Donald Trump's go-it-alone AmericaTrump's uniquely toxic brand of "self-reliance" threatens the collective strength that truly makes America great.
President Donald Trump is a singular—and solitary—figure. “I alone can fix it,” he solipstically declared in 2016, before his first presidential run. Now in his second term, he’s been a one-man tsunami, destroying decades-long global alliances, creating chaos in the global economy with his unilateral tariffs, and unleashing bitter partisanship domestically. Like a kid locked in a toy store after midnight (or the drunken raccoon who recently trashed a Virginia liquor store), he’s gleefully demolished cherished institutions. He’s defaced the Kennedy Center by adding his name and bulldozed the East Wing for a garish ballroom. He’s trampled on the presidency’s traditional decorum with unhinged late night rants on social media. Especially appalling was Trump’s attack this week on the beloved director Rob Reiner, which led to rare bipartisan condemnation. Ever the narcissist, Trump turned Reiner’s tragic death into just desserts for Reiner’s opposition to the president’s policies. We can blame our national habit of venerating iconoclasts, a tendency Trump exploited to leverage himself into office. We like to lionize the man who speaks out—the brave rebel who defies the establishment. We revere the visionary genius of the solo entrepreneur and the pluck of the “self-made” billionaire. We mythologize the pioneer and the cowboy—the rugged, self-reliant men who tamed the West. It’s no coincidence that Tom Cruise’s world-saving hero in Top Gun has the call sign “Maverick.” Many of the presidents Americans most admire are the ones who challenged the conventional wisdom of the day and forged new paths for the country’s future: Lincoln, FDR, JFK. But for every iconoclast, there’s a crank. For every visionary, a conspiracist. For every genius, a madman. After FDR, Trump. Idiosyncrasy becomes transgression, and defiance becomes insurrection. Above and beyond the immediate and obvious wreckage of the last 11 months, Trump’s gospel of self-reliance has inflicted deeper wounds on America’s communal identity. Too many of us have been told that we don’t belong, are no longer welcome, or aren’t “American” enough. GOP policies, moreover, aim to erode the collective institutions that undergird our social fabric. In the selfish self-centeredness of Trump’s America, you’re on your own. Take, for instance, Republicans’ current opposition to Obamacare and the extension of premium subsidies for those who buy their coverage through this program. The great achievement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to transform the outrageously expensive and opaque individual market for health insurance into a collective enterprise—a marketplace that allows individuals to pool their risk with others and reduce their individual exposure. This is how insurance is supposed to work: The more people there are in the pool, the lower the costs for everyone. The GOP’s refusal to extend premium subsidies will send costs soaring for millions of Americans, many of whom will now choose to go uninsured. The impact on the ACA marketplaces is obvious: Fewer people buying insurance means smaller pools and higher costs. This is turn could prompt even more people to drop out, leading to what health care economists call a “death spiral” for the ACA. The result could be a return to the individual market status quo ante, when nearly 50 million Americans—or 1 in 5 of the non-elderly—were uninsured. What meager “solutions” Trump and Republicans have offered are also geared toward individual assistance, rather than shoring up the collective infrastructure of insurance. Trump’s idea to give people cash for health care would leave people on their own to pay for their care out of pocket. GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy’s amendment to this proposal, to expand individual health savings accounts, would do the same. Few Americans on their own can afford to protect themselves from the catastrophic expenses of a serious accident or illness. Health insurance isn’t the only arena where the GOP is pushing ideas to undermine shared societal responsibility. Republicans love school vouchers, for instance, because they’re a backdoor mechanism for gutting public education. (See a related analysis by PPI’s Rachel Canter below.) And who needs Social Security when you can have your very own “Trump Account”? (Read my early critique here.) Future presidents can restore the Rose Garden and rebuild relationships with the allies Trump has spat upon. But the larger project of collective national identity and mutual responsibility might take generations to repair. Two hundred and fifty years ago, the founders ditched the Articles of Confederation because they realized that a loose structure of individual states would make the forging of a great nation impossible. They understood that America is powerful when it’s united: In common purpose, with common values, and in collective regard for the common welfare. We can’t let Trump destroy that. This holiday week, I hope you’ll take the time to luxuriate in the family and community surrounding and supporting you. And we here at the Monthly are grateful to have you as part of our community too. Also worth a look at the Monthly…DOGE done right. Trump’s unrelenting assault on federal workers has many progressives reflexively defending government. But here’s the hard truth: There’s a lot about government that’s broken. In this week’s podcast, I spoke to former senior Biden official Hannah Garden-Monheit, who interviewed more than 45 former colleagues about their frustrations. She and Tresa Joseph have produced an eye-opening report for the Roosevelt Institute on what government gets wrong (e.g., it’s too slow to act; it’s impossible to fire anyone) and how to fix it. Read, watch and listen here. Can’t vouch for this. School voucher advocates now have a new mechanism to advance their cause: a “school choice tax credit” passed by the Republican Congress earlier this year. Under this legislation, donors who finance privately-funded vouchers through so-called “scholarship granting organizations” get a tax break. Advocates claim it’s a way to help low-income kids afford private schools, but the Progressive Policy Institute’s Rachel Canter tells it like it is: “The tax credit is best understood as a stalking horse for private school choice advocates’ long-term effort to secure direct federal funding.” Read here. A path to peace in the Middle East? “Antisemitism and anti-Zionism often march together, however divisible they might seem in humanities seminars,” writes Claremont McKenna professor Jon Shields, who urges for a shift in strategy from the advocates of a free Palestine. To advance their cause without also fanning the flames of antisemitism, Shields argues, Palestine’s champions should “recognize Israel’s right to exist, allow the Palestinians to have a separate state, and take the security concerns of the Jewish state seriously.” Read here. Say you want a revolution. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jack Rakove critiques Ken Burns’ new documentary saga on the American Revolution. His verdict: It’s long on battles, but short on the political ideas that made the Revolution so revolutionary. As a result, he says, the series is surprisingly dull: “The one-battle-after-another motif… gives the much-discussed saga its narrative force but also its tedium.” Read here. Plus…
And elsewhere…Home alone. Once considered a little fringe-y, homeschooling is now mainstream. As many as 3.5 million kids are being homeschooled, according to Johns Hopkins University. Champions praise the academic freedom and parental control, but critics argue that “homeschooling” also serves as a convenient cover for all sorts of neglect and abuse. Author and former homeschooled student Stefan Merrill Block warns in the New York Times that the lack of oversight—the result of vigorous lobbying by homeschool advocates—has led to numerous preventable tragedies. Lone wolf. The Chicago Sun-Times has a troubling and revealing profile of Greg Bovino, the renegade “commander at large” of the ICE contingents terrorizing Chicago and New Orleans. Bovino’s dehumanizing showboating has earned him points with the Trump administration, but detractors call him the “Liberace of the Border Patrol.” And oh yeah, his grandparents were working-class immigrants from Italy who benefited from the “chain migration” Trump decries. As ever, cruelty and hypocrisy are the point. The loneliest job in Washington. It’s unlikely you’ve missed the drama over Chris Whipple’s jaw-dropping profile of Susie Wiles, the world’s most cynical den mother and Trump’s chief of staff. But ICYMI, here’s the money quote from Whipple’s piece in "Vanity Fair”: “‘Trump, she told me, ‘has an alcoholic’s personality.’ Vance’s conversion from Never Trumper to MAGA acolyte, she said, has been ‘sort of political.’ The vice president, she added, has been ‘a conspiracy theorist for a decade.’ Russell Vought, architect of the notorious Project 2025 and head of the Office of Management and Budget, is ‘a right-wing absolute zealot.’” Yowza. Lonely at the top, but lucrative. The National Bureau of Economic Research finds that ascending to leadership in Congress pays handsomely. Analyzing thousands of Congressional stock trades, the researchers discover that “lawmakers who later ascend to leadership positions perform similarly to matched peers beforehand but outperform them by 47 percentage points annually after ascension (emphasis added).” A few members in Congress are currently pushing a discharge petition that would force a vote on legislation banning stock trades. Sounds like a good idea. Secret Santa. Fans of the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street should read this poignant real-life saga from Esquire about the rise and fall of a former Macy’s Santa. Bob Rutan traded in his red suit for an executive one and ran the midtown Manhattan store’s legendary Santa Land for years—before a self-inflicted scandal brought it all down. We’re taking a break next week but will be back in 2026. Happy new year and best wishes for a safe and restful holiday! Anne
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