The powers of the president of the United States, adjusted in bold below to those being practiced by Donald Trump:
https://libguides.law.widener.edu/potus-power
Under Article II of the United States Constitution. The President:
3-6-26: Is allowed to SURRENDER the power of declaring war on other countries and using military force of the United States to another country or a leader of a foreign country at the expense of betraying the people and military of the United States.
Donald Trump's actions have not gone unnoticed by voters.
Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a Texas state Senate district by 14 points after Trump carried it by 17 points in 2024. The state is a key battleground in the midterms.
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Donald Trump is damaging so many aspects of the United States, domestically and globally but the thing he is damaging the most by a Grand Canyon wide margin is the Republican party.
The R party in Congress, by enabling and giving him positive reinforcement the past year is going to pay the ultimate price in November, 9 months from now.
It's hardly debatable now whether the Rs will lose their majority in the House. The real world discussion is about how much the new Democratic majority will be and its because of Donald Trump and his enables in Congress.
And whether Donald Trump will cause the Rs to lose enough seats in the Senate for that to go to the Ds also.
Thus far, there has been very little accountability for this unprecedented, egregious power grab that has featured ruinous decision after ruinous decision.
9 months to go for that. The less the accountability now, the greater the damage then from the voter outrage.
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Previous thread:
Calling Donald Trump out
Started by metmike - Jan. 13, 2026, 12:25 p.m.
"We have states that are so crooked and they're counting votes," he said.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-urges-republicans-nationalize-voting/story?id=129793658
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Too many people have accepted this as "the new normal" because it’s gone on for a year now. This is not even close to anything normal. It's an order of magnitude outside the bounds of anything considered normal. The incredible thing is that many 10s of millions of Americans actually like and support this and the #1 rated politics discussing tv show on weekday evenings (Fox) glorifies it and adulates the delusional psychopath and his pathological thinking even as his crystal clear, progressive dementia continues to make it worse.
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Again, I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024. The people that claim that he is doing exactly what people who voted for him wanted him to do is patently false.
Not just for me but for almost everybody outside of MAGA.
If that election were held again next week, Trump would lose by a landslide because of people that voted for him in 2024, having regrets and those millions of Americans would now vote for anybody except Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is MAGAs president.
Donald Trump is the president for Americas rich people.
For almost everybody else he’s a self obsessed psychopath that doesnt just put those majority of Americans LAST, he actually thinks of well over half of Americans as his enemies with an objective of punishing and destroying them.
You can’t be America First when well over half of Americans are your hated enemies.
Mike and others,
Wait a minute! I thought Republicans are in favor of states’ rights/more power to states and less for federal. Trump wanting to nationalize elections doesn’t jibe with that at all. Neither did that phone call with GA Sec of State Raffensberger when he asked him to find votes!
By the way, Trump’s masterful diversion away from the JE files/stuff continues unabated and probably won’t end before the end of his term.
Thanks very much, Larry!
We live in a wonderful world of technology, science, medicine, entertainment, information, comforts, conveniences and everything else that is light years better than what our ancestors had.
With that being the case, we should all be much more enlightened about everything.
Young children today, for instance understand more about many things than the wisest people in the world did NOT know 1,000 years ago.......like the earth revolving around the sun, not the other way around.
Women only got the right to vote just over a century ago. Slavery was only abolished 5 decades before that.
Progress and more progress. But there's something that is not keeping up. In fact, losing ground recently.
Critical thinking. People using their noggins/logical thinking to figure things out themselves based on objective AUTHENTIC facts.
Technology is making that an obsolete skill in some realms, especially politics. If you belong to 1 party, instead of accessing ALL the information there is to know from both parties which is several orders of magnitude greater than what mankind knew a century ago..........people affiliate with 1 party and go only to sites/people that tell them things that completely contradict the things that the other party and their sites/people are telling those people.
Despite the wonderful opportunities to learn EVERYTHING about our world in politics, many people decide to close their minds to learning anything that contradicts what their party tells them to believe.
Only in such a very dysfunctional environment could a Donald Trump rise to power. Many 10s of millions of Americans had to turn off the critical thinking in their brains and follow a party demagogue that tells them what they wish was true with manufactured realities. And the only reason it's successful is because none of them actually fact check Donald Trump's massive lies and manufactured realities.
MAGA is a cult that will believe ANYTHING, as long as Donald Trump or one of his high priests, like Fox News proclaim it. Nothing is too insane in Trump World for the captured brains.
Donald Trump is totally aware of this and has been a master charlatan maximizing his power over MAGA every day for the past decade. Donald Trump said it best himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTACH1eVIaA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dzxGlcErUo
Re: New Donald Trump January 6 website
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The video at the top of this thread below reminds me of Fox News viewers! Note where they end up
Captured brains
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/67714/
As human beings, we share many things. Love for our families. Desire to be the best that we can and for those that we care about to benefit from the wonderful world that we live in. Patriotic enthusiasm and love for our country. Appreciation of nature and desire to see it flourish. Love of God and faith in our religion, although unfortunately this contributes to intolerance in our world for people that use biased, self serving interpretations to justify vilification of those that are different or that disagree with them.
Politics has unfortunately exploited and twisted this. Defining the world thru tribalistic tunnel vision that features 2 opposing sides.
For some especially divisive metrics, What one side defines as Utopia, the other side defines as Dystopia, the complete opposite. The people in each tribe align with the belief systems of their tribe which their leaders constantly spin so that it lines up with party agendas. Fiercely Loyal to the party and the party leaders to a point of trust in them that completely replaces the trust they have in their own ability to think independently.
Donald Trump has been brilliant in using his charisma and that concept to sell his fake Utopia for his own self serving objectives.
He’s obtained a cult like following of millions that believe in whatever he says …..even when it contradicts their own eyes and critical thinking.
For instance, his party, for decades was for a small Federal government and for the power of the states in the Constitution.
Now, because of Donald Trump having the power of the president and managing to appoint thousands of federal employees loyal to him, he is using that for an historic take over of the Federal government that has violated the Constitution thousands of times and completely flipped the R party interpretations in numerous realms so it supports his authoritarian regime.
With the flip of a switch in their heads, people in MAGA have gone from abhorring and rejecting the Federal government to embracing it with Donald Trump who is using it to exploit his power, as the most powerful man in the world.
Exactly why the founders of our country wrote the Constitution to protect our country from having leaders with too much power and acting similar to Donald Trump but actually not nearly as bad as Donald Trump.
Congress has great powers too. With the Constitution intentionally designed to balance the power of the executive branch. Sadly, the R controlled Congress has given up most of their power to the president in the past year because they belong to the same tribe.
The 3rd branch of government, the judicial branch has been ignored much of the time in the past year. Hundreds to thousands of court orders ignored. The DOJ and other department leaders serve Donald Trump not the Constitution or the United States.
And so we have the comprehensive explanation for how 1 man, a charismatic psychopath has taken control of the United States of America.
His catastrophically dysfunctional leadership being accepted because he has taken over control of a democracy and turned it into a dictatorship.
He is so extreme with his anti democracy, pro dictatorship ideas that he is now seriously proposing that his Federal government take over elections in states that don’t vote for him. His contention is that every place he lost an election at was because they were corrupt since he really should have won…..by a lot!!
In order to correct that, he is now trying to rewrite the history of the 2020 election which includes rewriting the history of his illegal attempts to overturn that election.
Violating his oath to the people in late 2020 and early 2021 and to the Constitution. Committing serious crimes deserving of a prison sentence but ending up, exploiting his manipulative control over people to become the most powerful man in the world with an unprecedented anti Constitutional power grab that is allowing him to rule as a part time dictator when he can get away with it, which is most of the time.
Hey Mike,
Is this UN-BE-LIEV-A-BLE? This is a new entrant in the GA Gov race. One of his opponents is the very honorable Republican Sec of State Brad Raffensberger, who Trump asked in that famous phone call to find him thousands of votes:
“Jackson said he would spend an initial $40 million on advertising and on Tuesday launched an ad that represents Raffensperger as Judas for betraying Trump and defying his efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election.”
This is actually too bizarre for The Twilight Zone!!
I agree strongly with this view, Larry!
This is a link to the actual article:
Health care business owner Rick Jackson says he's running for Georgia governor as a Republican
Jackson said he would spend an initial $40 million on advertising and on Tuesday launched an ad that represents Raffensperger as Judas for betraying Trump and defying his efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election.
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I actually think the open for this science fiction show sounds much more relevant to the current presidency! In fact, it sounds exactly like the MAGA gatekeepers game plan!!!
Fox should use it in ads to promote their hosts (MAGA cult high priests) evening programming
Good! Trump loses on this. His position on this, like is the case for many things, is an attempt to abuse his power and in this case to limit the power of Congressional representation of all Americans. Unlike Trump, Senator Kelly is a great American imho. The Grand Jury made the clearly correct decision. Members of the military absolutely have the right to refuse illegal orders:
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/02/11/kelly-slotkin-grand-jury-trump-hegseth.html
Yes, Larry!
A victory for law, order, the Constitution and common sense and a loss for the unhinged psychopath abusing his power.
Trump accuses Democrats of ‘seditious behavior, punishable by death’
Started by metmike - Nov. 20, 2025, 8:12 p.m.
“With this threat, the President is punishing Michiganders for a trade war he started. The only reason Canada is on the verge of a trade deal with China is because President Trump has kicked them in the teeth for a year.
“The President’s agenda for personal retribution should not come before what’s best for us. Canada is our friend — not our enemy. And I will do everything in my power to get this critical project back on track.”
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Detroit/comments/1r0pmgc/trump_says_gordie_howe_bridge_wont_open_without/
President Donald Trump says he will not allow the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor to open unless Canada makes significant concessions to the U.S.
Trump said in a Feb. 9 post on Truth Social that the U.S. will open negotiations with Canada, which has footed the entire bill for the $5.7-billion bridge construction project, but believes the U.S. should probably take ownership of at least half of it.
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https://www.ctvnews.ca/windsor/article/whitmer-pushes-back-as-trump-threatens-gordie-howe-bridge/
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If Donald Trump was intentionally trying to make himself and the US look as bad as possible to the most amount of people possible in the US and especially Canada, he should act exactly like this.
His progressive dementia is taking him deeper and deeper into the land of delusion!
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Galactic corruption! Pardoning completely undeserving people for the sole reason that they committed crimes in the name of Donald Trump, for Donald Trump or were in cahoots with him on one of his diabolical schemes or were one of his rich contributors.
Updated the list above to add a new power that Trump has, which no other presidents had.
And the Rs in Congress, voted this week to authorize this new power:
3-6-26: Is allowed to SURRENDER the power of declaring war on other countries and using military force of the United States to another country or a leader of a foreign country at the expense of betraying the people and military of the United States.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Israel attacks Iran-just in
By metmike - March 4, 2026, 3:11 p.m.
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By metmike - March 4, 2026, 8:09 p.m.
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Re: Israel attacks Iran-just in
By metmike - March 5, 2026, 12:16 p.m.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/26/politics/trump-signature-paper-currency-treasury
US paper currency will soon feature President Donald Trump’s signature going forward, the US Treasury Department announced Thursday, the latest of the president’s efforts to leave his mark across the federal government.
It will be the first time a sitting US president’s signature has appeared on paper notes. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the move is in honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States.
“There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial,” Bessent said in a press releaseannouncing the move.
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This completely explains Donald Trump's thinking in comprehensive fashion from an elite authority. Netanyahu has been using this to CONTROL DONALD TRUMP:
The insatiable ego: why some people need constant flattery
So these individuals must continually look outward to know who they are. They need to see themselves reflected as great, admirable, brilliant, victorious, not because they genuinely believe these qualities reside within, but because they fear they do not. The mirror is not for preening; it is for survival.
Trump’s orbit reveals this pattern with almost clinical clarity. Aides who deliver praise are elevated. Those who offer truth are exiled. Advisors who flatter remain close; those who contradict are replaced. He constructs a world in which disagreement is treason and doubt is disloyalty. Only admiration feels safe. Only devotion feels tolerable. Only affirmation soothes the internal tremors.
For those who depend on flattery to prop up their self-worth, criticism is not merely unpleasant; it is existentially threatening. As noted before, praise is oxygen. Criticism is suffocation.
Over time, the leader becomes isolated inside a bubble of praise, precisely the condition that worsens the fragility at their core.
Again, Trump illustrates this structure with almost theatrical clarity. His firing patterns, midnight tirades, public feuds, impulsive purges, and explosive reactions to even the gentlest criticism reveal a psyche that experiences dissent not as democratic discourse but as a personal wound. Staff members routinely describe entering meetings prepared not with facts but with flattery, knowing that one misplaced comment could ignite hours of fury. Foreign leaders who discovered this dynamic exploited it; domestic rivals suffered beneath it.
In such environments, truth no longer functions as a shared standard; it becomes a provocation. Disagreement is interpreted not as a contribution but as betrayal. Correction feels like humiliation. Delay feels like defiance. Reality itself becomes negotiable. Those who tell inconvenient truths are dismissed as traitors; those who flatter are elevated as visionaries. Policy becomes indistinguishable from psychology. What the leader needs emotionally determines what the government attempts politically.
The consequences are far from abstract. Entire systems begin tiptoeing around one person’s fragility. Intelligence agencies soften their briefings. Legislators tend to mute criticism to avoid retribution. Diplomats recalibrate alliances around a leader’s vanity rather than strategic interest. Government becomes a mirror palace, calibrated to reflect only one person’s preferred image back to him. The irony is that leaders who demand constant praise believe they are projecting strength — yet everyone else can see that they are merely shielding weakness. Their power looks immense, but their emotional life is flimsy, breakable, desperate for applause. And because they cannot bear being ordinary, the country is forced to participate in a national performance designed to keep them feeling extraordinary.
This is the tragic nucleus of flattery-addicted leaders: people loudly performing invincibility while internally clinging to praise as if it were oxygen. They preside over a kingdom of mirrors — shimmering, reflective, and catastrophically fragile. And the public pays the price for the instability at the core, bearing the burden of governing around an ego that must be endlessly managed, appeased, and inflated. In the end, the nation bends more than the leader does, contorting itself around a single, unsteady psyche. And what begins as a personality disorder becomes a political disorder — one in which the country must continually shield its most powerful figure from the sharp edges of reality.
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Continuing from the article:
Flattery addiction is, in the end, both tragically human and painfully absurd. Tragic, because it reveals a psyche so precarious that it cannot stand without constant propping. Absurd, because the props must be rebuilt every day, like a stage set that collapses each night and must be reassembled before the curtain rises again. The flattery-addicted person must be inflated endlessly because they cannot tolerate being human-sized. Their emotional life becomes a loop: praise enters, but it never adheres. Approval is absorbed and immediately evaporates. The ego drinks but never hydrates. No amount of applause lasts until morning.
And the final irony, the one that turns this entire psychological structure from merely tragic to genuinely heartbreaking, is that those who need flattery the most intensely are the least capable of feeling loved. Love, unlike flattery, requires vulnerability. Love requires reciprocity, humility, the willingness to be seen without the armor of performance. Love demands an emotional nakedness that the flattery-addicted personality cannot risk. Praise reassures; love exposes. Praise stabilizes; love transforms. And transformation is precisely what they fear most.
Thus they remain trapped in a gilded psychological cage of their own making, surrounded by people but starving for connection, fed by applause but famished for affection. The world may see confidence, dominance, swagger, command. But beneath the spectacle lies a person who fears that without constant applause, they will collapse into the emptiness they have spent their entire lives trying not to feel.
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These are the credentials of the author of this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_F.R._Kets_de_Vries
Kets de Vries has written more than 50 books, 400 articles and book chapters on leadership, and organizational and personal change.
Kets de Vries has won(numerous) awards for his work in the leadership field.
