U.S. President Donald Trump tours the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, on Wednesday, in Medora, North Dakota.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Associated Press
In a recent appearance at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, U.S. Vice-President JD Vance opened up about his admiration for the disgraced former Republican leader.
In particular, Mr. Vance wanted to express his outrage over the fate Mr. Nixon met for his involvement in the Watergate scandal that ultimately forced his resignation as president in 1974.
“If Watergate happened tomorrow it would be like a 12-hour news story,” Mr. Vance told his audience. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
Trump’s international approval ratings plummet, even among far-right groups
Mr. Nixon, you may recall, was found to have orchestrated a conspiracy to bribe the men who broke into the Democratic Party headquarters (at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.) to lie in court about Republican involvement in the crime. At the time, it was corruption on a scale the public wasn’t prepared to accept.
While there have been Republicans in the past who have expressed the belief Mr. Nixon paid too high a price for his involvement, their disregard for the immorality it represented seems almost trite in the age of Donald J. Trump.
Which brings me to the imminent 250th birthday of the United States. There certainly hasn’t been, in my lifetime at least, anything that resembles the current American epoch. Never has there been an administration as corrupt as Mr. Trump’s. Yet alarmingly, there has been little political cost for the everyday malfeasance being carried out by Mr. Trump and his cronies.
“‘We do a Watergate twice a day’ is a crazy way to confess your own corruption,” Massachusetts Democratic Representative Jim McGovern wrote of Mr. Vance’s remarks at the Nixon library.
As someone who has admired the United States for most of my life, I have never been more uncertain about its future as it approaches its semi-quincentennial. It is fair to ask whether the virus Mr. Trump represents has permanently altered the country’s DNA.
Is the sleaze and venality that have defined his second term – and which has been mostly accepted by the Republican political class – a sign of an empire in decline?
U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as he speaks at Burning Hills Amphitheatre on the day of the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.Evan Vucci/Reuters
And we are not yet two years into Mr. Trump’s mandate. As the U.S. becomes less recognizable by the day, one wonders what it will resemble by the time he leaves office. Will the U.S. have invaded allies? Become even cozier with global pariahs like Russia? Have any friends left? Be on the precipice of a civil war?
Surely, there has to be some sort of reckoning on the horizon.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Mr. Trump has personally pulled in at least US$2.2-billion since his return to office, more than half of which came from his family’s cryptocurrency business, which he has promoted and facilitated as President. The scale of personal enrichment that has taken place is mind-boggling, the level of audacity inconceivable.
“With each passing month of his presidency, Donald Trump behaves more like America’s commander in thief than its commander in chief,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote recently.
He operates with a sense of impunity never before enjoyed by an occupant of the Oval Office. The Supreme Court of the United States has bestowed on him unprecedented powers and near total immunity from his actions. He is a man who cares only about himself and his rich friends.
Meantime, wealth inequality in the U.S. has hit its widest disparity in decades. The top 1 per cent of households owned 31.7 per cent of all U.S. wealth in the third quarter of 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve. The gap between rich and poor grows greater by the day.
It is to despair.
There are signs of a public finally fed up and perhaps even embarrassed by the actions of their President. Mr. Trump’s Great American State Fair on the grounds of the National Mall designed to celebrate the U.S.’s big birthday has been an utter bust. No one is showing up for the shows or state exhibitions. It is but another humiliation for a man who seemingly knows no shame.
Saturday marks the 250th anniversary of the beginning of America’s liberation from British rule. It was King George III who inspired the American Revolution: the good people of the 13 colonies didn’t like the idea of answering to a faraway ruler - didn’t like the idea of answering to a king, period.
Well, Americans now have a President who thinks he’s king. Although Mr. Trump has more in common with France’s King Louis XVI, who covered the Palace of Versailles in gold as a gaudy symbol of royal wealth and prestige.
His excesses inspired a revolution. Will Donald Trump’s do the same?