Like a lot of other Americans, I’ve oscillated in these dark times between two emotional poles. At points, I tell myself that Donald Trump is a uniquely malevolent figure who has seized levers of power that no previous president had ever dared to grasp. The story doesn’t stop state violence in the streets or illegal military operations abroad. Yet it has its comforts. Once Trump passes from the scene — as the laws of nature, if not politics, require — some kind of restoration of the American democratic and constitutional project can take place. On darker days, I find myself turning to a more thoroughgoing narrative: that Trump is the fulfillment of what America has always been — a self-satisfied nation, granted license by its myths about providence and exceptionalism to do whatever it wants. Trump didn’t come from nowhere, after all. His two victories were forged by choices made by Americans and the leaders they elected. If he had not existed, history would have invented someone like him. This explanation offers its own consolation. At least it is something a rational mind can grasp.

— Lydia Polgreen, NYT 2026/0328

General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Donald Trump that an attack on Iran would provoke its closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Every president contemplating war in the Middle East has known this and therefore avoided a full regional war. But Trump said he knew better and plunged into war. Of course, Trump was wrong — monumentally, predictably, and inexcusably wrong. Now, the Strait is mined and closed, the war rages out of control, oil prices have spiked, and the economy is teetering.

— Jennifer Rubin/The Contrarian, 2026/03/16

In the last two weeks alone, Donald Trump has destabilized the Middle East, turned the United States into a pariah state, killed more than a hundred little girls by mistake then denied he had done it and then admitted he might have done it but he didn’t know for sure because he hadn’t bothered to look into it, caused gas prices to spike by 25%, enabled Israel to commit atrocities against Lebanon, begged for military help from our historic allies whom he had previously insulted and alienated, and then threatened to punish those same allies if they don’t help him, said many in the media were “guilty of treason” for not cheerleading his benighted, unpopular war, gloated about having castrated the fourth estate, proudly identifying his conquests by name in a social media post, declared the Iran war over, then not over, and then over, again, then said that we had “totally demolished” a key Iranian oil facility, but added that he might bomb it a little more “just for fun,” continued pardoning his cronies and white-collar felons whose crimes have already wiped out nearly $2 billion in victim repayment and taxpayer recovery for various frauds, said that a former U.S. president he wouldn’t name had told him he regretted not bombing Iran first, but all four living former presidents immediately denied having said it, saw his approval rating plummet like a flapping turkey dropped from a helicopter, said he might “take” Cuba, revealed that his administration was considering withholding HIV aid to Zambia “on a massive scale” unless that impoverished country gives us access to their copper, cobalt and lithium stores … and played at least four rounds of golf.

— Gene Weingarten, Substack, 2026/03/16

This is insane. Regime change will result in a bloody civil war, killing hundreds of thousands and creating another massive Muslim refugee crisis. Topping a leader is NEVER as easy as you think. It almost always results in further involvement, a civil war, and chaos. Resist this!

— Charlie Kirk, summer of 2025

As Donald Trump’s gold-plated cultocracy rises from the smoldering wreckage of what used to be our respected democracy, the question is this: How did our constitutional system of checks and balances allow it to happen so quickly and easily?

— Bob Salzman, letter, NYT 2026/02/19

This is a president who, first, needs to be the center of attention. That’s part of tyranny, by the way — the need to constantly be the center of attention every second of every day. But second, there is simply a lack where the moral backbone would normally be or even where the moral sentiment would normally be. And he stands for nihilism, a belief in nothing. He stands for the idea — as Stephen Miller sort of put it or, if I’m going back from the Romans to the Greeks, Thucydides — that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

— David Brooks, NYTT, 2026/02/12

Ten years from now, a world shaped by Mr. Trump’s aid policies will be meaner and more opaque — one where hunger, preventable diseases and desperation spread. It will be a world in which America stands isolated and friendless.

— Jeremy Konyndyk, NYT, 2026/02/08

Some people around here call me cranky. You know what makes me cranky? Stupid. What makes me cranky is when people don’t do their homework. I’m sick of stupid. The amateurs who said it’s a good idea [to invade Greenland] should lose their jobs.

— Republican Senator Thom Tillis, speech on Senate floor

Mr. Trump’s hunger for wealth is brazen. Throughout the nation’s history, presidents of both parties have taken care to avoid even the appearance of profiting from public service. This president gleefully squeezes American corporations, flaunts gifts from foreign governments and celebrates the rapid growth of his own fortune.

— NYT Editorial, 22025/12/20

Trump’s letter to the prime minister of Norway is an astonishing glimpse into the mind of a man who rejects the core duty of his office, faithful representation of the American people. The only thing he cares about — the only thing that motivates him — is the immediate satisfaction of his every impulse.

— Janelle Bouie, NYT, 2025/01/25

Trump’s entire doctrine is naked rapacity, from Venezuela to hijacking the Kennedy Center to hideously remaking the White House in his own gaudy image.

— Maureen Dowd, NYT 2026/01/17

Some people around here call me cranky. You know what makes me cranky? Stupid. What makes me cranky is when people don’t do their homework. I’m sick of stupid. The amateurs who said it’s a good idea [to invade Greenland] should lose their jobs.

— Republican Senator Thom Tillis, speech on Senate floor, 2026/01/14

Trump is a vain and petty man, and it is easy to impute psychological motives to his actions. Trump covets the kind of unaccountable power Maduro enjoyed – to enrich his family and cronies, to intimidate political opponents, to muzzle the press, to flood the streets of his country with armed men who do his bidding. Trump has managed to do a measure of all of these things. No doubt he intends to do more.

— Lydia Polgreen, NYT, 2025/01/09

Trump set a precedent with his intervention in Venezuela — a precedent that nations such as Russia, China and Iran will be eager to follow in their own respective spheres of influence, and we will have no standing to object when our adversaries take the same approach to countries in their spheres of influence that we took in ours.

— David French, NYT, 2026/01/05

With a natural feel for the web, Mr. Trump has a knack for amplifying wacky memes and pop culture curios that can drive days of online discourse,. . . [which] can crowd out the more significant, norm-shattering changes he is making to American governance.

— Michael Grynbaum and Stuart Thompson, NYT, 2026/01/02

Merry Christmas to all, including the radical left scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our country, but are failing badly.

— Donald Trump, Truth Social, 2025/12/24

Mr. Trump’s hunger for wealth is brazen. Throughout the nation’s history, presidents of both parties have taken care to avoid even the appearance of profiting from public service. This president gleefully squeezes American corporations, flaunts gifts from foreign governments and celebrates the rapid growth of his own fortune.

— NYT Editorial, 22025/12/20

A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus. Prices are coming down substantially, energy has come down incredibly. Prices are all coming down. It’s been 10 months. It’s amazing what we’ve done.

— Donald Trump, 2025/12/08, posted on TruthSocial

A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!

— Donald Trump, 2025/12/08, posted on TruthSocial

I grew up in Canada, where the United States represented a powerful ideal of security and something to admire, something you could rely upon. I don’t think there are many Canadians who feel that now. I don’t think there are many Danes who feel that now. I don’t think there are many true friends of America who feel it now. But I think there are a lot of enemies of the United States that feel relieved and grateful that the United States no longer pretends to be more, but has agreed under Donald Trump to be less—hence the gold bar: useless, shiny, gonna be put in a vault somewhere, not do anything except endure as a kind of memento of shame and disgrace of this once so admired, gleaming democracy.

— David Frum, David Frum Show, 2025/11/19