I’m from the United States of Delusions.

Where people beg for freedom while praising the man who takes it away.

Where women call Trump a champion even as he puts judges in place who strip their rights. Where parents call him a savior while he lifts up Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his Health Secretary, who makes it harder for their kids to get vaccines. It’s a mind warp, a twisting of reality so extreme you start to question your own sanity.

Because every day, we show up to fight for rights that may not even touch us right away, rights that matter to other people, to strangers we’ll never meet. We fight for their dignity, their freedoms, their safety. And what do we hear in return? Anger and contempt for us, and cheers for the very man determined to dismantle it all.

It’s like watching someone cheer for the arsonist while their own house is burning.

And nowhere is that clearer than in Florida, where Ron DeSantis and his Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, just announced they would end all vaccine mandates for schools. Not just COVID shots, but measles, polio, chickenpox, everything. Ladapo compared mandates to “slavery,” and parents applauded. The delusion is that freedom comes from dismantling public health, when in reality it opens the door to outbreaks we haven’t seen in decades. The very children whose parents are cheering will be the first to suffer.

In Beijing, Chinese President, Xi Jinping stood flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un from North Korea, as he declared China’s rise “unstoppable” and warned the world faced a choice between “peace or war.”

Behind him: nuclear warheads, hypersonic missiles, drones, a show of force meant for us.

Trump’s answer? A post on Truth Social: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”

The delusion is calling that leadership, when it’s really surrender dressed up as sarcasm.

I touched on this in last night’s post, about how Trump is playing with fire that will burn all of us.

Those of us paying attention have seen this coming for months now.

Trump is in way over his head, and we are in for some truly dangerous times for our entire world.

One man could be the match to light an inferno we have never seen before. The delusion is believing a con man and convicted felon can play with matches and not burn the entire world down with him.

And while Trump hides behind jokes, he continues to unleash cruelty at home. He tried to dust off the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan immigrants accused of gang ties. Even the conservative Fifth Circuit blocked him, ruling that the law was being twisted beyond recognition.

At the same time, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced plans to house immigrants at Angola, the nation’s most notorious maximum-security prison. The delusion is pretending this is law and order, when in reality it’s punishment without justice, cruelty as policy.

And don’t think for one second he will stop at migrants. The delusion is believing cruelty can be contained to one group. It never is. He is testing how far he can push, and then he will move down the list of who to target next. Make no mistake, he will come for you and me eventually.

That same delusion plays out on American streets. Trump insists he’ll send troops into cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and New Orleans, whether leaders invite him or not. He calls Chicago a “hellhole.” He boasts New Orleans can be “fixed in two weeks.” Local leaders say crime is already falling. Guardsmen aren’t trained to police neighborhoods. The delusion is pretending militarized streets equal safety, when really they’re nothing but theater for a strongman hungry for control.

And note that he is continuing to target Blue states. This is his retribution tour. Your city didn’t vote for him, prepare to be punished.

Also, when was the last time you ever heard a president refer to any American city in the negative light he does? That has happened only once before, during Trump 1.0.

It is the President’s job to lead the entire nation, and sometimes that means acknowledging places that are facing issues, but to call them names like a 5th grader, who didn’t get picked to play the lead in a school play, is anything but presidential.

And when the strongman needs to hide his failures, he hides the truth. In Congress, Rep. Thomas Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna filed a petition to force the release of the Epstein files. Survivors have waited decades, but instead of transparency, leadership dumped tens of thousands of already-public pages to stall the process. Trump now dismiss the push as a Democratic “hoax.”

The delusion is that America protects its children, when in fact the powerful protect themselves while survivors are forced to do the work of exposing predators.

The only truth we will ever be able to believe will come from the victims of Epstien themselves.

They have said they will be releasing their own list. Anything coming from this corrupt government cannot be trusted. Nor can the elected officials who have suddenly seen Jesus and are requesting the files be released be trusted.

Even our health is not spared from delusion. At HHS, more than 1,000 employees demanded that RFK Jr. resign, accusing him of spreading anti-vaccine lies and dismantling the CDC. Doctors admit they don’t know how to handle COVID vaccines under his chaos. Families will soon find out they can’t get what they need. The delusion is calling this freedom, when it’s actually sabotage disguised as reform.

And while public health crumbles, the economy is faltering too. The job market is cooling. Job openings dropped to 7.2 million in July, the lowest in a year. Competition for jobs is rising while inflation keeps burning holes in paychecks. Businesses are spooked by Trump’s tariffs and high interest rates. The delusion is insisting America is booming while ordinary families sink deeper into struggle.

That same illusion of strength defines our standing in the world. Russia just pledged to help China surpass the United States in nuclear power, transferring technology and building reactors. Energy security, global influence, technological leadership, all slipping away. The delusion is thinking past dominance guarantees future leadership, when in reality, rivals are building while we drift.

And the delusion isn’t limited to public displays of power, it’s in the very workings of our national security. Recently, far-right influencer Laura Loomer leveraged her MAGA platform to pressure Trump administration officials into canceling a classified intelligence oversight meeting at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, vetted by Senator Mark Warner, vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. This wasn’t oversight paralysis by bureaucracy; it was oversight canceled by conspiracy. The delusion is believing we’re safe because institutions exist, when really they can be eroded by attention-seeking influencers with zero qualifications, and the result is less transparency, not more.

This is all Trump’s doing. He is personally responsible for what comes next. He has left us open to attack, and he has done it knowingly. By cozying up to dictators, while gutting our alliances, he has traded security for applause lines.

By dismantling public health and destabilizing the economy, he has left ordinary Americans weaker, hungrier, and more divided. And by mocking global threats instead of meeting them, he has chosen delusion over defense.

The danger is not abstract. It’s real, it’s immediate, and it’s here. And while he plays at being a strongman, the truth is he’s left this country exposed.

And even inside our own institutions, delusion corrodes trust. When Trump tried to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, nearly 600 economists including Nobel laureates signed a letter warning that politicizing the Fed threatens the entire economy. Trump called it accountability.

The delusion is believing this was about fairness, when it was always about control. The good news is that people are fighting back, refusing to let delusion erase the independence of our most vital institutions.

And here’s where we come in. The protests are happening. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t let the silence of mainstream media convince you that no one is resisting. That silence is its own kind of delusion, part of the authoritarian playbook meant to make us believe resistance doesn’t exist. But it does. It’s happening in cities and towns across this country. People are taking to the streets. People are refusing to be silent. And if you’ve seen it on social media, in person, through a friend who was there, share it. Talk about it. Post about it. Say where it happened. Show the signs. Amplify the voices. Break the illusion they want us to believe in by proving resistance is real.

There’s another protest coming October 18th. The biggest yet. Start asking your friends now: Are you going? Will you be there? Because the more we show up, the harder it is for them to hide us. Things are going to get more chaotic. They already have. SNAP benefits were cut this week. Families are hurting. Doctors are confused about vaccines. Patients are being turned away when trying to get them. And when people suddenly find out they can’t get what they need, they’ll wake up from the delusion that everything is fine.

But we don’t wait for that moment. We share the protests. We spread the word. We normalize resistance now. Because silence is the soil where delusion grows. And if we refuse to be silent, their illusion of control begins to crack.

This may be the United States of Delusions. But it doesn’t have to be forever.

The outlook always looks bleak before it gets better. Do not lose faith in better days. I still have hope for America, and you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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