A First Taste of Future Shock

TUCSON — A basic fact underlies the aftermath finger-pointing and thumb-sucking. Democracies get the government they deserve. A treacherous felon seized unthinkable power in America because so many voters fell for his blatant, cruel savaging of truth.

Donald Trump intends to let billionaire backers plunder natural wealth and fleece workaday families like flocked sheep. Faux-Christian ideologues plan to surveil wombs and classrooms of constituents they swear to serve. "Rule of law" will be a laugh line.

Fires that Trump sparked off in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia already flare toward unstoppable conflicts. He favors despots and aggressors while undermining alliances that have prevented global war since the 1940s.

The "border crisis" he exploits with preposterous lies reflects a worldwide tragedy he worsened by denying climate collapse, refusing aid to desperate "shitholes," weakening international organizations and condoning tyrants who oppress their own people.

Trump, addled at 78, and a young vice president pledge to turn America's back to the world, depriving eight billion people of the largesse and leadership they badly need as Earth alternately dries up and washes away. Blowback at home would be devastating.

So far, the Constitution remains intact. If sentient citizens protect democracy at every turn, 2026 elections can take back Congress and state legislatures, then build a groundswell to rescue what is left of America in 2028. That is a very big if.

Harsh words are unkind, but I'll go with Forrest Gump's mother. Stupid is as stupid does. Americans, like ostriches, tend to ignore existential global crises by burying their heads in sand. That exposes hindquarters to a swift kick from any malevolent passerby.

Trump's four years in office destroyed faith in honest, up-close reporting. Much of our "legacy media" focuses on sideshows and dubious polls rather than explaining the cause and effect of the big stories around which an imperiled world turns.

"Fake news" is not hard to spot. Poorly reported real news, without a big-picture backdrop or answers to "why?" and "what next?" is worse than no news at all. People simply pick their own unreliable sources to enforce personal prejudice.

Before the elections, I wrote that a Trump takeover would be "the most ignominious finale to a world-class republic since Romans let Caesar’s son declare himself emperor.”

A letter to the Star said that besmirched my career in foreign reporting — "a late-life nonsensical, detached and unsupportable opinion on Trump."

True, I'd have used different wording in an Associated Press dispatch. But old-school reporters value credibility. If anyone can cite a worse example of a nation surrendering its freedoms so ignobly, I'll eat my words with salsa on a corn tortilla.

News coverage requires fresh young energy and technical skills. But it also needs old crocodiles who know their way around swamps, steeped in ethics and basic tradecraft learned the hard way.

My own generation has reported on 12 presidents, beginning with JFK. Remember? "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country."

If we imperiled Homo sapiens survive long enough to sort out history, my bet is Joe Biden will emerge as the best of them. Not for who he was in his earlier days, but for how he managed to break through a Republican stonewall to save the world from Trump.

Biden displayed "aging-out" moments in that CNN debate stacked against him. Trump, untroubled by fact challenges, buried him in outrageous burro droppings while sneering at his efforts to give substantive answers against a relentless stopwatch.

But he was already toast for many Americans, reporters included, with little grasp of world reality and unable to differentiate between normal aging and demented ravings that reflect what psychiatrists call malignant narcissism. That is a rare disorder among people who mask sadism with charisma to take pleasure in others' pain.

Trump inherited a booming economy and doped it with a $2 trillion tax cut for the rich. He left behind historic ruins after a pandemic he let run wild. His fanboy crush on Vladimir Putin led to the crippling Ukraine war. His Israel policy set off mayhem.

Biden tamed inflation, created jobs and rebuilt America into what The Economist calls "the envy of the world." Of course, many families suffer from inflated prices and corporate greed. He faces societal divides, widening since the Reagan '80s.

Bob Woodward defined Trump's character just days ago to Anderson Cooper on CNN. He said Trump had a chance to do right by protecting Americans from COVID-19 but did the opposite.

"He absolutely flubbed the coronavirus," Woodward said. "He had the information. He could have saved all kinds of lives. He could have been the leader in 2020 that was reelected because he was the hero to save lives. Instead, he kept waving it away and saying, 'Oh, it's going to go away. It's not a problem.'"

In his last talk with Trump on July 20 that year, Woodward said, "I asked him, what are you going to do? What is your plan? Incredibly, he said, 'Oh, don't worry. I'll have a plan in 106 days.' He was worried about the election, not saving the lives of people in his country.”

Hindsight is futile but instructive. Biden, a gifted delegator with smart, seasoned aides, could have stayed on, then stepped aside to let Kamala Harris take charge without having to face racist, misogynist voters who rejected an off-white woman.

Instead, clueless one-issue voters prevailed. In Michigan, Jill Stein got more votes in some precincts than Harris, helping Trump enable Benjamin Netanyahu to do infinitely worse to subjugate Palestinians while keeping them both out of prison.

No need to go on. We know what might come next. With control of Congress, the courts and statehouses, an altered Constitution could put Elon Musk, one of those African immigrants Trump scorns, behind the Resolute Desk in secret cahoots with Putin.

That is not likely. But neither was a puzzling Trump sweep, after his mysterious wink at House Speaker Mike Johnson about their little secret — and his repeated remarks that turnout won't matter because he has a plan.

Musk is a real-life Lex Luther, soulless, amoral and obsessed with the idea that someone might have more power than him. His X-tweets spew baseless conspiracy theories. He blatantly bought votes for Trump's ticket, then laughed off a judge who called him to account.

But in a gracious swansong, Biden offered his support to Trump. Voters voted; that's that. Harris stepped aside on a high note, accepting a verdict that one commentator deftly defined: Americans wanted a man with a bat, not a woman with joy.

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That was my column. In the few days since I wrote it, Trump has dropped his handlers' pretense of "unity," not only wielding a bat but also naming a batshit-crazy coterie of top-level aides. America as he sees it is the exact opposite of what it was designed to be.

David Frum of The Atlantic caught the essence on CNN. Under the Constitution, Trump is only a public servant subject to the law, like a file clerk or a dogcatcher.

As he put it: "If you go to the poorest town in the United States and go to the meanest street, and find the most desperate hobo, and you are president of the United States, that person is your boss."

Frum, with an MA from Yale and a law degree from Harvard, saw this coming. As a Republican, he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. He had coined the term, axis of evil, as a speech writer for George W. Bush. Now he sees flashing red lights at home.

America's attorney general oversees purportedly nonpartisan federal agents who anchor its democracy. Jeff Sessions, a Trump loyalist, fell on his sword to recuse himself in a Russian collusion investigation. Bill Barr crossed the line but upheld the 2020 election results.

This time, Trump tapped Matt Gaetz, who briefly practiced law before joining the Florida legislature, then Congress. In September, he refused to cooperate with a House Ethics Committee probe into alleged sexual misconduct and drug use. Gaetz called it "nosy." He resigned his seat this week as the committee is about to release its findings.

That only scratches the surface of Trump's rightwing puppet, whose uncompromising positions and antics distracted the House from essential business. He would be just the guy to seek retribution against politicians, journalists and others Trump calls enemies.

A strong, seasoned defense secretary is crucial to defusing global conflict — and keeping a mad president's fingers away from nuclear codes. Trump's coup attempt failed only because generals refused to be part of it.

Now the nominee is some glib host Trump admired on Fox who spent combat time as part of the Minnesota National Guard, Tim Walz's old outfit. Take a close look at him and be very worried.

Kristi Noem as head of Homeland Security? Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence? Elise Stefanik at the United Nations? Steve Bannon is hovering at the edges. Lord only knows where Marjorie Taylor Greene might turn up.

And, of course, Elon Musk. He dropped $175 million into Trump's campaign and earned $50 billion from soaring Tesla stock. Now a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago, he acts as the self-appointed vice president and meddler-in-chief.

Musk is to head the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency. If you miss the wink, that is Doge, referring to a pint-sized Japanese dog rooted deep in muskology. The man's followers find that to be amusing, but it is drop-dead serious.

Dogecoin is the Musk-favored cryptocurrency that enthralls a once skeptical Trump. Pretend money is an ideal way to avoid central banks that regulate monetary supply. Untraceable, it is a boon to criminals, terrorists and just plain shysters.

And DOGE is charged with paring $2 trillion from a federal budget that earmarks only $1.7 trillion for such discretionary spending as education, environmental protection and health care.

This week is just a bitter foretaste of what to expect if Trump's bosses don't stand up to challenge him and begin now to prepare for 2026 midterm elections.

Registered Democrats tallied only 32 percent of the vote, a sharp drop from 2020, and fewer than self-identified independents. Altogether, 42 million Americans bothered to watch results come in on Nov. 6. Three times as many tuned into the Super Bowl.

That's the thing about democracy. Use it or lose it.