Looking past the performative cruelty to see the reality of Trump's collapsing agenda

August 11, 2025

In ways large and small, the Trump administration is failing. The performative cruelty is playing well with about one-third of Americans, but is driving Independents, persuadable Republicans, and nearly every Democrat to oppose a sitting president with greater fervor than at any point in modern presidential history. The tide has turned, but the Mad King wades deeper into the swelling surf, commanding the waves to retreat. It is only a matter of time (and hard work on our part) before he will be swamped.

Watching the spectacle is difficult because legacy media outlets are reporting breathlessly on each dramatic but futile gesture while ignoring the slow but inexorable rising tide. That’s the story—that Trump's hollow gestures and detachment from reality are not signs of strength or achievement but the signs of a disordered mind and corrupt motives that are creating chaos, making Americans less safe and free with each passing day.

Trump will make grand gestures this coming week, but they will be made-for-TV melodrama—the only trick of a one-trick pony. He is fooling fewer people, and even those who willingly suspend disbelief to support him are exhausted by his ever-changing demands to believe in irreconcilable conspiracy theories whose only goal is to conceal Trump's guilt.

Yes, it can be hard to watch. But know that the sound and fury emanating from a rapidly declining Trump signal the beginning of the end of Trump and his enablers.

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Trump has screwed up the Alaskan summit with Russia in every way imaginable.

As Trump seeks to distract attention from the Epstein scandal, he is pretending to settle Russia’s war against Ukraine. He will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday as he goes through the motions of negotiating an end to Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine.

Most international summits, especially those dealing with matters of war and peace, are carefully orchestrated diplomatic triumphs with precisely engineered outcomes agreed to far in advance of the summit. Bizarrely, Trump has called for a peace conference that includes only the aggressor nation and a US president with no authority to make concessions on behalf of the nation under attack. See NPR, European leaders urge for Ukraine to be included in Trump-Putin Alaska peace talks.

Understandably and predictably, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already rejected the proposed surrender by Ukraine floated by Trump last week. See The Independent, Europe rallies behind Ukraine after defiant Zelensky rejects any peace plan that gives up land to Russia.

Worse, Trump is rewarding an indicted war criminal, Vladimir Putin, with the diplomatic gift of a one-on-one meeting with a US president on US soil. Many readers wrote to me over the weekend, highlighting Heather Cox Richardson’s column from last Friday, which notes the following:

Putin generally cannot travel outside Russia because he has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including the theft of Ukrainian children. And yet Trump is welcoming him to the United States of America. [¶]

This welcome gives Putin the huge gift of letting him touch down on U.S. soil after he invaded Ukraine in defiance of the policy established after World War II to prevent another such devastating war.

Trump is being used by Putin to “sane wash” his status as an international war criminal. The simple act of appearing at a peace “summit” with a US president gives Putin grist for his disinformation mill. The Alaska summit is doomed to failure because Trump has not done the painstaking work of reaching an agreement in principle before the meeting. Indeed, Trump's addled brain and non-existent work ethic make him incapable of securing a complicated peace agreement.

The unctuous JD Vance appeared on the Sunday talk shows in the US to spread lies about every topic he addressed. Vance incorrectly claimed that Americans are “sick of funding the Ukraine war.” See The Hill, Vance: ‘We’re done with the funding of the Ukraine war business’.

The opposite is true. Most Americans support continued economic (55%) and military (52%) aid for Ukraine, while only 30% (mostly Republicans) oppose such aid. See Chicago Council on Global Affairs, "Slim Majorities of Americans Still Support Aiding Ukraine" (survey dated March 20, 2025).

Trump will not achieve peace at the summit in Alaska this week. He will, however, weaken Ukraine’s negotiating position by signaling that the US is an unfaithful and unreliable ally—which will be music to Putin’s ears. And much of the media will report on his meeting with Putin as though it is a serious diplomatic effort worthy of serious discussion, rather than unrelenting criticism for his lazy and ignorant approach to international affairs.

The shooting at the CDC and Robert Kennedy’s anti-CDC rhetoric

Last Friday, a man who espoused anti-vaccine conspiracy theories attempted to enter the Centers for Disease Control’s headquarters in Atlanta. When he was turned away, he retreated to a nearby pharmacy. From that location, he shot at four buildings occupied by the CDC. During his rampage, he killed one law enforcement officer.

Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, a consultant to the CDC, wrote movingly about the attack in her newsletter, Your Local Epidemiologist, Bullets in the Windows.

Dr. Jetelina writes,

Bullets struck four buildings. Some with more than 50 holes in the glass. The hardest-hit area was the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) and the Immunization Safety Office (ISO). These are people who have carried a lot of the weight of the pandemic, endured relentless hostility, and have faced six months of attacks on vaccine policy. Many have almost no reserves left. And now, on top of everything, they were literally under fire.

Those bullet holes are a haunting, terrible metaphor for what public health has endured over the past six months—and the past six years.

The violent attack was inevitable. Per Mother Jones,

Previously, Kennedy has referred to the CDC as “a cesspool of corruption” and accused CDC employees of trying to hide from the public how he believes vaccines harm children. Earlier this week, he canceled almost $500 million in grants and contracts for work on mRNA vaccines, the technology used for some Covid shots.

See Mother Jones, The CDC Shooter Was Obsessed With Vaccine Conspiracy Theories. RFK Jr. Was Predictably Slow to Respond. – Mother Jones,

Kennedy was silent after the attack on the CDC, an agency that he oversees. He issued a public statement expressing forced sympathy for the CDC workers only after he was shamed by members of the media, unions, and the employees of the CDC. See The Guardian, CDC union says vaccine misinformation put staff at risk after Atlanta shooting.

Kennedy’s toxic beliefs are exposing hundreds of millions of Americans to greater risk in the next epidemic or pandemic. His anti-measles stance is literally killing children. And now, his hateful rhetoric has led to the death of a law enforcement officer and the terrorizing of hundreds of CDC employees by a killer espousing antivaccine conspiracy theory.

While this incident may shock the public into paying attention, polling in August shows that most Americans don’t know that Kennedy is doing or how his antivaxxer campaign is undermining America’s defenses against the next pandemic. See KFF, Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust: COVID-19 Vaccine Update.

Sadly, the danger of Kennedy’s ignorance will not become apparent until a virus breaks through to the general population, and we are defenseless. We must do everything possible to raise public awareness about the dangers of Kennedy’s actions.

Trump to attempt federal takeover of D.C. police functions

In another effort to distract from the Epstein scandal, Trump will hold a press conference on Monday to announce that the federal government is taking over police functions in the District of Columbia. See NYTimes, Trump Administration to Put F.B.I. Agents on Night Patrol in Washington (Accessible to all.)

The radical move is based on the lie that crime in Washington, D.C., is spiraling out of control. The opposite is true. Per the NYTimes article, above,

Mr. Trump has said that crime in Washington is spiraling out of control. While statistics show that violent crime in the city hit a 30-year low last year and is down another 26 percent so far this year . . . .

Trump is also going to announce a “crackdown” on homeless people in D.C., as well. See, What Did Donald Trump Do Today, Donald Trump Tells Homeless People To Go Home.

The above article notes that homelessness has decreased in DC over the last decade and that “some reports show that the number of homeless/unhoused persons in the city with diagnosed mental issues is upwards of 80%.”

And yet, the Big Ugly Bill just cut more than $500 million in federal grants to reduce homelessness.

The coming assault on D.C. is performative cruelty, plain and simple. We will see horrific scenes of homeless people being dragged from tents and sleeping bags for the crime of being poor or suffering from mental illness, all while Trump paints the Oval Office in gold leaf and accepts cryptocurrency payments that seem like nothing less than transparent bribes.

Speaker Mike Johnson accused of using campaign funds to pay for housing

A federal watchdog group, Campaign Legal Center, has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission accusing Speaker Mike Johnson of using campaign funds to pay for personal housing in D.C. See Courthouse News Service, Watchdog says Mike Johnson used campaign funds to rent from GOP lawmaker.

Per Courthouse News Service,

The watchdog group, in its FEC complaint filed Wednesday, pointed to five $2,500 disbursements from Johnson’s campaign account since March, which were titled “rent” and totaled a little over $12,000. The funds were directed to a company called Greene Properties, located in Vista, California, and owned by California Representative Darrell Issa, according to the Republican lawmaker’s financial disclosure documents.

Federal law bars members of Congress from using campaign contributions for “personal use,” a condition described as any obligation or expense that a lawmaker might have outside of their responsibilities as an elected official.

Johnson is a world-class hypocrite. The media should be all over this story, as well as the backstory of Johnson’s housing arrangements before his most recent home purchase in D.C. While Trump has unleashed the DOJ against Senator Adam Schiff for non-existent mortgage fraud, the third person in line for the presidency is allegedly using campaign funds for a purpose expressly prohibited by federal law.

There may be a bigger scandal brewing here. If the press still has any investigative juices left, someone should be running down the story of Johnson’s housing arrangements.

Concluding Thoughts

It will be a week filled with new performative cruelty and made-for-TV melodrama. It’s all a ruse. Trump is play-acting as president and provoking outrage to distract from his own guilt. Everything he does is a sign of weakness or fear.

True, many of the actions have significant real-world consequences, but none of them improve the lives and well-being of American citizens. Over time, Trump’s support will fade away at the margins—and that will be enough to allow our hard work to flip the House (at least) in 2026. Trump understands that risk, which is why he is doing absolutely everything to prevent Democrats from being in a position to investigate and impeach him (again).

Talk to you tomorrow!

Daily Dose of Perspective

Below is a lousy image of the Cave Nebula. They can’t all be winners! The moon is full and overwhelmed the night sky. That’s my story, and I am sticking to it.