TrumpWorld 2.0: Crashes and Fatal Errors Abound
Americans were sold the Trump update with promises of prosperity and global dominance. Instead, we got foreign policy misfires and turmoil at home. The program's corrupted; the system has seized up.
I haven’t been watching Fox News lately, so how’s Donald Trump doing in his return to the Oval Office? Terrific, right? That’s their usual message.
Well … maybe not so much.
Five months into his second chance at running the country, Trump is lurching from one crisis to the next in a frantic attempt to sell the illusion he’s in complete control. His vows to quickly end foreign wars through his buddy-buddy global relationships haven’t worked out. And his promises to lower consumer costs and trim the budget deficit with a supercharged economy have collided with a real-world forces that refuse to play along.
Welcome to TrumpWorld 2.0. Like many of the program updates we suffer through these days, this one came with a note saying its would boost the safety of our system. But instead, it eliminated system safeguards we’ve long depended on, it’s glitchy and it crashes when it gets pushed too hard.
And maybe the worst thing about the Trump update is that there’s no easy way to uninstall it.
From a volatile Middle East to a resurgent Russia, a rattled Europe, and a fractured global economy, the chaos is mounting globally as Trump’s failures rack up one after another. And across hometown America, opposition to an administration that’s pushing the outer limits of our country’s legal and political traditions is spreading and hardening.
Trump said he could quickly end the conflicts in the Middle East and stop Russia’s war in Ukraine. But his buddies, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, seem less than eager to bow to his will. Russia is doubling down on its assault in Ukraine, as Trump argued that Putin should be allowed back into the G7 group that that kicked him out as a militaristic aggressor. And Israel is expanding its military operations in Gaza and bombing the hell out of Iran with Netanyahu brushing off Trump’s inconsistent demands for de-escalation.
Remember Trump’s comment that the only thing he was interested in was saving lives? Come on folks, even Trump’s biggest supporters had to grin and wink at each other when that one came out.
Meanwhile, his tariff policies have been … well, let’s just call them erratic. One week he charges forward like a bull in a china shop. The next, he’s tip-toeing backwards. Last week, he backtracked on tariffs affecting agriculture and hospitality, a concession on the economic pain the tariffs are inflicting. But let’s be clear here, this covers only the industries he considers important to his base.
We don’t have a steady leader. We have a walking Rorschach test, someone desperate to project the image of a winner, using an ever-shifting blur of postures and personas that depends more on how he sees himself in the mirror at any given moment than on the stakes of whatever crisis he’s tangled up in.
One moment, he’s a born-again peacemaker, the next, a rage-fueled nationalist threatening hell-fire from the American military. He’s a populist railing against elites, then a golden idol promising tax breaks and deregulation to billionaires. The brave tariff warrior threatens global trade, then he meekly rolls back the parts that might hurt him with his rural base and his billionaire donors.
He’s everywhere and nowhere at once. It’s improvisation masquerading as strength. And the longer it goes on, the more damage it causes.
Over and over again, Trump has proven himself to be not just morally bankrupt, but dangerously incompetent and completely uncaring about the effects of his misadventures. And the people he’s put in power? They’re just as bad.
Remember this? In March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed a pending U.S. bombing operation on a public-facing group chat as a reporter mistakenly included listened in. Then in May, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released a taxpayer-funded report on childhood illness riddled with fake citations and nonexistent studies. One medical expert suggested the report was so bar, it “should be shredded.”
In any other White House, these type of blunders would be fireable offenses, or at least lead to resignations. In Trump’s White House, they’re just one more day at the office, nothing out of the ordinary. So, with that thought in mind, let’s take a walk through how else his second term is playing out so far.
His immigration crackdown, increasingly handled in a ham-fisted, constitutionally dubious manner, has ignited mass protests in cities nationwide. And his response to those protests feels more like what Putin would do, than an American president serving the best interests of a concerned public. What once looked like a political strength is now fast becoming a legal and PR disaster.
Images of armed, masked officers dragging off immigrants, including those with legal status showing up for court dates or clocking in for work, are fueling outrage, not reassurance. And the reason why it’s happening is clear to everyone: The folks here legally, the ones meeting their responsibilities under the law, are easy targets help federal immigration agents meet arrest quotas pushed by an administration obsessed with numbers, not justice.
The Trump team has boosted the goal of arrests by ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service, to 3,000 a day from 600 a day previously.
Meanwhile, we’re now seeing case after case of Americans with Latino surnames or darker skin being questioned, and often roughly detained because they fit the profile. On Long Island, one U.S.-born man was pulled from the passenger seat of a car during a routine stop last week. When he refused to show ID he wasn’t legally required to carry, he was arrested and hauled off to jail.
His lawyer spoke out on local TV on Saturday, calling it a “clear case” of racial profiling. But “clear” doesn’t begin to explain what this is. It’s simple racism, repackaged as public safety in a country that should know better.
Meanwhile, nearly every executive order and agency directive from Trump’s administration is being tied up in court. You’d think he might consult a lawyer before launching some of these half-baked moves, right? But this isn’t about what’s legal. It’s about appeasing Trump’s massive ego, along with the far-right forces nudging his administration along.
Short-sighted Chaos
And speaking of short-sighted chaos, remember when Elon Musk’s DOGE team gutted key federal agencies in the name of “efficiency” and eliminating so-called waste, fraud, and abuse?
Turns out, the administration has had to quietly rehire hundreds of the same civil servants Musk’s so-called efficiency group let go. In February, 300 nuclear-security staff were abruptly fired, triggering a crisis at the heart of U.S. nuclear oversight. Most were rehired amid alarm from national security experts. At the Social Security Administration, nearly 80 technical staffers were brought back after the processing of benefits nearly ground to a halt.
Meanwhile, the reports sent out by DOGE outlining their actions have been filled with contradictions, inflated claims, and unexplained gaps. As for Musk himself, his bromance with Trump is now on the rocks. Turns out two unchecked egos don’t fit well in one gilded room.
Okay … well, at least Trump has his “big, beautiful” tax bill, right?
Not so much, or at least not yet. The House rushed it through, cheered on by rabid MAGA Republicans. But now it’s running into serious resistance in the Senate, where Republicans don’t have to face elections every two years see it as an opportunity to finally cut the heart out of what they’ve long seen as a welfare state structure that’s long frustrated them.
The Senate’s version of the bill makes a cruel equation even harsher. It deepens Medicaid cuts by slashing provider reimbursements and layering on new work requirements. It rolls back the SALT deduction cap increase, hiking taxes on middle-class homeowners in high-cost, Democratic-led states. It trims the child tax credit and leaves massive food aid cuts untouched.
Add it all up, and the working poor, the struggling middle-class and anyone on the edge will take a hit. And Trump’s campaign promises? Going, going and mostly gone.
The bill may be big, and in some quarters it may be thought of as beautiful. But despite Trump’s aggressive lobbying for it to be passed in the Senate with no changes, it certainly won’t pass without a fight.
Millions Protest
On Saturday, more than 3 million Americans turned out nationwide for “No Kings Day,” according to organizers. The crowds, which spanned generations and geography, sent a coordinated message of rejection for Trump’s growing use of executive power and his increasingly authoritarian tone.
There was no violence or property damage. Much to the disappointment of MAGA Republicans, perhaps, who seemed eager to paint the protests as chaotic. What they got instead was rising resolve, and a growing determination to push back against the consolidation of power with voices, votes, organizing muscle, and sheer numbers in the streets.
Meanwhile, his birthday military parade went off as planned, but it was badly organized, with relatively few people turning out, especially after forecasts of storms that evening.
“Far from the crisp marching of the military parades that Trump seemed to want to top, the U.S. soldiers appeared to shuffle, leading to a social media debate over whether they had been ordered to march in an ‘at ease march’ instead of a more rigorous step, or whether they were silently protesting,” Heather Cox Richardson reported on Monday in her Substack column, Letters from an American.
“Photographers recorded empty bleachers and thin crowds,” she added. “Few Republican lawmakers attended, but cameras caught Trump looking miserable and Secretary of State Marco Rubio yawning.”
Fantasy Worlds
Trump’s not carefully steering the country toward a new vision. He’s breaking things he doesn’t understand, firing people the government desperately needs to function, and doubling down on ideas that only work in echo chambers and fantasy worlds.
While Fox News and Trump’s online shock troops may still be peddling the myth of a decisive leader restoring order, the rest of the country, and much of the world, is seeing something else entirely. They see a lame-duck president unraveling under the weight of his own desperate need to craft a legacy built on fear and force before his rule is challenged in the 2026 midterm elections, the first real workaround Americans have access to.
Meanwhile, workers, veterans, students, older Americans, Black Americans, and young scientists have all become collateral damage, along with brown-skinned immigrants, in a campaign to remake American life along far-right, authoritarian, and deeply exclusionary lines.
However, resistance is growing more adamant by the day. Millions of Americans are protesting, seeking a return to the ideals promised by the Constitution.
They believe the Trump 2.0 update, and the Project 2025 program running it, should come with a big red warning label. And they want a factory reset. How about you? What do you think?