Cartoon by Adam Zyglis of the Buffalo News

On almost a daily basis we are gifted with another idiotic Trump statement, a greater Trump-driven encroachment on our sense of what is right and normal in the world. I found myself wondering how much has he really done and how dangerous is it really?

I decided to list things that have happened under his watch and try to group them into categories and rank them. I apologize in advance for omissions from the list, because I’m sure I won’t have the energy to capture them all. I also apologize for the length of this article which I think is the longest in my blog library. Blame Trump – he’s the one doing all this stuff.

I want to put in a little caveat right up front. I think there is convincing evidence that Trump is losing his marbles, and even if he’s not, I personally doubt that any one man is capable of lining up all of the different initiatives that are underway. There is a clearly a Project 2025 team in the background pulling strings. When I refer to what Trump has done or is doing, I’m really talking about his whole MAGA team. Who knows? Trump may be more puppet than puppeteer.

1. The Attack on the Rule of Law

Trump has mounted an attack on the rule of law by subverting the courts to his own purposes. A review of SCOTUS case decisions and actions reveals that Supreme Court rulings increasingly are partisan, and resulting from flawed processes. The Supreme Court:

• Granted extraordinary Presidential immunity.
• Overturned Roe v Wade
• Overturned Chevron Doctrine, stripping regulatory power from government agencies.
• Ruled against Affirmative Action programs at Harvard and University of North Carolina.
• Banned gender-affirming care for minors
• Increased use of “shadow docket” rulings, where decisions are rendered without full briefings, oral arguments or detailed written opinions. For example, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling to permit ICE to resume aggressive enforcement in Los Angeles and they did that from the shadow docket.

When Trump is opposed by court rulings, he often ignores them. Of about 165 cases where the government suffered an adverse ruling, about 35% resulted in non-compliance by the government in the form of misrepresentations, ignoring orders, or procedural evasions.

The third step in the attack on the Rule of Law is to discourage the citizens from invoking the law in the first place. Law firms which have acted against Trump have been blacklisted. The administration is now seeking financial sanctions against an attorney who filed a motion against his client’s deportation. Former FBI head James Comey is under indictment for investigating Russia’s influence in the 2016 election.

• The attack on Science.

The Trump Administration is mounting a concerted attack on science findings and research. Why? Well science exposes truths, and those truths are inconvenient for big oil companies, for “anti-woke” social conservatives and for Christian Nationalists who still believe the world was created in 7 days and we have no simian ancestors.

Since Trump took office for the second time:

• Trump issued Executive orders that froze funding to scientific organizations, purged LGBTQ research and climate research.
•  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lost 880 employees (about 7% of their staff). 
• The EPA’s Office of Research and Development has been targeted, potentially laying off more than 1100 scientists, chemists and toxicologists. 
• In their first 100 days in office, 145 rollbacks to scientific and environmental protections were announced.
• The Climate Change Transparency Project has documented “aggressive erasures of environmental justice and climate data from federal sites”. They’re cookin’ the books folks. If you don’t like the data, you make the data disappear.

 Perhaps no-where has the attack on science been so risible as in the Department of Health and Human Services under the weird and wonderful leadership of RFK Jr. He has:

• fired all 17 members of the Advisory committee on Immunization practices, and replaced them with a bunch of “vaccine skeptics”.  
• Reversed guidance for Covid vaccines for children and pregnant women.
• Terminated the Director of the CDC. (The top vaccine expert in the FDA also resigned because “it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”
• Cut funding the mRNA vaccine research, effectively removing America from the most promising medical research field of this century.
• Rejected germ theory.
• Opposed vaccinations – in American Samoa, measles vaccinations have dropped from 70% to 30% leading to 83 child deaths from measles.
• And now, through the megaphone of Donald J, he has advised pregnant Americans to stop taking Tylenol and attacked the public health vaccine program for children.

• Defence, War and International Affairs

Trump announced recently that the Department of Defense would henceforth be known as the Department of War. The financial cost of this re-branding is significant. But those costs are insignificant compared to the other impacts inflicted by Trump and Hegseth on the military profile of the USA.

What have they done?

• They’ve communicated top secret information multiple times on insecure platform, most notably the “Signal” app. Those actions have placed the lives of intelligence operatives of allied nations at risk. Members of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group (Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK) have expressed concern about continuing to share intelligence with the US.

• Further shaking confidence in the US as an ally, Trump suggested that he would consider selling the next-generation F47 fighter jets to other nations but “we’d like to tone them down about 10% which probably makes sense because someday maybe they’re not our allies right?”

• They’ve pulled back from the leadership of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which coordinates defence supplies for Ukraine. They’ve agreed to provide munitions, but only on the understanding that other allies would buy them from the US – effectively terminating American munitions support for Ukraine, except where they might profit by it. 

• They’ve publicly humiliated and bullied Ukrainian President Zelensky, thus providing support for Putin. 

• They’ve met with Putin on American soil and literally rolled out a red carpet for him, ignoring the arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court. (America is not a party to the ICC, and not obligated to honor their rulings). They have provided (muddled) support for Putin’s territorial objectives in Ukraine, and pulled back from increasing their financial sanctions against Putin and his oligarchs. (The last increases in American sanctions against Putin were in the dying days of the Biden presidency.)

• Trump and Marco Rubio have aligned themselves with Binyamin Netanyahu in his campaign against Gaza. Despite rhetoric about creating a peace plan, they have consistently supported Netanyahu in the face of increasing world protests about the developing famine within the Gaza strip.

•  Into an incredibly complicated and tragic situation with innocent Palestinians being sacrificed by Netanyahu and innocent Israelis still held hostage by Hamas, Trump lobbed an insane suggestion that he would re-create Gaza as a kind of Vegas on the Mediterranean. And that’s what passes as creative diplomacy from the world’s most insensitive narcissist.

• Hegseth’s speech about the “warrior ethos” he desires within his forces reveals a bully’s hunger for power and dominance. That speech is defense fodder for any future military officer charged with war crimes.

• Trump’s view of America’s position on the world stage is captured by two specific quotes – “we will fight where it is to our benefit” and “Our military’s job is not to police the world”. This has created more doubt about whether America’s allies can really count on them, and especially has increased concern about Taiwan’s ability to resist invasion by mainland China.

• Trump’s repeated musings about making Canada the 51^st state, about buying Greenland, about ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia, about occupying Gaza to turn it into a casino strip – these utterances have all served to confirm that the United States no longer supports the doctrine that international boundaries should not be altered by hostile action of external parties.  

• The Immigration File

Trump’s immigrant program has been a constant source of news stories. Independent estimates place the deportations in the first seven months of this year at approximately 200000.  But the issue isn’t really about “how many”. It’s all about “how”. Trump and his bully boys have:

• Deported illegal immigrants to a prison in Columbia where prisoners are held in brutally inhumane conditions.
• Created “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida where again, prisoners are being held in brutally inhumane conditions.
• Seized persons without displaying warrants or identifications. 
• Provoked hundreds of Federal civil lawsuits and policy challenges and thousands of habeas corpus petitions.
• In about 35% of cases, the administration has displayed some form of defiance or non-compliance with court orders and/or procedures. (“We are not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think” Tom Homan, former ICE Director and now Trump’s “border czar”)
• Used the Immigration and Nationality Act to remove pro-Palestine dissidents on the pretext that their presence “has adverse foreign policy consequences” for the country.
• Per the Economist, “Mr. Trump has diverted 28,000 federal law-enforcement personnel—including one in five FBI agents—to do the work of ICE.”
• “The lines between local police, federal police, and military forces are being increasingly blurred” as ICE uses military forces to back up high profile raids on factories and food processing plants in major (Democrat) cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. 

• The Economy

Trump-era economic news has been dominated by tariff policy and by the chaos and uncertainty associated with on-again, off-again tariff policy.

Some AI-assisted research suggests that:

• Trump has threatened to impose or increase tariffs several dozen times.
• He has actually executed 5 to 10 distinct and significant tariff increases.
• Trump has made 2 or 3 major tariff postponement announcements.
• Trump has increased or threatened tariffs only to subsequently reduce that tariff on multiple occasions resulting in 5 – 8 “substantial alterations”. 
• Up to 80 countries have been involved in the Tariff mix-master.

Ignoring the impact on the rest of the world (because Donald J couldn’t give a crap), what has been the impact on the USA economy?

The US economy rolls along and stock markets remain strong. Inflation data and job creation data are both a little disappointing for the administration – so much so that Trump fired the bureaucrat who dared to tell the world what was going on. 

It is too early to assess impact and assign causes and effects. At this point however, it seems that the loss of thousands of immigrant workers hasn’t resulted in job creation, the imposition of tariffs hasn’t yet restored the lost manufacturing economy of Trump’s dreams, and the early impact of the tariff chaos has been to increase prices and sustain inflation in the United States.

There are two other Trump factors that could affect the economy. The first is his attack on the Federal Reserve Bank. Trump’s attempt to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook was overturned by the courts but is now being referred to the Supreme Court. And since the Supreme Court looks a lot like a MAGA rubber-stamp panel, he may very well succeed in firing a governor of the central bank and replace her with his own nominee. His harassment of Ms. Cook, plus his constant bullying of “numbskull, incompetent, stubborn moron” Fed chair Jerome Powell, have caused “concerns about the Fed’s independence from the president in setting monetary policy (that) could have a ripple effect throughout the global economy.” 

The second economic factor of note is Trump’s amazing conversion from cryptocurrency critic to advocate. The man who once described cryptocurrency as “highly volatile and based on thin air” recently announced his intention to make America the crypto capital of the world. The passage of the “Genius Bill” has given crypto a new respectability and rocketed its value. NPR reports “For years, the U.S. government has adopted a hands-off approach to cryptocurrencies, deeming them too dangerous for average Americans — and too risky for the country’s financial system. Not anymore. In a historic vote in the House of Representatives earlier this week, Congress approved the country’s first ever major crypto legislation, signaling a sea change in the U.S. stance towards these digital currencies…. But critics say the rules are too weak and have been too influenced by the crypto industry through heavy lobbying and big campaign donations.

There are two glaring red flags in this story. The first is that Trump has profited hugely from his newly launched World Liberty Financial crypto fund. An ABC News article estimates that the Trump family fortunes jumped by about $5B when trading opened on World Liberty Financial in early September. This blatant conflict of interest should give any unbiased observer concern about the quality of the decision to endorse crypto.

The second red flag is that World Liberty Financial received $2B in start-up funding from the United Arab Emirates. That deal happened just about the same time as a “totally unconnected” deal that the Emirates would be allowed to “import American-designed artificial intelligence computer chips, despite national security concerns.”

The conflict of interest allegations about these events are not being seriously investigated because earlier in the year Trump fired the Inspectors General who might have dug into that situation. 

• The Attack on Democracy

There is a multi-pronged attack on democracy unfolding south of the border. The first prong is a direct attack on the on the structures of democracy:

• “Texas, Indiana, Missouri and Florida have all either redrawn their congressional districts or floated the idea, in hopes of adding new Republican seats to the House(Politico). These actions could “set the stage for Republicans to dominate the chamber in decades to come.” (Reuters)
• Trump has signed an Executive order that would require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration, eliminate the use of mail-in voting, and severely restrict or eliminate electronic vote-counting. Legal scholars have denounced that order as unconstitutional and the courts have repeatedly agreed. “The Constitution says that each state gets to set its own rules for running elections.” (PBS)
•  Nevertheless, Republicans have tabled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAFE) Act. If enacted, that Bill would require that “Voters would have to provide specific documentation in person—such as a passport or birth certificate—to verify their citizenship. According to an analysis of the bill by the Brennan Center for Justice, the SAVE Act would undermine voting rights and disenfranchise tens of millions of American voters, as more than 21 million citizens lack these documents. The Center for American Progress estimates that more than 140 million citizens do not have a passport and that approximately 69 million women who changed their names after marriage may not have documents, such as a birth certificate, that match their current legal name. (Brookings Institute. 

After the outlandish gerrymandering and voter suppression attempts, the second prong in the attack on democracy is the attack on free speech.

• Numerous victims of the deportation of students were students who spoke out against Trump’s foreign policies (pro-Palestinian for example) or people who expressed “woke” views.
•  “President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated his claim that critical television coverage of him is “illegal” …Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr suggested on a podcast that his agency may take regulatory action against ABC, which Disney owns.” Issuing licences to favourable broadcasters and denying them to those critical of the government is a tool borrowed from Viktor Orban in Hungary.
• On Truth Social (now there’s an oxymoron for you!) and in interviews Trump has threatened Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Steven Colbert, Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien. And if that’s not enough, he attacked Taylor Swift for supporting Kamala Harris.
• The Economist notes that the current trend towards consolidation of media companies requires merger approval by the FCC – and Trump controls the FCC. “The federal government thus has a veto over big media mergers which seems to be helping Trump win editorial concessions…. many bosses privately lament that sucking up to the president is the single most useful thing an executive in America today can do” (The Economist)

The third threat to democracy is Trump’s increasing use of military forces to impose his will on the civilian population. He has:

• Threatened to send troops to at least a dozen major cities.
• Actually deployed troops to five cities – Washington, Portland, Memphis, Los Angeles and Chicago. The Chicago deployment is partial at this point – some troops have been sent and preparations are underway for a larger National Guard presence
• With the exception of Memphis, all of those cities are managed by Democratic local governments.

The next anti-democracy weapon deployed by Trump and those who are pulling his strings is the abuse of emergency declarations. Once again, he’s following the Hungarian recipe. Viktor Orban has operated under the cover of specious emergency declarations for over four years and in fact the Hungarian will be convened on October 7^th to extend Hungary’s state of emergency for another 180 days.

• On Trump’s first day in office he declared an energy emergency and an immigration emergency at the southern border.
• He has declared an emergency that allows him to label organizations as terrorist groups.
• He has declared an emergency on the flow of illicit drugs from Canada (a pretext for tariffs.)
• He has declared an emergency on the flow of opioid products from China

The impact of those emergency declarations is that Trump claims power to authorise the murder of suspected drug traffickers on the high seas, to impose economic sanctions on other nations, and to arrest anyone suspected of being involved in a terrorist organization – all without the participation or agreement of the elected legislators. 

Finally, there is the pattern of Trump trampling on checks and balances. Both in the constitution and in the history of precedent and “normal” behaviour, there is a system of checks and balances that are designed to prevent any one branch of government (legislative, judicial or executive branch) from accumulating too much power. Trump is doing his best to accumulate power by challenging those checks and balances. Frequently his actions are resulting in pushback – challenges in the courts and elsewhere. None of that pushback has resulted in Trump pulling in his horns at all. He continues to aggressively pursue his own agenda without regard for a couple of centuries of checks and balances traditions.

• The deployment of troops to (Democrat) American cities is a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which prohibits the use of military force to enforce domestic laws. 

• The administration has refused to spend money that was appropriated by Congress for numerous purposes such as
  • Their early childhood education program
  • Their museum and library services program
  • Their electric vehicle infrastructure funding
  • Foreign Aid and international assistance
  • Education grants

The Government Accountability Office (the GAO) has repeatedly ruled that the administration is in violation of the Impoundments Act. Although sometimes funding cuts have been reversed, GAO recommendations are non-binding, and they have largely failed to stop Trump’s over-riding of Congressional prerogatives.

• Trump has issued an Executive Order that challenges the birthright citizenship of the children of unlawful residents. That order has been blocked by the courts as unconstitutional.

• Senior officials in numerous agencies were fired without cause, violating their employee rights.

• Establishing Departments without congressional approval and shutting down, de-funding, or down-sizing Departments that do have prior Congressional approval challenges that function of the Legislative Branch.

• The Alien Enemies Act has been invoked without credible cause and with no consultation or approval by Congress.

• The Administration has repeatedly ignored court orders and proceeded to act while appealing court decisions.

In all of these actions, Trump is assuming autocratic powers and diminishing the power and influence of the courts and of the Congress.

Weighing Up – What’s most dangerous?

OK, we’ve come to that tricky spot where I’m going to try to render some judgements. The truth is that they’re all problematic. Being ranked least dangerous does not imply no danger. 

#6 The Economy – The least dangerous thing, in my humble opinion, is his impact on the economy. Yes, there is some uncertainty about how impactful his chaotic tariff nonsense really is. But the American economy keeps rolling along. The negative news about persistent inflationary pressures and poor job creation results are not crippling in any way. Stock markets are still happy. Tariffs aren’t a compelling issue for them.

The real economic concern is the monetary system. If Trump castrates the Federal Reserve Bank and allows his greed and blatant self-interest to destabilize the world’s monetary system in favour of cryptocurrency, we could be in for the biggest market collapse since 1929. The truth is that the monetary system works only when we trust it. If that trust is lost, the monetary system collapses. So that’s a serious risk. But I don’t see it as highly probable and if it does collapse? Well, we’ve been through recessions before. Not fun, but we get through them.

#5 Immigrants– The next least troublesome issue is the Immigration file. It is important because there is a growing world-wide resistance to immigrants, and American hard-right leadership is provoking and encouraging harsh anti-immigrant policies in a lot of countries. It’s disgusting because poor people are being viciously attacked. It’s highly visible and gets more profile than it really deserves because that’s meat and drink to the MAGA hordes. But in the end, the Americans are only hurting themselves. I’ve opined before that despite the disruptions that immigrants bring, this country needs immigrants and if Canada becomes a destination of choice, that’s probably going to be a good thing for us.

#4 US Military/International Affairs – Not to be dismissed, but rated in the middle is the impact of Trump on America’s standing in the world. What happens in a world where America is not trusted as a leader? Nations that have been held in check by the dominance of an American-led NATO may be emboldened to become more aggressive in seeking new territory (Ukraine, Taiwan, South Korea). And that aggression could lead to conflict, and conflict could lead to war, and if war ever goes nuclear we can kiss our collective asses goodbye. So why is this not our prime concern? Because I believe that Putin and Xi Jinping and even Kim Jong Un are unscrupulous, conniving and evil but I don’t think they are as seriously unhinged as Trump is. I think when push comes to shove, the threat of nuclear weapons will still be effective deterrence. As for NATO, I think growing a Euro-focused leadership could be good for the organization.

#3 – The Attack on Science. Ninety percent of the attack on science is stupid stuff – almost ludicrous. The reduction in funding in the US will delay some promising research, but other countries and other corporations will see the Americans’ problem as their opportunity. Canada is actively recruiting scientists who are potentially surplus in the States, and I’m sure we’re not the only country trying to increase our research portfolio. For the broader category of science, I think that scientists will continue to pursue objective truths and that while progress might be delayed, it cannot be suppressed.

 The real risk in this basket is that “science” includes climate science, and Trump’s rejection of the Paris accords is driving a backlash around the world. Here in Canada, Pierre Poilievre is flapping his gums about climate policy really being anti-energy policy as though emissions really don’t matter. But they do. Ask the people of Jasper or Lytton after wildfires destroyed those communities. This is dangerous stuff because climate scientists warn that we may soon exceed a tipping point – that is, get some accelerating mechanism underway that reaches a point where we can no longer stop it. I have no words of comfort to offer and no solid reason why this isn’t at the top of my list. But I think the other concerns have too much immediacy about them.

#2 – The attack on Democracy is extremely dangerous because it is so multi-faceted. They are attacking the structure of democracy by moving to suppress or distort voting such that it may soon be impossible for the electorate to express their will. They are attacking the function of democracy by sabotaging the powers of the elected officials in the legislative branch. They are attacking the perquisites of a free and democratic society by attacking free speech and journalistic integrity. (Don’t be amused when you hear Trump resort to his “fake news” mantra – destroying trust in main stream news media is a major tool in his attempts to overthrow democracy). Finally, by threatening the use of military power to impose their will, they are signalling their willingness to exercise autocratic power. The people of the United States appear to be under-estimating the threat that Trump is posing.

Is that a problem for anyone outside the United States? Yes, of course it is. The USA is the big dog in the international pack. It may be a rabid dog right now, but where it leads, other dogs will follow. So, a catastrophic loss of democracy and free speech in the US will stimulate suppression in many other countries. Moreover, the loss of democratic controls and the increasing use of military power in unapproved ways, (like gunning down suspected criminals on the high seas) increases the possibility that Trump would actually move to attack Canada and try to turn us into an American territory. 

It’s hard to believe that 250 years of democratic rule could be overturned in 4 years. But it’s happening right before our eyes.

#1 The attack on the Rule of Law is my choice as the number one danger for the United States. And the reason I put it there is that as long as the rule of law holds, there is hope that the attack on democracy can be resisted. The powers of Congress and the system of checks and balances are guardrails, and the attack on democracy is all about removing guardrails. What the rule of law represents is brakes on the careening vehicle that is the US civilization. If rule of law is lost than they’ll be running down that road with neither guardrails nor brakes. 

If there’s no respect for national law, what happens to respect for international law? We live right beside the most heavily armed nation on Earth. That might be an uncomfortable place to be if that neighbour loses the basic trappings of discipline and control that are imposed by a properly functioning law and order system.

Last thought – I promise. It’s easy to turn a deaf ear to Trump news. There’s so much bluster and hyperbole and obnoxious behaviour that it’s tempting to dismiss it all as just more of Trump being Trump. What I hope my listings have done is to convince you that his move towards autocracy is not a charade. Beneath the skin of hyperbole and bluster are actions that have real muscle – lasting and dangerous impacts for the USA and the world. The Donald may be dishonest, deranged, disgusting and depraved (think Epstein files!!) but he’s also dangerous and we should keep paying attention.