Last Saturday, Trump made some unhinged statements in Wisconsin. He repeated Russian propaganda that in 2017 the U.S. had given away all the military’s ammunition to NATO allies; he promised to eliminate the Department of Education and send education back to the states; he unbelievably claimed that schools are performing gender-affirming surgery on children; and accused mothers of executing their babies after birth.

We know all of this is false. Are these rambling speeches signs of dementia, of being unfit for office? Or does he know they are baloney, meant to gin up his base, bait people like me into describing him as a crazy old fool, then allowing him to cry that he is being persecuted by the press and the “liberal elite?”

The terrifying statements won’t show up on Fox News, but his claims of victimhood will be broadcast often. This might be his game - I’m a victim just like my followers and I’ll seek retribution against our elite enemies who will be “sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels never seen before in our Country.”

If this is his strategy, maybe we should just ignore him, not taking the bait used to provoke us. But we still need to remember that he is dangerous. Whether he knows it or not, he is being used by powerful corporate and wealthy families who have been working for decades to roll back the New Deal safety net and regulatory system established by FDR in the 1930s.

Conservative think tanks like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation have been quietly altering America through judicial appointments and now the 2025 Project. The Project is a blueprint for institutionalizing the reactionary goals of restoring power to the real elites of American wealth.

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