America is burning — and intent on taking everybody else down with us

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he and first lady Melania Trump board Air Force One to depart from London Stansted Airport, in Stansted near London, Britain September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Both of my daughters live in the United Kingdom. That makes me one of the luckiest and unluckiest dads in the world.

My girls are married to a pair of blokes from sturdy Northeast England, who I can’t help but love with all my heart. And believe me, I looked for every reason not to, because when a dad’s daughter is to be married, her partner better love her more than he loves himself, or else …

I don’t see my daughters, who have dual citizenships, or their top-ranked husbands near as much as I’d like, which is the part that makes me unlucky. That these days, they are safe and far away from one of the most dangerous countries in the world makes me lucky.

America is no place for smart, tough, kind-hearted souls like my daughters.

My youngest daughter, and her husband I can’t help but love, are due for a visit in April, but we are in the middle of a discussion that I never thought possible before Nov. 8, 2016, when hate blew a hole through America’s shrinking heart, and I saw for myself just how sick we had become.

As this hate tries to overwhelm us, we are talking about putting off this visit. I am deeply, deeply depressed, and angry as hell it has gotten to this point.

Here is part of what daughter, Kristin, dashed off to me in a missive Tuesday:

“… I wouldn’t have visited Germany in 1939, and I don’t really want to give any of my money to America at the moment. It feels weird to visit a country that’s literally murdering their citizens in broad daylight with no repercussions and that has detention centres (concentration camps). It feels morally extremely tricky. It just feels horrific to pop over to an awful place that stands against a lot of the stuff I stand for.”

“An awful place that stands against a lot of the stuff I stand for …”

She’s right about every bit of that, and it kills me to say it, because I miss her so bad my heart hurts. Maybe if she’d unsubscribe from my work she wouldn’t see things so damn clearly.

I’m joking of course, because no matter what I’m banging on about here, there are millions and millions of others around the globe like Kris who see very clearly what is happening in America right now.

History is still an important subject in places like Europe and the UK, and history is what should be ringing in our ears right now, because it can instruct where we are and where we must go, or else ...

Trump and his fascist Republican Party are soulless, evil ghouls who are setting the stage to break us for good. If you can somehow forget their recent murders, then simply consider their absurd stands against vaccines, science, foreign aid, domestic aid, clean air and water, books, voting rights, human rights, affordable healthcare, NATO, and the truth.

The truth is, America deserves to be shunned by anybody with a beating heart.

While we’ve never been the great nation many of those GOP ghouls want you to believe, you’d be hard-pressed to point to a time in recent memory that we’ve been this distinctively rotten.

And here’s more truth: I can’t stand many of the poisoned people I share this country with. They are dangerous, and sicken me to the core.

After the first Trump iteration ended with his violent coup attempt, I hoped there was still a chance we could pick up the broken pieces and glue them together again. I hoped that maybe after the treasonous assault that billions of people across the world witnessed on TV, Republicans would acknowledge their massive mistake, and join the rest of us who believe in the rule of law. I hoped they would join us in doing everything to make sure that kind of high-test evil never happened again.

Not only couldn’t they do that much, they doubled down with their endless supply of bile, and now seem intent on finishing us off no matter what. There are no lines left they won’t cross. They are led by a devil, who has never apologized for any one of the thousands of truly gruesome things he has done over the course of his miserable life.

I gave up on them when they gave up on decency.

There’s no meeting in the middle when one of the two major parties have thrown themselves at the feet of the most dangerous man in the world since Adolph Hitler.

While creeping up to this terrible place over the decades with illegal wars for profit, and double-talk on the environment, America has finally officially reached the point where it no longer enjoys the benefit of the doubt from the rest of the world.

This is an incredibly sad and dangerous place to be, because isolating ourselves from our neighbors doesn’t make us stronger, it makes us weaker. It doesn’t make us smarter, it makes us dumber. It doesn’t broaden our horizons, it cages us in ignorance.

Our longtime allies have had enough of us, and will no longer believe us when we say it can never happen here, because they can so clearly see the worst has already arrived, even if too damn many people who should know better still won’t see it.

Through Revolutionary wars, Civil wars, World wars and illegal wars, America still tenuously hung onto its diminishing reputation as a force for good. We used to fight against fascism, not embrace it. Thousands have gone to their graves in our righteous wars fighting for what used to be America’s greatest ideals. You’ll find many of their graves stretched out one after another in proud, uniformed white lines on so many battlefields in Europe …

Joe Biden did everything he could to restore order and America’s place among its worldly friends, but there were just too damn many people intent on destroying us from within to allow that to happen.

Day after day, Republicans and their slobbery, lifeless billionaires have been attacking America with a vigor, and for the life of me, I can’t understand how the hell everybody here can’t see this.

You don’t starve your populace of life-saving medicine, science, and programs that help them, if you really care about them.

It’s no wonder South Carolina is now dealing with the largest measles outbreak in the United States since we declared that disease eliminated more than two decades ago.

Truly sickening.

I won’t turn this column off before acknowledging that Europe and UK are not as pure as wind-driven snow, either. They have bloodthirsty, racist far-Right political elements that hang around those places like the measles. They are beating them back, however, and standing together.

These terrible days, however, they are doing that without our help which would be bad enough, except we are also going out of our way to make everything just as hard as possible.

Because that’s what fascist, low-class bullies do, while winking at Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who positively delights in all this.

I spent many years living overseas for most of George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency, which was punctuated by that damn war in Iraq. I did my best to explain to my friends and colleagues in the Far East and Europe that many Americans opposed that illegal atrocity.

Some gave me the benefit of the doubt. Others were rightfully suspicious. When Barack Obama was elected I was finally able to puff out my chest, and get some of the doubters off my back.

That was a long time ago now, and things have gotten considerably worse.

America is burning, and intent on taking everybody down with us.

I am still hoping I will see my daughter in April, but I have a hard time telling her that staying as far away as possible right now isn’t the prudent course.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

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