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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 17, 2026 at 12:10 am
Donald Trump has never shown any interest in—let alone knowledge of—history. Yet he might well feel warmly towards an English king who took power 508 years before he did.
Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 and ruled as a tyrant until his death in 1547.
Trump came to the Presidency in 2017 and ruled as a tyrant until his electoral ouster in 2021. Then he was re-elected in 2024.
In his youth Henry was athletic, highly intelligent, and spoke French, Latin and Spanish. Highly religious, he immensely enjoyed hunting and tennis. His scholarly interests included writing books and music, and he was a lavish patron of the arts.
Henry VIII
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a B.S. in Economics. In 2015, his lawyer, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue Trump’s high school, colleges, and the College Board if they released Trump’s academic records.
At six-feet-two with a slim athletic build, fair complexion and prowess on the jousting and tennis courts, Henry was considered extremely handsome, and even referred to as an “Adonis.” But as he aged, he became obese and his health suffered.
As a young man, standing six-feet-three and with an athletic build, Trump was considered handsome and a ladies’ man. But he thought exercise a waste of energy, saying it depletes the body’s energy. By the time he ran for President. By 2015-16, he was grotesquely overweight, with orange skin and stood with a pronounced forward tilt.
Henry married six times—resulting in two divorces (Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves), two beheadings (Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard) and one death after childbirth (Jane Seymour). His last wife, Catherine Parr, outlived him.
Trump has been married three times—to Ivana Trump, Marla Maples and Melania Trump.
Parody of Donald Trump as Henry VIII
Both during and in-between marriages he bedded many other women—and boasted about it. His most infamous boast almost cost him the White House.
During a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood, Trump said: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Henry VIII ruled England for 36 years, made radical changes to the English Constitution, and ushered in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy.
Donald Trump has ruled the United States for five and a half years, put radical Right-wing Justices on the Supreme Court, and boasted that it would be great if the country had—like China—a “President-for-Life.”
To make that a reality, he refused to accept electoral defeat in 2020 and incited a violent attack on Congress to stop the count of Electoral College votes proving that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won.
Stormtrumpers attacking Capitol police
Henry was an intellectual, the first English king with a modern humanist education. He owned a large library, annotated many books and published one of his own.
Trump published 20 books under his name, but all were written by ghostwriters. This is confirmed by an analysis of his speech patterns—which puts him at a fourth-grade level, the lowest of the previous 15 Presidents.
Henry was ridiculed for his obesity and was subject to raging mood swings and paranoia.
Trump was ridiculed for his obesity, his slow reading of speeches and his obscene egotism: How smart he is, his wealth, his brilliance.
He spouted conspiracy theories:
- The “Deep State” was out to destroy him.
- News media was “the enemy of the people.”
- He lost the 2020 Presidential election because of a conspiracy involving Democrats and rigged voting machines.
It is estimated that Henry executed up to 57,000 people—members of the clergy, ordinary citizens and nobles who had taken part in uprisings and protests.
His victims fell into three categories: Heresy; Treason; and Denial of his Royal Supremacy as Head of the English Church.
Among the most prominent: Sir Thomas More, his former chancellor, and Thomas Cromwell, his chief minister.
Trump has not executed anyone so far, but he encouraged his legions of Right-wing supporters to attack those he considered enemies: The media, liberals, Hispanics, blacks, “uppity” women, Asians.
After he publicly invited the Proud Boys paramilitary group to “stand back and stand by,” its members conspired to kidnap and execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had resisted Trump’s demand to “open” the state during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Henry VIII is largely remembered today for his six wives, massive appetite for food, his bloated appearance and his murderous tyranny.
Donald Trump will be remembered as the first President who tried to violently remain in office despite losing a Presidential election, his two impeachments, and, to date, his being the only former President to be convicted for 34 felonies.
Englishmen believed the country would collapse without a male heir to the throne.
Americans believe the country will collapse if a President stands trial for his crimes.
England survived.
So will the United States.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2026 at 12:22 am
The 2024 Presidential election has raised serious issues about the office which demand addressing.
And there’s still time for such remedies to be in place by the time the 2028 election occurs.
Reform #1: Institute mandatory FBI background investigations on all declared Presidential candidates.
Donald Trump’s trial for hush money payments to porn “star” Stormy Daniels has highlighted an issue that should have been addressed long ago: Americans don’t know as much about their candidates for President as they think they do.
- As the trial testimony of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker revealed: In August, 2015, he met with Trump at Trump Tower and offered to use the Enquirer to catch and kill any allegations of extramarital affairs against Trump.
- Later he personally facilitated a $150,000 payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to keep her affair with Trump hushed up.
- This came in addition to Trump’s paying $130,000 in hush money to Daniels to ensure his 2006 tryst with her didn’t emerge during the campaign.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
- Similarly, in 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy successfully ran for President while concealing his affliction with Addison’s Disease—an insufficiency of the Adrenal glands that can prove fatal.
Thus, all future candidates for President should be required to submit to full FBI background investigations at least one year before election time—with the results released before the election. Any candidate refusing to participate should be barred from competing.
You’re not allowed to become an FBI agent or Cabinet Secretary without passing a background investigation. You shouldn’t be allowed to become President without one, either.
Reform #2: No Presidential candidate can be over 70 at the time s/he leaves office.
The Federal Aviation Administration mandates that commercial airlines cannot employ pilots after they reach the age of 65.
FBI agents have a mandatory retirement age of 57.
Commissioned officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps must retire by 64.
Yet Donald Trump was 78 when he was elected to his second term in 2024. Six months after he was inaugurated on January 20, 2025, he was 79.
Trump will be 82 in 2028, his last year in office (assuming he doesn’t stage another—and successful—coup attempt).
The Presidency is notorious for prematurely ageing its occupants: “The typical president ages two years for every year they are in office,” said Dr. Michael Roizen. He used presidential medical records from the 1920s through today to reach this conclusion.
The United States Presidency is becoming a mirror-image of the geriatric former Soviet Union:
- In 1982, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev died at age 75.
- He was succeeded by Yuri Andropov—who died, in 1984, at age 69.
- He, in turn, was followed by Konstantin Chernenko—who died in 1985 at age 73.
Finally, the Politburo—tired of replacing the General Secretary every two years—elected 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev, who lived to leave office six years later at age 60.
Funeral for Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev – 1982
In 2024, having two geriatric candidates for President—Trump and Joseph Biden—become comic fodder for late-night TV hosts. Yet voters feared that neither candidate could handle the strains of another four years as President—or even survive a full term.
Reform #3: Abolish the honorific title of “Mr. President” for ex-Presidents.
This used to be offered as a tribute to a former President for having won the support of the majority of Americans.
But Donald Trump corrupted this phrase, as he has so much else in American life. After losing the 2020 Presidential election, he continued to insist that he was the legitimate President of the United States, and Biden was a usurper.
When his fanatical followers referred to him as “President Trump,” that was what they meant—thus trying to de-legitimize Biden’s Presidency and elevate Trump as the rightful victor.
The 2005 Stolen Valor Act makes it a federal misdemeanor for anyone to falsely claim to have received any U.S. military decoration or medal—such as the Medal of Honor or Purple Heart. Violating the law can lead to fines, up to a year in prison, or both.
Thus, Congress should mandate that only the current holder of the Presidency has the legal right to call himself “Mr. President”—and that right ends when he no longer occupies the White House.
Reform #4: Require millionaire ex-Presidents to pay for their Secret Service protection.
Every ex-President since Dwight D. Eisenhower—even Jimmy Carter—has been a multi-millionaire.
Assigning a platoon of elite Secret Service agents to watch over every ex-President 24/7 is a huge expense.
The case of Ronald Reagan is instructive: At a cost to the government of $10 million annually, Reagan—while living in a 7,200 square-foot mansion overlooking Beverly Hills—received lifetime Secret Service protection from 40 fulltime agents.
United States Secret Service
It’s also an unnecessary expense. There has never been an attack on an ex-President in all of American history.
Still, if the powers-that-be consider this essential, then millionaire ex-Presidents should be required to pay for their protection—just as moguls and Hollywood celebrities do.
As the situation now exists, the government is simply providing welfare for the rich. Whereas the poor face strict limits on how high their income can be and still receive welfare.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on June 26, 2026 at 12:05 am
On October 7, 2023, about 2,500 Hamas terrorists launched coordinated attacks on Israeli outposts and settlements, firing over 5,000 rockets and burning houses.
They killed over 1,139 people, of which 695 were civilians—including women, children and the elderly. They also kidnapped over 250 others—including 30 children—to Gaza.
Most of those hostages were subsequently murdered.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Israel pounded Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers. By May, 2026, Palestinian health authorities claimed that Israel’s ground and air campaign had killed more than 72,000 Palestinians.
Among the reactions to this conflict:
- The World Court ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
- Liberal Democrats demanded that President Joseph Biden stop shipping military equipment to Israel.
- Three European countries—Spain, Ireland, and Norway—announced that they would recognize a Palestinian state.
- Across the United States, scores of university students protested Israel’s retaliation against Gaza.
- Among the universities targeted: Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, Emory University in Atlanta, Boston’s Emerson College.
- Columbia University, Barnard College and the University of Southern California canceled their graduation ceremonies owing to fears of violent protests by terrorism-sympathizing students.
Such holier-than-thou attitudes ignore three important truths:
First: Soldiering is by its nature a brutal business.
- The purpose of boot camp is to “break down” the restraints of pacifism and individuality and turn “boys” into “fighting men.” This must be done in weeks, so the process is shockingly brutal.
- Recruits are repeatedly taught such maxims as: “Ambushes are murder—and murder is fun.”
- Denigrating the enemy is a time-worn habit in all armies—including the American army. During the Indian wars, soldiers referred to Indians as “Red niggers.”
- In World War II—the “Good War”—America’s servicemen fought “Japs” and “Krauts.” During the Vietnam war, Vietnamese became “dinks” and “gooks.”
Marine drill instructor
- Today’s servicemen and women routinely (but unofficially) refer to their Islamic enemies as “ragheads” or “sand niggers.”
- Soldiers who aren’t toughened by boot camp are by the battlefield. As General George S. Patton often warned: “When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friend’s face, you’ll know what to do.”
- Those who are demanding that Israel “pause” its offensive against Gaza ignore that when Allied armies were closing in on Berlin, the capitol of Nazi Germany, Americans did not demand that Nazis be given a chance to reorganize and counterattack.
Second: Atrocities in wartime are nothing new—including for U.S. forces.
- During the Mexican War, Texas Rangers accompanying the U.S. Army acted as commandos—and exacted reprisals against Mexicans engaging in terrorist acts.
- During the army’s wars against the Indians, soldiers and scouts—such as William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody—routinely took scalps as trophies.
- During World War II, Marines posted in the Pacific rarely took prisoners. The reason: Japanese soldiers often pretended to surrender––and thus lured American troops into ambushes.
Waffen-SS soldier
- GIs fighting in the European theater generally shot fanatical Waffen-SS soldiers—including those who tried to surrender. This was especially true during the Battle of the Bulge, when Germans dressed in American uniforms stirred panic among Allied forces.
- During the Vietnam war, some “grunts” made necklaces of ears taken from dead Vietcong. Vietnam Correspondent Michael Herr, in his book Dispatches, relates the story of a grunt who was “building his own gook” from actual body parts.
Third: Those who provoke war do not have a right to dictate how their opponents should defend themselves.
- In 1815, just before the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson ordered American snipers to harass invading British forces—and especially to take out officers. The British commander angrily protested this “barbarism.” Jackson sent back a message of his own: “You have invaded our country and we will defend ourselves as we see fit.”
- William Tecumseh Sherman, defending the conduct of his men during their legendary “March to the Sea” through Georgia, said: “Those people made war on us, defied and dared us to come south to their country, where they boasted they would kill us and do all manner of horrible things. We accepted their challenge, and now for them to whine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
- Israelis have learned to deter Palestinian suicide-bombers by the use of police dogs. Muslims protest because they consider dogs defiled—and defiling—creatures. Islamic terrorists fear that blowing up themselves near a dog risks mingling their blood with that of the dead or wounded animal—thus forfeiting their opportunity to enter Paradise and claim those 72 willing virgins.
- In early November, 2001—two months after 9/11—Muslims throughout the Islamic world demanded that the United States halt its attacks on Taliban forces in Afghanistan out of “respect” for Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
- In short: Islamic “holy warriors” could launch attacks that murdered thousands of innocent men, women and children. But “infidels” were supposed to defend themselves according to Islamic rules.
- The United States wisely refused to bow to this Islamic version of “political correctness.”
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 17, 2026 at 12:08 am
For historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson, Donald Trump possesses an unappreciated self-awareness and sense of what it means to be a tragic hero.
Trump was into the first year of his Presidency when Hanson penned his article, “Donald Trump, Tragic Hero,” published on April 12, 2018.
To make his case, Hanson cited a series of popular Western movies featuring lethal men who risk—and sometimes sacrifice—their lives on behalf of others too weak to vanquish evil on their own.
Victor Davis Hanson
Thus in the classic 1960 film, The Magnificent Seven, the Seven slaughter the outlaw Calvera and his banditos—and then ride into the sunset. As they do, Chris (Yul Brynner) tells Vin (Steve McQueen): “The old man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose.”
Wrote Hanson: “[Chris] knows that few appreciate that the tragic heroes in their midst are either tragic or heroic — until they are safely gone and what they have done in time can be attributed to someone else. Worse, he knows that the tragic hero’s existence is solitary and without the nourishing networks and affirmation of the peasant’s agrarian life.”
Chris may know this, but there is absolutely no evidence that Trump does. He has never shown even an awareness of sensitivity and self-knowledge, let alone the possession of either. Trump is at best semi-literate. The concept of tragedy—as expressed in the Greek tragedies to which Hanson refers throughout his article—means nothing to Trump.
Moreover, the Seven have risked their lives—and four of them have died doing so—on behalf of villagers who can pay them almost nothing.
It is inconceivable that Trump would risk anything—especially his life—for people he regarded as poor and thus unworthy of his concern.
In their first encounter with Calvera (Eli Wallach) the bandit chief offers to make the Seven partners in his ravaging of the village. Of his intended victims, Calvera sneers: “If God had not wanted them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.”
If Trump had heard Calvera’s offer, he would have instantly accepted it.
In June 2016, USA Today published an analysis of litigation involving Trump. Over the previous 30 years, Trump and his businesses had been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. Federal and state courts.
Of the 3,500 suits, Trump or one of his companies were plaintiffs in 1,900; defendants in 1,450; and bankruptcy, third party, or other in 150. Trump was named in at least 169 suits in federal court.
Many of those cases centered around his refusal to pay contractors for their finished work on his properties. Most of the contractors didn’t have the financial resources—as Trump had—to spend years in court trying to obtain the monies they were owed. As a result, they never received payment—or, at best, only a small portion of what they were owed.
When he ran for President in 2015-16, Trump repeatedly promised poor and middle-class Americans a far better plan for medical care than the Affordable Care Act.
He spent the next four years thuggishly trying to dismantle “Obanacare,” the signature achievement of Barack Obama, America’s first black President. But never did he offer even a general outline of his own alleged plan to “replace” it.
Hanson tries to draw a further parallel between Trump and the fictional Tom Doniphon, the unsung hero of John Ford’s 1962 movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Hanson sums up the movie thus:
“Tom Doniphon [John Wayne]…unheroically kills the thuggish Liberty Valance [Lee Marvin], births the [political] career of Ranse Stoddard [James Stewart] and his marriage to Doniphon’s girlfriend [Vera Miles] and thereby ensures civilization is Shinbone’s frontier future. His service done, he burns down his house and degenerates from feared rancher to alcoholic outcast.”
It is inconceivable that Trump would take the risk of committing a crime on behalf of someone else—or being able to resist bragging about it if he did. It is equally inconceivable that he would give up a woman he wanted for the happiness of another man.
Most unbelievable of all is the suggestion that Trump would imitate Doniphon by quietly riding off into the sunset.
Trump has often “joked” about becoming “President-for-Life.” After losing the November 3, 2020 Presidential election to former Vice President Joe Biden, he filed 60 lawsuits to overturn the will of 80 million voters. Those failing, he tried some old-fashioned but unsuccessful arm-twisting of several state lawmakers to “find” non-existent votes for him.
Finally, on January 6, 2021, he incited a mob of his fanatical followers to attack the United States Capitol Building. Their mission: Stop the counting of Electoral College ballots certain to give Biden the victory.
Victor Davis Hanson is a brilliant scholar and colorful writer. But his effort on Trump’s behalf is embarrassing and appalling.
In a series of bestselling books, he has eloquently chronicled the heroism of the ancient Greeks in defending their budding democracy.
It is depressing—and frightening—to discover that this same man can blatantly ignore the criminalities and even treason of the greatest and most destructive tyrant to ever attain the Presidency.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 16, 2026 at 12:05 am
Victor Davis Hanson has long been a distinguished historian and classicist at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
On April 12, 2018, the year before the publication of The Case for Trump, Hanson offered a preview of its upcoming contents in an article published in the well-known conservative magazine, National Review.
Its title: “Donald Trump, Tragic Hero.”
“The very idea that Donald Trump could, even in a perverse way, be heroic may appall half the country,” begins his first paragraph.
“Nonetheless, one way of understanding both Trump’s personal excesses and his accomplishments is that his not being traditionally presidential may have been valuable in bringing long-overdue changes in foreign and domestic policy.”
Donald Trump
Having laid out his thesis, Hanson writes: “Tragic heroes, as they have been portrayed from Sophocles’ plays (e.g., Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Philoctetes) to the modern western film, are not intrinsically noble.”
On the contrary: A true tragic figure is a noble character with a fatal flaw, which ultimately destroys him.
To cite one from literature: Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet believes that his father, the king of Denmark, has been murdered. He believes the murderer may be his uncle, Claudius, who has seized the throne. Hamlet is brilliant, athletic, supremely eloquent and conscientious. But he’s not completely certain that Claudius is guilty, and in his hesitation to strike he lays the seeds for his own destruction.
To cite one from history: British General Charles George Gordon, sent by the British government in 1884 to evacuate the Sudanese city of Khartoum. But instead of evacuating its citizens, he choses to stay and fight the oncoming army of Mohammed Achmed, an Islamic religious fanatic who called himself The Madhi (“The Expected One”).
Although Gordon’s dynamic leadership enables the city to hold out for almost a year, the British relief force arrives too late. The city is overwhelmed and Gordon himself killed.
Various theories have emerged to explain his motive: He was a religious fanatic; he had a death wish; he was arrogant to believe he could hold off an entire army. Any one or more of these theories could be correct.
Charles George Gordon
But the fact remains that for almost an entire year he kept alive about 30,000 men, women and children. It was only the failure of the British to send a relief army in time that allowed the city—and Gordon—to perish.
Tragic heroes always have a cause that is bigger than life—something that makes giving up life worthwhile. They always recognize this, and they have the ability to put into perspective the ultimate sacrifice—giving up life—for the good of something bigger.
Which brings us back to Trump. Besides being a five-times draft-dodger during the Vietnam war, he has never made an act of professional or personal sacrifice for anyone.
On the contrary: he has been forced to shut down both his Trump Foundation and unaccredited Trump University.
Trump was forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Foundation for political purposes.
And his university scammed its students, promising to teach them “the secrets of success” in the real estate industry—then delivering nothing. In 2016, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement with many of those students.
This is hardly the stuff of which tragic heroes are made.
Hanson cites several examples from famous Western movies to make his case that Trump deserves the status of a tragic hero.
One of these is the classic 1953 “Shane,” starring Alan Ladd as the soft-spoken gunfighter who intervenes decisively in a range war.
Writes Hanson:
“He alone possesses the violent skills necessary to free the homesteaders from the insidious threats of hired guns and murderous cattle barons. Yet by the time of his final resort to lethal violence, Shane has sacrificed all prior chances of reform and claims on reentering the civilized world of the stable ‘sodbuster’ community.”
Comparing Trump to Shane is unbelievably ludicrous. Shane doesn’t boast about his past—in fact, this remains a mystery throughout the movie. Trump constantly brags—about the money he’s made, the buildings he’s put up, the women he’s bedded, the enemies he’s crushed (or plans to).
Moreover, Shane takes the side of poor homesteaders at the mercy of a rich cattle baron, Rufus Ryker. Ryker tries to bully the homesteaders into leaving. When that fails, he hires a ruthless gunman named Jack Wilson (Jack Palance).
In the film’s climax, Shane kills Wilson, and then Ryker, in a barroom showdown. Then he rides off—much to the sadness of Joey (Brandon de Wilde), the homesteaders’ son he has befriended.
“There’s no living with a killing,” says Shane. “There’s no going back from one. Right or wrong, it’s a brand. And a brand sticks.”
And so he rides on, knowing that his gunfighter’s skills make him an outcast among those very homesteaders whose lives he’s saved.
If Trump appeared in the movie, it would be as Ryker, not Shane.
Shane empathizes with the plight of others. Ryker—like Trump—hires others to do his dirty work.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 15, 2026 at 12:10 am
“America needs the outsider Trump to do what normal politicians would not and could not do.”
That was the assertion made by Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California.
Among his bestsellers on military history:
- The Second World Wars
- Carnage and Culture
- Wars of the Ancient Greeks
- The Western Way of War
- The Soul of Battle: How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny
Victor Davis Hanson
In 2019, Hanson turned his attention to politics—specifically, The Case for Trump.
Its dust-jacket provides a useful summary of its contents:
“This New York Times bestselling Trump biography from a major American intellectual explains how a renegade businessman became one of the most successful—and necessary—presidents of all time.
“In The Case for Trump, award-winning historian and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson explains how a celebrity businessman with no political or military experience triumphed over sixteen well-qualified Republican rivals, a Democrat with a quarter-billion-dollar war chest, and a hostile media and Washington establishment to become president of the United States — and an extremely successful president.
“Trump alone saw a political opportunity in defending the working people of America’s interior whom the coastal elite of both parties had come to scorn, Hanson argues. And Trump alone had the instincts and energy to pursue this opening to victory, dismantle a corrupt old order, and bring long-overdue policy changes at home and abroad.”
Hanson’s book appeared before Trump:
- Tried to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joseph Biden, who was likely to be his Democratic opponent in the 2020 Presidential election.
- Allowed the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, killing more than 400,000 Americans by the time he left office.
- Attacked medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves from COVID-19.
- Ordered his Right-wing followers to defy states’ orders to citizens to stay-at-home and wear masks in public to halt surging COVID-19 rates.
- Became the first President in American history to refuse to accept the results of a Presidential election.
- Tried to overturn the November 3, 2020 election of Joe Biden through 60 lawsuits and the arm-twisting of several state lawmakers.
- Sent a mob of his fanatical followers to attack the United States Capitol Building. Their mission: Stop the counting of Electoral College ballots certain to give Biden the victory.
- Was twice impeached during his four years in office—the only President to be impeached twice (and acquitted by a Republican Senate which ignored his litany of crimes).
But his book appeared after Trump had:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for pursuing ties between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
- Tried to fire Independent Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who was assigned to investigate those ties after Trump fired Comey.
- Attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions for refusing to fire Mueller.
- Attacked the integrity of Federal judges whose rulings he disagreed with.
- Gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak highly classified CIA Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
- Amassed an infamous record as a serial liar, in both personal and Presidential matters.
- Attacked the integrity of the American Intelligence community.
- Sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election.
- Repeatedly attacked the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Branded America’s longtime ally, Canada, as “a national security threat.”
- Praised brutal Communist dictators Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
- Shut down the Federal Government for 35 days because Democrats refused to fund his ineffective “border wall” between the United States and Mexico.
- An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay. The shutdown ended due to public outrage—without Trump getting the funding amount he had demanded.
So much for Hanson’s claims that Trump had been “one of the most successful—and necessary—presidents of all time.”
Donald Trump
Then there’s Hanson’s claim that “Trump alone saw a political opportunity in defending the working people of America’s interior whom the coastal elite of both parties had come to scorn.”
In November, 2017, Trump and a Republican-dominated House and Senate rammed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 through Congress. It became law on December 22, 2017.
According to Chye-Ching Huang, Director of Federal Fiscal Policy, the law did nothing to help ordinary Americans.
Testifying before the House Budget Committee on February 27, 2019, Huang stated that the law:
- Ignored the stagnation of working-class wages and worsened inequality;
- Weakened revenues when the nation needed to raise more;
- Encouraged rampant tax avoidance and gaming that will undermine the integrity of the tax code;
- Left behind low- and moderate-income Americans—and in many ways hurt them.
For American corporations, however, the law was a godsend:
- Cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent;
- Shifting toward a territorial tax system, where multinational corporations’ foreign profits go largely untaxed;
- Benefitting overwhelmingly wealthy shareholders and highly paid executives.
This was hardly an attempt at “defending the working people of America’s interior.”
Trump never made another attempt to “reform” the tax laws.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 12, 2026 at 12:22 am
Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.
Republicans have turned “illegal alien” into a battle cry.
This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.
Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions.
Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.
Ohio has a “heartbeat” law making abortion a crime after a fetal heartbeat is determined—usually within the first six weeks.
For Ohio’s Republican legislators and governor, the “rights” of a fetus far outweigh those of an actual human being—even if she is a child.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, said on Fox News that the girl’s illegal alien rapist from Guatemala was the villain, not the fetal heartbeat law.
“The agenda is to allow people to come into America without having to come here legally. If you start pointing things out like this, it makes it a moral question. And that’s why the press doesn’t want to face up to the fact it’s a moral issue that people should not be allowed in America unless they come here legally.”
If she had been raped by a legal American citizen, the Ohio “fetal heartbeat” law would have still forced her to carry the fetus to term.
Democrats believe—or want to believe—that voters are creatures of rationality.
Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.
The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq.
The most immediate danger facing Democratic candidates: Their unwillingness to fight fire with fire.
Example 1: Republicans are organizing a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks, Hispanics and liberals.
Yet Democrats are not making any similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor did the Biden Justice Department indict those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.
Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 144 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.
By the end of the Biden administration, not one major Republican supporting such treason had been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned.
The single biggest reason for the Democrats loss in 2024 lay in the Biden administration’s toleration of Donald Trump’s continuing campaign of lies.
Trump continued to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true.
Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt. He was clearly preparing to run again for President in 2024.
An indictment for treason would cast a heavy—if not fatal—blow to that decision. At the very least, Trump would have been forced to mount a feverish—and expensive—defense.
And even many of his most fanatical supporters would have questioned the wisdom of voting for a man who might well become a Federal prison inmate.
In 2024, America stood at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler).
The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.
The 2024 Presidential election proved that history can repeat itself, albeit in different countries.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 11, 2026 at 12:14 am
There are many reasons why Democrats consistently lose elections.
A major one: Democrats believe that people can be better than they are—and, given the chance, want to become better than they are.
Republicans realize that most people like themselves as they are—and don’t want to change. At least, not in the altruistic ways Democrats envision.
If they want to change anything about themselves, it’s strictly at the materialistic level: More money, lower prices, more big-ticket toys.
Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA TODAY, summed up the popularity of the “Greed Appeal” to voters on the March 13, 2020 edition of “Washington Week in Review”:
Susan Page
“USA Today has conducted a poll about the economic concerns that are out there….And Congress—you’re seeing fear in this country about the economy.
“In fact, when we did this poll this week about how Americans’ lives have been affected by the Coronavirus, people expressed more concern about the economic and financial effect than they did about the health effect. And you know, that goes to why this matters so much to President Trump.
“How many voters have you talked to who said, you know, I don’t really like President Trump’s tweets, but I like what I see happening in my 401(k). And when they look at their 401(k) this week, it may not look quite as bright as it did before.”
Democrats expect people to rise above their worst selves and embrace a higher, altruistic cause—civil rights, abortion rights, healthcare for all.
Republicans look for those who are comfortable in their racism, their greed, their hatred for women. They don’t try to reform them—they encourage them in their racism, greed and misogyny.
This began long before Donald Trump became a Presidential candidate in 2016.
When Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for President in 1968, he pursued what was euphemistically termed “a Southern strategy.”
Ricard Nixon
In reality, this was aimed to exploit whites’ fear and hatred of blacks.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….
“‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
Lee Atwater
But blacks have by no means been the only targets—and victims—of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:
- Liberals
- Women
- Socialists
- Secularists
- Disabled
- Environmentalists
- Hispanics
- Gays
- Lesbians
And now transgenders.
Republicans are experts at inciting hatred—and reaping huge gains in power as a result.
There can be no better example of a politician who has played successfully on the hatred of American voters than Donald Trump. If Barack Obama was the 2008 candidate of “Hope and Change,” then Trump was the 2016 candidate of “Hate and Fear.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
- The New York Times
- President Barack Obama
- CNN
- Actress Meryl Streep
- The Washington Post
- Singer Neil Young
- Democrats
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Republicans
- Comedian John Oliver
- The State of New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.
Republicans know that most people instinctively feel comfortable with those who most resemble themselves. And they don’t seek out those who differ from themselves.
That’s why—in schools and prisons—whites sit mostly with whites, blacks sit mostly with blacks, and Hispanics sit mostly with Hispanics.
And if most Americans feel uncomfortable with fellow Americans who don’t resemble themselves, they are even more intolerant toward foreigners who don’t.
This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.
For these Americans, the Democrats’ “Kumbaya” message of love and tolerance falls on deaf ears. By contrast, Republicans’ cries of “Get rid of the illegal aliens!” ring loud and clear.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions.
Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 10, 2026 at 12:17 am
If you’re wondering why Democrats lost the Presidential election of November 5, 2024—you can stop wondering.
Here are the reasons. And they are the reasons why Democrats will likely lose the 2028 Presidential election as well.
Democrats believe that people can be better than they are—and, given the chance, want to become better than they are.
Republicans understand the darker sides of human nature far better than Democrats—and don’t hesitate to take full advantage of them.
Republicans realize that most people like themselves as they are—and don’t want to change. At least, not in the altruistic ways Democrats envision.
If they want to change anything about themselves, it’s strictly at the materialistic level: More money, lower prices, more big-ticket toys.
They may claim concern for others, but if given a choice between their pocketbook and a higher goal, most will vote for their pocketbook.
A first-rate example of this appeared on The PBS Newshour on July 15, 2022, during an exchange between conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for the Washington Post.
David Brooks (left) and Jonathan Capehart (right) on the PBS Newshour
Host William Brangham led off the exchange:
“I want to switch, Jonathan, to this issue of the continued fallout of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. And Democrats seem to believe that this could be one of the things that might give them at least some trace of a fighting chance in the midterms.
“And we saw we this week this sort of horrendous case of a young 10-year-old girl who had been raped. She got pregnant. She then had to leave her state [Ohio] and go to another state [Indiana] where abortion would still be allowed.
“And GOP officials tried to make hay of it. They doubted that that story really existed. The local [Attorney General] said, we’re going to go after the doctor that performed this.
“Do you think that—that issue and the extremity of the way that this is being handled will actually benefit Democrats?”
Capehart: “It should. The idea that we’re talking about violence against a child, and then being forced by the state to give birth to this child, going to another state so she can terminate that pregnancy, and then being persecuted and prosecuted by the state for doing that….
“We are in “Handmaid’s Tale” territory here. We are turning into Gilead. And if there are people out there who are upset by the Supreme Court decision, by what Republican legislators around the country in states and localities are doing to further restrictions and bans on abortion.
“I don’t know what else could push people to the polls more than not just being stripped of a constitutional right, but having your right to — right to freedom, right to privacy, right to liberty not just taken away, but local officials doing everything they can to ensure that you don’t have autonomy over your own body.
“If that doesn’t get people out to the polls, I don’t know what will.”
Brangham then turned to Brooks:
“I mean, David, this was an incredibly extreme case, in some ways crystallized the sharpness and the horribleness of this division in this country.
“Do you think it will redound to the Democrats’ benefit?”
Brooks: “A little, but, frankly, not much.
“Now, abortion rights defenders, they should pursue their cause with the passion that they’re bringing to it….
“But there’s just a giant gap between what a lot of Democrats want to talk about and what the whole rest of the country wants to talk about. And if you ask people, what’s the most important issues, progressives want to talk about abortion and guns.
“The entire rest of the country, independents, conservatives, unaffiliated people, they want talk about the economy. And, for them, the economy is way up here. Jobs are number one. Inflation is number two.
“And so why is Joe Biden at 33 percent approval in the latest Times poll? It’s the economy. Why in the same poll do half of Hispanics support the Republicans now? The economy. These are earthquake numbers for Democrats…..
“But if Democrats, if they’re not talking about economic policy every day, then they’re just not talking about the policy that is clearly ranking number one with a vast majority of voters.”
No Republican has appealed more directly to greed as a motivator than Donald Trump.
On August 23, 2018, Trump, as President, offered additional evidence that he’s “not like other people.” He did so by giving an unprecedented reason why he shouldn’t be impeached: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doubtless spoke for millions of Trump supporters when she said, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 4, 2026 at 12:10 am
Upon being sworn in as the nation’s 46th President on January 20, 2021, Joseph Biden faced the most important decision of his life.
On July 1, 2024, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court conferred almost unlimited criminal prosecution immunity to Presidents. This gave Biden the opportunity—and authority—to save, at least temporarily, the American republic.
Joseph Biden
Instead, he chose to go down in history as the man who presided over the end of the American republic.
To save it, he could have:
- Purged, through arrests and trials, almost the entire treason-conspiring Republican party, starting with Donald Trump, its Fuhrer-in-waiting.
- Done this officially, because the Court had ruled that he (and future Presidents) could only be prosecuted for unofficial acts.
- Done this while he still commanded the full resources of the military and Justice Department.
- Swept clean the Federal courts of all Right-wing, treason-supporting judges—such as Aileen Cannon, who had repeatedly thwarted efforts to try Trump for stealing and hiding almost 300 highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
- This would have included the six Right-wing Supreme Court Justices who have given future Presidents the legal authority to assassinate rivals, take bribes and/or foment coups.
If Biden had done this, he would have been damned as the first President since Abraham Lincoln to brutally crush political opposition.
But he would also have been hailed for having—at least temporarily—prevented a wholesale Right-wing takeover and dictatorship under Project 2025. Its’ goal: Replace existing federal civil service workers with tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers.
To preside over the end of the American republic, all Biden needed do was what he had done for the previous three years: Nothing.
Example #1: Only on November 18, 2022, did then-Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Special Counsel to investigate Trump’s attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election and become “President-for-Life.”
This was clearly treason—and Garland should have appointed Smith, at the latest, by mid-2021.
Merrick Garland
Example #2: Trump’s accomplices included 147 members of Congress who voted to invalidate the 2020 Electoral College vote count. A total of 139 served in the House of Representatives, and eight served in the Senate.
To date, not one of these accessories has even been indicted, let alone convicted, for treason.
Arguably, Biden’s worst appointment was Merrick Garland as Attorney General.
In 1961, when Robert F. Kennedy became Attorney General, he moved quickly and forcefully to wage war on America’s organized crime syndicates. Unprecedented numbers of mobsters found themselves facing vigorous FBI investigations, indictments and/or convictions.
By contrast, Garland’s timidity in prosecuting the crimes of Right-wing Republicans served as not only a national embarrassment but a mortal threat to national security.
On May 30, 2024, a Manhattan jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felonies for falsifying New York business records in 2016. He had done so to conceal his hush money payoff to porn “star” Stormy Daniels for his extramarital tryst with her.
Donald Trump
Even though the Biden administration had nothing to do with the case, Republicans immediately blamed the President—and demanded wholesale prosecutions of the Left.
Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk urged Republican prosecutors to get “creative” in bringing charges: “Indict the left, or lose America,” he said on X.
And Trump quickly issued his own calls for “vengeance”:
“Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state, think of it, the former secretary of state, but the president’s wife, into jail? Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing? But they want to do it,” Trump said in an interview on Newsmax.
“It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to. And it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”
Nor did Trump forget former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, who chaired the House 1/6 Committee investigating the Trump-inspired attack on Congress.
“ELIZABETH LYNNE CHENEY IS GUILTY OF TREASON,” Trump posted on his social media website Truth Social. “RETRUTH IF YOU WANT TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”
There could be absolutely no doubt that Trump would pursue “vengeance” against everyone who has ever opposed him if he was re-elected President.
There could also be no doubt that he would remain in office until he died as “President-for-Life.”
When Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, was close to death, he asked his doctor: “What act of my administration will be most severely condemned by future Americans?”
“Perhaps the removal of the bank deposits,” said the doctor—referring to Jackson’s withdrawal of U.S. Government monies from the first Bank of the United States.
“Oh, no,” said Jackson, his eyes blazing. “I can tell you. Posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any other act in my life!”
John C. Calhoun had once been Vice President under Jackson and later a United States Senator from South Carolina. His fiery, pro-slavery rhetoric and radical theories of “nullification” of Federal laws played a major role in bringing on the Civil War (1861-1865).
Like Jackson, Biden had a chance to prevent catastrophe. But through his own natural decency, he brought catastrophe to the country he loved.
Like Jackson, he will be simultaneously praised and damned by future generations of Americans.
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KING HENRY VIII MEETS WOULD-BE KING DONALD 1
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 17, 2026 at 12:10 amDonald Trump has never shown any interest in—let alone knowledge of—history. Yet he might well feel warmly towards an English king who took power 508 years before he did.
Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 and ruled as a tyrant until his death in 1547.
Trump came to the Presidency in 2017 and ruled as a tyrant until his electoral ouster in 2021. Then he was re-elected in 2024.
In his youth Henry was athletic, highly intelligent, and spoke French, Latin and Spanish. Highly religious, he immensely enjoyed hunting and tennis. His scholarly interests included writing books and music, and he was a lavish patron of the arts.
Henry VIII
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a B.S. in Economics. In 2015, his lawyer, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue Trump’s high school, colleges, and the College Board if they released Trump’s academic records.
At six-feet-two with a slim athletic build, fair complexion and prowess on the jousting and tennis courts, Henry was considered extremely handsome, and even referred to as an “Adonis.” But as he aged, he became obese and his health suffered.
As a young man, standing six-feet-three and with an athletic build, Trump was considered handsome and a ladies’ man. But he thought exercise a waste of energy, saying it depletes the body’s energy. By the time he ran for President. By 2015-16, he was grotesquely overweight, with orange skin and stood with a pronounced forward tilt.
Henry married six times—resulting in two divorces (Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves), two beheadings (Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard) and one death after childbirth (Jane Seymour). His last wife, Catherine Parr, outlived him.
Trump has been married three times—to Ivana Trump, Marla Maples and Melania Trump.
Parody of Donald Trump as Henry VIII
Both during and in-between marriages he bedded many other women—and boasted about it. His most infamous boast almost cost him the White House.
During a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood, Trump said: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Henry VIII ruled England for 36 years, made radical changes to the English Constitution, and ushered in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy.
Donald Trump has ruled the United States for five and a half years, put radical Right-wing Justices on the Supreme Court, and boasted that it would be great if the country had—like China—a “President-for-Life.”
To make that a reality, he refused to accept electoral defeat in 2020 and incited a violent attack on Congress to stop the count of Electoral College votes proving that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won.
Stormtrumpers attacking Capitol police
Henry was an intellectual, the first English king with a modern humanist education. He owned a large library, annotated many books and published one of his own.
Trump published 20 books under his name, but all were written by ghostwriters. This is confirmed by an analysis of his speech patterns—which puts him at a fourth-grade level, the lowest of the previous 15 Presidents.
Henry was ridiculed for his obesity and was subject to raging mood swings and paranoia.
Trump was ridiculed for his obesity, his slow reading of speeches and his obscene egotism: How smart he is, his wealth, his brilliance.
He spouted conspiracy theories:
It is estimated that Henry executed up to 57,000 people—members of the clergy, ordinary citizens and nobles who had taken part in uprisings and protests.
His victims fell into three categories: Heresy; Treason; and Denial of his Royal Supremacy as Head of the English Church.
Among the most prominent: Sir Thomas More, his former chancellor, and Thomas Cromwell, his chief minister.
Trump has not executed anyone so far, but he encouraged his legions of Right-wing supporters to attack those he considered enemies: The media, liberals, Hispanics, blacks, “uppity” women, Asians.
After he publicly invited the Proud Boys paramilitary group to “stand back and stand by,” its members conspired to kidnap and execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had resisted Trump’s demand to “open” the state during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Henry VIII is largely remembered today for his six wives, massive appetite for food, his bloated appearance and his murderous tyranny.
Donald Trump will be remembered as the first President who tried to violently remain in office despite losing a Presidential election, his two impeachments, and, to date, his being the only former President to be convicted for 34 felonies.
Englishmen believed the country would collapse without a male heir to the throne.
Americans believe the country will collapse if a President stands trial for his crimes.
England survived.
So will the United States.
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