The person pictured above is currently serving as the President of the United States of America. He won his election to that office in 2024, and he did so, largely, on the basis of the following, undoubtedly well-remembered, assertion: "I, alone, can fix it."
Mr. Trump has certainly not backed away from that claim. The front page of The New York Times on Friday, January 9, 2026, headlined its lead article as follows: "Trump Asserts His Global Power Has One Limit: Himself." That's the hardcopy version, which differs from the online version not only by utilizing a slightly different headline, but also by utilizing an even more striking picture than the one I have copied above, which comes from the online version of the article.
I believe that it would be wise for every American to think about the claims being made by our current president, as featured in The Times' story (emphasis added):
President Trump told The Times during a wide-ranging interview last night that he alone was the arbiter of his authority as commander in chief. He brushed aside international law and other checks on his power to order the U.S. military to strike or invade nations around the world.
When asked if there were any limits on his global powers, Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
You might call these claims "autocratic." You could even call them "megalomaniacal." These claims are definitive evidence that our current president believes that he - and he exclusively - is empowered to act for our nation, and that he, and he "alone," can decide every question relating to our nation's present and future.
This recent article is clear evidence that our current president believes that his voice, and his decisions, and his "morality," are the only things that count. His "own mind," our current president says, is "the only thing that can stop me."
Our current president's claim to possess the unilateral power to speak for, to make decisions for, and to act for the United States of America (with no one else having any say-so) is inconsistent with what our Constitution says about the powers of the executive. That claim, though, is completely consistent with the following news stories in the same edition of The Times that I have quoted above, these recent news stories documenting recent actions by the government which came exclusively from the president:
The United States of America can lose the distinction of being a "self-governing" democracy if it acts as if the above claims, made by our current president, are either acceptable or true.
They are not true, and are flatly inconsistent with what our Constitution says about the powers of the president, and they are not acceptable, either, if we intend to remain a "self-governing" people, acting through our representative democracy.
Power must be met by power, which is not the same as, and is completely different from, "violence." Organized political action is demanded of us.
Now.
Only one who can forgive is ones maker.
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