To Open The Sky

The Conversation We Need To Have About the Trump Regime in 2026

1 January 2026

In the year 1983, the United States National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its report. That report, titled A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, is considered a landmark in the history of American education. The report was primarily authored by James J. Harvey, who wrote, "the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a People... If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."

Despite getting a lot of attention, American education has not improved significantly since then. The reasons are complicated. It is enough to say here that there are those who benefit when most Americans get a mediocre education. Among them is Donald J. Trump, who has said straight out that he loves the poorly educated. Before he was first elected, many well-educated people knew he was not qualified to be president — not that he was unfairly elected, as he and his supporters tried to twist it, but that he lacked the knowledge and the character to perform the duties of that office.

Trump proceded to show us how true that was throughout his first term. His Tax Cuts and Jobs Act favored the wealthy and large corporations over "the forgotten men and women" he promised to help while campaigning. His tariffs raised prices of cars and appliances, and in 2019 spiked the farm bankruptcy rate by 24%. He bungled the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by recommending ineffective medicines, disparaging vaccines and face masks, and withholding protective gear from states whose governors he disliked. He called the press "the enemy of the people" and claimed any story that criticized him "fake news." He did not reduce illegal immigration.

And when he lost the election in 2020, he called his supporters to the Capitol to try and change that result. We all saw what happened then, on 6 January 2021.

Today, 350 days into Trump's second term, the Trump regime has done many things that place our nation and the world at risk. Here I will summarize a few of them. Read through these summaries and think about what they mean. Who in today's world would benefit from them? Who and what would be put in jeopardy?

Point 1: Consumer Prices

Trump ran on stopping inflation and lowering consumer prices. He has done neither. His new tariffs, even harsher than in his first term, and started and stopped chaotically, have again raised consumer prices. Yet he continues to lie, saying prices have come down when everyone knows they haven't. He did so again in his rambling speech on 18 December 2025. Remember him claiming he reduced drug prices by 600%? It's an absurd claim.

Point 2: Employment

The unemployment rate, which crept up under Biden following the pandemic, has risen further in Trump's second term. At the end of 2025, it stands at 4.6% — the highest in four years, a level it reached in November. Back in August, displased with the job growth numbers he was getting, Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, claiming she had politicized the figures. Manufacturing jobs have fallen largely because Trump's chaotic handling of the tariffs prevented businesses from starting new factories because they cannot know what the economy will do.

Point 3: Health Care

Trump and the Republicans tried to take access to health care away from millions of Americans throughout his first term. They ended the mandate on the ACA, making it unaffordable for many, and tried in Congress to repeal it entirely as many as 70 times. They lost those votes because, despite their claims, they had nothing better to replace it. They still don't, yet they still try to kill it, calling it "Obamacare" as if that makes it bad.

Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" strips $1.1 trillion from Medicare over the next decade in order to give tax cuts to billionaires and large corporations. (Stop me if you've heard this before...) This will mean 11.8 million people losing coverage and millions more facing higher premiums. Still more Amricans stand to lose coverage because Biden administration subsidies for low-income Americans who buy coverage on state marketplaces were canceled by the Trump regime. Federal debt regulations developed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Biden administration would have protected these people and others if they couldn't pay their medical bills. But the Trump regime chose not to defend the new regulations when they were challenged in court by debt collectors and the credit bureaus, which argued that the federal agency had exceeded its authority in issuing the rules. A federal judge in Texas appointed by Trump ruled that the regulations could be scrapped.

Republicans shut down the government for 43 days because Democrats would not go along with removing the ACA subsidies that kept insurance affordable for many. Of course they, and Trump, tried to blame the Democrats. Congress passed a stopgap spending bill, but it does not extend the subsidies. Senate Republicans promised to vote on a bill to do that before the end of the year; the House is problematic because Speaker Mike Johnson has been evasive about this. On 17 December the House passed a Discharge Petition to force a vote on restoring the subsidies, but House Republicans pushed through their own healthcare bill that would drop an additional 100,000 Americans per year. That bill has no chance in the Senate. Speaker Johnson then cancelled voting scheduled for the 19th and recessed the House on the 18th to avoid voting on the bill requiring release of materials on the Epstein case held by the Department of Justice.

Point 4: Immigration

Just as he had before his first term, Trump campaigned on reducing illegal immigration and securing our southern border. His first term focused on building a "great, great wall" to stop immigrants. He was able to build 52 miles of new wall where no barrier existed. Most of his total 458 miles of wall replaced failing structures. This work generally improved the quality of barriers, but did little to stop illegal drug trafic, most of which comes through established checkpoints. Nor did Trump reduce illegal immigration during his first term. The handling of immigrants that were detained was marked by cruelty and carelessness: unsanitary housing conditions, lack of medical care, separating parents and children without keeping records of their associations. In addition, he slashed funding to improve conditions in the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Since most illegal immigrants come to escape violence and poverty in their home countries, this arguably increased the flow of immigrants.

Trump uses different tactics in his second-term crackdown on immigration. Primarily, he aims at deporting immigrants already in this country. Many of these, although undocumented, have lived here peaceably for decades, done useful if menial work, raised families. Immigrants generally obey the law for the best of reasons: they do not want to be deported. Yet though Trump consistently claims he is going after the worst of the worst, records sho 63% of those deported have violated only by crossing the border, and 90% have no record of violent crime. In addition, US law provides the right to seek asylum, but Trump banned asylum claims until a court reversed him, and has fired some 100 of the 700 immigration court juedges. Indications are that judges more prone to grant asylum claims are selectively targeted. And immigrants appearing in court to pursue asylum claims are also targeted; the typical pattern is that they enter the court, the judge denies their claim, and ICE agents are waiting to detain them immediately.

But beyond the courts, in the communities where undocumented immigrants live and in the places they work, a crueler pattern plays out. Teams of heavily armed ICE agents, masked, without badges, wearing plain clothes and driving unmarked vehicles, descend on people without warning, harshly detain them, and take them to undisclosed locations where neither family nor lawyers are able to contact them. Again, few of these are violent criminals or gang members, though the Justice Department likes to claim they are. As of September 2025, the Trump regime reports a total of 2 million deported, 1,600,000 through self-deportation and the remaining 400,000 involuntarily. It uses the Alien Enemies Act, with sketchy justification, to skip giving them due process. In order to handle this volume of detainees, the regime has diverted as many as 25,000 federal, state, and local law enforcement personnel from other agencies to ICE. And it is recruiting heavily, offering signup bonuses as high as $50,000. It reports 150,000 applications as of September 2025. This is supported by a massive budget increase, with $30 billion allocated for new staff.

Along with undocumented immigrants, some 170 US citizens have been mistakenly detained or deported during Trump's "mass deportation" push. Most are quickly released, but being detained at all speaks to the lawlessness of ICE behevior. Trump also has a campaign against citizenship, as it applies to ethnic minorities. The first day of his second term saw him issue Executive Order 14160, which aims to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants and those here on visas. It is blatantly unconstitutional; Section 1 of Amendment XIV declares all such children Americans if they are "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" — which omits the children of foreign diplomats and, hypothetically, of invading soldiers. Naturalized citizens are also subjects of Trump's ire; the regime aims to revoke the citizenship of 100 to 200 naturalized citzens per month. In case you're wondering where all this leads: it is to make the US a white Christian nation again.

Point 5: The First Amendment

The First Amendment to the US Constitution is supposed to protect citizens' rights to speak freely, to assemble preaceably, to ask the federal government to fix their grievances, and to practice any religion they want, or no religion. It also intends to protect the freedom of the press. The Trump regime has put these rights under stress. Trump has come to believe that any criticism of him is unfair, and any defiance of his orders is treason. During his 2016 campaign he spoke of wanting to change the libel laws to make it eaiser to sue media that criticized him. Once in office, he constantly claimed the media were unfair to him and called any critical story "fake news." Herecruited cabinet members and other executive branch staff on the basis of loyalty rather than ability, and sought to turn the Justice Department into his personal law firm, firing his first Attorney General for recusing himself from the investigation of possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia — which Trump still calls "the Russia Russia Russia hoax."

In June 2019, trump said it straight out: "I have an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as president." He's wrong; Article 2 of the Constitution doesn't say that. But it didn't stop him trying; he only had trouble because many people around him understood and obeyed the law. In his second term, that is no longer true. Consider: He sued CBS News for editing an interview with Kamals harris in a way he claimed was unfair. He sued the New York Times more than once for what he called defamation. He sued the Wall Street Journal for publishing a story about him and Jeffrey Epstein. He sued the social media companies YouTube and Meta for suspending his accounts following the 6 Jamuary 2021 riot he incited at the Capitol. Though they likely would have won at trial, amny of these companies chose to settle because their parent firms had pending deals the government (Trump) could block. Trump supporters now own CBS and so Trump effectively controls what CBS News broadcasts. Their news program 60 Minutes was set to run a story about the notorious El Salvador prison where the Trump regime is sending deportees. Bari Weiss, installed as chief editor of CBS News, killed it at the last minute. Long-time contributors are quitting CBS now because of this loss of independence.

Through the State Department, he revoked the student visas of people including Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk and then had them arrested for merely expressing opinions he disliked. Through FCC chair Brendan Carr, he had ABC-TV take comedian Jimmy Kimmell off the air (though a public outcry soon brought Kimmel back). After Defense secretary Pete Hegseth demanded the right to review stories by reporters covering the Pentagon, all but one news agency gave up their press passes. (They now cover the Pentagon from outside.) Trump's track record includes many more lawsuits against media, most unjustified.

Point 6: The Rule of Law

Trump has no respect for the rule of law. He has alsways broken the law whenever he can: evading taxes, inflating the value of properties to get loans, stiffing contractors working for him, refusing to rent apartments to Blacks while working in his father's real estate business. He is, as David Cay Johnston puts it, the third generation of a four-generation crime family. A big part of his motivation is greed: the hunger for money, his deepest, most valid measure of self-worth. During his first term, he was largely contrained from indulging his lawlessness and greed.

He's entirely free of those constraints in his current term. The Supreme Court (I call it "the SCCOTUS") has given him immunity for any official acts. He has taken gifts worth millions from foreign leaders, earns profits from several businesses, relaxes tariffs on companies whose CEOs give him token gifts, and has granted pardons and commutations for pay. He constantly boasts that his administration is tough on crime, but he has granted pardons to some of the worst criminals in the world. These include Juan Orlando Hernandez, convicted of smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the US, cryptocurrency tycoon Changpeng Zhao, Ross Ulbrecht of Silk Road, corrupt politicians George Santos and Henry Cuellar, the 18 co-conspirators charged with trying to steal the Georgia presidential election, the 77 who tried to submit fake Electoral College ballots, and 1,500 violent rioters from the J6 insurrection. His ICE thugs abduct thousands of people without criminal records and deport them without giving them due process. In what he claims is a war on drugs, his military commits war crimes by summarily killing people in boats.

Point 7: Foreign Policy

Trump has no coherent foreign policy. His pronouncements on the subject, insofar as they convey a consistent theme, are diatribes on how the United States has been cheated and mistreated by foreign nations, was a laughingstock under the Democrats but now, thanks to his leadership, is respected again. His behavior, however, is consistent. He listens to strong men — in his current term, usually Vladimir Putin of Russia and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

• After pulling out of the multi-nation JCPOA with Iran in 2018, he sought to strike a new deal in 2025, saying in late May that a final agreement was near. Israel attacked Iran on 13 June, and the US joined in.
• He welcomed Putin to a meeting in Alaska with a red carpet and much deference, but berated Ukraine's president Zelenskiy in the White House. He once blamed the invasion of Ukraine on Ukraine: a blatant lie.
• Now he is ordering the military to blow up boats in the Caribbean on the unproven claim that they are running drugs to the US. Any evidence there might be blows up with the boats. Over 100 people have been killed so far. The real purpose of this, which he admits, is to expel Venezuela's President Maduro and take the country's oil.

He closed out the year with a National Security Strategy document that focuses on internal threats: i.e. dissent. He still supports Israel's belligerence in the Middle East. He has talked about invading Greenland and annexing Canada. Along with all this, he claims to have stopped eight wars and thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

References

1. A Nation at Risk (Wikipedia, 7 January 2025)
2. Who's that good for? (Rachel Maddow, MSNBC, 1 March 2025)
3. All of the Trump Administration's Major Moves in the First [43] Days (Karen Yourish, Eric Rabinowitz, Ashley Wu, Lazaro Gamio, Aishvarya Kavi & Minho Kim, New York Times, 4 March 2025)
4. Hegseth Orders Pentagon to Stop Offensive Cyberoperations Against Russia (Julian E. Barnes, David E. Sanger & Helene Cooper, New York Times, 2 March 2025)
5. Timeline of the second Trump presidency (2025 Q1) (Wikipedia, 7 January 2025)
6. Timeline of the second Trump presidency (2025 Q2) (Wikipedia, 11 December 2025)
7. Timeline of the second Trump presidency (2025 Q3) (Wikipedia, 11 December 2025)

Consumer Prices

1. Trump claims he's brought down soaring prices, announces military bonuses in year-end address (Joe Walsh & Kathryn Watson, CBS News, 18 December 2025)
2. CNN expert delivers a brutal fact check of Trump's rambling address (Lauren Sforza, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, 18 December 2025)
3. Tracking the Presidency: 335 days into Donald Trump's term (The Economist, 21 December 2025)
4. Tracking Trump's economy (Ben Welsh & Iris Lee, Reuters, 27 January 2025)
5. The Economic Effects of President Trump's Tariffs (Penn Wharton Business Model, 10 April 2025)
6. Donald Trump promised a new 'golden age' for the US economy. Where is it? (Callum Jones, Andrew Witherspoon & Aliya Uteuova in New York, The Guardian, 20 December 2025)

Employment

1. Trump fires commissioner of labor statistics after weaker-than-expected jobs figures slam markets (Jeff Cox, CNBC, 1 August 2025)
2. Trump removes official overseeing jobs data after dismal employment report (Christopher Rugaber & Josh Boak, AP News, 1 August 2025)
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Health Care

1. Medicaid cuts in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' will leave millions uninsured, threaten rural hospitals (Annika Kim Constantino, CNBC, 2 July 2025)
2. Trump voters wanted lower medical bills. But for millions, bills are about to go up (Noam Levey, KFF Health News/NPR, 25 July 2025)
3. Trump's push for health care plan stalls ahead of looming subsidy expiration (Adam Cancryn, CNN Politics, 2 December 2025)
4. Trump said he has no bigger healthcare plans: Obamacare will 'repeal itself' (AOL/Reuters, 19 December 2025)
5. Historic government shutdown ends, leaving ACA subsidies in limbo (Rebecca Pifer, Healthcare Dive, 13 November 2025)
6. ACA enhanced subsidy lapse could hit early retirees hardest amid shutdown fight (Greg Iacurci, CNBC, 17 October 2025)
7. A Surprise In The House Could Decide The Fate Of Affordable Care Act Subsidies (Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes, 17 December 2025)
8. House GOP to Skip Town Early for Holiday Recess as Healthcare Premiums Soar, Epstein Files Loom (Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, 18 December 2025)

Immigration

1. President Trump Reduced Legal Immigration. He Did Not Reduce Illegal Immigration (Alex Nowrasteh, Cato Institute, 20 January 2021)
2. How many miles of border wall did Donald Trump build? It depends on how it's counted (Maria Ramirez Uribe, PolitiFact, 9 August 2023)
3. Trump cuts off aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador (David C. Adams, Univision News, 29 March 2019)
4. U.S. aid cuts to Central America will stall progress made, intensify violence, and increase forced displacement (International Rescue Committee, 3 April 2019)
5. Judges are getting fired as Trump pursues immigration 'purge' (Alicia A. Caldwell & Jimmy Jenkins, Bloomberg, 16 December 2025)
6. Deportation in the second Trump administration (Wikipedia, 21 December 2025)
7. ICE Receives More than 150,000 Applications to Join ICE Law Enforcement to Help Remove Worst of the Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens from U.S. (Homeland Security, 16 September 2025)
8. What to know: Four ways ICE is training new agents and scaling up (Rebecca Santana, Associated Press, 24 August 2025)
9. Are ice agents trained? (Factually, 24 October 2025)
10. Executive Order 14160 (Wikipedia, 6 December 2025)
11. Trump Moves to Denaturalize Citizens, End Birthright Citizenship, Halt Visa Lottery (Mae Ngai, Democracy Now!, 19 December 2025)
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The First Amendment

1. Targeting of political opponents and civil society under the second Trump administration (Wikipedia, 16 December 2025)
2. Trump SHUTS DOWN CBS over STORY HE FEARED (Ben Meiselas, MeidasTouch, 22 December 2025)
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The Rule of Law

1. All The President's Criminals (Francesca Fiorentini, The Bitchuation Room, 23 December 2025)
2. Ross Ulbricht (Wikipedia, 22 December 2025)
3. Juan Orlando Hernández (Wikipedia, 18 December 2025)
4. Henry Cuellar (Wikipedia, 23 December 2025)
5. George Santos (Wikipedia, 14 December 2025)
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Foreign Policy

1. U.S. and Iran Will Hold Nuclear Talks on Saturday (New York Times, 7 April 2025)
2. US popularity collapses worldwide in wake of Trump's return (Giovanna Coi, Politico, 12 May 2025)
3. Day One of Israel's Strikes on Iran: What to Know (Council on Foreign Relations, 13 June 2025)
4. 'Arrogant, Dangerous, Dishonest': Trump's Global Image Tanks As U.S. Reputation Plummets (Stacy M. Brown, seattle Medium, 17 June 2025)
5. Visualising 12 days of the Israel-Iran conflict (Alia Chughtai, Al Jazeera, 26 June 2025)
6. 'Next time in Moscow?': Five takeaways after Trump and Putin's Alaska summit (Laura Gozzi, BBC News, 15 August 2025)
7. Ukraine war briefing: thorny questions remain after Trump-Zelenskyy talks (The Guardian, 28 December 2025)
8. U.S. claims strikes caused 'severe damage' and warns Iran against retaliation (NBC News, 23 June 2025)
9. U.S. signals a willingness to renew talks with Iran and avoid a prolonged war (Josh Boak & Mike Pesoli, The Associated Press, 22 June 2025)
10. 2025 Iran-United States negotiations (Wikipedia, 24 November 2025)
11. Trump's security strategy slams European allies and asserts U.S. power in the Americas (AP News, 5 December 2025)
12. An Analysis of Trump's 2025 National Security Strategy (Deborah Rod, GovFacts, 7 December 2025)
13. Tracking Every US Strike on Boats in the Caribbean and Pacific (Prem Thakker, Zeteo, 13 December 2025)
14. Trump threatens to 'knock the hell' out of Iran if they build weapons (Justin Papp, CNBC, 29 December 2025)
15. US military strikes 5 more alleged drug boats, killing 8 and possibly leaving survivors (Ben Finley, AP News, 31 December 2025)
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