According to Trump, the new ballroom is a front for a building that descends six stories underground. Trump revealed that the ballroom will run about six stories deep (60 to 100 feet) and will be made of “impenetrable” steel and four-inch-thick glass. (To Trump, all steel is impenetrable, just like Iran’s defense systems have been “obliterated”, but they still are operating.)

According to Fox News, Trump also said, “9,000 pounds of concrete is being used.”  This has to be a mistake. It would be more accurate to say that 9,000 tons of concrete are being used on a building that goes six stories deep. 

More importantly, Trump also said his ballroom would include a military hospital, research facilities, various meeting rooms, and security infrastructure tied to drone and missile defense.

Trump must plan on having some wild parties if he needs a hospital and research facilities built alongside the ballroom.  Trump did not detail what type of research would be conducted underground, but it should titillate science fiction fans.

This is Definitely Not Just a Ballroom

The docile media keeps referring to this as a “ballroom,” but it is more of a fortified bunker that will be used when Trump refuses to leave office, or in the event he decides to stage a coup if a Democrat is elected president in November 2028.

That’s why he needs a hospital and defensive protection against any police or army that decides to enforce the Constitution and prevent another attempted Trump coup.

The brazen use of taxpayer money to build the ballroom should also be added to Trump’s other crimes, including the $1 billion slush fund to pay his MAGA Brown Shirts, who will now be paid to come to his assistance.  This $1 billion slush fund will pay for Trump‘s mercenaries.

This is what will unfold during the next four years. The good news for Trump is that the new ballroom should be ready just in time for his next insurrection.

What Are the Dems Doing?

Meanwhile, what will the Democrats be doing until the next presidential election?

Based on past events. Dem leaders Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Corey Booker will be busy writing protest letters to Trump.  These letters will not do any good, but they will send them anyway.  The Democratic leaders will also focus their attacks on the progressive Democrats, as opposed to the MAGA Republicans. 

If the Dems went into high gear, they could hold hearings on Trumps’ role in the Epstein sex ring, Trump’s violations of the Hatch Act, conflicts of interest in the Trump family, their use of diplomatic cover to solicit personal business, the role of Russia in the last election, releasing the Jack Smith report on Russian collusion, and investigating whether Trump sold secret to foreign nations.  That will be good, good for starters.

But that will not happen.  The damage Trump will do to the nation in the next three years will take a few generations to undo.  In the interim, Trump and his gang will leave office as billionaires many times over, and they will get away with the biggest crimes in American history.  Welcome to corporate America.

Protest the Upcoming 250th Celebration of the USA

Non-MAGA Americans should also hold counter-protests to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of the USA in 1776.  The USA of 2026 is quickly moving into a fascist state run by a mental case and his supporters.

The ballroom, the unprecedented crimes and self-dealing, and gerrymandering all point to the takeover of the governments at the state and federal levels by wealthy oligarchs and Christian nationalists.

This is the opposite of what happened in 1776 when the USA was launched as a democratic society.  That did not last.  It was derailed by Reconstruction after 1865 and into the 1960s when segregation was overturned by law.  But the spirit of the Confederacy is alive and well in the MAGA movement.

Non-MAGA Americans should hold counter-celebrations to the upcoming July 4th celebrations of the 250th anniversary.  The USA of 2026 is not the country that was founded in 1776.  The future of the nation is very bleak.  Trump’s mental illness, the rise of AI, the repeal of the Civil Rights Acts, voter suppression, the fundamental change in the US economy that will reduce purchasing power, and raise interest rates on mortgages and car loans will impoverish millions.

DOn’t fall for the media and the right-wingers who want to celebrate America on July 4th as “the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”  That is nostalgia.

Look at what is happening today.

America faces a bleak future with the rise of MAGA, the Tea Party, the right-wing nationalists, and the criminals whom Trump has brought into his regime.

America in 2026 is a different nation today, and it is moving in the wrong direction.

There, they will supposedly help hapless travelers toting luggage, backpacks, and anxious kids through long lines to prove they are not carrying bombs, flammables, or messages on their phones that oppose or insult Trump or the American Way.

These masked American Gestapo ICE agents are being sent to guard Americans against other Americans, whose authenticity Trump’s Gestapo will decide if they are really all-American enough to board an airplane.

Yes, the freedom to move freely around the US is being evaluated by a group of thugs, many of whom have never been to college or graduated from high school. Some even vandalized the Capitol during Trump’s January 6 Insurrection.

Worse, most of the people arrested by ICE have done nothing wrong. “50,259 out of 68,289—or 74% held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction according to data current as of Feb. 7, 2026. Many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations,” according to TracImmigration.

So, why are these thugs being sent to US airports to wish travelers a happy journey?

On its face, its done to add more screening agents for boarding passengers to go throug security..

But it’s also part of the chilling and desensitization factor to get Americans used to seeing armed soldiers in close proximity.  They are on US streets and airports. Next, they will be in malls, schools, theaters, and entertainment districts.

ICE is there to intimidate Americans.  Parents accompanying their kids at airports will now have to explain why masked men in full combat gear with guns and pepper spray are now standing next to people in wheelchairs being pushed to their departure gates.

Maybe the ICE agents will arrest people wearing pajamas on airplanes since the head of Trump’s FAA already said that is not part of the Republican dress code.

This is full-blown fascism. Previously, this was restricted to isolated neighborhoods in Minneapolis and Chicago, but now the goons will be intimidating people buying magazines and candy for their flights.

Apparently, few other people have noticed this incongruent scene because they are too busy watching March Madness basketball or scrolling through the latest TikTok videos.

Even the media is asleep.  Today, Dana Bash of CNN did another one of her toothless interviews with Tom Homan, the new ICE head, about sending combat thugs to airports.  Bash asked Homnan whether his geniuses have any expertise in operating a scanner or working the X-ray machines that detect bombs in luggage.

After a visibly long pause, Homan (who makes about $200,000 a year but has never explained the $50,000 he says he received in a paper bag) said they don’t have that expertise.

However, he said they would be stationed at the exits to ensure no one entered the baggage claim area from the outside lobby.  This is worth repeating because Homan said his highly trained force of weekend combat soldiers will be stationed at the exits to ensure no one enters from the exit-only door. Imagine that!

Anyone who has been to an airport knows that the job of sitting on a stool, looking at people exiting the luggage area, was previously held by a rent-a-cop in a blue blazer who sat there with no gun or tear gas.  Essentially, his job was to make sure no one went up or down the escalator.  Now, travelers will feel more secure with a masked goon at the door with enough weaponry to level the whole lounge.

Now, Homan’s weekend warriors will be sitting at that same exit with loaded weapons and pepper spray to make sure some misguided old lady who forgot her purse on the airplane does not enter the wrong door to retrieve her purse.

If that happens, the ICE agent will throw her against the wall, yell at her, push her to the ground, and after that, three or four other weekend combat soldiers in ICE will surround her, handcuff her, and block the view so no bystanders can take cell phone videos. She will then be taken to an ambulance and flown to some unnamed town in the Arizona desert.

God knows what will happen if a traveler gives an ICE agent the finger or takes their photo. It could be a bloodbath.  All this is possible under Trump’s Nazis.

How do we know this?

Because this has been their pattern in Minneapolis and Chicago, and wherever ICE agents have beaten people up for no cause.

Did this occur to Dana Bash of CNN?

Bash, one of the highest-paid newsreaders at CNN at $3 million a year with a net worth of $9 million, cannot ask tough questions that any good journalist who was on the air 30 years ago would ask.

Why she is paid $3 million annually is unknowable to anyone outside the cable industry, but she certainly does not ask questions that any journalism freshman would know.  Maybe she is paid that much NOT to ask tough questions. That would better explain the wimpified cable journalism we see today.

The US Embargo Kills Cubans and No One Protests

So, as the US is working to silently kill Cuban citizens with more embargoes, Americans keep watching March Madness or the next Great Diversion in American society, whatever it is.

Trump’s comment that he is glad the former head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, died would be disgusting if it came from any person, but when Trump says it, that vile comment from the most vile man in the US goes unnoticed on cable TV.

The fact that about one-third of Americans voted for the convicted criminal, sex offender, adulterer, and racist TWICE to be president is proof that the US is declining.

The amount of damage Trump has caused in less than one, a little over one, year will take a generation or two to recover from.

The great days of America are over.  When the Trump crowds chant “USA, USA,” it’s proof that the pre-Trump USA is gone.

People aged 30 or younger will have less wealth and a lower standard of living than their parents, unless they receive an inheritance.

The proliferation of online betting, betting on prediction markets, reverse mortgages, and payday loans, the mischaracterization of crypto as an “investment” by greedy advisors and banks, is more proof that younger people are desperate for get-rich-quick schemes.  They are doing this because it’s difficult to get entry-level jobs commensurate with their education, get raises, have job security, and save on basic expenses.

Monopolistic corporations in the utilities, cable, internet, and food distribution businesses make it impossible to save unless a subscriber signs up for their most basic plan.  If they cannot afford that basic plan, they have nothing to substitute for it, so they do without.

The credit card companies, banks, and credit rating agencies further control the lives of most working people.  If you don’t have a good credit score, you pay more for everything you buy on credit: cars, houses, cosmetics, food, entertainment, and clothes.  Americans who live paycheck to paycheck charge more, so they pay more for everything if they have a low credit score.  It’s the reason why credit card companies have profit margins in excess of 25%, the highest of any industry in America.

Suicides Are the Leading Cause of Death

The reason America’s best days are behind us is that more people die of suicide than gun deaths in America. If these people had something to look forward to, why would they commit suicide?

The new report, Gun Violence in the United States 2023: Examining the Gun Suicide Epidemic, finds that guns were involved in 46,728 deaths in the U.S. in 2023—or one death every 11 minutes. For the third straight year, gun suicides reached a new high: 27,300, or 58% of all gun deaths, were suicides, according to this report.

American soldiers (men and women) who went to the useless and fraudulent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are also committing suicide at the rate of 17 per day in 2023. The rate of suicide among veterans was 35 per 100,000, compared with 17 per 100,000 for nonveterans (Office of Suicide Prevention, 2024b). In 2022, the suicide rate among 18–34-year-olds remained the highest among all age groups.

The people who started those wars using fake pretenses and the lie of “weapons of mass destruction” are living very comfortable lives in Texas and California.  Condoleezza Rice, the pliable liar under the George Bush administration, now heads Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.  Being a war criminal pays well: Rice is paid $305,000 annually from Stanford and received roughly $350,000 in total compensation as a C3.ai board member in 2024. Stanford University should have an entire department composed of war criminals.

Who needs more proof that America’s best days are in the past? 

Trump is unchallenged and has about three more years to dismantle the nation and make it into a kleptocracy, complete with prison camps in warehouses, all paid for by the Federal government.  The Democrats are a disgraceful group of spinless wimps who are focused on Robert’s Rule of Orders, discharge petitions, and esoteric discharge petitions, and the esoterica of parliamentary procedure and the rules of debate.

All of these are relics from another age.  Newt Gingrich introduced the dismantling of Congress in 1995 as the Speaker of the House.  That happened 31 years ago, but that was not enough time for the Democrats to adjust their strategic playbook.

Now they have no playbook, only speeches delivered by the tootlless trio of Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Corey Booker, all of whom hate the democratic socialists Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani more than their Republican “colleagues.”

The Congressional Democrats are so useless that they still believe they can work with their Republican “colleagues.”  But they are not the first to be deceived by the obvious.  Barack Obama, a true corporate Democrat and a failed political force, never seemed to recognize that the Republicans opposed every bill he ever introduced because he was Black.

At a famous meeting of top Republicans the night he was inaugurated, these Republicans agreed to that goal.  Obama knew about it, but tried to appease the lions. Obama was criticized before he became president for being unable to make decisions, wishy-washy until he heard the latest poll numbers, or got the OK to act from his advisor, Valerie Jarrett.

The Democrats became even more spineless under Joe Biden, who was addled by old age, mental disabilities, or the inability to realize the new political reality he had never encountered: in-your-face disgust, rejection of his ideas, and full-blown hatred of the principles of the Democratic Party.

Biden was too spineless to fire the worst Attorney General in modern History, Merrick Garland, who waited over a year to appoint the Special Counsel Jack Smith for reasons that have never been publicly released.  There may not even be a reason for Garland’s behavior aside from the fact that he was a coward or too entangled in legal esoterica to make a decision.

The bottom line is what we see today.

Americans can see the fascist takeover is being televised.

But most Americans think this is a reality show like “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” or “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”

It’s not.

The best advice is to skip the airport. Don’t fly. Take the train or drive. And if you are a tourist in Europe, South America, or Asia and are thinking of visiting the USA, think again.  Don’t make the trip.

If you show up at a US airport and think favorably of Castro, Mao, the European Union, the United Nations, liberal movie stars, the US women’s Olympic soccer team, or the socialist governments of Scandinavia, or socialist candidates in office in France or Germany, you could immediately be thrown in an unnamed, unfindable US jail with no recourse.

Welcome to Trump’s America.