The war in Ukraine and the global response to Russia's invasion are dominating the news. But missing in much of the coverage is a sense of the country and its people. In this historic moment, we hear a riveting account of the country's recent political awakening and why Ukrainians are prepared to resist and fight.
In the column, "Is Donald Trump Right?", Fulcrum Executive Editor, Hugo Balta, wrote:
For millions of Americans, President Trump’s second term isn’t a threat to democracy—it’s the fulfillment of a promise they believe was long overdue.
Is Donald Trump right?
Should the presidency serve as a force for disruption or a safeguard of preservation?
Balta invited readers to share their thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
Joe Kaul from Colorado shared these thoughts...
My Father and his 5 brothers fought in World War II.
He came home with 4 brothers and one eye out of commission.
All you have to do to answer your question is to answer this question through the lens of the Greatest Generation.
Take one example: the disgusting attempted overthrow of our government on Jan 6, 2021. The men and women who defended our country and the world against fascism overseas would tell you in no uncertain terms that this was the most un-American thing ever done by a sitting President. Full Stop.
So my point here is that if you were not mortified by this group of thugs attacking our US Capitol, then I suppose you can tolerate just about anything that Trump does to "Get his way" with US policies.
Well, I got news for you: once you accept that type of treasonous behavior, you have just said to the Greatest Generation, "You and your sacrifices don't matter to me and my MAGA friends." Maybe in this twisted, self-serving light, Trump is right.
Trump's trade war with China is on the verge of costing American Farmers their livelihoods and seriously endangering our nation's food supply.
U.S. farmers produce 40% more AG products than we can consume in the US, so overseas markets are crucial.
Last year (2025), China bought $12 billion in soybeans alone from US farmers.
Since Trump decided to punch them in the nose, China has bought $0.00 of AG soybeans from US farmers.
This same scenario played out in the first Trump administration, so he had to give them a $10 billion aid package to bail them out.
While he may try this approach again, it is not even close to a long-term solution.
You see, there is something called "Trust" in a supply chain. When a large market like China loses trust in the US AG market, they have no choice but to turn to alternative markets like Brazil and Argentina for their Ag products. When trust erodes and new supply chains are formed with new partners, it takes years, if not decades, to rebuild those relationships.
By then, sadly, many of our US farmers —the backbone of rural America —will likely have no choice but to "sell the farm."
So maybe we should start asking US Farmers if Trump is right, since he has screwed up these important supply chains both times in office.
We invite you to read "Is Donald Trump Right?" and accept Hugo's invitation to share your thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
The Fulcrum will select a range of submissions to share with readers as part of our ongoing civic dialogue.
We offer this platform for discussion and debate.
U.S. President Donald Trump walks to the White House after stepping off Marine One on the South Lawn on October 05, 2025 in Washington, DC.
When Trump assumed the presidency again, one of his stated aims was to make the government smaller, whether by getting rid of federal employees, cutting "unnecessary" allocated funds and grants, or limiting the scope of the government's work.
So on the one hand, Trump and his MAGA allies are very anti-federal, traditional, big government. And Trump has, through his executive orders and DOGE, stopped much of the work that the federal government has done or has funded for decades—work that supports people in their right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and the common good. (See my post, "Trump's Destruction of Government.") It is the culmination of Ronald Reagan's mantra: Government is not the solution; government is the problem.
On the other hand, Trump has made the federal government (the executive branch) more intrusive in the lives of America's people, businesses, and local governments than perhaps ever before. Among those actions are:
This is not a man who seeks to make the federal government smaller in terms of its impact and intrusiveness. He only wants to do that in certain policy areas—he is against the traditionally progressive action of the federal government. But he is more than willing—eager—to use the power of the federal government to subdue those elements that he is against and to carry out policies that he is in favor of.
This is yet another example of Trump's hypocrisy—he is only true to what he thinks is in his best interest; there is no larger philosophy that he is devoted to. And so he seems capricious in his actions, veering one way one day, and in another direction the next day. His only loyalty is to himself.
When our country was founded, one of the main points of contention between the various delegates to the Constitutional Convention was how strong the federal government should be vis-à-vis the states. After the weak Articles of Confederation failed, the current Constitution was drafted, giving much more power to the federal government.
Conservatives have always been against "big" government, which is to say a government that helped those in need, helped people make the most of themselves, and regulated business to protect the public good is a progressive government. That is what Trump has been dismantling.
But some Founders, such as Thomas Jefferson, also worried about the stronger central government taking away individual rights, which is why he proposed the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. Trump paints himself as a big supporter of individual rights—but that applies only to his rights and the rights of his supporters; those who oppose him have no rights in his view (as an example, Kimmel has no right of free speech to criticize Trump).
While Trump is making the helping part of the federal government smaller, he is creating a different "big" government, using the government to control what people do, intruding in their lives; using the military to usurp the power of local government; and interpreting the law so as to enable the aggrandizement of his power. What he has been doing in his second term is Orwellian in scope. This is very much what the Founding Fathers feared, and what they tried to prevent.
The Founders were also adamantly against anything in the structure of the new government that would allow the development of an executive with the power of a king—which is to say almost absolute power. (See my post, "Why the Declaration of Independence Argues for the Removal of Trump.") Which is why the Constitution was drafted with a carefully defined balance of power between the three independent branches of government—legislative, judicial, and executive. But Trump is seeking to make the other branches subservient to him—he has already rendered the legislative branch virtually impotent and is attempting to control the judicial branch.
The Declaration of Independence is, in large part, a recitation of the colonists' grievances against the king's exercise of absolute power over the colonies—greater power than he had over English citizens. That is why the Declaration states that the government derives its power "from the consent of the governed." This, as opposed to the divine right of kings.
True, Trump was elected, fairly, by not just carrying the Electoral College but a slim majority of the popular vote. (He would not be the first autocrat in the world who was elected into office by the people.) But regardless of their consent, or what he would call "mandate," the governed cannot give consent to violate the Constitution.
Here again, as I've urged in other posts, it is the task of the Democratic Party to bring these facts to the attention of the public in an organized, effective manner. While at the same time, showing their own bonafides in implementing the promise of the Declaration of Independence.
Thomas Jefferson was worried about the potential power of the federal government and of a single individual within that government—Donald Trump is his nightmare come alive.
In the Gilded Age of the millionaire, wealth signified ownership. The titans of old built railroads, monopolized oil, and bought their indulgences in yachts, mansions, and eventually, sports teams. A franchise was the crown jewel: a visible, glamorous token of success. But that era is over. Today’s billionaires, those who tower, not with millions but with unimaginable billions, find sports teams and other baubles beneath them. For this new aristocracy, the true prize is authorship of History (with a capital “H”) itself.
Once you pass a certain threshold of wealth, it seems, mere possessions no longer thrill. At the billionaire’s scale, you wake up in the morning searching for something grand enough to justify your own existence, something commensurate with your supposed singularly historical importance. To buy a team or build another mansion is routine, played, trite. To reshape the very framework of society—now that is a worthy stimulus. That is the game. And increasingly, billionaires are playing it.
Look closely at the moves of men like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Marc Andreessen, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and others. Their empires extend, not just over products and markets but over political culture, public institutions, and even national policy. They cast themselves as visionaries, masters of grand strategies invisible to ordinary eyes. They fund initiatives that fracture public life, manipulate information ecosystems, and bend governments toward serving private rather than public interests. Their reward is not merely financial return but the intoxicating sense of power that comes from steering the destiny of millions.
Hence, nothing startling or puzzling in their fascination with transhumanism, for instance, or radical life extension, or the technological pursuit of immortality. Many of the same figures who bankroll think tanks and media platforms also invest heavily in longevity biotech, cryonics, brain-computer interfaces, and artificial general intelligence (AGI) research. Their interest is not only speculative engineering; it is existential. For some, the quest for radically extended life or the ability to preserve or upload consciousness promises a literal escape hatch from mortality—a way to make their projects and preferences persist beyond a single lifespan. For others, belief in a coming “singularity” and the transformative power of AGI supplies both a metaphysical narrative and a practical tool: If intelligence can be engineered and amplified, then so too can social order. This fusion of immortalist yearning and techno-utopianism explains why investments in AI, neural interfaces, and longevity industries sit comfortably alongside their type of political interventions: Both are attempts to institutionalize control over the future, to render one’s will durable across time and bodies.
The strategies vary in method but not in essence. One path has been the evisceration of the working class through globalization. By financing the offshoring of jobs, billionaires restructured the global economy in ways that hollowed out American towns while enriching multinational corporations. The move was not simply about lowering costs. It was a restructuring of social power—weakening organized labor, disempowering the industrial base, and leaving workers in constant insecurity. A diminished working class is easier to control.
Another path has been through culture and media. Billionaires have poured money into think tanks, foundations, and media platforms, not simply to influence policy but to shape what can even be discussed in the first place. When the world’s wealthiest individuals own the megaphones, the boundaries of acceptable debate unsurprisingly shrink to what suits their interests. What we see is not merely ownership of companies but ownership of discourse; the power to decide which ideas circulate and which die in obscurity.
Still, another strategy involves direct policy warfare. For decades, billionaire-backed movements have sought to dismantle the social safety net, shrinking the welfare state until it can barely function. Ostensibly, this is done in the name of efficiency, but the effect is brutally clear: Millions forced into precarity, vulnerable populations left exposed, and minorities disproportionately harmed. Such policies don’t happen by accident; they are engineered through lobbying, campaign financing, and strategic political donations. The result is a polity where the government serves private profit more than public welfare.
At the same time, billionaires have fueled divisions that weaken democratic solidarity. The stoking of identity-based conflicts—pitting groups against one another over cultural issues—distracts from the consolidation of economic power at the top. Immigration, terrorism, and crime are hyped, not because they are unmanageable threats but because fear justifies surveillance, militarization, and new tools of control. By the time the public realizes what has happened, the state has been repurposed into a security apparatus that protects, not citizens but capital.
This is not to suggest that billionaires meet in secret to plot each of these moves together. Instead, it is to point out that they meet openly and plot and strategize and tell us exactly what they plan to do in glittering gatherings, such as the Bilderberg Meetings, the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Milken Institute Global Conference, etc. Because, after all, History and the Future are theirs to design, and democracy is merely a clay to be molded here and there by their collective strategic genius.
The danger is not only that this distorts democracy but that it erodes the very principle of democratic agency. When a handful of individuals hold the power to rewire economies, manipulate debates, and reshape policies at will, ordinary citizens are reduced to spectators. Political life becomes a contest, not of ideas but of bankrolls. The myth that all citizens have equal say in democracy collapses under the sheer gravitational pull of billionaire ambition.
Defenders will say this is just philanthropy or “visionary leadership,” that great fortunes bring with them great “responsibility.” But responsibility without accountability is not democracy—it is monarchy by another name. When billionaires intervene in climate policy, education, or even space exploration, their priorities may align with the public good for a time, but what happens when they don’t? Who checks them? Who votes them out?
If democracy is to mean anything, it cannot allow its destiny to be the playground of a few titans seeking meaning through stimulation. The ownership of History must remain collective, not private. That requires reining in billionaire power by imagining a whole new way of doing politics and government that renders the oceans of money that billionaires control null currency in the arena of democratic decision making.
Ahmed Bouzid is the co-founder of The True Representation Movement.
An Independent Voter's Perspective on Current Political Divides
In the column, "Is Donald Trump Right?", Fulcrum Executive Editor, Hugo Balta, wrote:
For millions of Americans, President Trump’s second term isn’t a threat to democracy—it’s the fulfillment of a promise they believe was long overdue.
Is Donald Trump right?
Should the presidency serve as a force for disruption or a safeguard of preservation?
Balta invited readers to share their thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
David Levine from Portland, Oregon, shared these thoughts...
I am an independent voter who voted for Kamala Harris in the last election.
I pay very close attention to the events going on, and I try and avoid taking other people's opinions as fact, so the following writing should be looked at with that in mind:
Is Trump right? On some things, absolutely.
As to DEI, there is a strong feeling that you cannot fight racism with more racism or sexism with more sexism. Standards have to be the same across the board, and the idea that only white people can be racist is one that I think a lot of us find delusional on its face. The question is not whether we want equality in the workplace, but whether these systems are the mechanism to achieve it, despite their claims to virtue, and many of us feel they are not.
I think if the Democrats want to take back immigration as an issue then every single illegal alien no matter how they are discovered needs to be processed and sanctuary cities need to end, every single illegal alien needs to be found at that point Democrats could argue for an amnesty for those who have shown they have been Good actors for a period of time but the dynamic of simply ignoring those who break the law by coming here illegally is I think a losing issue for the Democrats, they need to bend the knee and make a deal.
I think you have to quit calling the man Hitler or a fascist because an actual fascist would simply shoot the protesters, the journalists, and anyone else who challenges him. And while he definitely has authoritarian tendencies, the Democrats are overplaying their hand using those words, and it makes them look foolish.
Most of us understand that the tariffs are a game of economic chicken, and whether it is successful or not depends on who blinks before the midterms. Still, the Democrats' continuous attacks on the man make them look disloyal to the country, not to Trump.
Referring to any group of people as marginalized is to many of us the same as referring to them as lesser, and it seems racist and insulting.
We invite you to read the opinions of other Fulrum Readers:
Trump's Policies: A Threat to Farmers and American Values
The Trump Era: A Bitter Pill for American Renewal
Federal Hill's Warning: A Baltimorean's Reflection on Leadership
Also, check out "Is Donald Trump Right?" and consider accepting Hugo's invitation to share your thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
The Fulcrum will select a range of submissions to share with readers as part of our ongoing civic dialogue.
We offer this platform for discussion and debate.