Credit MAGA Trump for busting up federalism like a piñata, only to spotlight which robber ...

Bad news: once thought bombproof, the U.S. conglomerate is exposed as paper-mâché, riddled by an inept, batty, lawless icon of greed, bluster and dominance syndromes. Good news: the big defang-MAGA finale is underway.

Already, we struggle to distinguish how two painful, shocking truths converge. First, blasted are the naive delusions that our hallowed Constitution, laws, history, courts and traditions—if not leaders and voters—defend America from today’s inside mugging. Yep, taken down with ease by oligarchic commandos in cahoots with avid evangelicals, manic gun owners, raucous militants—and job/inflation aggrieved suckers bringing up the rear. Second, even greater shocker: that full-scale chaos is still orchestrated by a third-rate, wannabee autocrat, whose bizarre personality advertises atrocious lying, undeniable graft, petty tantrums and stagey, global dominance plays. Perplexed historians will wonder how a career, racist buffoon, the picture of compound failure, held the great and powerful Oz hostage, seasoned with bizarro ransoms every week.

So much for institutional guardrails against a low-life felon, vaunting aloud with tedium. We’re talking the demolition of elections, the life and liberty of citizens, obstructed legal funding, defiance of the highest court, environmental health/climate change fiascos, and needless international instability—with ludicrous saber-rattling and infantile (illegal) retributions. One imagined the durability, if not standing of America, demanded a far stronger, earth-shaking force than a self-mortifying, scamming joke.

Will character return as dominant?

Directly related—the obliteration, after centuries, of “character” as the prime election determinant – as vestiges of morality, proof of competency, awareness of law and history, had been absolute (minimum) thresholds for candidates, let alone winners. In drastic reversal, now immorality, bigotry, crassness, petty name-calling, empty slanders, and feckless gall elevate winners incapable of ever becoming “public servants.” That’s the very bad news, proven by a White House caring nothing about lost popularity, now doubling down on unpopular, absurd tariffs.

Equally astounding, the WH concentration of more cranks, nutcases, lackeys and villains than ever thought possible. And more—as vainglorious stupidities extend overseas, shredding foreign commerce while pointlessly offending loyal, necessary allies (lost profits, battered tourism, prestige shredded). And more – Trumpism reverses a century of foreign policy that actively opposed, not backed and praised the world’s worst dictators—and ruthless invasions.

How did this cartoon president pull that off, openly backing Putin’s Russian cruelty that bludgeons Ukraine and menaces Europe and our ancestors? The darkest, dumbest commander-in-chief partners with the darkest of empires—the stunning enemy of western democracy, hardwon freedoms and civil liberties. The deluge of disasters, all now mortifying and motivating a decisive majority, are as rapid and endless as the expanding universe.

Will cosmic abuses spur reforms?

On point—since few people or entities willingly change big stuff without massive incentives, what Trumpism presents to America is the greatest modern stimulus to change laws and institutions and oppose how big money dictates campaigns and elections. Why not also on the reform docket confront why legal accountability takes so damned long? Had Biden’s disgracefully weak AG simply twice indicted Trump, voters would have seen then what they see now and don’t like at all. Grossly illegal, highly consequential abuses, like despicable, erratic tariffs, succeed for Trumpworld when they go on and on, taking almost a year to reverse. Reluctant kudos to Trumpism for dramatizing the full range of systemic vulnerabilities and the obstacles that impede serious resistance to undemocratic abuses like DOGE or brutal, indefensible migrant-related crimes.

If killing law-abiding citizens whose only crime was bad timing, plus unjust, warrant-less invasions and false arrests, aren’t intolerable, screaming for reforms, what is? How many victims are even undocumented, let alone the “worst of the worst,” as promised? If breaking scores of international laws by murdering un-indicted fishing boat victims, or usurping foreign shipping vessels, or threatening violence against non-belligerent irritants, are not sufficient cause for strikes, boycotts and mass resistance, what is? If mucking about with regressive, stupid tariffs that REDUCE jobs, hurt workers and handcuff employers, doesn’t motivate defiance, then what will? If federal betrayals of minimal health care and insurance, fully-tested vaccines, and basic science on which everyone’s prosperity depends, don’t show what’s at stake, what will? Need we add conspicuous racism, intolerant of diversity here and abroad, that withholds basic nutrition, supplies and USAID to the neediest among us? Unconscionable, except for the Stephen Millers in charge.

What MAGA Trump has blunderingly achieved is to provide a dramatic contrast to the original mandates for decency, why laws must rule, the sovereignty of the majority, even what defines civilized governance committed to humane (Christian) values. By causing massive damage to life and limb, destroying the time-tested array of civil protections against state oppression, the MAGA calamity offers America a golden opportunity to confront the serious systemic breakdowns, repair of which will impede future autocratic takeovers. Wreckage also motivates addressing corrosive income equality and class stratification that dooms vibrant, democratic experiments. Since only sustained stress, even failures and disasters, motivate multitudes to risk making big changes, even with billionaires in the cock-bird seats, that is the opportunity America has, dare I say, ahem, to the MAGA-riven urgency of now.

We will survive, stay alive, even thrive

Okay, we are directly tested to Make America Civilized Again, or MACA. That is certainly one logical, progressive outcome to MAGA Trump’s decade of harsh exposure of nasty, racist, predatory real-politics. Will we endure even more tragic assaults and sieges without verifying if America is still great enough to learn from a parade of oppression a clear majority never wants to repeat? Will we roll over or find ways to regain relative decency, returning to minimum character thresholds for picking leaders.

Either we redeem America, not to illusory “greatness,” but simply reasonable functionality—or face more carnage. The ultimate good news is that even the most vicious modern, western tyrannies don’t last. So do we “capitalize” on the hand we’ve been dealt and do everything to stop the MAGA fiasco sooner rather than later? Undeniably, the committed, widespread, reform-driven resistance grows weekly.

After all, is not moral, political intelligence the ability to accept all of reality, then adapt and make changes so at least we are afterwards no worse for wear? Maybe better. Thus I am more optimistic than a year ago, trusting that only a minority accepts being pummeled by the lying moral midgets at MAGA Trump central. Perhaps more offended billionaires and weak-kneed institutions will join the battle against ruthless ignoramuses who truly believe their own BS with madhouse conviction—and who surprisingly show daily exactly who they are.

We can’t go back and wish doomed MAGA folly had not achieved its takeover with such relative ease. But once freer Americans, when given a democratic choice, predictably resist unjust oppression and widespread invalidation by a power-mad gang of opportunists who will face their own “retribution” when rational adults take over. Bank on it—or we are done for.