Imperial President

Being an ultimate dictator is who Donald Trump has always been.

Donald Trump wants to be an imperial president. This is not the first time that American presidents have acted in imperial ways. There are countless examples of this throughout the history of American foreign policy– especially following the Second World War and the onset of the Cold War. But in most cases they have been called mistakes, overreaches, or just wrong– either contemporaneously or retrospectively.

But Donald Trump really wants to be an emperor, not just a president. He even likes the word “king” to be used around him. This is not just comical but core to Trump’s political and personal ambitions. Being an ultimate dictator is who Donald Trump has always been.

Unbelievably, he has restored his and America’s relationship to Vladimir Putin, turned his back on Ukraine, and even the rest of Europe with the Atlantic Alliance that has been in place since World War II. It is absolutely stunning how Trump has now called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator,” but in the same week, refused to name the Russian dictator Putin as one.

Conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens called the astonishing vote against a U.N. resolution urging Russia's withdrawal from Ukraine this week “America’s Most Shameful Vote Ever at the U.N.” The new Trump regime refused to join with most of the other nations of the world to condemn Putin’s Russia on the 3rd anniversary of the brutal and horrendous Russian invasion of Ukraine. Instead, Trump now blames Ukraine, the victim of the Russian onslaught, instead of the invader. Bret Stephens quotes Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president, in describing the ways tyrannies are brought down by courageous people who “live within the truth.” By now propagating Putin’s lies about Ukraine, Stephens says Trump is “turning the United States into an accessory to Russia’ crimes–or at least to the lies on which the crimes are predicated.”

Who will be the truth-tellers on the world stage?. And who will be the truth-tellers at home to the many imperial lies of the would be king of America?

Despite Panama’s objections, Trump continues to talk about taking over the Panama Canal. By what means? Did Trump voters vote for the takeover of Greenland which he continues to pledge to do? Or to turn Gaza into a resort “riviera” where we all can surmise who will take the profits from? And I never expected Canadian church leaders to reach out to their American counterparts for help in preventing Trump’s annexation of Canada.

While my primary focus will continue to be he plans to slash Medicaid and SNAP and the invasion of ICE raiders into our sacred spaces to arrest and deport immigrants without criminal records, these foreign policy threats are important for us to understand who and what we are dealing with here.

In a joint column by two New York Times columnists of opposing political viewpoints titled, “The World Is There For the Carving” they describe how Trump’s movement is toward a small collective of the world’s dictators as partners supporting each other's takeovers of their individual spheres, while together shaping the framework of the globe.

Could that mean the eventual dominance of Russia in Ukraine and the other former Soviet states in Eastern Europe, members now of NATO, or even beyond? Will America want the rest of North America (including Canada and Greenland)and to make sure the Panama Canal and Gaza are under U.S. control? And with all this happening, what will China be allowed to do in its sphere in Asia, who abstained from naming Russia as the aggressor in the Ukraine invasion.

These questions are all before us now.

My focus will always be on what faith communities must do in times of crisis. We must be first and foremost the truth-tellers to power. Our communities must “live within the truth” as Havel reminds us. It will always be the faithfulness of those truth-telling people who will someday bring the lies and power of tyrannies down. We cannot predict and control that, but can always be faithful to God and God’s truth in the midst.

And we must act on the truth.

“I love you Lord, my strength, my rock, my fortress, my savior. My God is my rock where I take refuge: my shield, my mighty help, my stronghold. The Lord is worthy of all praise: when I call I am saved from my foes.” Psalm 18:1-3