New at the Trump Smithsonian

Confront or Cave? Federal Pressure Splits the Building Trades

Often conservative construction unions will have to decide what they will do

Natascha Elena Uhlmann, Keith Brower Brown for Labor Notes

Will prevailing wage be paid on ICE
concentration camp construction?

One of the last nationwide bastions of union jobs is getting jackhammered by the Trump administration. Members are languishing in ICE prisons without trial. Programs that protect members from racism and sexism are getting the axe.

In response, building trades officers are split: some are pleading, some are protesting, and others are surrendering without a fight.

Out of nine million construction workers in the U.S., one million had a union last year. Since the 1970s, when about forty percent of U.S. hardhats wore union stickers, anti-union developers have kicked unions out from most residential and private building sites.

The building trades took refuge in publicly funded construction projects and specialized industrial jobs. An old federal law that favors union hires for interstates and military outposts helps small locals of pile drivers and insulators straggle on even in rural Alabama or Wyoming, where unions are otherwise scarce.

The Orwellian echoes in Trump’s push for ‘Americanism’ at the Smithsonian

Trump claims it's "Woke" for the Smithsonian describe "how bad slavery was"

Laura Beers, American University

When people use the term “Orwellian,” it’s not a good sign.

It usually characterizes an action, an individual or a society that is suppressing freedom, particularly the freedom of expression. It can also describe something perverted by tyrannical power.

It’s a term used primarily to describe the present, but whose implications inevitably connect to both the future and the past.

In his second term, Donald Trump has revealed his ambitions to rewrite America’s official history to, in the words of the Organization of American Historians, “reflect a glorified narrative … while suppressing the voices of historically excluded groups.”

This ambition was manifested in efforts by the Department of Education to eradicate a “DEI agenda” from school curricula. It also included a high-profile assault on what detractors saw as “woke” universities, which culminated in Columbia University’s agreement to submit to a review of the faculty and curriculum of its Middle Eastern Studies department, with the aim of eradicating alleged pro-Palestinian bias.

Now, the administration has shifted its sights from formal educational institutions to one of the key sites of public history-making: the Smithsonian, a collection of 21 museums, the National Zoo and associated research centers, principally centered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

On Aug. 12, 2025, the Smithsonian’s director, Lonnie Bunch III, received a letter from the White House announcing its intent to carry out a systematic review of the institution’s holdings and exhibitions in the advance of the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026.

The review’s stated aim is to ensure that museum content adequately reflects “Americanism” through a commitment to “celebrate American exceptionalism, [and] remove divisive or partisan narratives.”

On Aug. 19, 2025, Trump escalated his attack on the Smithsonian. “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was…” he wrote in a Truth Social post. “Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. We are not going to allow this to happen.”

Such ambitions may sound benign, but they are deeply Orwellian. Here’s how.

Trump interview on CNBC shows he's 'Living in a Fantasy World'

Weird claims about statistics, inflation, the price of gas and groceries, jobs, farmworkers, trade deals continue to raise questions about his sanity 

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

Donald Trump gave a lengthy interview to CNBC  and critics quickly pounced on the president for telling a large number of false claims on topics ranging from monthly jobs numbers to the price of gas to international trade agreements.

Toward the start of the interview, CNBC host Joe Kernen pushed back on Trump's claims that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had "rigged" job creation numbers against him and debunked a Trump statement that the BLS had covered up negative jobs data revisions under the Biden administration until after the November 2024 presidential election.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Trump, however, insisted that his statements about hiding downward revisions until after the election were correct even though the biggest downward revisions actually occurred in August 2024, well before the election took place. 

Trump South Africa Refugee Program 'Intended for White People' Only

Explicitly racist policy is the new normal

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

A July 25 report from Reuters claims that a senior Trump administration official recently informed diplomats in South Africa that a refugee program set up by Donald Trump earlier this year was explicitly intended for white people.

According to Reuters, American diplomats in South Africa earlier this month asked the U.S. State Department whether it was allowed to process refugee claims from South African citizens who spoke the Afrikaans language but who were of mixed-race descent.

The Trump regime argues the white Afrikaners will
be easier to assimilate in American culture
than refugees of color. Here's an example of their proof.

The diplomats received a response from Spencer Chretien, the senior bureau official in the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, who informed them that "the program is intended for white people," writes Reuters.

The State Department told Reuters that the scope of the program is actually broader than what was outlined in Chretien's message and that its policy is "to consider both Afrikaners and other racial minorities for resettlement," which lines up with guidance posted earlier this year stating that applicants for refugee status under the program "must be of Afrikaner ethnicity or be a member of a racial minority in South Africa."

The environmental toll of artificial intelligence

Trump AI plan would “ramp up exploitation” of people and the environment, advocates warn

Shannon Kelleher 

The Trump administration this week released a plan to fast-track the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) in the US, delighting tech groups while alarming environmental advocates who point to the industry’s toxic emissions, high water usage and heavy reliance on fossil fuels.

The “AI action plan,” released July 23 by the White House, calls for the development of new AI data centers – huge facilities that house AI computing infrastructure – to be waived from typical assessment requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act, which determine a project’s environmental impact.

The plan also proposes expediting environmental permitting for such data centers by streamlining or reducing regulations under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, and calls on agencies to make federal lands available for constructing data centers and their power generation infrastructure.

In accordance with the Trump Administration’s AI plan, the US Department of Energy today announced four sites across the country selected to invite private sector partners to develop AI data centers and energy generation projects – a “bold step” that will “accelerate the next Manhattan Project,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright in a statement.

Trump's Magnet of Malevolence

Trump's inner circle egg him on

Robert Reich

The conventional explanation for why Trump’s second term is far more extreme than his first (which was extreme enough) is that the guardrails are now gone.

The people who occupied significant roles in the White House and Cabinet during his first administration — who talked him out of (or subverted) his illegal and unconstitutional cravings — are no longer there. In their places are loyalists who will do whatever he wants.

But this conventional view overlooks a more important explanation.

He’s more extreme this time because he’s attracted people around him who are also extreme and pushing him to new levels of malevolence.

I’ve served under three presidents and advised a fourth. In every case, I’ve seen the same pattern: A president acts as a magnet, drawing into the highest levels of his administration people who not only share his values but amplify them.

When a president wants to do a decent job — at the least, respecting democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law — the magnet produces an administration of people who respect our institutions of self-government.

But when a president is malevolent, those drawn to him are among the most fanatical and dangerous in the land.

A racial slur exposes the deep divisions in Westerly's political culture

Culture war divides Town Council

Steve Ahlquist

Town Council, left to right: William Aiello, Michael Niemeyer, Alexandra Healy, Council President Christopher Duhamel, Council Vice President Mary Scialabba, Dylan LaPietra, and Rose Van Dover.

During a one-on-one interview for her reappointment to Westerly’s Multicultural Committee, April Dinwoodie was asked inappropriate questions about her race, and then referred to “using a term rooted in slavery and racial classification” by Town Councilor Rose Van Dover. (The Town Council established the Multicultural Committee to promote diversity and link the many different cultures in the town.) Though there is apparently no recording of the conversation, Dinwoodie and Van Dover agree that this happened, and Councilor Van Dover apologized.

But the exchange exposed the deep rifts in Westerly on issues of race, DEI, and the current polarized political climate rooted in Christian Nationalism. People on both sides of the issue packed the Town Council chamber to express their support for Dinwoodie and/or Van Dover. This raises the question: Why are there two sides to this issue?

The issue above was not the only thing occupying the town council’s attention on Monday. They were also dealing with shoreline access, Westerly Police assisting ICE, and the possibility that short-term rentals are making home ownership increasingly impossible. The Town Council took no action on any of these issues.

The transcript has been edited for clarity:

April Dinwoodie: I recently served as the Chair of the Multicultural Committee. A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed for reappointment to the Multicultural Committee. At the beginning of that conversation, I was asked about my racial identity and referred to using a term rooted in slavery and racial classification. It had no place in an interview for public service. 

Questions about the actual work of the committee came only after I had to explain why the term used was problematic and after unsolicited reflections about the racial identities of students this councilor grew up with, as well as her family structure and Christian values. I felt this was disconnected from the role and responsibilities of serving with the Multicultural Committee, and it raised concerns about what interviews are conducted, who gets asked what, and the power of elected officials.

After sharing what occurred in the interview with the Town Council, I received a message from Councilor Rose Van Dover that read, in part, “I did not know the word I used was offensive, and I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. Your explanation made me think about my grandchildren who are multiracial. I will do better in the future.” I appreciate that Town Councilor Van Dover responded, but from apology must also come accountability, and from accountability, action.

Putting the word aside, it was about the interview’s structure, tone, and content. Only after Councillor Van Dover repeatedly asked or said, “I don’t want any of that..."

Councilor William Aiello: Point of order, Mr. President. The only thing listed on the agenda is a review of appointments, not the content of one-on-one conversations or emails about the appointments. I think this is a bridge too far. This could align with the second citizen comments, but not the first, for agenda items only.

Council President Christopher Duhamel: I’ll defer to our solicitor. The Item concerns the liaison appointments and how they are conducted.

Attorney William Connelly: It’s up to the chair to rule on the point of order, and it can be challenged, as always, and put to a vote.

Council President Duhamel: The chair votes that this is part of the agenda. The agenda set the meeting to allow this incident to be discussed, so the chair votes not in favor of the point.

Councillor Aiello: I appeal that decision because what you discussed in the agenda-setting meeting is not what’s on the agenda. The agenda is a review of liaison appointments. I’m not saying Ms. Dinwoodie can’t speak, or anybody else can’t speak, but at the second citizen’s comments section, where it’s open to more things.

Council President Duhamel: Understood. I already ruled on this. Did you want to appeal it?

Councilor Aiello: Yeah.

Councilor Dylan LaPietra: I second it, and I want to discuss it. As usual, you don’t have a clue how to write an agenda, but putting your incompetence aside, why don’t we get this out of the way, rather than have everybody sit around and wait for the second citizen’s comment section?

Council President Duhamel: Mr. LaPietra, you don’t have to be insulting. I know you’re good at it, but you don’t have to be insulting.

Donald Trump says this is what Native Americans want

In 1993, Trump testified how he can tell who is an "Indian" by how they look

Trump is killing the National Cancer Institute

World’s Premier Cancer Institute Faces Crippling Cuts and Chaos

Rachana Pradhan and Arthur Allen 

While slashing cancer research funding, Trump is
also destroying the wind power industry. Trump
claims with absolutely no evidence that wind energy
causes cancer

The Trump administration’s broadsides against scientific research have caused unprecedented upheaval at the National Cancer Institute, the storied federal government research hub that has spearheaded advances against the disease for decades.

NCI, which has long benefited from enthusiastic bipartisan support, now faces an exodus of clinicians, scientists, and other staffers — some fired, others leaving in exasperation.

After years of accelerating progress that has reduced cancer deaths by a third since the 1990s, the institute has terminated funds nationwide for research to fight the disease, expand care, and train new oncologists. “We use the word ‘drone attack’ now regularly,” one worker said of grant terminations. “It just happens from above.”

The assault could well result in a perceptible slowing of progress in the fight against cancer.

Homeland Security posts a bizarre tweet on X

What in the name of dysentery is Kristi Noem talking about?

Daily Kos

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is so freakin’ weird.

On Monday, the official Department of Homeland Security X account posted an image of a painting, along with the caption, “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage. New Life in a New Land - Morgan Weistling.”

If you grew up playing the video game “Oregon Trail,” you know what this evokes: dysentery. The National Park Service estimates that 30,000 settlers died from it—nearly 10%—on the Oregon Trail alone. That’s 10-15 deaths per mile.

But maybe that’s on brand for today’s conservatives. After all, they’re bizarrely excited to bring back measles, too.

But dysentery was just the beginning. Gun mishaps, hypothermia, wild animals, drowning during river crossings, rightly hostile Indigenous tribes—this was a death gauntlet. It’s just plain weird to romanticize one of the most brutal chapters of American expansionism.

And that baby in the painting? That poor, nameless baby?

In the mid-1800s, one-third of children didn’t make it to their 5th birthday according to this study from Our World in Data. Other estimates suggest that infant mortality was closer to 40-45% during this era and likely even higher on the trail. Parents often waited a full year before naming their children because survival was far from guaranteed, so this little anchor baby likely didn’t have a name yet.

Yes, anchor baby. The Morgan Weistling painting, which was incorrectly labeled by DHS as “New Life in a New Land,” is titled “A Prayer for a New Life.”

Sounds pretty immigration-y, right? But that’s odd, considering that conservatives absolutely hate people looking for a better life somewhere else. Why didn’t these immigrants just stay home?

Meanwhile, Trump’s ancestors hadn’t even made it to America yet. Neither had most of his wives’. It sure ain’t their “homeland heritage.”

And stepping back, what does this painting even have to do with DHS? Are they trying to police vibes now?

It’s just all so weird.

These Trumpists aren’t “tough.” They’re just strange.

Trump official says ICE cops can engage in racial profiling

What Trump’s budget says about his environmental values

That he doesn't have any?

Stan Meiburg, Wake Forest University and Janet McCabe, Indiana University

To understand the federal government’s true priorities, follow the money.

After months of saying his administration is committed to clean air and water for Americans, Donald Trump has proposed a detailed budget for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for fiscal year 2026. The proposal is more consistent with his administration’s numerous recent actions and announcements that reduce protection for public health and the environment.

To us, former EPA leaders – one a longtime career employee and the other a political appointee – the budget proposal reveals a lot about what Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin want to accomplish.

According to the administration’s Budget in Brief document, total EPA funding for the fiscal year beginning October 2025 would drop from US$9.14 billion to $4.16 billion – a 54% decrease from the budget enacted by Congress for fiscal 2025 and less than half of EPA’s budget in any year of the first Trump administration.

Without taking inflation into account, this would be the smallest EPA budget since 1986. Adjusted for inflation, it would be the smallest budget since the Ford administration, even though Congress has for decades given EPA more responsibility to clean up and protect the nation’s air and water; handle hazardous chemicals and waste; protect drinking water; clean up environmental contamination; and evaluate the safety of a wide range of chemicals used in commerce and industry. These expansions reflected a bipartisan consensus that protecting public health and the environment is a national priority.

Evolution in action

Why does Trump and MAGA hate education?

Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny

Robert Reich 

Friends,

Under pressure from the Trump administration, the University of Virginia’s president of nearly seven years, James Ryan, stepped down, declaring that while he was committed to the university and inclined to fight, he could not in good conscience push back just to save his job.

The Department of Justice demanded that Ryan resign in order to resolve an investigation into whether UVA sufficiently complied with Trump’s orders banning diversity, equity, and inclusion.

UVA dissolved its DEI office in March, though Trump’s lackeys claim the university didn’t go far enough in rooting out DEI.

This is the first time the Trump regime has explicitly tied grant dollars to the resignation of a university official. It’s unlikely to be the last.

On June 30, the Trump regime said Harvard University violated federal civil rights law by failing to address the harassment of Jewish students on campus.

On July 1, the regime released $175 million in previously frozen federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, but only after the school agreed to block transgender women athletes from female sports teams and erase the records set by swimmer Lia Thomas.

Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism, and transgender athletics are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities.

Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power?

They’re following Hungarian President Viktor Orban’s playbook for creating an “illiberal democracy” — an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy. The playbook goes like this:

First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you. Check.

Next, intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.) Check.

Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with. Check or in process.

Then focus on independent sources of information. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews. Check.

Then go after the universities.

It CAN happen here in South County

Don't wait until it's too late

South County Resistance

ICE tactics everywhere, especially in LA, are threatening our constitutional liberties.  It's only a matter of time until they show up here in South County to raid our restaurants, businesses, and courts with their thuggery, at the administration’s orders.

During the last Westerly Town Council meeting, Councilor Alex Healy spoke out against the aggressive tactics employed by ICE and questioned the police chief about his intention when ICE shows up. 

He seemed to skirt answering the question, saying they would cooperate with anyone with a warrant.  But we all know that the clandestine agents on a mission to meet Steven Miller's quotas rarely have warrants and often result in the disappearance of people with legal status and no criminal records. 

Since that discourse, Alex and supportive councilors have been targeted by Westerly supporters of the Administration's crackdown on immigration with accusations that Alex and others are advocating for illegal blocking of ICE actions.  

They are advocating for the legal treatment of humans in America who hold the right to due process. They are wondering how the local police department will react to such unprecedented violence from Federal officials.  READ MORE about the legality issue.

The Westerly Town Council needs our help! They need to see that there are people in Westerly who stand by the desire not to see local law enforcement wrapped up in executing the unilateral and patently unconstitutional orders of the presidential administration. 

The next Town Council meeting is July 7, 2025, 6:00 pm – come out to provide public comment or just show up in support of those councilors who are willing to stand up for your rights!

EDITOR’S NOTE: The threat posed by Trump to our fundamental civil liberties cannot be exaggerated. So far, just about anything that could happen has happened or seems likely to happen.

I agree with South County Resistance’s assessment that it’s only a matter of time before repression starts to occur here. You are vulnerable if you have spoken or written against Trump. If you have a Hispanic or Middle Eastern sounding name. If your parents or grandparents were foreign-born. If your skin is the “wrong” color. It doesn’t matter whether you are a citizen or have committed no crimes.

Trump’s jackboots have already scooped up totally innocent people and without due process, shipped them off to third-world gulags – with the blessing of Trump’s Supreme Court appointees.

So the time to prepare is now. Don’t wait until you get that knock on your door, or as happened recently, having your door blown in with explosives.    – Will Collette

Boston federal judge rules that anti-woke is just racism

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a rancid bigot.

Liz Dye

Earlier this week, a federal judge in Boston explicitly called out the Trump administration for its “palpably clear” discrimination against racial minorities and LGBTQ+ Americans in a case involving canceled grants from the National Institutes of Health.

“Have we no shame?” Judge William Young asked, in an unmistakable echo of attorney Joseph Welch, who famously punctured Joe McCarthy’s popularity with his simple plea for decency.

Seventy-five years ago, McCarthy and his sidekick Roy Cohn hunted Communists. Now, Donald Trump, who was mentored by Cohn, hunts a different kind of subversive. In executive orders signed during his first weeks in office, he targeted “Illegal DEI and DEIA policies,” claiming that they violate civil rights laws. He declared that “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” and branded “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex” as discriminatory against women and girls.

This is a radical misstatement of the law. No court in the land has ever held that DEI — whatever that means — constitutes racial discrimination, or that allowing trans people to participate in society amounts to gender discrimination. It also defies the medical and scientific consensus about sex, gender, and biology. But no matter! The president redefined reality by executive fiat, and then instructed his minions to carry out a purge consistent with his edict.

And purge, they did! The administration immediately moved to kick trans service members out of the military, reorient the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to focus on “DEI-related discrimination at work,” and pulled down websites on everything from baseball icon Jackie Robinson to transgender health care.

But while the government was busy deleting pronouns from civil servants’ signature lines, it also slashed thousands of federal grants because some DOGE bro (or possibly an AI) decided that the recipient was vaguely “woke” — whatever that means. At NIH, more than a $1 billion of funding was cut because of its supposed association with “woke” ideologies.

Blanket termination letters informed recipients that their funding was being cut, often in the middle of a multi-year grant, for vague thought crimes:

Research programs based primarily on artificial and non-scientific categories, including amorphous equity objectives, are antithetical to the scientific inquiry, do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness. Worse, so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) studies are often used to support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race and other protected characteristics, which harms the health of Americans. Therefore, it is the policy of NIH not to prioritize such research programs.

Federal Judge Deems Trump Administration’s Termination of NIH Grants Illegal

Order killing medical research grants is "void and illegal" but does Trump care?

By Annie Waldman

What Happened: A federal judge ruled on June 16 that the Trump administration’s termination of hundreds of grants by the National Institutes of Health was “void and illegal,” ordering some of them to be reinstated, including many profiled by ProPublica in recent months.

District Judge William G. Young made the ruling in two lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s directives and cancellations: One case was brought by more than a dozen states’ attorneys general, and the other was led by the American Public Health Association alongside several other organizations and researchers.

In Monday’s ruling, the judge determined that the directives that led to the grant terminations were “arbitrary and capricious” and said they had “no force and effect.” The judge’s ruling ordered the funding of the grants to be restored. It only covers grants that have been identified by the plaintiffs in the cases.

The making of a sociopath

Born loser: Inside Donald Trump's troubled life

Peter Dreier 

I must admit, if Trump wasn't such a power-hungry demagogue, a danger to democracy, a sexual predator, racist, sociopath, pathological liar, bully, and impulsive and unstable megalomaniac, I might feel sorry for him.

He has no real friends, just sycophants. All his relationships are transactions, including with his three wives and his children. When people are no longer useful to him—wives, lawyers, advisors, Cabinet members—he discards them.

His current wife Melania is transactional, too. She married him for his money. She obviously doesn't love or respect him and she occasionally displays her disdain for him in public. She didn’t even campaign for him last year, except to make a few public appearances.

Trump hardly ever laughs. He has an almost-constant angry scowl on his face. To Trump, the world is a dark and foreboding place, where, like him, people are consumed by greed and lust. He relies on money and intimidation to get what he wants because he has no capacity for empathy or love—or any belief that people can be motivated by idealism and compassion.

Trump grew up in a world of vast privilege, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't emotionally wounded.

Both the federal raids on immigrants in Los Angeles and the military parade in Washington, D.C. reflect Trump’s need to look tough, manly, and in control.

According to his niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, he was bullied by his father, who must have told Donald that he wasn't smart and that he was (or should be worried about being) a loser. In 2017, 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts published a book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, warning that he was erratic and unstable as pressures mounted on him. 

Two years later, they updated the book—this time with 37 experts weighing in on Trump’s troubled mental health.

He has no strong beliefs about governing or public policy. His major motivations are money, power, revenge, racism, and adulation.

One of Trump’s few joys in life are the cheers from his fans at MAGA rallies. So, to compensate for his insecurities, feed his ego, and to mobilize his MAGA followers, he planned this massive parade on June 14 ostensibly to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, but which also just happens to coincide with this 79th birthday. 

Trump intended it as a display of force, domination, and personal power. It is more about him than about honoring our soldiers and veterans.

In U.S. history, large military parades have typically come at the end of wars as part of demobilizing troops and celebrating getting the country back to normal. But such spectacles have a long tradition in authoritarian countries, where dictators, including the current rulers of Russian and North Korea, seek to bind themselves to national identity. 

The most disreputable of these displays of dominance were the mass rallies and parades organized by the Nazis to celebrate Adolf Hitler, depicted in Leni Riefenstahl’s pathbreaking propaganda film “Triumph of the Will,” that celebrated Hitler speaking at a massive Nazi Party rally in Nurenberg in 1934.

Having won a second term, Trump now wants to consolidate his grip on power. He’s sought to bend those whom he views as his critics and opponents—universities, media companies, law firms, judges, businesses, scientists, artists and performers, and even professional sports teams—to his will. Both the federal raids on immigrants in Los Angeles and the upcoming military parade in Washington, D.C. reflect Trump’s need to look tough, manly, and in control.

From his father, who was arrested at a Klan rally in 1927, he also absorbed the racist ideas of the fake science of eugenics, which was popular in America in the early 1900s.

In 1988, he told Oprah Winfrey that a person had “to have the right genes” in order to achieve great fortune. In 2010, he told CNN that he was a “gene believer,” explaining that “when you connect two racehorses, you usually end up with a fast horse.” He compared his own “gene pool” to that of successful thoroughbreds. During a 2020 campaign speech to a crowd of white supporters in Minnesota, Trump said, “You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? You have good genes in Minnesota.”

Trump's grandfather Friedrich was a
German draft-dodger

But in fact, Trump has thus always been insecure about his family's genes. His father lied about his family's heritage, pretending that the Trumps were from Swedish, not German, ancestry. Trump repeated the lie in his book, The Art of the Deal. 

He later said that he wouldn't mind if the US had more immigrants from Scandinavia, but kept out immigrants from "shithole countries," an outrageously racist comment. 

Trump said at a rally in Iowa that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of the country. They're destroying the fabric of our country, and we're going to have to get them out."

Trump believes that most white Americans share his racism toward immigrants and that he can weaponize that hatred by carrying out a mass deportation of people he calls “illegal” and “criminals.” He’s sent federal agents to Los Angeles to arrest immigrant workers and parents, followed by National Guard troops to intimidate and arrest those who are protesting the anti-immigrant raids. 

This is all designed to create fear and chaos to give Trump cover as the “law and order” president and, as Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA) noted, “an excuse to declare martial law in California.” The timing is no accident. The federal raids—which Trump is likely to expand to other cities—are meant to divert public attention from Trump’s legislative plan to cut Medicaid and other essential programs in order to give a huge tax cut to the super-rich.

Trump often claims that he's a self-made billionaire. In fact, he inherited his father's wealth, as reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig explain in their 2024 book, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success. 

His father bankrolled his developments and bailed him out when they failed. Despite his boasts, he knows that most of his business ventures—his casinos, hotels, golf courses, fake university, airline, football team, clothing line, steaks, and others—failed. 

Most banks won't go near Trump, because they consider him a toxic grifter who consistently defrauds his subcontractors, employees, and lenders. According to Forbes magazine—which ranks the world’s billionaires—Trump was never as wealthy as he claimed to be.

The timing is no accident. The federal raids—which Trump is likely to expand to other cities—are meant to divert public attention from Trump’s legislative plan to cut Medicaid and other essential programs in order to give a huge tax cut to the super-rich.

Trump's favorite insults, directed toward people he considers his enemies, are "not smart" and "losers." Clearly the man is projecting.

Trump was terrified of losing last year’s election because he might have had to go to prison and also because he'd be viewed as a "loser," which in his mind is the worst thing you can be, a consequence of his father's disparagement and his mother's neglect. He was doubly worried that he might lose to a Black woman, Kamala Harris, whom he described as “not smart.”

Trump is clearly insecure about his mental abilities and worries that it's due to his inferior genes. He’s boasted that he comes from a superior genetic stock and that he is a "very stable genius." For years, he has constantly insisted that "I'm smart." 

“Throughout my life,” Trump tweeted in 2018, “my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.” He lied about being first in his class in college. He didn't even make the Dean's List. Whenever he has defended his intelligence, it isn't clear if he's trying to convince his interviewers or himself.

He’s even defensive about his vocabulary. He claims to have "great words," although linguists who have studied his speeches and other statements say he has the vocabulary of an adolescent. He doesn't read—for pleasure or work. As president, he doesn’t read the memos prepared for him by his staff, including intelligence briefs. Some observers attributed this to his arrogance. But more likely it is because he can’t understand what is in them. He'd rather be considered arrogant than stupid.

At least 26 of his top aides publicly said that Trump was unfit to be president. They questioned his competence, character, impulsiveness, narcissism, judgement, intelligence, and even his sanity.

According to Michael Wolff, in his book, Fire and Fury, both former chief of staff Reince Priebus and ex-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called Trump an “idiot.” Trump’s one-time economic adviser Gary Cohn said Trump was “dumb as shit.” His national security adviser H.R. McMaster described the president as a “dope.” 

In July 2017, news stories reported that Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first Secretary of State, called the president a “moron.” When asked, he did not deny using that term. In an interview with Foreign Affairs magazine, Tillerson recounted that Trump’s “understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited.” He said, “It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”

“Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” said his former Vice President, Mike Pence. Mark Esper, one of Trump’s Defense Secretaries, said that Trump is not “fit for office because he puts himself first, and I think anybody running for office should put the country first.” 

In his farewell speech, Mark Milley, a retired Army general who served as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2023, warned “We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” clearly referring to Trump. John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps four-star general who served as chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, said that Trump “admires autocrats and murderous dictators” and “has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”

Soon after the January 6, 2021 insurrection, McMaster, the former national security advisor, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump had incited the riot through “sustained disinformation… spreading these unfounded conspiracy theories.” He accused Trump of “undermining rule of law.” 

Sarah Matthews, deputy White House press secretary during Trump’s first term, witnessed Trump staffers trying, without success, to get the president to condemn the January 6 violence. “In my eyes, it was a complete dereliction of duty that he did not uphold his oath of office,” she told USA Today. “I lost all faith in him that day” and resigned from her job. Trump’s “continuation of pushing this lie that the election is stolen has made him wholly unfit to hold office every again,” Matthews said.

What kind of president invites the media to attend Cabinet meetings where each member is required to humiliate themselves by telling Trump how wonderful he is?

But let's give Trump some credit. He does have the kind of intelligence, sometimes called "street smarts," attributed to hustlers, con men, and grifters. That seems to have worked for him.

Trump knows that many Republicans in Congress laugh at him behind his back but don't say anything in public because they fear him—particularly his ability to find candidates to run against them in the GOP primaries.

He also knows that most world leaders don't respect him. We’ve now been witness to the ritualized Oval Office meetings between Trump and his counterparts, where Trump seeks to bully, coerce, and humiliate them. 

A few have challenged him, which gets him angry enough to seek revenge. His meetings with Putin are somewhat different, since he envies the Russian autocrat’s power. Trump’s bromance and recent break-up with Elon Musk is partly about policy but mostly a battle of egos and wills.

What kind of person craves being famous for telling people, "You're fired"? But that's how he became a TV celebrity. What kind of president invites the media to attend Cabinet meetings where each member is required to humiliate themselves by telling Trump how wonderful he is? To Trump, respect is a zero-sum game. He likes to demean others to boost himself.

Trump will try, and fail, to cancel the 2028 elections and remain in power. But don't expect him to fade away. He will seek to become the leader of a white nationalist supremacist movement while continuing to dominate the Republican Party. The MAGA forces he’s unleashed since 2016 will also still be around. It is no accident that racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic incidents have spiked since Trump began campaigning for president. Trump verbalizes, encourages, enables, tolerates, winks at, and makes excuses for hate groups, most notably when he said that some of the Nazis marching in Charlottesville in 2017 were “good people.”

But as he gets crazier and crazier, and no longer has the power of the presidency, most of his followers will abandon him, crowds at his rallies will be smaller and smaller, and he’ll become a lonely, decrepit old man, a fallen idol like the Orson Welles character (Charles Kane) in the 1941 film "Citizen Kane" and the Andy Griffith character (Lonesome Rhodes) in the 1957 film "A Face in the Crowd."

He'll retreat to Mar-a-Lago—his Xanadu—by himself and with his paid staff. Or perhaps he'll spend much of his remaining years in federal prison, seething over how he was the victim of conspiracies.

When Trump dies from the side effects of obesity, the nation and the world will breathe a huge sigh of relief. And while he can't quite admit it to himself, he knows it, and it terrifies him.

‘Who controls the present controls the past’: What Orwell’s ‘1984’ explains about the twisting of history to control the public

Trump attacks on history are part of the brainwashing of America

Laura Beers, American University

When people use the term “Orwellian,” it’s not a good sign.

It usually characterizes an action, an individual or a society that is suppressing freedom, particularly the freedom of expression. It can also describe something perverted by tyrannical power.

It’s a term used primarily to describe the present, but whose implications inevitably connect to both the future and the past.

In his second term, President Donald Trump has revealed his ambitions to rewrite America’s official history to, in the words of the Organization of American Historians, “reflect a glorified narrative … while suppressing the voices of historically excluded groups.”

Such ambitions are deeply Orwellian. Here’s how.

Author George Orwell believed in objective, historical truth. Writing in 1946, he attributed his youthful desire to become an author in part to a “historical impulse,” or “the desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.”

But while Orwell believed in the existence of an objective truth about history, he did not necessarily believe that truth would prevail.