UPDATE AT THE END OF THIS COMMENTARY 

I said I would ease up on writing about Trump, and I meant it. Yet the president’s recent actions have been too blatant, too corrosive, to let pass without comment.

Eight months into his second term, Donald Trump continues to show that his goal is not to bring Americans together, but to drive us further apart. Every week… every week he brings a new example.

He branded Antifa a “major terrorist organization.” Antifa isn’t an organization at all—it’s a loose collection of activists. By calling it terrorism, Trump isn’t fighting crime; he’s sending a message that protest itself is suspect. That’s not about security. That’s about intimidation.

He pushed for “patriotic education,” steering federal grants toward programs that highlight America’s greatness while downplaying slavery, segregation, and injustice. Pride in our country is one thing. But pride that can’t handle the truth isn’t pride—it’s propaganda.

He’s used federal power to take control of cities. In Los Angeles, he sent in troops during immigration protests. A federal judge later ruled the move illegal. In Washington, Trump declared a “crime emergency” and seized control of the Metropolitan Police. The problem? Crime was already near historic lows. What wasn’t low was Trump’s appetite for control.

And he never misses a chance to stoke cultural fights. He signed an order banning transgender women from women’s sports, threatening schools with loss of federal funds. He ordered museums and monuments to stop “disparaging” Americans, past or present. These aren’t solutions. They’re wedges, crafted to keep people angry at one another rather than asking hard questions about leadership.

The latest example came on Wednesday.

Jimmy Kimmel, in a monologue about conservative activist Charlie Kirk, joked about the rush to score political points from Kirk’s murder before the facts were clear. You can argue about whether the joke went too far, but what happened next is more dangerous.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr denounced Kimmel’s remarks as “some of the sickest conduct possible” and hinted that ABC could face consequences if it didn’t act. Within days, affiliates pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Disney suspended the show.

And it doesn’t stop with comedians. Trump has sued The New York Times over coverage he doesn’t like—another move aimed not at correcting falsehoods but at chilling the press. Free societies depend on a press willing to hold power accountable. When lawsuits and regulatory threats become tools to silence critics, democracy suffers.

Think about that. A late-night comic makes a controversial comment, a newspaper publishes an uncomfortable story, and the government steps in, directly or indirectly, to shut them down. That’s not defending decency. That’s silencing dissent.

When Trump was first elected in 2016, Barack Obama reminded Americans that “the sun will rise in the morning.” His point was that institutions matter, and democracy endures. But institutions only endure if we defend them.

And Obama has been clear about what we face when leaders govern by fear: “Fear is used to make us turn inward, to pit us against one another, to shut us off from the world. Hope is the antidote to fear.” Trump thrives on fear—of immigrants, of protest, of free speech. Fear keeps us divided.

Obama also warned, “We weaken those ties when we allow our politics to descend into tribalism and cynicism.” What else is “patriotic education” that denies hard truths, or censorship disguised as protecting decency, if not cynicism?

But democracy, Obama reminded us, depends on responsibility: “We rise or fall as one nation, as one people. That’s the lesson of our history.” Division may serve Trump’s politics, but it tears at the fabric that holds us together.

Supporters will say he’s restoring order or protecting values. But the pattern is unmistakable. Power is being used not to bring us together, but to pull us apart.

Democracy doesn’t work when half the country is treated as the enemy. It doesn’t work when government power is used to punish critics. And it doesn’t work when truth is sacrificed for political gain.

This is just the beginning.

UPDATE: