Toddler-in-Chief

 By Bob Travica

Donald Trump 2.0, unleashed in 2025, is more prepared, determined, and dangerous than his 1.0 version (2016-2020). He took over the White House (the WH) with Project 2025 under his belt, the plan for a right-wing revolution aiming at dismantling the democratic Republic, which included a database of officers to carry it out [0]. The Project had mostly escaped public attention, although it kicked in with nominations for key positions even before Trump 2.0 moved to the WH. When the ominous moment came in January 2025, Trump 2.0 took part in the oath-taking ritual, failed to stick his lips under the bizarrely broad rim of his wife’s hat (a remake of the fabled alien Zoro, huh?), and went to his office to self-indulge into signing a pile of executive orders, with joy, determination, pomp, and vanity. That’s how American history took a turn back to the age of royal governance over 250 years ago – colonial then, domestic under Trump 2.0.

Smash It All!

Oceans of digital ink have been spilled over assessing Trump 2.0. I don’t mean to parrot the criticism of his faults and his deviant personality. He’s been matched with the psychopath profile and mocked metaphorically. An American journalist labelled him Vulgarian-in-Chief when Trump showed the middle finger (twice) to a factory worker, calling him “pedophile protector”. He’s been named Liar-in-Chief, based on numerous fact-checking outlets that evaluated most of his statements as false. Anti-Trump memorabilia (coffee mugs, flags, posters, T-shirts, etc.) gave rise to the label Clown-in-Chief. And both his collaborators and analysts pointed to his toddlerish character. I’d like to draw on the idea of Toddler-In-Chief (TIC), which political scientist Drezner promoted by the end of Trump 1.0 [1]; the focus then was psychological, but I’ll write more about the Trump 2.0 behavior.

As a toddler, Trump is intellectually and emotionally immature. Yet, he is the chief toddler playing with a juggernaut at home and the nuclear arsenal globally. Here are some examples. Infants don’t make sensible economic decisions. TIC whimsically imposes import tariffs allegedly to lure foreign exporters to invest in American manufacturing for the benefit of American workers and consumers. However, modern automated production can’t boost employment, nor can higher domestic production costs deliver more affordable goods. Instead, tariffs pump up inflation and break supply chains and trade agreements at the detriment of the American economy.

Toddlers may grab everything in their reach, shake it, and throw it down. That can be dad’s whiskey, mom’s jewelry, a precious souvenir, anything. TIC follows suit: he throws down laws, agencies, companies, people, groups, treaties, alliances, countries, anyone, and anything. He ruptures, destroys, annihilates ceaselessly, as it befits a nasty chief toddler.

TIC whines endlessly over anything that irritates him: the previous administration, “fake media,” stubborn economic statistics, banking authorities rejecting his quirks, missing the Nobel Peace prize, a lack of recognition and love... He is all drama and revenge like a spoiled, rude kiddo. He’s happy only during the signing of countless executive orders with letters growing in size, or when he’s babbling before cameras. Oh, yes, and when he tinkers with his currently favorite toy – a new ballroom attachment to the WH under construction. Just recently, TIC interrupted his cabinet’s meeting to walk to the window overlooking the construction site, while the present officials smirked. After all, they must comply with the rules of the kinder garden-style WH.

TIC is burning down the fire station, but this is no longer funny. America is sinking into an autocratic, chaotic abyss: many state agencies are destroyed, Congress is defunct, the Supreme Court is aloof or appeasing, the DOJ and FBI are weaponized against opponents and dissidents, while ICE and Border police terrorize and gun down city residents as if they are given a license to kill. In January 2026, they killed two American citizens, peaceful protesters against policing raids in Minneapolis. If repression and despotism increasingly antagonize masses, as we see it on the streets of that city, conditions for large social unrest are maturing along with the regime’s even larger repression. The “beacon of democracy” resembles more and more a fascist banana republic.

Drezner’s prediction came true: traits of a toddler make Trump ill-suited to the presidency and will show lasting, harmful impacts on American democracy and foreign policy.

 Time To Get Rich

TIC’s character has been recognized around the globe, and respect for him as a statesman exists only in apothecary doses. Yet, parties that depend on America in certain respects shower him with sweet talk and gifts. However, don’t mix gifts with the gifts of a significant monetary value, that is, a bribe! And this brings me to the TIC profile’s core – an insatiable greed.

TIC is tirelessly looking for opportunities to enrich himself and his family; securing proceeds for tycoons that chipped in bribes is sometimes also on his agenda. Indeed, most of his domestic policies can be understood as money-grabbing scams. Specifically, the “follow the money” lens reveals the background of his tariff frenzy. A country attacked by high tariffs negotiates with TIC behind closed doors, and offers him some benefits in return for lowering the tariffs; Vietnam gave TIC concessions for putting up golf courses and hotels to get the artificially set 46% tariffs down to 20%. Note that deal-making can happen on the back-end as well: American companies affected by specific tariffs (as investors into the overseas business or importers of raw materials and semi-goods) may plead with TIC for lowering tariffs in exchange for financial favors (they may buy his cryptos, invest in real estate projects, give gifts to his family, etc.).

TIC’s avarice also provides the key to understanding the core of his acting internationally. Examples include Ukraine (posturing around rare minerals in exchange for military help and “peace making”), Middle East (TIC’s peace plan envisions Gaza as a seaside resort with his stake in it), Venezuela (brazenly stealing that country’s oil by using American military), Greenland (prospects of operating and owning mines od rare minerals with the prospective earnings), and Canada (pushing military spending to benefit TIC’s friends in the American military industry, pressures on various companies and industries with prospects of extracting racketeering fees for loosening up chokeholds).

Overall, most of TIC’s policy-making is about creating opportunities for him and his family to squeeze out illegal income. This amounts to unabashed corruption, possibly treasonous. And TIC has spewed it out with his typical uncouth bluntness: “It’s the time to get rich;” actually, “richer” since this applies just to the already rich minority. This personal enrichment aspect has attracted less attention than TIC’s shockingly aberrant personality, and only recently is being probed [2]. Yet, it reveals the background of his seemingly illogical moves. The wealth accumulation isn’t just a byproduct of his power grab, but the primary motive behind it. That’s how things work in banana republics.

T. Rex and Minions

In the second half of the 19^th century, America was occupying the pedestal of global superpower, one of two at first, then the only one since 1992. Its image created through self-promotion and onlookers’ presumptions was a peculiar mix of admiration and fear, the beauty and the beast. The young country earned admiration for its achievements in science, technology, economy, higher education, sports, and particularly popular culture (film, music, strip, practical fashion, and imaginings of freedom). This was the irresistibly beautiful face of America, an embodiment of soft power. In contrast, being a heavyweight fighter in global affairs, America instilled fear as well. Economic and political might, plus the military that never stops growing and fighting. Huge hard power. That face of beast had its own fans among those seeking special shelter or merely worshipping might. But it was despised too, although hate was softened by beauty and a hope that self-control would develop with maturation.

Trump ruptured the magic of delusion and hope, and declared: America is the beast, inside and outside! A brutal regime that elevates loyalists and tramples disobeyers within the country and abroad. To paraphrase a Californian politician: it’s a T. rex that you either mate with, or it devours you. TIC flaxes muscles relentlessly, scouring the way for his urges, psychosis, and insatiable greed. Mind spins fitting fictional dystopias serve brainwashing: dismantling of democratic institutions “rationalizes” the government, price increase “reduces” inflation, terrorizing citizens “secures” the borders, murder in cold blood by police is “self-defense,” attacking weak countries “increases” America’s security…

Worshippers of might and hordes of self-interested opportunists make the willing builders of TIC’s evil empire. Notice how boot lickers rush to surrender every bit of conscience, to see and think what they are ordered, to justify the unjustifiable. Enter foreign minions who crawl and appease TIC, or shower him with valuable gifts, such as that disgusting surrender of the Nobel Peace prize by the laureate, a shameless beggar for power, whose country TIC terrorizes. These crawling minions bolster TIC’s power because social power emerges in a relationship necessitating the receiving end that takes in the influence of a power holder.

TIC was let in the office by 77 million voters. Perhaps some of them regret the choice they had made now that they see a malignant regime metastasizing before their eyes. They didn’t know enough, they were running away from the opponent’s abhorrent policies, they trusted campaign promises – all this is possible. Yet, such voters neglected that their candidate was a convicted felon, twice impeached in the House, and the instigator of the failed coup to overturn the 2020 election results. Not to mention unethical and illegal private affairs, several bankruptcies, tax evasion, and indecent public behavior inappropriate for a statesman. True, misled voters may have a chance to correct the mistake, provided that free elections will be held in the future.

Although TIC may have lost part of his voting body, a sizeable part of it is likely to survive among his blind followers who believe that America-the-beast is the right one. They will undermine the possibility of rooting him out of office. And even if that happens, he’ll leave chaos behind. Enter the structural weaknesses of American democracy predating this ongoing right-wing revolution: the rule of plutocrats who manipulate the corrupted two-party Congress, a significant income disparity, and a de facto Constitutional order that overweighs the executive branch at the expense of legislative and judicial branches (I wrote about this in relation to Trump 1.0 [3]). When one of the two major parties controls both chambers of Congress and the WH, and the President is autocratic, the system of checks and balances is thrown out of the window. Put another way, the fact that democratic institutions collapsed just within one year indicates that the 250-year-old Republic was weak. A more robust construction would keep in check the President’s awkward personality and avert this catastrophic collapse.

On its anniversary, America is all shook up, and so is the world that either likes or despises it.

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[0] Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. Heritage Foundation, 2023.   https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

[1] Drezner, D., Toddler-In-Chief: What Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency. The  University of Chicago, 2020.

[2] Kirkpatrick, D., How Much Money Is Trump Profiting from the Presidency? The New Yorker, 2025.      https://youtu.be/cpOE3aAt8XU

[3] Travica, B. Trumping the Constitution.  https://cogito-bob.blogspot.com/2020/09/