The United States has now endured a full decade of Donald Trump’s intense public presence and influence — starting with his 2015 presidential campaign. And, he just started his new four-year term. This means the U.S. will eventually have… struggled? prospered? suffered?… under his potent influence for almost 15 years.
That’s longer than any other president, including FDR, who served as president for three terms (1933–1945). Trump’s tenure may be ‘only’ two full terms — unless he gets the two-term limit increased and wins a third term. Yet his persistent demagoguery and in-your-face style always kept him at the forefront of American politics even when out of office (2021–2025). He was a brazen and perpetual thorn in President Biden’s side.
In the past, I’ve called Trump the ‘Supreme Meddler’ of our time. Recent events have confirmed this assessment. He sticks his nose and insufferable, loud opinions into everything, often when his input is clearly not wanted or needed. He has done this with California, New York, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Greenland, Denmark, and, most recently, Gaza and the ‘Palestinian problem.’
Factually speaking, Trump is intrusive and overbearing. DJT lacks any sense of boundaries and shows intense disregard for other peoples’ — and other nations’ — feelings, needs, or desires. He is a ‘dominator’ personality type and has come to dominate not only our nation but much of the global dialogue and politics.
This makes Donald Trump one of the most influential political figures in modern history. As we enter the second decade of Trump’s heavy presence (I almost wrote ‘under Trump’s thumb’), it’s high time that we assess and evaluate exactly what his potent influence IS. We need to understand how it’s affected our society and nation.
How the U.S. is screwing itself and the world
As a rational and scrupulous observer/chronicler of recent U.S. history, I have a realistic, fact-based picture of Trump’s influence. On a scale of 1–10, with 1 being ‘extremely positive’ and 10 being ‘extremely negative,’ I have to put Trump at about 9.5. Or worse.
I have my own biases, for sure — since I’m a strong ‘liberal.’ Still, I can easily make the case that Trump’s influence has been overwhelmingly malign, negative, and destructive.
That’s why I titled this essay “Urgent Spiritual and Moral Crises Engulf America.” The U.S. is a highly influential nation and society, and over the past decade, our global influence has shifted into strongly ‘negative’ — even destructive — territory.
We’ve sabotaged global efforts to combat climate change/ disruption; undercut women’s bodily autonomy and freedoms; turned back the clock on human rights for minorities and gay and transgender folks; and undercut public health and humanitarian efforts here and around the globe.
Meanwhile, we’ve re-committed to White supremacy and destructive fossil fuels and plan to “drill, baby, drill” — all while demeaning and undermining alternative energy sources and methods.
It’s pure insanity.
Trump’s influence has been so powerful and widespread it’s gone far beyond the realm of politics and public policy. Over time, he’s had a profound negative impact on our morality, ethics, honesty, openness, and capacity for compassion. And this deep and widespread malign influence takes us out of the realm of pure politics and into the realm of our psychological and spiritual health.
We’re spiraling down into darkness, chaos, and pain
By almost any measure, Americans’ mental health has deteriorated over the past decade. Many studies have now confirmed this, and it appears young people — adolescents and young adults — are suffering the most. Scarily, a majority of today’s young people say they feel almost paralyzed in dealing with daily life and feel overwhelmed, sad, and hopeless. Their suicide rate is mounting.
Clearly, this is nothing short of disastrous.
Yet, individually and as a nation, we’re mainly ignoring these screaming alarm bells and warnings. Even worse, we seem hell-bent on pursuing and continuing the exact same policies, decisions, and social trends that landed our children in such a dark, despairing place.
Simply put: we’re in big trouble, people. Huge and growing trouble.
Over the last decade, the U.S. as a whole has gotten meaner, uglier, and nastier. We’re more self-centered, more hateful and racist, and less caring, compassionate, and inclusive. And we just re-elected someone who embodies ALL of our worst tendencies, beliefs, and attitudes.
. . .
Much as most of us try to ‘deny it away,’ the fundamental truth of these times is that we human beings have lost our way, badly — especially in the U.S. We are lost in a spiritual wilderness of fear, greed, denial, hatred, selfishness, and indifference to human suffering. And, while Trump is not to blame for all of this ‘spiritual regression,’ he has supported and instigated much of it.
He is not the sole ‘cause’ of our pain, discontent, and building rage. But that’s small comfort, since he feeds off of these negative conditions, encourages them, and greatly amplifies them. He overtly and loudly pushes people to be their worst, most selfish, and angriest selves, and to revert to more primitive antisocial ideas and backward behaviors.
Thus, Trump IS, most assuredly, the ‘mega-disruptor’ and ‘agent of chaos’ that the media often portrays. What’s getting ever clearer, however, is that the disruptions and chaos he instigates are not having a positive impact. His constant disruptions do not lead to positive changes, and instead keep creating massive negative and dangerous impacts.
Trump, MAGA, and ‘Trumpism’ have propelled America, and the world, into a vast and accelerating spiritual crisis.
Perhaps the truth really CAN set us free
If it’s true that the U.S. and Americans have been thrust into a massive, ongoing spiritual crisis — and I think the facts bear this out — then how should we respond? How can we respond?
A simple first step is to just acknowledge the truth about what’s happening. Yet even that is far from ‘simple,’ these days — precisely because Trump is a known pathological liar/con man and has made constant lying, denial, and truth-avoidance ‘normal’ or even desirable. This is one of the primary ways he has subverted our democracy and our personal attitudes and actions.
Thus, in today’s America — Trump’s America — truth-telling and rigorous honesty have become vital tools of political, psychological, and spiritual survival. Honesty, amazingly, turned into quite a rare commodity during his ‘reign.’ So, it’s not an exaggeration to say that our mental and spiritual health now demands that we face our situation honestly.
In today’s America, openness and honesty are the gateway to regaining our spiritual self-respect and psychological balance. We have strayed so far from the moral and spiritual ideals and ‘laws’ that used to guide us that we are lost, frantic, fearful, and ‘in a world of hurt.’
We are truly enmeshed in a vast and terrible spiritual crisis — and the sooner we admit this to ourselves, the sooner healing and much-needed transformation can begin.
Only through admitting the truth of our lostness, hatefulness, and inner pain and despair can our deep and necessary healing begin.
Knowingly or unknowingly — and whether we like it or not — we are all on an intense ‘spiritual journey’ right now. And the inner and outer choices and decisions we make over the next several years will either make us — or totally break us.
Tags are included just for the just first month of publication to help promote the new pub. Gael MacLean, Richard Lowenthal, and Charles Bastille have agreed to be editors for this publication. Our founding members are: Nick Rogers, The Mouthy Renegade Writer, Fay Wylde, Kelly Carmichael, Robert G. Longpré [he / him], Coach Robin 🫠, Jeff Eagle, John Egelkrout, John P. Weiss, Bill Abbate, Brian Lageose, Jay Squires.
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This post was previously published on This America.
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“[Trump ] sticks his nose and insufferable, loud opinions into everything, often when his input is clearly not wanted or needed. He has done this with California, New York, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Greenland, Denmark, and, most recently, Gaza and the ‘Palestinian problem.’” Trump does not simply ‘stick his nose and insufferable, loud opinions into everything, often when his input is clearly not wanted or needed’ – anyone can do that. This is much more than just trolling. Trump explicitly threatens his neighbours with forcible annexation and coercion; he launches economic warfare when he initiates ruinous trade wars, and arbitrarily… Read more »