It's a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese

 It's a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese

 

At 12:36 this morning, shortly after the fireworks had exploded overhead from America’s 250th birthday celebration, the President of the United States was already back on his personal social media platform, Truth Social, with his first post of the day, which seemed innocent enough. “Best fireworks show, EVER! President DJT.”

But less than twenty-four hours later, that post would mark one of Donald Trump’s most frantic social media spirals we have seen from him in a very long time. Over the course of the day, Trump posted or reposted more than 100 times, including 67 posts in just two hours. He shared content with white nationalist language, attacked a federal judge, shared an image of himself arm-wrestling a celebrity, reposted a racist caricature of Barack and Michelle Obama, declared that a “RESTRAINING ORDER IS NEEDED” against an American ally, a foreign leader who was once considered one of Trump’s closest European partners, and flooded his feed with pictures of his family from the early 1900’s and of his father who he claimed was his "mentor."

But perhaps the most disturbing image of all appeared without warning: an unmistakable piece of authoritarian propaganda depicting Trump as a towering, shadowed military figure, arm outstretched as if commanding a nation toward war, while fighter jets roared overhead against a sky consumed by fire, smoke, and explosions.

This was not the behavior of a president in control, nor was it a show of strength. What we watched play out across more than one hundred social media posts on a single Sunday was a man in free fall, reaching for his phone because it is the only thing left that makes him feel powerful, even when the facts say that nearly everything he has done since taking office has been a disappointment or an embarrassment. Nothing has gone the way he planned. Nearly every grand promise, spectacle, announcement, and carefully choreographed moment has been a disaster, including what was supposed to be the triumphant celebration of America’s 250th birthday.

He was not just focused on domestic grievances either. He took his distractions global, posting a meme of himself and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni with the words “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED” splashed across the top, implying that the leader of one of America’s closest NATO allies was somehow obsessed with him. This is the same Giorgia Meloni who was once considered his closest European partner. This was the only EU leader invited to his inauguration, the same woman he recently claimed had “begged” him for a photo at the G7, a claim she publicly dismissed as “completely fabricated,” adding, “Neither I nor Italy ever beg.” The fallout from today’s post was swift. Italian media called it a “disturbing qualitative leap” from political disagreement to deliberate personal humiliation, describing it as a “theater of digital contempt orchestrated to publicly discredit an allied leader.” Opposition leader Carlo Calenda called Trump “a despicable bully of the worst kind” and offered full solidarity to Meloni. Even Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini, one of Trump’s closest ideological allies in Europe, warned that “personal attacks must not lead to compromising diplomatic and commercial relations.” The reaction in Rome transcended the usual political alignments. This was not partisan. It was a country recognizing that its dignity had been attacked.

And yet, just 48 hours before the two leaders are expected to be in the same room at a NATO summit in Ankara, with alliance cohesion and the future of Ukraine on the agenda, the President of the United States was posting schoolyard taunts instead of demonstrating the maturity expected of the commander in chief. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has spent weeks preparing substantive discussions on defense spending and military cooperation. None of that will matter now, because the only story coming out of Ankara will be whether these two leaders can share a room without it becoming an international incident. This was not diplomacy. It was not leadership. It was another distraction from an administration that has struggled to produce the victories it promised, substituting petty feuds and internet memes for the serious work of governing.

In that same minute, he posted a fake image of Barack and Michelle Obama waving from the stairs of Air Force One, except the plane had been altered to show graffiti spray-painted across its fuselage: “Yes We Can,” “BLM,” “Obama,” and Arabic text reading “alhamdulillah,” which translates to “praise be to God.” He attempted to associate the first Black president of the United States with vandalism, protests, and extremist language, triggering every racial and religious fear in the MAGA playbook simultaneously. This was the same president who, five months ago during the first week of Black History Month, posted a fake video depicting the Obamas as apes. That post was deleted after bipartisan backlash, blamed on a staffer, and never apologized for. And now, here he was again.

In those same 60 seconds, he also posted a side-by-side photo of Melania Trump and Hillary Clinton, both wearing hats, framed as a comparison. One woman is 56. The other is 78. It was designed to do exactly one thing: reduce a former United States Senator, Secretary of State, and the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party to her physical appearance, and then declare her the loser against a woman more than two decades younger. That is how he sees women. As objects to be ranked and to humiliate.

He went on to post a black billboard with white block letters that read: “IF NO ONE GOES TO JAIL FOR ELECTION FRAUD WHAT INCENTIVE IS THERE NOT TO CHEAT.” That was not a question. It was a threat. And it was aimed in two directions at once: at his base, it was pre-loading the justification for rejecting any midterm result that does not go his way, and at his opponents, it was a promise that people will be imprisoned for standing in his path.

And one minute later, at 4:52, came the image that sent a message to the world from the President of the United States. It was an unmistakable piece of authoritarian propaganda. Trump appeared as a towering black silhouette, dwarfing the fighter jets flying in formation beneath him, his arm stretched toward a horizon engulfed in fire, smoke, and explosions, as though directing the military toward its next target. There was nothing distinctly American about its visual language. Nothing democratic. Nothing subtle. It evoked the aesthetics of Soviet constructivist propaganda, Mussolini’s Italy, and the monumental cult-of-personality imagery that lines the boulevards of Pyongyang in North Korea. It did not project the image of a constitutional president accountable to the people, but of a leader elevated above them, commanding force from high above, beyond restraint, accountability, and beyond the rule of law.

That was two minutes of the president’s afternoon. During that same posting spree, Trump proudly declared himself “Number 1 on TikTok” after the platform’s CEO sent him a flattering infographic highlighting his enormous view count. Trump immediately reshared it, adding only, “Number 1 on TikTok!” with an exclamation point, as though being popular on a social media app were one of the defining achievements of an American president. It was another reminder that his need for praise has become far more important than the work of the presidency.

He also reshared, earlier that morning at 11:16, a post that deserves far more attention than it has received. It came from an account called Geiger Capital, and it read: “Just 100 years ago, England was the greatest empire the world had ever seen. A few generations later, they are a deindustrialized welfare zone unable to stop third-world men from invading on rubber boats. Decline happens fast. Weak leaders and suicidal empathy.”

The phrase “suicidal empathy” circulates in white nationalist and far-right spaces, and it means exactly what it sounds like: that compassion toward immigrants, toward refugees, toward people who are different from you is not just misguided but is an act of civilizational self-destruction. That caring about other human beings is a disease and that empathy itself is the enemy. The president of the United States amplified that message to millions of people on the morning after hundreds of white nationalists marched through the nation’s capital.

And then at 2:19 PM, he posted something that, beneath all the capitalization and run-on sentences, amounted to the most honest thing he has said in months. He wrote that if Democrats gain power and add states, expand representation, and eliminate the filibuster, “it will be impossible for a Republican to ever be elected President again.” He was not describing cheating. Adding states is constitutional. Eliminating the filibuster is a Senate rule change, not a crime. Expanding representation is democracy working as intended. What he was describing was a fair system. And he was telling you, in his own words, that his party cannot survive one. That if every American has equal representation, if every vote counts equally, it is over for them. He was not warning about a threat to the country. He was warning about a threat to his power. And his solution was to shout, in all caps, “GET SMART REPUBLICANS,” which in context means: keep the system tilted, maintain the structural advantages, and do whatever it takes to prevent the majority of Americans from being fully represented. What he wants is a rigged system.

He shared over 100 posts in one day. And not a single one of them was about making anyone’s life better. Not one was about healthcare, or wages, or housing, or the cost of groceries. Not one acknowledged the struggles of the people who voted for him. Because there is nothing to point to. Nothing has worked. His war with Iran did not produce the swift, decisive victory he promised. His Reflecting Pool renovation became a national embarrassment. His Great American State Fair was a ghost town in the heat. Congress will not pass his legislation and keeps leaving town. He has lost more cabinet members than he can afford. Many of the people he surrounds himself with have their own scandals and controversies. He is being publicly humiliated by an Italian prime minister who used to be considered one of his closest allies. His approval ratings continue to slide. And his own July 4th celebration, the centerpiece of the 250th anniversary, the one night that was supposed to showcase his vision of America, ended with his supporters stranded in a thunderstorm, locked out of the venue, sheltering in the very museum his administration has been trying to gut, while he waited until 11:15 PM to deliver a speech in which he misquoted the Declaration of Independence, replacing its language of equality and unalienable rights with “we are all made in the image of one almighty God.” On the 250th birthday of the republic, the president could not get the founding words right. That is what the 100 posts were trying to bury.

And while he was posting, the country he is supposed to lead was fracturing along the exact lines he needs it to fracture.

On Saturday morning, before the fireworks and the thunderstorm and the chaos, somewhere between 400 and 700 members of Patriot Front, a white nationalist organization founded in the aftermath of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, marched through the streets of Washington, D.C. Their website appeals to people “born to this nation of our European race” and calls for a “hard reset” on America.

When Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was asked on CNN this morning whether he condemns the group, he could not say yes. He said, “What they stand for is nothing that I could possibly agree with,” and then immediately pivoted to defending their free speech, compared them to anti-Trump protesters, and called the march a “rare example” while insisting that what we really saw this week was people “unifying around our country.” When Dana Bash pressed him directly, asking if he would recommend that the president condemn the group, he would not answer. Fox News host Laura Ingraham called the march fake, writing, “Looks more like Antifa in costume.” Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger responded: “Yes of course. Fake. That’s the only defense you have to this? How about condemning it.”

The president said nothing. Over 100 posts, and not one word about what happened in his own backyard.

And in Newport Beach, California, a place I know well because I grew up in the area, a different kind of fracture showed itself. What began as a packed Fourth of July celebration ended in chaos. Large groups of mostly young people clashed with police, threw fireworks and bottles at them, damaged businesses, and looted a grocery store. More than one hundred people were arrested. Officers were injured. Businesses suffered damage. None of that should have happened. The people responsible should be held accountable.

But almost immediately, something else happened. The incident was folded into a familiar political narrative. Social media filled with claims about outsiders, immigrants, and people of color invading an affluent community, even though the videos circulating online do not clearly support many of those sweeping conclusions. It became less about what actually happened and more about reinforcing fears that were already waiting to be exploited.

The larger tragedy is that we’re going to see more moments like this, not fewer. When an entire generation grows up believing they’ll never own a home, never build the financial security their parents had, and never be able to afford the life they were told to work toward, hopelessness starts replacing optimism. That doesn’t excuse violence, vandalism, or theft. It never will. But pretending those feelings don’t exist won’t solve the problem either. And every time something like this happens, the people in power have an opportunity to point at the destruction instead of the conditions that helped create it. They tell us to fear each other instead of asking why so many young Americans have stopped believing the future has a place for them.

And while everyone argues over what happened in Newport Beach, Donald Trump gets exactly what he wants. The conversation shifts away from him and toward each other. Away from the failures of his presidency and toward our own anger. Away from the promises he made and never kept. We’re no longer asking why life hasn’t gotten better for the people he promised to help. We’re not asking why, after a year and a half of unified Republican control, so many of his biggest promises have ended in disappointment. We’re not asking why he spent Sunday posting more than one hundred times instead of solving the real issues affecting the American people.

Because division isn’t just a consequence of this presidency. It’s the only product it has consistently delivered. And he needs more of it now than ever.

The midterms are a little over four months away. Every conversation that convinces one more person to vote brings us one step closer to holding this administration accountable for the destruction it has caused and the corruption it has allowed. If Donald Trump believes higher voter participation is his greatest political threat, then our response should be simple: make sure more Americans vote than ever before.

The posting spree is not the behavior of a person who is winning. It is the behavior of a man who knows, somewhere beneath it all, that the ground is shifting beneath him. He is visibly declining, mentally and physically. Nearly everything he has done since taking office has ended in disappointment or embarrassment. And instead of spending his Sunday making life better for a single American, he spent it posting more than one hundred times, trying to make himself feel bigger.

We made it through the holiday weekend. We made it through feeling both immense pride in what this country could be and deep grief over what it is becoming. And we are going to make it through the next four months too. Then, in November, we will do the one thing he admitted he fears most: participate in a democracy where every eligible voice counts equally. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather