Is Donald Trump mentally fit enough to continue as President?

This afternoon in Washington, D.C., while the world watched, President Trump hosted Congo’s President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame at the newly renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. Until today, it was called the United States Institute of Peace, a building meant to represent diplomacy and conflict resolution. Renaming it after himself isn’t just about his ego. It’s exactly the kind of move authoritarian leaders make when they want to put their name on everything and erase what came before. It’s straight from the fascism playbook, using public institutions to boost personal power. And for Trump, it’s also the closest he’s ever come to the recognition he’s always wanted. He has desperately wanted a Nobel Peace Prize and been denied at every turn, so now he’s giving himself the next best thing: a building with his name on it and the word “peace” engraved on the front, even though the only thing he’s ever done with peace is violate and exploit it.

What followed was just as surreal. Surrounded by high-ranking officials from the African Union, Angola, Burundi, Kenya, Togo, Qatar, Uganda, and others, he struggled through giving a 14-minute speech, then sank into his chair and nodded off, just as he had during most major public appearances over the past several months. But this time was different.

He fought to stay on topic, often ad-libbing when he got stuck on the next line as he read from his script. He couldn’t pronounce names and slurred his words. He had trouble reading at all at times and seemed to tire almost immediately, like someone recovering from a stroke, straining to stay present while their mind tries to compensate. He stopped his speech midstream to point out the “beautiful” men in dark suits. And because he loves propaganda branding more than policy, the whole thing was labeled “The Washington Accords.”

When he finished rambling and praising the room, the next act began: one by one, world leaders showered him with praise as if they were standing before a king. They complimented him, flattered him, told stories about his greatness, while he slumped in his chair, drifting off.

This is what the world sees now. Both our enemies and the allies we once had. We are the country that once stood as a symbol of strength and democracy, and now they’re watching our leader clearly incapacitated, while everyone around him pretends it’s fine. It must look like the end of our great American experiment, and the rise of the very thing we once went to war to defeat.

Fascist regimes, like the one we are now living under, have always revolved around worshipping the leader. In Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, and Nazi Germany, public ceremonies were staged to celebrate the leader, no matter his health, his competence, or his grip on reality. Power was measured in how loudly others could praise him.” That’s what we saw today: a hollowed-out president at center stage, surrounded by foreign dignitaries performing scripted loyalty, while the country and the world looked on in disgust.

The truth of the matter is that Donald Trump is not in his right mind. He is not capable of running the country.

I spent time today watching his campaign videos from 2016 and 2020. Back then, as dangerous and unfit as he already was, he could hold a thought. There was energy. There was intent. There was even a twisted logic behind the chaos. He was much sharper. He could finish a sentence. He could read from a teleprompter and pivot to talking points without falling apart. The evil was still there. But so was control.

That’s gone now.

If you haven’t done it yet, go watch one of those old videos. Start with one from 2016. Then 2020. And then compare it to footage from today. Look at his eyes. Look at the way he stood. Listen to how he spoke. Now, watch what happens in his last few appearances. Watch how fast the light leaves his eyes. Watch how the sentences collapse around him. Watch how often he needs help. Pay close attention to the last six months. Then try to convince yourself he’s in command of anything. You won’t be able to.

And yet, he is still signing executive orders. He is still holding Cabinet meetings. He is still sending troops, issuing pardons, and pushing economic policy. The machine is still running. But it’s not running under him. It’s running through him.

This has happened before. In Hitler’s final months, he was holed up in a bunker, sick, paranoid, erratic. His generals issued orders in his name. His ministers made decisions and claimed they came from him. The illusion of control kept them in power while the regime fell apart around them. In Mussolini’s last days, he too became a puppet, visibly diminished, still propped up for photo ops while others pulled the strings. That’s what this is. Trump is not leading. He is being used. And everyone around him knows it.

That’s the part that matters most.

Because this could end. The Constitution gives us a way out. Article II, Section 4, lays out impeachment, not just for the president, but for the vice president too. And when a president becomes physically or mentally unfit to serve, the 25th Amendment lets the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet step in. These are real tools. But no one is reaching for them. Because the moment they admit the truth, their own moment in power ends, too. That’s what this is really about. They’re not loyal to Trump. They’re loyal to what being near him gives them: relevance, power, and money.

They’ve become the government behind the government.

They get to play president while the real one sleeps. They get to shape war policy, immigration policy, and military budgets, all without having to face accountability. They get all the power with none of the responsibility. They didn’t come to serve. They came to cash in.

Meanwhile, the cruelty doesn’t pause. Amnesty International just released a report on “Alligator Alcatraz” and another facility, Krone, both in Florida. The findings: “inhuman and unsanitary conditions, including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy.

And history echoes here, too. The first Nazi concentration camps weren’t camps of no return; they were detention centers. For political enemies, immigrants, and those deemed “undesirable.” They began with overcrowding, with bureaucratic cruelty, with long wait times, hunger, and light deprivation. What grew from those places wasn’t accidental. It was built. What we are seeing in Florida isn’t a glitch. It’s a test run.

On the financial front, it’s not any better. A Gallup survey found that economic confidence in the U.S. is dropping. Of the respondents, 68% said the economy is getting worse, and only 27% said it is improving. Meanwhile, in a separate poll from Politico, 37 percent of 2024 Trump voters say this is the worst cost‑of‑living crisis they can remember, and 45 percent of them say Trump is either mostly or fully responsible.

And what does he do? He calls the affordability crisis a “Democrat scam.” He says it’s all made up. The American people are going broke. Trump’s own base is losing faith. And still, nothing changes.

And in another blow to the resistance, his Supreme Court just handed Texas permission to use the redistricting map that could flip five congressional seats in 2026, all engineered at Trump’s request. This map had already been blocked by a lower court for violating the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court stepped in on the shadow docket and overruled it.

This is how fascism consolidates. With maps. With unchecked power. In Nazi Germany, the courts didn’t resist; they adapted. They adjusted the law around the regime’s needs. When our courts do the same, they are no longer a check on tyranny. They’re an extension of it.

And young people know it. The latest Harvard Youth Poll shows a total collapse in trust among voters under 30. Only 13 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction. Support for capitalism and socialism is falling, not because they want revolution, but because they don’t believe in anything anymore. They’re watching the most powerful people in the country refuse to protect them from an unraveling regime.

But we still have a chance to fight this, and we must. Right now. And I want to say this, not as a writer, but on a human level. These ICE raids we’re seeing are ramping up with no end in sight. They are accelerating in number and expanding in cruelty. I watched a video of a 16-year-old boy screaming while they took his mother away, and I can’t get the sound of his cries out of my head. He was just a kid, begging them not to take her. No one showed him an ounce of compassion. Just a cold system that dragged her off, most likely so the ICE agents could collect a bonus for tearing another family apart.

And many of the people being taken are doing everything they were told to do. They’re showing up for scheduled appointments. They’re following the rules. They’re cooperating fully, and they’re still being arrested. Even American citizens are being swept up in the racial profiling that has become routine. This is not immigration enforcement. This is terror.

So I’m saying this from deep in my heart: we have to rise up. All of us. We need to be in the streets. We need to be at our representatives’ offices, especially the Republican ones. And we need to be flooding every corner of social media with the truth, whether people want to hear it or not. We must take a clear stand: we’re not okay with this. We’re not looking away. We’re not going to stay quiet. They are racing the clock, trying to push through as much as they can before the next election. And if we don’t act now, if we let this moment pass, we might not get another one.

I know this is a dark moment. But here’s the truth: we still have a real shot at taking back the House in 2026. History is on our side. Most midterm elections swing against the party in power. In fact, since 1938, the president’s party has lost seats in 20 of the last 22 midterms. If turnout stays high like it did this November, if strong candidates step up, and if people keep spreading the truth about what is happening, we can win. And if we do? The subpoenas return. The investigations restart. And we begin to take this country back.

I still have hope for America. And I hope you do too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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