The Delusion of a Weak Man Pretending to Be Strong

“It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.” -President Donald J. Trump, on birthright citizenship

Those are the words of a sitting American president dismissing the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Birthright citizenship is the promise that anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically an American, no matter who their parents are. It has been the law of the land for over 150 years. And Trump is calling it “ridiculous.” A right guaranteed for generations, reduced to something that should simply “end” because he doesn’t like it.

That’s not a policy debate. That’s authoritarianism in plain view.

Because once you decide you can erase a constitutional right with the stroke of a pen, what can’t you erase?

This is the danger of a president who believes the Supreme Court has given him immunity. Earlier this year, the Court ruled that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for their “official acts.” Trump has twisted this to mean he can act without consequence. If presidents are immune from prosecution for “official acts,” then the person in the highest office can break laws the rest of us would go to prison for, simply by calling them “official.”

That’s not democracy. That’s monarchy.

And Trump is ruling like he believes that crown belongs to him.

This week was a case study in just how far.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, is weighing whether to add autism to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. On the surface, it sounds compassionate. In reality, it’s a plan to bankrupt the very program that protects people who suffer rare, real vaccine injuries.

This program was created in the 1980s to solve a problem. Some people do experience legitimate vaccine injuries, and lawsuits were threatening to make vaccines too expensive to produce. So the government built a fund to make sure families could get compensation without endless court battles, while still protecting the public’s access to vaccines. It’s a system that works. Since the 1980s, it has paid out billions to families, proving that it is fair and functional.

The reason autism isn’t on the list is simple. Vaccines do not cause autism. The science is clear. Every study has disproven the claim. That’s why the program exists as it does, to make sure people with proven injuries receive help while vaccine makers aren’t buried in lawsuits built on myths. If autism claims were added, based on junk science, the program would collapse overnight.

And here’s the one thing the data does prove: vaccines save lives.

If Kennedy succeeds, vaccine makers could stop producing them altogether, or pull them from the U.S. market. And that’s the point. RFK Jr. wants to disrupt everything about vaccines. Not because he believes the lies he spreads, his own children and grandchildren are vaccinated. He wants to kill vaccines to stroke his ego. Just like Trump collects endorsements, Kennedy wants to collect victories against science.

And he is doing it on the backs of parents who just want answers about autism.

He follows the same playbook of every fascist government: simple solutions for complex problems.

It’s not leadership. It’s a con.

I’m not speaking as an outsider. My whole family got our flu shots and COVID boosters today. We’re tired, maybe a little achy, but we’re so thankful for the protection.

Because I know what the real parenting failure would be: letting my child suffer from a preventable disease because I turned down a vaccine.

That would be unforgivable.

That’s what real responsibility looks like.

We owe our children better than lies.

The truth is that America deserves better than this. And right now, it is breaking apart.

I know, because I’ve seen this country corner to corner. I was a travel writer. I’ve walked the factory towns of the Midwest, the farm roads of the South, the crowded coasts where trade never stops. I’ve seen the differences up close, the priorities, the cultures, the values. That’s why our system was built the way it was. To balance those interests and still hold together as one nation.

But what I see now is different.

We don’t just disagree on policy anymore. We don’t share common goals. We don’t share common morals. And in too many places, we don’t even share respect for the Constitution.

I grew up believing that separation of church and state was one of our founding principles. It wasn’t to protect churches from people. It was to protect people from churches. To ensure that we could practice, or not practice, any religion we wanted.

Christian nationalism has twisted that. It has turned faith into a political weapon.

And let’s be honest. This isn’t faith. These aren’t people trying to walk closer to God. These are people trying to wield God like a hammer. To control, to silence, to dominate.

And it is ripping this country apart.

Control is exactly what’s happening with the flow of information too.

I’m deeply concerned about what is happening with TikTok, and this story stopped me cold. One in five Americans now regularly gets their news from TikTok. Among young adults, it’s nearly half. And now the Murdoch family, the same family that owns Fox News, the network that built its empire spreading right-wing propaganda, will have a stake in TikTok.

For millions of teenagers, TikTok isn’t just an app. It’s where they get their first glimpse of “news.” Their first sense of the world. Their first impression of what truth even is.

If the Murdochs control that stream, the same propaganda that poisoned our friends, our families, our parents, and our grandparents will now drip into the minds of our children.

The very people who built a business on fear, rage, and lies will have direct access to our kids’ feeds.

This isn’t harmless. It isn’t funny. It’s propaganda with a new costume.

And we still dare to call that news.

And while they’re shaping what our kids see tomorrow, they’re also rewriting what the rest of us lived through yesterday.

The MAGA machine is rewriting January 6. A leaked memo showed that 274 FBI agents were present that day. That’s it. They were deployed for security. Not to stage a riot. Not to provoke violence. The memo shows complaints about leadership and equipment, not evidence of a government plot.

But that didn’t matter.

Right-wing media grabbed the number and ran with it. Another excuse to blame the government instead of the mob that stormed the Capitol.

We all watched it happen. Windows smashed. Officers beaten. Gallows built on the Capitol lawn.

Pretending it was the FBI instead of a violent mob insults the truth we saw with our own eyes.

This is how authoritarian movements survive.

They don’t need truth. They just need a story powerful enough to drown it out.

And while they rewrite history to excuse their violence, they’re also rewriting the rules of the economy to excuse their greed.

Trump has announced his latest round of taxes. He calls them tariffs, but we know the truth.

He slapped 100% tariffs on branded drugs, 25% on heavy trucks, 50% on kitchen cabinets, 30% on furniture. He stood at a podium and declared it was “protecting America.”

But it isn’t protection. It’s punishment.

Because tariffs don’t make foreign companies pay. They make us pay. Every time you pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. Every time you shop for a new dining table or replace a broken refrigerator. Every time a young couple tries to build their first home and discovers their cabinets just doubled in price.

Economists agree tariffs cost U.S. consumers tens of billions. It’s not China writing the check. It’s families at the grocery store, workers on the job site, patients at the pharmacy counter.

And let’s be clear: no president who cares about families would make prescription drugs more expensive. No president who cares about housing would drive up the cost of remodeling or first-time home ownership. No president who claims to fight for the working class would make basic furniture and appliances harder to afford.

But that’s what this does. And maybe that’s the point. To isolate us. To concentrate wealth at the top. To make us so desperate for our medications, so stretched by the cost of living, that we stop protesting and quietly accept a fascist way of life.

Because this isn’t the strategy of a great leader.

It’s the cruelty of a weak man pretending to be strong.

This isn’t negotiation.

This is ignorance dressed up as power.

On top of that, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no real command experience, announced he is summoning every general and admiral in the U.S. military to Marine Corps Base Quantico. Hundreds of top leaders, all in one place, at one time, to hear him rant about a “warrior ethos” and grooming standards.

You don’t do that. You don’t concentrate your entire senior leadership in one room unless there’s a national emergency. To do it for a pep talk is reckless. To do it for a photo op is dangerous.

This could devastate our military response were anything to happen to that many top officials at one time in one place.

And there is talk that this gathering will include some sort of loyalty oath, a test to immediately weed out anyone unwilling to bow down to our new dictatorial government.

That’s not leadership. That’s intimidation.

When asked by reporters at the White House about the summit, President Trump initially appeared unfamiliar with Hegseth’s plan. He seemed to assume the Defense Secretary was bringing foreign military officers in for a meeting. “I think it is great. Let him be friendly with generals and admirals from all over the world,” Trump said. “Remember, I’m the President of Peace.”

Vice President J.D. Vance then had to interrupt to clarify that the summit was for U.S. generals. And then he started downplaying the significance.

So what’s really happening?

Does Trump even know what his own cabinet is doing? Or are they creating some kind of shadow dictatorship behind his back and just letting him ramble, believing he’s in control, while they consolidate power?

Hegseth wants the image of power. He wants the photo of generals sitting in silence while he lectures them. It’s not discipline. It’s a show of force.

It’s posturing, not strategy, like a dog marking territory on a fire hydrant to show dominance.

And Trump is letting him play commander for a day because he doesn’t care about the consequences, or doesn’t even know any of this exists.

Whatever comes out of this will not be leading us towards the America we can be proud of.

Because this is how they’re building power. Not just with photo ops and loyalty oaths, but with rulings and court cases that chip away at the very foundation of our democracy.

So while Hegseth flexes for the cameras, Trump is quietly using the courts to do something even more dangerous: reshape the very rules that hold this country together.

Trump is asking the Supreme Court to end birthright citizenship, undoing a promise guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment for more than a century. If he wins, children born here could be told they aren’t Americans. A constitutional right, erased with the stroke of a pen.

And while he tries to strip rights from children, he also plays magician, waving one hand to distract us from the other. This week he announced he was declassifying all records on Amelia Earhart. And sure, I’d love to know what happened to her. But let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t transparency. It’s distraction.

The same trick he pulled with the JFK records, big headlines, dramatic pronouncements, and meanwhile the files that actually matter, like the Epstein money trail, stay locked away.

But the real danger wasn’t the stunts. It was the ruling.

The Supreme Court handed him a victory this week. In a 6–3 decision, they let him freeze $4 billion in foreign aid that Congress had already approved.

Think about what that means.

The Constitution gives Congress the “power of the purse.” They decide how money is spent. That’s the system. But the Court just said the president can ignore Congress’s decision.

Congress passed the funding. The president refused to spend it. And the Court said yes.

This isn’t just about aid. It’s about power.

Foreign aid isn’t charity. It’s strategy. It funds disaster relief, food programs, and development projects that keep regions stable. Cutting it destabilizes entire countries and creates vacuums hostile nations are quick to fill. That $4 billion isn’t loose change. It feeds people. It keeps allies upright. It prevents refugee crises. Cutting it doesn’t just hurt abroad, it creates chaos that always finds its way back to our shores.

If the president can ignore Congress on this, what’s next?

The balance of powers is collapsing, one ruling at a time.

And then, as if to prove just how unmoored from reality he has become, Trump ranted again.

In the morning, he told women not to take Tylenol. He told parents to break apart vaccines. He told doctors how to practice medicine.

In the evening, he demanded Microsoft fire Lisa Monaco, a private citizen, a former Justice Department official who once investigated Russian election interference, because he personally despises her.

This is how dictatorships work. Punishing critics by destroying their livelihoods. In America, presidents don’t get to decide who private companies employ. Until now.

That’s dictatorship.

A president ordering a private company to fire someone he doesn’t like is authoritarianism on its face. A president telling pregnant women what medicines to avoid is reckless abuse of power.

He isn’t hiding who he is.

He’s showing us.

And we should believe him.

So where does that leave us?

With a president who believes immunity makes him untouchable. With a government hollowed out by propaganda and theater. With a nation where the Constitution is being bent to the breaking point.

This isn’t normal. It’s not okay.

But here’s what gives me hope.

Everywhere I look, I still see people who care. Families lining up for vaccines. Communities pushing back against lies. Young people calling out propaganda as they see it. People who may be divided on policy but still believe in decency, in democracy, in one another.

And that is something no president, no court, no cabinet can take away.

Because democracy doesn’t survive because the powerful hold it up.

It survives because ordinary people refuse to let it fall.

That’s us. That’s you. That’s now.

This is our time. We must rise up and stop this. Time is no longer on our side. This is all hands on deck. We must come together with those on the right side of history and really get to work. Our children’s future depends on it.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather