Why China is Winning
May 6, 2025
The Pope vs. Populism
May 8, 2025
The Unmaking of America
How One Presidency Is Undermining Our Financial Security, National Safety, and Global Standing
In March 2025, for the first time in its history, the United States was placed on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist; an international index that tracks declining civic freedoms. This isn’t just a symbolic slap on the wrist; it’s a signal to the world that the “Land of the Free” is teetering on the edge of authoritarian regression.
At the heart of this unraveling is Donald Trump, whose return to the presidency has not only intensified domestic division but also placed America’s financial stability, national security, and global reputation in profound jeopardy.
But let’s be clear:
This isn’t about partisanship.
It doesn’t matter if you’re Republican or Democrat.
We are losing what it means to be American.
We are watching, in real time, the dismantling of the very values that once held us together: liberty, transparency, accountability, justice. The freedoms we took for granted are now being stripped away, often under the guise of patriotism. And the most dangerous part? We’re being told that things will soon be better and being conditioned to cheer for new policies that will bring millions of Americans to their knees.
⸻
Financial Security: Governing by Gimmick and Grift
Despite campaign promises to cut spending and restore fiscal responsibility, Trump’s administration has overseen a historic surge in government spending; $220 billion more in the first 100 days than the previous year, while delivering fewer public services. Under the pretense of “draining the swamp,” Trump replaced long-standing experts and watchdogs with loyalists who have gutted regulatory institutions, accelerated corporate deregulation, and funneled government contracts to allies.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with cutting waste, has become a black hole of unfulfilled promises and untraceable funds.
The economic result? A soaring national debt, a declining dollar, and an economy increasingly built on speculation, meme stocks, and tech monopolies rather than sustainable growth. Tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy continue to widen inequality, while federal programs for healthcare, education, and housing face unprecedented cuts.
The American Dream; once built on opportunity and upward mobility, is being auctioned off to the highest bidder, leaving future generations saddled with debt and denied the support systems that once made this country prosper.
The ironic reality is that those who voted for Trump (poorly educated, rural, farmers, southern states) are the most likely to be harmed by the cutbacks and policies.
⸻
The TrumpCoin Scandal: Pay-to-Play in Plain Sight
If there was ever any doubt that the Trump presidency is for sale, his entry into the world of cryptocurrency removed all illusion. The launch of “TrumpCoin,” a vanity crypto token bearing his name and likeness, is not a financial innovation: it is a direct pipeline for influence-buying disguised as digital populism.
TrumpCoin’s meteoric rise in value has been driven not by utility or merit, but by blind loyalty and speculation. Foreign investors, wealthy donors, and political allies have poured millions into the token, effectively enabling a new form of untraceable bribery. Unlike traditional political donations, which are at least subject to regulation and transparency laws, crypto wallets can be anonymous, borderless, and largely unaccountable.
When the sitting president profits personally from speculative digital assets tied to his name, every policy decision becomes suspect. Is this trade deal good for America or for TrumpCoin? Is this appointment based on merit or on a wallet balance?
What we are witnessing is the privatization of presidential influence, with the blockchain as the backdoor.
⸻
Tariffs, Tantrums, and the Death of Diplomacy
Trump’s economic nationalism is doing more than harm at home; it’s alienating trade partners and damaging long-term global relationships. His reintroduction of sweeping tariffs, particularly on Chinese imports, has triggered retaliatory measures that are strangling U.S. exports, especially in agriculture and manufacturing. Small farmers and rural economies, once part of Trump’s core base, are now buckling under rising equipment costs and collapsing international demand.
And it’s not just China. Trump has reignited tensions with Mexico through renewed threats of border taxes and has insulted Denmark (again) over their refusal to “sell Greenland” a surreal diplomatic fiasco that drew global ridicule. He has deeply offended our Canadian allies with rhetoric that is ridiculous to think, yet alone say aloud. He’s treated allies like adversaries and adversaries like drinking buddies, gambling away international trust for applause at rallies.
Rather than foster mutual economic strength, Trump’s approach isolates the U.S. in an increasingly interconnected world. His scorched-earth style of diplomacy has reduced trade to a weapon and made trust a liability; jeopardizing not just today’s deals, but decades of future cooperation.
⸻
Defunding Hope: The Attack on Health and Science
One of the least-publicized yet most devastating aspects of Trump’s second term is the mass defunding of health research. In the latest budget proposal, the Trump administration slashed billions from the National Institutes of Health, cutting programs that fund cancer research, Alzheimer’s studies, infectious disease control, and mental health initiatives.
This is not fiscal conservatism; it’s calculated neglect.
By gutting support for medical research, Trump has turned his back on the millions of Americans battling chronic illnesses and life-threatening diseases. The Cancer Moonshot program, which once aimed to eliminate cancer as we know it, has been shelved. Grants for pediatric health, reproductive care, and rare disease research have vanished. Laboratories across the country are going dark. Promising breakthroughs are being abandoned for lack of funding.
At a time when science could save lives, this administration chooses slogans over solutions, optics over outcomes.
The message is clear: in Trump’s America, there is no investment in the future; only exploitation of the present.
⸻
Deporting Americans: The Collapse of Citizenship Rights
One of the most chilling developments under Trump’s second presidency has been the deportation of American citizens; legal U.S. nationals forcibly removed under the guise of immigration enforcement. These are not undocumented individuals. These are people with valid birth certificates, passports, and social security numbers who have been detained, stripped of due process, and expelled from their own country.
In many cases, the victims are people of color; Latino citizens in particular; targeted through discriminatory data-mining, hasty ICE raids, and administrative shortcuts that erase citizenship protections in the name of “national security.” The administration has even redefined the burden of proof, shifting it to individuals to prove their citizenship on the spot, with minor discrepancies in paperwork used as justification for removal.
The implications are devastating. The very notion of citizenship is being hollowed out. When a government can erase your legal status with a keystroke or a bureaucratic error, no one is truly safe.
⸻
National Safety: When Power Becomes a Threat
Trump’s assault on democratic institutions has made the country not only less free, but less safe. Executive overreach has transformed the Justice Department into a partisan weapon, and the mass firing of civil servants has weakened the country’s ability to respond to crises, be it a natural disaster, terrorist threat, or public health emergency.
Worse still, the administration has cracked down on dissent with increasing aggression. Protesters, especially those supporting Palestinian rights, have faced arrests, visa cancellations, and newly passed laws criminalizing masked demonstrations. In several states, simply assembling to express dissent is now a legal risk.
This isn’t public safety. It’s authoritarian security theater.
⸻
The Fall of the “Land of the Free”: A Reputation in Ruins
The United States once stood as a beacon of democracy and civil liberty; a flawed but aspirational symbol of what self-government could achieve. That myth is fading fast. From banning Associated Press reporters from White House briefings to cutting off international aid, Trump’s administration has turned its back on the global norms and alliances that gave America its post-WWII influence.
Under Trump, America has withdrawn from international climate agreements, slashed funding to marginalized communities, and dismantled global diplomacy initiatives, including USAID. The result is not just diminished credibility abroad. It’s active alienation. Former allies are looking elsewhere for leadership and for their products. Authoritarian regimes, emboldened by America’s descent, are stepping in to fill the vacuum.
⸻
What the Future Holds: A Nation at the Crossroads
This isn’t just about one man; it’s about the system enabling him. Trump’s presidency has revealed deep vulnerabilities in the American democratic experiment; vulnerabilities that, if unaddressed, may become permanent fixtures of our national identity.
The path we are on leads to greater surveillance, deeper inequality, restricted freedoms, and a government that serves the powerful rather than the people. But it doesn’t have to. This moment can be a wake-up call: a chance to restore what has been lost and reimagine what America could still become.
Because freedom is not just a word in a song or etched into a statue’s base. It’s a choice, a struggle, and a commitment.
And right now, that freedom is being defunded, deported, and digitally mined, one citizen, one lie, one betrayal at a time…
