The wannabe king’s empire is in decline
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/2/800031213/series/trump-empire-in-decline/
The wannabe king’s empire is in decline
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Ah, the Trump Administration, the best possible evidence of an empire in decline.
At the height of its global power and influence, the United States isn’t drifting into dysfunction. It has literally elected to do so by handing the machinery of government over to someone uniquely suited to corrode it.
This isn’t just chaos or incompetence. President Donald Trump has created an America where governance is replaced by spectacle, expertise by ideology, analysis by hot takes, and process by impulse. Week after week, he shows that his presidency is built on a performance—and that he lacks the competence to sustain it.
Trump’s meeting with King Charles III should have been straightforward. A head-of-state visit, carefully staged, diplomatically neutral, visually controlled. Instead, it turned into forced pageantry and another show of Trump’s narcissistic self-indulgence. He seemed less interested in representing the United States than in basking in proximity to monarchy itself.
And it’s not just monarchy. Trump is increasingly reaching for any symbol that conveys power and legitimacy without requiring him to actually earn it.
- Trump’s speech to King Charles leaves Melania royally confused
- Trump backs push for Christian nationalism with lame Bible reading
Trump’s supporters have spent a year pushing back against the liberal “No Kings” framing, insisting the concern is overblown or hysterical. But Trump himself keeps reaching for exactly those symbols: monarchy, religion, anything that signals unquestioned authority. Never underestimate his ability to make fools out of the people trying hardest to defend him, whether it’s portraying himself as Jesus or calling himself a king—both of which he has done.
But spectacle works only if everyone plays along. And that consensus is starting to crack.
- Fox News host can’t stomach truth about Trump’s polling
- ’But what’s the plan?’: Fox News finally challenges Trump team’s BS
Fox isn’t suddenly interested in telling the truth. But it is the most important amplifier of Trump’s theatrics, and even there, the strain is visible. When polling can’t be spun cleanly, and even friendly hosts start pressing for basic answers, it signals something more than a bad news cycle. It means that Trump is losing control of his own narrative. And in that environment, weird ideological obsessions flourish.
You would think that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his boss would have more important things to worry about, like figuring out how to get out of their idiotic war of choice against Iran. But that would require the kind of serious governing that would’ve avoided that quagmire in the first place. It’s much easier to pander to the anti-vaxxer crazies than figure out how to open up the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil route.
At least his Republican Party is starting to realize that consequences are on the horizon.
It is stunning that Republican senators are quietly urging Trump to take care of any Cabinet shake-ups now, lest he be unable to do so in a potentially Democratic-controlled Senate next year. That is remarkable in a year when a Democratic Senate majority will require winning states like Alaska, Nebraska, Ohio, and Texas.
Amazingly, you know what wasn’t in the week’s top stories? Anything having to do with the attempted Trump assassination at last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
There was a time when attempted presidential assassinations led to wall-to-wall news coverage. It would have driven the narrative, been unavoidable.
Now? Few care.
On the left, there’s exhaustion. Trump has so thoroughly saturated the political environment with theatrics and bad faith that even something this serious struggles to break through. If nothing he says is credible on the small stuff, why would anyone suddenly take him at face value on something this large?
On the right, it becomes just another weapon. Another excuse to target enemies, to spin conspiracies, and to make the most ridiculous arguments for Trump’s stupid White House ballroom.
When a political system can no longer produce a shared understanding that political violence is unacceptable—when even that becomes just another partisan Rorschach test—that’s not just polarization.
It signals that the system is utterly corrupted.
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