Sunday Issues-April 20, 2025
Lies and recklessness
Three months into Trump’s second term as President seems like a good time to project what Donald Trump’s legacy will be. It won’t be a golden age or, as I heard one Trumper say, “The New Camelot.” (I wonder what RFK, Jr. would say about that). Instead, if Trump continues on his current path, it could be the start of America’s Dark Age.
It took Trump less than three months to end America’s world leadership role, start a global trade war, and end the rule of law in the United States. How did Trump accomplish this? One can say he adopted the Project 2025 playbook, but that is not credible. Trump doesn’t read much. TV is so much easier. I say he did it through recklessness and lying.
Donald Trump is spending today, Adolf Hitler’s birthday, in the White House, but his practice is to jet off to a golf course or sporting event every weekend. The President doesn’t take thick binders of policy papers with him anywhere. I also doubt that he discusses many policy decisions with his aides. He lets the aides decide what to do and do it. That is recklessness.
Trump is comfortable letting others run the government because he is preoccupied with enjoying the fruits of his return to the White House. When Trump won the Presidency, he won an unlimited expense account and control over government agencies to retaliate against his real and perceived enemies. He posts videos of deportees entering the now-infamous El Salvadoran prison on his social media site.
Trump is having a better time being President than he did from 2017 to 2021. When he took office in 2017, he wasn’t sure what the President could do and was frequently told by staff that he couldn’t do whatever he wanted. Those days are gone. If Donald Trump wants to gild the Oval Office with gold and pave over the Rose Garden, he now realizes, there is nobody to stop him.
Trump also now knows that he can lie with complete impunity and ignore court orders. Courts don’t have police forces and armies to enforce their rulings, and Trump knows that when he tells his followers that Article II of the Constitution allows him to deport suspected gang members with no due process, he is entitled to do so.
Thus, I say Trump is unbelievably reckless with America’s future and has adopted lying as his fig leaf.
The issue of the week is how long this can last. The answer is as long as people put up with it or until time catches up with Trump.
I have been reading the proliferating bookshelf of accounts of how Democrats close to President Biden knew he was in decline, but said and did nothing. Those accounts, to me, are sad. Had Biden’s aides and family forced him to face reality, I may be writing about President Harris today. But they didn’t.
Trump turns 79 this June and, reportedly, will enjoy a 15-mile-long military parade that day—the biggest and most spectacular in history. Hitler, Napoleon, Mussolini, and Idi Amin would be jealous.
I believe Trump is in severe mental decline—a combination of age and long-standing mental illness that includes narcissism and a complete absence of empathy or morals. That is why reading about what happened in the Biden White House is relevant to understanding what is happening today. Simply put, you must doubt how much Trump knows or understands about what his administration is doing to America, the world, democracy, and freedom. Please note that I am not a mental health professional, but I know a lunatic when I see one. I encourage you to judge for yourself.
How is President Trump doing in the polls?
The President posed this on his social media site this morning.
I recalled reading that Americans’ consumer confidence was down and that Trump suffered from “bad poll numbers.” I quickly found an article on a CNBC survey that seems to disagree with the President, finding, “Trump’s approval rating on the economy drops to the lowest of his presidential career.”
I wonder what the truth is.
That’s it for today.
Thank you for reading Sunday Issues. Have a good week. We live in dangerous times.
© Copyright 2025 John Dean, all rights reserved.
"I believe Trump is in severe mental decline—a combination of age and long-standing mental illness that includes narcissism and a complete absence of empathy or morals." I agree. He is unfit to be president. If the actions he's taken over the past three months, resulting in serious damage to the U.S. economy and an imminent constitutional crisis aren't enough evidence of that, I don't know what is.
“Simply put, you must doubt how much Trump knows or understands about what his administration is doing to America, the world, democracy, and freedom.”
I agree with you John, to some extent, about most of what you wrote. But the above, I think he DOES know and simply does not give a shit. Remember, the cruelty is the point. Project 2025 embodies that cruelty. And we all know Trump doesn’t read, but if it inflicts pain, he’s all for it.
I thought Trump had lost it long ago and on the campaign trail seemed completely demented with his talk of Hannibal Lechter and Arnold Palmer’s junk, etc.
This must be surreal for you, especially when you compare it to Watergate.