People are baffled. Why are Trump and his Republican lickspittles so intent on gutting our government, destroying our alliances and reputation around the world, and screwing working class people while transferring over $50 trillion from them to the morbidly rich?

Historian Kevin M. Kruse captured the zeitgeist brilliantly, reflecting widespread public bewilderment when he posted over on BlueSky:

We've had fuckups in the White House before, but never a president who seemed so deliberately intent on being a fuckup.

It's been said before, but if these people were actual agents of an enemy power seeking to divide, dismantle and destroy the USA they wouldn't be doing anything different.

— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) 2025-10-02T13:43:58.760Z

As I mentioned a few days ago, if we follow the Dictator’s Playbook there actually is a simple, twelve-step formula to make that happen.

The first step would be to turn Americans from E Pluribus Unum (“Out of Many, One”) into hate-filled warring factions. Turn us against each other. Divide us by race, religion, gender, region, education, income, and whether we live in cities or rural areas.

. . .

Next, we’d want to immiserate as many Americans as possible, creating a huge pool of mostly white men who are pissed off because they’d been left behind economically and feel locked out of the American Dream.

That strategy would include several steps:

— Destroy unions that bind workers together with their employers and raise standards of living.
— Gut programs that lift people out of poverty and into the middle class, including high-quality universal public education, low-cost college, and inexpensive access to healthcare.
— Ship manufacturing overseas to low-wage nations while using incoherent, ever-changing whim-based tariffs to batter the domestic economy.
— Build media operations that demonize “the other,” telling them Blacks, Hispanics, queer people and women are the cause of their troubles.
— Ban books that embrace diversity and teachers who use them.
— Spread hate and conspiracy theories via powerful social media and search engine algorithms that make them seem normal, coarsening the entire culture.
— Throw people off programs offering healthcare, student debt repayment, and housing subsidies.

. . .