"We have been subject to the sociopath for a year and a half
— 18 months of the most loathsome, least competent, and most corrupt person
ever to be president of the United States.
We’ve watched him take a meat-axe to every major institution
of our democracy, draw the nation into a never-ending war, establish a
murderous domestic police state, reject renewable energy in favor of the
dirtiest possible fossil fuels, make billions off his presidency, and cause
most Americans to become poorer and less economically secure."- Robert Reich, Permalink post
The new book, 'Regime Change' - by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan - is arguably the best political expose I've read since James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died And Why It Matters'. Douglass’
words in his Introduction are like a gut punch:
“Our collective denial of the obvious, in the setting up of Oswald and
his transparent silencing by Ruby, made possible the Dallas cover-up. The
success of the cover-up was the indispensable foundation for the murders of
Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy by the same forces at work in
our government – and ourselves:
Hope for change in the world was targeted and killed four times over. The
cover-up of all four murders, each leading into the next, was based – first of
all –on denial. Not the government’s but our own- and the unspeakable was not
far away.”
But Haberman and Swan deliver a series of gut punches all the way through. While Douglass focuses on how one of the most beloved Presidents was taken out by a cabal of intel operatives (along with three other leading lights of the 60s), Regime Change exposes how this convicted felon and his own cabal took control of our government in the actual electoral process (in 2024). Including how Trump's 4 year hiatus from power (Biden winning in 2020) was actually a fertile gestation period.
Affording the traitor the time needed to work out how to bend the government to his own ego and will. Thereby literally bringing it to its knees in 17 months.
As the authors point out in their Introduction, had Trump managed to eke out a victory over Biden he'd have "begun his second term in a sorry state" - what with the Covid pandemic still raging, "warping the economy and destroying global trade".
Instead, the loss - which the sore loser continues to bitch about - actually gave him the time to figure out how to tweak the laws and master the intricacies of using the federal government for his own purposes. As well as being assisted in this effort by enlisting the Project 2025 thug Russell Vought and the anti- immigration fascist Stephen Miller. Who later helped to lay the groundwork to take over the DOJ to exact massive retribution on all political enemies on retaking power.
And unlike Trump's first term, when he had a cabinet that could at least keep his worst instincts in check, he'd now have only his own hand-picked loyalists and sycophants to do his bidding. He'd also now have the power to inflict untold damage on the techies' companies if they didn't toe his line. Add to that a Supreme Court that essentially conferred unlimited power via their 2024 immunity ruling, and a gutless Reep congress- and one had an imperial president.
The wreckage to the federal government and workers began even before Trump's inauguration as we learn (p. 30), Miller's highest priority was to have Trump sign as many executive orders as possible to "overwhelm the opposition by sheer force and volume". To that end he had "created a giant Excel spreadsheet tracking more than one hundred executive orders."
In addition, in opposition to all standard norms:
"Miller had refused to send the draft executive orders to the Office of Legal Counsel to review". Instead, Miller's team assembled a trusted group of MAGA-friendly lawyers which they referred to as 'the fake OLC' to replace the real Office of Legal Counsel."
With this feral move the door was open to blow past every other norm and standard in kneecapping the legitimate federal government so it could be replaced by one answering only to Trump. The decades' long fantasy of the "unitary executive" now come to life - thanks to a complicit Supreme Court, a spineless congress and 77 million dumbshit voters who fell for his lies.
The carnage these clueless voters enabled was then presented some pages later (pp. 50-51) as we learn the MAGA Trump team "saw USAID as a hotbed of liberal ideology. Decimating this critical agency then became a way - in their minds - of "attacking the woke left". Especially after Trump's then bosom Buddy Musk described it as "evil and criminal".
"The orders handed down by Rubio would then to filter to USAID offices around the world."
The repercussions of this stupidity have been made clear in the wake of the latest Ebola outbreak, which is now "the second largest on record" according to a TIME report (July 27, p. 40). That report also laying the blame for the spread on the withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the demolition of USAID, i.e.
"The U.S. was no longer a member of WHO which monitors pathogens and coordinates responses to emergency threats. The withdrawal led to 3,000 job cuts at the WHO including disease surveillance and response."
"The decision to defund USAID in 2025 abruptly shuttered its programs and broke many of those chains of communication. Ebola then moved for weeks, and possibly months, before the first patient was reported."
This was bad enough, but then we later learn in Regime Change (pp. 96-97) how the ICE rampage got started.
"Right away, the agency developed a fearsome persona - armed, masked and menacing - and began to post daily arrest members."
We also learn that Stephen Miller, the proto-Nazi behind this facade, "applied immense pressure on the agency to keep up the pace of mass deportation to hit 3,000 per day."
There was little doubt in the authors' minds this savage, indiscriminate program led directly to the ICE invasions of American blue cities, ending with the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January,
Nor has it halted, with two more ICE killings in the last two weeks in Houston and Maine, the latter committed by a deranged vet who had no business being in any law & order capacity.
By Part II, 'Retribution' (p. 125) and Part III, 'The Enemy Within' (p. 270) we learn of the multitude of ways Trump planned to exact revenge on all political enemies - real or imagined. This would be facilitated by his having captured the DOJ, installing it with lackeys (like Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche), to do his bidding. As a result, indictments flowed out for Letitia James, John Bolton, James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan. As well: "Grand juries in Florida would begin considering evidence against a slew of Obama-era officials in connection with the Russia investigation."
The whole ploy was not necessarily to succeed, as Haberman and Swan note, but to put as much stress on the indicted as possible. Forcing each to lawyer up and pay for legal counsel out the wazoo.
By Part IV ('Plunder', p. 314) we learn of the multitude of ways Trump planned to ravage assorted targets - foreign and domestic- for gain. The authors note - in terms of alleged small boats trafficking drugs - Trump "wanted to take the Duterte approach, just kill them."
Thus, "if the U.S. military were to start using Reaper drones and Hellfire missiles to blow up drug boats , that would send a message to would be smugglers."
No consideration at all, that Trump had already pardoned former Honduran president Orlando Hernandez, a genuine narco king who was sentenced to 45 years for transporting 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
But this is how Trump rolled: pardon the criminals and terrorists (like all the insurrectionists in the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks) but go after and kill the innocent. Like the dozens of innocent fishermen in small boats, earmarked for extra-judicial slaughter in Reaper drone and Hellfire missile strikes. As the Regime Change authors note (p. 323):
"The boat-bombing campaign in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific would be tailor made for videos on social media... raising immediate questions, on what legal authority had he blown up the boats?"
That included one incident in which two boat occupants who had survived the initial strike and begged for help, were blown up by another drone. A clear case of violation of the Geneva convention. All of this was based on the bunkum of the 'Donroe Doctrine'.
And the kicker (p. 375):
"Of the thirty-five strikes in the boat-bombing campaign that began in September, twenty -one came as the year ended. The rapid intensification of this opaque operation suggested the bombings themselves were not the endgame. Trump had already begun to openly discuss oil he described as "stolen" from the United States, declaring he intended to get it back."
Basically, p, 324, "the Trump administration refused to release its detailed rationale for the strikes and said little beyond the assertion these were 'drug traffickers'."
Again, eliciting the question: Why then pardon the top drug trafficker of them all, Orlando Hernandez? Well, obviously because a mega criminal loves another mega criminal, just as Trump fancied Duterte's manner of disposing of ordinary drug smugglers.
And there followed his seizure of the oil tanker the Skipper, off the coast of Venezuela, leading to a blockade then finally invasion of Venezuela to take out President Nicolas Maduro and effectively, do a regime change to grab its oil. By p. 366 of Plunder, we learn the extent to which Trump has defiled national buildings, memorials by pasting his name on them for the purpose of grift and domination:
"By the norms of history, naming rights for monuments belonged to subsequent generations, and these honors were conferred by Congress, commissions or public acclaim. It was the American way. But Donald Trump had long since demonstrated he could adore himself far more and in greater detail than anyone else might."
And thence, this narcissistic pig would go on a rampage document by the authors. What triggered it?
"He had watched in rage as his name was removed from buildings in New York City in protest during his first presidency after its calamitous end."
From that rage, the traitor slime was driven to attach his name to the Kennedy Center, renamed the United States Institute of Peace, the 'Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, and ordered a 'golden fleet of Trump class warships' - the last particularly ironic given he'd dodged the draft five times with the bonespurs ruse.
He then had his glaring rat dog face hung from the Justice Dept. headquarters and the words "Make America Safe Again" along with the DOJ seal. Oh, and lest we forget, he pushed his "Trump Gold Card" then getting his feral face on our money,
Not to be stopped, he then went for demanding an "Independence Arch" that would stand across from Arlington Memorial Bridge and the Lincoln Memorial. According to the authors (p. 369):
"He wanted this to be the biggest arch in the world and began showing visitors to the Oval Office his various models which he called the 'Arc de Trump'"
How did this lunatic felon traitor get so emboldened?
"Trump saw himself as a transformational figure in history, one who was already remaking the world in his image, something few leaders had ever done definitively."
Transformational indeed! Especially given Trump realized early that a successful 2024 presidential campaign could help him escape a long prison sentence. After all, as the authors noted in their Introduction, people were already "de-sensitized" to Trump's antics and so many indictments br0ught against him. So it was just a matter of this tyrant:
"repurposing his legal peril as a powerful political asset"
All that was needed was a transcending event to eliminate that peril entirely and recast him as a special human worthy of leadership- and even worship (to his MAGA cult). That arrived with the attempted assassination in July, 2024 in Butler PA. As the authors noted he had enough perception and political savvy to see how he could marshal it for political power - by retaining and circulating the image: blood coming down his ear, fist raised and screaming: "Fight! Fight! Fight!"
It became an instantly powerful campaign image and meme that would literally propel him into the White House. Helped by spouting the bunkum it was a "divine intervention". As opposed to a lucky twist of his orange neck at the right second. Alas the Dems had no answer to that. Other than an ever weaker Biden, who Trump demolished in their only debate.
By the authors' Epilogue (p. 407)we behold just how much Trump's exercise of power - thanks to a corrupt, enabling Supreme Court and supine Congress - had gone to his head. How so? This kook was now (p.411), putting himself historically "in the company of Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Tamerlane, Attila the Hun and William the Conqueror."
Incredible. I mean this felon - barely two steps from Rikers Island in June, 2024 - now comparing himself to history's greats? Well judge for yourself in this paragraph (p. 411):
"Trump gestured for (Natalie) Harp to bring us copies of a two page document. He began reading from it, reciting the names of history's most powerful figures, explaining how each fell short of his power as U.S. president."
And there in a nutshell we behold an imperial president absolutely drunk on his own power. Which is now betrayed in every conceivable way as he tells Americans to basically eat dirt while he plays with the stock market scarfing up millions, and adds to his crypto billions.
Of course, there are always bound to be soreheads, losers and trolls that will find 'Regime Change' overblown, over-hyped and under sourced. Such is the case with one WSJ reviewer named Tunku Varadarajan, mayhap making nice with Rupert to try to keep his job based on his pathetic review effort: 'The Not-So-Imperial Presidency'. (June 27-28, p. C9)
One has to really wonder what stash of shrooms Tunku ingested before writing this babble:
"The book largely relies on sources who spoke exclusively on 'deep background', journalism jargon for the pinky swear promise of eternal anonymity"
Seeming to forget that this was exactly the mode of reporting used by Woodward and Bernstein when they exposed all the Nixon shenanigans to do with 'CREEP' (the Committee for the Re-election of the President) and extending into the Watergate break in and who was behind it and why. And more than ample to bring Nixon's presidency crashing down - the subject of the book, 'All The President's Men'. But we must forgive Tunku because he wasn't around back then and likely never researched American journalism history in the 1970s.
More claptrap from Tunku's poisoned WSJ pen:
"At the core of the authors' narrative is their insistence that Mr. Trump is romping through his second presidency unchallenged."
Well, look Sparky, as the authors noted no one was doing squat to halt his deployment of National Guard as well as ICE goons to the streets of blue cities. And up to now, slaying two other hard working immigrants (on the path to green cards) who were "accidentally" killed by ICE (wrong targets, so we're informed) with no one brought up on any charges.
Further, not one iota of correction has descended on the orange toad in the wake of hundreds he's had killed in boats in the Caribbean and Pacific- by Reaper drones and Hellfire missiles. I mean, he's acted like judge, jury and executioner while enjoying the video game-like aspects of his slaughter.
And we won't even go into the latest brazen move - again with no congressional checks- launching a destructive war on Iran based on his own ego needs to rival Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun. Oh, and based on his having a 'cakewalk' in Venezuela which he believed he could duplicate with Iran.
So pardon me while I howl with laughter re-reading Tunku's last sentence:
"The authors portrayal of a president unchecked omits the extent to which he has, in fact, been checked in his second term including by the Senate."
Righto. Except on just checking the latest news (WSJ, NYT) the Senate refused to go along with the House in halting Trump's war with Iran. Choosing instead to "cede congressional powers to Trump."
Oh yeah, anyone gonna stop him with issuing more tariffs - now targeting over 80 countries,
sending costs and inflation higher into the stratosphere? How about stopping the ICE invasions or even holding those renegades who've already killed citizens accountable? And now we've learned, the drunk- with -power orange traitor has dispatched B-1 bombers for potentially hitting Iran nuclear power sites with 'bunker busters' - but also potential tactical nuclear strikes.
One source quote in a weekend WSJ piece saying- and this is verbatim: "Even if Trump were to use a small nuclear weapon to attack one of Iran's underground nuclear facilities, that would be a merely symbolic blow against the regime.:"
Seriously? We're now talking possible nuclear strikes in sections of the mainstream press? Anyone on Earth stopping this 5-time draft dodger punk at all?
Methinks Tunku needs to come out of dreamland or whatever parallel universe he inhabits.
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Note: An edited version of this review also appears on Amazon.
See Also:
by Thom Hartmann | July 25, 2026 - 4:26am | permalink— from The Hartmann Report
“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there’s a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
—William O. Douglas, Supreme Court Justice 1939-1975
Trump, his billionaire buddies, and his Republican lickspittles appear to be setting up a possible massive fraud with regard to this fall’s election. It could signal the end of American democracy.
We democracy-loving Americans have fought oligarchy 3 times on these shores, roughly every 80 years. Each time, we defeated the morbidly rich and established or re-established popular democracy and a government that put working class people ahead of the oligarchs.
