Trump is spiraling into his most dangerous phase yet

Today I felt something I haven’t felt in a long time: hope. Not the kind that comes and goes, or that pretends things haven’t been as bad as they are. This felt steadier. Like it’s finally starting to settle in. And it didn’t come from a big political win or some major headline. It came from watching Donald Trump try to hold on to control and fail. The same tactics he’s always relied on just aren’t working like they used to.

The hundreds of posts he has shared in just the past couple of days alone speak volumes. Not just because they’re deranged, though they are, but because of what they reveal. They don’t read like someone in control or a leader who’s confident in his position. They sound like a man who’s unraveling, cornered by the truth, and trying to distract everyone before it catches up with him.

At 5:58 p.m. on December 26, Trump posted one of the most frantic rants we’ve seen:

“Now 1,000,000 more pages on Epstein are found. DOJ is being forced to spend all of its time on this Democrat inspired Hoax. When do they say NO MORE, and work on Election Fraud etc. The Dems are the ones who worked with Epstein, not the Republicans. Release all of their names, embarrass them, and get back to helping our Country! The Radical Left doesn’t want people talking about TRUMP & REPUBLICAN SUCCESS, only a long ago dead Jeffrey Epstein - Just another Witch Hunt!!!”

It was full of conspiracy, deflection, paranoia, and rage.

And it wasn’t just that post. He added the above message to a reshare of his Christmas Eve statement, where he wrote:

“Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his Island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest guy on earth, only to ‘drop him like a dog’ when things got too HOT, falsely claimed they had nothing to do with him, didn’t know him, said he was a disgusting person, and then blame, of course, President Donald J. Trump, who was actually the only one who did drop Epstein, and long before it became fashionable to do so. When their names get brought out in the ongoing Radical Left Witch Hunt (plus one lowlife ‘Republican,’ Massie!), and it is revealed that they are Democrats all, there will be a lot of explaining to do, much like there was when it was made public that the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax was a fictitious story — a total Scam — and had nothing to do with ‘TRUMP.’ The Failing New York Times, among many others, was forced to apologize for their bad and faulty Election ‘Reporting,’ even to the point of losing many subscribers due to their highly inaccurate (FAKE!) coverage. Now the same losers are at it again, only this time so many of their friends, mostly innocent, will be badly hurt and reputationally tarnished. But sadly, that’s the way it is in the World of Corrupt Democrat Politics!!! Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas! President Donald J. Trump”

But the energy behind it wasn’t someone who felt secure in their power. It was panic. And when someone who’s built their entire image around dominance and control starts posting like this, it’s not a show of force. It’s a sign of weakness.

What we’re seeing from him right now is deeply alarming. And it’s certainly not how a president of the United States should be speaking. It goes beyond the hateful rhetoric we’ve come to expect. What we’re witnessing is someone continuing to lose their grip on reality itself, and thrashing wildly to maintain control of something he already knows is slipping away. And that’s exactly where the hope comes in. Because it’s not just that he sounds unstable. It’s that for the first time in a long while, it feels like he knows he’s losing, and can’t stop it.

It’s a strange place to find hope. There’s nothing comforting about watching someone in power spiral. But this is where we are. Nothing about this moment is normal, so it makes sense that even hope would feel upside down. So when the cracks widen much like they are, and the unraveling becomes visible, hope doesn’t look like celebration. It looks like recognition and momentum. It looks like weakness is finally showing through the noise. And right now, that’s enough to keep going.

And while he flails, the consequences ripple from his incompetence far beyond his Truth Social page. This isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s happening in real time, while the rest of the world watches and adjusts. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy just confirmed he’s flying to Florida on Sunday to meet with Donald Trump. Not because he wants to, and not because it makes diplomatic sense, but because the power dynamics around the globe have shifted so far off course that even wartime leaders are being forced to play along. The man who once withheld aid to Ukraine for political leverage is now positioning himself as the one who might offer peace terms. And it shows how fragile things have become.

Ukraine has been holding the line, not just against Russia, but on behalf of democratic alliances that still claim to care about sovereignty and international law. But with Trump back in office, that alliance is cracking. And for all the talk about “peace,” what this meeting really shows is how much damage has already been done. Zelenskyy isn’t walking into a negotiation with a trusted partner. He’s walking into a staged performance with a man who admires strongmen and has openly sided with Putin. This shouldn’t be happening. But it is. And that’s what happens when division takes hold in a country like ours. We don’t just lose our moral standing, we put others at risk, too.

We’re seeing the same pattern in how Trump is treating our allies. Just this week, his administration banned five people from Europe from entering the U.S., four leaders from well-known nonprofit organizations, and one top official from the European Union. Why? Because they’ve been helping enforce a European law that holds social media companies responsible for things like hate speech, online abuse, disinformation, and child exploitation.

This law is called the Digital Services Act. It’s not extreme. It’s not even about the United States. It applies to content inside Europe and was passed to help keep people safe online. But instead of supporting our allies or finding a way to work together, Trump punished them. He’s claiming that efforts to limit dangerous lies and online abuse are somehow “censorship” of Americans, even though that law doesn’t control anything inside the U.S.

France called the visa bans “intimidation.” The European Commission said it was a serious problem. And they’re right. This has nothing to do with protecting free speech. It’s about shutting down accountability. Trump doesn’t want anyone, even democratic allies, putting rules in place that might limit his ability to spread false information or manipulate the conversation. So now, instead of standing with longtime partners, he’s isolating the U.S. and pushing away people who are simply trying to make the internet safer.

That’s what makes this so dangerous. It’s not just about tech policy. It’s about Trump cutting off ties with other democracies, rejecting the idea of shared values, and trying to create a world where the only rules that matter are his. That kind of thinking doesn’t just hurt our reputation; it weakens the global alliances that keep people safe. And once those alliances are gone, we’re all more vulnerable.

This is how authoritarian governments operate. They don’t just go after enemies at home. They start isolating their country from longtime allies. They undermine international cooperation. They paint all outside criticism as betrayal. And what that means, plainly, is that Americans are no longer the only ones at risk. It’s damaging our global standing. It’s straining relationships that have kept us safe and stable for decades. And the more fractured those relationships become, the more power he gains to do whatever he wants, without anyone on the world stage pushing back.

And then there’s Venezuela. Right now, Trump’s administration is openly discussing deploying a Maritime Special Response Team to forcibly board an oil tanker in international waters. The ship, called the Bella 1, was being pursued under a judicial seizure order. And instead of treating this as a legal process, Trump called for a “complete blockade.” He’s ordered a military buildup in the Caribbean. And while no land strikes have been officially ordered yet, he’s said they may be “coming soon.” This is not about the war on drugs that he has led his followers to believe. It’s all about money, power, and oil.

But what ties all of this together, Ukraine, the EU, Venezuela, isn’t just that it’s happening at the same time. It’s that it’s being driven by someone who is unraveling while still holding power. Someone whose impulses are increasingly erratic. They’re what authoritarianism looks like in motion, when a leader under pressure starts turning every lever of government into a weapon. And while he flails at the center, the cost is paid by the citizens of the country and everywhere else, too.

And still, the cracks are there. For the first time in a long time, it feels like the world isn’t pretending anymore. And neither should we.

And you have to question when he starts plastering nonsense online if he is just reacting to embarrassment. Because Trump doesn’t govern through ideas. He governs through attention. He feeds on headlines, ratings, pageantry, and the illusion of control. So when that illusion starts breaking down, it matters.

This week did not bring Trump any good news. The Kennedy Center Honors aired on CBS just days ago. He’d spent weeks hyping it up, promising record ratings. What he got was the lowest viewership the event has ever received. Barely 2.6 million people tuned in, half of last year’s numbers. His pre-taped Oval Office segment, reportedly twelve minutes long, was cut down to two. That kind of failure would be embarrassing for anyone. But for Trump, it’s worse. Because the one thing he’s always been able to count on, his ability to command attention, is finally starting to slip.

And by no means are we on the other side of this. Trump is still dangerous. He still holds power. And when your grip on power begins to slip, you can either pull back or double down. Trump is doubling down. But the ratings are in, and the crowd is thinning out.

That’s why the hope feels real this time. But we also need to remember that the unraveling phase can be the most dangerous stage. Desperate people with power don’t just fade quietly. They look for ways to force the story back in their favor. They manufacture crises, create new enemies, and they escalate. In the final phase of his rule, even as defeat closed in, Hitler ramped up arrests, executions, and propaganda. His grip on reality didn’t strengthen; it collapsed. But the damage he did in that unraveling caused some of the worst violence of the entire regime. The fall didn’t happen in one moment. It happened through desperation.

That’s why none of this ends with Trump alone. It ends with what we do in response and whether we recognize what’s happening and refuse to let it divide us any further. Especially those of us on the right side of history. Because he doesn’t need a majority. He just needs confusion and infighting. He needs enough of us turned against each other that no one notices what he’s trying to pull off.

We don’t all have to agree on everything. We won’t. We’re going to have different priorities, different backgrounds, different ways of showing up. But if we fracture, if we fall into the same traps of infighting and purity politics and zero-sum thinking, they win. That’s what happened in 2024. But we don’t have to let it happen again. We can learn from what we’ve lived through. We can recognize that disagreement doesn’t have to mean disconnection. That unity doesn’t mean uniformity. That we are more powerful together, even when we don’t see everything the same way. And we can choose, right now, to stop living in a black and white world and work together to put our country above ourselves. And then we can figure out the rest. The midterms will be here before we know it. We just have to keep showing up, sharing the truth, and keep standing shoulder to shoulder even when it’s uncomfortable. Because hope doesn’t live in certainty, it lives in effort. And right now, it’s still ours to carry.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

P.S. If you’ve made it this far, chances are we see things the same way. You can make a difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. There is a free option and the option to help me reach a wider audience with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country.