Much has been written about the current US administration. I don’t claim I have much to add but still felt an urge to summarize my current understanding of the state of affairs. Here goes…
Identity fusion
The members of “Trump’s base” have in effect fused their identities with Trump’s. They have struck a psychological bargain in which they trade epistemic and moral autonomy for belonging, validation, and vicarious power. Trump tells his followers that their grievances are correct, their status loss is unjust, their enemies really do despise them, and their anger is therefore legitimate. The criterion for evaluating information has shifted from “Is this proposition true?” to “Is accepting this proposition consistent with who we are?”.
Submission to an authoritarian leader is a well-known pattern in human history. The US variant is something like: social dislocation -> perceived humiliation -> charismatic leader -> identification -> enemy construction -> transgressive revenge -> weakening of independent judgment.
Not all Trump voters have fused their identity with Trump of course. Many voted out of healthy self-interest, opportunism, or based on particular pet policies that Trump has promulgated. But the captive, blindly loyal base explains a lot of the staying power of the Trump phenomenon.
Amorality
Trump, and by extension, the Trump administration is amoral. They have a fascist worldview where the powerful take what they can and the less powerful suffer what they must. It’s the worldview of medieval Europe. Some members of the adminstration, most notably Trump himself, but also individuals like Steven Miller, even seem to revel in the suffering of others to some extent.
The blatant amorality is manifested as transactionalism with the ultimate goal of enrichment and aggrandizement of president Trump himself, to a lesser degree his acolytes, and to an even lesser degree other citizens of the United States.
Trump only accidentally exhibits empathy, compassion, or altruism.
Levers of power
Trump believes that the US military and economic power is enough to bend the world to his will. He is dismantling all forms of soft power instruments such as Voice of America and USAid. But military and economic power is turning out to be insufficient. Their limits are at stark display in the Iran war and in the trade war with China.
Trump prioritizes short-term “deals” won through extortion while burning bridges instead of building long-term alliances and mutually beneficial agreements based on common values or at least a win-win principle. He thereby loses the ability to coordinate actions against adversaries such as sanctions and military interventions with allies. An example is the current attempts to isolate Iran economically.
In the abstract, the White House seems to be under the impression that the United States, as the preeminent global superpower, can simply bark orders, issue a few threats and isolate Iran. In reality, however, Team Trump’s efforts have elicited little more than yawns.
MSNow, Sept. 1, 2026.
Incompetence
The Trump administration is rank incompetent. Their pathological inability to anticipate future outcomes implies that they are using a grossly inaccurate world model. Trump seemed genuinely surprised when Iran managed to close the Strait of Hormuz and strike back at American bases in the region. He was equally surprised to learn that China produces most of the rare earth metals that America needs for it’s industry.
Another sign of gross incompetence and incoherence is the confusion about who USA’s adversaries are. The US wishes to isolate Iran economically and militarily while at the same time idolizing Vladimir Putin, Kim Jung Un and Xi Jingpin, the main supporters of Iran. The inconsistency makes my head hurt.
The US is a resilient nation and will not go under in the imminent future because of lost allies, the Iran war, measles or climate change but the inability or unwillingness to predict the consequences of actions makes life harder for all Americans (except Trump).