Posts Tagged ‘DAVID BROOKS’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 12, 2026 at 12:05 am
On the April 10 edition of The PBS Newshour, David Brooks of The Atlantic and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW—exchanged opinions on the mental health of President Donald Trump.
Although Brooks, a conservative, and Capehart, a liberal, usually find themselves on opposite sides of a subject, this time they reached a consensus: Trump is dangerously ill.
David Brooks: Last January, as we watched this spiral psychologically….I read Roman histories. And so you get Tacitus and Sallust and those old guys, because they had a front-row seat to tyranny. And they watched authoritarians, one after another, Caligula, all these guys. And the one thing they all said was that they deteriorate.
They create a situation around them, when the sycophants have to get more sycophant. Anybody who’s reasonable is either dead or gone. And then the urge to dominate, the lust for power becomes drunk. They become drunk on that. And they get more and more daring, more and more out of control, and then you get this spiral.
And our founding fathers, they understood this so well. They read Tacitus. They loved these guys. And John Adams said, if we get a leader like that, he will run through our Congress, our Constitution the way a whale goes through a net. And so they completely understood. And their worst nightmare is now happening.
The Constitution of the United States
Moderator Geoff Bennett: And, Jonathan, 61 percent of Americans, including 30 percent of Republicans, now say that President Trump has become erratic with age. That’s according to a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll.
The press corps — I guess we should hold up a mirror to ourselves. The press corps spent two years making President Biden’s mental fitness, his acuity the story. Why isn’t that same scrutiny now being applied to President Trump broadly?
Jonathan Capehart: Yes, exactly. That has been my question since January 20 of last year. We, the press, spent a lot of time talking about President Biden and his age because he looked old. He moved slowly. He wasn’t as vigorous and agile, supposedly, as the guy he pushed out of office and then the guy who was running against him.
And even little slips of the tongue were used to show, see, aha, he’s not all there. He’s losing his mind. How does that compare to what we’re going through right now? I wish people who have written books — people who have gone on air talking about President Biden nonstop, where are they now?
Where are those books now that we have a president who has given ample evidence, ample evidence that something is not right? Where are the people who are standing up and saying, you know what, something needs to be done?
And that goes back to some — you were talking about the founders. They were prepared for something like this. What they weren’t prepared for was the Article I branch just ceding all authority. What they weren’t prepared for were people from the president’s own party willing to either turn a blind eye or enable him to run roughshod over the Constitution.
Donald Trump
Even when you have got him out there threatening annihilation of a civilization, even when he’s started a war for no reason and the enemy is in a stronger position now than it was before he started this war of his own choosing?
At some point, Republicans writ large and those on Capitol Hill have to start standing up for the Article I prerogatives, but also start standing up for the country. I don’t know how much longer we as a nation can withstand this. And I know the world is beyond done with us, but I think they’re also frightened of us.
* * * * * * * * * *
This is not the first time the subject of Donald Trump’s mental instability has been raised. In 2018, during Trump’s first term as President, a 53-year-old novel was re-released: Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its 1965, release, its plot was considered so over-the-top as to be worthy of science fiction:
Iowa Democratic Senator Jim MacVeagh is summoned to Camp David, the Presidential retreat, by President Mark Hollenbach. MacVeagh is expected to become Hollenbach’s next Vice President. But he becomes alarmed that Hollenbach is clearly suffering from intense paranoia.
Hollenbach wants to develop a closer relationship between the United States and Russia—while cutting ties with American allies in Europe. Moreover, he believes the American news media are conspiring against him with his political enemies.
Its paperback edition offered a sentence that went straight for the jugular: “What would happen if the President of the United States went stark-raving mad?”
In a November 30, 2018 review of Night at Camp David, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote:
“The current president has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 11, 2026 at 12:10 am
On April 10, David Brooks of The Atlantic and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW appeared—as they do every Friday—on the PBS Newshour to discuss the week’s political events.
Brooks is a conservative, Capehart, a liberal, but they exchange their often differing views in a calm, civil manner. But on this date, there was unanimity between them on the subject of President Donald Trump’s deteriorating mental state.
Moderator Geoff Bennett kicked off the exchange with this:
So, David, the president this week threatened to wipe out an entire civilization, and then he took a cease-fire deal 88 minutes before his own deadline. Is this maximum pressure or maximum chaos?
David Brooks: Maximum malevolence. We shouldn’t let that comment about the wiping out of civilization go by without saying what an antithesis it is of American history….We have always prided ourselves, whether — whatever stupid stuff we do, on not being a rapacious European-style imperial dominating power.
After World War II, we didn’t try to take over Germany and Japan. We gave them money so they could recover. Even George W. Bush, whatever you think of the war, the intentions were OK. But to threaten to wipe out a civilization is pure malevolence.
David Brooks
It’s an assertion of true evil. And it didn’t work. And so, if you want to know how the war is going, look at who’s moving. The U.S. used to have regime change. Now, today, Trump said just so we can stop the nuclear program. And the nuclear material have been unaffected by this war, by the way. So we’re pulling back our goals.
The Iranians, when they put forth their negotiating position, they’re sticking with the goals they had and then they’re adding more. We want to control the Straits of Hormuz. We want reparations. We want you to release all our money.
So they’re clearly on the offensive. And so if you…think America’s winning, why are we going backwards and why are we retreating?
Bennett: And, Jonathan, what does it mean for American foreign policy when the distance between the president saying on social media a whole civilization will die tonight and a cease-fire announcement is roughly eight hours?
Jonathan Capehart: It speaks to the chaos that….that characterizes the president himself, that characterizes how he is running his administration. I was on air Sunday morning….where he was demanding explicitly to open the Strait of Hormuz, you crazy bastards, from a president of the United States on Easter Sunday. To your point, this is not the America that we know.
The American president is supposed to be a statesman, supposed to be someone who is a reflection of our better selves or who we hope to be, who we project our image to be. And, right now, our image is so bad that we not only have the French leader calling out the American president, but the British prime minister called out the American president, basically lumping him with Vladimir Putin of Russia in terms of malevolent force on the world stage.
Jonathan Capehart
….This gets to the bigger question for me about….is the president all right? Because no American president ever has written the things, said the things, threatened the things that he did in the span of, what, 72 hours.
Bennett: Let’s talk more about that, because, last night, President Trump shared this graphic video of a woman being beaten to death. We’re not going to show that video, but you can see the screenshot of the social media message there on the screen.
And he used this video to attack former President Biden, Democrats, federal judges. A sitting president posting footage of a murder as political content, is there no line left?
Brooks: Apparently not. I think he is spiraling out of control. And I say that in part, and a little psychologically, narcissists tend to disinhibit as they age. And so they….just get more of themselves, which is not a good thing.
Donald Trump
But last January, as we watched this spiral psychologically….I read Roman histories. And so you get Tacitus and Sallust and those old guys, because they had a front-row seat to tyranny. And they watched authoritarians, one after another, Caligula, all these guys. And the one thing they all said was that they deteriorate.
They create a situation around them, when the sycophants have to get more sycophant. Anybody who’s reasonable is either dead or gone. And then the urge to dominate, the lust for power becomes drunk. They become drunk on that. And they get more and more daring, more and more out of control, and then you get this spiral.
And our founding fathers, they understood this so well. They read Tacitus. They loved these guys. And John Adams said, if we get a leader like that, he will run through our Congress, our Constitution the way a whale goes through a net. And so they completely understood. And their worst nightmare is now happening.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 20, 2026 at 12:05 am
The “negotiating” methods of German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler serve as a useful guide to what domestic and world leaders can expect from trying to reach an agreement with President Donald Trump.
In September, 1938, seven months after seizing Austria, Hitler gave another exhibition of his “negotiating” methods.
This time, the target of his aggression was Czechoslovakia. Once again, he opened “negotiations” with a lie: The Czechoslovak government was trying to exterminate 3.5 million Germans living in the “Sudetenland.”
Then he threatened war: Germany would protect its citizens and halt such “oppression.”
For British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the thought of another European war erupting less than 20 years after the end of World War I was simply unthinkable.
He quickly sent Hitler a telegram, offering to help resolve the crisis: “I could come to you by air and am ready to leave tomorrow. Please inform me of earliest time you can receive me, and tell me the place of the meeting. I should be grateful for a very early reply.”
[Mistake #1: Showing his willingness to placate a brutal dictator. Such men see any concessions as weakness—leading to only greater demands. Trump, like Hitler, relishes attacking those weaker than himself.]
The two European leaders met in Berchtesgaden, Germany, on September 15, 1938.
Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler
Hitler denied that he had threatened war: “Force? Who speaks of force?“
Then, suddenly, he accused the Czechs of having mobilized their army in May. They had mobilized—in response to the mobilization of the German army.
“I shall not put up with this any longer,” shouted Hitler. “I shall settle this question in one way or another. I shall take matters in my own hands!”
Suddenly, Chamberlain seemed alarmed: “If I understood you right, you are determined to proceed against Czechoslovakia in any case. In the circumstances, it is best for me to return at once. Anything else now seems pointless.”
Hitler, taken aback, softened his tone and said they should consider the Sudetenland according to the principle of self-determination.
Chamberlain agreed to the cession of the Sudetenland. Three days later, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier did the same. No Czechoslovak representative was invited to these discussions.
[Mistake #2: Instead of conceding to Hitler, which emboldened the dictator, Chamberlain should have pressed his advantage. When Hitler faced an opponent he couldn’t bribe or cow—such as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill or Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—he raged and sulked.
[When Trump faces an opponent he can’t buy or intimidate—such as Special Counsels Robert Mueller and Jack Smith—he does the same.]
Chamberlain met Hitler again in Godesberg, Germany, on September 22 to confirm the agreements. But Hitler aimed to use the crisis as a pretext for war.
He now demanded not only the annexation of the Sudetenland but the immediate military occupation of the territories. This would give the Czechoslovak army no time to adapt their defense measures to the new borders.
To achieve a solution, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini suggested a conference of the major powers in Munich.
On September 29, Hitler, Daladier and Chamberlain met and agreed to Mussolini’s proposal. They signed the Munich Agreement, which accepted the immediate occupation of the Sudetenland.
The Czechoslovak government had not been a party to the talks. Nevertheless, it promised to abide by the agreement on September 30.
It actually had no choice. It faced the threat of an immediate German invasion after being deserted by its pledged allies: Britain, France and the Soviet Union.
[Mistake #3: Selling out an ally and making a concession to an insatiable dictator—and believing that Hitler could be trusted to keep his word.
[Just as Chamberlain sold out Czechoslovakia, Trump plans on selling out Ukraine to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. He’s blamed Ukraine for starting the 2022 war—even though Russia invaded Ukraine.
[He’s also attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—and repeatedly praised Putin. And he’s unilaterally announced that he will begin directing “peace talks” with Putin to end his war on Ukraine.]
Chamberlain returned to England a hero. Holding aloft a copy of the worthless agreement he had signed with Hitler, he told cheering crowds in London: “I believe it is peace for our time.”
Neville Chamberlain
Hitler—still planning more conquests—knew better. In March, 1939, the German army occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Chamberlain would soon be seen as a naive weakling—even before bombs started falling on London.
Believing himself invincible, Hitler turned his attention—and demands—to Poland.
Adolf Hitler and his generals
Believing himself invincible, Trump threatened violence against Canada, Greenland and Cuba.
Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. To his surprise, France and England honored their pledges to support Poland—triggering World War II.
On February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel–attacked Iran without warning. To his surprise, the Iranians closed the Straight of Hormuz, through which 20-30% of the world’s oil total daily oil supply passes.
Hitler couldn’t “turn off” the war he had started. He could only lash out as his enemies multiplied.
The same has proven true for Trump.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 17, 2026 at 12:10 am
To understand the “negotiating” style of Donald Trump, it’s essential to study that of Adolf Hitler.
Both men, dictatorial by nature, did/do not believe in compromise. Their idea of “compromise” was/is: “You do what I want—or I’ll destroy you.”
In Hitler’s case, his mania for absolute control began with the Nazi party and eventually extended to Germany. Then it reached to Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, France, Greece, Yugoslavia and Russia. At least 50 million men, women and children perished in the wars he unleashed from 1939 to 1945.
Adolf Hitler
Similarly, Trump’s mania for control started with building a real estate empire. Then it encompassed his “reality TV” show, The Apprentice—and finally politics.
He began dominating the Republican party by winning a series of Presidential primaries—and then the White House. Then came asserting control over the Justice Department and the judiciary—up to the Supreme Court.
Re-elected in 2024, he now seeks to dominate Americans, demands military control over Iran, threatens Mexico and Canada with trade wars, and Greenland and Panama with invasion.
Much can be learned about Trump’s “negotiating” methods—and what it takes to counter them—by studying those of Germany’s Fuhrer.
Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described Hitler’s “negotiating” style thus:
“Although Hitler prized his own talents as a negotiator, a man always capable of striking a good bargain, he was totally lacking in finesse.
Donald Trump
“He was incapable of bargaining. He was like a man who goes up to a fruit peddler and threatens to blow his brains out if he does not sell his applies at the lowest possible price.”
What Payne writes about Hitler applies equally well to Trump.
Hitler revealed his “bargaining style” in 1938, when he invited Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to his mountaintop retreat in Obersalzberg, Germany.
Hitler, an Austrian by birth, intended to annex his native land to Germany. Schuschnigg was aware of this, but felt secure in accepting the invitation. He had been assured that the question of Austrian sovereignty would not arise.
The meeting occurred on February 12, 1938.
Shuschnigg opened the discussion with a friendly compliment. Walking over to a large window, he admired the breathtaking view of the mountains.
HITLER: We haven’t come here to talk about the lovely view or the weather!
Austria has anyway never done anything which was of help to the German Reich….I am resolutely determined to make an end to all this business. The German Reich is a great power. Nobody can and nobody will interfere if it restores order on its frontiers.
[Like Hitler, Trump relies on insults and anger to put his victims on the defense.]
Kurt von Schuschnigg
SCHUSCHNIGG: We simply have to go on living alongside one another, the little state next to the big one. We have no other choice.
And that is why I ask you to tell me what your concrete complaints are. We will do all in our power to sort things out and establish a friendly relationship, as far as it is possible to do so.
HITLER: That’s what you say, Herr Schuschnigg. And I am telling you that I intend to clear up the whole of the so-called Austrian question—one way or another. Do you think I don’t know that you are fortifying Austria’s border with the Reich?
SCHUSCHNIGG: There can be no suggestion at all of that—
HITLER: Ridiculous explosive chambers are being built under bridges and roads—
This was a lie, and Hitler knew it was a lie. But it gave him an excuse to threaten to destroy Austria.
[For Trump, winning—not truth—is all that matters. During his first term as President, he told 30,573 lies.]
HITLER: I have only to give one command and all this comic stuff on the border will be blown to pieces overnight. You don’t seriously think you could hold me up, even for half an hour, do you?
The S.A. [Hitler’s private army of Stormtroopers] and the [Condor] lLegion [which had bombed much of Spain into rubble during the Spanish Civil War] would come in after the troops and nobody—not even I—could stop them from wreaking vengeance.
Schnuschigg made a cardinal mistake in dealing with Hitler: He showed fear. And this was precisely what the Nazi dictator looked for in an opponent.
[Like Hitler, Trump relies on fear: “Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear,” he said in March 2016 when still only a candidate for President.]
Contrary to popular belief, Hitler did not constantly rage at everyone. He used rage as a weapon, knowing that most people feel intimidated by it.
In the case of Schuschnigg, Hitler opened with insults and threats at the outset of their discussion. Then there was a period of calm, to convince the Austrian chancellor the worst was over.
Finally, he once again attacked—this time with so much fury that Schuschnigg was terrified into submission.
With one stroke of a pen, Austria became a vassal-state to Nazi Germany.
[Like Hitler, Trump threatens only those he feels are weak—thus his threats to use military force against Canada, Greenland and Panama.]
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 27, 2026 at 12:11 am
Those who have seen the classic 1961 movie, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” will remember its pivotal moment.
That’s when Burt Lancaster, as Ernst Janning, the once distinguished German judge, confesses his guilt and that of Nazi Germany in a controlled, yet emotional, outburst.
Addressing the court—presided over by Chief Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy)—Janning explains the forces that led to the triumph of evil:
“My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of the concentration camps. Not aware? Where were we?
“Where were we when Hitler began shrieking his hate in the Reichstag? When our neighbors were dragged out in the middle of the night to Dachau?
“Where were we when every village in Germany had a railroad terminal where cattle cars were filled with children being carried off to their extermination? Where were we when they cried out in the night to us? Were we deaf? Dumb? Blind?
“My counsel says we were not aware of the extermination of the millions. He would give you the excuse we were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds. Does that make us any the less guilty?
“Maybe we didn’t know the details, but if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know.”
On August 14, 2020, Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) offered this proposal: “I don’t say this lightly: When we escape this Trump hell, America needs a Presidential Crimes Commission. It should be made up of independent prosecutors who look at those who enabled a corrupt president.”
On November 3, 2020, Joseph Biden was elected President. But during the next four years, Democrats refused to act on this proposal. Had they done so, the United States might now be a far different nation.
If such a commission is empaneled by a future President or Congress, an equally conscience-stricken former member of the Donald Trump administration might well make a statement similar to the one given above:
“My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of the ICE concentration camps. Not aware? Where were we?
“Where were we when Trump began shrieking his hate across the country? When Trump called our free press ‘the enemy of the people’?
“Where were we when Trump started an unprovoked war against Iran and openly boasted that he would destroy its civilian infrastructure—a clear war crime?
“Where were we when Trump turned the Justice Department into his personal SS to illegally prosecute those who had legitimately investigated him?
“My counsel says we were not aware of Trump’s creating a private army of ICE goons who shot innocent American citizens.
“Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn’t know the details of all these atrocities. But if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know.”
Donald Trump
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:
“Ultimately, the responsibility for the rise of Hitler lies with the German people, who allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….
“They followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims….
“If he answered their suppressed desires, it was not because he shared them, but because he could make use of them. He despised the German people, for they were merely the instruments of his will.”
On November 5, 2024, 77,302,580 ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans catapulted Donald Trump—a man, charged conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”—once again into the Presidency.
Upon re-taking office on January 20, 2025, Trump began attacking the vital foundations of democracy
- Granting clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack.
- Reversing climate change initiatives, eliminating DEI programs and initiating a federal hiring freeze.
- Taking an increasingly aggressive stance toward Canada, imposing steep tariffs and even threatening military intervention to make it the 51st state.
- Purging a half-dozen assistant directors of the FBI who oversee criminal, national security and cyber investigations. Their “crime: Investigating Trump’s inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and his illegally hoarding sensitive national security documents after leaving office.
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
- Shutting off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the poor to pressure Democrats to support his gutting of healthcare programs.
- Igniting an unprovoked war with Israel against Iran.
**********
Democracies that allow such crimes to go unpunished soon cease being democracies.
It’s natural to regret that the United States has need of such a drastic remedy as a Presidential Crimes Commission. But those who lament this should realize there is only one choice:
Either non-Fascist Americans will destroy the Republican party and its voters that threaten to enslave them—or they will be enslaved by Republicans and their voters who believe they are entitled to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes.
There is no middle ground.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 9, 2026 at 12:16 am
Voters who believed that Donald Trump cared about them should have asked themselves: “Does he care about my children?”
And the answer would have been: “No.”
The father of modern political science, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) is widely thought of as the personification of Satan.
Actually, Machiavelli was a passionate republican, who spent most of his life in the service of his beloved city-state, Florence.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In his masterwork, The Discourses, he warned that life is complex and no course of action is guaranteed safe or successful.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a man of simplistic “solutions” for simplistic audiences.
By early April, 2020, he had refused to issue a national “stay-at-home” order to contain the spread of the Coronavirus. When states began issuing shutdown orders of their own, he railed against those orders and demanded that “we need to reopen the country.”
Donald Trump
What lay behind this demand were two hidden agendas. He wanted to:
- Quickly revitalize—and take credit for—a once-booming economy, even though this was largely created by President Barack Obama.
- Return to his Nuremberg-style rallies, where he could slander anyone he wanted while basking in the worship of thousands of his fanatical followers.
Which is why he clearly missed this warning Machiavelli offered in The Discourses:
“…I shall speak here only of those dangers to which those expose themselves who counsel a republic or a prince to undertake some grave and important enterprise in such a manner as to take upon themselves all the responsibility of the same.
“For as men only judge of matters by the result, all the blame of failure is charged upon him who first advised it, while in case of success he receives commendations. But the reward never equals the punishment….
“I see no other course than to take things moderately, and not to undertake to advocate any enterprise with too much zeal, but to give one’s advice calmly and modestly.
“If either then the republic or the prince decides to follow it, they may do so, as it were, of their own will, and not as though they were drawn into it by your importunity.
“In adopting this course it is not reasonable to suppose that either the prince or republic will manifest any ill will towards you on account of a resolution not taken contrary to the wishes of the many.”
But, by May, 2020, more Americans were wary about “reopening the country” than about rushing to do so.
On the May 15, edition of The PBS Newshour, New York Times columnist David Brooks noted:
“If you look at actual behavior, people locked themselves down before any politician took a move. And even in those states where the politicians are opening up, people are still locking down….
“And so I think the key decisions right now are not being made in statehouses and certainly not the White House. They’re being made in living rooms, as people decide, is it safe? Can I go out?”
Coronavirus
By pushing his mantra—“America needs to reopen NOW!”—Trump was risking the lives of millions of Americans. But he was also risking the future of his Presidency.
If “reopening” the country proved disastrous, he had no back-up plan to offer.
Several states—such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—that re-opened saw swarms of people flooding into bars and restaurants. They didn’t wear masks or practice “social distancing.” Packed together like sardines, they offered themselves like a Right-wing sacrifice to Coronavirus.
The results were inevitable.
A new wave of COVID-19 erupted after America “reopened.” More employees were laid off—or refused to come to work for fear of Coronavirus.
The economy continued to tank.
As summer neared its end and millions of students faced returning to school, Trump offered his next “solution” to the Coronavirus pandemic: Send them back to school—-and not through virtual classes at home.
Trump wanted children to return to possibly COVID-19-infected classrooms.
And he wasn’t asking parents to send their children back to school. He was ordering them to.
On July 8, 2020, he tweeted that he might withhold federal funding from schools that did not resume in-person classes that fall.
Why was he so insistent on this?
Trump knew that before parents could return to work, their kids needed to return to class, He hoped that would boost the economy—for which he could take credit.
And that would boost his chances for re-election in November.
Just as the ancient Canaanites sacrificed their children to the god Moloch, so Trump expected his followers—and opponents—to risk their children’s lives for him.
Ancient Canaanites offering their children as sacrifices to Moloch
And the sacrifices quickly started coming. Approximately 2.1 million children in the United States tested positive for COVID-19 by the end of December 2020.
Those who supported Trump in 2020 clearly valued the lives of their children far less than putting a ruthless psychopath back into power.
And, in 2024, 77 million Americans forgave him the loss—or near-loss—of their children and sent him back to the White House.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 6, 2026 at 12:58 am
Of all the threats that President Donald Trump poses to American democracy, none may be more deadly than his repeated threats to invoke the Insurrection Act.
This is an 1807 law that empowers the President to deploy the Armed Forces to individual states in specific circumstances, such as the suppression of civil disorder, insurrection, and armed rebellion against the federal government.
What is arousing Trump’s fury is the civil unrest he’s ignited in Minneapolis, Minnesota—especially following the January 7 shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old writer and poet, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross.
Renee Good
He’s ordered the Justice Department to criminally investigate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for allegedly conspiring to impede federal immigration agents.
Their “crime”: Daring to criticize the aggressive behavior of thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents deployed in Minnesota.
Walz said in a statement: “Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactic. The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.”
“This is an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, our local law enforcement, and our residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our streets,” Frey said in a statement to CBS News.
“I will not be intimidated. My focus will remain where it’s always been: keeping our city safe.”
Jacob Frey
Czbik, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Attorney Ty Cobb—who served as a White House lawyer in the first Trump Administration but is now a scathing critic of the president—warns that the tensions in Minneapolis could go from bad to worse if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act.
“During the first Trump administration, there were guardrails back then. There were people who could say ‘no’ to the president. And now, he’s surrounded by sycophants and enablers and people who don’t say no.
“I mean, it’s just stunning the number of people that have signed on for what’s going on in Minnesota and what’s going on in Greenland—you know, things that would have never been tolerated in the first 250 years of our democracy.
Ty Cobb
John Mathew Smith & http://www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“But I do think he wants—desperately wants—to invoke the Insurrection Act….I think martial law is definitely in the cards. And it’s a way that he’ll be able to control the elections.”
* * * * *
Countless historians have tried to answer the question: “Was the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the catastrophe he unleashed—inevitable?”
William L. Shirer, author of the monumental The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, apportioned German guilt as follows:
“The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 percent of the vote. But the 63 percent of [Germans] who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out.”
Competent future historians may reach the same conclusion about American voters in 2024.
- Republicans: Who feared that Trump’s Fascistic supporters would deprive them of political office if they didn’t abase themselves to a lifelong criminal and would-be dictator.
- Republican judges: Who bent and/or broke the law to enable Trump to escape justice.
- Justice Department prosecutors: Whose awe of the Presidency allowed Trump to slander and threaten federal prosecutors and judges.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland: Whose cowardice prevented him from appointing Jack Smith Special Counsel until November 18, 2022—giving Trump time to delay justice and again win the Presidency.
- Democrats: Whose cowardice toward Trump encouraged Republicans to ever more extreme measures.
- Police officers: The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police issued a joint statement condemning clemency for criminals who assault law enforcement officers—but did not explicitly indict the January 6 actions. The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Donald Trump in 2024.
- History illiterate voters: Who were eager to scrap alliances—such as NATO—that had checked Soviet aggression since the end of World War II.
- Nihilists: With nothing positive to contribute, their attitude was to destroy American institutions that had created prosperity and security for decades.
- Blacks: Voted for a racist in hopes of a bigger paycheck.
- Muslims: Refused to vote for Kamala Harris because Joe Biden wouldn’t stop Israel’s military campaign to free Hamas-captured hostages.
- Hispanics: Like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, who couldn’t believe that Trump would carry out his threats to imprison and/or deport them.
- The Biden administration: Which refused to stem the tide of illegal aliens invading America—and thus enraged millions of law-abiding Americans into supporting Trump.
- Toxic masculinity voters: Whose misogynistic attitudes toward women led them to reject a former local and state prosecutor for a 34-times convicted felon.
- American voters: Whose hatred of Hispanic illegal aliens and inflationary grocery prices led them to ignore overwhelming evidence of Trump’s intent to overturn the democratic process and make himself absolute dictator.
In short: Those opposed to Donald Trump’s evil were too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 5, 2026 at 12:10 am
In 2024, nihilism—and its adherents—played a key role in reelecting Donald Trump President of the United States.
During the 2024 Presidential campaign Trump promised to appoint Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
On October 27, 2024, Trump told a rally in Madison Square Garden: “I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines.”
Kennedy, the son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, is a self-admitted former 14-year heroin addict, which he has said began at age 15. In a 2012 deposition he claimed that doctors found a dead parasitic worm in his brain, which he believed caused significant memory loss and brain fog around 2010.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Since 2005, Kennedy has peddled vaccine misinformation and public health conspiracy theories. Among these:
- Vaccines cause autism.
- The COVID-19 vaccine—which has saved countless lives—is “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
- There is no comprehensive system for monitoring vaccine safety.
Since Kennedy took office on February 13, 2025:
- February 14, 2025: Around 1,300 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were laid off by the administration, including all first-year officers of the Epidemic Intelligence Service.
- August: Over 600 CDC employees were laid off. Among programs completely dismantled: Maternal and child health services, oral health, and the Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys.
- By July 7, 2025, 1,281 measles cases had been reported, more than the 1,274 measles cases reported in all of 2019. This was the highest level of cases since the disease had been declared eliminated in 2000.
- Roughly 93% of infections in 2025 and 95% so far in January, 2026, were among unvaccinated people or those with an unknown vaccination status. And this can be directly traced to the influence of anti-vaccine conspiracy-spreaders like Kennedy.
Measles virus
Since becoming President again on January 20, 2025, Donald J. Trump has aggressively committed a series of outrages against his fellow Americans, including:
- Granting clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack.
- Signing 26 executive orders reversing climate change initiatives, eliminating DEI programs, changing the federal designation for the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and initiating a federal hiring freeze.
- Revoking an executive order on Artificial Intelligence safety signed by former President Joseph Biden, to establish safeguards for the rapidly advancing AI technology.
- Firing the inspectors general—who are charged with protecting the government from waste and corruption—from more than a dozen federal agencies.
- Purging about a half-dozen executive assistant directors at the FBI. These were some of the bureau’s top managers overseeing criminal, national security and cyber investigations. Their “crime”: Investigating Trump’s inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and illegally holding highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.
- Following Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, the Department of Defense deleted content that included the achievements of nonwhites—such as Navajo code talkers, black Tuskegee Airmen, Medal of Honor winners and women veterans.
- Firing the board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointing himself as chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
- James had convicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Comey had sought to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential campaign to ensure Trump’s election.
- Shutting down the Federal Government on October 1, when Democrats refused to agree to his gutting Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), causing 10-15 million Americans to lose health insurance coverage.
- Among those not getting paid: Air traffic controllers for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Owing to many controllers refusing to work, the FAA reduced air traffic by 10% at many airports.
- Shutting off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the poor to pressure Democrats to support his gutting of healthcare programs.
- Flooding the streets of Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago with federalized National Guard troops against state governors’ wishes during immigration crackdowns and civil unrest.
- Flooding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who are terrorizing (and in one case murdering) both American citizens and illegal aliens.
- Governors have requested the deployment of federal troops—such as in Arkansas in 1957 for school desegregation and in California in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict. But Trump is the first President to deploy troops against the wishes of states’ governors.
- Pardoning favored political allies and loyalists. Among these: Seventy-seven people associated with the Trump fake electors plot to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, including Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
- Others included: Former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced to 45 years’ imprisonment for moving tons of cocaine to the United States.
- Threatening to invade Greenland, a self-governing, autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The United States has recognized Denmark’s ties to Greenland since 1917 and signed a joint defense agreement in 1951.
- As Denmark is a member of NATO, an attack on Greenland would ignite a war between the United States and its NATO allies.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 4, 2026 at 12:10 am
Throughout 2024, Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.
During the eight-year tenure of Barack Obama, America’s first black President, Donald Trump attacked him as a foreign-born citizen who was thus ineligible for that office.
Trump also had a history of supporting—and being supported by—racist white groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
Nevertheless, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020. A clear majority of young black voters described the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” compared with about half of older black voters.
Despite Trump’s demands for “mass deportations,” numerous Hispanics, when interviewed, said they didn’t feel threatened. They felt certain that Trump would deport “only the bad people.”
Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, were more supportive of Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Harris, compared with about six in 10 who went for Trump.
Majorities of black and Latino voters said the economy was in bad shape. They wanted a bigger paycheck. And they were willing to re-elect a man who despised them in hopes of getting it.
Muslims—especially those living in Dearborn, Michigan—made their own contribution to Trump’s re-election: They played a losing blackmail game with the Biden administration.
On October 7, 2023, under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, Hamas terrorists slaughtered an estimated 1,139 men, women and children in Israeli streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival.
About 250 others were kidnapped and taken into Gaza. Israel responded by declaring a state of war—pounding Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Terrorism-sympathizing Islamics—especially in Michigan—demanded that the Biden administration stop sending military equipment to Israel—and force Israelis to stop their military campaign to free the hostages. They threatened: “If you don’t do what we want, we won’t vote for Kamala Harris.”
Biden and Harris rejected their demands—and Islamics voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.
The result: A reelected Trump launched an aggressive campaign to restrict immigration from Islamic nations and deport Islamic immigrants accused of sympathizing with Hamas.
Ignorance of and/or contempt for history played a major role in reelecting Trump.
“Low information voters” is a euphemism for people dangerously ignorant of and/or indifferent to the issues affecting their lives.
After World War II ended in 1945, the United States proved a force for worldwide stability. Its “nuclear umbrella” prevented a Russian takeover of Europe and a Chinese takeover of Asia.
But voters ignored Trump’s “bromance” with Communist dictators Vladimir Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China) and Kim Jong-Un (North Korea). They also ignored his proven disdain for the leaders of democratic nations—such as Canada and Great Britain.
A strong isolationist sentiment motivated many of these voters—the belief that the United States didn’t need alliances with other nations, especially European ones. They ignored—or were ignorant of—that the defeat of Nazi Germany had required the unlikely alliance of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
Also ignored—deliberately or through ignorance—the vital role the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had played since World War II in maintaining peace throughout Europe—and deterring the Soviet Union from aggression.
Many Right-wing voters believe that the United States had been too active in international affairs since the end of World War II and had gotten little or nothing in return.
Nihilists made their own significant contribution to Trump’s return to power.
On August 21, 2025, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks outlined the fundamental change that had occurred in conservatism since 1983:
“When I was emerging from college, we conservatives thought we were conserving something — a group of cultural, intellectual and political traditions — from the postmodern assault.
“But decades later, with the postmodern takeover fully institutionalized, [Right-wingers] don’t seem to think there’s anything to conserve. They are radical deconstructors….This is a key difference between old-style conservatism and Trumpism.
“But there’s another, even more radical reaction to [liberalism]: nihilism. You start with the premise that progressive ideas are false and then conclude that all ideas are false.
“Faith in God has been on the decline for decades; so has social trust, faith in one another; so has faith in a dependable career path. A recent Gallup poll showed that faith in major American institutions is now near its lowest point in the 46 years Gallup has been measuring these things. But the core of nihilism is even more acidic; it is the loss of faith in the values your culture tells you to believe in.”
Nothing better illustrated this nihilistic streak—and Trump’s willingness to play to it—than his promise, during the 2024 Presidential campaign, that he planned to decimate the American healthcare system: His Secretary of Health and Human Services would be Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 3, 2026 at 1:01 am
Even as an ex-President, Donald Trump continued to benefit from the routine cowardice of the Democratic party.
While Congressional Republicans relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family.
Democrats never probed why Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former White House adviser, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The money came to Kushner’s private equity firm after Kushner left the White House in 2021.
Jarred Kushner
Democrats also refused to investigate the Trump administration’s illegally seizing vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not publicly report the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the Trump administration explain how it decided which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
Nor did FEMA inform states if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for.
COVID-19 virus
Americans willingly ignored Trump’s crimes because they were angry about surging numbers of illegal aliens pouring into the country. But the Biden administration refused—until its closing months—to dramatically address this issue.
A Vox story, dated July 12, 2024, warned: “According to Gallup, 2024 is the first time since 2005 that most of the public have wanted less immigration, and this year marks the largest share of Americans feeling resistant to immigration since 58 percent said so in 2001….”
Six months later, on January 17, 2025, another Vox story offered: “What Democrats must learn from Biden’s disastrous immigration record.”
It opened: “One of the main reasons Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election is the Biden administration’s record on immigration and the border — polls show it ranks up close with inflation among the top issues that drove swing voters to Trump.…”
From 2021 to 2023, the number of illegal aliens skyrocketed. Even blue states and cities complained they were overwhelmed. In December 2023, a record 250,000 illegal aliens tried to cross the border.
Illegal aliens being deported
Then, starting early in 2024, and continuing throughout the year, border arrivals plummeted—by more than 80%.
The reasons:
- The Biden administration got the Mexican government to launch an extensive crackdown on migrants passing through its territory to the United States.
- Biden decreed that new unauthorized migrants would be ineligible for asylum if too many people were coming to the border. Essentially, this meant shutting down the asylum process.
Unfortunately for Harris, the downturn in illegal immigration came too late.
In times of economic uncertainty, hostility rises toward immigrants—especially those who are alien to a host country’s language and culture. This has proven true in Europe as well as the United States.
Americans blamed President Biden for inflationary price increases—especially for groceries such as eggs. And they believed Trump’s lies that he would immediately reverse those price increases.
According to a December 20, 2024 article—“Why are groceries so expensive? What you need to know”—by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:
“Since January 2019, food prices have risen nearly 30 percent in the US, leaving many households struggling to afford groceries.”
Among the issues responsible for this:
- COVID-19: Caused worldwide disruptions in supply chains.
- Transportation costs and fuel prices: Fuel costs are directly tied to how much retailers charge for groceries and other goods.
- Animal diseases, weather events, crop failures: When bird flu (H5N1) first struck the U.S. in 2022, eggs were priced at around $2 per dozen. They peaked at $4.82/dozen in January, 2023, and in December, 2024—following the infection of over 123 million chickens—prices fell to about $4.15/dozen.
- Global conflict: In February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, which exports wheat, corn and agricultural fertilizer, among other products. Russia has tried to strangle Ukraine’s exports by attacking the nation’s agricultural centers.
No President—including Biden and Trump—can control such events. Unfortunately, every Presidential candidate virtually promises to be Superman. And voters repeatedly fall victim to this absurdity.
Trump benefitted from the Politically Incorrect truth that misogynistic Americans don’t want a woman President.
American voters proved that in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran for President—and lost to Trump in the Electoral College by a count of 227 to 304.
And Hillary had an advantage that Vice President Kamala Harris lacked: Hillary was white.
Kamala Harris
England has elected a female Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher. And Mexico—notorious for the machismo of its men—has elected a woman President: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. But in the United States, electing a woman chief executive is unthinkable to most American men.
Machismo played a major role in Trump’s popularity, especially among Hispanics.
Roughly six in 10 men described Trump as a strong leader, compared with 43% who said that in 2020. About half of Hispanic women said Trump was a strong leader, up from 37%.
This despite Trump’s past derogatory comments about Hispanics (“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best….They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”).
And despite a sea of “MASS DEPORTATION NOW” signs at the 2024 Republican National Convention
More than any other group, Hispanics would face the full fury of Trump’s campaign to deport at least one million illegal aliens each year.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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ABSOLUTE POWER = ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION: PART TWO (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 12, 2026 at 12:05 amOn the April 10 edition of The PBS Newshour, David Brooks of The Atlantic and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW—exchanged opinions on the mental health of President Donald Trump.
Although Brooks, a conservative, and Capehart, a liberal, usually find themselves on opposite sides of a subject, this time they reached a consensus: Trump is dangerously ill.
David Brooks: Last January, as we watched this spiral psychologically….I read Roman histories. And so you get Tacitus and Sallust and those old guys, because they had a front-row seat to tyranny. And they watched authoritarians, one after another, Caligula, all these guys. And the one thing they all said was that they deteriorate.
They create a situation around them, when the sycophants have to get more sycophant. Anybody who’s reasonable is either dead or gone. And then the urge to dominate, the lust for power becomes drunk. They become drunk on that. And they get more and more daring, more and more out of control, and then you get this spiral.
And our founding fathers, they understood this so well. They read Tacitus. They loved these guys. And John Adams said, if we get a leader like that, he will run through our Congress, our Constitution the way a whale goes through a net. And so they completely understood. And their worst nightmare is now happening.
The Constitution of the United States
Moderator Geoff Bennett: And, Jonathan, 61 percent of Americans, including 30 percent of Republicans, now say that President Trump has become erratic with age. That’s according to a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll.
The press corps — I guess we should hold up a mirror to ourselves. The press corps spent two years making President Biden’s mental fitness, his acuity the story. Why isn’t that same scrutiny now being applied to President Trump broadly?
Jonathan Capehart: Yes, exactly. That has been my question since January 20 of last year. We, the press, spent a lot of time talking about President Biden and his age because he looked old. He moved slowly. He wasn’t as vigorous and agile, supposedly, as the guy he pushed out of office and then the guy who was running against him.
And even little slips of the tongue were used to show, see, aha, he’s not all there. He’s losing his mind. How does that compare to what we’re going through right now? I wish people who have written books — people who have gone on air talking about President Biden nonstop, where are they now?
Where are those books now that we have a president who has given ample evidence, ample evidence that something is not right? Where are the people who are standing up and saying, you know what, something needs to be done?
And that goes back to some — you were talking about the founders. They were prepared for something like this. What they weren’t prepared for was the Article I branch just ceding all authority. What they weren’t prepared for were people from the president’s own party willing to either turn a blind eye or enable him to run roughshod over the Constitution.
Donald Trump
Even when you have got him out there threatening annihilation of a civilization, even when he’s started a war for no reason and the enemy is in a stronger position now than it was before he started this war of his own choosing?
At some point, Republicans writ large and those on Capitol Hill have to start standing up for the Article I prerogatives, but also start standing up for the country. I don’t know how much longer we as a nation can withstand this. And I know the world is beyond done with us, but I think they’re also frightened of us.
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This is not the first time the subject of Donald Trump’s mental instability has been raised. In 2018, during Trump’s first term as President, a 53-year-old novel was re-released: Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its 1965, release, its plot was considered so over-the-top as to be worthy of science fiction:
Iowa Democratic Senator Jim MacVeagh is summoned to Camp David, the Presidential retreat, by President Mark Hollenbach. MacVeagh is expected to become Hollenbach’s next Vice President. But he becomes alarmed that Hollenbach is clearly suffering from intense paranoia.
Hollenbach wants to develop a closer relationship between the United States and Russia—while cutting ties with American allies in Europe. Moreover, he believes the American news media are conspiring against him with his political enemies.
Its paperback edition offered a sentence that went straight for the jugular: “What would happen if the President of the United States went stark-raving mad?”
In a November 30, 2018 review of Night at Camp David, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote:
“The current president has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.”
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