A President at War with Americans

Republicans have replaced Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” with a far darker insult: branding everyday Americans as lunatics, terrorists, and criminals for simply wanting to live.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Follow him on Substack for more by clicking here.

There’s something eerily familiar happening in American politics right now. We’ve all seen it before—back when a single careless phrase, “basket of deplorables,” became the scarlet letter Hillary Clinton never took off. One line. One moment. One emotional misstep that told millions of Americans they were the enemy. The right weaponized it, built a movement around it, and rode that insult all the way to the White House.

Now, the roles have reversed—but this time, it’s not a slip of the tongue. It’s an organized strategy.

The Republican Party has made a sport out of calling Democrats “lunatics.” It’s their new “deplorables,” but meaner, emptier, and far more dangerous. It’s no longer enough to disagree; now, if you care about the cost of milk or rent or health insurance, you’re deranged. If you think maybe—just maybe—the government shouldn’t treat compassion like a character flaw, you’re a lunatic.

And now, under President Trump’s second term, the mockery has turned grotesque.

On October 18th, Trump himself released a video on social media—a 20-second clip clearly made using artificial intelligence—showing himself piloting a fighter jet labeled “King Trump,” wearing a golden crown, and dropping what appears to be feces on anti-Trump protesters. The soundtrack? “Danger Zone,” from Top Gun.

The symbolism wasn’t subtle. It never is with Trump.

This was his “message” to the millions of Americans who gathered in the “No Kings” protests across the country—a sneering visual metaphor that says everything about the man and the movement he leads. The image of a self-proclaimed “King” dropping waste on his own citizens isn’t satire; it’s self-portraiture. It’s a leader mocking dissent, reveling in the degradation of those who dare to speak against him.

And the worst part? His base loved it.

They flooded social media with laughing emojis and comments like, “Finally someone putting these lunatics in their place.” They didn’t see the sickness in it—or maybe they did, and that’s why they celebrated it. Because in Trump’s America, cruelty isn’t the cost of power. It’s the point.

But here’s what they refuse to understand: it’s not lunacy to want to afford a home. It’s not lunacy to want to buy groceries without feeling robbed at checkout. It’s not lunacy to want a job that pays a living wage, or health care that doesn’t force you to choose between your child’s medication and your mortgage.

It’s not lunacy to demand that people not be disappeared into vans by masked federal agents.

That’s not madness. That’s decency. That’s democracy.

And yet, White House Press Secretary Karoline “Machine Gun Lips” Leavitt—a mouthpiece who speaks with the smug certainty of someone who’s never had to worry about missing a rent payment—told Fox News that the Democratic Party’s “main constituency” is made up of “Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.”

That wasn’t a gaffe. It was a script.

A line rehearsed and approved to paint over 60 million Americans as enemies of the state. As dangerous. As less than human.

Because if they can dehumanize you, they can control you. They can dismiss your pain, ignore your voice, and label your patriotism as treason. That’s how authoritarianism thrives—by convincing ordinary people that empathy is insanity.

But make no mistake: those seven million who showed up to protest—the ones mocked and smeared by Trump’s AI “joke”—they weren’t extremists. They were Americans. Every color. Every creed. Every age and gender and background. The kind of people this country was built on—not the kind of people Trump believes it belongs to. They are you, your neighbors, your friends.

Trump’s favorability hovers around 37%. More than 60% of Americans say his administration is steering the nation in the wrong direction. Those numbers aren’t just polling data; they’re a pulse check on a country suffocating under the weight of division.

But waking up isn’t enough.

Democrats—all of us—need to start fighting with the same discipline the GOP uses daily to destroy. Not lies, but unity. Not noise, but message. Every day. Every surrogate. Every member of Congress. We need to speak with one voice, because truth doesn’t spread on its own—it has to be carried, repeated, defended, amplified.

We’re in an information war, and we’ve been playing defense while they’ve been programming the narrative.

Trump’s “King” video wasn’t comedy. It was a warning—a taunt from a man who believes he’s untouchable, and a movement that believes dissent is filth to be washed away.

But this country doesn’t belong to kings. It belongs to the people—the so-called “lunatics” who still believe in fairness, justice, and the basic human dignity of every citizen.

We’ve seen what happens when insults become ideology. When mockery becomes a national language. When leadership turns into a cult of humiliation.

And that’s why, no matter how loud they get, we can’t back down.

Because it’s not lunacy to care. It’s not lunacy to fight back. It’s not lunacy to believe that America can still be something better.

It’s patriotism, plain and simple.

They may have the crown, but we still have the country.

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