Donald Trump is the worst of us
Last night, on the way to spend the weekend at his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, the president’s motorcade was forced to drive through 30 minutes of heavy rain and loud thunder. The press that travels with him was released for the rest of the day shortly after he arrived, and within hours he was back on Truth Social sharing senseless memes and other unhinged fake images. For Trump, it was a pretty normal Friday night right up until 10:16 pm, when he shared something no other president of the United States would have ever even considered sharing. Especially taking into account when he decided to share it.
The image he posted to his feed showed President Joe Biden golfing, hunched over mid-swing, with a massive chunk of turf ripping up from the ground. It was what most golfers would consider an ugly divot, when the golf club hits the grass more than it hits the ball. Donald Trump chose this specific picture because he wanted to humiliate and disrespect Joe Biden, and to make him look feeble and incompetent. The post even said, “Biden isn’t even a 100 Handicap,” right above the picture, insinuating that even a terrible score like that would be too generous.
On any other day we might have just ignored this childish behavior coming from the sitting president of the United States, but this wasn’t a normal day. It was the same day that President Biden’s son Hunter shared with the BBC that Biden’s cancer had spread and that he was in a great deal of pain as the cancer metastasized into his bones.
Hunter went on to describe watching his father suffer as “really, really hard” and “really sad to watch.” He said the cancer had become “very debilitating” and that his father was still pushing through it, showing up, and refusing to complain. “I wish he would complain more, because it’s not good,” Hunter told the BBC.
While Hunter Biden was sharing that with the world, the President of the United States was trying to mock the man going through it. That is the cruelty of Donald Trump illustrated in a single post.
The day before that BBC interview aired, I spoke with Hunter Biden myself. It was not a conversation I ever expected to have, but I am thankful I did. Our interview will go live on Monday, and I will have a lot more to share then.
Hunter Biden has been in the world of politics since he was two years old. For more than 50 years, he has watched how this system works from closer than almost anyone alive. He told me that his father’s cancer had spread, and that it was hard seeing his dad like that. He shared his worry about how much discomfort his father is actually feeling. He is tired, and he is hurting, and he carries it all quietly so as not to burden anyone with it.
What I took away from our conversation was not what I expected in many ways. The first was that Hunter Biden seemed to me to be a deeply feeling person, something I would imagine runs through the entire family. This is not a typical family desperate for power. This is a very close family that truly wants to do the right thing and that has faced unimaginable pain and suffering.
I walked away understanding something that I wished I didn’t, and that I have been thinking about nearly non-stop since the interview. For almost 19 months now, I have been trying to make sense of the Republican members of Congress who continue to not just refuse to rein Trump in, but to enable and encourage his worst thoughts and decisions. I kept telling myself there had to be a reason they had all rolled over and surrendered their power immediately to him. Maybe they were being threatened. Maybe their families were at risk, or there was something we could not see, some coercion or pressure that explained why people who swore an oath to the Constitution would abandon it so quickly and completely. It would not have made it okay, but it would have meant that something underneath was still intact. That the soul of the country, the part of us that believes in service and sacrifice and leaving this place better than we found it, was still there, just buried under fear.
I do not believe that anymore. What I came to understand through this interview and learning from others is that for the majority of the Republican politicians currently serving in Congress, it was never about country. It was always about proximity to power and money. That is why they entered politics. They didn’t do it to serve or to build something that outlasts them. They came to Washington for access and proximity to power and money. They care more about having influence than they do about upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution.
That realization was not surprising. It wasn’t just disappointing either. It is heartbreaking. Because if the silence were coming from anything else, there would still be something to appeal to underneath. If it was never there to begin with, then what we have lost is not just our political norms; we have lost the foundational idea that public service means putting something larger than yourself ahead of your own comfort.
For 250 years, that principle existed. Not perfectly, but enough to carry us through all sorts of tragedies, threats, scandals, and crises we would not have been able to survive if not for competent and dedicated public servants. Yet these days, far too many of the people entrusted with protecting our democratic standards seem to have forgotten why they are there in the first place. They are supposed to serve the country, protect its institutions, and leave them stronger for the people who come after them. These people do not make decisions for the better of their fellow human beings or the longevity of this country. They are short-sighted, and only think of themselves and their immediate needs.
Donald Trump mocking a suffering man on the same night that man’s son described his father’s pain on television is the purest example of the emptiness coming from the Republicans in Congress. There is no empathy, decency, or thought beyond the cruelty of the moment.
This cruelty, however, is not limited to just him. It is the temperature he has set for the entire country. Anyone he identifies as a threat or an enemy becomes a target, and that targeting radiates outward until it shapes how millions of people treat each other. The cruelty is the culture now. And that is what scares me most, because policy can be reversed, but the way we see each other as human beings is not so easily recovered.
I have been trying to absorb as much as I can from different people about how they think the midterms are going to go, from people with public platforms and from people in everyday life. The general consensus seems to be that we have very good odds of a Democratic majority in the House. The Senate is a different story. Everything would have to go near perfect, and many are giving that a 50/50 chance at a Democratic majority. None of this is guaranteed, and it is completely dependent on people actually showing up to vote.
The other thing I am seeing is a large gap in perception. There are still decent and thoughtful people who consider themselves apolitical. They either sat out the last election or held their noses and voted, then moved on. They remember Trump’s first presidency as chaotic but survivable, and they assume the same will happen this time around. They think we are still playing the same game we were playing then. We are not.
When you talk to them about what is at stake, they do not push back with politics. They push back with real life. They talk about public health and the affordability disaster. About how we now have to be cautious about eating fruits and vegetables because of Cyclospora, the parasite that has now killed two people. They talk about measles, the disease that was eliminated 26 years ago, now back with more than 2,400 confirmed cases this year alone, already surpassing all of 2025, because of sliding vaccination rates. They talk about gas prices and grocery bills that keep climbing no matter what Donald Trump keeps promising. They talk about whether their children will ever be able to buy a house, or whether their grandchildren are inheriting a country that offers fewer opportunities than the one they grew up in. They talk about how lonely everything feels, even in a world that is supposedly more connected than ever before.
Some of those people look at Trump and see someone who offers what they are missing: a sense of belonging, shared identity, and the feeling of being part of something bigger. They believe that proximity to him, or at least being part of his movement, will protect them from whatever comes next. We know it won’t, and maybe they do too, but they feel like they still can’t leave.
What so many people still do not understand is that the damage happening right now is not something we can easily come back from when the next election is over. Children are in detention centers in conditions that would be criminal if anyone else was in charge. People are dying in the streets after attacks by the president’s personal army, ICE. We have a war with Iran continuing to rage off and on with no clear way to end it, and our munitions are being depleted to levels that could leave America vulnerable to outside threats. Defense analyst Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel, warned that depleted stockpiles might encourage China to do something it might not otherwise attempt. There are estimates that suggest that it could take three to five years to rebuild those inventories to prewar levels.
I know that those of you watching from outside the United States are still in shock that more is not being done to stop it. I feel that too. There are days when it feels like we should be in the streets, peacefully and relentlessly, shutting everything down until the cruelty stops. Maybe we should be. Maybe that day is coming. But right now, the most powerful tool we have is less than 90 days away, and we cannot afford to waste a single one of them.
Today we learned exactly why these midterms are, at least in modern times, the most consequential election our country has faced.
Reuters reported that senior Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have been preparing a detailed and far-reaching investigative strategy to be executed next January when the new Congress is sworn in. If Democrats take back the House, they are not planning to lead with impeachment. They learned that lesson during Trump’s first term, when impeachment consumed Congress and allowed Trump to cast himself as the victim. Instead, they are planning something far more strategic. They intend to use the House investigative powers, including subpoenas, document requests, public hearings, and contempt proceedings, to go after the companies and financial networks that have profited from their relationship with the Trump administration. A senior Democratic aide told Reuters that their focus is on building a body of evidence through investigations that can hold Trump accountable.
The companies in these discussions include Apple, Alphabet, Palantir, Blackstone, BlackRock, and companies owned by Elon Musk, including Tesla. Democrats are expected to examine Department of Homeland Security contracts, financing for Trump’s White House ballroom, corporate donors, and alleged pay-to-play arrangements. They are also planning to investigate Trump-linked financial companies, including 1789 Capital, the venture capital firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner. They plan to look at foreign wealth funds whose investments in Trump family entities have raised serious questions about the Trump administration’s influence on the prosperity of the company.
None of this is possible unless we show up in November. Although they might not have immediate plans to impeach and remove Trump, it is still an option available and one we can hope they will eventually choose to do.
So what do we do between now and then? We get involved like our country depends on it. Because it does. I am thinking local and national. I will be donating to local candidates and volunteering as I can. My main focus is going to be continuing to do my part to make sure that as many people as possible understand what we are facing during these dark days for our country. I’ll be writing these posts every night and creating as much content outside of those as I possibly can. I joke that I can sleep later, and I dream of the day we have competent leadership again and that I can finally get a full night’s rest. I know many of you feel the exact same way.
I am also going to continue supporting as many voices as I can of those who are speaking out, risking their safety and comfort to publicly push back against what this regime has unleashed. Nothing I write is ever behind a paywall, and I don’t accept advertisers’ dollars. I am able to do that because I am supported by paid memberships. Thank you to everyone who is supporting this work. Your memberships are helping us bring on a producer and create additional videos. Tonight, I’m asking you to think beyond just supporting me. Think about your favorite voices in the resistance, the writers and reporters who tell you the truth. The content creators who are making videos on social media. The journalists who left legacy media and are now on their own because they couldn’t stand by while their newsrooms caved to pressure from Trump’s federal government. Please support as many of them as you can. If they offer a paid subscription, consider signing up. Help them reach further, so that we have a real chance of countering the propaganda and disinformation coming out of the White House.
To have the best chance at the Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress, we need to show up in numbers that cannot be questioned. Because we already know what is coming, and it became even clearer at 4:17 this morning. Right before the start of their five-week recess, while most of the country was still sleeping, the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General in a 50 to 49 vote. Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney now runs the Department of Justice. Senator Adam Schiff said exactly what this means for our country: he will never do what is best for the American people, and will only do what is best for Donald Trump. This is what we are up against, and we owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to every generation that comes after us to make sure we give these next three months everything we have.
I keep thinking about what Hunter Biden said when I spoke to him, about how his father does not complain. How he carries the pain quietly. How he is tired, but he still shows up. And I think about the contrast between that kind of dignity and the man who sat in a golf club last night and used the presidency to mock someone else’s suffering. That is what kind of leadership we have right now.
I also am reminded that how Donald Trump acts in these moments shines a light on the contrast with past presidents and reminds us that we don’t have to keep living like this. We don’t have to keep accepting a broken and empty man when we have had nearly 250 years of imperfect, but much more competent and decent leadership. We have survived bad presidents, corrupt presidents, failed presidents, and presidents who tested the limits of our democracy before, and every time, the country eventually found its way forward because enough of us remembered that the person occupying the presidency does not get to define America forever.
Donald Trump is not the standard we have to accept. He is a dark chapter we still have the power to close. What comes after him can be better, because ultimately that choice still belongs to us. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.
This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: We are struggling to stay cool around here.
Links to sources used in writing this article:
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/08/g-s1-137631/senate-confirms-todd-blanche-attorney-general
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/measles-cases-cdc-35-year-high-2026-rcna349767
https://www.foxnews.com/us/half-us-weapons-stockpiles-used-iran-war-raising-concerns-china-threat
https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/12/politics/us-weapon-stocks-depleted-iran-war
I’m in the UK. I can’t help feeling that excellent as your daily pieces are (and I can’t tell you how helpful I find them) that you may be preaching to the choir. How do you/we reach the people who don’t know how bad things are so things can change?
I feel the democrats should keep their plans a bit more under cover because I really fear Elon Musk’s ability to fiddle the mid terms.
The voters must be protected from Ice and the voters must be helped to have the right paperwork in place to vote. Help neighbour and friend and make sure that unknowns in the neighbourhood are also contacted and protected to get to the vote safely.
This is an appalling and corrupt government who will do anything to stay in power.
Joe Biden is a gentleman, who Trump could never emulate or rise to the same standard. That’s why Trump tries to belittle others - known tactic of a bully boy who feels inferior to aim kicks at others.
Trouble with Trump is he has reached the gutter and has no way out.