It’s not a short-term plan, but that’s because the goal is so totalizing: reassert global dominance for the singular goal of protecting and enriching American citizens.
This was a tremendous article, Batya! 👏👏👏 I agreed with every word it. Do I agree with everything Donald Trump has done as President? No, absolutely not! I don’t agree with him on shutting down the Department of Education, dismantling the U.S. Forest Service, repealing LBJ’s 1964 executive order on affirmative action, the way ICE operations have been handled, firing essential government workers, the way the Epstein investigation was handled, proposing fifty year home mortgages, moving up privatize the Postal Service, and trying to get rid of birthright citizenship for example. But for the most part, I think he’s done a good job and has kept for the most part, the promises he made on the campaign trail. I’m proud to have voted for him in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
His foreign and domestic policies are directly tied together. To make America safe and secure abroad and prosperous at home. He has done the former and is working towards the latter. President Trump destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities and along with Israel defeated Iran and weakened it militarily. Now Iran is no longer a threat to its neighbors, the Kurds, Israel or the United States. The U.S. controls the Strait of Hormuz and Trump is working hard on a peace deal with Iran. He backed up Israel all the way in the Gaza War and started the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to feed the people of Gaza. He negotiated eight peace treaties. He bombed the Houthis in Yemen into submission. Trump cut a landmark trade deal with India which quietly brought them into the western camp. He disrupted Russia and China’s shadow oil trade and arrested Nicolas Maduro and his wife. He has drawn down the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria as well as removing 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany that don’t need to be there.
He also is pushing the NATO countries to pay more into the alliance and become partners rather than dependence. I would say all that is to America’s benefit. Not to mention reviving and modernizing the Monroe Doctrine and doing everything possible to drive Russia, China and Iran out of the Western Hemisphere. He has also put Maxim pressure on Putin to cut a deal with Ukraine. As to domestically, his tariffs which I used to be against but am now for even as a free trader, have brought in a ton of revenue and protected our goods. They also rebalanced the old international order for trade. He is working to bring gas prices down by releasing our reserves and pushing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz ASAP. He also has taken needless regulations off fracking and nuclear energy. Perhaps his promises may not come true right away, but they will in time. The economy may be bad right now, but it will bounce back in the future. Inflation and gas prices will in time, go down. We just need to be patient.
Great analysis. A few points: 1. The dire condition of govt debt is not due to fraud but to irresponsible budgeting and the govt doing too much that it need not do or does poorly. Russ Vought may be the answer but we hear little about progress; 2. move from DEI to merit is critical; 3. Can’t wait to see Cuba added to your chart.
We got lucky under Clinton with a surplus and then we got lucky again in 2022 with a big decline in the debt as a percentage of GDP. In both instances Republicans freaked out and did the exact opposite of what was working under the Democrat president. In 2022 Republicans should have made the Child Tax Credit permanent by increasing the top rate back to 39.6%.
This is like a wife dismissing her husband's cheating by saying "he never said he wouldn't cheat, he said he'd be faithful and he has been because we're still married."
You went from "This is what 80 million Americans voted for" to dismiss criticisms of his policies a few years ago to "This is what you voted for, you just don't realize it."
And PS: if the Axios mem of understanding is real, it’s the son JCPOA. Which Trump tore up. Only AFTER he tore it up did Iran go to 60 percent. How the hell do you defend this idiot?
"...it's (because) tRump's goal is so..*totalizing*.." Ungar-Sargon's uproariously hilarious attempt to modulate a copium shriek into a rightoid conserva-speak rationalization of tRump's Iran blunder that is staring them a little too directly in the face. They (MAGAt writers) are trying & failing to temper and spoon feed a soothing semantic salve, oratory opiate at a fuming MAGAt base that has to deal with the dissonance of this administration's tailspinning. Trump 2.0 is publicly imploding. Another safe word for pro-MAGAt opinion writers is going to be.. "toralizing" Ex. "Trump promised no new wars; & yet here we are, at war with Iran..Trump promised us cheaper gas; & yet we are, with $4 a gallon gas prices..*BUT* you need to understand that..it's because Daddy, er, Trump, Papa-Patriot's goals are sooo pro-America, dontcha know? He goal can't be easily discerned right now because tRump's goals. Are. So. *Totalizing* 🤗#VOTEBLUENOMATTERWHO #2026Midterms #BlueTsunami2026 #ImpeachTrumpAGAIN #ImpeachmentStressTrumpResigns
you're hoping for a tailspin where one is not occurring - while true American patriots wish for the USA to do well even when the opposite party is in the Whitehouse.
I know it's hard for the TDS afflicted to understand some concepts - it's like investing for the long term - demoncRATS can't get their collective heads around that either... cause math is hard...
You’re a moron. Watch you on TV, and you do not know what you are talking about. 9 wars solved? Even the idiot pres only says 8. Gaza is a mess. NOT ONE foreign troops. Ukraine a disgrace. And now the mess in Iran. You are NOT worth reading or listening to. (Andrew steinfeld here: retired diplomat.)
Thank you Batya you are a rare gem! I am an independent and Libertarian on most issues. I have never seen this is my life where the MSM has been so weaponized and partisan that they are keeping all of this under over. The other problem is that I have never seen partisans on the left have such a severe case of cognitive dissonance where they are perfect suckers for misinformation and self imposed ignorance.
The funniest part is that under Trump, we are no longer the world’s only superpower. China is coming up fast behind us. Russia, which we could have made irrelevant with support to Ukraine but didn’t, is still hanging around on the edges. And the EU is tighter than ever, in reaction to our inconstancy. (Where on that agenda is threatening to invade Greenland, mostly because it looks big on a Mercator Projection?)
As for enriching American citizens, only the small circle getting the bribes, and their courtiers and court jesters, are flourishing. The rest of the economy is meh, heading for bad as the energy price increases of the Trumpanyahu War start to bite.
This is an excellent overview, love the visual with the little 'you are here' arrow. Turns out, depth can be fun, too.
On a more serious note, however, we are betting big on our ability to catch up with China through vertical growth, particularly AI. That's a doable but very daunting goal because we are currently at 1/3 of Chinese energy production. So while the market conditions couldn't be better and the US is far superior in terms of red tape (duh), the real bottleneck is in energy. Our grids are struggling, and no communities are rushing to house additional energy guzzlers, that is data centers.
One way out is nuclear, of course, particularly through smaller reactors that can be built faster and sited right next to data centers. It's called Bring Your Own Energy (BYOE) model: a dedicated nuclear plant on the same fenced site as the data center. This bypasses strained grids, interconnection delays, and local opposition entirely, while potentially allowing surplus power to benefit nearby communities. But it's not like hey let's build a full on nuclear power plant in this neighborhood, this is about Small Modular Reactors (SMRs, ~100–300 MW).
I'm happy to have a conversation: we only have one planet, so protecting it is critical. No argument there.
We also need energy because the line of human flourishing increases with the greater consumption of energy. That's a fact, I don't make the rules.
AI data centers are problematic for sure. I'd rather see them in space but before we get there, we don't have many alternatives.
For 100 years+, the trajectory has been: getting more energy out of a smaller commodity part. First coal, a lot more for 1kW than oil, then nuclear. If you think about green energy as solar and wind, that's where that trajectory breaks. You need a lot more panels and space to get 1kw than nuclear, plus it's less reliable.
I don;t understand why you need to keep calling people names. It does not help your argument.
Nuclear is the way to go because it's bajillion times more effective. I agree that we are kneecapped re grids but that's partially because we collectively committed to unreliable sources and invested crazy money in green energy that simply isn't enough. Nuclear science has been not just taking a back seat since the 1970s, it was left in the dust. There are like 50 people who understand uranium at this point in the US.
The alarms are being sounded regarding our need for energy, maybe you;re in the wrong rooms.
Data centers in space is not mumbo jumbo, it's a legitimate strategy because it would solve the energy need problem on earth, circumvent the strain on the grid (and water resources).
You can have slow progress and increase the grid capacity incrementally as we've been doing over the last two decades+. Or, you can lean into vertical growth with a completely new approach, through new inventions.
Instead of training the horses better, we can invent the car. It's not ridiculous.
Batya quotes President Trump, correctly, as naming his top priority “to create a nation that is proud, prosperous, and free.”
She is also correct in spelling out the many specific ways he has already achieved or is still achieving those goals.
So how is it that these achievements and their attending heightened optimism have failed even to silence his most fierce critics, who have instead redoubled their obstruction and attacks on this White House?
Could it be that a Democratic Party now fully led and increasingly populated by far Left idealogy recognizes that the restoration of Trump's promised national pride, prosperity and freedom poses the greatest hurdle to its own socialist-Left goal and agenda for acieving it. And that agenda necessarily depends upon division, repression and disaffected pessimism.
Trump's greatest achievement may well prove to be one he has yet to articulate apparently for his own short-term and selfish reasons. And that would be restoring a strong and competitive two-party system by getting the moderate, sensible John Fetterman wing of the party to either move toward the political middle or move out and form their own very marginalized third party, much like disaffected Republicans unsuccessfullly sought to do some years back with its Tea Party wing.
Excuse me and your apparent libel. What, precisely, are you suggesting is A-I written? And your evidence? That my writing and thinking outshines your own?
Anyway, I'll need to show wilful neglect and a reckless disregard for the truth to have abpotentially actionable case against you. I await your answer or your apology, but fully expect crickets.
If every time Putin's name appeared in the above article and was exchanged for Trump, the article would stlll be very close to correct! Anybody disagree?
Biden made America much stronger in 2024 than we were in not only 2020 but also 2019. Biden did this by leading from behind and allowing Ukraine and Israel degrade the military capacity of our common enemies while making America energy dominant. Trump was following the lead of Biden in 2025 but he inexplicably allowed Netanyahu to manipulate him against the advice of Rubio and Vance.
Hegseth is a neocon Bush supporter and Trump appointing him was a huge mistake and I said so at the time having followed his TV career in which he started out as shill for the Bush administration. And Netanyahu and Hegseth as Bush loyalists are easily influenced by Big Oil and this blunder in Iran has been great for Big Oil. Trump saw how Big Oil was not really on his side when he appointed Tillerson to SoS and then Tillerson remained loyal to Bush/Cheney and not Trump and so Trump fired him! Why would Trump allow a neocon like Hegseth into his inner circle??
One of Trump’s great achievements in his first term was standing up to the Deep State and surrendering to the Taliban. Trump needs to do that same thing—admit the Deep State got the best of him and just get out of Iran even if he must make concessions to Iran. Trump’s voters are sick of making sacrifices that make Republican donors wealthy! The president should look out for his voters and not his donors!
Don’t look now but we are involved in another war in the Middle East even though Trump ran against that. Btw, we finally have a female president—Miriam Adelson! Oops. 😝
Great analysis Batya.
This was a tremendous article, Batya! 👏👏👏 I agreed with every word it. Do I agree with everything Donald Trump has done as President? No, absolutely not! I don’t agree with him on shutting down the Department of Education, dismantling the U.S. Forest Service, repealing LBJ’s 1964 executive order on affirmative action, the way ICE operations have been handled, firing essential government workers, the way the Epstein investigation was handled, proposing fifty year home mortgages, moving up privatize the Postal Service, and trying to get rid of birthright citizenship for example. But for the most part, I think he’s done a good job and has kept for the most part, the promises he made on the campaign trail. I’m proud to have voted for him in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
His foreign and domestic policies are directly tied together. To make America safe and secure abroad and prosperous at home. He has done the former and is working towards the latter. President Trump destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities and along with Israel defeated Iran and weakened it militarily. Now Iran is no longer a threat to its neighbors, the Kurds, Israel or the United States. The U.S. controls the Strait of Hormuz and Trump is working hard on a peace deal with Iran. He backed up Israel all the way in the Gaza War and started the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to feed the people of Gaza. He negotiated eight peace treaties. He bombed the Houthis in Yemen into submission. Trump cut a landmark trade deal with India which quietly brought them into the western camp. He disrupted Russia and China’s shadow oil trade and arrested Nicolas Maduro and his wife. He has drawn down the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria as well as removing 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany that don’t need to be there.
He also is pushing the NATO countries to pay more into the alliance and become partners rather than dependence. I would say all that is to America’s benefit. Not to mention reviving and modernizing the Monroe Doctrine and doing everything possible to drive Russia, China and Iran out of the Western Hemisphere. He has also put Maxim pressure on Putin to cut a deal with Ukraine. As to domestically, his tariffs which I used to be against but am now for even as a free trader, have brought in a ton of revenue and protected our goods. They also rebalanced the old international order for trade. He is working to bring gas prices down by releasing our reserves and pushing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz ASAP. He also has taken needless regulations off fracking and nuclear energy. Perhaps his promises may not come true right away, but they will in time. The economy may be bad right now, but it will bounce back in the future. Inflation and gas prices will in time, go down. We just need to be patient.
Great analysis. A few points: 1. The dire condition of govt debt is not due to fraud but to irresponsible budgeting and the govt doing too much that it need not do or does poorly. Russ Vought may be the answer but we hear little about progress; 2. move from DEI to merit is critical; 3. Can’t wait to see Cuba added to your chart.
We got lucky under Clinton with a surplus and then we got lucky again in 2022 with a big decline in the debt as a percentage of GDP. In both instances Republicans freaked out and did the exact opposite of what was working under the Democrat president. In 2022 Republicans should have made the Child Tax Credit permanent by increasing the top rate back to 39.6%.
This is like a wife dismissing her husband's cheating by saying "he never said he wouldn't cheat, he said he'd be faithful and he has been because we're still married."
You went from "This is what 80 million Americans voted for" to dismiss criticisms of his policies a few years ago to "This is what you voted for, you just don't realize it."
"This is what you voted for, you just don't realize it."
Oh, I see you're talking about Spanberger
In truth - Trump told us everything - even if you didn't realize how large were his plans...
And PS: if the Axios mem of understanding is real, it’s the son JCPOA. Which Trump tore up. Only AFTER he tore it up did Iran go to 60 percent. How the hell do you defend this idiot?
"...it's (because) tRump's goal is so..*totalizing*.." Ungar-Sargon's uproariously hilarious attempt to modulate a copium shriek into a rightoid conserva-speak rationalization of tRump's Iran blunder that is staring them a little too directly in the face. They (MAGAt writers) are trying & failing to temper and spoon feed a soothing semantic salve, oratory opiate at a fuming MAGAt base that has to deal with the dissonance of this administration's tailspinning. Trump 2.0 is publicly imploding. Another safe word for pro-MAGAt opinion writers is going to be.. "toralizing" Ex. "Trump promised no new wars; & yet here we are, at war with Iran..Trump promised us cheaper gas; & yet we are, with $4 a gallon gas prices..*BUT* you need to understand that..it's because Daddy, er, Trump, Papa-Patriot's goals are sooo pro-America, dontcha know? He goal can't be easily discerned right now because tRump's goals. Are. So. *Totalizing* 🤗#VOTEBLUENOMATTERWHO #2026Midterms #BlueTsunami2026 #ImpeachTrumpAGAIN #ImpeachmentStressTrumpResigns
you're hoping for a tailspin where one is not occurring - while true American patriots wish for the USA to do well even when the opposite party is in the Whitehouse.
an entire essay of "sHoRt TeRm pAiN FoR LoNg TeRm gAiN"? lol. retarded.
I know it's hard for the TDS afflicted to understand some concepts - it's like investing for the long term - demoncRATS can't get their collective heads around that either... cause math is hard...
Soooo..$4 gas is mathematical less expensive before tRump's Iran war?
You’re a moron. Watch you on TV, and you do not know what you are talking about. 9 wars solved? Even the idiot pres only says 8. Gaza is a mess. NOT ONE foreign troops. Ukraine a disgrace. And now the mess in Iran. You are NOT worth reading or listening to. (Andrew steinfeld here: retired diplomat.)
Okay Barrack, you con stop posting.
Maxim pressure on Putin? Moron. Spelling?
Barrack? Another moron.
then go away
Excellent! Hear, hear!
It's hard to read something when the very first sentence is a grammatic mess.
It's hard to take you seriously - when that's your take on this article and the point being made...
Thank you Batya you are a rare gem! I am an independent and Libertarian on most issues. I have never seen this is my life where the MSM has been so weaponized and partisan that they are keeping all of this under over. The other problem is that I have never seen partisans on the left have such a severe case of cognitive dissonance where they are perfect suckers for misinformation and self imposed ignorance.
The funniest part is that under Trump, we are no longer the world’s only superpower. China is coming up fast behind us. Russia, which we could have made irrelevant with support to Ukraine but didn’t, is still hanging around on the edges. And the EU is tighter than ever, in reaction to our inconstancy. (Where on that agenda is threatening to invade Greenland, mostly because it looks big on a Mercator Projection?)
As for enriching American citizens, only the small circle getting the bribes, and their courtiers and court jesters, are flourishing. The rest of the economy is meh, heading for bad as the energy price increases of the Trumpanyahu War start to bite.
you can't possibly believe all that nonsense
I tend to bring receipts when asked. Can you be more specific about what’s mistaken, other than my attitude?
This is an excellent overview, love the visual with the little 'you are here' arrow. Turns out, depth can be fun, too.
On a more serious note, however, we are betting big on our ability to catch up with China through vertical growth, particularly AI. That's a doable but very daunting goal because we are currently at 1/3 of Chinese energy production. So while the market conditions couldn't be better and the US is far superior in terms of red tape (duh), the real bottleneck is in energy. Our grids are struggling, and no communities are rushing to house additional energy guzzlers, that is data centers.
One way out is nuclear, of course, particularly through smaller reactors that can be built faster and sited right next to data centers. It's called Bring Your Own Energy (BYOE) model: a dedicated nuclear plant on the same fenced site as the data center. This bypasses strained grids, interconnection delays, and local opposition entirely, while potentially allowing surplus power to benefit nearby communities. But it's not like hey let's build a full on nuclear power plant in this neighborhood, this is about Small Modular Reactors (SMRs, ~100–300 MW).
If anyone's interested, there is a whole episode on Invest like the Best, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7H42MCzBCQ).
I'm happy to have a conversation: we only have one planet, so protecting it is critical. No argument there.
We also need energy because the line of human flourishing increases with the greater consumption of energy. That's a fact, I don't make the rules.
AI data centers are problematic for sure. I'd rather see them in space but before we get there, we don't have many alternatives.
For 100 years+, the trajectory has been: getting more energy out of a smaller commodity part. First coal, a lot more for 1kW than oil, then nuclear. If you think about green energy as solar and wind, that's where that trajectory breaks. You need a lot more panels and space to get 1kw than nuclear, plus it's less reliable.
I don;t understand why you need to keep calling people names. It does not help your argument.
Nuclear is the way to go because it's bajillion times more effective. I agree that we are kneecapped re grids but that's partially because we collectively committed to unreliable sources and invested crazy money in green energy that simply isn't enough. Nuclear science has been not just taking a back seat since the 1970s, it was left in the dust. There are like 50 people who understand uranium at this point in the US.
The alarms are being sounded regarding our need for energy, maybe you;re in the wrong rooms.
Data centers in space is not mumbo jumbo, it's a legitimate strategy because it would solve the energy need problem on earth, circumvent the strain on the grid (and water resources).
You can have slow progress and increase the grid capacity incrementally as we've been doing over the last two decades+. Or, you can lean into vertical growth with a completely new approach, through new inventions.
Instead of training the horses better, we can invent the car. It's not ridiculous.
$6 for a gallon is not related to vertical growth.
Batya quotes President Trump, correctly, as naming his top priority “to create a nation that is proud, prosperous, and free.”
She is also correct in spelling out the many specific ways he has already achieved or is still achieving those goals.
So how is it that these achievements and their attending heightened optimism have failed even to silence his most fierce critics, who have instead redoubled their obstruction and attacks on this White House?
Could it be that a Democratic Party now fully led and increasingly populated by far Left idealogy recognizes that the restoration of Trump's promised national pride, prosperity and freedom poses the greatest hurdle to its own socialist-Left goal and agenda for acieving it. And that agenda necessarily depends upon division, repression and disaffected pessimism.
Trump's greatest achievement may well prove to be one he has yet to articulate apparently for his own short-term and selfish reasons. And that would be restoring a strong and competitive two-party system by getting the moderate, sensible John Fetterman wing of the party to either move toward the political middle or move out and form their own very marginalized third party, much like disaffected Republicans unsuccessfullly sought to do some years back with its Tea Party wing.
Excuse me and your apparent libel. What, precisely, are you suggesting is A-I written? And your evidence? That my writing and thinking outshines your own?
Anyway, I'll need to show wilful neglect and a reckless disregard for the truth to have abpotentially actionable case against you. I await your answer or your apology, but fully expect crickets.
If every time Putin's name appeared in the above article and was exchanged for Trump, the article would stlll be very close to correct! Anybody disagree?
Biden made America much stronger in 2024 than we were in not only 2020 but also 2019. Biden did this by leading from behind and allowing Ukraine and Israel degrade the military capacity of our common enemies while making America energy dominant. Trump was following the lead of Biden in 2025 but he inexplicably allowed Netanyahu to manipulate him against the advice of Rubio and Vance.
Hegseth is a neocon Bush supporter and Trump appointing him was a huge mistake and I said so at the time having followed his TV career in which he started out as shill for the Bush administration. And Netanyahu and Hegseth as Bush loyalists are easily influenced by Big Oil and this blunder in Iran has been great for Big Oil. Trump saw how Big Oil was not really on his side when he appointed Tillerson to SoS and then Tillerson remained loyal to Bush/Cheney and not Trump and so Trump fired him! Why would Trump allow a neocon like Hegseth into his inner circle??
One of Trump’s great achievements in his first term was standing up to the Deep State and surrendering to the Taliban. Trump needs to do that same thing—admit the Deep State got the best of him and just get out of Iran even if he must make concessions to Iran. Trump’s voters are sick of making sacrifices that make Republican donors wealthy! The president should look out for his voters and not his donors!
Oh dear God
Don’t look now but we are involved in another war in the Middle East even though Trump ran against that. Btw, we finally have a female president—Miriam Adelson! Oops. 😝