ANGELO LYNN

It’s difficult to grasp how much change Trump has wreaked on America in these past couple of weeks. Even for Americans who read the news carefully, so much happens so quickly that the far-too-common reaction by voters is to tune out the political noise and focus on their personal lives.

That’s understandable, but it’s a grave mistake.

Trump is causing real damage to the nation and Americans must find their voices soon if they are going preserve the nation’s democracy.

Already, political scholars have determined the nation is functioning more like an autocracy than a democracy. We have a president acting as a would-be king (and glorying in it), while defying laws, usurping Congressional powers, clamping down on the individual’s right to free speech and cracking down on our country’s free press.  Our Republican-led Congress has rolled over and relinquished a central part of the Constitution’s built-in check on authoritarian power. The courts have been slow to react to dismantling of the nation’s government agencies and replacing them with political appointees afraid to speak out against the administration (one of the first steps dictators make when seizing power). Allowing this all to happen is a right-wing, media landscape — led and given cover by Fox News, but now supplemented by Elon Musk’s X and Trump’s own social media company, Truth Social, that lavishes his most ardent fans with propaganda so over-the-top it would make the Kremlin blush. That core group of supporters, plus a public overwhelmed by the chaos of Trump’s first seven weeks in office continue to support some of what the president is doing while being thrown off-balance by Trump’s two most profound political shifts — the threat to our own democracy and to supporting Russian dictator Vladimir Putin while turning our backs on Ukrainian and our European allies.

To say America’s democracy is under threat is no idle comment, and the long-term damage being done to America’s international status is far more serious than the public currently understands. In short, it’s a critical time to be engaged, not to tune out.

Here’s David French, a long-time political analyst who writes for the New York Times: “President Trump is doing damage to America than could take a generation or more to repair. The next election cannot fix what Trump is breaking. Neither can the one after that.” French explains that while Democrats and Republicans have always had sharp differences on how to combat the Soviet Union, and later Russia, during and after the Cold War, they never disagreed on the big picture: that the Soviet Union was “a grave national security threat” and that both parties agreed “to a policy of containment to keep Soviet tyranny at bay.”

At no point, he continued, did Americans go to the polls and choose between a candidate committed to NATO and another candidate sympathetic to a ruthless Russian dictator.

Until now. With Trump’s and Vice President Vance’s premeditated attack on Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, French continues, “Trump has taught our most important strategic partners a lesson they will not soon forget: America can — and will — change sides. Its voters may indeed choose a leader who will abandon our traditional alliances and actively support one of the world’s most dangerous and oppressive regimes.”

“Even if Democrats sweep the midterms in 2026 and defeat the Republican candidate in 2028, that lesson will still hold. Our allies will know that our alliances are only as stable as the next presidential election — and that promises are only good for one term (at most). It’s extraordinarily difficult to build a sustainable defense strategy under those circumstances. It’s impossible to enact sustainable trade policies. And it’s impossible to conduct any form of lasting diplomacy. If agreements are subject to immediate revocation with the advent of a new administration, will any sensible world power rely on America’s word — or America itself? The same principle applies at home. … A nation cannot effectively serve its people if it is gutting and rebuilding the civil service every four years.”

Trump is also wreaking havoc on the nation’s economy.

His tariffs have launched a trade war that is threatening growth world-wide. The conservative Wall Street Journal recently quoted a senior official at the International Chamber of Commerce who said the “world economy could face a crash similar to the Great Depression of the 1930s unless the U.S. rows back on its plans to impose steep tariffs on imports.”

Contrary to Trump’s empty boasts that the economy will thrive under his leadership, Fortune Magazine reported last week “the economy is headed for a 1.5% contraction in the first quarter … that marks a sharp reversal from the fourth quarter 2024 (under President Biden), when GDP expanded by 2.3%.”

In just a few weeks, Trump’s actions have reversed the strong economy he inherited, and prospects now include a likely recession if the trade war continues, while stock prices and retirement portfolios plummet.

It could get worse. The Times warns that if Trump’s misguided America-first policy “ditches the global trading system and a world economic order that once revolved around a U.S. economy that prized open investment and free markets,” Trump is effectively encouraging “more countries to deepen economic ties with China… (Furthermore) Mr. Trump’s plans to back away from investments in clean energy and electric vehicles could ultimately benefit the world’s second-largest economy.” In short, the likely outcome is the U.S. get weaker and China gets stronger.

As for Trump’s whacky tariffs, conservative columnist Brett Stephens wrote on March 11, “Thirteen successive presidents all but vowed never to repeat those mistakes (of the 1930 tariffs and other isolationist measures that turned a global economic crisis into a second world war.) Until Donald Trump. Until him, no U.S. president has been so ignorant of the lessons of history. Until him, no U.S. president has been so incompetent in putting his own ideas into practice.”

Stephens predicted that Trump’s trade war won’t end well for the U.S, then argues that the rest of Trump’s agenda — the DOGE purges, threats to our allies, threats to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland by force, the outreach to Germany’s far-right anti-American parties, Trump’s shameful walking away from NATO and Ukraine, and his embrace of Putin — won’t end well either.

“What team Trump has achieved is exactly the opposite (of what it wanted): A Russia that sees even less reason to settle, a Europe that sees more reason to go its own way, a China that believes America will eventually fold and a once-again betrayed Ukraine that will have even less reason to trust international guarantees of its security….

“Trump’s critics are always quick to see the sinister side of his actions and declarations. An even greater danger may lie in the shambolic nature of his policymaking. Democracy may die in darkness. It may die in despotism. Under Trump, it’s just as liable to die in dumbness.”

Forget shock and awe; what we’re watching is the real-life version of dumb and dumber.

Americans’ best hope is to convince Republicans in Congress they’ll lose their seats in 2026 if they don’t stop the train wreck now. Americans need to find their voices, in frequent demonstrations and rallies, to make that happen.

Angelo Lynn