Official White House photo

I have stopped watching national news about Donald Trump because the coverage now mirrors the damage itself. What once informed now exhausts; what once clarified now amplifies. The daily cycle no longer explains what is happening to the country—it re-enacts it.

His indecent words following the death of beloved filmmaker Rob Reiner were the last straw. They recalled Joseph N. Welch’s rebuke to Senator Joseph McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

Trump does not merely insult individuals; he exploits moments of cultural meaning to demean what they represent. When he mocks artists, journalists, educators, or filmmakers, he is scorning the idea that culture, learning, and shared memory matter at all.

PBS was only the beginning. He repeatedly proposed eliminating the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, attacked public education, and questioned the value of expertise. He politicized science, sidelined career professionals at the CDC, NIH, and EPA, rolled back environmental protections, weakened the Justice Department, removed inspectors general, and sought to replace a merit-based civil service with loyalty tests—while teaching Americans to distrust the press and doubt elections.

The result was not reform but erosion—an institutional hollowing out whose damage remains long after the headlines fade.

What he tears down is not a building, but something more enduring: respect for democratic institutions. The damage is civic, not architectural. Tradition gives way to spectacle; stewardship to self-glorification.

Trump treats public institutions as disposable unless they serve his interests. He fills key positions with loyalists who echo grievances rather than honor the public trust and openly derides education itself. His remark—“I love the poorly educated”—was not bravado but a confession: ignorance as a political asset.

Each day brings a new outrage calibrated to exhaust and divide. The goal is not governance but domination—a steady corrosion of norms. Expertise is ridiculed, loyalty elevated above law, and too many Republican leaders—and a Supreme Court unmoved by ethical alarm—show little inclination to interrupt the project.

It diminishes America at home and weakens its standing abroad. And there is little more to be said.

When Trump finally recedes from the national stage, history is unlikely to remember the spectacle he prized so dearly. Percy Bysshe Shelley captured that fate two centuries ago:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains.

Christmas is a time for family, faith, and gratitude. This year, I am giving myself an early gift: stepping back from the daily churn of national outrage. I will not surrender my peace of mind to an endless cycle of deceit and corrosion.

There is a difference between being informed and being consumed. For now, I choose clarity over chaos—and that, too, is an act of resistance.

Next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I will offer a Christmas story that–I hope–not only captures the spirit of Christmas, but also helps us find some much-needed common ground.