Trump’s 'mountain of degeneracy' driving America’s 'dignity crisis': ex-GOP strategist
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U.S. President Donald Trump attends the G7 summit, in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 16, 2026. REUTERS Christian Hartmann
Political strategist Steve Schmidt is scorching President Donald Trump, contrasting him with President Barack Obama amid Thursday’s opening of the Obama Presidential Center.
“America has a dignity crisis, and it begins at the top,” Schmidt writes of Trump on his Substack, The Warning.
Schmidt calls Trump “an amalgam of vice piled so high it has become a mountain of degeneracy. He’s arrogant without accomplishment, ignorant without curiosity, cruel without purpose, corrupt without shame, erratic without discipline and emotional without restraint.”
He described Trump as someone who lacks self-control, emotional intelligence, and integrity — all while being a “chronic liar,” a “convicted felon,” and a “loser.”
“The greatest danger,” Schmidt explained, “is that millions looked at him and concluded he was worthy of the office Washington held, Lincoln ennobled and Roosevelt transformed into an engine of democratic purpose.”
But Thursday, on “Chicago’s South Side, beneath an American flag surrounded by living presidents from both political parties, something rare happened,” said Schmidt: “America remembered itself.”
He called the opening of the Obama Presidential Center “an act of national memory” and “a reminder that character once mattered, that dignity once occupied the center of American public life, and that there remains an American tradition worth defending.”
Schmidt praised former First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech as “the finest speech of the day because it was not fundamentally about politics” but “about character.”
“She spoke movingly of the love, support and shared journey that carried their family through extraordinary years of public life,” said Schmidt. “It was a tribute rooted not in power, but in decency.”
“Then,” Schmidt continued, “Barack Obama stood before the country and spoke of something that once seemed ordinary because it was: respect.”
Obama said that the exhibits in his presidential center “focus not just on policies, but on the shared values that make democracy possible, a belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people, and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection, a belief in checks and balances in our government and an accountability that comes with an independent judiciary and a robust, free press.”
Donald Trump, Schmidt said, by contrast, “stands outside that American circle.”
“He isn’t merely controversial. He’s profoundly un-American,” and “embodies precisely the type of man the founders feared — a man who mistakes appetite for strength, personal grievance for public purpose and power for virtue.”
But he also delivered a warning — and a roadmap.
“America’s revival will never begin with a stronger man,” Schmidt said. “It will begin with better citizens. It will begin when dignity is once again admired instead of mocked. It will begin when character once again outweighs celebrity. It will begin when Americans decide that virtue is not quaint — it is essential.”