I woke up early this morning, earlier than I usually do. To be honest, I’m not sleeping well because my mind appears to be constantly on alert. There will be those who ask why, because I don’t live in the States. Why am I so invested in this fight? The short answer is that this is not just about the US; it is about the threat to economic stability and democracy worldwide, and this fight is not just to support my American friends but also, as a global citizen, to defend democracy across Europe and neighbouring nations.
I’m a big believer in tackling a threat at its source, because if it can be extinguished there, the world will be better protected from the cancer this regime is spreading everywhere it touches. I have children and grandchildren who are already facing the types of threats I never had growing up. In the UK, for the first time, the next generation is growing up worse off than their parents were at their age. This, despite economic growth and wealth that has exploded exponentially over the past half-century, and I don’t mind admitting, it keeps me awake at night.
You can call me a liberal bleeding heart, but I’m not ashamed to believe in a society where people earn a living wage for a hard day’s work. Where healthcare is a human right, and childcare, parental and paid family leave are a given. I already live in a society where all of the above is reality, though some would question whether the UK minimum wage is a living wage. Nobody can tell me that it’s not possible to live in a more equitable society. This is not about whether it’s possible; it’s about a choice made by those at the top to ensure it never happens.
I want to live in a society that celebrates diversity and ‘different’, one that offers a helping hand when times are tough and in moments of despair. Any government telling you that science, education and a free press are the enemy of the people can’t be trusted to represent anyone’s interests. Any government telling you that clean water, air, and environmental protections are woke is throwing future generations under the bus to simply fill their pockets.
Of course, to anyone paying attention, this is not news, but the tragedy is that far too many are not paying any attention at all. They spend far too much time consuming Trump narcotics programmed to deliver a never-ending hit of endless promises of wealth tomorrow that never arrive. This is a regime that rewards its supporters not with a better standard of living, but instead, creates a permissive environment to hate family members, friends and neighbours who don’t want to see their communities terrorised, or don’t agree with their racist and homophobic bigotry.
The only way this battle can be won is by slowing the drip, drip, drip of hate being dispensed into the ears of millions every day, for which social and legacy media have become the delivery mechanism of choice. Propaganda has become the single largest challenge of our generation, and sadly, we are losing the war. In the politics of this moment, who controls the narrative holds all the cards, and Trump has become an expert in dominating it, and there is little bout, Democrats have been totally ineffective in the messaging space.
We live in a world in which the rules of engagement have been established over centuries of learned experience. The system was unfortunately not built to withstand someone coming along and setting fire to everything that went into building a society in which the rule of law governs the way we live. Trump, aided and abetted by the wealthiest men on earth, is setting fire to the entire rules-based system, replacing it with dictat and proclamation designed to deliver social Darwinism.
At this stage of their hostile takeover, the US public is still in shock. Polls show they feel abandoned by a Democratic Party that just seems to have circled the wagons in an exercise of self-preservation. The administration’s sole focus in this moment is to establish Democrats as the enemy of the people in an attempt to make the case that they should not be an option on the ballot in November.
Since the start of Trump’s second term, the administration has spent a year stress-testing the system and using executive action to avoid being forced to declare martial law or invoke the Insurrection Act in order to achieve its objectives, all the while keeping these options on the table. It’s all been part of a plan to ensure a perpetual state of fear and anxiety, while flooding the zone with lies and misdirection. None of this is being done on the fly; it’s all been gamed out to maintain a state of trauma in which communities, particularly in Democratic states, live in fear for their safety.
The assault on Minnesota is designed to make residents feel that this is the price you pay for electing Democratic leaders. It’s pretty clear that the strategy will be extended to every blue state. The regime sees it as a win-win; if states capitulate, they win, if states resist, they open the door to fabricating the need for military intervention so they can make the official case to declare the Democratic Party a threat to national security. Believe me, this is exactly where this is going.
We need to stop calling ICE an immigration enforcement organisation, because it stopped being that a long time ago. It is a federal paramilitary organisation for the enforcement of ideology, not dissimilar to SAVAK, the secret police of the Imperial State of Iran. They are roaming the streets, masquerading as immigration enforcement officers, while detaining and brutalising people for just exercising their First Amendment rights.
It has now become acceptable to throw tear gas into the car of an innocent family with small children attempting to flee for their own safety, or grab a disabled autistic woman on her way to a doctor’s appointment and bundle her into an unmarked vehicle, or shoot a young man with a bullhorn in the eye because he’s exercising his right to free speech. What does that have to do with immigration enforcement? Let me answer that for you: NOTHING. It does, however, have everything to do with exerting power through fear, and that's why " Show your papers “ is coming to a town near you soon.
Hordes of untrained masked thugs, some of whom, it appears, struggle to even read and write, are terrorising neighbourhoods with impunity. Their only qualifications appear to be loyalty to a convicted felon and extortionist in the White House. The aim of the administration is the same as all lawless autocracies: to break the spirit and the will of the people. It’s difficult to comprehend because it’s outside the norms of a society governed by the rule of law. The law means nothing to these people. As reported yesterday by Michael R. Sisak and Larry Neumeister from AP: In the dead of night, while the American people were sleeping:
Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor said Friday that a judge lacks the authority to appoint a neutral expert to oversee the public release of documents in the sex trafficking probe of financier Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer was told in a letter signed by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton that he must reject a request this week by the congressional cosponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act to appoint a neutral expert.
Once you have reached a point where the Department of Justice is openly breaking the law, then using the justice system to prevent oversight of their own failed compliance, I respectfully suggest the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
The important thing not to lose sight of, is that Trump can’t afford to lose the midterm elections, because if he does and he loses bigly, he is likely to be impeached and removed from office. If this happens, it will open the floodgates for many of his senior cabinet figures to suffer the same fate. His reign of terror and ability to keep stuffing his pockets with cash will be over, and the administration will be placed on life support. If anyone thinks he’s just going to let that happen, they are insane.
How he decides to deal with the threat depends on just how bad it becomes for him in the months ahead, as the primary season unfolds. Even before that, polls clearly show that independent voters have all but abandoned him, and without them, he’s dead in the water. These voters are not cult members; they don’t live in the fantasy world he’s created for his loyalists. The fact that they are registered as independent means they don’t follow the crowd and are able engage in critical thinking. These voters are the gold in them there hills for 2026.
The regime is very vulnerable, as we will see in the coming months. According to the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, as of December 3, 2025, the total gross national debt stood at $38.40 trillion. This is a $2.23 trillion increase from 2024. The report notes:
Over the past year, the rate of increase averaged $6.12 billion per day, $255.04 million per hour, $4.25 million per minute, or $70,843.42 per second.
The increase in gross national debt over the past year amounts to $6,566.84 per person or $16,574.81 per household, while total gross national debt amounts to $112,881 per person or $284,914 per household.
If it helps more to visualise the out-of-control situation, take a look at the graph below:
Trump constantly bangs the drum about tariff revenues. In 2025, as a result of imposing an effective sales tax on American consumers and supply chain businesses masquerading as tariffs, the realised revenue totalled $287 billion. The cost of paying the interest on the national debt was $970 billion. Tariff revenue is only enough to cover 29.58% of the INTEREST on the national debt. Let’s also not forget that Trump has spent the tariff money over and over if we believe his false promises of dividend checks, farmer bailouts, not to mention $40 billion to his buddy in Argentina.
To make it fair, let’s better reflect the $97 billion collected in the last quarter. Let’s say a year of tariff revenue was $97 billion for each quarter; that would be $388 billion. It still doesn’t cover even half of the debt's interest. It would be easy to overload you with numbers, but some are important for providing context on the continued transfer of wealth to the top. This is all about economic distortion. If you look at government receipts, you will see they are up 6% on 2024, but that is largely due to tariff revenue, which was up 318%. As a reminder, this is an average 18% tax hike on Americans for imported goods.
Now, let’s look at the other side of the balance sheet and look at costs. As noted by the Bipartisan Policy Centre deficit tracker :
‘..corporate income taxes fell by $28 billion (-32%) relative to last December as H.R. 1 allowed corporations to take larger deductions for certain investments in their 2025 estimated tax filings.’
This goes to the very heart of the problem. The claim repeated over and over again is that America can’t afford to fund things like SNAP and critical social programs to help the vulnerable survive. Were it not for the rich emptying the US bank account again and again to pay for tax breaks and corporate welfare, while at the same time suggesting families can survive based on 1000 ‘simulations’ on $3 for a main meal, there would be no problem.
The point I’m trying to make here is that nothing adds up, but what do you expect when 54% of the population has a literacy level of 6th grade or below, while 21% are illiterate. Critical thinking is not on the radar of half the population, and that suits this administration just fine. Do not underestimate the vulnerability of this regime; they are, in my opinion, living on borrowed time. People should take heart from that as they fight this war. Never forget they govern by consent.
Excellent writing— thank you for your post. As an American, I am absolutely furious and disgusted with our situation here; the Republican Party has allowed this monstrosity to demolish anything he wants. I’m sick about it.
As a retired Elementary teacher this whole thing "scares the hell out of me". I don't remember signing up for this. And no, I didn't vote for rump EVER!