America’s Democracy Meets A Wrecking Ball

Trump isn’t governing; he’s demolishing. From bulldozing the East Wing to deploying troops in American cities, his wrecking-ball presidency thrives because no one dares stop him.

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

Before you even had time to blink, the East Wing of the White House was gone. Not “renovated,” not “temporarily closed.” Gone—bulldozed in the middle of the night, the way despots erase inconvenient symbols of restraint. And America? We just watched it happen. Shrugged. Maybe posted a meme about it. Because that’s what we do now: document our own decline in real time.

Trump has turned the presidency into demolition theater and the country into his personal reality show set. He swings a wrecking ball every morning, and no one—no one—has the guts to grab the chain.

Look around. Military units deployed in American cities—Chicago, Portland, New York, Los Angeles—like we’re living in a banana republic with better branding. The justification? “Restoring order.” The reality? A president using the armed forces to crush dissent, intimidate the press, and flex his power before an election year. And here’s the kicker: people are taking to the streets. They’re marching. They’re shouting. They’re demanding accountability. And still, no one stops him. The system that’s supposed to check him—Congress, the courts, his own Cabinet—just nods along, as if this is fine, as if this is normal.

It’s not fine. It’s not normal. It’s madness.

He watches a baseball game, sees a thirty-second ad that criticizes his administration, and in a fit of rage, he cuts off trade with Canada. Just like that—an impulsive tantrum from the most powerful man on Earth, with the stroke of a pen that sends markets spiraling and farmers begging for relief. Canada. Our closest ally, our largest trading partner, now on Trump’s personal blacklist because a television commercial hurt his feelings.

And still, no one stops him.

Pardons? They’re currency now. You don’t earn them through justice; you buy them through access. Someone knows someone who knows someone—and boom. A pardon falls like confetti. Former members of Congress under indictment? Wiped clean. Crypto kings accused of laundering money through offshore accounts? Pardoned before the ink dries on their plea deals. And while, yes, the Constitution grants him that authority, the moral question still matters: just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

That’s what every narcissist tells himself before the fall—that power exists to be used, that restraint is weakness, that laws are for other people. I know this mindset intimately. I lived it. I defended it. And I watched it rot everything it touched.

Now it’s happening to the country.

The government is shut down again. Millions of workers furloughed. National parks closed. Air traffic controllers unpaid. The economy teeters, and Trump calls it “a cleansing moment.” He stands before cameras, chest out, grinning like a man who’s convinced destruction is strength. He calls it draining the swamp. But it’s not a swamp he’s draining; it’s the foundation of a democratic republic that took 249 years to build.

And the so-called checks and balances? They’ve become a polite suggestion. The Republican-controlled Congress won’t lift a finger. They’ve traded their spines for proximity to power, their oaths for invitations to Mar-a-Lago. The judiciary, too, stands idly by—some cowed, some complicit, all seemingly convinced that silence is survival. But history will remember this moment, and it won’t be kind to those who chose cowardice over country.

We’re not living in a constitutional crisis anymore. We’re living in the aftermath of one. The crisis has already happened. The wrecking ball’s already hit. The damage is real, and the cracks are spreading. Every norm Trump breaks becomes the new baseline. Every abuse he commits becomes precedent for the next autocrat who decides to test the limits.

The tragedy isn’t that Trump is doing these things. The tragedy is that he’s allowed to.

Every generation faces a reckoning—a test of what we’re willing to tolerate before the experiment collapses. This is ours. The 2026 midterms aren’t just another political cycle; they’re a referendum on whether America still has the will to defend itself from within.

We can’t keep pretending this is business as usual. Presidents don’t get to bulldoze wings of the White House. They don’t get to deploy troops against their own citizens. They don’t get to cancel trade with an ally out of spite. They don’t get to hand out pardons like poker chips to cronies and criminals.

Unless we let them.

I’ve seen what happens when people in power stop fearing accountability. When sycophants replace public servants. When the truth becomes optional. It’s how we got here. It’s how democracies die—not with a coup, but with a shrug.

Trump doesn’t need to rewrite the Constitution. He’s rewriting the culture of compliance, one reckless act at a time. And unless we find the courage to stand up—to say enough—he’ll keep swinging that wrecking ball until there’s nothing left standing.

Because power unchecked is power abused. And right now, America’s getting crushed under the weight of its own indifference.

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