By Philip Yeung
This year, America turns 250. But few are in a festive mood. The national birthday party has been taken over by a small man with a big ego. Unfortunately, he is also the poster boy for serial tax cheating, serial business failure and a habitual sex offender. Something feels rotten in America.
Trump has parlayed the presidency into a $2.2 billion profit in the first year of his second term.
Unlike his predecessors, Trump did not divest his assets before assuming office. He claims that they are managed by third-party financial institutions, buying and selling stocks on sensitive geopolitical developments that he dictates.
The Office of Government Ethics is asleep, or too afraid to call Trump out for a conflict of interest. From lawsuit settlements alone against Meta, X, ABC, CBS and YouTube, Trump has grown fatter with $86.5 million in just one year. Where he has failed in business, he has succeeded in milking presidential politics for profit. Have you ever heard of a US president, or president of any country profiting from launching lawsuits while in office? These media outlets settled out of court for fear of his vindictiveness and the awesome power of the presidency. This is unparalleled in history. Trump has turned the presidency into his pot of gold. With a cowering Congress and control of the Supreme Court, Trump is bulletproof.
The American dream has gone sour. Gone are its open-door immigration policies. Gone, too, is its nobility. Trump has withdrawn the welcome mat to wretched aliens. The words carved on the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…" no longer ring true. Instead, brutal ICE agents have killed and callously hunted down protestors and immigrants, documented and undocumented.
Worse, anti-ICE protestors have been handed unheard-of jail terms from 50 to 70 years, while Trump granted full pardons to his violent supporters in the January 6 insurrection. No longer the land of the free, this is now the land of fear and retribution.
Unlike his predecessors, Trump is unafraid to use his presidential powers to settle old scores. The victims of his retribution include the former FBI director James Comey and Trump's former National Security Adviser turned critic John Bolton. He has weaponized his personal vindictiveness.
Internationally, America is a rascal with no reliable relationships, only situationships. He uses his capaciousness as a weapon, as it goes up and down with his mercurial moods. Without any moral scruples, Trump becomes a human wrecking ball to friends or foes alike who are forced to bargain with a bully.
Trump is drowning in his own lies. If you cross him, he will lie to hurt you. Just ask Italy's female prime minister who was humiliated with a fabricated falsehood over her allegedly begging for a photo opp with the blond buffoon. But in Italy's case, it is just a squabble. Poor Venezuela had its president kidnapped in broad daylight and is now rotting in a US jail. Iran was brutally bombed without provocation. And yet Trump has the gall to personally lobby for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The bully who carries the world's biggest stick is shamelessly craving a crown or a halo.
With Trump, rules are for the birds. Even in football, the 2026 World Cup is forever tainted by his brazen interference with FIFA rules, with Trump personally calling its president Infantino to reinstate a top-scoring player red-carded and suspended for the next game. Trump has barged in where other US presidents had feared to tread. The Trump card has overruled the red card. No rules are safe from Trump, not even in football. It was instant karma when America was soundly beaten 4-1 by Belgium.
Twice impeached and convicted of multiple felonies, Trump miraculously survives them all and gets himself twice elected to America's highest office. As a convicted criminal, he doesn't belong in the White House, but rather in the jailhouse or the nut house.
One man has hijacked America's sesquicentennial celebrations, putting his image on US greenbacks, hosting big-budget parades for his birthday, and staging UFC fights on the White House lawns for private profit.
That's why the US birthday celebrations feel like a farce. And the White House feels like a circus, and its occupant but a clown with a sick joke. Trump is the fork in America's future.
The American empire, the most powerful in history is now wrapped around the finger of a small-hearted man with a big appetite for power. If it feels like a funeral, it is because Trump has killed the American experiment.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Opinion | Japan, the ticking time-bomb in Asia
Opinion | The Iran War---Trump's can of worms
Opinion | Trump at 80—a mental milestone that sets alarm bells ringing
Opinion | The World Cup of shame—the beautiful game turned ugly
Comment