March 25, 2026
This week the United States is at war with Iran. The President, Donald J. Trump, actively directing this war is a television celebrity who does not read books, long reports, or anything of real substance. He is listening to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Our allies and most Americans oppose the conflict. Gas prices are rising, unemployment is climbing, and the markets are tumbling. Money and munitions are being spent at an unsustainable rate. More importantly, thousands of Iranians and Lebanese are dying in US and Israeli bombing attacks.
Trump is a transactional man with a short memory. His information sources are tabloids, television, his friends, and social media. As a television celebrity he was promoted as a dynamic business genius, but in reality he risked and lost millions, family money, bank loans, and investor funds. He declared bankruptcy six times. He bankrupted a casino and is known for failing to pay contractors.
Before winning his first election, he claimed to be a billionaire. He was underwater. His only real financial success is as a television star. His business empire depended heavily on outside financing, including loans from Deutsche Bank. Even after he had defaulted and sued them the bank extended him a line of credit of $800 million. Deutsche Bank is known to be Putin’s bank and has repeatedly faced investigations and fines for money laundering and questionable practices.
Trump is a self‑promoter with a talent for manipulation and an instinctive feral genius for bullying people. He defeated a weak Republican primary field in 2016. To his own surprise he was elected President of the United States. The Republicans used the moment to push through tax cuts and deregulation. They built a conventional Republican administration around him that kept him in check while he made himself the center of attention. Mitch McConnell and the Federalist Society reshaped the Supreme Court into a conservative majority.
How Trump became President will be studied for generations. It is part of the American Story, rooted in contradictions that go back to the founding of the Republic. Trump was the wrong man showing up at the wrong time with the exact talents to seize the moment. He wasn’t a fluke, and he wasn’t inevitable, but he wasn’t a surprise. America has been wrestling with these contradictions since the Civil War, and in 2016 we lost our footing. In 2024, the pattern deepened. The pandemic, media ecosystems, unresolved historical wounds, populism, foreign interference, all played a role. Trump was not the illness; he was a symptom.
And the future? I don’t know. Will this be the start of things worse or the beginning of a new America. Has America lost its way? Or will we learn from this and confront the deep issues that have kept us from our ideals? And beyond Trump, will we rise to the challenge of climate change, the most important existential threat to humanity since people first stood upright?
I am nearly 80 years old. Even if I live another fifteen years, I doubt our current political turmoil will be resolved. It may take decades, even generations, for Americans to regain their footing and become a positive force in the world again. It is painful to reach this age and live in an America where a narcissist wields executive power like a king, where children are in cages, masked police roam our cities, a devastating war rages in the Middle East, and the economy stumbles under misdirection, corruption, and half-baked ideas. Today America is an obstacle to progress rather than the leader we thought we were.
In my life I have tried to be an informed and active citizen. I have not done everything I could but I have tried. I have contributed. I take responsibility for supporting efforts that seemed right at the time but contributed to this moment. I tried to make the world better. It was not enough. I hope that the readers of this, especially my great‑grandchildren, will see a future that is brighter and more hopeful. I am still working toward that future, still participating, even if I am uncertain of the results. I am not optimistic. I am not pessimistic. I do not know. But I wish you well, and I hope, if not my generation then yours.
