The Age of American Self-Sabotage: How Trump’s Second Term is Eroding a Superpower from Within

In the dim glow of my laptop screen at 3 AM — that witching hour when one’s thoughts turn uncharacteristically apocalyptic — I found myself scrolling through images of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem parading before a line of shaven-headed detainees like some budget-conscious cosplayer of dystopian fiction. The prisoners, backs to the camera but vulnerability unmistakable, stood in formation while officials with faces obscured by balaclavas surveyed them with the dispassionate interest of cattle ranchers at auction. Two months into Donald Trump’s second administration, and America seems determined to audition for the role of villain in its own biopic. The republic isn’t being murdered; it’s live-streaming its own suicide.

What’s striking isn’t merely the cruelty, though there’s plenty of that to go around. It’s the theatrical glee with which it’s being administered. When the White House tweets photographs of a tearful detainee accompanied by a cartoon caricature, we’ve moved beyond policy into performance art — a grotesque cabaret of dominance that even proper despots typically have the good sense to conduct behind closed doors. As Oscar Wilde might have observed if he were unfortunate enough to be scrolling through X these days: to commit one act of petty tyranny may be…