Graham Platner's accusers never gave interviews under oath with risk of perjury but the Maine Democrat was subjected to well funded opposition research

All The Women They Didn't Believe (In all honesty, women who testified under oath about Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Thomas were also not believed.)

A Graham Platner Fiasco Post-mortem

Maine's Democratic Party is responsible for this political mess but the Republicans set the stage with well funded oppositional research.

“The vetting firm, which was paid 💲6,250, according to federal disclosures, followed up days later with additional limited vetting. They didn’t do a candidate interview or questionnaire.

On June 10, Platner won the Maine Democratic primary with more than 70 percent of the vote.  (Maine Writer- A massive grass roots social media campaign pushed Mr. Platner to an overwhelming margin of victory in the Maine Democratic primary, even though the vetted candidate Governor Janel Mills kept her name on the ballot even after stepping down from the primary. His margin of victory was astonishing to Republicans.  Opposition research leaped in and took over all the campaign messaging.  Instead of the focus being on the terrible Senator Susan Colllins voting record, the story because an AI generated negative campaign against Mr. Platner. The amount of dark money poured into destroying Mr. Platner will never be known.)

Charlie Sykes Jul 8.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the war in Iran seems to be back on, at least for the moment. 

Taking a break from berating and alienating our NATO allies, and fantasizing about Greenland, Donald Trump suggested that the peace “deal” is “over” as the two countries unleashed a new wave of strikes on Tuesday. "They're scum. They're ​sick people. They're led by sick people," Trump said of the mullahs he was praising just days ago.

(IOW Trump is batshit 💩crazy)

 "As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them." Oil prices surged and we’re just learning that the Pentagon is running out of money.

Lessons from Maine's Graham Platner Fiasco

As we wait for Graham Platner to drop out of the Maine Senate race (TBD whether it be timely, gracious, or bitter)¹ it seems worthwhile to take a moment to sift through the wreckage. You undoubtedly know the arc of the narrative so far: Frustrated with the sclerotic “establishment” and their desire for a beer-track, working class “fighter,” Democrats embraced Platner’s image before they got to know the man himself. (Maine Writer:  Democrats in Maine are so anxious to remove Senator Susan Collins, we were willing to back her polar opposite to defeat her.  Platner had a clear path to achieve this goal but the Maine Democratic Party did not provide for a thorough vetting.) 

That deafening roar you hear now is the collective mea culpas of the punditocracy and political class fiercely back-pedaling from their rationalizations and defenses of the candidate who now faces credible allegations of sexual abuse and rape.

So, an autopsy of this clusterfuq seems in order, don’t you think?

How did Democrats find themselves embracing such a flawed candidate❓ Why were so many red flags missed or ignored❓ And how did a party that often declared we should “believe the women,” decide to ignore so many of them❓

How did this go so terribly wrong? Let us count the ways.

The “consultants” who recruited Platner without vetting him. (See: “The ‘Mad Scientist’ Behind Graham Platner’s Scandal-Plagued Rise” - WSJ / And for your daily dose of cringe: “The Strategist Behind Platner’s Rise Explains His Vetting Process.”

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are supporting maniac threats to destroy an entire Iranian civilization

Echo essay in The New Yorker magazine: In his April 2026 reporting, David Remnick frames the second term of Donald Trump as a profound global threat, characterizing the administration's actions as a "strategic failure and moral calamity". Remnick's analysis focuses on the degradation of democratic norms and international stability.

#ImpeachTrumpNOW❗

Trump’s Strategic and Moral Failure in Iran

From the first day of his failed administration beginning in 2016 and continuing the second term in 2024, Trump has posed an emergency to both his country and the world. April 10, 2026

Not many years ago, a ruthless man with an uneasy mind took power in his country and created a cult of personality. 

In the center of the capital, he erected a gold statue of himself that rotated with the sun. He stashed billions in a foreign bank. He closed the academy of sciences, the ballet, the philharmonic, the circus, and all provincial libraries. His autobiography became the nation’s spiritual guide. He banned dogs from the capital for their “unappealing odor.” He renamed the months: January for himself, April for his mother. He was fond of melons. The second Sunday of August became National Melon Day. Such was the world of Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s leader from 1985, until his death in 2006, by cardiac arrest. 

For the Turkmen people, there was nothing comical about life under his dictatorship. He barred dissent and packed his jails with prisoners of conscience. The only consolation was that he could not impose his grandiosity on the globe.

Donald Trump, by contrast, has, from the first day of his administration, posed an emergency to both our country and the world, even as he has ceaselessly invoked the language of “emergency” to inflate threats, suspend norms, and expand his own power. A decade ago, he was already making statements that flouted the ordinary standards of adult behavior. When it came to North Korea, for example, he alternated between cooing words of affection for Kim Jong Un and issuing taunts that mixed nuclear brinkmanship with masculine insecurity: “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

Trump embodies the notion that, with age, you become what you always were, only more so. In the final days of the 2024, campaign, he met with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. When asked whether he would deploy the U.S. military if China, under Xi Jinping, were to blockade Taiwan, Trump replied, “I wouldn’t have to, because he respects me, and he knows I’m fucking crazy.”

The MAGA coalition has long countenanced Trump’s bigotry and cruelty. But now, with the repeated violations of an America First foreign policy, his poll numbers have plummeted. 

Since returning to office, Trump has ordered military strikes on Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and Iran, and has felt little need to provide a coherent rationale for any of them. According to reporting by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, of the Times, Trump and his national-security advisers gathered in the Situation Room on February 11th to listen to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, argue for a coördinated attack on Iran. 

Even though the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, made their reservations plain—Rubio called Netanyahu’s talk of regime change “bullshit”—Trump blundered ahead. And, as in the days of the Turkmen dictator, everyone fell into line.

But when the Iranian regime failed to collapse or capitulate, when Netanyahu’s prediction of a national uprising failed to materialize, Trump turned to threats of war crimes and genocide against the very people he claimed to be helping liberate:

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?

These were not the words of a strategist. They were the words of a maniac. And they had a galvanizing effect, though hardly in the way Trump might have intended. Some of his erstwhile acolytes—Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones—seem to have woken up to how dangerous he has always been. Yet around the Cabinet table, at Mar-a-Lago, and in the Republican caucus on Capitol Hill, it is gospel that his deranged threats forced a ceasefire and scored a major victory. The President’s war, though, seems poised to achieve little that was not already available through prewar diplomacy, or through some renewed version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or J.C.P.O.A., the Iran nuclear deal secured by the Obama Administration.

In fact, the original sin of this disaster was Trump’s 2018, abandonment of that deal. 

For all its limits, it had stalled Iran’s march toward an atomic weapon. But Netanyahu, long eager for a full-scale war against Iran—aimed not only at its nuclear program but at its proxies, such as Hezbollah—shrewdly played on Trump’s vanity and his contempt for Barack Obama. Trump destroyed the J.C.P.O.A. with nothing to replace it.

So the war stands as a strategic failure and a moral calamity. The ceasefire is already fragile. “The whole point of this exercise was supposedly to advance the cause of freedom in Iran,” Karim Sadjadpour, a Washington-based specialist on the country, said. “To go from ‘help is on the way’ to ‘we are going to wipe out your civilization’ is strategic malpractice.” According to Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran expert who formerly worked in Israeli intelligence, Trump’s principal envoys to the region, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, almost certainly misread Iran’s capabilities and intentions. “This is a colossal disaster and should never have happened,” Citrinowicz said, noting that it will “haunt the region and world for many years to come.”

In the opening days of the war, the United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and wiped out much of Iran’s defense and intelligence leadership, apparently believing that the regime would somehow give way to “moderates” and “pragmatists.” Instead, the theocracy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remain in place, equally radical, equally repressive, and more determined than ever to acquire the ultimate deterrent: a nuclear weapon. Why give up that pursuit, as Libya did, and leave yourself exposed, when you can, like North Korea, achieve it and deter attack?

Trump has gone far toward shattering what’s left of America’s global stature. His preposterous bluster about Greenland, Cuba, and NATO has undermined the postwar alliance. He has humiliated and betrayed the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky. And all the while Vladimir Putin, who aims to press Ukraine for still more territory, and Xi Jinping, who keeps Taiwan in view, watch the spectacle of Donald Trump for what it reveals about both his instability and the cratering credibility of American leadership.

In the midst of the war, Trump released plans for his presidential library. Its centerpiece will be an auditorium with an immense gold statue of himself. Whether it will turn with the sun 💥🤢 is not yet known. 

Published in the print edition of the April 20, 2026, issue, with the headline “Global Threat.”

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are in denial: Trump's mental decline and petty obsessions are not normal

An echo opinion published in the Baltimore Sun by Bobby Zirkin:

Can someone in the White House who knows how to read please recite this following opinion to Donald Trump❓

White House CRIES After Trump's Nobel Peace Prize Nightmare Comes True

It gives me no pleasure at all to say that this last week (January 2026) in the White House has been an unmitigated disaster for Trump. 

My wife and I are currently re-watching “The West Wing” (one of the greatest shows ever), and it was hard not to think that Donald Trump could use a Josh Lyman, Toby Ziegler or Sam Seaborn this week. This truly was, paraphrasing the 2014, Steve Carell film, a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week for the Donald Trump.

Let’s start with the Nobel Peace Prize, of all things❗ 

Whether Trump deserves to win it or not is — well — who really cares❓ Donald Trump definitely has more pressing things to worry about than this, because he’s — you know — supposed to be the president. Whether someone gives him an award or not is kind of a minuscule thing. Just out of curiosity, I researched who has won the prize over the years and found some doozies. Here is one. Yasser Arafat won despite being an international terrorist. And there are countless deserving individuals who never won, so I will highlight one to make the point. Winston Churchill never won the award despite essentially saving Europe and the world from Adolf Hitler. Pretty sure Churchill never gave speeches whining that he didn’t get the award. Not that this isn’t a great trophy for someone, but receiving the prize shouldn’t be something on Donald Trump's deteriorating mind, deserving or not. (Maine Writer: Somebody must tell Donald Trump that his obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize is not normal❗)

María Machado offered to give Trump her peace prize for her work promoting democracy in Venezuela (and, unbelievable, he actually took it). He took someone else’s Nobel Peace Prize. 

To cap the week, Donald Trump sent a text to the Norwegian prime minister that read, “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace.” 

So, let’s be clear. This is not OK, whatever your political persuasion. When Donald Trump throws a tantrum over not receiving a trophy, it doesn’t look great. And it obviously shouldn’t impact public policy.

Next, Greenland. Greenland❓ Donald Trump is demanding that the United States own Greenland. The stated rationale is for national security, but that’s not a serious argument. The United States can do anything militarily in Greenland, including placing troops and building bases, under an already-existing treaty with the owner, Denmark. The president has said we will own Greenland “one way or the other,” which seems like a threat. To Denmark. Our close ally. Our fellow member of NATO. Over Greenland. Get the picture❓ This obsession is threatening the transatlantic alliance and is a gift to adversaries in Moscow and Beijing. They are publicly rejoicing at the rift, and it lends credibility to the ridiculous rationale used by Russia to invade Ukraine and the one floated by China related to Taiwan. Over Greenland! Cooler heads in the administration need to pull back from the abyss. By all means, beef up military presence there, but again, we can already do that. The fear is that the damage will last long past this insanity.

Next, there is Iran. This is a bit more complex, and I am holding out hope that we will do the right thing. 

The use of B-2 bombers in June to target nuclear facilities was the absolute right thing to do. Can you imagine nuclear weapons in the hands of the religious fanatics who chant “Death to America” like it’s a pop song on the Top 40❓ (Maine Writer: But, wait❗ Was the mission all bravado❓ because there is no definitive proof about the targeted site being completely destroyed.) 

But declaring the conflict over and the onset of peace the day after was, frankly, premature. In these last weeks, the world witnessed the full depravity of the Iranian regime as they mowed down their own people in the streets (perhaps as many as 20,000 murdered) just for demanding freedom. Donald Trump deserves credit for being vocally supportive of the protesters while many on the left and in the mainstream media disappeared from their increasing momentum with peaceful marches and protests. 

Donald Trump went further, posting on social media that Iranians should continue to protest, that help was on the way, and that the Iranian regime would pay the price for killing its own citizens. Iranians protested, no help came and the regime murdered thousands with no repercussions. One hopes that the administration is just biding time, but for now, we have done nothing. Regime change was within reach in June, and it is within reach now. A world without those responsible for exporting international terrorism would be a game-changer, and the Iranian people need our help.

Guess what❓ That was just one week. Obviously, the administration needs to get its act together. The world needs America’s steady leadership, and this has been anything but. I am rooting for them to get this straightened out and to succeed. Don Bacon, a Republican congressman from Nebraska, called the president’s ramblings this week “very embarrassing conduct,” and he is right. I have spent considerable time defending some of this administration’s policies, but this week is inexplicable. In the movie “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” they eventually got it together, and all was well in the end. Here’s hoping.

Bobby Zirkin is a columnist at The Baltimore Sun.  He represented Baltimore County in the General Assemby for 21 years as a Democratic state senator and delegate. He can be reached at bz@zandslaw.com.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans lack honor and cannot be trusted - Impeach Trump Now Senator Susan Collins alert!

Echo opinion letters published in the Los Angeles Times:

To the editor: (“Trump isn’t interested in being honorable — he’d rather be feared,” January 13).

Echo Los Angeles Times opinion letter

Jeffrey Goldberg's writings, particularly in The Atlantic, often criticize Donald Trump for lacking honor, focusing on ethical lapses, questionable actions, and disrespect for democratic norms, notably highlighted by his reporting on officials mishandling sensitive military info in a Signal group chat, which revealed a concerning disregard for security and accountability, despite intense pushback from Trump and his allies

Goldberg writes eloquently about the near-total absence of honor in the Trump administration’s actions, particularly in the area of foreign relations. Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland as well as his threats to the governments of Cuba, Colombia and other Latin American countries are totally lacking in honor. This is a sad time for the United States.

I am reminded of the motto of Hollywood High School (class of ‘59): “Seek honor through service.” This is a maxim that I have carried throughout my life. I think that it is certainly one to which Goldberg would subscribe. It is definitely not one to which the current evil Donald Trump administration will support.

From Richard Seligman, in Simi Valley

Echo To the editor: I began crying this morning when I read Jeffrey Goldberg’s most recent column. Goldberg’s point is that Trump associates power with respect, but that type of respect has dirty underpinnings. It is about crushing the lives of others, all for your own material advancement. How is Trump any different from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has attacked Ukraine for years now❓ Seemingly nothing will stop either leader.

So why did I cry❓ The idea of attacking Greenland hits at the debasement of human value and at the loss of regard for the sovereignty of other nations. People become bugs to be swept away. The drive for access to money sources blinds all. I feel shame. 

I feel pain for those who are losing their ability to live their lives with true respect.

We have curdled our humanity and corrupted our morality. That makes me weep.😰 (Senator Susan Collins alert❗- Where is she❓*)

From Gwen Rigby, in Santa Barbara, California

#ImpeachTrumpNow

#SenatorSusanCollins (Maine's Senator in exile) ❗

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must stop illegal invasions and making threats against sovereign countries!

Echo opinion published in the Baltimore Sun:

Understandably, Americans are more concerned with their job security and the challenging ability to meet weekly expenses than they are about international issues. (Maine Writer opinion, although Trump will use our tax money like his own personal checkbook because the Supreme Court said he can do and get away with anything❗)

But, what Donald Trump is doing on the international stage is so crazy and so dangerous that it demands our attention (“Trump meets with oil executives at the White House on Friday, seeking investments in Venezuela,” Jan. 9).

Trump argues that the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela was merely the arrest of an indicted criminal. Whether that authorizes him to bomb a foreign country and forcibly change that country’s leadership without authorization from Congress is highly questionable. In defending Trump’s action, Sen. Lindsey Graham compares the arrest of Maduro to the arrest of the leader of Panama, Manuel Noriega, in 1990. But, we did not thereafter intend to “run” Panama like Trump stated we intend to run Venezuela. That Maduro is a cruel dictator is clear; that Trump intends more than just his arrest (such as taking Venezuelan oil) is equally clear. That explains why the Senate, with the votes of five Republicans, just moved forward a bill to restrict the president from taking further military action against Venezuela.

Moreover, what this administration is saying about Greenland is even crazier. The White House made clear it does not reject the possibility of using military force to take over an autonomous territory belonging to our NATO ally Denmark. I don’t think even Trump would suggest that the prime minister of Denmark is a narco terrorist, a term he has used for Maduro. Take a step back for a moment and reflect on the fact that the president of the United States is not ruling out the use of force against a NATO ally for no apparent reason other than a claim that it would help American security to possess Greenland.

Aside from how just plain wrong this is, consider how China could use Trump’s rationale for the use of force and continued occupation of Venezuela and Greenland with regard to actions it might take against Taiwan or anywhere else where its national security could be enhanced by taking over parts of another country. Surely, we lose the moral authority to scold Russia for its brutal attack on Ukraine.

At this point, I don’t care about the hypocrisy and inconsistency Trump demonstrates daily (you’ll remember during his campaign how he warned against foreign interventions), but at some point, enough has to be enough.

From Steven P. Grossman, in Baltimore, Maryland

Donald Trump and maga Republicans causing Americans stress creating a culture of carnage- Impeach Trump Again!

 Letter to the editor of TribLive: Trump's carnage

Just where is America headed❓

Impeach Trump AGAIN!

DOGE hollows out government, Medicaid. Aid for food and medicine is slashed and FEMA’s (emergency management) future effectiveness is questioned.

Masked ICE agents arrest migrants, targeting Latinos, who are denied due process while others are raided and shackled.

The National Guard patrols in Washington D.C., with Donald Trump planning the same (illegal terror❗💥) for other cities.

Trump’s tariff war has created friction and raised prices on imported goods, making everything less affordable while the rich get huge tax cuts.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) chaos sows confusion over covid-19, immunizations and Tylenol, as pseudoscience takes over.

Ukraine, hammered by Russia, sees Trump being played by Vladimir Putin, while Trump’s promised end is nowhere in sight.

Starvation haunts Gaza; we see emaciated children while we continue supplying Israel with weapons — making us also culpable.

The Epstein saga continues while Trump seems to be attempting to distract us from who really visited Jeffery Epstein’s brothels.

While Trump enriches himself in office (aka "delusional"), he fantasizes over Greenland, Canada and making Gaza a seaside resort, initiates vindictive political retribution by directing government to target his enemies, orders election meddling through state gerrymandering, uses hateful speech to demonize his opposition, and assaults our rights of free speech and press.

This is Trump’s “American Carnage”, where disorder, confusion and disarray abound.

From Ron Slabe in Oakmont, a borough in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump list of failed accomplishments in just 100 days has dismantled democracy as we know it

Echo opinion letter published in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, a Montana newspaper:

OK, 100 days into the horror of the Trumpzi administration so, let’s take a look at some numbers for Trump’s “accomplishments,” shall we?
• 39% approval rating – lowest of any new president ... ever.$6,400 expected increase in new car prices (tariffs).
• 60% rise in egg prices.
• $5.9B expected losses (annually!) in soybean farmers’ sales (tariffs)❗

• $81.65 billion in first-term farm bailouts. This will be worse!
• 200 “trade deals” he claims he has made- without any proof.
• Zero trade deals actually confirmed by any evidence.
• Zero plans to actually lower grocery prices.
• 121,000 fired dedicated federal workers – including 70,000 VA employees.
• $500B of lost tax revenue due to fired IRS workers, especially those who were working on the richest tax cheats (imagine that, huh!).

• $500 million funneled into Trump’s pockets from crypto schemes (Forbes). 24 days spent golfing (25% of his first 100 days!) costing the taxpayers $26 million.

• $6 billion cut from NIH medical research grants for cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc.

• $12 billion cut from state health services.
• $90 billion loss in tourism this year (Goldman Sachs estimate). Montana expected to be the No. 1 biggest loser.
• At least 288 people trafficked to El Salvador without due process, in defiance of court orders (and the Constitution!).
• 1,600 pardons for violent January 6th criminals, plus convicted fraudsters (hey, birds of a feather, right?).
• 21 Faux News personalities and six billionaires in his administration.
• 293 times Trump has with cruelty complained about Joe Biden (more than times a day!).
• Four threatened annexations of other countries: Greenland, Gaza, Panama, and ... Canada?!
• One commercial for Tesla on the White House lawn.

Well done, Trump MAGA cult Republican voters! 

Are you “tired of winning” yet❓ 

Enjoy your increased prices on pretty much everything, income losses, and maybe even your farms and tourism businesses.

Unfortunately, the rest of us will also suffer for your voting folly.

From Kevin Crawford in Bozeman, Montana

Donald Trump intends to violate the constition he said he would protect and absolutley intends to create sedition

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Thomas Friedman:

Late-night comedians have had a field day with Donald Trump’s musings about his administration possibly seizing Greenland and the Panama Canal. Hahahahahaha! Oh, that Trump — such a funny guy — you never know what will come out of his mouth next.  (NOT❗)

Pay no attention. You know him, he’ll just say something else outrageous tomorrow!

Well, I’ll tell you who I am certain is paying attention: President Xi Jinping of China. If the U.S. president can decide that he wants to seize Greenland and explicitly refuses to rule out the use of force to do so, that is like a giant permission slip for China to seize Taiwan, which has strong emotional, historical, linguistic and national connections to mainland China.

Trump lies continue

It took only a few days after Trump’s remarks for this joke to start circulating among China specialists:

Question: “What does Xi Jinping feel when Trump starts talking about taking Greenland and the Panama Canal?”

Answer: “Hungry” — for Taiwan.

Trump’s remarks are reckless stupidity beyond belief. Imagine what happens when his choice for ambassador to Beijing, David Perdue, takes up his post and, in response to some aggressive act by China toward Taiwan, goes to the Chinese Foreign Ministry to lodge a protest. What will the ministry say?

Presumably something like: “You come in here to protest our actions to reunite with Taiwan when your president is threatening to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal by force? We believe Taiwan is an integral part of China — a belief that while you do not share it, you acknowledged in the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué. What is your connection to Greenland? The fact that Donald Trump Jr. went there on vacation once? Tell your president that China and Russia have as much a claim to Greenland as America does.’’

Vladimir Putin is surely thinking the same thing. How does America get off telling him that by invading Ukraine he has violated international laws and norms by seizing the territory of another nation, while Trump muses about seizing Greenland and forcibly reimposing U.S. sovereignty over the Panama Canal? Ukraine’s territory was once part of Mother Russia, as was Crimea, which Putin has already fully taken back.

No wonder Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told CNBC on Thursday that Russia is “watching the rhetoric on these topics coming out of Washington with great interest.”

Some may think Trump’s remarks on taking Greenland and the Panama Canal are just a joke from an attention-seeking leader with no filter. But, they are not a joke. They are a prescription for chaos. They have already done more damage than people realize. If Trump persists with them, the joke will be entirely on us and on the world order we established after World War II.

Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Opinion columnist. He joined the paper in 1981, and has won three Pulitzer Prizes.

Donald Trump has no intention to govern a democracy. Instead he intends to issue executive orders and cause chronic government chaos.

Delusions of grandeur- Opinion letters published in the Houston Chronicle:

Regarding "Trump, the 'America First' candidate, has a new preoccupation: Imperialism," (Jan. 9): What is happening? Is our soon-to-be POTUS so intoxicated with his own grandeur that he is out to conquer the world? Does he believe, as the monarchies of old did, that the number of territories a country rules is a sign of power?

From:  Pansy Gee in Sugar Land, Texas

Regarding "Trump refuses to rule out use of military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal," (Jan. 7): As someone who did not and could not ever vote for Donald Trump, I have long marveled at the willingness of the American public to disregard what he says and to assume he really means something else. That sort of naivete might be partially liberals' fault: Democrats, at least since the Obama era, seem to have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Their response was to ridicule Donald Trump, not recognizing that his supporters (a growing number) believed the Democrats were ridiculing them as well.

Trump’s advantage was that he could point to what he said and say he told you what he was going to do, and you didn’t object to it. In fact, you voted for him, perhaps because of it.

Now he's talking about taking control of the Panama Canal and annexing Greenland, which he says are vital to American interests, without ruling out using military force to do it. Add to that the dissolution of many checks and balances that were built into the Constitution, as well as his admiration of and fascination with the world’s dictators. Don’t be surprised at some of the things he comes up with during his administration, including his desire to be president-for-life, like China’s Xi Jinping. I believe we’re going to be on a wild ride of a roller coaster for at least the next four years.

I fervently hope I’m proven wrong. After his first election I had hoped that “the office would make the man,” but now that hope is slim to none. As an independent, I don’t see what Democrats — or anyone — can do to change the new status quo.  By the way, roller coasters make me nauseous.

From Len Kaplan in Houston Texas

As you reported, Trump refuses to rule out military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland and secure both territories, which he says are vital to American national security. Those were the kind of words Adolf Hitler used as he began what ended up as World War II. The territory was never quite enough, nor was his distaste for certain minorities, much like Trump displays toward many Hispanics. As my father remarked about Hitler when I was a child, "That man is crazy." I say the same about Donald Trump.

From Eritha Yardley in Houston Texas

Donald Trump choas and lunacy must end! Echo opinion

https://www.lubbockonline.com/news/20190826/gerson-trump-presidency-not-just-unfolding-but-unraveling

Michael Gerson: Trump presidency is not just unfolding, but unraveling- echo published in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Historians studying the Trump presidency will have a prodigious amount of digital material that demands examination, but defies explanation. 

For example, the president’s Aug. 21, half-hour, South Lawn press availability deserves to be at the top of that list.

Michael Gerson opinion published in the Lubbock Texas newspaper

With the whir of a helicopter engine in the background, Donald Trump veered from topic to topic with utter confidence, alarming ignorance, minimal coherence and relentless duplicity.

President Vladimir Putin, he said, “made a living on outsmarting President Obama” -- even though it is Trump who now urges a Russian return to the G-7 summit without any concessions on Putin’s part.

On pursuing the trade war with China, Trump called himself the “chosen one.” (!) This came within hours of retweeting the claim he is loved like “the second coming of God.” At some point, arrogance is so extreme and delusional that it can only be expressed in blasphemy.

Trump accused the Danish prime minister of “blowing off the United States” because she scorned his own balmy, offensive musings on the future of Greenland (!). “We treat countries with respect,” he said -- except, presumably, the ”----hole” ones.

Trump’s new immigration rule, he claimed, would “do even more” to bring migrant families together -- though this togetherness, he failed to mention, would come by allowing the indefinite detention of migrant families.

“I am the least racist person ever to serve in office,” said the man who is increasingly bold in his use of racist tropes.

He joked again about being in office 10 or 14 years from now -- appealing to people who find overturning the constitutional order a laugh riot.

“Mental health,” Trump went on. “Very important.” Hard to argue with that one.

“Our 2nd Amendment will remain strong,” Trump promised, while previewing an effort to overturn that portion of the 14th Amendment guaranteeing birthright citizenship. Some parts of the Constitution, clearly, are more constitutional than others.

Trump pledged the return of thousands of captured Islamic State fighters to Europe, one way or another. “If Europe doesn’t take them, I’ll have no choice but to release them in the countries from which they came, which is Germany, France and other places.” 

Did the president of the United States just threaten to release dangerous terrorists on the streets of our closest allies? Evidently.

Of the wounded and grieving families Trump visited following recent mass shootings: “The love for me,” he boasted, “and my love for them was unparalleled.” And this was demonstrated by “hundreds and hundreds of people all over the floor.” No one draws a bigger crowd in an intensive care unit.

After repeating an anti-Semitic trope about the disloyalty of Jews who vote Democratic, Trump insisted to a reporter, “It’s only anti-Semitic in your head.” But control over the plain meaning of English words is not a presidential power. And the charge of disloyalty is the essence of anti-Semitism.

Seldom in presidential history has more nonsense been expressed with greater concision. Never would the interests of America have been better served by a louder helicopter.

What to make of this? First, the Trump presidency is not just unfolding, it is unraveling. All narcissists believe they are at the center of the universe. But what happens when a narcissist is actually placed at the center of the universe? The chosen one happens. Trump is not just arguing for an alternative set of policies; he is asserting an alternative version of reality, in which resistance to his will is disloyalty to the country.

Second, the president has systemically removed from his circle anyone who finds this appalling. Every president has the right to advisers who share his basic worldview. But Trump appears, on many topics, to have stopped taking advice altogether. His counselors are now flunkies. The proof of their loyalty is not found in the honesty of their opinions but in the regurgitation of his insanity.

Third, the president is increasingly prone to the equation of the national interest with his personal manias. He is perfectly willing to threaten relations with Denmark -- or to force the Israeli government into a difficult choice -- if it serves his tweeted whims. This approach is more characteristic of personal rule than democratic leadership. Self-worship is inconsistent with true patriotism.

Trump’s promotion of moral and political chaos puts other members of his party in a difficult position. Difficult, but not complicated. It is their public duty to say that foolish things are foolish, that insane things are insane, that bigoted things are bigoted. On growing evidence, their failure to do so is abetting the country’s decline into farce.

Michael Gerson’s column is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group.