Trump Has Given Us A ‘Golden Age’ – Of Corruption And Cruelty
By John Harwood|Zeteo Photos: YouTube Screenshots|Wikimedia Commons They cannot competently govern, but give Donald Trump’s flunkies this much: They know what their president wants to hear. “You have changed America and created the Golden Age,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has gushed. “A new Golden Age of economic prosperity,” boasted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “A golden age of national defense,” chirped the Pentagon’s Pete Hegseth. And “the Golden Age,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Americans on the country’s 250th birthday, “is just beginning.” OK, laugh at their fantasies. Trump’s bungling has driven inflation higher, his Iran debacle drags on, his ICE agents keep killing peaceable, productive immigrants, and his vanity projects produce one embarrassment after another. Leaders presiding over halcyon days do not suffer sub-40% public approval. But a narcissistic president who craves superlatives deserves recognition for those he has earned. He has indeed created a Golden Age – of the most appalling kinds. Over and over, in myriad ways, his second presidency elevates the worst of America. Take just the last few weeks. Trump’s Golden Age of Ignorance, disdaining history, medical science, and technological reality, has produced swift results. In late June, soon after Hegseth eliminated mandatory flu vaccines for service members, Lackland Air Force Base reported more than 200 flu infections; one trainee died. On Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine-skeptical Health and Human Services Department reported that 2026 measles cases have nearly reached the total for all of 2025 – America’s highest in a quarter-century. Earlier this month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright boasted that the administration would end government subsidies for new wind and solar energy projects. “The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine,” Wright explained, sounding sensible to anyone unaware that 21st century batteries store clean, renewable energy for later use. (In May, solar power passed dirty, costlier coal as a source of U.S. electricity.) Trump’s Golden Age of Delusion requires millions of Americans – perhaps including the president himself – to believe things that are not true. When a group of white supremacists on July 4 embarrassed the right with a public parade, prominent MAGA voices suggested they were really left-wingers in disguise. It echoed old claims that Jan. 6 insurrectionists who violently tried to overturn the 2020 election had been members of antifa – a fever dream that broke when Trump pardoned them. In a Thursday night speech, Trump regurgitated his nonsensical claims about the 2020 election to justify interfering in midterm contests this fall. Major television networks declined to surrender their airtime for his rant. On the level of farce, Trump covered the administration’s incompetence by claiming vandals destroyed its putative upgrade of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. His hapless U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeannine Pirro, claimed in a felony indictment that a former U.S. Olympic athlete “forcefully and violently” ripped up pool sealant by hand. Trump’s Golden Age of Retreat keeps shrinking America’s influence abroad and moral standing at home. At last week’s NATO summit in Turkey, the democratic allies Trump has alienated used flattery to keep the erratic president, who prefers autocratic rulers, from throwing a tantrum. As if shielding the fragile ego of a child, Belgium’s Prime Minister pledged not to bring up his country’s World Cup soccer win over the U.S. Less restrained, victorious Belgium team members mocked Trump for his crude intervention with international soccer officials to restore the eligibility of a previously suspended American player. Shortly before Independence Day, the Trump-molded Supreme Court shrugged off his flagrantly racist rhetoric to declare the administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians constitutionally permissible; earlier, the court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act. On July 6, a White House report condemned the Smithsonian Institution staff, run by the African American scholar Lonnie Bunch, as “radical activists” with “anti-white” views. Trump’s Golden Age of Cruelty relentlessly shocks the American conscience. This week in Maine, ICE gunned down a young Colombian immigrant, letting him bleed out in front of his wife and small child. Joan Sebastián Guerrero, working legally with a U.S. Social Security number, was not even the man ICE had been looking for. The same thing happened last week in Texas to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. The 52-year-old Mexican national, with no criminal record, had worked construction here for 35 years and sent three sons to college. Recently, the Dallas County medical examiner ruled the death of Afghan national Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal an accident. Paktiawal, who served alongside U.S. Special Forces at war
Black News 
By John Harwood|Zeteo
Photos: YouTube Screenshots|Wikimedia Commons
They cannot competently govern, but give Donald Trump’s flunkies this much: They know what their president wants to hear.
“You have changed America and created the Golden Age,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has gushed. “A new Golden Age of economic prosperity,” boasted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “A golden age of national defense,” chirped the Pentagon’s Pete Hegseth.
And “the Golden Age,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Americans on the country’s 250th birthday, “is just beginning.”
OK, laugh at their fantasies. Trump’s bungling has driven inflation higher, his Iran debacle drags on, his ICE agents keep killing peaceable, productive immigrants, and his vanity projects produce one embarrassment after another. Leaders presiding over halcyon days do not suffer sub-40% public approval.
But a narcissistic president who craves superlatives deserves recognition for those he has earned. He has indeed created a Golden Age – of the most appalling kinds.
Over and over, in myriad ways, his second presidency elevates the worst of America. Take just the last few weeks.
Trump’s Golden Age of Ignorance, disdaining history, medical science, and technological reality, has produced swift results.
In late June, soon after Hegseth eliminated mandatory flu vaccines for service members, Lackland Air Force Base reported more than 200 flu infections; one trainee died. On Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine-skeptical Health and Human Services Department reported that 2026 measles cases have nearly reached the total for all of 2025 – America’s highest in a quarter-century.
Earlier this month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright boasted that the administration would end government subsidies for new wind and solar energy projects. “The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine,” Wright explained, sounding sensible to anyone unaware that 21st century batteries store clean, renewable energy for later use. (In May, solar power passed dirty, costlier coal as a source of U.S. electricity.)
Trump’s Golden Age of Delusion requires millions of Americans – perhaps including the president himself – to believe things that are not true. When a group of white supremacists on July 4 embarrassed the right with a public parade, prominent MAGA voices suggested they were really left-wingers in disguise.
It echoed old claims that Jan. 6 insurrectionists who violently tried to overturn the 2020 election had been members of antifa – a fever dream that broke when Trump pardoned them.
In a Thursday night speech, Trump regurgitated his nonsensical claims about the 2020 election to justify interfering in midterm contests this fall. Major television networks declined to surrender their airtime for his rant.
On the level of farce, Trump covered the administration’s incompetence by claiming vandals destroyed its putative upgrade of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. His hapless U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeannine Pirro, claimed in a felony indictment that a former U.S. Olympic athlete “forcefully and violently” ripped up pool sealant by hand.
Trump’s Golden Age of Retreat keeps shrinking America’s influence abroad and moral standing at home.
At last week’s NATO summit in Turkey, the democratic allies Trump has alienated used flattery to keep the erratic president, who prefers autocratic rulers, from throwing a tantrum. As if shielding the fragile ego of a child, Belgium’s Prime Minister pledged not to bring up his country’s World Cup soccer win over the U.S. Less restrained, victorious Belgium team members mocked Trump for his crude intervention with international soccer officials to restore the eligibility of a previously suspended American player.
Shortly before Independence Day, the Trump-molded Supreme Court shrugged off his flagrantly racist rhetoric to declare the administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians constitutionally permissible; earlier, the court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act. On July 6, a White House report condemned the Smithsonian Institution staff, run by the African American scholar Lonnie Bunch, as “radical activists” with “anti-white” views.
Trump’s Golden Age of Cruelty relentlessly shocks the American conscience. This week in Maine, ICE gunned down a young Colombian immigrant, letting him bleed out in front of his wife and small child. Joan Sebastián Guerrero, working legally with a U.S. Social Security number, was not even the man ICE had been looking for.
The same thing happened last week in Texas to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. The 52-year-old Mexican national, with no criminal record, had worked construction here for 35 years and sent three sons to college.
Recently, the Dallas County medical examiner ruled the death of Afghan national Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal an accident. Paktiawal, who served alongside U.S. Special Forces at war against the Taliban, died a day after ICE agents detained him. His wife says he was denied his asthma inhaler.
Trump cares most about his Golden Era of Sleaze. The New York Times last month calculated his 2025 revenue at $2.2 billion. He has profited from opening a bazaar for presidential pardons, including one for a crypto titan linked to his family business, and from cryptocurrency legislation the Republican-led Congress sent him to sign.
As Trump boosts defense spending, his children have affiliated companies winning fat Pentagon contracts. Embarrassment caused by the $400 million airplane the president took from the Qatari government – which the Secret Service made him leave behind in Turkey due to security vulnerabilities – hasn’t slowed the cash-grab.
Decorative baubles Trump has slapped on the walls make the White House look like a cross between Middle East tyrant’s palace and Las Vegas brothel. If only the Golden Age of Cheap Gold were the worst of it.
John Harwood is the former chief Washington correspondent for CNBC and White House correspondent for CNN. He has interviewed every president from George H.W. Bush to Joe Biden. Sign up for ‘The Stakes with John Harwood’ to get all of his columns in your inbox.
