insane.world

Billions of people are waking up in what feels like an insane world.

How did we get here?

Despite good intentions the League of Nations formed in 1919 (and later "transitioned" into the United Nations) was unable to prevent World War II and the many subsequent wars including Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Like Putin, President Trump early in his second term does not seem to be restrained by the international community and has made remarks about taking over the Panama canal, Gaza, Greenland and even coercing Canada to become the 51st US state.  These statements and some of the actions he has taken do not appear to be supported by the majority of Americans, nor would they ordinarily pass the legislator.   

How come Trump has accrued such superpowers or dictator power as some might call it?

Basically by replacing the 3 pillars of a democratic system with 8 pillars of control.

The three pillars of a democratic system are the executive, legislature and judiciary which ensure that not only the executive has the power.  

1. He is not restrained by the Judiciary.  During his last term he appointed supreme court judges that in 2024 granted him presidential immunity.  When lower courts block his executive orders he himself does not care because he feels that he will always be protected by the presidential immunity as judicial cases are taken upwards towards the Supreme Court.  His vice president has gone so far as to suggest that judges that would like to subject Trump to the laws of the land are themselves breaking the law by doing their job of providing judicial restraint on the executive branch.  Meanwhile he is elevating the prestige of the Supreme Court judges that are bent in his favour, by letting them swear in his appointed officials, which is normally left to the vice president. One of those justices is Clarence Thomas, who has received more financial gifts (but without consequences) than the corrupt democratic Senator Bob Menendez who just got an 11 year prison sentence for accepting such gifts (albeit from foreign entities).

2. He is not restrained by the Legislature.  His party has a majority in both Congress and the Senate.  However Trump's radical policies would probably not easily pass these legislative chambers as the Republican majority is slim and there tends always to be some that dissident. Even though many Republicans disagree with Trump's policies they are not willing to put their political careers on the line.  It is clear to them that if they stand in his way he will wreck their political career by putting up alternative candidates in their constituencies and diverting political donations to those alternate candidates, including potential support from the world richest man Elon Musk.  So instead of taking the founding fathers intended route of having laws passed and recalled by the legislative chambers, Trump plougs ahead by using executive orders.  Congress and the Senate could halt these but are unlikely to do so for the reasons mentioned above and an impeachment would require a majority vote by Congress and a two thirds vote by the Senate which is unlikely to happen unless all hell breaks loose.

3. In addition Trump does not hesitate to threaten violence against people who oppose him, to be carried out by gullible individuals or mobs which are further encouraged by his presidential pardoning of people who have been found guilty in the past of eroding the safety of the people who form the core part of the democracy.  He does not hesitate to use these threats even against his own party members like former Senate leader Mitch McConnell and his family.

4. He is not restrained by people within the Executive.  In the executive branch itself he has installed mostly puppets that are likely to be controlled by his pulling of strings rather than by their own intellectual reasoning.

5. Much of the media which had clearly seen the implications for democracy and the journalists that had fought for democracy are now being threatened.  There are bogus lawsuits, threats of pulling licenses and blocking some mergers which would hurt the bottom line of some media owners. This will gradually erode the independence of the media.  Some other media is supporting him no matter what, for example Murdoch's Fox News which seems to be driven by financial greed and can not even be controlled by the majority of Murdoch's children who do not want to be associated with the distorted news.  Their case in the courts is expected to take years without clear justice in sight.   

6. Social media and big tech are also yielding to his power, Tik-Tok is dependent on his ultimate decision to be allowed to operate in the country; X is under the control of his big supporter and executor of radical policies, Elon Musk; Meta has agreed to pay him some humiliating compensation for having kicked him off their platform and is dismantling fact-checking.  In addition Trump has his own platform with the paradoxical name Truth Social.   

7. Indeed he is not restrained by facts or truths.  Most politicians fail to tell the absolute truth and nothing but the truth but in Trump's case there does not seem to be any bounds to the use of made up information.  For example he talks of grocery prices going down when his policies will have opposite results.  It is just simple economics that if he were to successfully rid agriculture of their illegal immigrant labour force and at the same time put a tax on imported agricultural produce, prices would increase and this would not be sufficiently offset by lower energy prices.   

8. He has successfully engaged various groups even with contradictory promises and not least the so-called religious moral majority. 

Even foreign leaders are almost dumbstruck, with tariffs and other economic threats and by the shadow president Elon Musk (who provided vital funding to Trump's campaign) who is threatening their democracies by supporting far-right parties. 

Trump may be able to accomplish good things, but also bad things and there does not seem to be anything to stop him.  No matter how bad or good he may be, by setting a precedent for future leaders which could be worse than him and an undemocratic example for the rest of the world he is making the people of this planet more vulnerable to tyranny. 

We see it as our duty to fight tyranny and that is why we are drawing attention to this.  It is not because we favour more government spending or unrestricted flow of people.

People around the world have looked up the United States to provide sanity to this otherwise insane world.  So when the US appears on the brink of insanity the whole world really feels insane.