On daily basis, Trump is saying and doing issues that may get most basic college youngsters suspended.
First off, let me say that right now, I mourn. I mourn for the dying of Rob and Michele Reiner, for the unfathomable tragedy of a mentally troubled younger man killing each of his mother and father in chilly blood. I mourn as a result of in methods each massive and small, Rob Reiner made the world a greater place. I mourn as a result of there are few individuals on earth whose work made me stomach giggle even once I was feeling down—and since now each time I watch an episode of All within the Household, or catch one other screening of The Princess Bride, or When Harry Met Sally…, or Spinal Faucet, I’ll know the infinite cruelty of the ending.
I mourn, too, for the beyond-gross approach through which Donald Trump, the general public face of America, responded to this terrible occasion—and for what it says about the place this nation is true now.
If you’re the president of america, it’s actually not very exhausting to say the proper factor in response to such a tragedy. Even should you didn’t personally just like the victims, you may say one thing generic about the way you ship condolences to the household, how your ideas and prayers are with the victims, the way you hope that on this second we will put politics apart and grieve as a nation for the lack of a cultural icon.
And but, in his malignant senescence, Trump flubbed it. Astoundingly, he took to Truth Social to submit that Reiner’s homicide was “reportedly because of the anger he brought about others by means of his huge, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a thoughts crippling illness generally known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, typically known as TDS. He was identified to have pushed individuals CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, together with his apparent paranoia reaching new heights.… Might Rob and Michele relaxation in peace!”
When, hours later, journalists gave Trump an opportunity to stroll again this ghastly assertion, he doubled down. “Effectively, I wasn’t a fan of his in any respect. He was a deranged particular person. I believed he was very unhealthy for our nation,” he sneered.
I’ve written actually a whole bunch of columns through the years on Trump, and in a lot of these I’ve explored how his language, his tone, is overtly fascist. In his dehumanization of his political opponents, even after their murders, we’re, certainly, seeing the quintessential fascist bloodlust in play. However, actually, that is extra akin to the mad Roman emperor Caligula; that is the language of a person fed equal components lead and mom’s milk as an toddler after which instructed by each be-toga’ed physique of sycophantic elites that he’s a deity whose each mad impulse is definitely a part of a divine plan.
Critically, although, we are actually witnessing a full-flowering malignancy on the American physique politic. On daily basis, Trump is saying and doing issues—attacking journalists, calling whole races of people “rubbish,” signing off on a nationwide safety technique that urges America to assist far-right nationalist events seize energy in Europe, demanding that commentators who write issues he doesn’t like be tried for treason, mocking the homicide of a political opponent—that may get most basic college youngsters first suspended after which, in the event that they didn’t make a good-faith effort to form up, expelled.
I can virtually see the letter from the principal to Donald’s upset mother and father:
Pricey Mr. and Mrs Trump,
It’s with nice reluctance that my colleagues and I’ve come to the conclusion that your son is now not a great match for our college. We’re deeply involved that he’s demonstrating profoundly delinquent tendencies, and whereas we have now repeatedly urged your loved ones to hunt skilled assist to your son, it seems that our recommendations have gone unheeded. The scenario has, sadly, now reached a breaking level.
As you recognize, when Donald started insulting girls out on the schoolyard by calling them “piggy,” “silly,” and “ugly,” we defined to him that this was not how a bit of boy is meant to speak to different individuals. He responded sullenly and appeared significantly angered by the truth that it was considered one of his feminine academics who tried to impart some manners.
Not lengthy afterward, your son started lashing out at students of Somali-American heritage, going as far as to name all members of that group “rubbish” and demanding that they go away the college and return to the “shit gap” nation that their ancestors left. We hope you’ll agree that that is merely stunning language, and {that a} youngster of Donald’s age ought to know higher than to speak about different human beings on this disparaging approach. He has, in spite of everything, been at college for six years by now, greater than sufficient time to study that speaking like that is unacceptable.
Our dismay at Donald’s crude language has, nonetheless, lately morphed right into a extra lively concern for the protection of his fellow pupils and our employees. When the college counselor tried to counsel that he would possibly profit from some anger administration counseling, Donald lashed out in an objectively intimidating method. In an extended, meandering social media submit—apparently written in the course of the evening—that was flagged and referred to native legislation enforcement, he declared that anybody who dared to query his emotional or bodily well-being must be tried for sedition and treason; he additionally let it’s identified that within the olden days the penalty for such crimes was dying.
That was adopted up by what can solely be described as a toxic response to a homework task asking how America ought to work together with its closest political allies. Donald’s 29-page answer was, we’re sorry to say, probably the most racist texts we have now ever learn from a toddler of his age. Donald urged America to ally with fascist events all through Europe to “save Western civilization from erasure,” declared that America’s huge army would possibly ought to now be turned towards immigrants, and sided with extremist Christian nationalists who don’t respect the separation of church and state that could be a elementary a part of america’s identification. Nervous about what kinds of supplies Donald was studying on-line, we referred the textual content to our district headquarters; the district replied that it was deeply alarmed that Donald was accessing extremist web sites and identified quite a few sentences that might have been lifted whole-cloth from Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik’s “manifesto,” penned shortly earlier than he killed 77 youngsters at a political summer time camp.
The final straw, nonetheless, was your son’s terribly callous response to the latest homicide of cultural icon Rob Reiner. Three months in the past, when the far-right activist Charlie Kirk was gunned down, Donald’s classmate little Stevie Miller made a fiery speech fairly actually calling down the wrath of God on anybody who didn’t mourn the killing vociferously sufficient. Stevie and Donald joined collectively to assault different college students who they deemed insufficiently upset by the homicide, even demanding that among the academics on this college be fired. We didn’t like how Stevie and Donald acted, however we understood their impulse: somebody had been killed, and so they needed everybody to say that that was a nasty factor.
At the moment, nonetheless, when information broke that Rob Reiner had been stabbed to dying, many college students, who can quote massive components of The Princess Bride from reminiscence, had been heartbroken. We anticipated Donald to indicate the identical concern about Reiner’s homicide that he had proven for Charlie Kirk. As an alternative, we found to our horror that he had gone onto his Reality Social account instantly after he heard the information and penned a vicious screed mocking the killing and saying it had been brought on by Reiner’s dislike of Donald. In reality, in a stunningly narcissistic show, your son introduced to the world that Reiner had been killed as a result of his “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME” had pushed others to anger. This was each bizarrely illogical and in addition deeply offensive to many members of our neighborhood.
We belief you’ll agree with us that these are completely inappropriate behaviors from an 11-year-old boy and, taken as an entire, warrant our determination to expel your son from the college. Like every other neighborhood, we consider that our college needs to be a secure area for its college students, and we now not believe in our means to supply that secure area in case your son continues to attend this establishment.
We urge you each to hunt no matter companies you may to assist your son. Our concern is that until his habits—which our college psychologist has warned verges on the sociopathic—is checked now he’ll, as he reaches maturity, virtually actually run afoul of the legislation.
There isn’t a doubt in my thoughts that Trump’s habits would, certainly, get him expelled from an elementary college. And, I believe, if my readers—of all political persuasions—had been trustworthy with themselves, they’d come to the identical conclusions. But, right now, armed together with his vicious tongue and his on-line troll’s persona, he’s probably the most highly effective man on earth, his finger on the nuclear set off, his cupboard conferences obscene, sycophantic shows. Will any of Trump’s cupboard resign in disgust at his vicious remarks about Rob Reiner? Don’t maintain your breath. Will any of them search to invoke the twenty fifth Modification? Not in 1,000,000 years.
And so, America’s Caligula will proceed his mad reign. And all of us will proceed to be debased by his grotesqueries.
Over the previous 12 months you’ve learn Nation writers like Elie Mystal, Kaveh Akbar, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Bryce Covert, Dave Zirin, Jeet Heer, Michael T. Klare, Katha Pollitt, Amy Littlefield, Gregg Gonsalves, and Sasha Abramsky tackle the Trump household’s corruption, set the file straight about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s catastrophic Make America Wholesome Once more motion, survey the fallout and human value of the DOGE wrecking ball, anticipate the Supreme Court docket’s harmful antidemocratic rulings, and amplify profitable techniques of resistance on the streets and in Congress.
We publish these tales as a result of when members of our communities are being kidnapped, family debt is climbing, and AI information facilities are inflicting water and electrical energy shortages, we have now an obligation as journalists to do all we will to tell the general public.
In 2026, our goal is to do greater than ever earlier than—however we’d like your help to make that occur.
By way of December 31, a beneficiant donor will match all donations as much as $75,000. That signifies that your contribution might be doubled, greenback for greenback. If we hit the complete match, we’ll be beginning 2026 with $150,000 to spend money on the tales that influence actual individuals’s lives—the sorts of tales that billionaire-owned, corporate-backed shops aren’t protecting.
Together with your help, our group will publish main tales that the president and his allies received’t need you to learn. We’ll cowl the rising military-tech industrial advanced and issues of warfare, peace, and surveillance, in addition to the affordability disaster, starvation, housing, healthcare, the atmosphere, assaults on reproductive rights, and far more. On the similar time, we’ll think about alternate options to Trumpian rule and uplift efforts to create a greater world, right here and now.
Whereas your present has twice the influence, I’m asking you to support The Nation with a donation right now. You’ll empower the journalists, editors, and fact-checkers finest outfitted to carry this authoritarian administration to account.
I hope you received’t miss this second—donate to The Nation right now.
Onward,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and writer, The Nation

