also felt the ominous shadow of Trump appointee over its structure. The Trump administration recently released new rounds of sanction targeting members of the ICC. Marco Rubio says the ICC is a “national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel.” The ICC’s arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, former Defense Minister irked the Trump administration. Vladimir Putin, a friend of Trump also appears on the ICC’s warrant of arrest.
For conducting its statutory mandate without fear or favor, the ICC is threatened by the United States, a country that in 1945, created the world order that established the ICC and other global institutions that swore to protect democracy and oppressed people around the world. In 1923, the United States had the good fortune of having a calm and stoic Calvin Coolidge as vice president. He stepped in and quietly went to work to clean up the mess left by his principal. Who will reset America in 2028? Trump is currently making frantic effort through gerrymandering to ensure that midterm elections in 2026 are favorable to his party. Democrats are struggling to push back, but the federal forces arrayed against them are enormous. If Trump could unmake America so much in eight months, will America’s democratic institutions be able to withstand Trump’s ferocity for three years?
