Most of what I’m writing about this month is beyond the pale, which means actions that are “bizarre, outside the bounds of civilized behavior.” The behavior of the Trump administration is corrupt and shows no respect for the rule of law or the principle of checks and balances.

t’s been another roller-coaster month for the United States and our global allies as the Trump executive branch demonstrates what happens when “tit for tat” decisions are made without respect to the longer-term consequences. Those consequences affect citizens, the global markets, and a global diplomacy infrastructure that was built after two world wars, ongoing Mideast conflicts, and tensions with nation-state players like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Foreign relations with organizations like NATO or the European Union are at an all-time low, and the USAID program has been destroyed. The executive branch is staffed with ignorant but vicious political appointees, whose inept decision-making is hollowing out or destroying bipartisan agencies, initiatives, and programs that have been at the heart of our democracy for years. Among the three branches of government, the executive has operated mostly unrestrained this term, except for lower federal court judges, and several times as well by the Supreme Court.

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

Even after three weeks, it is hard to accept the startling changes in the world flooding us from the Trump administration. If more citizens had read Project 2025, would that have changed their votes and the outcome of the last election? Did we mistake the playbook as less consequential than it has turned out to be