Iare Trump's policies toward Euroope finally facing reality? There are some welcomed. shoots of green.

Are Trump's policies toward Europe finally facing reality?  Trump's isolationist policies and disdain for Europe are chickens coming home to roost. It may portend a shift in policy and attitudes toward NATO, a realization that Putin is not his best buddy, and a coming to grips with reality.   Europe's change in attitude is also an unanticipated fallout from Trump's quagmire in Iran and from friends and foes alike following Trump's low polls at home. For some, it is a time to stand up to Trump's bullying and the opportunity to "kick him while he is down". 

A secret trip to Russia by the US CIA chief, rumors that Russia was planning to attack some NATO ally to take advantage of Trump's home and Iran troubles, and Canada, aggressively pushing back on Trump's tariff bullying, may be hitting Trump in the face. It could all result in some not-so-subtle, but welcome, US policy changes toward NATO and strengthen that alliance instead of weakening it.  Hopefully this means greater understanding by Trump that the fall of Ukraine or the neutering of NATO were matters of national security importance to the USA itself. Canada's pushback against Trump's tariff war may also signal and end to European leaders licking Trump's boots and showing their own stiffening backbone.  

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Jpdate: 8/30/2026:  There is a darker view of why the CIA director went in person to Moscow with an entourage of y CIA operatives. John Brennan, a former CIA director, on MSNOW this AM feared there was an attempt to carve out what Russia would get in a peace deal in trade for Russia stop helping Iran. The problemwhy that was a long shot secret deal is that Trump no longer has the cards to deal with Ukraine, having promised aid that has not been delivered in the face of Europe "stepping up to the plate" and Ukraine itself able to ue drones to take the war to deep inside Russia.  Ukraine, however, needs US anti missile defense to do more that just play tit for tat with Russia in their destructive attacks.  Putiin on the otherhand is also driven by the line he has fed his citizens that Uraine is part of mother Russia and he is not ready to throw in the towel yet.  We may never know unless if there is no change in what Trump is already doing, but if he makes public the "deal" is on the table.

 There are some events this week that need to be carefully monitored, in addition to Trump's signal earlier this month that he is beginning to understand that it was Ukraine that had the cards and was at least giving Russia as good as it got.  While weapons from the US had not yet been sent, the Trump regime signaled to Putin that the US was no longer playing footsies with Putin on Ukraine. https://www.csis.org/analysis/trump-administration-boosts-immediate-military-aid-deliveries-ukraine

Today we learned that Trump's CIA director had made a secret visit to Russia with a message. on NATO resolve and Iran. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/26/cia-russia-nato-moscow-ratcliffe-01051848  It appeared the USA got wind that Russia was planning an attack against the Baltics or Poland to take advantage of US preoccupation with Iran and public acknowledgment that the US had run through some very important weapon stockpiles.    The message delivered was that it appeared the US would trigger the mutual defense clause of NATO after all, and they underscored this with joint NATO military exercises with Poland. Europe has stepped up to the plate. Even Germany is significantly rearming itself.  If Putin had thought the US had abandoned  NATO, he should rethink that. 

Something not foreseen by Trump was the impact of his aggressive "tariff war" with Canada. Canada retaliated with its own tariffs against the US as it stood up to the bullying. This may also have inspired a change of heart in the EU.  Until now, France and others have played the game of flattery and subservience to Trump's anti-European posture, but Canada has shown a different way. The response from influential German magazine editors on Der Spiegel's Substack was that the time was right for Europe to also stand up to bully Trump, because he was showing weakness at home in a wide variety of polls, domestic issues, and the Iran war... European leaders have frequently preferred a strategy of kowtowing and ego-flattering in dealing with President Donald Trump. Canadian Premier Carney has taken the opposite tack. Europe should do the same.  The banner from Der Spiegel this morning read:

"DER SPIEGEL - The German View

It’s Time for Europe to Hit Trump While He’s Down

Cracks in the MAGA base and lessons Democrats can learn from Democratic Socialists

A bevvy of polls this past week consistently show that Trump's approval ratings are sinking to his core base of true believers and core followers. https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/steve-kornacki-new-poll-shows-cracks-forming-in-trump-s-maga-base-254388805882 

 It remains to be seen how many of those left in Trump's 2024 winning coalition will suck it up like good patriots. The conclusions of a variety of pollsters are that some pretty angry and disillusioned MAGA voters feel Trump failed them to make good on the cost-of-living issues and feel he lied to them. However, there is also a word of warning for Democrats in the MAGA unrest. Democrats could also fail to deliver, as well, if they ever get both houses of Congress and the Oval Office again. The lesson is: do not make promises you know you cannot keep. The success of Democrat Socialists in the primaries contain some very good pointers for traditional Democrats as well.

The "old 'house built on sand is the first to perish ' "is as good as any old saying ever devised. That sand is what Trump promised to do what he did not have the power to do in 2024. He then doubled down on the inevitable failure by shoveling more sand into a developing sinkhole of quicksand while blaming Biden for it. (Given Biden left the economy with 3 percent inflation, now creeping up, and under $4 a gallon gas seems to have been conveniently forgotten by MAGA. )Wth Trump, the buck never stops at the Oval Office desk.  

The issues that poll the worst are the management of the economy (the poor get poorer, and the oligarchs and the Trump family get richer). Even foreign policy, launching the Iran war, is hitting the part of the economy l already left in the dust, and most of them get the connection. In the price of oil per barrel raising costs to farmers). The tax cuts to benefit the rich obviously did not trickle down to the rest of us.  Subverting Obamacare and cutting health insurance coverage do not lower, but raise the cost of insurance. (Clever of the GOP to implement it after the midterms, but a warning will be mailed just before Nov. 3.) Launching foreign war ads to the cost of groceries, as well.  

Bitten once, voters are not inclined to be bitten again soon. They rightly should be sceptical of anyone of any political stripe promising what they cannot deliver. The Democrats need to be specific about solutions that also sound plausible and limited to the doable.   A vague insinuation that voting for Democrats, instead,  will simply reverse the trend and punish the person causing it may sound appealing, but those who are specific about exactly what they plan to do and have the power and ability to do it will have the most credibility. The most disillusioned are the younger voters who have the sword of Damocles of student debt hanging over their ability to buy a home or even make day-to-day ends meet. It would be wise for Democrats to address these problems, too, if they fear the disillusioned younger generation flees our form of democracy and the wake of a run-amok capitalism that they feel failed them.

A reader responded that at least Trump is transparent when it comes to potential charges: what he is doing is criminal or in violation of the Constitution. Careful there: Transparency with Trump is not because he is honest. With him, it is a strategy to make you think that since it is in the open, it is not a crime. 1) We do not know what or if, anything else is not disclosed or if he is hiding it; especially any tit-for-tat, quid pro quo, and bribery. 2) he has immunity from prosecution thanks to SCOTUS. 3) He knows his immunity ends when he leaves office so he is trying to get immunity from IRS audits and other potential prosecutions.

There is much handwringing and fear permeating moderates in the Democratic Party, and all in MAGAland. Instead of quaking, there are some lessons for all to learn from these upstarts of Democratic Socialists (DA). Democratic Socialists have had some success in primaries, and here is what Democrats should take a page from their playbook. They are plainspoken, ID the winning issues, and give specific achievable solutions. Democratic Socialists have not promised blue sky, but they have been very specific in what they promise, while sounding feasible, too. (Yes, that current DSA message eclipses some of their very unpopular platform planks). They proposed Medicare for all, an easy-to-understand solution to the cost of health care, for example.  They propose building more low-income housing and flooding the market with availability and competition to lower rent costs or the ability to buy the American dream of homeownership., They propose fighting greedy corporations who try to buy up all of the housing they can to control the market, both purchase price and rental. That is another concept voters can grasp.   Getting the heck out of futile wars of choice in the Middle East may be a tough one, given the predicted Iranian chokehold on Hormuz. Simply declaring victory and withdrawing will leave Iran having the Western world slung over the high price per barrel for years is not a good outcome. However, doing stupid acts like Trump's war of choice again in the future is also an idea easily grasped. 

However, the price of groceries and gas at the pump was never totally in Trump's power to make good on his promises, but they were in his power to make it worse, which he has done. We do not have a centrally planned economy, so "Zap", he could not edict prices, but he could monkey with elements that would affect grocery prices a bit. Instead, what he did do was tariffs, and Hormuz caused prices to rise. Voters seem to get that. He is right now proposing to flood the market with Argentine hamburger meat to force the price of beef down. In so doing, he is really ticking off ranchers and agriculture-related MAGAs within his base. I feel their pain living in an ag community, and I feel mine at the grocery store, too. 

The price per barrel of oil is, and never was, in Trump'scontrol. It is a commodity that is marketed worldwide, immediately sensitive to the forces of supply and demand, and under the control of oil cartels.  One part of the world sneezes, and the rest of the world, including us in America, gets sick, too. Trump has already released oil reserves, and now our reserves are among the lowest in our post WWII history.

Parts of the following also appear in my Substack and Facebook posts and comments :

Semantics:: Democrats do have a problem in messaging. They sometimes use more than 3-syllable words or words not in common usage by "ordinary" people. Trump ridiculed "affordability". Whoever used that in a conversation, he asked.. Maybe it works (and so far it has) because the first four syllables are in plain English. (affordable, get it?). The other pet peeve I have is the use of "grift".  Even I had to run to Webster's for that one to see what it encompassed. However, "grift " for sure was never used as a common term in our family, but it covers much,  from padding one's pockets, greed, to bribery and a lot of dirt in between.  Corruption comes close enough to be nearly encompassing. (Being greedy does not always result in getting rich) . Whatever both are, affordability and corruption, they are part of the same: unfairness. ...which is very much in common usage. "Fairness" brings up another overriding issue: the rich are getting very rich, and the rest of us are seeing our standard of living decrease.  There is a growing outrage that "It just ain't fair!"

"No Kings" served for a time as a substitute for Trump's non-democratic behavior and power grabs, but that sounds quaint, even if it is a non-hackle-raising accusation. Actually, the best parallel to Trump's obsession with gathering all the wealth he can while he can, issuing his own laws, ignoring laws that stand in his way, and punishing those who disobey them or him, or do not comply,  fits the "mob boss" role model the best. Since the venue is government, the best tag is "political mobster" or "political mob boss". Dictator or autocrat he may aspire to be, but he has not beaten down the lower courts totally yet. His preoccupation with vengeance, punishment,  and greed for power and wealth, only for him and those loyal to him, qualifies him as a "mob boss" the best. His corruption is in your face and in the open. The problem with tagging him as a mob boss is he does not look like one; he just acts like one.  The failure of the GOP-dominated Congress and the 6 Trump loyal justices on the Supreme Court who have not put the brakes on him, who have approved his power grabs, are this political mobster's enablers.

The elephant in the room of Colorado elections : who controls elections:Trump or Colorado

 Jena Griswold, current Colorado Secretary of State and now the Democratic Party winner in the primaries for Attorney General, is engaged in a very strange campaign.  She faced three opponents in the primary, none of whom garnered more than around 15-17% of the vote and who attempted to defeat her based on her management style. However, none of them even acknowledged the national debate on who controls elections in the face of Trump's ongoing attempt to federalize elections and control the outcome on his behalf. Griswold served as the leader of the nation's Democratic Secretaries of State (at the state level) and did much to protect genuine voter integrity from election deniers and from Trump's attempt to seize control of the election process. State control of elections (not by the federal government) was granted in the Constitution. 

In the primary this year, Griswold didn't raise the issue of who controls elections;  the state Democratic Party didn't raise it; her opponents didn't raise it; and the GOP itself did not either. There is a very big elephant in the room that is getting tiptoed around,  and I don't get it. Now, the same anti-Griswold campaign has appeared on social media today in time to kick off the general election in Colorado in November, in which Griswold is on the ballot for Attorney General.  That line of attack failed before in the primary, and there is no reason to believe it will succeed in the general. They are while referring to a 5-year-old negative report on her management style and claim she hid it. What is at stake is a national story..This is a deep blue state.  I, in all of my years in politics, have never seen anything like it when a state election's national implications are ignored as if they did not exist.

As a former election official myself, I have prided myself on supporting the clean election system that Colorado has (including that over 80% of ballots are "mailed in"). The mail-in system was constructed by GOP leadership and administered to the T by subsequent Secretaries of State, including Democrats like Griswold.  Colorado has had the most controversial free elections in the US. Its mail-in system uses, I hear, FBI-trained handwriting clerks of both parties to verify the ballots, and it is considered the gold standard in the US. For that reason alone, Griswold deserves accolades for her administrative skills and adherence to the rule of law. For an alleged  Gov. Polis or gubernatorial candidate/AG Phil Weiser or name identification for Griswold’s win in the primary, totally ignoring the elephant in the room: who controls elections- Trump or the state of Colorado. There was national focus on the big issue of whether election deniers could get away with grabbing the ballots and tabulation of the vote and sequestering them and giving authorized access to partisans because their allegiance was to Trump.. She disciplined county clerks for not following the carefully laid out rules of the state they were sworn to uphold on taking office. The most famous case was concerning Tina Peters. Griswold, with the help of the AG's office attorneys, beat Trump at his game. She had locked up the ballots in her county and gave access to a Trump partisan, putting up a co-worker to help her do it, and then covered it up with lies. This destroyed the chain of evidence and the required surveillance by others not in her party. Trump intervened to "free her" from a jury trial conviction, putting her in prison because she had committed a crime and a cover-up.  Peters became Trump's icon of the ideal county clerk: "defy local rules and do as I say", instead. Now it is no secret that Trump wants all election officials to act like Peters and control the election count to his benefit. Peters is his role model. There appear to have been election deniers placed in official positions all over the country. In Colorado, all GOP candidates for state offices- AG, SOS, governor- are election deniers, sworn to rectify the "stolen 2020 election."

  On the issue of Trump's demand that the details of all registered voters on state rolls be turned over to the feds, Griswold defied him, too, and that is another reason to admire her. Yesterday, Trump's demands to turn over voter rolls to the feds met their 23rd defeat in federal courts... as courts denied Trump's demand. We are now awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on Trump's demand to make the post office the agency to deny mail-in ballot delivery using those voter rolls. Trump has declared war on mail-in ballots, and that he uses them was yesterday’s headline. In the meantime, Trump has attempted to force Colorado to bend to his will by denying federal funds to Colorado, from food stamps to fighting wildfires, because we defied his demands as he tries to control the Nov midterm outcomes and lay the groundwork for another attempt to claim the election was stolen, as he told you in advance it was going to happen. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/06/us/politics/a-growing-number-of-election-deniers-hold-key-local-roles-in-midterms.htm

lhttps://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-threatened-colorado-funding-as-punishment-over-tina-peters-judge-finds/https://www.denverpost.com/2026/08/14/colorado-donald-trump-tina-peters/

https://coloradonewsline.com/briefs/trump-colorado-voter-data-federal-judge

/https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/analyzing-presidents-executive-order-mail-voting

https://www.cpr.org/2026/08/14/trump-retaliation-colorado-email-tina-peters/?

https://www.denverpost.com/2026/08/14/colorado-donald-trump-tina-peters/

Trump and Tina Peters:  Trump takes care of his criminally convicted loyalists. Peters lands a job in California. https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/california-senators-call-for-maximum-oversight-over-conspiracist-tina-peters-new-election-job/?

How Colorado detects fraud: https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/10/24/fraudulent-ballots-mesa-county-colorado/

Crowley beats Hong ; moderates surge in squeakers over democratic socialists. Now what, Dems?

This morning, young voters probably feel like the air was let out of their tires. The "progressive" movement vs the establishment, the enthusiasm this generated in recent primaries, and the appeal to grassroots activism have suddenly met resistance, with squeaker results of some close wins and some close losses. El-Sayed in Michigan's close win and Hong's in Wisconsin's close loss show the limits of the "progressive left".  https://www.npr.org/2026/08/12/nx-s1-5927119/2026-minnesota-governor-primary-election-crowley-hong  

Take heart, young voters. A message to younger generations from one of the (not so) silent generation.   Realize that, win or lose, the Democratic Party cannot win without your support because you did so well in bringing new blood of ideas,  young legs,  and talented candidates into a "big tent" that had become filled with the old, creaky, cranky, and geriatric. Your success will and cannot be ignored. Take a deep breath and know that a MAGA victory in November would be the worst outcome you could experience.  Also realize that to win those close races in November,  the "establishment" will have to embrace so many of the issues you raised, like affordability, or they, too, will lose to MAGA if they do not. 

 Pollsters took a bath, failing to pick up on last-minute waves of pragmatism driving ." the establishment" to crash the party's growing infatuation with Democratic Socialists and those progressives who embraced parts of the DSA plank. It appeared to the pragmatists that the rise of the progressive left and the ideology of Democratic socialism were a gift to MAGA in the general election, setting up their defense loaded with messages of fear and hate.   There is a split in the progressives: those who do support the platform of the DSA and those who still support capitalism with reforms. Reform or revolution is a dividing distinction. However, both share the pocketbook issues and offer similar legislative solutions for those who saw their inability to cope with day-to-day economic demands. Call those left behind "workers", the "middle class", or " ordinary Americans", both DSA and the establishment wings of the Democratic Party are in sync on pocketbook issues, and if all factions keep their messaging focused on solutions to those issues, they will still succeed in November. 

 It also appears that older and wiser moderates awoke at the last minute to the danger of the extremism of the DSA's plank, with its anti-capitalist and pro-Gaza message.  "Moderates and establishment feared the very progressive candidates were a gift of attack ads material to MAGA candidates in purple states in the November general election.  The demise of MAGA power had been the assumption that fueled Democrats' hopes of a takeover of the House, Senate, and state houses, but now the fear was that too-progressive candidates would be more easily defeated in the upcoming general election.  MAGA was beginning to see some blood in the water and was salivating at the prospect of keeping control of DC as they began to paint the entire Democratic Party as a bunch of communists.  If any air was let out of the tires, the strength of the establishment in the Democratic Party and the willingness of the factions to work to gather in a common cause of a Democratic Party victory, MAGA may be feeling a letdown, too, today.

This moment reminded me of the early years of my own political activism in the 1960's and 1970's. I, too, embraced candidates with cutting ideas that shook "the establishment" out of their post world war II slumber: What I did realize, however, if any of my ideas had a chance to succeed, it would take compromise and many half a loaf victories for the issues I  and so many of those like me, had supported   Those ssues many of us supported were consumer rights, city is for people, mass transit, fighting destruction of neighborhoods,  more sensitivity to environmental and quality of life issues, and, of course, civil rights and inclusiveness. The brown cloud of air pollution had become the city's infamous hallmark nationwide. Many of these issues and their solutions were absorbed into the goals and policies of subsequent leaders in Denver, thanks first to the election of Mayor  Federico Peña and then all those who succeeded him to this day.  

There is an issue that cannot be overlooked in these next few months: the reasons these liberal urban ideas took root were that we had a democratic form of government that permitted equal time media coverage and the political organization skills of those who initially challenged the existing big-city boss form of government.  For that reason, fundamentally, supporting democracy in the form we have known it and democratic institutions allows new ideas to be accepted.  The idea of autocracy, dictatorship, and suppression of political opposition are the basic enemies that will cripple reform and the implementation of new goals.  MAGA and Trump himself are the enemies of this vision of democracy, because they try to upend our democratic form of government that enables good ideas to rise like cream to the top.  Young progressives should not lose sight of that fact and include the defense of democracy in their priorities. 

Updaate: 8/14/2026 If there were any doubts about the importance of democracy to those who want to protest,  look at what happened in Minnesota. After the murder of two demonstrators by ICE, Homeland Security investigated the protestors, not the ICE agents, using techniques and tactics characteristic of communist and fascist regimes, including modern technology, infiltration, espionage, and name gathering/finances of organizing entities. They found nothing to use to publish or to even prosecute, but they now know, for future reference, who they can suppress or prosecute on bogus charges in the future. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/briefing/immigration-supremecourt-jews.html

To believe that government is for one economic class or race or religion is the greatest enemy we face today if we want a peaceful, prosperous tomorrow in our multi-cultural, multi-racial nation. Elements in both the DSA and MAGA are guilty of promoting to powerful positions only those who are very much like them and suppressing or disadvantaging the " others".   All need a fair shot at getting their voices heard. Democracy provides the mechanics and hope for that to occur.

The American political system forces compromise and embracing of new ideas at the local and national level early in the election cycle.   Primaries are very important, and in the long run, the math counts. The bigger the tent, the more the numbers add up, and it is more likely that those appealing to the most voters win the seats of power that enable the implementation of their agenda.