This is what it feels like to live in a country during the collapse of leadership.

This is what it feels like to live in a country during the collapse of leadership.
Not a neat rupture you can mark on a calendar.
Not a single headline moment that ties a bow on the story.
But a slow erosion.
A steady, grinding unraveling that seeps into daily life.

It doesn’t arrive with the drama of a lightning strike.
It comes like water against stone, wearing down foundations we thought were unshakable.
Institutions that once steadied us begin to wobble.
Norms that once seemed permanent turn optional.
Promises made by those in power unravel in the fine print.

It is not one decision that does it.
It is a hundred small ones.
A thousand reckless choices stacked on top of each other.
A pattern of carelessness so relentless it becomes its own strategy.

Tonight I was helping my daughter with her AP World History class.
We paged through century after century, empire after empire.
She looked up at me and said, “None of this makes sense.”
Her voice was small, stunned, and honest.
And the truth landed like a stone.

It does not make sense.
Not while it is happening.
Not usually until you look back.
And when you do, one rule always explains the empty spaces where reason feels lost: follow the power, follow the money.
Every time.

And today we are reliving the very pages she is reading.
New names. New faces. A different timeline.
But the same playbooks. The same distractions. The same evil clinging to power.

The difference this time? We know what they are doing. We know what comes next. The only things we don’t know are how it ends, and when.

But America was supposed to be different.
This is the land of the free. Home of the brave.
How did we fall so deeply, so quickly?

It starts back at the beginning.

For most of our history, the presidency carried weight.
Not perfection. Not purity. But responsibility.
Presidents oversaw the end of wars. Built alliances. Created institutions to make the country and the world stronger.
They treated the office like a sacred trust.

Presidents stood calm in uncertain times.
Led with steadiness.
Brought out the best in us and in each other.
Helped us believe in the American dream and the hope for better days.

Our country has faced hardships few of us can imagine. Injustices that could have hardened people but instead inspired them. Moments that defined us. And through it all, presidents who, whatever their flaws, took the job seriously, with one thing in mind: love of country.

That is what leadership used to look like.

It has never looked like that with Donald Trump.
Not in his first term. Not now.
Under Trump, the presidency has only ever been about him.
Self first. Loyalty first. The country so far down the list it doesn’t even count.

I’m from the United States of Leadership Collapse, so this surprises no one.

Where the steady hand of leadership has been replaced with a clenched fist.
Where diplomacy has been replaced with gunfire.
Where duty has been replaced with propaganda and theater, even at the cost of lives.

This week, Trump fired on a second Venezuelan patrol boat.
Venezuela called it aggression.
Trump says the boats were a security threat. Venezuela says they were in their own waters.

We might never know because the President chose to take this action without a trial. Without judgment, just with us taking his word that this was a drug-smuggling boat. And even if it was, is this how we act on the world stage now? Do we just shoot boats out of their own or international water on a whim? People lost their lives. That used to mean something.

Either way, this is not a small thing.
This is a president choosing force instead of negotiation.
Spectacle over strategy.

And that matters because every shot risks escalation.
Every rash action pushes allies away.
Every reckless move gives our enemies new recruits.
Once we were the anchor that steadied storms.
Now we are the storm that churns the sea.

That is what set my stomach turning when I read the headline.
Because it is not only about Venezuela.
It is about a country that no longer pauses to ask what will happen next.
It is about ordinary people paying the price for political theater.
That is not strength. It is recklessness.

And back at home the hollowing is louder.
J.D. Vance, Vice President of the United States, guest hosted Charlie Kirk’s podcast after Kirk was murdered.
The office once held by Lyndon Johnson, Al Gore, and Dick Cheney is now a stage for performance.

The vice presidency is one heartbeat from the presidency.
It is supposed to project continuity, competence, calm in crisis.
Instead it has become a microphone for ambition.

Read Vance’s words from the podcast:

We’re going to go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence. -Vance

With God as my witness, we’re going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie's name. -Vance

If you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. And hell, call their employer.

On the surface those lines sound resolute. But look closer.
“Networks” can mean anything. NGOs,non-governmental organizations, are often humanitarian or advocacy groups. When someone in power threatens to “dismantle and destroy” unnamed networks, that is a license for broad and arbitrary repression. It encourages intimidation, even violence.

Telling citizens to call employers and punish people for speech turns disagreement into economic threat. That is not leadership. That is intimidation. That is vigilant justice. That is the language of someone who equates opposition with treason. Someone trying to turn neighbors against each other. Someone trying to create a police state.

When I heard those words, I thought of ordinary Americans. Teachers. Journalists. Neighbors. Activists. Anyone who dares to disagree.
I thought about how easily a system can tilt from law to vendetta.
I thought about the history lesson my daughter and I had been reading, how often this pattern repeats.

Follow who benefits. Follow who profits. That is how you see the architecture of cruelty.

The contrast is stark.
Past leaders saw the presidency as something larger than themselves.
Trump treats it like a personal play.
Vance is following the same script, already angling for his turn.
This, from a man who once called himself a “never Trumper,” who said out loud how unfit Trump was for office.

We deserve better than a leader like Vance. America deserves a better leader than this.

History shows us this only ends when citizens refuse to look away.

That is the lesson I kept circling back to as I sat at the kitchen table with my daughter’s history book.
The same tragedies. The same betrayals. The same cunning.
But also the same capacity for repair.

People can choose otherwise.
They can demand better.
They can vote. They can protest. They can hold officials accountable, at town halls, in newsrooms, in school boards, and at polling places.

So what do we do now?
We do not surrender.
We do not normalize intimidation.
We call out threats for what they are.
We support teachers, journalists, and workers who are targeted.
We show up where it matters. We vote. We organize. We demand that institutions do their jobs and that officials who threaten citizens face consequences.

I know how heavy this feels.
I have nights where I stare at the headlines and feel exhausted.
I have sat at this very desk wondering if the country can be saved.
But then I remember my daughter’s question, the one that broke open the assumption that things make sense.

It taught me how to look.
To follow the money. To follow the power.
That is how you untangle the story. That is how you find the levers.

But even beyond understanding, there is something greater.
Every time things got better, one constant remained: people held onto hope and never gave up.

Hope is not a sentiment. It is a choice.
It is a discipline.
It is showing up anyway. Voting anyway. Speaking up anyway. Facing what is happening to our country head-on.

Most of history’s recoveries did not come from one perfect act.
They came from millions of small acts strung together until a new center took hold.

We will be back.
Not because a miracle arrives on cue.
But because people decide to stop being bystanders.
Because citizens decide their children deserve a country that does not trade stability for spectacle.
Because we remember the office is bigger than the man in it.

And that is what I tell my daughter when we close the book for the night.
History repeats, that is true.
But history also teaches how to resist.
We learn the playbook just like they do.
But we use it for good, until change becomes reality.

Thank you to each one of you for being here with me. These are dark times, and the past week has been especially trying. Tonight I needed to focus on hope more than anything else. This is not an easy time to be raising children, and I find strength in knowing how past generations faced and overcame their own battles.

I hope you, too can look back through your own history books and not only remember who we were, who we have always strived to be, but most importantly, how strong Americans are.

I still believe that better days are ahead. And I hope you do too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather