America under Donald Trump looks like it’s having a collective nervous breakdown. One unhinged man is turning the world’s most powerful country inside out, hammering the truth, facts and reality itself into the shape of a dysfunctional banana Republic. The checks and balances that the founding fathers built into the US Constitution - the one that citizens swear allegiance to all the time - have proved to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Things that would have shocked and scandalised the country before 2016 are now so commonplace that they barely get a mention and are swiftly buried under the avalanche of new outrages.
Let’s have a look at what’s happened in the last week or so.
It’s been revealed by The Washington Post that billions of dollars of oil, which Trump illegally seized from Venezuela, is being sold off by two American oil companies appointed by Trump. Both of them have been previously convicted of bribery involving oil sales elsewhere. One, Vitol, employs a senior trader who personally donated $6 million to Trump’s 2024 election campaign.
In Georgia, the FBI raided the election office in Fulton County and took ownership of the paper ballots from the 2020 presidential election, the one that Trump always claimed was 'stolen' from him. The ballots have already been hand-counted twice, and each time showed that he lost. In America, elections are the responsibility of the states, not the federal government, so what the FBI is doing there, I don't know.
You can however be sure they will find the 11,780 votes that Trump wanted in 2020.
Sen. Ossoff Statement on FBI Raid of Fulton County Elections Office— Ossoff's Office (@ossoff.senate.gov) 28 January 2026 at 21:37
For reasons nobody has yet explained, Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's Director of National Intelligence, was present during the raid. There are suggestions that Trump will offer Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela until Trump had him kidnapped and brought to New York for trial on drug trafficking charges, a pardon if he confesses to helping Joe Biden steal the 2020 election!!
Next, Trump has launched legal action against the US Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury, alleging they leaked his tax returns in 2019. These are the tax returns that most previous president have published voluntarily and which Trump said he would also do when they had been audited. He's now claiming $10 billion in damages, a number that looks suspiciously similar to the one he used for his action against the BBC.
Since he controls the IRS and the Treasury, I suppose he's bound to win his claim, although if he's the brilliant businessman he boasts he is, it's hard to see how his tax returns are damaging to him. It looks like another easy money scam.
In Minneapolis, two journalists have been arrested for their coverage of events that took place during the recent unrest over the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the city, which has seen two people shot to death by ICE. Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, was arrested in Los Angeles. Another, Georgia Fort, was detained at home. The official White House account announces it with glee:
the White House's official X account gloats over the arrest of Don Lemon with a chains emoji— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 30 January 2026 at 15:10
Amazon paid $40 million to produce a ‘documentary’ about Donald Trump’s wife, Melania and a further $35 million to promote the film in cinemas across the US and the UK. It seems the film is playing to empty or near-empty houses. Opening nights appear to see audiences of lone journalists who are being paid to review it.
I’m not surprised. Melania seems a nice enough person but as far as I know has never uttered anything remotely interesting or shocking. The film covers a three-week period in the run-up to the 2024 election with a film crew following the First Lady, who was paid an incredible $28 million. It looks like a straight bribe by Amazon to grease the corporate wheels and ensure the White House doesn't block any moves by the online platform.
Trump has posted some incredible claims that Barack Obama somehow ordered the CIA to produce fake intelligence and was working with "the enemy" to "erode and undermine American's confidence in our democracy" - the irony here is off the charts - and Trump's 2016 victory:
For months and months I said Trump was going to arrest and imprison his enemies and I think people just thought I was being alarmist. He will absolutely put them all away to feed his disturbing, sick mind. He’s becoming more and more dangerous and mentally ill. #Projection— 🦋 kris🌻⋆⋆⋆ (@eviebauer727.bsky.social) 30 January 2026 at 14:12
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has released another huge tranche of files on the Epstein affair, some of which include disturbing details about Donald Trump. The worst were removed from the DoJ's website after about 20 minutes. Trump's name appears hundreds of times, apparently. Remember, this is the sitting president of the USA!
The DoJ in a statement, said: "Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election." In other words, it's all true except the bits about Donald Trump.
If a Democrat had been accused of a small fraction of what has emerged this week, they would have been impeached. But under Trump, the Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives are completely supine and silently watch as the orange moron cheats and lies, goes after his political adversaries, attacks countries at the drop of a hat and enriches himself as he does it.
It is amazing and deeply worrying for the future.
I also noted yesterday that the United Nations faces financial collapse this summer because countries aren't paying their dues. I am not surprised. Trump has rendered it powerless. The very organisation that was created after the horror of the Second World War has been emasculated. I have a horrible feeling that we are back to the 1930s.
If so, we will have one man to blame.
