Trump's attacks on America could decimate us all before the end of 2026

What if Donald Trump had gotten out of the box and had at least given the appearance of governing more moderately his second time around the White House block last year?

I’ve been giving this some thought on the rare occasions I can quiet my active mind and find the clear air needed to grapple with truly terrifying what-ifs ...

I was spurred to write this piece by my penpal, and reader, Margo Howard, who I have had the honor of getting to know a bit during this ongoing American tragedy. Margo spent her life in print, and penned the popular Dear Prudence column for Slate for many years. She is the daughter of Ann Landers, the renowned, syndicated advice columnist.

Margo is wise, direct, and one of those special people who can see straight through the fog.

She sent me this rocket in the aftermath of Trump’s never-ending State of the Union.

“Not that he listens to (White House Chief of Staff) Susie Wiles (or anyone) but had he spoken for 25 minutes, only upbeat stuff, and brought out the Olympians, he could have turned everything around.

I winced knowingly. I thought it was a perceptive take (as always) and spurred me to dig deeper into similar dark thoughts I have had on this subject.

So here goes:

In the days after a second, lethal November blast in an eight-year span had rocked our senses and nation, I wondered about two things specifically:

• How would the despicable Trump deal with power the second time around?
• How would Democrats react to this terrible event?

We got the answer to the second question first, and it was appalling and unforgivable.

Somehow, Democrats seemed to be caught flat-footed by Trump’s win, and came off as pathetic weaklings almost resigned to their fate. They were ripe for surrender, and dutifully waved white flags. My God, within weeks the outgoing Democratic president warmed Trump’s fat ass by a crackling fire at the White House while literally welcoming him back.

The uninspiring national Democratic “leadership” that couldn’t even provide a presidential candidate for us to vote for until it was all but too late, dusted themselves off, and seemed only too satisfied to reassume their places at the kiddie table, where the Republicans threw them scraps, and picked away at what was left of their self-respect.

Instead of pushing back with vigor, they acquiesced, and melted into the background. This did not go down well with the folks on the battlefield who had busted their tails working to get Democrats elected only to be abandoned by them the minute all the trouble arrived.

Our Democracy was officially put on the clock, and the opposition party hit the snooze button, before turning off the alarm.

Now let me tell you what my real fear was during that pitch-black time, when it was hard to see a way out: Trump would actually take some prudent advice, and get out of the box slowly. He would at least give the appearance that he was taking a measured approach to governing and would thoughtfully deal with the issues that concerned the majority of all Americans like the economy.

What if in the wake of that gruesome election Trump somehow found it deep inside himself to act like a semi-decent person who really cares about this country?

Before proceeding I want to be very careful here, because I like to think I know you almost as well as I know myself: Please notice the emphasis on the word act. Because I know you know how despicable Trump really is. I know you know the terrible things he has done, and what he will most certainly try to do with the rest of his miserable life: end us.

In short: There is NOTHING he can do to redeem himself in our eyes. We will celebrate when he is gone, because we know the world will be a better, safer place with his absence.

Unfortunately, we are but an ardent, clear-eyed voting bloc. Like it or not, we aren’t the majority of the people in this country, or it turns out, like too damn many cowards in the party we vote for.

As we have tragically learned by now, roughly 40 percent of the American electorate will stand with the orange, racist maniac no matter what. There isn’t a thing he can do, including shooting one of them in the middle of the street, that will change their stubborn, angry minds about following this soulless monster off a cliff while trying to drag the rest of us with them.

Then there are the people in the middle of the political spectrum, who can go either way with Trump. (And yes, I have concluded that these people actually exist.) They are persuadable. How that can actually be given that they are standing in hell up to their knees right now I don’t know, but they are out there just as sure as I am typing this.

Finally, there are tens of millions more who simply don’t give a damn, and rarely bother to vote at all. Who even knows what they will do, or worse what they could possibly be thinking.

Regular readers will know I reserve most of my heat for them.

How dare they …

Well, as we all painfully know by now, Trump did not move slowly and prudently, and wasted no time proving just how despicable he truly is by implementing the Project 2025 playbook he lied he knew nothing about on the campaign trail.

He moved to hurt as just many people as he could just as fast as possible.

He went full authoritarian, set fire to our government, and demolished our White House. He introduced ridiculous, harmful tariffs, and mustered troops in our streets. He blew up global alliances and threatened war with Greenland. He did nothing about our rising prices, and all he could to strip us of our health insurance, making everyday life just as miserable as possible.

He actually seemed to go out of his way to prove just how horrible he is, as if so many of us weren’t already convinced.

That’s when people decided that they, not some political party, were best equipped to handle this.

So we hit the streets and marched by the millions. We protested, and by God we voted. Democrats won every single election of consequence last year, and have hit the ground running again in elections this year.

Trump kicked the hornet’s nest and is as unpopular as he’s ever been in his short-lived political life. His approvals are hanging at about 40 percent nationally. Here in the battleground state of Wisconsin a recent poll has his net approval rating at -10, matching the worst numbers of his disastrous first term.

He is failing miserably, while doing what he has always done better than anybody: going lower.

He is a sicko bent on revenge, and filling his bottomless pockets with our money.

I believe Republicans are going to take a historic shellacking in November. They have nothing to run on, and are too damn scared to run away from the orange, swollen-ankled monster who has them by their skinny necks.

As bad as things are … this is actually the best-case scenario for Democrats, because mark my words: If Trump had proceeded slowly last year, and worked incrementally and quietly toward destroying America, instead of taking a sledgehammer to it, his approvals would at or around 50 percent right now, and Republicans would be in decent shape heading into the midterms.

According to The Cook Political Report, Trump is underwater with women by almost 30 points. This is a group he lost by only 7 points in 2024. White voters without college degrees, his strongest group, have dropped 23 points in their support of a man who is doing nothing for them, but providing a weekly booster shot of racism.

Had he been capable of showing just a shred of humility, it really wouldn’t have been that hard to steal it all forever, because as we simply have to know by now, there are just too many idiots in this country who would have gladly handed him the keys to the kingdom.

Tens of millions more just don’t give a damn either way.

It’s really sad when you can’t trust your country to do the right thing. We have been exposed, and I am just not sure we will ever be safe and sound again.

Trump could have had it all, but he wanted it too damn quick, and for now at least, a majority of America is finally on to him.

Instead of giving the State of the Union speech Margo suggested, he pontificated, spit and raged for close to two hours.

While making things harder on Americans, he’s only made his attempted authoritarian takeover harder on himself.

There will be more spitting and raging as we move toward November’s elections. In the past 24 hours there have been reports he will try to gin up national emergencies to stop or takeover our vote.

As we know, he’s fully capable of anything, and we will have to be ready for that.

I believe we will be, because as bad as things are right now, they could have been worse …

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.