We are in the midst of strange times.The newly elected President of the United States, Donald J. Trump has deliberately challenged the fundamental basis and survival of American democracy. In March 2025 Donald Trump and his minions aggressively accelerated the disintegration of American democracy. Each day presents a new challenge to democracy by the Mad King .

This article is not just about living under the chaotic rule of Trump. We explore two programs in the closing sections of this article from pages five to six examining useful means to face up to Trump.

First, is the power of the fifty U.S. states that have their own governments and constitutions. Many of these constitutions are older than the Federal Constitution and have strong Bills of Rights protecting Freedom and Democracy. States can act in face of the Lawless Trump government that is consistently breaking the law and decide to withhold taxes from the lawless Trump government. Most of the Blue states send much more income to Washington than they receive. As Trump’s pillage continues, this can be an effective state tool to slow Trump down.

Second and less confrontational, but potentially more radical, states calling for a new Constitutional Convention by the states to define how we might be able to live and work together. The democratic system cannot continue on the basis of one of two major parties refusing to accept losing an election. If Red States and Blue States cannot live together, an alternative is for States to decide to have a much weaker central government, much closer to the original Articles of Confederation, and go their own ways with States and Groups of States making agreements. Washington can no longer step on the necks of other states. An alternative to civil war or endless strife.

Living under the mad king

Trump, with all seriousness , repeats calls for Canada to become a U.S. state. He imposes tariffs on again ,off again as a means to control and damage some or all nations . He attacks Nato allies , embraces Putin as an honest man, not a murderous tyrant.

The Mad King believes in accelerating climate change and increasing fossil fuel pollution, as the source for future American wealth. The EPA just fired 75% of scientific staff with the remaining 25% reassigned for useful work like increasing coal pollution. The EPA is now committed to remove the entire corpus of environmental regulation. That, of course ,will face years of court challenges. On the other hand, Trump is also rejecting the power of the federal courts with the expectation that he will successfully ignore the courts and rule by whim and degree.

Elon Musk, the co-president, government wrecker expresses the spirit of the time. In Tennessee, developing a large Data center, for speed and to save money, he is building high pollution natural gas combustion systems to pollute the adjacent low income neighborhood. That’s his style of rushing development with disregard for consequences.

It’s also not a happy time for Elon Musk , Trump's designated government destroyer. Tesla is rapidly collapsing financially. People from Germany to China to California dump Teslas as stock prices collapse . The remaining parts of Musk's empire are now deeply in debt.

Musk remains enthusiastic about continuing to fire tens of thousands of federal workers and destroy organizations providing health care, and anti-poverty organizations from the USAID to the Veterans Administration to University Healthcare and Research in both Democratic and Republican states and neighborhoods.

Trump and Musk are equal opportunity destroyers. There is also a deeply racist cast to the pillage. The U.S. government has now removed President Lyndon Johnson's 1965 order stopping racism in federal contracting. There is a determination to remove all remnants in government, schools, and businesses of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) to promote fair treatment and participation of all people.What this means for the Mad King is to remove recognition of women, African Americans, Native Americans, and a wide range of ethnic groups other than White Christians. The military has removed the history, for example, of the storied native American Code talkers whose language the Japanese and the Germans could not understand in combat messages. The famous African American Tuskegee airmen, the first African American combat pilots also were erased from history, along with the Women's Air Corps along many, many others.

Trump wants to remove all trans soldiers who fought bravely and honorably for their country. Trump and his cohorts are fascists and sadists exalting in public images of the torture of immigrants accused of being Venezuelan gang members because they had tattoos . There is a long and disgraceful American history of white American’s taking pictures of lynching of Black men and celebrating while enjoying the spectacle. On American TV in 2025, men in chains are being beaten to the delight of audiences. As Hemingway wrote “There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find out when the time comes.”

We do not know how quickly the Mad King will embrace the swift and necessary total destruction of American democracy and attempt to create a fascist state of mass arrests, murder, mass expulsion and terror unleashed against all opponents or citizens who happen to be in the wrong place by accident. Voting and free elections are so inconvenient if Trump's popularity decreases and the Republican Congress does remain almost totally complicit with Trump’s desires.

Trump has already the favorite enemies he wants to imprison for starters in his revenge tour, the members of the investigatory committee examining the January 6, 2021 attack by Trump’s MAGA forces against the Capital to keep Trump as President. He now claims with the power of the Justice Department , the FBI under control of Trump loyalists , that President Biden’s preemptive Jan, 2025 preemptive pardon of investigators was somehow invalid because Biden used an auto pen.Revenge and punishment drives Trump’s rage. There are limitless numbers for Trump to imprison and punish like all dictators.

Trump is a coward,a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, and a thief. He has an apparently limitless rage and needs constant reinforcement for his ego. He is a man who endlessly cheats at golf so he can “win”. He has crafted a regime of true believers centered on white Christian nationalism and revival of America of not only the 1950s, but envisioning America of William McKinley in the Gilded age of unregulated capitalism.He has fired, legally or not, most that had power to control him. Welcome to Trump world 2025. Every day a new outrage.

In Trump's first administration he had a number of people of substance that could easily stand up to him like famous Army generals Mad Dog Mattis who ran the Pentagon, and another Marine Corp General John Kelley who became Chief of Staff of the White House helping manage Trump. Trump's loss to Joe Biden in 2020 was a deep wound that he could not stand and he convinced his followers that the 2020 election was “stolen”. The big lie was sufficient as spring board to power again in 2025 Although Biden presided over the world’s leading economy there was a willingness by voters to go back to Trump’s imagined good old days before the post COVID global inflation Few of Trump’s voters were looking for or inspecting egg prices soaring, tariffs further boosting prices, many thousands of government workers arbitrarily fired, social services of all kinds under assault.

Trump wants to achieve as close to total power as possible where he dominates government in all phases and punishes and humiliates all opponents. Trump could have been a mild and moderate man enjoying his golden years as a President in pursuit of good deals Trump style. Instead he is committed to sacking American democracy, the Caligula for our time.

He is old and not very healthy. At 79 he has trouble walking. His mental powers are clearly declining. He confuses names and people. After his disastrous defeat in the debate with Harris he refused to have another debate and faced only friendly audiences and smeared Harris with constant large and small lies.

Models of Trumpism to come can be the constant attack on democracy of his triumph against the rule of law and Trump essentially ruling by wish and implementing darker and more brutal consequences.

Economic collapse, a stroke, or an assassination might stop the Trump train.The fear that controls Republican politicians is for Trump to primary them and ruin their future election chances is rather thin gruel to decide to dispense with American democracy. More and more bipartisan groups of Americans in Red States were not pleased by the chaos and failure.

In Trump's desire for total power he could in the fall of 2025 declare a national emergency and declare martial law and dispense with elections. But the further the Mad King moves to conquer all there will be on Federal, and particularly on the State level, creating real opposition to Trump.

Two new means of opposition

The destruction of democracy by DJT has a self-limiting effect on Trump power. As Trump ignores the courts and Congress as he rules by decree is also an open invitation for states to stop sending tax money to Washington to support Trump dictatorship and one person rule.

By destroying the power of the federal government Trump may set up a situation where States and groups of states may find common cause to find their own ways individually or separately. States can decide on the basis of State Constitutions, typically with strong articles defending freedom and democracy, to refuse to send their taxes to a lawless Trump regime.

The MA Constitution of 1780 is older than the U.S. Constitution and notes the essential need for MA to maintain freedom and democracy. Article 1 (1780)

All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness

The MA Constitution now also notes Frederick Douglass, The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro, Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852:

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?

I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted imprudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery ...”

By far, Blue States earn money that bankrolls many of the poorer Red states. California by itself is the 6th largest global economy and a leader in working on climate change and electrification.

Red states may or may not embrace the Trump one-man, lawless and undemocratic rule he claims to reserve and need to be approved by the Trump dominated Supreme Court or not. Trump might attempt to force Blue states to obey his dictatorship and threaten military force and civil war. The army and the police might or might now side with Trump.

A constitutional convention as opposed to one-man rule or a Trump civil war

By far the most nonviolent and popular step is a new Constitutional Convention. Article V of the Constitution has two methods to Amend the Constitution. The Constitutional Convention in 2025 can be called either by 2/3 vote by both Houses of Congress or by the vote of 2/3 of the state legislatures.

The simplest resolution would allow each state to manage its own affairs which can include cooperation with other states. This would amount to an updated Article of Confederation which predated the Federal Constitution which was effective until the rise of Trump and the refusal to accept defeat.

States have the constitutional tools for a separation by states either through a constitutional convention for peaceable separation and types of confederations. A far better solution than civil war. There is already bipartisan enthusiasm for a constitutional convention. The reorganized United States could have working relationships that do not involve U.S. power but can include relations between states and participation in global relations with international allies. Many states could partner on climate change efforts. Deep Red States like Florida and Texas are national leaders in solar and wind.

They are not enthusiasts of destroying the government and denying the reality of climate change. This does not mean changing positions on abortion. It might mean agreement on limitation of green house reduction by capturing and sequestering green house gas emissions that under the Biden administration Inflation reduction Act will pay oil companies to get paid by capturing and then sequestering Green House Gas Emissions.

The new United States could be driven by mutual self-interest and not a struggle for power. This is a path toward working together and creative development and addressing many of our intractable problems. What we need is creative democratic means to cooperatively remove our problem not by beating our rivals into submission but by finding paths for all of us.


Cursus publicus was the courier service of the Roman Republic. A venue for those who care.

Constitutional Right to Revolution

Americans included in their constitutions the right to revolution as a constitutional principle of the people as the sovereign to control their government and revise their constitutions without limit.

Before the Declaration of Independence was signed at Philadelphia, New Hampshire Patriots were the first to openly rebel against the British in 1774 and to write their own state constitution in 1775. When the Revolutionary War was won in 1784, the New Hampshire Constitution enshrined the right of citizens to rebel against their government when private interests subvert the public good.

Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. (NH Constitution, Article 10)

The purpose of Article 10 is to ensure a representative government that serves the whole community, rich and poor alike. Like New Hampshire's founding rebels, citizens of today are called upon to hold their leaders accountable when they fail to meet the proper ends of government.

Listen to our Founders. Not the Traitors.