Unchecked Aggression
Under Donald Trump, international law, the Constitution, and the rule of law have all become optional.
On February 28th, 2026, Donald announced a full scale military campaign against Iran in the middle of the night on his failing social media platform. Congress learned about it at the same moment the American people did. Since the war began, at least seven American service members and thousands of Iranian civilians, including at least 254 children, have reportedly been killed. The war is now estimated to be costing American taxpayers roughly $1 billion per day.
The sixty day deadline required under the War Powers Resolution has long since expired, which means a war that was likely already illegal has now also become unconstitutional. Congress voted on whether Donald required authorization to continue the war and that vote failed. Donald then sent Congress a letter claiming that because he had ordered a two week ceasefire on April 7th, the clock should somehow reset and he no longer needed congressional approval.
Legal scholars said the argument has no basis in law. Common Cause, a national advocacy group formally called on the cabinet to invoke the Twenty Fifth Amendment.
And still, Donald insists the real problem is the Constitution and the War Powers Act.
Donald: Most people consider it totally unconstitutional. Also, we had a ceasefire, so that gives you additional time, but no other country’s done it. We’re in the midst of a big victory. This is a victory like we haven’t had since Venezuela. We’re on our way to another victory, a big victory. I don’t think that it’s constitutional what they’re asking for. These are not patriotic people that are asking. The strait is totally shut down. It’s flawless. It’s totally 100% shut down.
The increasingly bizarre exaggerations and easily disproven lies Donald keeps telling are alarming not just because they are false, but because they reveal how completely detached from reality he has become and how disconnected he is from the consequences of the chaos he continues to create.
America is not winning the war in Iran.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is not some strategic triumph. Iran closed the strait, which means oil prices continue to rise because critical shipping routes have been disrupted. The war is burning through defense appropriations Congress never authorized for combat operations in the first place. Eventually, Donald will return to Congress demanding lawmakers fund a war they never approved.
More than 200 organizations signed a joint letter urging Congress to reject supplemental war funding. At the same time, Pete Hegseth and Donald are demanding that the Department of Defense budget increase from $900 billion to $1.5 trillion despite the fact that both men have demonstrated profound incompetence and an utter inability to understand what the United States military is actually for.
And then there is Cuba.
On May 1st, 2026, Donald signed Executive Order 14404, escalating the economic campaign against Cuba by authorizing secondary sanctions against foreign financial institutions doing business with entities on a newly expanded Cuban sanctions list.
On May 7th, United Nations experts warned that the American fuel blockade had pushed Cuba into what they described as “energy starvation.” Cuba’s energy minister confirmed the country had effectively run out of fuel.
The New York Times described the blockade as the first effective naval blockade of Cuba since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet Donald continues treating all of this as some kind of performance.
Donald: … a place called Cuba, which we will be taking over almost immediately. No, Cuba’s got problems. We’ll finish one first. I like to finish your job. On the way back from Iran, we’ll have one of our big, maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, the biggest in the world. We’ll have that come in, stop about a hundred yards offshore and they’ll say, “Thank you very much. We give up.”
That is not how a military conflict works.
Legal analysts now say the Trump regimes stated goal is regime change in Cuba before the end of 2026. Apparently Donald has decided that in addition to wanting to be president of Venezuela and prime minister of Israel, perhaps he should become president of Cuba as well.
Analysts writing for Newsweek and Just Security concluded that the blockade violates both the United Nations Charter and the Charter of the Organization of American States. In the United Nations General Assembly, 165 of 193 member states voted to demand an end to the blockade.
Because Cuba is literally running out of fuel.
Hospitals cannot reliably power ventilators or other lifesaving medical equipment. Neonatal intensive care units are at risk. Food distribution systems are collapsing. People are burning trash in the street. People are starving. But again, none of that matters to Donald because human suffering has never mattered to Donald unless he can exploit it for himself.
Meanwhile, Donald’s illegal and unconstitutional war against Iran has further destabilized America’s relationship with its allies. Because he launched the conflict without consulting NATO partners or securing any legitimate international framework, several allied governments refused to participate. Austria, which has maintained neutrality under international law since 1955, denied American military overflight requests connected to the war.
Donald responded the only way he ever does when people refuse to comply with his demands: by publicly attacking America’s allies and once again questioning the value of NATO itself. He even suggested that countries refusing to support his war effort might no longer deserve NATO protection.
That statement alone demonstrates either a complete misunderstanding of how NATO functions or a deliberate disregard for it. NATO is a defensive alliance. Article 5 applies when a member nation is attacked.
Reuters later reported that internal Pentagon communications included options for punishing allies that refused to support the Iran war. Donald has made it very clear that he interprets neutrality and independent decision making as personal disloyalty to him rather than the sovereign right of allied nations.
In this scenario, the United States and Israel are the aggressors. Unfortunately, this lawlessness extends far beyond foreign policy.
Here at home, Donald and members of his regime are increasingly defying court orders outright. Public Citizen warned in March 2026 that war has historically been used to expand executive power and suppress dissent. World War I was used to criminalize anti war speech. World War II was used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans. After September 11th, the United States constructed an enormous surveillance infrastructure that still exists today.
Legal scholars argue the difference now is that the authoritarianism already existed before the war began. The war is not the cause of the fascism consuming the Trump regime. It is an accelerant.
A president who wages war without congressional authorization is no longer operating within the boundaries of constitutional democracy. Neither is a president who defies court orders without consequence, blockades nations into starvation, or threatens allied governments for refusing to comply with his demands.
And at this point, it is becoming increasingly difficult to argue that those constitutional boundaries exist at all.
And Donald himself admitted exactly how he views his power.
Reporter: Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage?
Donald: Yeah, there’s one thing. My own morality, my own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop and not international law. I don’t need international law.
His morality? The most amoral human being imaginable believes his morality is what will restrain him.
There are no internal mechanisms limiting Donald Trump because there never have been. There is no ethical framework, no conscience, no respect for fairness, truth, or restraint. And externally, there is no meaningful co equal branch of government left willing to stop him. There is only the corrupt, illegitimate supermajority of the Supreme Court and a Republican Congress so cowardly and compromised that it continues surrendering its own constitutional authority to the most corrupt and incompetent man ever to occupy the Oval Office.
An Associated Press review of more than thirty one active lawsuits found that the Trump regime has defied federal court orders at a rate legal scholars say has no precedent in modern American history. Judges identified more than 250 additional instances of noncompliance in immigration cases alone.
One federal judge warned that Trump officials were attempting to “erode any semblance of separation of powers” and could only succeed in a world where the Constitution itself no longer exists.
That is where this ends if nobody stops him: a country where Congress no longer matters, the courts no longer matter, alliances no longer matter, and the Constitution itself becomes little more than a document Donald ignores whenever it inconveniences him.
The Good in Us by Mary L. Trump is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support independent media, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Executive orders? All nonsense. He is no executive either.
Their depravity and delusional incompetence is staggering. This GOP will s a dumpster fire of complicity. And there is Texas 🫨. Thank you for steady perspective and insight….even as it must be exhausting on some days..