Trump’s Foreign Policy: The Fifth-Grader Shakedown
Japan, Canada, and the World Watch as America’s “Tough Guy” Act Turns Us into the Clown in the Room
Good morning! America, where the crops are flooding, the farmers are being raided, Japan is furious, FEMA is missing in action, and Trump is posting AI selfies of himself as Superman while the markets tank and the Epstein list magically disappears.
Let’s start with Texas, where record floods have killed over 120 people, 150 remain missing, and entire communities have been washed off the map. Governor Greg Abbott, when asked about responsibility, responded with a Friday Night Lights football analogy so bad it should be flagged for unnecessary roughness. According to Abbott, “winners don’t point fingers,” which is a cute way of dodging the fact that decades of deregulation, climate denial, and gutting FEMA and the National Weather Service have left Texans to drown while the governor yells about football metaphors on TV.
The Trump regime’s war on the federal workforce rages on. Project 2025, which Trump claims he has “nothing to do with” while hiring its architects to run his budget office, is rolling out its dream scenario: gutting the government of everyone who might stand in the way of a king’s whims. Career civil servants? Fired. Environmental inspectors? Fired. FEMA and National Weather Service staff? Fired or gutted, right before hurricane season. Why? So the government doesn’t work, and they can scream “government doesn’t work” while they loot what’s left. The Project 2025 plan is to “put them in trauma,” which is exactly what Russell Vought, a Heritage Foundation loyalist now running the show inside OMB, said out loud. We are in a government run by people who see their own employees as the enemy.
ICE raids have swept across California, terrorizing farmworkers who pick the strawberries Trump’s voters eat while claiming “no one wants to work anymore.” You know, the same farmworkers who kept us fed during COVID while dying in record numbers, working grueling days for garbage wages. But sure, send them back and let your lettuce rot in the fields while you post memes about “hard work.”
Speaking of memes, the White House’s official Instagram account posted an AI-generated image of Trump as Superman with the tagline “Truth, Justice, The American Way,” which is precisely the kind of thing we were taught was propaganda in middle school. Commenters (even Trump’s own voters) dragged it, asking, “Cool poster, but where’s the Epstein list?”, a fair question, since the Epstein files remain conveniently incomplete, Trump’s own connections to Epstein unmentioned, and the FBI has now shut down its royal Epstein investigation entirely. Prince Andrew gets to travel again, while victims are left with nothing, and the man who was found liable for sexual assault by a jury and upheld on appeal gets to cosplay Superman while the country burns.
Trump, in the meantime, is torching our international relationships one letter at a time. Japan received a Trump letter so disrespectful it sparked outright fury across their government, with Itsunori Onadera, the ruling party’s policy chief, calling Trump a “terrible human being” and denouncing the letter as “extremely disrespectful” while expressing a “strong sense of indignation.” Prime Minister Ishiba declared, “Efforts toward more independence from US reliance should be made,” and added, “We will not be taken advantage of, even if it is an ally. We must speak honestly. We must protect what needs to be protected.” Japan’s former Prime Minister Kashida warned, “We cannot allow a country that seeks to impose its will through force to shape the international order,” making clear that Japan is now openly rethinking its special relationship with the US as a relationship with a bully rather than a partner. Editorials in Japanese newspapers demanded that Ashiba “exhibit strong leadership” and “teach Trump that intimidation will never work,” while Japan’s top political science professor, Toshi Mitsu Shigamora, bluntly told his country, “It is clear that we are enemies with the United States right now.” Japan, our largest foreign investor and a key partner in the Pacific, is done playing golf with this administration’s delusions. Meanwhile, China and Russia are seizing the moment to court Tokyo and Seoul while Trump’s tantrums isolate America further. Canada, too, is getting the “hostage letter” treatment, with Trump threatening 35% tariffs until Canada “stops sending fentanyl” (which it isn’t) while calling them the 51st state he’d like to annex. This is not foreign policy. This is a fifth-grader’s idea of a mob shakedown, minus the spelling skills, with the entire world watching America slip further into clownish irrelevance while the Pacific builds new alliances without us.
And in the middle of all this, we received a fake Tim Pool invitation asking us to join his podcast. We laughed, of course, and deleted it. Tim Pool’s credibility is somewhere between “flat earth Facebook group” and “YouTube astrology reading.” But it’s a perfect metaphor for the chaos of the moment: grifters begging for legitimacy while the empire crumbles.
Markets are jittery. The NASDAQ fell 15 minutes before Trump’s Canada tariff announcement, which smells like insider trading but will be ignored because this is America. Prices are rising while Trump brags about “America winning,” and you can’t afford eggs, but he’s got an AI Superman filter to show you.
It is Project 2025’s dream world in real-time: break the system, fire the people who know how to run it, replace them with loyalist toddlers who will sign loyalty oaths about “how handsome Trump is” while the rivers rise and our allies bail. And when you complain? You’re the problem. Just ask Abbott, who thinks your family drowning is like missing a touchdown.
But here’s the thing: The government is still full of people trying to keep it working for you. The AFGE, the largest federal employee union, just won a major victory in court pushing back against Trump’s attempts to strip collective bargaining rights from federal workers, even as the regime tries to retaliate. These are the workers who get your Social Security checks out, who keep our food safe, who answer VA crisis lines, who run FEMA when the floods come. Trump’s people want them gone because they stand between him and unchecked power.
That’s where we are today. If you’re feeling exhausted, that’s by design. If you’re feeling furious, good. Stay mad, stay motivated, stay mighty. These are the days that shape the next decade.
And if you’re wondering where the Epstein list is? Keep asking. Loudly. Carpe Momentum!
We, (the people who are opposed to the neofacism that is presently controlling our government,) are going to have to do something new, something different if we are to have any hope of restoring the democratic values that have been destroyed in our country.
Yeah, Trump and his minions are doing all they can do to make as many people unhappy as they possibly can. Problem is the right wing has an effective propaganda apparatus that counters much of the blame that should rightfully fall on them. Add to this the fact that much of the pain that will come as a consequence of the Big Bad Bill won't be felt until 2027, after the next mid-term elections.
If things continue as they are the Democrats will probably win both the Senate and the House of Representatives, but not with enough of a margin to effect meaningful change and reform. Democrats will most likely win the 2028 Presidential Election, but without a super majority in congress that President will also not be able to implement significant change and reform. In 2032 we will very likely be in exactly the same position we are in today, only with a much weakened economy and an even more fragile society.
We need to take a lesson from the Old Testament in the Christian Bible, the story of David and Goliath. David did NOT attempt to fight Goliath on Goliath's terms. He chose not to do traditional battle with the giant. His King offered him his armor and sword so that he could, but David knew that if he did, he would lose. So, David used artillery. He knocked Goliath in the head with a stone, then walked over to the stunned giant, took his sword away from him and and cut his head off. That is what we need to do to the neofacists.
How are we going to do this? Well, we are supposed to be the smart ones in this war. Let's use our brains. I doubt there is going to be a single solution because we're being attacked, (and defeated,) at multiple levels and in numerous different ways. We need to create a forum where different solutions can be explored and supported. We need to open our minds to the possibilities that exist. We need to quit relying on what did, and very often didn't work for us in the past.
I will start with this suggestion. Let's start telling stories that glorify empathy and caring and vilify greed and bullying. Lets start describing the people who are behind our present administration as the greedy villains they really are. Lets do this in books, magazines, social media, television, theatre and any other way that we can. We desperately need our own Upton Sinclair today.
Most Americans don't form their perspectives from first-hand experience. Instead they are shaped by the stories they hear, see and read. Stories that are repeated by friends, clergy, and people they admire. Bias and perspective are seldom shaped in news snippets and on social media, but they are supported there.
We need to recruit authors, script writers and raconteurs to create these stories that will shape public opinion. We need to recruit literary agents, editors, acquisition editors, publishers, producers and directors to turn these stories into books, articles, films, plays and television shows. We need to leverage the advantages we posses to shape a new American narrative.
Dave Hamby
Author
Our elected super man…lies, threats and tyranny!