Why that’s not all bad
Two evil people, standing shoulder to shoulder applauding each other Image: Politico
Sometimes, President Donald Trump does what he says he’ll do, whether voters like it or not. He and his team of tech zillionaires have taken to tearing the American government, economy, society, and empire apart. This is both good and bad.
We’re already seeing grievous injuries to American workers and poor people: job losses, welfare cuts, social programs disappearing. Immigrants being locked up and deported without due process. They’re taking from the poor and giving to the rich, as Republicans typically do. It’s a challenging time for Americans.
But for much of the world, Trump is a blessing. He may not intend it, but his team’s policies will leave America much weaker. They may bluster and threaten; they may shut down American freedoms, but they will be unable to push the world around the way the US has for 80 years.
The end of American dominance is a dangerous time, but I think it will lead to a saner world, one that might even be able to deal with the ecological disasters industrial/military capitalism has visited on us all.
Here are three ways Team Trump is tearing apart America, with some of the negative and positive effects they will cause.
Dismantling government
Acting as Trump’s agent, megabillionaire Elon Musk and his gang of youthful Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) hot shots have been firing people en masse at agencies like the Department of Education, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and dozens of others. According to Newsweek magazine, 62,530 federal workers were dismissed in the first two months of 2025.
I don’t doubt that the federal government is way too big, but that doesn’t mean self-appointed geniuses can rip it up without causing major problems. Most of those agencies have been around for decades. Like them or not, they do real things that our society has come to depend on. Who will forecast the weather or enable planes to land safely?
Federal agencies also distribute money to state and local programs. If that money (such as SNAP food stamps or Section 8 housing support) disappears, millions will suffer. Hunger and homelessness will increase. Society itself will lose coherence. Who do you call in a fire or hurricane if the responders have been laid off?
They’re also un-writing of the Constitution. Deporting immigrants accused of supporting Palestine, moving to deport actual US citizens, overturning birthright citizenship, ignoring court orders are some unconstitutional actions Trump has initiated. What happened to the vaunted checks and balances we learned about in school? Will they be replaced by government by executive order?
Demolishing the economy
Capitalism is about supply and demand. You need both to keep goods circulating and people thriving. Mass layoffs and benefit cuts will leave people poorer and thus cripple demand, leaving suppliers with no one to sell to. This dynamic is what causes great depressions. The super-rich take too much and leave the working classes unable to buy. Gilded Ages are followed by collapses.
What happened to the vaunted checks and balances we learned about in school? Will they be replaced by government by executive order?
Local farmers tell me it’s getting hard to find help. Farmworkers have been deported or are too afraid of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to come to work. Unless those laid off federal workers want to work harvesting carrots or feeding pigs, food supplies will be down and prices up.
Along with impoverishing people so they can’t buy, Team Trump deports tens of thousands of essential workers. All kinds of low wage workers are immigrants.
It’s not just low-wage workers. A lot of tech industries depend on immigrants from Asia, and they are also finding it harder to get visas or green cards.
The crackdowns on immigration have led to tourists being locked up by ICE, the new secret police. As a result, tourism to the US is down. Hotels and airports are laying people off. My own Canadian cousins won’t come for their usual visits this year because they’re afraid.
Deporting students for speaking up for Palestine is causing many foreign students to reconsider coming to US universities. Those students usually paid full tuition, so this is a big loss to the American economy and academies.
Cutting benefit programs also takes a huge amount of money out of the economy. Cutting social security would pull the rug out from under demand, but such cuts are being floated in Congress, while cuts to SNAP and Medicaid are already in process. Experts are warning that Trump’s tariffs will lead to a deep recession, because international trade is such a big part of the economy. Prices will go up; trade-related jobs will go down.
Sabotaging America’s standing in the world
I don’t know what it’s been like to be a leader of a country under American domination for the last 80 years. It must have chafed, but leaders have gone along, either because they were corrupted, or because alternatives had much worse outcomes — societal disintegration as we are seeing in Libya. But Team Trump seems to be pushing the world over the edge into new alignments.
And that’s great.
In response to Trump’s trade war, old rivals like South Korea, Japan, the Southeast Asian countries and China are forming new alliances. The BRICS alliance keeps growing and challenging US dominance. More than 40 countries comprising 60% of the world’s population are either full members of BRICS or are waiting to get in.
Militarily, America’s endless wars had already pushed the multi-lingual/Global South to see us as enemies. Now Team Trump is saying, ‘OK. Fight your own battles.’ He says his administration will no longer unconditionally support the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). But then, why should European countries stay in NATO at all? What do they get out of it?
Will they miss their ability to destroy Yugoslavia or Libya, as the US pushed them to do? Fear-mongering about Putin will only go so far. Europeans are tired of sacrificing their economies to support American interests. Now, Trump himself is showing them the door.
More good news: Team Trump says they are closing the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), our two regime change agencies. It will be much harder to overthrow governments and cause chaos without them. Now, do you see why I say Trump may be a blessing for the world?
Trump’s ‘art of the deal’ has always been about bullying, and America has relied on military and economic bullying for decades. The empire blasts countries it doesn’t like with economic sanctions, tariffs, seizures of wealth, regime change operations and outright blockades. They blew up the Nordstream gas pipeline, crippling Germany’s economy and Europe’s.
In 1985, they intimidated Japan into demolishing its own economy. All this bullying went on before Trump; it’s not his fault, but now other countries are strong enough and the US weak enough that they’re not dominated so easily.
Why Team Trump is so ineffective
The super-rich have always been the powers behind America’s throne, but Trump has put actual billionaires in charge of the Treasury and other important offices. It turns out that many billionaires are idiots. They say things like “China can’t compete with us in a trade war, because we’re bigger.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said that, seems blissfully unaware that a) we’re not bigger than China, and b) bigger doesn’t always win.
Trump’s other main talent pool seems to be Fox News celebrities like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. They are not the best or the brightest either. Hegseth’s autobiography is called American Crusader, in which he calls for a “holy war” against Islam, the global Left, and China. All at once.
Trump’s top priority is Trump, and there’s a good side to that too, for the rest of the world. He fights with the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and other institutions that make up the US Empire, because they opposed him in his first term. In that battle, I’m rooting for Trump.
It’s not just Trump dismantling America. It’s the empire crashing into a wall. The capitalist class always needs more money, and the empire doesn’t have it. Trump can’t find good people because good people can’t serve the country and the billionaires both. He can’t dominate the world economy because the US economy has de-industrialized and transformed into a giant casino for super-rich gamblers. That’s why we’re in danger and also why the world is freeing itself.
What to do about the dangers we face
The big risks are depression, austerity, fascism, and war. If you’re middle-class, get ready to be poor. If you’re poor, prepare to be destitute. Pull together your community. Figure out how you might access food when prices are sky-high or there’s nothing in the stores to buy. Maybe grow some of your own.
As poverty grows, we can also expect more crime and more homelessness. We’ll have worse health and fewer reliable services. We’ll have to defend ourselves and manage our own affairs at a community level. We can expect racist gangs, some in uniform, fighting each other in the streets. Trump himself promotes the hatreds and fears that lead people to act out violently or to embrace a police state. (This is the one area where I totally blame Trump for the growing American nightmare.) Build up both your self-defense and peacemaking skills.
Oppose War!
When government, media, or your friends say we must fight in China, Russia, Burkina Faso, or wherever, push back in any way you can. Encourage your children not to join the military. If conscription is introduced as they did for the slaughter in Vietnam, resist, like Muhammed Ali did , winning the hearts of all in the Global South!
Mother Earth also needs our support. All the plants and animals that live in National parks, or get some protection from the Fish and Wildlife Service, or the Environmental Protection Agency will be more endangered than ever. Freed from government oversight, corporations will intensify their destruction of our home. We must fight for it.
This not the time to give up or despair. Reach out, get more active. We’re going to go through some Hell together, but a better world awaits.
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