Image: watson/imago
analysis
The US President is vulnerable – and the signs of dementia have become obvious.
December 27, 2025, 5:33 p.mDecember 27, 2025, 5:33 p.m
The man has been impeached twice and indicted four times, convicted of 34 felonies, and civil courts have convicted him of sexual harassment and business fraud. He was incredibly lucky. He was able to take over an intact economy from his predecessors twice. In his first term in office, he was able to appoint three supreme judges, thereby making himself more or less invulnerable to persecution by the judiciary.
Seen this way, it is not surprising that Donald Trump feels like a king – and acts accordingly:
- He is demolishing part of the White House, the East Wing, to make room for a monstrous ballroom whose original cost has now doubled from $200 million to $400 million.
- He wants to have a triumphal arch built in Washington that bears his name on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
- He had the renowned Kennedy Center renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center and also wants to decorate Dulles Airport with his name.
- He is starting a war with Venezuela without getting the necessary permission from Congress.
- He wants to buy Greenland and turn Canada into the 51st US state.
Trump can do all of this with impunity. So it’s no wonder that despair and the realization are spreading among his opponents: the man is like a Teflon pan. Everything, absolutely everything, bounces off him.
Or not?
Small things can have big consequences. After the murder of the extremely popular director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, Trump made the following post:
“Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling but once very talented film director and comedy star, has died along with his wife Michele, reportedly due to the anger he inflicted on others by his massive, unrelenting and incurable illness from a mentally debilitating disease called TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.”
We apologize for the spelling. The quote should be reproduced as faithfully as possible to the original.source: truth social
In other words: Trump has turned a terrible family tragedy – the Reiner couple were probably killed by their own drug-addicted son – into a commercial for himself. This was more than a new low in the long series of slurs against the president. Even the MAGA crowd no longer appreciated it, and for the first time Trump’s incredible tastelessness was openly criticized by his supporters.
The Reiner family.Image: keystone
A year ago, not only did Trump’s supporters triumph, there was also an abrupt cultural change. Anything woke or DEI disappeared. Instead, sports and show business stars began imitating Trump’s awkward dance moves. The expression “Trump Vibe Shift” made the rounds.
This change in mood is dead, as Ezra Klein states in the New York Times and reasons as follows:
“Moderate Republicans have broken with Speaker Mike Johnson and are supporting a Democratic bill that would extend subsidies for health insurance premiums. Marjorie Taylor Greene is retiring. Elon Musk regrets temporarily joining the government. Joe Rogan (a highly influential podcaster who recommended Trump’s election, author’s note) calls Trump’s immigration policies “crazy.” “The right is tearing each other apart over the Epstein files and the question of how much anti-Semitism is permissible.”
The President’s address to the nation was also very poorly received. It showed an old, angry man who speaks way too fast and strings one lie after the next. If you compare this with the new stars of the Democrats, with Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York, or James Talarico, a young progressive but at the same time Christian representative from Texas, then Trump does very poorly. “The defining expression of Trump’s second term is a dark, threatening look,” said Klein.
Seems old: Donald Trump.Image: keystone
The change in mood is also reflected in the miserable survey results. Now only 36 percent of Americans like Trump and his policies. As is well known, moods can change quickly, but not political content. And it is precisely in this regard that Trump is caught up in the curse of his evil deeds:
- The Epstein files do not and will not disappear, and the clumsy redactions made by the Justice Department could prove to be their own goal.
- The “affordability” crisis is just as persistent and is increasingly becoming a gift to Democrats. When Trump describes his economic policy to Americans as “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” (a six with five stars), then he is playing a dangerous game. Even Johnny Sixpack can estimate how much food and rent will cost and how much will be left in his wallet at the end of the month.
- Even his showpiece, immigration policy, is too brutal for his voters. For example, the aforementioned Joe Rogan explains: “When you arrest people in front of their children – normal, ordinary people who have lived with us for 20 years – then anyone with a heart can’t agree with that.”
- The obvious corruption of the Trump clan has reached a level where even the MAGA crowd is starting to ask questions.
Nothing is going as it should in foreign policy either. The trade war with China is proving to be a shot in the foot. «Mr. Xi has shown how dependent America is on his policies. “In this round of the battle for supremacy in the 21st century between the two superpowers, China has clearly won,” comments the Economist.
This also applies to Canada and Mexico. Unlike the EU – yes, and Switzerland too – these two countries have not cowered in the face of Trump and have done well so far. “We need more Carneys (Mark Carney is the Canadian Prime Minister, editor’s note),” comments Edward Luce in the Financial Times. “If the West fails to defend its way of life and freedom, it will fall apart.”
Given the behavior of the US Navy in the Caribbean Sea, given Trump’s zigzag course on Ukraine, and given that the ceasefire in the Middle East has become fragile, Trump’s sick ambition to win the Nobel Peace Prize can no longer even be called a joke.
Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.Image: keystone
Teflon Trump has become a wounded tiger. This makes him dangerous, especially since the signs of senile dementia have become obvious. Signs that are: his uncontrollable desire to plaster his name everywhere, to not only line up portraits of past presidents in a special gallery, but also to add text that a fifth grader would be ashamed of. Or making up stories – like the one about the Unabomber being his uncle’s student – that are not only fictitious, but that he himself believes.
Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, recently said in an interview that Trump behaves like an alcoholic. That’s an understatement. The US President has become an old, demented man. This raises the anxious question: What if this goes well?