David Rothkopf writes on The Daily Beast that great national leaders dedicate their time in office to strengthening the countries they serve — the worst do the opposite. They suck the strength out of the institutions, economies and resources they have been entrusted with protecting and cultivating — and take the wealth, status and influence for themselves — which is exactly what Donald Trump is doing to the US. Rothkopf designates this as vampirism, a term he only wishes were an overstatement. Vampire Trump is sucking the blood out of our country, and if he continues at this pace, when he is done “there will be nothing left but the pale, lifeless husk of the America that was. He is using the office of the presidency to openly enrich himself as has no other president or public official in US history,” says the author. “He has created elaborate schemes by which they and others who seek his favor can purchase crypto currency in ways that have already made him billions of dollars richer this year alone.” He is demanding gifts from other nations, as we are witnessing in our government’s acceptance of the ‘flying golden palace‘ from the nation of Qatar, destined to become Air Force One after its multi-million-dollar refitting, then onward to Trump’s presidential library — between the Little Golden Books section and the Grimm’s Fairy Tales wing. This is burdening the taxpayer with more debt resulting from tax cuts and sweetheart deals for his rich donors and the corporate world, which will bring more environmental despoliation, and an increase in health and safety conditions. The president is using the power of the government and the court system to squeeze corporations and institutions to settle lawsuits in ways that don’t benefit the country, but serve to enrich his future library with millions of dollars. Resources sucked from governmental departments and agencies that once served the people, such as health care, health research, or offices that endeavored in various ways to keep us safe, are now diverted to those agencies that increase his power and that of his mushrooming police state.

The masked, militarized forces of Homeland Security, now heavily funded by former FEMA funds, only serve to target his enemies, and to support the cruel white supremacist agenda toward the satisfaction and glee of his MAGA reactionaries — the “invasion of illegals” ploy serving only to achieve Trump’s goals. The Department of Justice is now protecting Trump personally, as it targets his opponents, enabling his obvious corruption, and aids his patrons. The intelligence community has become so corrupted, our intel assets have lost trust among our allies, making it unlikely that they will cooperate with us in the future. “Every day our government’s purpose shrinks and the power within it is more concentrated in the hands of one man. Every day we are diminished. Every day the resistance of those with strength within our system and around the world appears to grow weaker. The only comfort we can take is from the knowledge that in the end, sunlight kills vampires. You know that’s true because Trump fights so hard to bury the truth and keep the country in the dark,” writes Rothkopf. He concludes that despite the mainstream media being muzzled, and complicit in some cases, new platforms are coming to life which will enable us to work toward overcoming the “blood-sucking regime,” and to reject all those complicit in bringing on the darkness in every election until they are banished.

Monitoring use of taxpayer funds is being done by The Dekleptocracy Alliance in an attempt to expose the illegal infrastructure Trump is building to reward his allies and normalize political alliance. Examples of such payoffs are the DOJ settlement of the lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt who was killed as she stormed the Capitol building during the January 6, 2021 insurrection; in June, five Proud Boys leaders filed a $100 million lawsuit against the DOJ and FBI for “violating their rights” while committing seditious conspiracy; and in May, Trump met with Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys, telling him he is “working to make things right.” The Alliance says it looks coordinated, raising the concern that the DOJ is being used to quietly funnel taxpayer money to convicted insurrectionists. In March, Trump floated the idea of a compensation fund for the J6 rioters, but asking Congress for that kind of funding would be a political nightmare, which leaves civil settlements as a workaround — fast, quiet, and no media headlines. Tom Manger, former Capitol Police Chief, points to the Babbitt settlement as sending a “chilling message” to law enforcement nationwide. If these actions are being encouraged or coordinated quietly, it could mean DOJ attorneys are participating in a scheme to pay off Trump’s white nationalist base using public funds. One unsettling occurrence that the Trump administration seems to take pride in, is the appointment of J6 rioter, Jared Wise, who had encouraged rioters to kill police. Wise, now a senior adviser in the office of the deputy attorney general, was videoed yelling at police, “You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo,” following up with admonitions to rioters, “Kill ‘em, yeah! Kill ‘em, kill ‘em!” The new appointee is described as “a valued member of the Justice Department and we appreciate his contributions to our team.” Go team, law and order, rah-rah!

Rolling Stone magazine has detailed a few of the flamboyant and opulent efforts Donald Trump has initiated at taxpayer expense to boost his ego and flatter his wonderfulness. The recent, awkward birthday/military parade in DC was laughable — and a drag on your 401k — earning Trump a double-cream-pie-in-his-clown-face, and a kick in JD Vance’s butt for failing to requisition gold-plated military vehicles, and preventing the troops from marching in Monty Pythonesque-silly-walks. Quatar’s golden, bedecked jumbo jet (for which only Trump will hold the gold library card) is being completely repurposed at our expense and that of descendants yet unborn. And now we have, following the destruction and paving of Jackie Kennedy’s rose garden, the promise of a $200 million ballroom in which even more invitees can watch the president boogie to ‘YMCA‘ or other pirated recordings during the long evening. Trump has promised to foot the bill for construction, but yet another contractor is likely to get stiffed — unless taxpayers or donors step up.

Jesse Mackinnon posts on Common Dreams that Trump’s new ballroom plan for the White House grounds is “not just a monument to narcissism, but is stagecraft by spectacle, financed by national rot.” Architectural self-glorification for the ruling executive, fiscal starvation for the governed after slashing Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, and climate programs, all while inflating the national deficit past $40 trillion, is a juxtaposition not of innovation, but a rerun of Versailles. “Louis XVI’s France operated on the principle of dépense utile, or ‘useful splendor’ — the idea that royal extravagance was a form of political investment. Gold leaf and crystal chandeliers weren’t indulgence. They were instruments of authority. Versailles was never merely a residence. It was theater. It showcased the king’s ability to dominate not only his nobles but the metaphysical order of the kingdom itself. Every garden vista, every mirrored hallway, whispered the same thing: Obedience is beautiful and beauty belongs to the crown. This logic broke the country. Charles-Alexandre Calonne, Louis XVI’s finance minister in the 1780s, argued with sincerity that royal pageantry had diplomatic utility. France, he said, could not afford to be poor. To reduce spending would be to lose face, both at home and abroad. It would risk undermining the delicate myth of royal omnipotence that kept the aristocracy groveling and foreign rivals guessing. So he doubled down. The state borrowed to cover Versailles’ operating costs. The result was a debt spiral so vast that it cracked the ancien régime wide open,” Mackinnon writes. The US, in 2025, now faces annual payments nearing $2 trillion, about a third of our federal revenue. 1789 France had a tax-exempt aristocracy — the US has tax-exempt billionaires; and instead of court ballet, we have cable news. But the fiscal structure is no less absurd — Trump’s budget performs the same dark magic: redirecting public funds toward elite vanity while accelerating structural collapse, maintains Mackinnon.

The ballroom is only a symptom. The marble-and-gold performance space, modeled loosely on Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors, will sit at the center of Trump’s renovated West Wing, hosting foreign dignitaries, Republican fundraisers, and presidential photo ops. This is how kleptocracy dresses itself — in borrowed grandeur, gilded walls, and florid illusions of permanence, designed to shrink the public sphere until only the strong, the connected, and the loyal remain. The money isn’t gone. It’s just moved — upwards. There is a bitter historical irony here, says Mackinnon — the French Revolution did not erupt because peasants lacked bread, because bread shortages had existed for centuries. What changed was the visibility of the farce. The illusion cracked. People saw a monarchy bleeding the treasury dry for glitter and pride, while demanding austerity from everyone else. The palace at Versailles, once a symbol of majesty, began to look grotesque. The line between luxury and insult collapsed. Americans are now watching that same shift in real time, with a president who calls himself ‘king’ on social media, while receiving thunderous applause from his MAGA base, as he throws gala dinners while food pantries are deprived of funds. Royal France justified its excess as necessary for order and prestige; Trump justifies it with the language of branding. Both are the same: obscene pageantry disguising political decay with the people footing the bill. The rituals of accountability have vanished — no one will explain why America can afford a golden ballroom, but not insulin. Only theater remains, with a lineage from the Roman circuses, to Versailles, to Trump’s ballroom — all psychological, with the same ending. The French monarchy failed because people eventually realized they were not guests at the party — they were the bill.

The glitziness and the glam is about more than simply placating the president, according to political scientists. Instead, the whole spectacle is attached to Trump’s authoritarian leanings. “They have to do with a president who needs to be not only at the center of the media circus, but who needs to be told ritualistically over and over how great he is,” Anthony DiMaggio, author of ‘Rising Fascism in America: It Can Happen Here,’ told Rolling Stone. “What’s interesting to me about this, as a political scientist, is that it’s not just a personality-based thing or a defect. It’s a broader pattern that has to do with behaviors that are overlapping with authoritarian politics and ideology.” At Cabinet meetings and press briefings, officials from across the political landscape are quick to puff up the president, and no none dares correct him if he presents something with flawed information. Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling of The New Republic says, “The result is a Trumpian loyalty more akin to a religion than a political ideology; even Congressional Republicans, who are supposed to be detached from Trump’s influence, have repeatedly kowtowed to the president’s will.” Virginia Canter of Democracy Defenders Fund told Rolling Stone, “The sycophantic displays between Trump and his advisers give off ‘Dear Leader’ vibes, similar to what you would see with Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin, noting that the president treats his Cabinet members as his ‘personal staff.’ They’re there to stroke his ego.”

President Trump turned up on the roof of the White House last week along with a gaggle of his entourage, and Seth Meyers on his NBC show found it hard to absorb, unable to even laugh at the situation. “This looks like one of those human-interest stories where firefighters have to rescue a dog that got stuck on the roof,” he offered. “If Joe Biden had been seen wandering around on the roof one day, all hell would have broken loose, even though we all know he insists he is capable of cleaning the gutters himself.” The president even tried to field questions from the reporters on the ground, but Meyers suggested he couldn’t answer them if he was unable to hear them on his rooftop perch, and if poll numbers worsen he may try press conferences from atop the Washington Monument. Meyers joked, “Trump did eventually come down, thanks to firefighters luring him with a Big Mac on a string.” On ‘The Tonight Show,’ Jimmy Fallon noted that Apple CEO Tim Cook “joined President Trump at the White House to announce another $100 billion investment in the US. Cook said they plan to make it all back by selling six iPhones.”

A Trump action that was expected for weeks finally came to pass when he announced the federalizing of Washington, DC’s police department, and the deployment of several hundred National Guard troops in his attempt to “liberate” the city from crime. It just happened to be the first day of arguments in California’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that the chief executive acted illegally when he commandeered California’s National Guard to conduct immigration raids. By law, this unilateral takeover of the DC forces will require Congressional approval to continue, so we can bet that Speaker Johnson is pedaling as fast as he can to come up with justification(s) for the move since data shows that violent crime in the capitol city is down dramatically. Trump’s targeting of a majority-Democratic led city, bypassing local leaders, and using federal troops as a show of force is just another step in his attempt to acclimate such actions to portray it as necessary and normal in the eyes of the public. His occupancy of an LA neighborhood with troops firmly under his belt, was only a prelude to a takeover of a whole city — a small one, but larger populations are on his list as he aspires to eradicate home rule in all our states as he doubles down. A normal Congress has the constitutional power AND the responsibility to check our lawless leader by holding oversight hearings, examining all subpoenaed documents, and pass legislation to strictly define domestic troop deployments, a line we cannot afford to let Trump cross. As Josh posts on Civic Shout, “It erodes the separation of powers, undermines local authority, and violates the principles behind the Posse Comitatus Act.”

The Sunday preceding his actions, Trump issued a warning to the unhoused in DC, telling them to “move out immediately,” even in light of an increased homeless population. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital (sic). The criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong,” Trump posted. Jesse Rabinowitz, spokesperson for the National Homelessness Law Center, wrote on Bluesky, “The billionaires at the Cicero Institute have their hands all over these shameful steps. Again, Republicans are using DC as a sandbox for their failed, racist and backwards policies. Pay attention to what happens here, because it will soon happen everywhere.” Steve Berg, chief policy officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, posted on LinkedIn, “I hardly see anybody on the streets in DC these days. If there are encampments, they’re hiding. Could it be somebody thinks he can prove how tough he is by threatening people who are homeless?” Melanie D’Arrigo of the Campaign for New York Health, wrote on X, “Trump is going to traffic homeless people. Many won’t have ID, and will likely end up incarcerated with immigrants who are being arrested, trafficked and detained, without due process.” The Washington Legal Clinic, also posted on X: “People are not criminals or dangerous, by virtue of their unhoused status. People are struggling to afford rent and food in an expensive city. We should not have homelessness in our nation’s capitol. But the path to ending homelessness is housing, not displacement.”

As the president rambled on about roving gangs of teens attacking locals and visitors, comparing crime in DC to cities around the globe, MSNBC posted a bright red graphic next to him that proved his numbers incorrect, that he was making things up on the fly — lies #4501? or #5501?, for his second-term quota — based on the former Washington Post’s lie count of 21 or so lies per day from his first term. CNN also displayed a graph during Trump’s presentation, showing a 35% drop in DC violent crimes — a blatant put-down of the president’s “bloodthirsty criminals, drugged out maniacs and homeless people” claim. Trump raged on with, “We’re not going to let it happen. It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness. And we’re getting rid of slums, too. We have slums here. We’re getting rid of them. I know it’s not politically correct. You’ll say, oh, so terrible. No, we’re getting rid of the slums where they live.” Got that? He’s getting rid of slums! Yes, slums! Trump had posted on Truth Social on Friday preceding his formal takeover announcement, “Washington DC will be LIBERATED today! Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER! I quickly fixed the Border (ZERO ILLEGALS in the last 3 months!), DC is next!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT” Tom Boggioni of Raw Story wrote: “Trump’s latest post follows a Truth Social flurry on Monday morning where, in one, he raged at the New York Times, and in another attacked the intelligence of female Democrats while boasting about the cognitive tests he has “aced” — both at a time when he is being scrutinized over his friendship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.” Just another Epstein cover-up distraction? Plus, he’s getting rid of slums!

Curiously, as we all remember, Mr. Trump refused to call up the National Guard in DC on January 6, 2021, when the rioting was completely out of control, blaming it on Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s failure to do so, because he “didn’t have the power.” And, as we have seen the president has pardoned those convicted of violent crimes during that insurrection. Former DC police officer, Daniel Hodges, who was present on that fateful day says, “As a former National Guard member and of the DC police, if Trump’s edict comes to pass, the vast majority of the troops are just going to stand around. They are not trained law enforcement. Extremely expensive photo op, and you’re paying for it.”