Donald Trump The Propaganda Tsunami Is Drowning America Democracy
By Robert Kimball Shinkoskey Photos: Wikimedia Commons Democracy starts and ends with written law. A founding group of people decide on a slate of humanitarian laws that all agree must be enforced across the land as long as their descendants exist as a humane people. Democracy ends when people no longer enforce those humanitarian laws and no longer care much about their neighbors. What happens next is that people are thrust into never-ending succession of law-breaking autocrats or kings. The American electorate no longer has much knowledge of our constitutional law, and the people we elect do not either. We don’t know what is in our law, why it was put in there, when we started ignoring major provisions of it, and what can be done to restore it. We are a reckless people who have lost a sense of responsibility for others. Our citizenry as a whole, and our politicians as a group, are not really capable of being serious about wisdom, knowledge, compassion, and government of, by, and for the people. This is an every-person-for-themselves nation now. Today, it’s force, manipulation, war, expropriation, sexual assault, even murder if necessary. We are also into lies, bad faith (breaking oaths, contracts, or agreements), addiction, gambling, exploitative pornography, and whatever new thing appeals to a happy-go-lucky citizenry. People who go to church think all is well in America because their little community is so cozy and supportive of each other. The church, however, has largely sloughed-off the rest of the community because they don’t believe in God or go to the same church. They will provide food, emotional support, and invitations to find God, but as far as health care, education, jobs . . . that’s the secular world’s job and the secular world is not God’s world. There is only one kingdom . . . the church. God doesn’t preside over the whole of society like the government does, because Jesus never had anything good to say about government . . . or did he? Here’s what I think. America is vastly over-entertained, and vastly under-educated. Also, our memories have gotten pretty short. We can’t remember 2024, let alone 1789 when the Constitution was ratified. In 2024, Trump campaigned on cutting gas prices in half. But today . . . When our President says things like, “There would be no Israel or Middle East if I had not ended the Obama nuclear deal with Iran,” the President’s people applaud like Jesus just returned to earth. They don’t see a megalomaniacal, egotistical usurper of the rule of law. They see that Trump returned to office when Jesus hasn’t yet. Our Oval Office leader is the America First politician who is never wrong, the one who could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose support, someone indicted on dozens of felony counts who SCOTUS says can commit as many crimes as he wants while in office, someone you never need to fact check when he says things in his “Iran speech” on April Fool’s Day 2026 like this: “Never in the history of warfare have enemies received such losses.” Iran was “at the doorstep of a nuclear weapon like nobody has ever see before.” Contrast this with another recent Republican president. After the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., to explicitly warn against Muslim discrimination. “America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country.” He added: “They need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.” Now MAGA supporters of America’s Muslim-hater-in-chief Donald J. Trump are saying things like, “To be clear, I didn’t ‘suggest’ Islamists are the enemy. I said it plainly.” Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles in his social media post stated flatly that Muslims don’t belong in the United States. He later wrote, “Paperwork doesn’t magically make you American,” and “Muslims are unable to assimilate; they all have to go back.” Florida Rep. Randy Fine said that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” For his part, #47 has said, “[Iranian Muslims] have been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!” President Donald J. Trump is a propaganda tsunami. In order to protect the myth that “Trump is never, ever wrong,” he must spew out his own severely contorted version of reality at every turn. When you must always be right, you must always divert, dissemble, lie. Robert Kimball Shinkoskey is the author of books and editorials on democracy, religion, and the American presidency.
Black News 
By Robert Kimball Shinkoskey
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
Democracy starts and ends with written law. A founding group of people decide on a slate of humanitarian laws that all agree must be enforced across the land as long as their descendants exist as a humane people.
Democracy ends when people no longer enforce those humanitarian laws and no longer care much about their neighbors. What happens next is that people are thrust into never-ending succession of law-breaking autocrats or kings.
The American electorate no longer has much knowledge of our constitutional law, and the people we elect do not either. We don’t know what is in our law, why it was put in there, when we started ignoring major provisions of it, and what can be done to restore it. We are a reckless people who have lost a sense of responsibility for others.
Our citizenry as a whole, and our politicians as a group, are not really capable of being serious about wisdom, knowledge, compassion, and government of, by, and for the people. This is an every-person-for-themselves nation now. Today, it’s force, manipulation, war, expropriation, sexual assault, even murder if necessary. We are also into lies, bad faith (breaking oaths, contracts, or agreements), addiction, gambling, exploitative pornography, and whatever new thing appeals to a happy-go-lucky citizenry.
People who go to church think all is well in America because their little community is so cozy and supportive of each other. The church, however, has largely sloughed-off the rest of the community because they don’t believe in God or go to the same church. They will provide food, emotional support, and invitations to find God, but as far as health care, education, jobs . . . that’s the secular world’s job and the secular world is not God’s world. There is only one kingdom . . . the church. God doesn’t preside over the whole of society like the government does, because Jesus never had anything good to say about government . . . or did he?
Here’s what I think. America is vastly over-entertained, and vastly under-educated. Also, our memories have gotten pretty short. We can’t remember 2024, let alone 1789 when the Constitution was ratified. In 2024, Trump campaigned on cutting gas prices in half. But today . . .
When our President says things like, “There would be no Israel or Middle East if I had not ended the Obama nuclear deal with Iran,” the President’s people applaud like Jesus just returned to earth. They don’t see a megalomaniacal, egotistical usurper of the rule of law. They see that Trump returned to office when Jesus hasn’t yet.
Our Oval Office leader is the America First politician who is never wrong, the one who could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose support, someone indicted on dozens of felony counts who SCOTUS says can commit as many crimes as he wants while in office, someone you never need to fact check when he says things in his “Iran speech” on April Fool’s Day 2026 like this:
“Never in the history of warfare have enemies received such losses.”
Iran was “at the doorstep of a nuclear weapon like nobody has ever see before.”
Contrast this with another recent Republican president. After the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., to explicitly warn against Muslim discrimination.
“America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country.” He added: “They need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.”
Now MAGA supporters of America’s Muslim-hater-in-chief Donald J. Trump are saying things like, “To be clear, I didn’t ‘suggest’ Islamists are the enemy. I said it plainly.”
Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles in his social media post stated flatly that Muslims don’t belong in the United States. He later wrote, “Paperwork doesn’t magically make you American,” and “Muslims are unable to assimilate; they all have to go back.”
Florida Rep. Randy Fine said that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
For his part, #47 has said, “[Iranian Muslims] have been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!”
President Donald J. Trump is a propaganda tsunami. In order to protect the myth that “Trump is never, ever wrong,” he must spew out his own severely contorted version of reality at every turn.
When you must always be right, you must always divert, dissemble, lie.
Robert Kimball Shinkoskey is the author of books and editorials on democracy, religion, and the American presidency.
