Trump, a legend in his own lunch break

We have now reached the stage where pity has overtaken admiration for America. Trump's backlot facade is now seen for what it is, a nation bleeding out from a self inflicted President.

Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

At every opportunity, Trump claims he has created the greatest economy on earth and that the US remains the global leader. While I would agree it leads the world in extortion, racketeering and moral decline, I think it is safe to say America has become a backlot facade in a made-for-media depiction of prosperity. There’s certainly little doubt it now has the honour of being a mere caricature of the global leader it once was.

Scrape away the surface of the shiny illusion of Trump’s ‘hottest country in the world’, and you reveal a hollowed-out, rotting carcass in geopolitical decline, emitting the stench of corruption and social abandonment, as social Darwinism eats at the soul of a once respected nation. It’s transforming into a land of the economic walking dead, infected with lies, broken promises, and false hope, in search of greed and self-enrichment for the chosen few.

I’ve said it many times: you can roll a turd in glitter, but there’s no hiding the smell when you examine it up close. You know politics is broken when a convicted criminal can be elected by just 34% of those eligible to vote. A country where 90 million people are so politically disengaged, they no longer want to participate in a former democracy that has delivered nothing for them. The US is no longer home to a two-party system; its two parties are owned by the same corporate interests, dressed in red and blue suits, while a silent majority feels excluded, abandoned and unrepresented.

For the largest voter demographic, trust in politics is at an all-time low. For the purpose of clarity, let’s spell it out: just 7% of Americans trust politicians, which pretty much puts them in the basement when it comes to trust.

In terms of trust in government, the picture is no better. In data from Pew Research Center, published in December 2025, they note:

Just 17% of Americans now say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (15%).

While trust in government has been low for decades, the current measure is one of the lowest in the nearly seven decades since the question was first asked by the National Election Study, and it is lower than it was last year (22%).

I think it is safe to say that trust is almost extinct in American politics, and that creates fertile ground for political and social division, making it a mountain to climb to repair the damage. This is made all the worse by the Supreme Court's ruling yesterday, further gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

As reported by Sam Levine in The Guardian yesterday:

The court’s decision is a major upheaval in US civil rights law and gives lawmakers permission to draw districting plans that weaken the influence of Black and other minority voters. Some states may even rush ahead to try to redraw districts ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

As stated in a dissent from Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Kagan states the ruling represents a “demolition of the Voting Rights Act”, adding:

“Under the court’s new view of section 2, a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote in a dissent that was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “The majority claims only to be ‘updat[ing]’ our section 2 law, as though through a few technical tweaks. In fact, those ‘updates’ eviscerate the law.

“Today’s decision renders section 2 all but a dead letter,” she continued. “The decision here is about Louisiana’s district 6. But so too it is about Louisiana’s district 2. And so too it is about the many other districts, particularly in the south, that in the last half-century have given minority citizens, and particularly African Americans, a meaningful political voice. After today, those districts exist only on sufferance, and probably not for long.”

This simply fuels an already out-of-control redistricting arms race that Democrats have no alternative but to respond to. It’s just further proof that Democracy is now a relic of better times, when government was by the people for the people. I know that many will assert it’s not been so for decades, since social Darwinism entered the bloodstream of US politics.

This is what makes political commentary in this moment so challenging. My aim is always to tackle the central issues and weave a narrative that helps join up the dots to create a bigger picture that makes more sense. Never has that been so difficult as it is now, simply because so much of the system is broken, it’s becoming ever more difficult to pick the relevant areas to focus on.

We have all been witnesses to an ever-deteriorating political and constitutional landscape in which the far right has unashameedly declared war on the truth and, with it, moral decency and political integrity. Normally, you would expect constitutional guardrails to protect its citizens from societal rape and pillaging. Alas, those guardrails have been cynically and deliberately removed, leaving the vulnerable to walk a tightrope with no safety net.

Image - Getty Images

It is, in some ways, ironic that the Founding Fathers did not build the US Constitution on a framework of pure democracy. What we have to remember, is that at the time, the framers were among ‘the elite’ of society. The reason the Constitution, much like the Bible, has been so helpful to those with nefarious intent, is that magic word ‘INTERPRETATION’. The US Constitution is a document ripe for manipulation by the modern-day elite because it was written by men at a time of ‘we know what’s best for those not blessed with privilege’.

Much as Democrats often interpret it as advocacy for Democracy, nothing could be further from the truth. There was, at the time, concern about what was described as the Fear of the tyranny of the majority. It’s evidence that the fear of pitchforks at dawn was never far from the minds of the ruling class. There was justifiable reason to assume that direct democracy would allow a majority to trample on the rights of the minority. In a literal sense, the instinctive thought is that in a modern-day context, this could be viewed as the progressive thinking of men ahead of their time, until you realise that THEY WERE the minority in this context.

To be fair, at the time, the concept of democracy was in its infancy, a representative republic, where elected officials made decisions, rather than a direct democracy, made perfect sense. It is also worth noting that political parties, as we know them, did not exist at the time. That, however, does not preclude the reality that political interests were in play.

The construct of the Constitution was intended to remove the opportunity for monarchical rule; its inbuilt protection of the elite has, however, proved a gift to those at the Heritage Foundation and its partners who have, over the years, carefully crafted legislation to bend and shape its words with the help of the Supreme Court, in order to favour an elitist Christian nationalist legislative agenda. An agenda where they are now, finally able to reimagine the Fear of tyranny of the majority in a racial context, to disenfranchise voters belonging to racial minorities.

How ironic that a Constitution that went out of its way to allegedly guarantee minority representation has once again been manipulated in the service of party political ideology. It has long been understood that Trump has little to no respect for the Constitution; for years, there has been talk of convening a Constitutional Convention to retrofit it with a MAGA-friendly bent. Just in case you thought irony had died, take two minutes to watch the clip below from just a year ago. The hypocrisy is breathtaking; you could almost imagine that this Republican advocacy for a Constitutional Convention was released by the Democrats, that's how messed up everything is right now.

The critical takeaway here is that this regime has long sought to reimagine the Constitution in its greed-obsessed image, and, due to a largely impotent opposition party, it has been emboldened to rupture government in a way that will, I believe, take a generation to repair, even if it’s possible. America is, in my view, totally unprepared for the regime’s upcoming war to be waged in the midterm elections. I recall listening, time and time again, to people saying Trump won’t be able to do this or that, only to find he appears to be able to do exactly as he likes.

Americans should be very mindful that the redistricting arms race, in which the Supreme Court has once again given Trump an opportunity to tip the scales in his favour, is just one of many measures he will use to retain power. Please learn the lessons of the past and don’t ask ‘How bad can it get?’ There will be no rules of engagement; he simply can’t afford to lose. The midterms look set to make 2020 look like a walk in the park, as he brings to bear all the levers of government, corruption and criminality, to avoid almost certain impeachment, which may subsequently lead to criminal prosecution.

I had hoped this would be the last part of this series of posts until the Supreme Court ruling was handed down yesterday, but I should be able to conclude my thoughts tomorrow by incorporating the reality of the potential economic nightmare ahead.

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