Donald Trump obsessed with power but he will fail because his failed leadership is unable to inspire loyalty

Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe: 

Trump’s obsession with winning is a losing strategy. 

Raw power can only get a strongman leader so far. 

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it❗

Thank you for your service❗ 😞😰💘💙

By Stacie Nicole Smith, the managing director of the Consensus Building Institute and the director of the Workable Peace Project, a high school curriculum designed to teach conflict resolution.

For years, I watched ninth-graders learn a lesson that continues to elude some of the most powerful people in the world.

These students participate in a classroom role-play exercise based on one of history’s most famous diplomatic exchanges: the Melian Dialogue, recorded by Thucydides in his account of the Peloponnesian War. 

In 416 BC, Athenian envoys arrived at the small island of Melos with an ultimatum: submit or be destroyed. 

When the Melians protested, the Athenians cut them off. “The strong do what they can,” they said, “and the weak suffer what they must.”

The outcome: Athens “won” that conflict. Melos refused to submit and was conquered, its men killed, its women and children enslaved. In the very short term, it was a victory for Athens. 

Today, the logic of “the strong do what they can” seems to define how the world works. Great powers are ignoring the norms that once restrained them: Russia invaded Ukraine, and the United States arrested Venezuela’s leader and bombed Iran. The current administration’s approach to US foreign policy embodies the Athenian ethos, from a zero-sum approach to trade relationships to a willingness to take the country to war. 

In Canada, like the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently lamented at the World Economic Forum’s summit in Davos, “It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

Those who admire the Athenians’ vision of strength seem to miss the fact that Thucydides didn’t record that exchange to celebrate it. It’s a prelude to catastrophe. Because, within a few years, Athens’s enemies united against it. The empire Athens built by force dissolved precisely because it had been built by force. 

Loyalty from its conquered coalition proved only as durable as the armed force holding it together. I mediated environmental disputes, organizational conflicts, and complex multiparty negotiations, and I have seen how decisions dictated by the powerful are much less stable than agreements designed to meet the interests of all parties.

Students I observed almost always figured this out. In the role-play, some were Athenians, some , and they were prompted to think beyond what they “can” or “must” do. 

Instead, they had to consider what would meet their core needs, uphold their values, and endure the test of time. Students routinely found compromises Athens never even considered — like reduced payment by the Melians* or autonomy over some matters of governance. Those arrangements would have given Athens much of what it needed while giving Melos more reason to accept its rule. This is what mediation experts call the “mutual gains” approach to conflict resolution.

In other words, the students I work with learned the limits of coercion. By rejecting the moral case out of hand, Athens made its contempt for justice explicit and thereby handed every wavering city-state a common cause. Overtly illegitimate behavior reduces the cost of opposing the aggressor, makes coalition-building against it easier, and converts previously neutral parties into motivated adversaries. 

Legitimacy is not a constraint on power — it is a form of power. In their focus on demonstrating strength, the Athenians ignored the strategic importance of building legitimacy.

Mediators know that win-lose deals are almost always worse deals, especially in the long run. The pattern is consistent: One party’s interests are ignored and it is forced to comply with the aggressor’s demands, resentment accumulates, and the forced “agreement” holds only as long as the aggressor can maintain the pressure.

The mediators I work with share the conviction that achieving win-win deals on the world stage is possible. 

People practicing the dynamics of coercion and negotiation firsthand can learn to avoid the pitfalls of the raw, and usually short-lived, exercise of power.

The lesson from Thucydides, then, extends far beyond violent conflict. The ninth-graders in my classroom figured this out in an afternoon. The question is whether today’s strongmen will figure it out before the costs become irreversible.

*Melians were the inhabitants of the Aegean island of Melos, famously involved in a 416 BC, incident during the Peloponnesian War. They maintained neutral, friendly ties with Sparta but were forced into a confrontation by Athens, which demanded their submission. Following their refusal to surrender, Athens conquered Melos, executing all men and enslaving women and children

"like telling Albert Einstein he doesn’t know physics", "Hillbilly" JD Vance a former Marine Corps corporal is saying whaaaaa?

Donald "Dump" Trump, "Hillbilly" JD Vance, His Holiness Pope Leo and the midterm elections.  Published in the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California.

Echo opinion letter to the editor: Donald Trump presides over a U.S. population of 348 million people. Pope Leo has a world following of more than 1.4 billion people. 

Trump’s approval rating is under 40%. Leo’s approval rating is around 84%.  Obviously, Donald Trump is jealous, so what does he do❓ He goes after the pope and tells him he’s “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.” (Maine Writer,🙄 laughable if it were not also pathetic, spoken by a man who thinks he is like god. Lucifer had 👿this same problem. (Book of Revelation 12:7-9 -war in heaven.)

In reality, it would be an understatement to say Trump is not only a convicted criminal, but he’s also terrible for foreign policy. 

Then "Hillbilly" JD Vance, who was also a Marine Corps corporal,  tells the pope that he doesn’t know the gospel❓ That’s like telling Albert Einstein he doesn’t know physics. 

And the "do nothing" Republicans, like Maine's Senator Susan Collins,  in Congress are saying and doing nothing about this Trump incoherence. We’re doomed if the Democrats can’t take over the House and Senate in November.

From Bill Krumbein, in Santa Rosa, California

Donald Trump puts 300,000 immigrants in danger if the U.S. abandons immigration legal Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

The Gavel, an article published in the Boston Globe: 

Sadly, the Trump administration doesn’t want these desperate refugees. But these people have nowhere else to go. By Kimberly Atkins Stohr

The harm that would result from the Trump administration’s harsh push to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian nationals living in the United States is not theoretical. Sadly, it’s a matter of life and death for upward of 330,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians in the United States who fled horrific conditions to protect themselves and their families. That is something that I hope comes across loud and clear❗ during oral arguments at the Supreme Court scheduled for later this month.

The peril is so great that the State Department has declared that no one should travel to either country for any reason.

“Based on almost any metric, Haiti is just a very dangerous place to be,” said Brian Concannon Jr., executive director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a human rights non-government organization based in Marshfield, Mass.

“It’s the highest murder rate in the world,” Concannon told me. “Nearly 1.5 million people [have fled Haiti]. Gangs control 90 percent of the capital [of Port-au-Prince] and in many areas elsewhere. Haiti has the highest kidnapping rate in the world. It’s one of the worst places to be a kid. It’s one of the top five hunger spots in the world.”

An important fact here: While natural disasters and political upheaval are the sources of Haiti’s instability, experts have long cited that the United States has contributed to the situation through its ineffective political interventions and unsuccessful aid policies.

Similarly, according to a friend-of-the court brief filed by the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre and Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, there is no safe home for Syrian TPS holders to go if they are expelled by the Trump administration.

“Since the fall of the brutally repressive Assad regime in December 2024 Syria remains in a state of internal and international armed conflict and continues to suffer extraordinary and temporary conditions that preclude the safe, dignified and sustainable return of refugees,” the brief states.

Under the law governing TPS, those who apply and meet the fairly strict criteria for TPS protection are allowed to remain in the country legally, as long as the conditions that led to their home country’s TPS designation persist. 

But,  despite the dire living conditions in Haiti and Syria, former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted a notice that “after reviewing country conditions and consulting with the appropriate U.S. government agencies,” Haiti, Syria, and several other countries “no longer meet the conditions for its designation for Temporary Protected Status.” It’s worth noting that all of the countries Noem stripped of that designation are majority Black, Latin, or Muslim. (Evil 👿Noem❗)

Several federal judges ruled in favor of TPS recipients who challenged DHS’s efforts to strip their status, temporarily blocking them from being deported while litigation over the matter proceeds.

But in an unsigned shadow docket order last year, the Supreme Court allowed some Venezuelans to be stripped of their TPS protections. The bid to end that designation began during the Biden administration in 2023 but was continued by the Trump administration.

So, is there any hope that the Supreme Court will reach a different conclusion when it comes to those fleeing Haiti and Syria?

Perhaps. Unlike in the Venezuelan case, the Supreme Court in March took the Haiti and Syria challenges off the shadow docket, ordered the parties to fully brief the case on an expedited basis, and scheduled oral arguments for April 27.

Perhaps the court has given consideration to the words of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissent from the Venezuelan shadow docket order, which acknowledged the real-world human stakes.

“What should happen to 300,000 human beings ❗ while our colleagues on the Ninth Circuit, and then perhaps we, do the job of judging❓” Justice Jackson wrote. “Should those individuals get to remain in the United States, working legally, as the Government promised them a few short months ago? Or should they be left vulnerable to job loss, family separation, and deportation to a country the Government determined in January was ‘experiencing a complex, serious and multidimensional humanitarian crisis’ to which they could not ‘returb in safety’❓”

I’m hoping that her colleagues listen. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

An excerpt from The Gavel, a newsletter about the Supreme Court from columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. 

Question to Donald Trump and maga Republicans? Has Iran surrendered yet? Multiple choice answers are "yes" or "no".

An opinion essay published in the New Yorker magazine, by David Remnick.

In war, truth is the first casualty.” It’s a line often attributed to Aeschylus, and it has never lost its relevance. Sometimes the culprit is the observer—the propagandizing correspondent, the mythologizing historian. Now, two months into Trump's illegal war of choice, the chief offender of truth is Donald Trump himself.

Donald Trump's war on truth. Who knew? 

On February 28th, at two-thirty in the morning, the White House press operation released a prerecorded video of Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago standing at a lectern in dim light. Wearing an oversized U.S.A. ball cap and no tie, Dpma;d Trump announced that he had ordered American bombers to commence destroying targets throughout the Islamic Republic of Iran. Trump made a claim of preëmption. He was acting, he said, to “defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” (This was confusing. Hadn’t Trump declared last June that he had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program? Hadn’t the Omani foreign minister, a mediator between the U.S. and Iran at negotiations in Geneva, just told “Face the Nation” that “a peace deal is within our reach”?) Trump went on to counsel the Iranian people to find refuge somehow—“It’s very dangerous outside, bombs will be dropping everywhere”—but then, at some unspecified moment, they should “take over” their government. “Let’s see how you respond.” And to his American listeners, he admitted, “We may have casualties. That often happens in war.”

For a narcissist obsessed with the projection of strength and grandeur, Trump gave a peculiarly gravity-free performance. The bill of his ball cap obscured his gaze. He raced and rambled through his text. And, rather than hustle back to the White House, he lingered at his country club. He had a fund-raising dinner to attend. It was left to the communications director, Steven Cheung, to provide clear instructions on how to react to the prospect of another American war in the Middle East. “NO PANICANS!” he wrote on X. “TRUST IN TRUMP!”

Donald Trump, together with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, could soon be heard lauding the precision with which they had “decapitated” the Iranian leadership and flattened military, police, and intelligence installations. And yet, as the late Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once blithely said, in the thick of America’s catastrophic misadventure in Iraq, “Stuff happens.” The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of the Iranian security hierarchy, would not survive the first day of bombing; neither would about a hundred and seventy-five innocents in the southern city of Minab, most of them children. When asked about a girls’ school there, which was struck by what was likely an American cruise missile, Trump blamed Iran. “They are very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions,” he said.

Now, as war has engulfed both the region and the global economy, Trump and his sycophantic advisers have taken to improvising on the fly, floating conflicting justifications for war and predictions about its duration. The Iranians were close to developing missiles that could reach the U.S. (They weren’t.) They were weeks away from building a nuclear weapon. (They weren’t.) Israel forced America’s hand. (Marco Rubio.) “No, I might have forced their hand.” (Trump.) It’s all about regime change. (Trump.) It’s not about regime change. (Trump, later.) When confronted with these contradictions and falsehoods, all the President’s men followed his lead: they blamed
the media.

With increasing frequency, Trump berates reporters (particularly female reporters). He sues media outlets for sport. Resolve is in short supply. The owner of the Washington Post, the newspaper of Watergate, has done irreparable violence to his property merely to stay in Trump’s good graces.

But, while the President has little regard for the freedom of the press, he craves its ceaseless attention. His need has the quality of addiction. In Washington these days, there is hardly a reporter who does not have the Donald Trump's cellphone number. It is said that the best time to call is late at night while he is watching himself on TV and shitposting in his pajamas. Trump loves to muse aloud, then watch as those musings register in foreign capitals, and in the markets. Lately, he has been willing to say anything. The war will be over soon. Or maybe not. Whatever. Each pseudo-scoop is as ephemeral as a mayfly. But who can resist? When asked about the possibility of sending his infantry into Iran, he answers in the language of golf: “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground.” At other moments, he simply changes the subject to, say, his taste in interior decoration—“If you look behind me, see the nice gold curtains.” Are you not entertained?

His advisers, of course, know what to do. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has cracked down on actual reporting at the Pentagon and has filled his pressroom with “influencers” and propagandists, spoke in his usual tone of rage recently when he lambasted CNN’s coverage of the war as “fake news.” He would be pleased, he said, when the Trump-friendly Ellison family, which has already swallowed up CBS News, finally takes possession of CNN, too.

Brendan Carr, who runs the Federal Communications Commission for Trump, eagerly joined the fray by threatening to revoke the licenses of television networks that are, in his view, “running hoaxes and news distortions.” Trump pronounced himself “thrilled” with Carr’s outburst. On Truth Social, he accused “Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations” of airing “LIES.” Perhaps, he wrote, he will prosecute unruly journalists on “Charges for TREASON.”

Carr’s threats to pull network licenses have no legal weight; the more immediate danger is that media owners, who are all too aware of the economic pressures they face, will quietly cut back on critical coverage of the Trump Presidency in general, and the war in particular. They will fear landing outside the boundary of what is deemed patriotic. The historian Garry Wills, in an essay on Phillip Knightley’s 1975 book about wartime journalism, “The First Casualty,” wrote, “A liberal democracy submits to propaganda more readily than a totalitarian state. Self‐censorship is always more effective than bureaucratic censorship.”

The most cruel irony is that Donald Trump, who addresses the Iranian people in the language of liberation, urging them to throw off the yoke of a regime that has brutalized them for decades, is the same man who threatens American journalists with treason charges and tries to strong-arm broadcasters into subservience. Having torn up a nuclear agreement in his first term and gone to war with no coherent goal in his second, Trump now directs his fire at the one thing he cannot afford to leave standing: the truth. What’s at stake is democracy’s oldest promise—that the people may call on their government to answer for what it does in their name. ♦

Published in the print edition of the March 30, 2026, issue, with the headline “The First Casualty.”

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are hypocritical to point fingers at Iran when Trumpisn is enabling war crimes

Letters to the Editor: After accusing Iran of extortion, Donald Trump needs to look in the mirror.  Echo opinion letter published in the Los Angeles Times. 

To the editor: Donald Trump, speaking about Iran: “We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world because that’s what they’re doing” (“Trump says U.S. military has blockaded Iranian ports to pressure Tehran,” April 13).

Trump either won’t admit to or is unable to recognize the blatant hypocrisy of his statement. Since at least the beginning of his second term, Trump has been blackmailing and extorting the world, both allies and adversaries, through his tariffs and other policies, to an extent never before seen from an American president.

As we’ve witnessed, Trump has one set of morals and ethics for everyone else, and a second standard for himself. Trump’s immorality and “decision-making” has been a disaster for the United States and the world.

Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran is just the latest example of his incompetence.

From Ray McKown, in Torrance California

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are enabling war crimes and must be held accountable with Nuremburg trials

Echo opinion letter published in the Virginian Pilot newspaper

Donald Trump posted a message on his (Fake ❗)Truth Social threatening Iran with what can be described as civilization genocide: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” No American president in history has ever uttered anything even vaguely comparable. Even in the light of its past misdeeds, Iran has done nothing to warrant such shocking bombast, much less unilateral destructive action against a nation of 93 million people. Fortunately, at least for now, Trump backed away from his apocalyptic threat. (Nevertheless, Trump has not abandoned these destructive and dangerously crazy notions.  Rumors are he is in conflict with senior officers in the Pentagon who are upholding the Uniform Code of Military Justice and not willing to follow illegal orders.)

Iran posed no material threat to the U.S. before Trump, in concert with Israel, started a war with that nation. So far the monthlong attacks have failed to achieve any of its stated objectives, including regime change, halting Iran’s nuclear program, exhausting its weapons stockpile, loosening its grip on the Strait of Hormuz or ending its ability to attack other nations.

If his threat held any actual intent, then shame on him. If the American public views his threat as somehow acceptable or within bounds, then shame on us.

Robert Spitzer, James City County,Virginia 

Hillbilly JD Vance went to Hungary to support Viktor Orbán's failed racist government. But Hungarians voted for Tisza Party led by Peter Magyar

Why Orbán’s Loss Was So Devastating to the New Right

J.D. Vance went to Hungary to defend the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and western civilization itself. (Maine Writer: Hillbilly Vance failed again❗ So, former Marine Corps corporal JD Vance is delusional.  He believes he is an accomplished politician and an amateur philosopher. But, actually, he is a self confessed Hillbilly)

Marine enlistee JD Vance achieved the rank of corporal. Adolf Hitler also achieved this same rank when he served in the German army during World War One.

Echo essay published in New York Magazine Intelligencer by Sarah Jones.

“Will you stand for sovereignty and democracy❓” he beseeched a crowd in Budapest last week. “Will you stand for western civilization❓ Will you stand for freedom, for truth, and for the god of our fathers❓” Defy “the bureaucrats” of the European Union, he told them; go to the polls and stand with Orbán.  (Maine Writer:  But, Vance conveniently forgot to ask, "Do you stand for racism❓")

Thankfully, the Hungarian people did not listen. 

So, they ended Orbán’s 16-year-long rule and handed power to Péter Magyar, a onetime Orbán ally who ran on an anti-corruption message. Magyar’s party, Tisza, has won two-thirds of the country’s parliamentary seats, ❗a supermajority that allows it to reverse Orbán’s most autocratic assaults on the constitution and the rule of law. Vance told Fox (Fake❗) News that he was saddened, though not surprised, by the result. 

Orbán’s polling had been terrible, but the campaign speech was “the right thing to do” for such a loyal friend of the Trump White House, he added.

Orbán’s loss is a blow to Vance, who has aligned himself with the departing prime minister and his party, Fidesz. 

Also, there are similarities between the two men. Both had a Christian awakening when it was convenient, both are obsessed with fertility and both scapegoat immigrants. 

Orbán once said that Hungarians “do not want to become peoples of mixed race,” a kind of bigotry Vance echoed when he smeared Haitian immigrants in Ohio. 

Resentment is part of the Vance brand and has been since Hillbilly Elegy, (a biography about the former Marine Corporal now Trump's VP) which makes him a natural counterpart to Orbán. Both act and speak like they are populist heroes at war with the elite.

Still, Vance is one player in a much bigger game. As Orbán concentrated power, he built a sophisticated, transnational infrastructure to prop up reactionaries around the world. In the process, he became an intellectual and political hero to the American new right — a nativist and profoundly illiberal movement.

Orbán reserved his generosity for certain ideas and certain people. The conservative writer Rod Dreher abandoned the U.S. for Hungary and a role at the Danube Institute, created in 2013, to facilitate “the transmission of ideas and people” throughout Europe and the English-speaking world, including the U.S. The Orbán government funds the institute through the Batthyány Lajos Foundation, which also supports The European Conservative, where Dreher often writes. “Many contributions” to the journal try to legitimize illiberal democracies like Hungary, scholars Valentin Behr and Eve Gianoncelli have argued. TEC’s chief editor defended Augusto Pinochet and his “necessary” coup in Chile, which overthrew a democratic government and sent death squads after critics. In the world of TEC, immigrants are a danger to women, “transgender ideology” inflicts “terror” on the West, and Charlie Kirk was right about, well, everything. The journal now shares an address with the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, which also gets funding from Orbán.

Dreher is full of praise for Orbán, whom he considers “a real visionary” and with whom he shares an appreciation for The Camp of The Saints,🤢 a 1973, novel by Jean Raspail that depicts “little monsters” with “dark skin” who overtake the West. The book is “repulsive,” Dreher wrote in 2015, but he said it offers some valuable insight; Orbán went one step further and cited it when he decried “race-mixing” in 2022.

He is hardly alone. A Hatewatch investigation found that American conservatives Christopher Rufo, Michael O’Shea, and Jeremy Carl signed contracts with the Batthyány Lajos Foundation in 2022, thus committing themselves to defending Orbán’s pronatalist policies, among other subjects — possibly while violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. 

Pronatalist summits in Budapest attract American conservatives worried about our own U.S. national birth rate. The U.S.-born post-liberal theorist Gladden Pappin leads the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, a state-owned entity. The Orbán government has become such a beacon for the American right that the Danube Institute’s István Kiss has addressed the Tennessee legislature; State Senator Rusty Crowe introduced a resolution praising the “estimable” Hungarian think tank for its “respectful conservatism.” Magyar claimed on Monday that the Orbán regime has funded CPAC’s conferences in Hungary❗

Orbán showed allies what is possible, and they admire him for his audacity, since they know their goals can only succeed under illiberal conditions. If the press questions policy or investigates corruption, muzzle it and flood the market with propaganda. 

If the goal is hierarchy and racial purity, reproductive coercion must become a national policy. 

As the new right flexes its strength here, it pivots toward Orbán or an Orbán-like strategy. The chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, often threatens to censor the press.  Florida 

Governor Ron DeSantis is transforming the New College of Florida into a reactionary bulwark — his own version of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, perhaps. The new right understands, as did Orbán, the importance of a brain trust. Someone has to write the policy and skew the data.

But, pseudointellectualism can only take a movement so far. 

Orbán had not completely destroyed Hungarian democracy, so his ambitions were riskier than his allies understood. Orbánism didn’t work either as policy or as an illiberal strategy. Hungary’s birth rates are falling again. The GDP per capita is “well below” the OECD average. Corruption further weakened whatever political or moral authority the Orbán regime might have had with voters. And, Orbán could not buy true popularity for the journals and media outlets he funds. TEC is still “niche,”as Euronews put it, and the regime’s investment in Dreher never made much sense. His most influential period is long over, and he seems ready to move on. After Orbán’s loss, he said he may move to Vienna. Then he complained about his ex-wife and her “ambush divorce.”

The new right will survive Orbán. It might leave Budapest or start a new think tank, but it still has patrons, and ideas are notoriously hard to kill. For Americans, there’s always the Claremont Institute or the Heritage Foundation — a domestic ecosystem that is more durable than the Orbán regime. 

An army of fellows and contributing editors will pump out white papers and commentaries and graphs for decades to come. But, guess what ❓ They can’t make people agree, or even respect them, and that matters — for now, anyway.

Illiberalism tends to lose its shine. Vance spoke at a TPUSA event in Georgia. The arena was nearly empty. “Although I did vote for Trump,” a young Catholic told the Associated Press. “I am not a Trump supporter anymore.”

Orbán is no philosopher, sprinkling reactionary thought like fairy dust on the people of Europe and North America. His efforts have been strategic. As he financed the global right, he assaulted the Hungarian public sphere and became more and more autocratic. Reporters Without Borders calls him “a predator of press freedom” for his efforts to squeeze independent media out of Hungary and says that Fidesz and its supporters control roughly 80 percent of the country’s news outlets. Fidesz rewrote the Hungarian constitution, allowing the party to expand and then pack the constitutional court with allies, and it reshaped electoral law so it could more easily control Parliament. The Orbán government targeted the Central European University over its links to George Soros, the liberal Jewish philanthropist, and forced it to leave the country. To raise the country’s birth rate, Orbán restricted abortion rights while passing financial incentives for childbearing — but only for heterosexual couples. The government banned Budapest’s annual Pride parade, or tried to; Hungarians turned out anyway.

Orbán showed allies what is possible, and they admire him for his audacity, since they know their goals can only succeed under illiberal conditions. If the press questions policy or investigates corruption, muzzle it and flood the market with propaganda. If the goal is hierarchy and racial purity, reproductive coercion must become a national policy. As the new right flexes its strength here, it pivots toward Orbán or an Orbán-like strategy. The chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, often threatens to censor the press. Governor Ron DeSantis is transforming the New College of Florida into a reactionary bulwark — his own version of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, perhaps. The new right understands, as did Orbán, the importance of a brain trust. Someone has to write the policy and skew the data.

But pseudointellectualism can only take a movement so far. Orbán had not completely destroyed Hungarian democracy, so his ambitions were riskier than his allies understood. Orbánism didn’t work either as policy or as an illiberal strategy. Hungary’s birth rates are falling again. The GDP per capita is “well below” the OECD average. Corruption further weakened whatever political or moral authority the Orbán regime might have had with voters. And Orbán could not buy true popularity for the journals and media outlets he funds. TEC is still “niche,”as Euronews put it, and the regime’s investment in Dreher never made much sense. His most influential period is long over, and he seems ready to move on. After Orbán’s loss, he said he may move to Vienna. Then he complained about his ex-wife and her “ambush divorce.”

The new right will survive Orbán. It might leave Budapest or start a new think tank, but it still has patrons, and ideas are notoriously hard to kill. For Americans, there’s always the Claremont Institute or the Heritage Foundation — a domestic ecosystem that is more durable than the Orbán regime. An army of fellows and contributing editors will pump out white papers and commentaries and graphs for decades to come. But they can’t make people agree, or even respect them, and that matters — for now, anyway.

Illiberalism tends to lose its shine. Vance spoke at a TPUSA (Turning Point USA) event in Georgia. The arena was nearly empty. “I did vote for Trump,” a young Catholic told the Associated Press. “I am not a Trump supporter anymore.”

Donald Trump lost his friend Viktor Orban in a Hungarian democratic election!

Here’s How to Defeat Trumpism

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by The Editorial Board: The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Trumpism❗

Budapest, Hungary:  Peter Magyar’s landslide victory in Hungary this week offers inspiration to Americans hoping to overcome Donald Trump’s corrupt, authoritarian approach to politics. The key question is precisely how Mr. Magyar conducted such a successful opposition campaign.

He faced long odds. Viktor Orban had been prime minister for 16 years, during which he changed election rules, installed loyalists in once-nonpartisan government jobs, undermined judicial independence, repressed political opponents and hounded independent media and universities. 

Orban tilted the political system in his favor, yet Mr. Magyar nonetheless crushed Mr. Orban in voting on Sunday. 

Indeed, Mr. Magyar’s party appears to have won a two-thirds❗ supermajority in Parliament and 53 percent of the popular vote, compared with 38 percent for Mr. Orban’s party.

Hungary is obviously a very different country from the United States. But, Orban’s rise and his (mis) use of power were long models for Donald Trump. Now, Orban’s demise can be a model for America's Democratic Party and any other party that is trying to defeat an authoritarian right-wing threat, as evidenced by Trumpism.

Two aspects of Mr. Magyar’s campaign strategy were especially important. First, he focused on the bread-and-butter issues that often guide the decisions of swing voters, and not just in Hungary. In the United States, these voters soured on Trump after his first term and helped elect Joe Biden in 2020, only to become frustrated with inflation and they voted (wrongminded 🙄💢)  in 2024, to return Trump to office.

The campaign platform of the party Mr. Magyar leads, Tisza, was titled “Foundations of a Functional and Humane Hungary.” 

The campaign strategy criticized the inefficiency of government services. Its agenda included tax cuts for working-class families, expanded health care, increased pensions, larger child benefits and a pay increase for support staff members at schools. It said it would help pay for these programs through both a wealth tax on the very rich and the recovery of European Union transfer payments reduced because of Orban’s anti-democratic policies. Mr. Magyar’s party spread its campaign themes in innovative ways through social media, making Orban’s state-run media messaging look old and tired.

Crucially, Mr. Magyar made corruption a core campaign issue. 

Mr. Magyar spent more than 20 years as a member of Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party, rising to senior roles in state-controlled institutions. But Mr. Magyar quit Fidesz in early 2024, to protest a scandal involving the government’s pardon of a well-connected former official who had sexually abused boys. Mr. Magyar said he was disgusted by the corruption, and he gave a viral interview in which he claimed that “a few families own half the country.” He then joined the Tisza party and rose to become its leader.

On the campaign trail, he linked Orban’s corruption to Hungarians’ frustration with their stagnant living standards. 

In his victory speech on Sunday night, Mr. Magyar promised a country where citizens could rely on their government to help provide good medical care, a decent family life and a dignified retirement. What should matter, he said, was not political connections but the kind of person somebody was.

It is easy enough to imagine an American version of this strategy.  Trump, like Orban, used his office to enrich himself, his family and his friends. He issued pardons to political allies who have committed violent crimes, including one accused of sexually abusing children after receiving his pardon. He cut taxes for the affluent and made it harder for working-class Americans to receive health care. (Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins 😔supported this horrible policy❗) Trump's illegal war in Iran has increased gas 💲prices.

Trump's populism is fake. It serves a small slice of wealthy, well-connected people at the expense of most Americans, and it leaves him and his party (including Senator Susan Collins) politically vulnerable to an opposition that can credibly use government as a force for good. Mr. Magyar’s victory highlights the Democratic Party’s need to develop an ambitious agenda that goes far beyond criticizing Trump and charts an alternative vision for the country. Democrats do not yet have that agenda, but many in the party ​recognize that they need one.

The second lesson may be harder for Democrats — and center-left parties in Europe — to absorb. Mr. Magyar, who identifies as center right, won partly by avoiding the social progressivism that dominates elite left-leaning circles and alienates many voters. He ran as an economic progressive and a cultural moderate if not conservative.

He used patriotic symbols like the flag and benefited from having a last name that means “Hungarian.” (Imagine a candidate named “Joe American.”) He portrayed himself as a nationalist and suggested he might expel Slovakia’s ambassador over its treatment of Hungarians living there. He campaigned in rural areas that Mr. Orban’s previous challengers had overlooked. Mr. Magyar promised not to send troops or weapons to Ukraine. He declined to attend a Pride march in Budapest, making it harder for Orban to paint him as captive to L.G.B.T.Q. activists.

On immigration, which has shaped recent elections around the world, Mr. Magyar called for even tighter restrictions than the Orban government had imposed. He said he would keep a border fence, repeal a guest-worker program and allow no guest workers from outside the European Union. Tisza’s party platform claimed that guest workers “drive down wages, inflate real estate prices and cause social problems.” (Unlike in the United States, crime rates among immigrants in Europe tend to be higher than among native citizens.) Immigration is vital to electability in many countries because it is the issue on which mainstream politicians have most sharply diverged from public opinion, permitting many more arrivals than voters want.

We certainly do not endorse all of Mr. Magyar’s tactics, and we hope no American politician would feel the need to avoid a Pride march. Yet anyone who opposes Orbanism should examine the full Hungarian campaign, not only the convenient parts.

Mr. Magyar is one of many contemporary politicians who have won elections with a mix of economic progressivism and social moderation. Other national candidates have done so in the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark and elsewhere. In the United States, as we have documented, congressional Democrats who have won tough races in recent years almost all offered feisty economic messages while rejecting far-left positions on crime, immigration and other subjects. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton each used a similar approach to win the presidency twice. Only deep blue areas tend to elect down-the-line cultural progressives.

The success of the more heterodox approach is no mystery. In the United States and much of Europe, it is consistent with public opinion. Most voters are frustrated by slow-growing incomes and want the government to help. They are also unhappy with an elite cultural progressivism that has moved rapidly to the left on many difficult questions. They are looking for politicians who authentically share their outlook.

If the stakes involved only the outcome of individual policy issues, these debates would have less urgency. But they involve the health of democracy itself. In many countries, a radicalized political right has taken an authoritarian turn and sought to entrench itself in power while using state power to enrich its allies and repress its critics. Too often, the mainstream left has aided the far right’s rise by clinging to positions that are supported by only a narrow slice of the electorate.

Orban’s defeat is not nearly the end of the story, not even in Hungary, where his allies will continue to work in many parts of government. But his defeat is significant. Many people assumed he was unbeatable. He was Vladimir Putin’s biggest ally inside the European Union and the original 21st-century model of Western illiberalism. Mr. Trump openly admired him, and Vice President JD Vance traveled to Hungary last week to campaign for him.

Mr. Magyar thoroughly defeated this far-right giant. The free world should take an honest look at how he did it.

Donald Trump launched America into an illegal war with Iran and now the world is immersed living in "The Scream" painting by Poster

(Editor’s note: This editorial repeats profanity. We quote it verbatim because of the significance of the source.)

Echo opinion essay published by the Sun Sentinel's Editorial Board.

"The Scream" by Edward Munich Poster

Donald Trump talks like a genocidal maniac

Barry R McCaffrey  General, USA, Ret., "This is a continuing story of a great nation fallen mesmerized into the hands of a charlatan. We hope there are growing signs of revulsion by the American people. Bizarre. Madness. Who are these people standing with this man." 

Sun Sentinel opinion:  Never in our history has a leader made such a ghastly threat like Donald Trump did when he warned that 'a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.'

Fortunately, he backed down. Sudden wisdom, or cold feet❓

To some, it was just another TACO Tuesday (Trump Always Chickens Out). It’s preferable to think that he got wisdom rather than cold feet. Regardless, it was the right choice.

But still, it’s only an "on again off again" frail truce with Iran, a 14-day pause on what would have become — and might yet be — a monstrous war crime and an indelible stain on our nation.

It is encouraging that the Trump administration and Iran both claim victory, which would be an excuse to call off the war.

There are unconfirmed reports that some U.S. commanders were refusing to carry out genocidal orders, and that would be good news, too. (Illegal orders❗)

But the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Donald Trump seems to believe he can call on the magician 🔮🙄in Ali Babba to "open Sesame" the Strait of Hormuz.  Even following a surprise announcement by Donald Trump, who claimed the Strait of Hormuz was fully opened, and the stock market subsequently closed the April 17 week in the green, his fake proclamation fell apart by Saturday April 18, when Iran announced control over the Strait.)

Congress must intervene❗

Congress must use the respite to take Trump in hand, with a war powers resolution and a serious investigation of his mental fitness. Regardless of whether impeachment is possible, it needs to be pursued.

The nation and the world have long since become accustomed to Trump’s loutish behavior, coarse vocabulary and disrespect for the dignity of his office and America’s reputation.

But his increasingly erratic conduct of late commands the attention of Congress, because it bears unmistakable signs of worsening mental decay in someone who can singlehandedly order the use of nuclear weapons.

A telling symptoms of dementia is a loss of inhibition. Until now, presidents appreciated the power of their words, and whatever their private thoughts, none ever spoke so venomously as Trump at war.

No president has disgraced our nation with such vulgarity as his social media post on the Christian faith’s holiest day, Easter Sunday:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Whether our nation is at the whims of a madman is a question Congress should pursue.

Israel’s hidden role

The other is the extent to which Trump was led into the crisis by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who craved U.S. support for another war with Iran.

In a remarkable exposé, the New York Times described in detail how Trump secretly received Netanyahu at the White House on Feb. 11, for a hard sell on what a war might accomplish.

Netanyahu and his team framed a “near-certain victory,” (lunacy❗) the Times said. “Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.”

According to the Times, CIA Director John Ratcliffe told Trump some of it was “farcical” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also his national security adviser, called it “bullshit,” but Trump eventually wore down all the internal doubters except for Vice President JD Vance. Pete Hegseth, his self-styled secretary of war, was all for it.

Despite the fake truce that took effect, Hegseth threatened ground operations to seize Iran’s enriched uranium. 

So much for certain victory. None of it happened.

Trump’s outbursts bespoke the frustration of a thoroughly incompetent ruler who began a war with no plan for how to conduct or conclude it and was unprepared for Iran’s resistance.

War: What is it good for❓

Trump's illegal war's main accomplishments are to inflate energy prices, depress the stock market, destabilize the world’s economy, betray Ukraine by waiving sanctions against Russia’s oil, replace one fanatic Iranian ayatollah with another, and harden Iran’s dictatorship and nuclear ambitions.

Congress should also scrutinize how Hegseth, a man far out of his depth, has been demoralizing and destroying the Department of Defense, purging it of anyone who might question illegal orders or represent diversity. His purge of senior officers who are Black or female has been conspicuous.

His dismissal of General Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff early in his term, along with two subordinates, was without precedent. George reportedly opposed the attack on Iran.

Republican senators praised George for his service, but they failed to condemn Hegseth.

In his farewell letter to his troops, George said they deserve “leaders of character.”

So do we all.

P.S. Maine Writer question❓  Has Iran surrendered yet❓

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. 

Donald Trump is not mentally well. News media that reported President Biden's physical health must investigate Trump's declining cognition

It seems strange and troubling that the mental capacities of Trump, almost 80, are yet to command a rigorous and concerted examination from more mainstream news organizations.

Echo opinion essay published in the Boston Globe by 

Are mainstream news media finally ready to examine Trump’s mental fitness❓

"Trump is undergoing a 'significant decline' in his mental faculties, citing alleged dementia and saying the president is 'a man who is clearly insane', ” Ty Cobb.  "He often engages in late-night or early morning posting sprees, churning out dozens —sometimes hundreds — of so-called 'truths' and 're-truths' over a span of a few hours."

A recent New York Times story and prominent MAGA defections could be signs of the dam breaking.  (Maine Writer opinion- Donald Trump obviously has multiple personality disorders, pathological narcissism and a sociopathic problem with being civil and lacking appropriate emotional reactions to people who are struggling.  He threw paper towels to survivors of the category four hurricane Maria, when they were overwhelmed by the storm's disaster. He stooped to another low by expressing happiness about the death of the highly respected former FBI director Bob Mueller. Trump said, "Good, Im glad❗🤢) These and many other examples are symptomatic of mental illness and age related declining cognition.)

By Jill Abramson, is a former executive editor of The New York Times, teaches journalism at Northeastern University and is a contributing Globe Opinion writer.

Donald Trump’s obvious signs of mental decline have not received the national news media attention that would be commensurate with the problems they pose to the world. Hopefully, that’s beginning to change.

Peter Baker, reporter for The New York Times, dug deeply into the president’s erratic, bizarre, and dangerous behavior, social media posts, and other statements for an article released this week. Baker’s article was chock-full of recent examples, including Trump’s threat to annihilate Iran (dangerous), his since-deleted AI-generated Truth Social post portraying himself as Jesus and his fight with Pope Leo XIV (bizarre), and his out-of-the-blue discourses about Sharpies and White House drapes (erratic). The article showed definitively a president in decline and — though it stopped short of saying it — a man who, many believe, is losing his mind.

The news media were accused of helping cover up former President Joe Biden’s slipping mental acuity until a halting, disastrous debate performance put it on national display and forced Biden out of the 2024, election.

It seems strange and troubling that the mental capacities of Trump, almost 80, are yet to command a rigorous and concerted examination from more mainstream news organizations.

But, often, they lack the reporting muscle to investigate what happens inside the Trump White House or to pierce government stonewalling. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has put unprecedented pressure on the media, making government reporting more challenging, even as some Trump administration anti-free press moves are withering in the courts.

The Times story could be a sign of the dam breaking. So, too, are the defections of MAGA celebrities like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said, “President Trump has gone mad” and called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked.

Ty Cobb, a former White House attorney during the first Trump administration, has also publicly stated that Trump is undergoing a “significant decline” in his mental faculties, citing alleged dementia and saying the president is “a man who is clearly insane.”

Though the traditional press, cable, and television networks no longer enjoy the reach, trust, or influence they once had, global publications like the Times can still set the news agenda. 

With an increasingly atomized news media landscape, it isn’t surprising to see the online subscription Substacks of individual journalists, other online sites, and the foreign press stepping up to fill gaps left by traditional the lack the reporting muscle to investigate what happens inside the Trump White House or to pierce government stonewalling.  (Check my Juliana LHeureux Substack post about Donald Trump's age related disabilities, at this link here)

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has put unprecedented pressure on the media, making government reporting more challenging, even as some Trump administration anti-free press moves are withering in the courts.

With the earliest coverage of Trump’s mental decline often coming from new media, a sea change is visible. But writers on Substack and other new media platforms are not necessarily bound by traditional sourcing rules and reporting techniques. Because they may not have firsthand sources inside the White House who actually witness the president’s behavior, they tend to rely on opinion polls showing that a majority of the public doubts Trump has the mental capacity to govern, or medical experts who also lack firsthand knowledge.

That hasn’t prevented an array of mental health professionals from commenting on Trump’s apparent decline. In 2017, forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee published an anthology, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” with essays by 27 psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals describing the danger that they felt Trump’s mental health posed. A new edition, “The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 50 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Anew,” came out in 2025.  Recently, Dr. Vin Gupta, a medical analyst for NBC News, discussed the Trump family history of dementia, stating that he was observing a “trend line” with the president and “it seems like it’s getting worse.”

STAT, a health news site that shares a parent company with The Boston Globe, provided early coverage of Trump’s potential mental decline. Some Substacks have also smartly addressed the topic of Trump’s mental challenges.

John Ellis, editor of the News Items Substack newsletter and a former columnist for Globe Opinion, cited a recent poll showing a majority of Americans believe Trump “lacks the mental sharpness to serve effectively” as president. Given that concern, he says, it’s odd that mainstream news organizations have not attacked the story more aggressively. “It is arguably the most important story in the world,” he told me.

Former New Yorker and Daily Beast editor Tina Brown, who has also written smartly about Trump’s mental health, said on her Substack, Fresh Hell, that “Trump’s psychosis is our biggest national export.”

During his first term in 2018, Trump boasted of scoring 100 percent on a 10-minute cognitive test administered by his doctor. (More recently, he said he aced two other cognitive tests.)

It was laughable when Trump in 2018, reacted to a negative portrayal of himself in Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” by calling himself a “very stable genius.” Now, when he is leading an illegal war of his own choosing and his troubling utterances and actions pile up, his apparent lack of mental fitness is no laughing matter.