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Hi Blog. This month’s column is my latest report from the ground. One of my methods has aways been writing things as I see them, based upon collecting information both from open source media and from experiences I’m having. And what I’m seeing is happening under famous curse of, “May you live living in interesting times.” As I’ve written before, American democracy is in flux, and it’s getting worse every day. I think there’s a psychological aspect to it, as in the psychology of one man with this much power behind him. More than any person in history, I think we can say. And here’s what happens to a society when “the cheese has slid off his cracker”, and what history has to say about “mad kings” in the past. Debito Arudou, Ph.D.
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Letter from America: Life under a mad king
Subtitle: Everyone is learning what happens when the world’s most powerful man goes crazy
By Debito Arudou. Shingetsu News Agency Visible Minorities Column 74, April 7, 2026
Courtesy https://shingetsunewsagency.com/2026/04/07/visible-minorities-life-under-a-mad-king/
The world is living under a rogue regime — or rather, a rogue individual — who is wielding unprecedented power.
Think about it: Donald Trump is Commander-in-Chief over the world’s mightiest military in history, and deployed it worldwide far beyond the empires of yore (Roman, Persian, Ottoman, British, Russian, Chinese…). He also has his finger on the button of the second-largest (if not the world’s best-maintained) arsenal of nuclear weapons. He also presides over the world’s largest economy, the world’s reserve trading currency, and the world’s largest global market capitalization in its stock markets.
One would think that the United States, as the world’s steward of the world’s postwar order and the most powerful economic and security agreements, would have a chief executive’s steady hand on the tiller.
But as you know, it’s been more a hand in the till. Trump and his minions have made billions peddling their influence in international negotiations in ways never seen before. Everything that happens in that world is transactional and self-profiteering. And with Trump’s mastery of media manipulation and “flooding the zone with shit,” with at least four media networks piping out supportive propaganda, every action by this rogue regime is supported by at least a quarter of the polled American public, no matter the contradictions, lies or hardships.
After than a decade of unrelenting control over the American mind space, a new normal has settled. This column is a letter about daily life in America under a crazy king, speaking as a professional political scientist who for professional reasons cannot look away.
THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
Having lived for about three decades outside of the United States, I’ve never been so naive to see America as an unremitting force for good. After all, every country has its dark times. But given its hegemonic powers, dark times in America were also projected overseas.
Yet America rarely brought its malfeasance home for Americans to experience. And the majority of Americans have never even left the country to see how the world perceives them. Until recently, fewer than half even had a passport.
So domestic America was in fact an oasis from itself, something to be feared only if you were outside the rich countries and designated a target in the “War on Terror.” As comedian Bassem Youssef noted (paraphrasing one of his routines), “Moving to America, I now have the comfort of being in the belly of the beast. Before, when I was living in the Middle East, I worried about getting bombed by America. Here, I can stop worrying. And go shop at CostCo.”
But now, fear of America has been domesticated. It’s not just war crimes against overseas civilians and their infrastructure in proxy skirmishes or wars of choice. The American military is now being used against Americans.
ICE thugs with a budget as big as Canada’s entire military roam America’s streets and airports abducting, beating, even killing people with impunity. Concentration camps are popping up nationwide, where families and children rot and die without due process. Boats get blown up offshore without justification or oversight — and it’s only a matter of time before those missile attacks happen in US territorial waters if not within US territory itself. The National Guard is being geared up to roam American polling stations, seize ballot boxes, and even count the votes.
Thus the beast no longer has a belly where Americans can take refuge. The “War on Terror” now extends to the “radical leftists” and “domestic terrorists” behind any political or legal decision that goes against Trump’s whims. Even the Democratic Party is being labeled a “domestic extremist organization.”
It’s gone beyond invective and into pocketbook penalties and surveillance. Entire US states are being denied federal funding for not acquiescing to brutal federal policies, or even because they voted Democrat last time. People are being detained and having property confiscated based upon the political content in their mobile phones. A plurality of people fear their private conversations are being listened to by the tech oligarchs (if not an emerging AI sentience) that control Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. The thought police are here, and we invited them in.
THE VIEW FROM THE GROUND
This has affected me professionally. As a political scientist at the university level, I teach hundreds of students each semester, mostly introductory classes to non-majors. Their fear is palpable. Many students don’t have the mental software to deal with this. Many say they wake up every morning afraid to look at their phones. They try to tune it out but can’t, and unfortunately my classes need them to plug in to current events to see how a civil society functions.
Even in casual conversations with non-students, when people find out I teach political science, they invariably ask me what’s happening in DC. (I now know how medical doctors feel when they’re asked for casual diagnoses, as in, “I feel pain right here. What’s it mean?”)
I try to allay their fears. In pre-Trump “normal” times, I would talk about governing institutions (as opposed to political theory), and how people can navigate systems and enfranchise themselves and their communities if they learn the system.
Unfortunately, the fixed stars of political structures I could rely on aren’t there anymore.
The American Constitution, Bill of Rights, and even laws (including the full disclosure of the Epstein Files) are violated daily. “Checks and Balances” are largely gone. Congress is abdicating most of its oversight role, even shutting down for extended periods to delay debates that might anger Dear Leader. The Supreme Court hands down convoluted rulings (many without explanation via their “shadow docket”) working backwards from politicized conclusions to give the Executive Branch even more power. Even faith in the electoral process, to offer a regular and peaceful transition of power, has diminished to the point where we wonder if there will be a fair election in November — or even one at all.
As a political scientist, I look upon these works, and despair.
THE “MORNING AFTER,” EVERY MORNING
I too wake every morning with fear. What immature, cruel, or even batshit crazy thing was just said by a leader with no guardrails? What people will find themselves being purged for guilt by association with the “evils” of “diversity,” or just because they were bureaucrats doing their jobs? What’s the next politically motivated Department of Justice prosecution as an example to us all?
Or what thing will be taken away because Dear Leader was displeased? What media outlet be taken over or comedy show cancelled because Trump can’t brook criticism or satire? What tribute or trophy will be presented him to ensure corporate mergers or FIFA games proceed without interference? What new attack somewhere in the world will cost blood, treasure, fuel prices, and financial futures?
All the institutions I thought I could rely on are being corrupted or enshittified.
Point is, it’s hard to teach American politics with any sense of science anymore. The federal system is not functioning with any predictability beyond the whims of one man’s unchecked power. The only paradigm that makes sense is the study of how empires decline and fall, and how arbitrary life is under an autocracy where the king has gone crazy.
Of course, everything I’ve said so far has been said elsewhere. By now most of it gets dismissed as “Oh Dear punditry,” i.e., where we columnists sound alarms yet nothing happens, so we shrug, sigh “Oh dear”, and await the next development.
But the new insight I can offer as a columnist is what’s missing in the debate: A psychological analysis behind the power.
This is a systemic blind spot. Thanks to us shunting off our elderly to run out the clock in old folks’ homes, the public knows surprisingly little about dementia. We haven’t had have a public face to raise awareness of this disease like we’ve had for, say, Lou Gehrig and ALS, Magic Johnson and AIDS, Michael J. Fox and Parkinson’s Disease, or Selena Gomez and Lupus.
As a result, we are giving a mentally diminished Trump a legitimacy he no longer deserves.
DEMENTIA AND DISABILITY
Dementia doesn’t mean people necessarily stop making sense; they can be fully articulate and pass basic cognitive tests. But their lack of impulse control, increasing paranoia, shifts in lucidity from day-to-day (or even hour-to-hour; look up “sundowning”), and inability to take in new information to make informed decisions in changing conditions, is insufficiently studied or being debated about.
Old people “going mad” or “senile” is not just something necessarily seen in people who are “slow” or “easily distracted.” Americans think of “Sleepy Joe” Biden’s inarticulate and distracted performance in the 2024 presidential debate as evidence of an old man’s inability to hold office anymore. So they voted his party out.
But surely senescent monomaniacs can still be industrious and full of energy as well?
Look at the energy of kings and dictators throughout history, and you’ll see how they went mad over time, yet remained in power because they were lucid and proactive enough to use their power to purge any disobedience. If you let them.
The Americans keep letting him. The world rightfully looks at the United States in fear and anger at all the pain the “mad king” is inflicting on them. Especially since the American system enabled him to take power not once, but twice. And now it cannot be just passed off as a fluke or a bug in the system. It’s a bug in the brain.
As clinical psychologist Dr. Mary L. Trump sagely notes, her uncle is “the world’s most dangerous man” with “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” coupled with “cognitive and psychological decline.”
And yet we cannot remove him as mentally unfit because we can’t collectively see him as having a disease.
Biden’s enablers kept him in office for his full term. No doubt they’ll try to do the same for Trump too. All we can do, history shows with all the other mad kings, is let nature take its course.
As Bassem Youssef also noted, “Now you know what it’s like to live under a leader in the Middle East. Come talk to us and we’ll teach you how to deal with it.”
It’s America’s turn now to realize that even the most robust democracy is susceptible to charismatic leaders going crazy. How much worse must it get before the mad king falls from power? Even as a political scientist, I can’t predict that. Oh dear.
ENDS
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