As Donald Trump began his second year back in the White House, his irrational policies appear deliberately designed to destabilize the U.S. and the world. Over the last year, the twice-impeached U.S. president erratically imposed global tariffs and ordered the lawless bombing of 37 small, unarmed boats in the Caribbean and Pacific killing more than 125 people accused, without evidence, of being narco-terrorists. Then, early in the new year, he launched a military attack on Venezuela to kidnap that nation’s president and take over their oil industry. Perhaps most alarming was Trump’s demand that Denmark cede control of Greenland to the U.S., threatening military action, which he later dropped, that would have broken up the 75-year-old NATO alliance.
In the U.S., Trump and the Republican party have used U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to conduct a brutal and repressive mass deportation campaign that has thus far resulted in 38 deaths in custody and 30 ICE shooting incidents in which 8 people have been killed. In January alone, ICE agents shot three people in Minnesota, killing U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, whom the administration falsely labeled as domestic terrorists.
Public opinion polls find that Trump is the most unpopular second term president in modern U.S. history, with nearly 60 percent of Americans disapproving of his administration’s overall performance. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Mel Goodman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a former CIA analyst, who assesses Trump’s irrational and authoritarian second term foreign and domestic policies, discussed in his recent column titled, “Donald Trump, Poster Child for Megalomania.”
MEL GOODMAN: I’ve been saying for a long time, going back to the first term that Donald Trump is non compos mentis. He’s a serious pathological narcissist. He’s paranoid. His decision-making is questionable on every level. And what you see to me in terms of this disorderly nature of his decision-making is an unraveling of his policy, an unraveling of his administration and an unraveling of his mind. So when you look at the current international situation, he’s challenged that and created an unraveling in which Europeans have no idea what U.S. policy is. Various European diplomats have been quoted as saying there’s no one they can talk to. The State Department doesn’t function as a cabinet or administrative entity. There’s no strategic policymaking that’s going on. And when I look at what’s happening in Minnesota, frankly, in some ways, this scares me the most because when you look at the Department of Homeland Security, that seems to be functioning as a ministry of the interior.
And we know authoritarian regimes always create a ministry of interior when you think of what the Soviet Union did over the years or East Germany did over the years or the MUP in Serbia designed to suppress dissent. So when you look at ICE, you’ve got the DHS police force that’s very reminiscent of the Brown Church of various authoritarian entities. And then you add to that the customs and border police and the Secret Service for that matter. The DHS or Department of Homeland Security really functions at that ministry of interior. And then when you observe Trump in the last few months, there’s such a disorderly nature to his comments. He was talking about Greenland and about four or five times referred to Iceland. And I don’t know if he knows the difference. The pressure on the Norwegian government, which has nothing to do with the granting of Nobel Prizes—that’s a special committee run by elite citizens of Norway. And then forcing the Venezuelan opposition leader to basically turn over her Nobel Prize, which Trump sorely sought.
Now, why would you give a Nobel Prize to someone who’s used force in the way he has in a very erratic fashion? The fact that Trump wants to rename the secretary, the secretary of war—and the Defense Department, the Department of War—tells you that he’s interested in fear. He’s interested in authoritarianism and his mindset, to the extent that there is a mindset, is incredibly dangerous. There’s a lot to worry about here.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well said. Mel, one thing that you mentioned a moment ago that I think is true here, if there is any objective to Trump’s policies, it’s to keep the American people in a constant state of anxiety and fear. What would be the purpose of that if it’s intentional? And it does seem it is.
MEL GOODMAN: Oh, I think it’s intentional. And in one of the pieces I wrote, I think about the megalomania, and I think he’s a megalomaniac. What’s really frightening is there is no government. It goes back to the European diplomats who I talked about saying they have no one to talk to. There are no assistant secretaries of any influence within the State Department. So what you then look for is who is running this government? I don’t think it’s Donald Trump, but you do see the role of Stephen Miller, who’s a serious threat to our democracy and has made that clear with his emphasis on the use of force. And then you have Russ Vought in the White House who I think is dictating domestic policy and economic policy to a great extent. So we have this facade of a government. You have this disorderly president with his disorderly mind making decisions and then reversing himself and then contradicting himself and never being able to really explain himself.
So there’s a lot to be concerned about.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Mel Goodman (25:20) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For periodic updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter to get updates to our “Hey AmeriKKKa, It’s Not Normal” compilation.
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