Just as President John F. Kennedy was passionately loved and hated, so, too, is Donald J. Trump. And Trump, at 79, has already been the target of two assassination attempts.      

Among the potential consequences of that hatred:

Donald Trump

• Barons of Columbian/Mexican drug cartels – Trump has often threatened to invade Mexico and/or Columbia to attack the cartels. No international drug kingpin has ever launched an attack on an American President or member of Congress. But this could change if the cartels believe a pre-emptive strike is necessary.
• Their assassins have wrought substantial carnage on Columbian and Mexican law enforcers and politicians. In 2025, cartels assassinated Miguel Uribe Turbay, a Columbian senator and presidential candidate. Since the 2016 peace accord, at least 1,372 social leaders have been murdered, with 173 killed in 2024 and 67 more in early 2025. These attacks frequently target local officials and advocates for land reform or environmental protection. 

• In Mexico, ahead of the 2024 elections, around 30 local candidates were murdered, and hundreds more abandoned their campaigns due to threats. At least 29 candidates or potential candidates were killed in the lead-up to the 2024 elections. Police chiefs have been targeted, such as the 2020 assassination attempt on Mexico City’s police chief.
• Wealthy as Big Tech companies, these cartels command the finest assassins and intelligence networks available. Unlike Trump, they strike without warning.

• Big tech executives and Wall Street executives – Like Renaissance princes, they command empires of wealth and security. They live apart from the masses of people who do not enjoy their privileged status. And their major ambition is to grow ever more wealthy. They use their money to buy members of Congress who then pass legislation favorable to their interests. 
• Trump’s tariffs have led to enormous sell-offs of tech stocks and the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have continued or intensified antitrust cases launched by the Biden administration against companies like Google and Meta, targeting monopolistic behavior.
• As a result, tech executives could use their purchased Congressional members to block Trump-sponsored legislation or their billions to defeat Congressional candidates sponsored by Trump.

The New York Stock Exchange

• Journalists – Reporters are uniquely armed to counterattack their would-be censors. They know how to unearth highly embarrassing information and turn it into spectacle. The unearthing of Watergate-related abuses brought down President Richard Nixon in 1974.
• And journalists’ willingness to expose the sex trafficking crimes of Jeffrey Epstein has proven a huge liability for Trump. And as he openly moves to abolish or manipulate the 2026 midterm elections, the press can keep the spotlight of public attention tightly focused on him. 

• The military – In November 2025, six Democratic Senators and Representatives released a video reminding military service members that they can refuse “illegal orders.” Donald Trump called the lawmakers traitors and shared a social media post calling for them to be hanged.   
• Soldiers, serving and retired, have a huge constituency—which extends to Congress. If soldiers start charging that they have received illegal orders, this will put an unwanted spotlight on the Pentagon—and Trump.
• So will taking their complaints to the media about Trump’s racist and sexist firings of professional military officers—such as Joint Chiefs Chair General CQ Brown, Navy Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti and Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan. 

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More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, authored The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. In it, he outlined how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms. 

One of the longest chapters—Book Three, Chapter Six—covers “Of Conspiracies.”  In it, those who wish to conspire against a ruler will find highly useful advice.  And so will those who wish to foil such a conspiracy. 

Niccolo Machiavelli

Lorenzo Bartolini, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Above all, he notes how important it is for rulers to make themselves loved—or at least respected—by their fellow citizens: 

“Note how much more praise those Emperors merited who, after Rome became an empire, conformed to her laws like good princes, than those who took the opposite course. 

“Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Auelius did not require the Praetorians nor the multitudinous legions to defend them, because they were protected by their own good conduct, the good will of the people, and by the love of the Senate. 

“On the other hand, neither the Eastern nor the Western armies saved Caligula, Nero, Vitellius and so many other wicked Emperors from the enemies which their bad conduct and evil lives had raised up against them.” 

In his better-known work, The Prince, he warns rulers who—like Donald Trump–are inclined to rule by fear:

“A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”

By Machiavelli’s standards, Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy:

“When a prince becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing that the prince is widely loathed.”