“Our Nation is staging one of the greatest and fastest comebacks in history. In just 4 short months, we are respected again, respected like never before.”
–Donald Trump, May 2025
 
NOT!
 
Despite EPA guidelines for toilet flushing, it did not take long for Donald Trump to sink America’s reputation and the esteem in which the rest of the world held it deep down into the sewer.

To hear Trump lie about it, he has restored America’s reputation globally. Like everything else that emanates from his hate-filled mouth and tiny hands on his Lies Anti-Social platform, he constantly returns to this theme with an assortment of outrageous falsehoods.

In fact, two recent polls show that America is now reviled by the rest of the world, revolted by Trump and his exceptionally evil and massively incompetent administration. The numbers are truly stunning.

The highly respected Pew Research Center has been taking foreign pulses regarding America for decades. No American President has ever scored as low as Trump, not even Trump 1.0 which, until this recent survey, was far and away the worst international reputational score ever recorded

Pew’s survey of 29 countries shows virtually no confidence in Trump or America to lead world affairs. It also shows that foreigners have little or no confidence in Trump’s ability to handle specific issues, including immigration, the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S.-China relations, global economic problems, conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, and climate change. Overwhelming majorities view him as arrogant, dishonest and dangerous.

Here’s a sampling of Trump’s approval ratings in specific countries:

                Canada                                    22%
                UK                                          37%
                Italy                                        32%
                Netherlands                             22%
                France                                     22%
                Spain                                     19%
               Germany                                  18%


It’s not only our (former) closest allies who see Trump as a total loser. His numbers are equally dismal in places like India, Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Trump’s grades in the Pew poll make George W. Bush, even after his Iraq misadventure, Hurricane Katrina bungling, and his plunging the global economy into the Great Recession, look like a combination of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

It is stunning that it has taken only a few months for world opinion and trust in America to have dissipated. Trump has frittered away America’s reputation that took 80 years to construct.

Trump’s international poll numbers are likely to sink into single digits by the time his destruction is finished. Americans need to wake up and join our global counterparts in calling Trump out for the destruction he is raining down on the world.
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​Corrupdate. Trump’s self-celebratory military parade was one of the most ho-hum events that Washington, DC ever had to suffer. It was totally overwhelmed by the horrific news about political assassinations in Minnesota stimulated by years of Trump’s incitements to violence, and more than 2,100 “No Kings” protests throughout the land, and neutralized by his Los Angeles Gestapo tactics involving ICE, the National Guard and U.S. Marines.
     The look of military hardware rumbling down Constitution Avenue in front of a supremely bored-looking Trump and a sparse crowd seemed fitting after his many years of disparaging the military—hiding behind alleged bone spurs to evade the draft; disrespecting John McCain; calling soldiers who gave their lives for this country “suckers and losers;” all the way up to his recent Fort Bragg braggadocio where attending soldiers were vetted for their appearance (no fatties allowed) and MAGA propensities.
 
Dick Hermann
June 20, 2025

​Revolutions in military thinking are extremely rare. Not that long ago, West Point cadets were still studying the particulars of Hannibal’s strategy at the battles of Lake Trasimene and Cannae almost 2,500 years ago.
 
Today we are witnessing a major rethinking of military strategy and tactics without being aware of it.
 
Recently, Ukraine staged a hugely successful drone attack deep into Russia. Ukrainian drones destroyed 40 advanced Russian aircraft. Aside from the fact that this surprise attack succeeded despite Russian defenses, the most amazing thing about it is the asymmetry of its costs. Each Ukrainian drone cost a few hundred dollars. In contrast, each destroyed Russian airplane cost somewhere north of $40 million. This is a return on investment that even Nvidia would envy.
 
Drones are clearly now not only the future of warfare, but also the present. The future is now. Massively expensive “legacy” weapons, such as America’s F-35 Strikefighter, the current fifth generation of which costs $109 million per plane (total program cost: $2 trillion) may already be obsolete just a few years after they launched.
 
It’s not just jet fighters and bombers that drones are rendering obsolete. The U.S. Abrams tank is the most technologically advanced and sophisticated battle tank in the world. We have given a bunch of them to Ukraine. However, virtually every one of them has been destroyed by cheap Russian drones. 
 
The “drone revolution” is not limited to air and land warfare. Ukrainian drones have also decimated much of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Even highly advanced Russian warships, with all of their powerful anti-aircraft defenses, appear defenseless against dirt-cheap drones. America’s immense aircraft carrier fleet take note. We currently have 11 carriers deployed, the most powerful naval ships in the world. Each one of these behemoths cost billions of dollars. They may, however, be helpless against a handful of inexpensive drones. Perhaps the next one commissioned should be named the “U.S.S. Sitting Duck.”
 
China today produces around 100 times more drones than the U.S. and Europe combined. Should China move on Taiwan, America’s multi-trillion dollar fleets may be of little value if we come to Taiwan’s defense.
 
The drone revolution, as evidenced by the Russo-Ukraine War, should be a loud wake-up call to the Pentagon. But so far, all we see is America mired in planning to fight the last war. We continue to pour trillions into obsolete weapons systems that will do us little good against an enemy’s drones. That has to change. Our defense planning needs a mammoth overhaul.
 
There are also immense collateral benefits to changes in our defense posture and the level of expenditures needed to address this new asymmetry. The biggest is that our almost trillion-dollar annual defense budget could be dramatically reduced if reoriented to drone warfare and drone defense. This would mark a major assault on our out-of-control national debt at a time when such is desperately needed. Also, it would make  a real dent in the debt, unlike the fraud that Trump and his supine Republican Congress are currently engaged in, which will make the debt problem even worse.
 
However, the obstacles to instituting a sea-change in U.S. defense thinking are huge. Thousands of powerful and influential interest groups have an existential stake in maintaining the status quo. Like the oil and gas industry fighting tooth and nail to survive against any move to renewable energy, the military-industrial complex will do whatever it takes to keep its gravy train flowing, regardless of the adverse impact on U.S. national security.
 
This is a very serious matter that needs addressing immediately. Having the right people in charge at the top levels of the Pentagon is essential to seeing, understanding and taking the requisite actions to overhaul our national defense. Tragically, woefully inept Pete Hegseth and his cronies are not them.
 
Corrupdate. Trump’s corruption is not limited to financial grifting. It includes depravities far afield from mere greed. His rampant hypocrisy and double standard is one such example. He federalizes and deploys the California National Guard and the U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to quell protests against ICE Gestapo-like tactics despite the fact that local law enforcement had the situation under control and did not request federal assistance. This is the very same Trump who refused to federalize and deploy the Guard on January 6, 2021 when thousands of violent, traitorous insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol, beat up cops and attempted to hang his Vice President. His arguments for sending the military into LA can be summed up in one word: bullshit.
    There are three reasons why Trump is doing this: (1) He always wants to look like a tough guy, a reflection of his deep insecurities (see, e.g., the North Korea-style military parade on his birthday); (2) immigration is the issue on which he has pinned his entire political journey and where his across-the board dismal poll numbers, albeit feeble, are the best. (3) He needs distractions from his administration’s cruelty, chaos and incompetence: stupid, unnecessary tariffs that are ruining the economy; his disastrous Big Ugly Bill that would transfer billions of dollars from the middle class and poor to billionaires, deny health insurance to millions, and allow his legal minions to defy court orders without any consequences, among other atrocities; unceasing grifting; coddling of our enemies; and so much more, all of which are not playing well with the public.
 
Dick Hermann
June 14, 2025

The Democratic Party is failing in its obligation to vigorously oppose Trump’s power grab, criminality, massive abuse of American norms, and the grievous damage these are causing to individuals, the nation and the world. It has a huge communications problem that, frankly, is a surprise because there are obvious solutions.
 
Trump provides the Dems with enough ammunition to bring him to account daily, but they seem reluctant to avail themselves of it. Their hesitation is baffling.
 
This is not a new challenge. During all four years of the Biden administration, communication was not a Democratic strong suit. In fact, poor messaging had much to do with the party’s electoral trouncing. They kept trying to convince voters that what they saw with their eyes wasn’t true. The economy was booming (it was) and “look at all the wonderful things we have done for you.” They failed completely to acknowledge that the high prices people were paying for basic goods—food, gasoline, car loans, mortgages—were as nothing compared to abstractions like GDP growth and low unemployment. They never aligned with the reality that people were suffering or talked about what they would and would do to improve lives. On top of that, they wanted credit for bringing the Southern border under control, even though they only did that in the eleventh hour of their administration after sweeping the problem under the rug for more than three-quarters of their White House term. All of this despite polls showing that inflation and the border were top of mind to voters.
 
Democrats during the Biden years operated in a self-created communications desert. They appear to have learned nothing from this and today are keeping that cluelessness going.
 
I’ve addressed this issue in past Rants, but Democratic lassitude prompts me to revisit it again, this time with a bit more granularity and reference to my personal experience:
 
Democrats need a well-planned, coordinated three-pronged effort to put forth party spokespersons from their congressional, gubernatorial, mayoral and state legislative ranks (Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow, for example) every single day to speak in opposition to the illegal and appalling actions and inactions Trump and his lackeys are undertaking to undermine the nation and the world. The messages should be simple, instructive and delivered succinctly They should speak directly to the problems Republicans are causing ordinary Americans and how Democrats would address them. Nothing fancy:
 
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(1)   Daily news conferences.
 
Most voters don’t follow what is going on in Washington, DC very closely. A recent poll revealed that only 27 percent of respondents had even heard about Qatar’s gifting of a $400 million plane to Trump. They need to be told that Republicans are slashing school breakfast and lunch programs to the bone and what this means for millions of American families. They need to know that Democrats will fight to restore and expand these vital programs. They must be told that millions of people will lose their healthcare and why that’s a calamity for all of us who will be paying for them when they show up in emergency rooms. They need to know that tariffs are a tax and the specifics of how they harm consumers. And so forth.
 
An example of how to do this effectively derives from now discredited (for other reasons) former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) who, during the Covid-19 pandemic, held daily news conferences reporting on what he was doing to combat the virus. These were widely covered and viewed and garnered a lot of positive feedback from the public. The contrast with Trump’s disjointed, bumbling daily Covid news conferences fraught with his customary chaos and dangerous advocacy of bonehead “cures” was well-noted by both press and public. Set aside from this analysis that Cuomo was not always honest about his actions. It was the medium and the messaging strategy that was brilliant.


(2)   Podcasts.

Although I still read newspapers and watch nightly news programs, I have tilted to where I get much of my news from…podcasts. I do this while going about my routine daily business—kitchen chores, cleaning up, showering, shaving, etc. I also stream podcasts while driving.
Judging by the data, I am not alone. The podcasting phenomenon is growing like topsy and, as an information medium, currently attracts more than 160 million American listeners. 55 percent of the U.S. population 12 years old and older listen to a podcast at least once a month. That number is increasing at a skyrocketing rate. The Pew Research Center reports that 34 percent of Americans listen to an average of 8.3 podcast episodes per week, and 23 percent spend over 10 hours listening weekly. Interestingly for an information medium, the percentages of listeners by age group vary very little. The elderly are just as committed listeners as younger folks. Podcasting has become so huge that it is overwhelming traditional broadcasting in terms of the number of eyes and ears it reaches.
 
The legacy media, newspapers and television to be more specific, is hemorrhaging eyeballs at an alarming rate. At this writing, it was just announced that cable network MSNBC experienced a day when only 38,000 viewers tuned in. In the aggregate, the three major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) nightly news programs reach only 18.5 million viewers. There are several hundred podcasts whose audiences far exceed that number.
 
YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts comprise almost two-thirds of the most popular podcast platforms. While it is difficult to pinpoint the number of listeners/viewers of a particular podcast, the general consensus is that the most popular podcasts dwarf the number of ears and eyeballs the legacy media attracts. Podcasts like the Meidas Touch, the Joe Rogan Experience, the Shawn Ryan Show, NPR News Now, Up First and Stuff You Should Know have huge audiences and should be ones Democrats target daily. It is not enough to go on podcasts like Pod Save America, which appeals only to a progressive audience, and conclude that they are making a dent in the public information space.


(3)   Social media.

More Americans get their news from social media than from any other source. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, and X dominate this realm, with close to 100 percent saturation of the U.S. public. Democrats must have a strategy for messaging here too on a daily basis.
This is not rocket science. Voters need to know that the Democratic opposition is robust and has a plan to make people’s lives better. They need to understand why what Trump and Republicans are doing in gutting social programs to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the ultra-rich, flipping our loyal allies into adversaries and our enemies into allies, and assaulting the Constitution, are dangerous. They need to understand why Constitutional protections like Habeas Corpus and Due Process are fundamental protections of us all. Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem recently told a congressional committee that Habeas Corpus gives the President the right to deport people, a definition both absurdly wrong, a total perversion of its true purpose and completely out of touch with reality. Only a few Democrats during the committee hearing called her ignorance out. Otherwise, the party let it go. Stuff like this merits screaming to the rooftops.
 
Corrupdate. I have been pondering why Trump’s blatant, unprecedented, all in the open corruption has not yet broken through with the public. To the extent that his grift has been polled, it appears that voters just don’t seem to care about it. It’s just “ho-hum, what else is new?” to them. I suppose that, despite there being an abundance of sleaze during his first term, he was re-elected anyway, which showed that voters did not care about it.

This does not mean that Democrats and the media should stop talking about it. Perhaps, like Joseph Goebbels and his contemporary Republican imitators, if there is an incessant drumbeat from Dems and the media, at least some voters will believe that this is an issue that matters.
 
Dick Hermann
June 6, 2025

On the same day that the Trump administration removed Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from 9,000+ Afghans and their families who had put their lives on the line working with U.S. forces against the Taliban, President Trump welcomed 59 white South African Afrikaners into the United States under the refugee program that he has closed to the rest of humanity.
 
Among the countless barbarities perpetrated by his repellent regime, this one is arguably even worse than pardoning 1,600 violent, traitorous insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 intent on overturning a free and fair election. Both are shameful, reprehensible and intolerable.
 
Trump claims, falsely, that white South Africans are suffering “genocide” in their home country, a lie of gargantuan proportions. They are not. Moreover, according to multiple sources, not a single square inch of white farmer-owned land has been confiscated by the South African government. What our racist dictator-wannabe President is really saying is that white Christians are welcome to come here; black and brown people “stay the Hell out.”
 
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem justified the removal of TPS from the Afghans by claiming that “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country." This is total, complete and utter hogwash. If these people are forcibly returned to Afghanistan, their best hope is imprisonment and torture. Many will face death at the hands of the Taliban that Noem’s nonsense claims have suddenly been transformed into civilized beings sensitive to human rights. Some lies are just that. Some kill people.
 
We owe an enormous debt to these U.S. allies who opted to side with and help us during our 20-year war in Afghanistan. Allowing them admission to our country and help settling in is the least we can do for them. I suspect that Trump views their service and sacrifice in light of his contempt for our military as “suckers and losers,” not worthy of special consideration. Not to mention that they are the “wrong” color.
 
Taliban-run Afghanistan is a horror show of abuse. Women cannot leave their homes unaccompanied. Girls are barred from secondary and higher education. Women cannot go to parks or gyms. Free speech, fair trials and due process don’t exist. Religious minorities face violence and persecution. Afghans who worked with the U.S. but could not escape the Taliban are either in prison or have been murdered. The place is a Handmaid’s Tale of subjugation and horror. Trump and Noem, however, shut their eyes to this brutal reality and perpetrate the colossal falsehood that Afghanistan today is a garden of earthly delights.
 
Trump is rolling out the red carpet to assist his Afrikaner refugees, who hardly need any help. They are receiving expedited reviews for refugee status, allowing for quicker processing compared to the typical refugee. The government is assisting them in finding work, housing, and other essential services. They are immediately eligible for government benefits. They have already been granted a path to U.S. citizenship. Meanwhile, our Afghan allies are being sold down the river, a river of blood.
 
As with all Trump illegalities and norm-shattering, this too gets lost in the daily torrent of appalling issuances and outrageous behavior from the White House and uniquely unqualified cabinet heads. The fact that lives are at risk is also of no interest to congressional Republicans hot on the heels of wresting healthcare and SNAP food benefits from the most disadvantaged among us. What are a few white South Africans added to the American melting pot, or 9,000 Afghans facing deportation compared to prostrating themselves before Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill?
 
Meanwhile, both the media and Democrats have moved on to the next Trump transgression. The Afghan-Afrikaner story is already history.
 
One of the worst ironies of this disgusting display of favoring white supremacy over human decency was that the Afrikaners were greeted at Dulles Airport by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who gushed over them with over-the-top shamelessness worthy of Trump. Landau’s father and grandfather were Austrian Jewish refugees who barely escaped the Holocaust with their lives and found a permanent haven in America.
 
The America that said to the world: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” has descended into a Hellscape of overt racism and naked cruelty. When my Austrian Jewish refugee father’s ship passed by the Statue of Liberty in 1938, he wept. Today he would be weeping for another reason.
 
Corrupdate (cont.)
 
House Speaker Mike Johnson, always in the forefront of creative weaseling, has now come up with an entirely new theory of criminal justice: When asked by a reporter if he was as concerned about Trump’s corruption as he was about his oft-stated allegations against Joe Biden, he responded that he is not because the “Biden crime family” did their dirty deeds behind closed doors, whereas Trump’s are all out in the open where everyone can see them. Prosecutors take note: It’s not a crime if you are openly shameless when you commit it.
 
Dick Hermann
May 23, 2025

“…no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
                        --Constitution, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8
 
“The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”
                         --Donald Trump, June 2017

The most corrupt presidency in history, with hands down the highest corruption bar, just keeps on grifting. Now it’s a multi-million dollar luxury 747-8 to replace the existing Air Force One which apparently is not glitzy enough for Donald Trump. This flying palace, a gift to Trump personally from the Qatari royal family, is worth at least $400 million. It is for use during his presidency and for his personal use afterward. Trump has been salivating over the plane ever since he toured it a couple of months ago when it touched down at the Palm Beach airport. It’s newer and bigger than Air Force One and apparently opulent in a garish, tasteless Trump sort of way.

If this isn’t a foreign gift prohibited by the Constitution, then nothing is. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who must have skipped her law school ethics classes (instead practicing how to be a supine doormat), blessed this bribe, saying the whole shebang is perfectly legal, the Constitution be damned. Oh, and Bondi used to be a lobbyist for Qatar before signing on to be Trump’s pliant AG willing to endorse anything Trump says or does.
​
Current federal law limits the value of personal gifts a government official can receive to $480.

Why this particular bribe and why now? So that this miniscule Gulf state drowning in oil will continue on Trump’s most favored flatterer list. In return for its unprecedented largesse, Qatar, a Hamas haven and long-time terrorist funder, gets a Trump visit and a Trump golf course via a partnership with the royal family.

Qatar was just one of many stops Trump’s spawn made on their recent grift tour of the planet, paving the way for Daddy’s own personal enrichment visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. And they have the audacity to talk about the “Biden crime family.”

For all we know, this gift from a questionable oil state is dripping with electronic listening devices and assorted spy stuff. Cleansing every inch of it to make sure it is secure will cost taxpayers a fortune, assuming Trump cares a whit about exposing America’s secrets to our adversaries. His history indicates that he does not.

Trump also visited Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both the beneficiaries of Trump family business deals that will earn him and his family billions of dollars. Is there no end to the sleaze?

Trump’s exploitation of the White House as the ultimate grift machine isn’t even clandestine any more. It is all out in the open and done with impunity and disdain for the Constitution. He even boasts about it. In just three months, he has expanded his grift to levels unimagined even in his first term, when he squeezed foreign governments for millions funneled through his downtown Washington DC hotel and assorted golf courses.

This latest shiny object, which Trump will likely gild in gold plating like the now un-viewable Oval Office, is on top of the crypto currency scam he and his crooked seed are pulling off, also without bothering to hide their despicable activities. The Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, announced that its so-called “stablecoin”— with Trump’s likeness all over it — is going to be used by the UAE in a $2 billion business deal with Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world. The deal will generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family in addition to the estimated $2 billion they have already hauled in. Binance has been sued by the Securities & Exchange Commission for its questionable deals and behavior, but the lawsuit is now on hold because it could get in the way of Trump’s grift.

In 2021, Trump called crypto a “scam.” Now he is in on it.

Congress, wherefore art thou? The Trump scams are allowed to continue without a peep from the cowardly Republican Congress. The Reichstag rubber stampers are content to hide under their desks and allow this felonious lawbreaker to do whatever he pleases no matter how criminal. Congress’s conduct gives new meaning to CHECKS and balances, emphasis on the former.

Every new con Trump gets away with emboldens him for the next one. America’s Grifter-in-Chief knows no bounds. No telling what new scheme he will come up with next.

Trump 1.0 saw a number of Democrats sue Trump for his blatant violations of the Emoluments Clause. However, in 2021 the feckless Supreme Court dismissed these cases on the grounds that Trump had left office.

Say again? The Constitution says nothing about the tolling of Emoluments Clause violations when someone leaves office. This is yet another bending of the law by the Court’s reactionary wing to achieve a political result that flies in the face of the Constitution. Just another in the many missed opportunities to hold Trump accountable for his misdeeds.
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​Timing is everything when trying to bring a presidential conman to account. Prospective plaintiffs should not delay filing new lawsuits claiming violations of the Emoluments Clause. If done early enough, maybe the Supremes will be backed into a corner, hoisted by their own irrational decision the first time around.
 
Dick Hermann
May 16, 2025