The Coming November 3rd U.S. Midterm Elections will be a Referendum on the D. Trump Administration 2.0, about Foreign Wars, Fiscal Deficits and the Cost of Living
By Rodrigue Tremblay
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.“ Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)
German-American political philosopher, (in ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’, 1951).
“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.“
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), German-American political philosopher, (in ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’, 1951).
“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed?“
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), German-American political philosopher, (in “Hannah Arendt: From an Interview”, Oct. 26, 1978).
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), German-American political philosopher, (in ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’, 1951).
As the history of the 20th Century shows, a policy by a totalitarian dictator relying on imperialism, on hard military power and on inward-looking nationalism in order to subjugate other sovereign nations, and to impose tyranny, kill democracy and steal their resources, is bound, sooner or later, to backfire. Indeed, such international bullying of other countries has its own built-in limits.
Sooner or later, free and independent countries form a coalition to defeat the rogue nation that oppresses them.
The prime example is the rise to power of dictator Adolf Hitler in Germany, in January 1933, with the support of his paramilitary so-called ‘Brownshirts’.
His Nazi party used the pretext of restoring honor and prestige to Germany, promoting the nationalist German ideology of the "master race", to militarily annex Eastern European countries as vassal states, such as Austria in 1938 and Czechoslovakia, in 1939.
However, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, other nations, like Britain and France, had had enough, and they declared war on Nazi Germany. That is how World War II started.
That most murderous war only ended in Europe in 1945, but not before it became the deadliest conflict in human history, causing 80 million deaths.
American real estate tycoon Donald Trump appears to have a great admiration for the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Indeed, his first wife, Ivana Trump, revealed that he kept a copy of a book of a collection of Hitler's speeches, titled ‘My New Order’, by his bedside.
It is also not good for his reputation that a recent United Nations report says that U. S. President Donald Trump could soon be accused of war crimes for having bombed a girls’ school in Iran, killing more than 150 people, most of them children. This should be cause for alarm about his morality.
However, Donald Trump—already a convicted felon by a U.S. court—is taking the offensive and is threatening sanctions against the International Criminal Court, which had the audacity to issue an arrest warrant for his accomplice in the Iran war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of genocide against the Palestinian people.
But the summum of arrogance and perversity occurred when D. Trump, in his rant at the UN General Assembly, on Tuesday, September 22, shamelessly confessed his militaristic vision of permanent wars and global unrest, while directly referring to oil he stole from Venezuela, saying “To the victor belong the spoils“.
In so doing, D. Trump publicly defended a jungle-like militaristic practice of dividing the world into spheres of influence for military empires, and of looting other smaller countries by force, thus throwing the world back hundreds of years. In 1945, the United Nations was established specifically to outlaw such conflicts.
1. Is the world going to repeat the disastrous war of nearly 90 years ago and fall under the yoke of an insane and evil tyrant?
Since January 20, 2025, under the helm of a most dysfunctional, autocratic, corrupt and mentally unfit American President, the United States has fallen to the bottom of trust and credibility as a reliable political and economic partner to other countries. According to Pew Research, in most countries, D. Trump is seen as unreliable and dangerous.
Indeed, American politician D. Trump has been an active trouble-maker and a provocateur by lashing out against people and countries alike. He has committed numerous instances of abuses of power, within the United States and around the world.
At home, D. Trump has instrumentalized a violent, heavily armed and masked ICE political police, an outfit that has killed dozens of people.
He has also launched many wars of aggression abroad, against a host of countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Nigeria, Iran), even though he had promised “No more wars” during the 2024 political campaign. Many of those Trumpian wars in the Middle East have been carried out under the US-Israel Axis flag and some are forever wars.
In his rant at the United Nations, on September 22, D. Trump called other countries ‘bullies’. He even repeated his threat about “annihilating the Islamic republic” of Iran. And this, after the UN Secretary general, António Guterres, had called on the General Assembly to end conflicts. —What a dishonor for the United States!
A question: To what extent all those rants and wars of choice are a diversion and a form of political cover-up of D. Trump’s involvement in the J. Epstein’s international pedophile trafficking sex ring of more than one thousand teen-aged girls for rich clients?
Even though there is a Congressional law ordering that all the Epstein files must be made public, unredacted. D. Trump has strongly refused to comply, even after he had promised to do so during the 2024 presidential campaign. —Sooner or later the truth will come out.
He has also launched repetitive trade wars against several countries, a policy that has destabilized the world economy. In February 2026, even the U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by Republican judges, ruled that most of Trump’s tariffs or import taxes are illegal. Indeed, according to the U.S. Constitution, only the House of Representatives has that power (Article I, Section 8, Clause 1).
2. Since January 2025, President D. Trump has governed by decrees like an autocrat
Between January 20, 2025 and September 2026, Donald Trump has governed by issuing the extraordinarily high number of 281 executive orders or decrees, many of them completely illegal or in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Such overreach and destabilizing, chaotic policies have met with very little resistance—whether from his “MAGA” cabinet of sycophants and accomplices, or from the Republican-controlled Congress.
In a few instances, the resistance came rather from the U.S. Supreme Court, even though six of its nine judges were named by two Republican presidents, (George W. Bush named three and Donald Trump also named three). And this, after D. Trump has often violated the U.S. Constitution and his oath of office.
3. D. Trump uses trade policy as a partisan political tactic
and as an imperialist tool
Since January 2025, and in spite the fact that he had signed a revised trade agreement with the two neighboring countries of Canada and Mexico, in 2020, President Donald Trump launched political and economic attacks against both countries, but especially against Canada.
Badly informed on the complex question of how the balance of payments between countries moves between equilibrium and disequilibrium, Donald Trump raised unjustified trade accusations against Canada.
He even went as far as to threaten Canada’s sovereignty, insulting Canadians with violent rhetoric, and even proposing that Canada, the second largest country in the world, become “the 51st state“.
Indeed, D. Trump has openly attempted to destabilize the economy of Canada, a member of the G7 group, by arbitrarily imposing high on-again, off-again American import taxes on selective Canadian exports. This has resulted in creating uncertainty for businesses and consumers on both sides of the border.
Last August, when a new trade agreement was about to be reached between the two countries after last-ditch negotiations, the Trump administration sabotaged it at the last minute by requesting, among other things, that Canada abdicates its sovereign right to trade freely with other nations.
Trump’s attacks against Canada are less about trade and economics and more about a sickly wish to turn Canada into a political and economic vassal of the United States.
This was followed by Trump relying on an old 1930 American trade law to impose 50% U.S. tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports. As should have been expected, the Canadian government moved to protect its economy under attack by matching Trump’s tariffs on Canadian exports with dollar-for-dollar equivalent import taxes on American exports to Canada.
Americans are not duped by Trump’s personal motives, and friendship between both countries remains high. Indeed, polls show that 57 percent of Americans oppose Trump’s insane taxes on Canadian imports, when there has been a mutually profitable U.S.–Canada Free Trade Agreement between both countries since 1988, and even since 1965 for the automobile industry.
His overall approval rating is way down, because he is out of touch with a majority of Americans. For instance, only 9% of Americans support his vanity attempts to put his name on landmarks.
4. Donald Trump’s false electoral promises
During the 2024 presidential campaign, the Maga Republican candidate to the American presidency, Donald Trump, often promised that with him in power, the U.S. would not get involved in new costly and deadly wars abroad.
During his victory speech on November 6, 2024, he said—to be well understood— “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars". To be clear, D. Trump had also previously said that “We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world.”
In fact, not only did candidate D. Trump not intend to follow up on his promises, but he did exactly the reverse of what he had promised. He started and expanded many wars of aggression overseas, against numerous countries. In reality, President D. Trump did not bring peace to his country. Instead, he put it on a path to World War III.
D. Trump also promised many times to stop the ongoing inflation in the U.S., where rising prices have lowered the purchasing power of American workers, retirees and consumers. During a political rally on August 9, 2024, he falsely claimed that “Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods.”
Similarly, his promises to stop prices from rising were also shallow. Indeed, the Trump administration 2.0 has worsened American inflation. The yearly inflation rate in the United States reached 2.7% in 2025, but kept rising to 3.4 %, in 2026.
It is easy to understand why.
First, D. Trump has run huge fiscal deficits, partly by lowering taxes on high income individuals and corporations, and partly by waging wars abroad. This has pushed the U.S. national debt to an astronomic $40 trillion, in a mad rush toward a financial abyss.
Second, Trump’s attempts to steal Venezuela and other countries of their oil reserves have pushed world oil and energy prices way up, thus creating a worldwide inflation.
Third, Trump has pressured the Federal Reserve central bank to follow an expansionist monetary policy, which is exacerbating demand inflation in the United States.
Forth, Donald Trump’s obsession to raise heavy tariffs or import taxes have been an important factor in rising prices for producers and consumers alike.
It does not help to know that President Donald Trump has disregarded outright the moral and risk issues about how a rogue and automated Artificial Intelligence (AI) could one day lead to human extinction, as many experts have warned, and he rejects the very thought of regulation on this issue. And possibly even worse, he wants to ‘militarize’ Artificial Intelligence!
Moreover, D. Trump is also pushing for an unfettered growth of energy hungry data centers.
Conclusion
Since January 2025, the Trump administration 2.0 has been a factor of chaos, disorder, extorsion, predation, and wars, in the United States and in the world. He is also a super corrupt politician.
Moreover, American tycoon Donald Trump is talking and acting as if he were an absolute and autocratic President, dismissive and irrespective of the fundamental principles of the U.S. Constitution, about the political division of powers and the system of checks and balances.
All considered, MAGA President Trump poses an enormous challenge to the United States’ political, moral and spiritual foundation. He is an extremely dangerous politician.
His administration is a disaster in many areas, due to a whole series of broken promises, and of bad and incompetent economic, fiscal and financial policies at home, while launching the dumbest military wars and trade wars abroad. The end result is going to be a severe financial crisis to come, and possibly something much worse.
However, there could be some hope.
Americans of all ages, who have been betrayed by such an unfit politician as Donald Trump, who see their standards of living falling, their constitutional rights denied and their liberty reduced, will soon have a chance to express their discontent and disappointment with his broken promises, his senseless military and trade wars against other countries, and his overall political mismanagement.
November 3rd won’t come too soon.
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International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book about morals "The code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles" of the book about geopolitics "The New American Empire", and of his recent book, in French, "La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018".He holds a Ph.D. in international finance from Stanford University.
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Posted Thursday, October 1, 2026.
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