Jan. 1, 2026 by David Silverberg

Last October 18, President Donald Trump published images that perfectly summarized his worldview in 2025. In a 19-second Truth Social video, a military plane labeled “King Trump” takes off on a runway.

At the controls is Trump, wearing a an oxygen mask covering his mouth (although not his nose) and most importantly, wearing a crown.

High above New York City, the aircraft opens its bomb bay doors and drops Trump’s waste on massive crowds of “No Kings” protesters in the streets.

It fully encapsulated Trump’s attitude: He’s a king, high above all other humans. “We the people” are worthy only of his waste. In his view, Americans’ proper place is at the bottom of his toilet. To put it in personal terms: He doesn’t serve us; he dumps on us.

And lest he leave any doubt of his view of himself, on Nov. 23, he re-posted an image of himself as an armored king, with Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) kneeling at his feet and the caption “NONE shall escape his justice.”

This is the attitude with which Trump and the American people go into a year that marks the 250th anniversary of the United States.

It is a year when Trump will either fully impose his reign and sweep away the vestiges of American democracy, constitutionality and law, or the American people will assert themselves and restore government of, by and for the people.

Trump has made this an either/or proposition. As in 2024, by his actions he has a created a situation in which he can only win everything or lose everything. There is no middle ground, no halfway result.

The Great Equalizer

The projections in this look ahead are premised on the assumption that Trump will be in office and command throughout the year. But at 79 years old, that is hardly a given. While Trump may cheat on taxes, he can’t cheat death.

Trump’s physical and mental deterioration have been extensively detailed in media coverage, from the swelling of his ankles, to his dozing off in meetings, to his hand’s discoloration, to his well-documented and unpredictable rages, to his increasingly disjointed and unhinged speeches and social media postings. His doctors routinely give him clean bills of health but in a presidency where lying is equally routine they can be dismissed.

One of the most extensive and seemingly knowledgeable public diagnoses was posted in a 1-minute, 51-second video on Tik-Tok on Dec. 4. A person claiming to be a physical therapist with a doctorate in his field and experience treating geriatric patients with dementia argued that Trump’s obvious dementia and overall physical deterioration are so advanced that he only had three to five months to live, which means he could pass in the March to June timeframe.

If Trump should die in office, Vice President James David “JD” Vance would succeed him. At that point the rest of the year will revolve around the question of whether Vance will continue Trump “policies” and retain Trump’s personnel.

On the presumption that Vance would follow the Constitution the transition should be orderly. However, in personality-based regimes transitions are never smooth and the infighting and maneuvering in a new Vance regime will be spectacular. (A very good depiction of the succession to a dictator is the 2017 movie The Death of Stalin. Something similar can be expected from the Trump regime.)

Another possibility is that Trump suffers a debilitating medical episode, likely a stroke.

On the one hand his handlers may try to hide it, so any prolonged presidential absences should be vigorously probed by Congress and the media.

On the other hand it could be so debilitating the Cabinet has no choice but to invoke the 25th Amendment and take control of government. In this regime nothing less than an event so devastating that it could not be hidden from the public would trigger such action.

Otherwise, among the cultists and sycophants closest to him, his obvious and increasing dementia will be exploited, manipulated and rationalized for as long as possible regardless of the damage it does to the country.

Despite these very real possibilities, in attempting to look ahead at 2026, this analysis will proceed on the assumption that Trump will be in command and control.

Under any circumstances 2026 would be an eventful year.

War?

The year may see the United States in a full-blown war with Venezuela—or possibly other countries.

Politically, war is the ultimate distraction, effectively shifting attention from domestic matters and internal turmoil. (During the American Civil War, Union Secretary of State William Seward floated the idea of a war with Britain, France or Spain to distract from turmoil at home. “One war at a time,” answered President Abraham Lincoln.)

For months the United States has been making hostile moves against Venezuela and the government of President Nicolas Maduro, who is also an autocrat by any measure of the term. Trump has been insisting this is an attack on narcotics-smuggling terrorists, hence his attacks on boats in the Caribbean and seizure of an oil tanker. However, actual evidence has not been presented that any of this is related to narcotics and the killing of two survivors of a boat strike on Sept. 2 appears to have been a war crime that was allegedly committed on the orders of Secretary of War Peter Hegseth.

If Trump enters the United States into an all-out, undeclared war with Venezuela, the ups and downs of that conflict will dominate headlines until the conflict is resolved.

But just as Trump has learned so much from Russian President Vladimir Putin, he should also absorb the lesson that what may seem like an easy invasion and quick victory can turn into something much bloodier, unpredictable and protracted.

Epstein’s ghost

Ever since Elon Musk mentioned in June that Trump was in the federal files about sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, the files have been a bleeding ulcer for Trump, a painful, oozing wound that won’t go away.

Trump opponents have been hoping that the Epstein files would deliver a knockout blow to Trump’s presidency. Republican members of Congress defected from party discipline to vote to allow their release and thousands of pages were made public on Dec. 19 in response to congressional legislation—and as was to be expected, it appeared that massive redacting had been done to protect Trump.

Then, on Christmas eve, there was a further release of material by former federal prosecutor Jack Smith, which gave rise to lurid but unconfirmed allegations of rape—male and female—murder and infanticide by Trump.

What is year ahead likely to bring in the Epstein affair?

Given Trump’s weathering of other scandals that seemed to be knockout blows like the Hollywood Access tapes or the failed insurrection of January 6, 2021, it’s hard to imagine that even the torrent of Epstein revelations will be much more than a reminder of his corruption. Will it prove that he’s a pedophile? Does anyone doubt that now? Will it reveal a new level of depravity? So what? Will Epstein be proven to have been murdered on his orders? Who’s going to investigate and prosecute? Attorney General Pamela “Pam” Bondi and her Justice Department? Kash Patel and his Federal Bureau of Investigation? Will the utterly subservient Republican-majority Congress investigate and initiate impeachment proceedings? Doubtful. Nor can anyone imagine a weeping and remorseful Trump announcing his resignation in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Aside from further revelations in the year ahead, the Epstein files appear likely to mainly be significant in affording Republican politicians a justification for stepping down from their positions as they dissociate from Trump and the increasingly fracturing Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. On the other side of the aisle the Epstein evidence will give Democrats a nail to keep driving into Trump’s standing and reputation.

Most of all, though, Epstein revelations are likely to just keep feeding public outrage and disgust with Trump as more evidence of pedophilia, perversion and abuse come to light.

Politically, though it seems unlikely to provide the legal or judicial mid-term knockout blow his critics are seeking.

Semiquincentennial storms

For Americans 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the country, its semiquincentennial (a term virtually no one is likely to use, despite it being an official designation).

Clearly this will heighten political sensitivities given clashing views of the country and its course.

As with all things, Trump is likely to try to make the anniversary about himself. He just can’t help it, it’s essential to his nature.

In 2016 a bipartisan, congressional United States Semiquincentennial Commission began planning the festivities. But in 2025 Trump superseded that with his own White House Task Force on Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday.

While most Americans will want to celebrate the past 250 years and look to a promising future for the country as a whole, Trump will likely do everything he possibly can to put his personal stamp on the event. He will likely try to complete his ballroom in time for the celebration (perhaps hold his first party there on July 4th?).

He has also floated the idea of building a triumphal arch in front of Arlington National Cemetery to glorify himself. 

He will no doubt try to personalize the celebration in ways impossible for normal people to conceive at this point.

Nor is he likely to be content merely with hijacking the celebration; he will want to force others to do the same and he may attempt to rewrite history to suit his own preferences.

This is already occurring as the White House Task Force pushes its own artificial intelligence (AI) exhibit of American history, which was created and produced by the conservative PragerU. The exhibit has caused concerns among historians. For example, in an AI video, John Adams uses the phrase “facts do not care about your feelings” a phrase more common to conservative commentator Ben Shapiro than John Adams. (Adams was better known for his phrase: “a nation of laws, not men.”)

As Trump tries to make the 250th anniversary about himself there will also likely be mass demonstrations against his abuses. This raises the possibility that he will exaggerate them as a threat and use the commemoration for a crackdown that laps over into an attempted coup or a military occupation of American cities and imposition of martial law.

There is no doubt that instead of a celebration of unity and pride, the 250th anniversary will be a time of tension and stress with grave dangers to the country that is celebrating its semiquincentennial.

(This is also not to forget that June 14th will mark Trump’s 80th birthday. Last year he celebrated with a $30 million military parade through Washington, ostensibly marking the US Army’s 250th birthday. Without that cover this year, Trump will no doubt find some expensive way to celebrate his birthday and then pile on top of that celebration of self when it comes to the Semiquincentennial.)

FIFA politics

The United States, along with Mexico and Canada will be holding the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup competition from June 11 to July 19. The United States will be hosting 11 of the 16 events in cities from Los Angeles to Miami.

While this is not necessarily a political event in the partisan sense of the term, it will be viewed globally as an example of American attitudes toward the rest of the world.

Trump expressed support for FIFA, calling it a “great event” and comparing it to “three Super Bowls a day for a month.” FIFA attempted to cement his support on Dec. 5 by awarding him a contrived FIFA “peace prize” to flatter his ego.

While soccer is ostensibly apolitical, Trump has threatened to politicize it domestically. He warned he would deploy the National Guard to ensure order in American cities with games or send scheduled games elsewhere if he considers them endangered, specifically naming Seattle.

As he said in the presence of Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president: “If we think there is a problem in Seattle, where there is a liberal mayor… Gianni, can I say we will move the event to some place it will be appreciated and safe?”

Matches are scheduled in Democratic-leaning states like California and New York, so he is clearly thinking of the games in partisan terms, using them as a justification for military deployments or using them as political leverage and this could happen without warning or notice. Given the elaborate logistics and preparations for these games any sudden moves or changes in venue will be tremendously disruptive and potentially result in significant economic losses to the cities that lose their scheduled contests.

(When it comes to global sports events, there will also be a 2026 winter Olympics in February in Italy.)

The G20 Summit

Capping off the year in December, Trump is scheduled to host the G20 summit of the world’s leading economic powers. Usually these summits revolve around financial affairs, climate change challenges and sustainable development.

This will be an entirely Trump show. The summit is planned to be held in the United States at one of Trump’s properties, the Trump National Doral Miami resort and spa. It will be a major event for Florida (and no doubt a source of vast profit for Trump personally).

Trump has already put his stamp on the event. The US boycotted the previous G20 held in Johannesburg, South Africa, denouncing the country for propagating a “genocide” against white Afrikaners.

“…The South African Government refuses to acknowledge or address the horrific Human Right Abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers. To put it more bluntly, they are killing white people, and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them,” Trump raged in a Truth Social post on Nov. 26, 2025.

When it came time for the host head of state to hand over the gavel for the next summit to the next hosting head of state, the US sent an embassy staffer instead. The South Africans rejected this as an insult and breach of protocol.

That was all the excuse Trump needed to disinvite South Africa from the 2026 summit.

“Therefore, at my direction, South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted in the Great City of Miami, Florida next year. South Africa has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately,” he posted.

So Trump has already put his stamp on the G20 and if all goes as in the past he can be expected to lord his dominance over the other heads of state, insult and bully them and denigrate their countries and economies—if he deigns to attend in person at all.

But this will be taking place in December and by December, if the rest of the calendar proceeds as planned and Trump is still in office, he may find himself in a very different domestic position, one potentially far less dominant than he’d like to occupy.

The Midterms

This year’s midterms should be viewed as a presidential election, not just elections for a third of the Senate, the entire House of Representatives and state and local offices.

In November 2025 Democrats won stunning victories in races for the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia and the mayoralty of New York City. At the town and county levels they swept other off-year elections across the country. Even in a Tennessee special election in the 7th Congressional District, a Republican victor had a much closer call than the Party would have preferred. Then, on Dec. 9, a Democrat won the mayoralty of Miami, Fla., the first woman in the city’s history and the first Democrat in nearly 30 years.

It all appeared to be an overwhelming, grassroots repudiation of Trump, Trumpism and the Republican Party and a harbinger of far greater losses to come in the 2026 midterms.

“Democrats came out in record numbers, and this is a foreshadow of what we’re going to see next year,” Christina Freundlich, a Democratic strategist who worked on the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race told Politico, expressing a widely held perception.

Under “normal” circumstances that might be expected. Administrations have traditionally lost ground in their first midterm elections, so the momentum could be expected to continue. Polls appeared to overwhelmingly favor Democratic victories.

Trump argued he was not on the ballot in November and blamed the loss on the government shutdown and a lack of Republican fervor.

But if 2025 was a wake-up call for Democrats it was a five-alarm fire for Republicans.

No sooner were the results in than Trump had a very public feud with his formerly loud and fanatical supporter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.). After agitating to publicly release the Epstein files, she turned on Trump, denounced him and then announced her resignation effective Jan. 5, 2026.

Other congressional Republicans, weary of Trump’s abuse and fearing voter sentiment followed suit. If enough of them resign this year and their districts are subject to special elections that Democrats win, the possibility exists that Trump could lose his Republican majority in Congress even before the midterm elections.

What is more, Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base appears to be fracturing over the Epstein files and there is no telling what other fault lines are erupting within the regime. There is a strong possibility that in the new year Trump will purge members of his Cabinet or other members of the regime in an effort to scapegoat them for his failures and buy some public approval. As he has shown repeatedly, not even the most subservient subservience or the most extravagant flattery is enough to save anyone he feels like sacrificing.

If these trends simply played out uninterrupted then Democrats would likely sweep the midterm elections and a Democratic House and Senate would likely impeach and probably remove Trump as soon as it took office in 2027.

Midterm gerrymandering: The Big Rig

But as Trump has shown time and again he does not allow trends to play out when they’re unfavorable to him and he is unrestrained, extreme and unpredictable in his interventions.

Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff and political strategist, intends to have “a fun next year,” she told the Moms for Liberty podcast, MomsView on Dec. 9. Wiles intends to deliberately make the midterms a presidential contest because, she said, “so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters” and Republicans lose when he’s not on the ballot.

“So, I haven’t quite broken it to him yet, but he’s going to campaign like it’s 2024 again,” she said. “So all these people he helps—he doesn’t help everybody but those he helps, he’s a difference-maker and a turnout machine, so the midterms will be very important to us, so we’ll work very hard to keep the majority.”

But while Wiles may intend to use Trump for conventional campaigning, Trump himself is leaving nothing to chance.

He has already blatantly tried to rig the results with an unprecedented and unconstitutional mid-decade redistricting, arguing that the 2020 census was “rigged.” At his direction Texas agreed to gerrymander its districts to pick up five Republican seats but then California did the same to pick up an equal number of Democratic seats.

As of this writing six states are creating new congressional maps: California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Utah. Virginia was beginning the process as was Maryland. It seems appropriate to call his effort “The Big Rig.” (Editor’s note: You read it here first!)

Florida is considering redrawing its maps and the legislature began its first committee hearings. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) declared himself in favor of redistricting and the Republican legislature is likely to comply, if past is any prologue.

The kind of pressure Trump would assert to get his way was publicly evident in Indiana, whose Hoosiers proved surprisingly stubborn in defending the Constitution.

Trump blasted anti-rig Hoosiers with insults like “RINO” and “WEAK and PATHETIC,” and threatened to run candidates against them in their primary elections.

Although Indianans agreed to consider redistricting, in the end the state Senate rejected it on Dec. 11.

 “Misinformation, cruel social media posts, over-the-top pressure from within the state house and outside, threats of primaries, threats of violence, acts of violence. Friends, we’re better than this,” said state Sen. Greg Goode (R-38-Terre Haute) in a speech on the floor before voting against the measure.

It seemed a small payback for Trump’s incitement to lynch his Vice President, Indianan Mike Pence, on Jan. 6, 2021.

But gerrymandering is not the only scenario in which Trump is trying to rig the midterm elections to go his way.

As he has in past elections, Trump is on a crusade against existing forms of voting. On Aug. 18 he went on a lengthy tirade vowing: “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES…” and declaring “THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!!”

But it’s not just restricting voting access through mail and machine counting that threatens the midterm ballot. Dominion Voting Systems, the company that made the voting machines Trump and his allied pundits attacked for the 2020 election results (and which successfully sued Fox News, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell for defamation), was purchased in October by Scott Leiendecker, a former Republican election official for St. Louis, Mo., and a company he created called Liberty Vote. Dominion (or now, Liberty) machines are used in 27 states.

While Liberty Vote is attempting to reassure customers that the ownership change won’t affect the integrity of the vote count, the fact that it is run by a Republican partisan who is likely to be susceptible to Trump pressure is a cause for concern and could affect the midterm outcome.

Another possibility is election tampering with results through digital or wireless means. Given that false bomb threats forced the evacuation of swing state polling places on Election Day 2024 there has been suspicion that results were altered or affected digitally in some way.

If true, this could occur again and making it more worrisome, or more likely, are extensive personnel cuts and reductions in the activities of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which previously tracked election threats and assisted states and localities with their election security.  

Beyond these measures, if Trump doesn’t like the outcome there are a variety of other actions he might take to illegally alter it.

Scary scenarios

Trump could send in the military to seize machines as was contemplated in 2020. (The full text of his draft order is available for viewing and download at the end of this essay.)

This is likely one reason he was so outraged by the video made by six members of Congress who had served in the military or intelligence services telling servicemembers not to obey illegal orders. If Trump orders military units to seize voting machines, stop voting or lethally attack American voters, he needs them to automatically and unthinkingly obey. But with a military that learned its lessons from the Nazi Holocaust and which swears an oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution, such orders would be illegal—but they are orders Trump and his regime members would likely attempt to execute.

Also, his deployment of military personnel and National Guard units to American cities to ostensibly fight crime could also be used to impose martial law in cities where protests might erupt if he attempts to cancel or pre-empt the elections.

If the military proves unreliable for his purposes he could also use paramilitary units of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directorate of the Department of Homeland Security. These are not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and would be unlikely to defy any orders that would be illegal for the uniformed military.

Taking any of these courses of action risks civil disruption, mass protests, widespread litigation, military mutiny, and, most dangerous of all, civil violence—not to mention that they would simply be illegal. But Trump has legal immunity for official actions, he routinely ignores the law and he has proven himself heedless of consequences.

There will be carrots as well as sticks, of course. On Dec. 17, in his White House address Trump announced bonuses of $1,776 to members of the military to buy their loyalty, or at least silence. He has already proposed a $12 billion bailout to farmers hurt by his cutoff of their markets through punitive tariffs. There will no doubt be other inducements and likely outright bribes—something with which he is familiar—to voters.

But even if the election comes off as planned, the danger doesn’t end there. If Trump doesn’t like the results he could pull another big lie as he did in 2020, declaring that the results were rigged and deny the outcome. Then, 60 courts found his charges baseless. But he persisted nonetheless and even with evidence as compelling as a recording of him pressuring Georgia officials to “find” the votes to overturn the official results, he beat election interference charges. No doubt this will embolden him to do the same in the midterms.

A tsunami of lies, insults and threats, all of it fueled by a torrent of cash, both overt and dark, can be expected to flood America’s airwaves and media, social and otherwise, attacking the outcome if it’s unfavorable. As in 2020 Trump and his accomplices will do everything they possibly can to cast doubt on the count. They will no doubt launch a wave of baseless lawsuits to overturn unfavorable results in key races.

As on January 6, 2021, Trump may attempt to incite a physical prevention of a new Congress taking office, only this time he may try to use the military or ICE agents in place of a mob to overturn the legislative branch and physically prevent members of Congress from being sworn in and taking office. He might try to destroy the Capitol building—again.

If Republicans retain their congressional majority they will likely be the most battered, beaten and bullied victors in history. Trump will expect absolute, unthinking obedience. He will be unrestrained in his threats, even—or especially—to members of his own party. Anyone stepping even an inch out of line will be labeled a “traitor,” as was Greene. Violence and death threats will follow. At some point one or more of those threats will likely be executed and an errant member of Congress or other Republican will be killed, maimed or wounded.

If these scenarios seem extreme or unlikely, one has to reckon with the desperation of Trump and his regime to stay in power. If he loses office he and his accomplices will face a reimposition of real law enforcement. There can be little doubt that not only Trump but his family and his every appointee have crimes to cover up. His billionaire backers not only have tax cuts to protect but every grift, embezzlement and fraud they may have perpetrated under his watch as well.

Steve Bannon sees this clearly and he didn’t mince words: “And I will tell you right now, as God is my witness, if we lose the midterms, if we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison – myself included. They’re not gonna stop,” he told the Conservative Partnership Institute on Nov. 5. Bannon was referencing Democrats but what Trumpists will really face is the full, impartial machinery of the law, once that machinery is righted and set back in motion.

That is already fueling a lot of urgency and fear among Trump, the regime and MAGA. Bannon’s solution? “What do we have to counter it with? We have to counter it with more action, more intense action, more urgency. We’re burning daylight.”  

If there was any doubt about the impact of the cascade of bad news on Trump himself, it was dispelled during his 20-minute White House address to the nation on Dec. 17.  Numerous commentators saw its delivery as evidence of sheer panic. It was as though Trump thought that if he delivered the speech angrily enough, loudly enough and rapidly enough he could bend reality to his own vision where he was perfect, someone else was to blame and America was in a new golden age.  

Trump and his accomplices literally cannot afford to lose the midterm elections. That makes them cornered, desperate and very, very dangerous—and the “intense action” Bannon mentioned includes all measures, legal, illegal and at this point, unimaginable.

A new Navalny?

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) of California has emerged as the chief elected official directly opposing Trump, countering his gerrymandering efforts and pointedly mocking him on social media.

While Trump directs his special hatred against former President Joe Biden, it is Newsom who is leading the charge against him and at this point seems like a front-running Democratic presidential candidate for 2028.

It is three years until that election. That’s a long time away, especially in politics. Whether Trump will be a candidate for an unconstitutional third term or whether he will even be in a condition to run cannot be known at this writing.

However, as predicted by The Paradise Progressive, Trump, his regime and his followers are waging a war against Newsom and California.

Newsom’s relative youth, energy, intelligence and charisma recall another politician who fought for democracy in his native land: Alexei Navalny in Russia.

Navalny was a lawyer who emerged as an opponent of Vladimir Putin and whose political activism and determined commitment to democracy increasingly threatened Russia’s slide into autocracy. Accordingly, he faced the opposition of Putin and the regime, which first used blatantly false criminal charges and trials against him, then arrests, then an attempted poisoning, then imprisonment in a Siberian penal colony and finally outright murder to end his threat.

Given Trump’s slavish admiration for Putin as a mentor and teacher, Trump could imitate Putin’s methods against Newsom, whether with false charges and investigations or even physical threats like poisoning.

Indeed, Trump’s selective prosecutorial vengeance against his perceived enemies endangers all Democratic or anti-Trump candidates this year. The American public may be treated to the horrifying spectacle of mass prosecutions against legitimate, legally running candidates.

There’s no need to consign this to the realm of conspiracy theory given that Trump revealed his direct orders to prosecute those whom he wanted persecuted in an X-post to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Sept. 20, 2025, which may have been a personal communication that was inadvertently made public.

Prosecution and persecution

Bondi, who appears to be the most cowardly, compliant, complicit, feckless, subservient and partisan attorney general in American history, obeyed Trump’s order at that time and will likely obey further orders to prosecute candidates on whatever pretext Trump chooses. Even if the cases are thrown out in court the way the cases against James Comey and Letitia James were, investigations, lawsuits and prosecutions eat up valuable time and money just when candidates need to be campaigning.

What is more, Bondi has directed federal prosecutors to pursue what she views as “extremist groups” that threaten violence. In a Dec. 4 memorandum to federal prosecutors she called for the investigation and pursuit of allegedly extremist groups opposing “law and immigration enforcement;” and expressing “extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality; and an elevation of violence to achieve policy outcomes, such as political assassinations.”

It’s a broad brush that could be used to stain virtually any Trump opponent. (The full memo can be read and downloaded at the end of this article.)

All of this could have happened previously in American history but before the emergence of Donald Trump a sense of concern for the welfare of the nation and the integrity of the political process restrained such actions. Even if higher values didn’t prevent this kind of lawfare, the iron law of politics that “what goes around, comes around,” induced some caution in even the most vengeful politicians.

But Trump has shown time and again and particularly on January 6, 2021, he believes no laws apply to him, he has no sense of restraint or limit, and backed by a Supreme Court ruling of official immunity, these kinds of measures are real possibilities in the year ahead, especially if he seems to be losing in the conventional political arena.  

Trouble and turbulence

All this will be playing out against a backdrop of rising protests, economic stress, likely increasing violations of basic rights, intensifying immigrant deportations and, as always, Trump’s relentless, unremitting drive for total domination and complete autocracy.

The raids, detentions and deportations are likely to intensify this year because ICE has already picked the low-hanging fruit, having seized the people who actually have criminal records, as was the ostensible purpose of the effort. From there, they next grabbed the people—including American citizens—who were easy to snatch and those trying to comply with legal asylum requirements and proceedings.

But now they still have to fulfill their arbitrary quotas, which Trump has made clear are based more on race than rationality. That means there will likely be deeper, more invasive raids, more street snatchings and more violations of what were once thought to be safe spaces like schools, churches and workplaces, as well as homes.

If the true purpose was to rid the United States of criminal aliens, the effort might ease off as the number of actual criminal aliens go down but that’s not the purpose—the true purpose of this effort is to drive out the foreign-born population of the United States using racial profiling and smearing all aliens, immigrants and migrants as threats, criminals and undesirables. As last year ground to an end the regime was less and less bashful about stating that outright.

Trump has likened immigration to “an invasion” and his enablers, notably Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, denounced what the regime characterized as a Democratic plot to flood the country with foreigners so they could get “hooked to welfare and be able to participate in American elections,” as Miller put it in a Nov. 30 interview with Sean Hannity.

But no one put it more bluntly than Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in an X-posting on Dec. 1 following a meeting with Trump: “I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,” she wrote.

“Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom—not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS.

“WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.”

Given this blind, fanatical hatred of foreigners, immigrants and immigration, any slackening of the ICE onslaught is unlikely, even as legitimate targets become harder to find. Indeed, just as Adolf Hitler accelerated the roundup and murder of Jews as the Third Reich began to crumble, so Trump will likely accelerate seizures and detentions if he feels his grip on power—or life—weakening and there is not one of his appointees at any level who will stand up to him.

And lest anyone have any doubts about his and his regime’s intentions, DHS revealed in December that it contracted to purchase six Boeing 737 aircraft  at a cost of $140 million specifically to carry out deportations in order to meet Trump’s goal of deporting 1 million people by the end of his first term in office. It is also planning to remodel warehouses in seven locations so that it can hold up to 80,000 detainees at a time.

ICE agents on the ground will be tasked with filling those aircraft and warehouses.

America abroad

Also factoring into domestic politics will be a world increasingly in crisis as Trump threatens new wars and continuously moves to align the United States with Russian interests and Putin’s dictates at the expense of longstanding allies.

The United States of America no longer has a foreign policy. “Policy” is a rational set of directions and guidelines, rationally formulated, taking into account a wide variety of factors and influences. Indeed, so irrelevant is Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the process he was reduced to fiddling with fonts on State Department communications.

Today, America’s relations with the world are determined by one man’s whim and caprice based on his hatreds, rages and greed, without accountability or care for his impacts. Whereas the Constitution gives Congress warmaking powers, under Trump the United States can be committed to conflict based on his opinion or urges of the moment. It has become a country that can go to war on one man’s command, as Adolf Hitler did in Russia, Benito Mussolini did in Greece, Saddam Hussein did in Kuwait and Vladimir Putin did in Ukraine.

Further roiling the waters in addition to wars that might turn the rest of the Western Hemisphere against the United States and moves to detach America from its longstanding ties to Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, there will be the longer-term impacts of Trump’s isolationism, trade protectionism, unpredictable tariffs and hostility to foreigners of all sorts.

Poorer, sicker, weaker?

The United States might also be hurled into the abyss of sovereign default if it fails to pay its obligations—and Trump is notorious for welching on his obligations. It will certainly plunge deeper into debt. Americans may find themselves in the midst of an economic depression as great or greater than the one suffered in 1929, especially if Trump replaces Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell—whom Trump is threatening to sue—with one of his compliant, unqualified cronies as is expected when Powell’s term ends on May 15. His departure will be a major economic event in 2026.

All of this will impact everyday Americans at the bottom of Trump’s toilet with fewer goods at higher prices, fewer social services and protections, fewer public health protections and vastly more expensive healthcare, and far fewer freedoms and rights.

And Trump will not only simply not care, he will gloat.

As he has in the past, he will also try to shape perceptions to his fantasies—and believe his lies himself.

There is no good that can come from this dictatorship or the objects it pursues. It is irrational, delusional and even deranged. Its long term consequences are without a doubt catastrophic for the United States of America and are headed toward ending the great experiment in freedom that began exactly 250 years ago.

What can everyday Americans do about this?

They are not helpless.

That will be the subject of tomorrow’s post.

To read the full text of Donald Trump’s draft 2020 order seizing voting machines, click below. (Source: January 6 Committee)

To read and download the full text of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s memo to federal prosecutors, click below.

Coming tomorrow: Manifesto for an American Rose Revolution

Coming Jan. 5: Florida’s year ahead: Swamp or sunshine?

To read last year’s predictions and outcomes, click here.

Liberty lives in light

© 2026 by David Silverberg

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