Bob Sheak, August 22, 2025
The record shows that Trump will do anything to get and retain presidential power, regardless of their effects.
2020 Election
When he lost the 2020 election to Biden, he encouraged his supporters to intervene in the congressional certification process and to stop it, so that electors favorable to him would count the votes.
Thousands of his followers came to the Capitol on January 6, 2020, to carry out his wishes. Then, amid the rioting, he waited over three hours before telling his thousands of rampaging followers – he called them patriots – to stop their rioting and go home. Some 1,500 of them were eventually imprisoned.
2024 Election
When the electoral votes were counted after the 2024 presidential election, Trump ended up with a very narrow, and controversial, victory over the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.
The authors of the book titled 2024 argue that Harris lost primarily because then-president Biden took too much time before deciding to give up his presidential run, leaving her with too little time to put together an effective campaign. (Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf, 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America).
Trump ascendant
On Trump’s first day in the White House (January 20, 2025), he ordered outrageously that the 1,500+ rioters who were serving time in a federal prison for the Jan. 6 riots to be released. This is an indication of how he sees little value in the law. Indeed, Thom Hartmann argues that “Trump wants to turn America into a police state” with Trump as all-powerful leader who now even wants to use military forces to takeover Democratic cities, which he describes without evidence as crime-ridden places (https://commondreams.org/opinion/trump-creating-police-state). Hartmann’s article was published on August 10, 2025. Here’s some of what he considers.
Trump has initially focused on Washington D.C., “despite the fact that crime in Washington DC is at a 30-year low and the city already has the largest police force, per capita, of any municipality in America.”
Hartmann continues. “A leaked memo from inside the Department of Homeland Security reveals what many of us feared but hoped we were wrong about: that the military is no longer a last resort in American governance. It’s now the first tool. A central player. A political weapon, just like in Russia.” The memo
“was written, circulated, and discussed at the highest levels of DHS and the Department of Defense and it spells out, in clinical, terrifying language, a plan to normalize and expand the use of the United States military within our own country, on our own soil, against our own people.”
“The memo, obtained by The New Republic, outlines a coordinated strategy to embed military forces into immigration enforcement not just at the border but across American cities. It calls for replicating the recent Los Angeles deployment ‘for years to come.’ It uses phrases like ‘homeland defense’ and paints immigration threats as akin to Al Qaeda or ISIS. It pushes for ‘new ideas’ on how DHS and DoD can work together on ‘national security’ threats inside the United States.”
For example, Trump ordered “4,000 National Guard troops — federalized, not state-controlled — into Los Angeles to back up ICE raids. He followed that with 700 active-duty Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines.”
The memo includes the following.
— Urges DHS to persuade top military brass to view immigration enforcement as a ‘homeland defense mission.’
— Seeks to embed armed, kill-trained military personnel inside ICE and CBP to ‘increase information sharing’ and support ‘nationwide operational planning.’
— Frames transnational gangs and cartels as equivalent to Al Qaeda, a dangerous, dishonest leap that pretends to justify extreme, deadly force.
— And it admits, in its own words, that due to the ‘sensitive nature’ of the meeting it documents, minimal written policy or background’ should be preserved.
Translation: They know what they’re doing is legally and morally criminal. So they’re minimizing the paper trail.”
Hartmann adds: “Joseph Nunn at the Brennan Center warned that this could create a permanent ‘domestic Forever War,’ a campaign of endless militarization justified by fear and manufactured crises. Soldiers — including armed, masked ICE agents answerable only to the president — terrifying civilians on their own streets and in their own homes: a military occupation of The United States of America.
“This isn’t just Trumpism. This is textbook authoritarianism in the mold of Putin’s Russia and Orbán’s Hungary. It embodies the early stages of all the horror stories of 1930s Europe.”
“That’s not just a skirmish over jurisdiction. That’s an open attack on the sovereignty of states, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution. That’s a president saying, ‘Your Guard is my army now.’”
Hartmann warns us, “unless we act — loudly, urgently, relentlessly — it will become a permanent force in American civic life. Not a protector of freedom, but a tool of control, just like in Orbán’s Hungary or Putin’s Russia.”
————-
Deployment of Troops into Washington D.C.
Nick Turse reports for the Intercept on August 12, 2025 on Trump’s use of Troops for policing in Washington D.C. and in other Democratic cities (https://theintercept.com/article/politics/trump-dc-military-deployment-civil-war). He notes that “Trump’s Use of Troops for Policing Hasn’t Been Seen Since America Was Ruled by a King.” Here’s some of what he writes.
“The United States crept closer to becoming a full-blown police state yesterday when President Donald Trump made good on a promise to further militarize the nation’s capital. Trump threatened to employ similar tactics in cities across the country as the Pentagon evaluates plans for a ‘Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force’ composed of hundreds of National Guard troops poised to surge into American cities.”
Trump’s made-up justification
Turse continues. “‘Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals,’ Trump said at a White House news conference on Monday (Aug 11), painting the city [falsely] as a hellscape filled with ‘drugged out maniacs’ and ‘caravans of mass youth’ who ‘rampage through city streets’ day and night. ‘I’m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, D.C.,’ he declared.”
Contrary to Trump, “Justice Department figures show violent crime in the nation’s capital is at a 30-year low.”
“‘If we look at both practically the way the Trump administration is using the military around the country and also formally, in what they are asserting about their authority — the ability to use the military anywhere, anytime, for any purpose — it’s absolutely unprecedented,’ said Joseph Nunn, an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program who focuses on the domestic role of the U.S. military.”
“Approximately 800 National Guard soldiers were activated as part of the ‘D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force,’ with about 100 to 200 of them supporting law enforcement at any given time, according to a statement provided to The Intercept by the Army.”
“D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said she did not believe it was legal ‘to use the American military against American citizens on American soil’ at a press conference on Monday evening.”
Turse continues. “The National Guard deployment is one facet of Trump’s efforts to put the District of Columbia under federal authority; he also declared that he is temporarily taking control of the city’s police department. Hundreds of officers and agents from more than a dozen federal agencies — including the FBI; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Drug Enforcement Administration; Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and the U.S. Marshals Service — have also fanned out across Washington in recent days.”
Trump “said Attorney General Pam Bondi would oversee the federal takeover of the capital’s Metropolitan Police Department and, with Hegseth at his side, added that he was prepared to send the military into Washington ‘if needed.’”
“In a Monday memorandum, Trump directed Hegseth to coordinate with governors of states and “authorize the orders of any additional members of the National Guard to active service, as he deems necessary and appropriate, to augment this mission.”
What will the courts decide?
Turse reports, “This is the second time this summer that Trump has deployed troops to a Democratically governed city. A federal trial began on Monday in San Francisco to decide whether Trump violated the law by deploying National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June without the approval of California Gov.r Gavin Newsom.
For now, it’s government policy
“In his first seven months in office,” Turse writes, “Trump has overseen the deployment of around 20,000 federal troops on American soil, including personnel from the National Guard, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines, according to the Pentagon. But the true number of troops deployed may be markedly higher. U.S. Northern Command has no running tally of how many troops have been deployed around the country.
“These federal forces have been operating under Title 10 authority, or federal control, in at least five states — Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas — in service of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.
“Around 5,500 troops — Marines and California National Guard members — have also been deployed to Los Angeles since early June. The forces were sent to LA over the objections of local officials and Newsom.”
“‘Though the rhetoric is sometimes different, from Los Angeles streets to ICE detention centers to our nation’s capital, President Trump is repeatedly acting to turn the National Guard into the first-choice implementers of his authoritarian agenda,’ Sara Haghdoosti, the executive director of Win Without War, told The Intercept. ‘Whether it is assaulting immigrant communities or seizing control of law enforcement in DC, his goal for these deployments is the same: using state violence to strip power, safety, and dignity from people. Members of the National Guard should be under no illusions about what they’re being sent to do in Washington.’”
“On Monday, Trump took aim at numerous cities led by Democratic mayors in states with Democratic governors, threating authoritarian power grabs similar to his effort in Washington. ‘If we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,’ Trump said. ‘You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that anymore. They’re so far gone,” said Trump. “We’re not going to let it happen. We’re not going to lose our cities over this. And this will go further.’”
————-
Trump’s Worst Crimes, Dangers, and Destructions Are Yet to Come
Ralph Nader offers an overview of Trump’s effects of his anti-democratic plans and actions in an article for Common Dreams, Aug 9,2025 (https://commondreams.org/opinion/trump-attacks-on-democracy-institutions).
“The worst crimes of Donald Trump and dangers to America from the unstable, monomaniacal, lying outlaw in the White House have yet to come. He is not satisfied with tearing apart our country’s social safety net for tens of millions of Americans (e.g., Medicaid and food program cuts); wrecking our scientific/medical systems, including warning people about pandemics. He is, by wrecking FEMA et al, failing to address the impact of mega-storms, wildfires, and droughts; and allowing cybersecurity threats to increase while giving harm-producing big corporations immunities from the law, more subsidies, and more tax escapes. Recall how he always adds to his attacks on powerless people that ‘This is just the beginning.’”
“He just took the next step in his march to madness and mayhem by announcing more concentration camps holding immigrants, arrested without due process, for deportation to foreign countries that want U.S. taxpayer cash for each deportee.”
Immigrants play a crucial role in the U.S. economy
Recent immigrants are crucial to millions of small and large businesses. Consider who harvests our crops, cares for our children and the elderly, cleans up after us, and works the food processing plants and construction sites. Already, businesses are reducing or closing their enterprises – a political peril for Dangerous Donald.
“If all immigrants to the U.S. from the last ten years, documented and undocumented, went on strike, our country would almost shut down. Yet Trump, who hired 500 undocumented workers for just one of his construction sites in New York, and had similar laborers at his New Jersey golf course, promises deportations of millions more.
“Always bear in mind the self-defined characteristics of corporatist Trump’s feverish, hateful, outlaw mind: (1) He has declared he ‘can do whatever he wants as President,’ proving his serial violations of law and illegal dictates every day; (2) He always doubles down when indicted, convicted, caught, or exposed, falsely accusing his accusers of the exact transgressions they are reliably charging him with; (3) He brags about lashing out at criticism with foul defamatory invectives; (4) He never admits his disastrous mistake; (5) He boasts that he knows more than leading experts in a dozen major areas of knowledge (see, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All”); and (6) He asserts that every action, policy, or program he launches is a spectacular success – the facts to the contrary are dismissed. He is gravely delusional, replaces realities with fantasies, breaks promises that are made to defer any reckoning or accountability, and, like an imaginary King, finds no problem with saying ‘I rule America and the world.’”
————
Concluding thoughts
The evidence shows that Trump is a destructive and delusional force in the U.S. and worldwide, that is, when he can get away with such behavior. As one recent example, Steve Benen reports that Trump, who avoided the draft during the Vietnam War, has declared himself a “war hero” (https://msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/problems-trump-declaring-war-hero-rcna226096).
Currently, his poll numbers are low among Independents and Democrats, reflecting his counterproductive tariff policies, his past relations with Jeffrey Epstein and the criminal acts on very young girls (see
https://theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/07/inside-white-house-trump-epstein-strategy/683604), his support of cutting the staff of federal agencies and services, his reckless and often lawless anti-immigrant policy, and the unequal impacts of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, with its huge tax benefits for the rich.
It is good that the polls are against Trump but there is also a need for more people to combine their criticisms with political engagement.
Vital issues - challenging pol and econ power 