I have a secret, and I am going to tell you what it is. You know the Saudi royal family, and the royal families of the UAE and Qatar? Donald Trump thinks that they are his friends and, believe it or not, not only do they not consider him a friend, they consider him stupid. Believe it or not, that’s the truth.

That’s something that those Arab royals and I share in common, by the way. The difference is that Trump’s stupidity isn’t going to hurt the royal families and might even help them, but it might really hurt my family and friends and everyone else living in the United States.

The royal families of the Arabian peninsula are out to enhance the wealth of the royal families of the Arabian peninsula. Not that one royal family cares about another royal family; each cares only about it self. This is the way royal families are. And this is also the way that wannabe royal families are – wannabe royals like the Trumps, for example.

Hitching the Trumps to the Saudis and the others may be good for the Trumps. It is hard to believe that it is good for the United States. And it seems to be in direct conflict to the concept of America First. The history of Arab peninsula politics should make that clear.

Of course, becoming the leader of a royal family is not enough for Trump. Royal families themselves are internally notoriously unstable, as we know. They have internal rivalries and they tend, from time to time, to witness ruthless goings-on, with people being killed, exiled, and who knows what else? They also spawn members who become very ambitious and consequently stir up enormous amounts of trouble wherever they may go.

So while Trump wants the Trump name to connote royalty, he does not want to share the glory with other Trumps as long as he himself is alive. He wants all the power. So in addition to wanting to become the equivalent of an Arab royal, he wants to be a political dictator. Like Putin, or Xi, of any of the Kim Jongs. But while they, his fellow political dictators, want to control parts of the world that they consider to be within their spheres, Trump would like to control all parts of the world. Well, maybe not Africa – I don’t think he wants to get involved at all in Africa. We can guess why that is.

So, as I have said before, in all of his doings, Trump may be thinking of the Trump family more than he thinks of the United States. America First may in fact be much closer to Trumps First. And, to be a bit less cruel to him, perhaps he thinks that if Trumps come first, his version of America (a Trump creation in the making, to be sure) will just tag along and be all right, too.

But most of America do not seem to think that the Trump version of their country is what is needed. Certainly the polls show that, although about 40% or so of Americans are still Trumpers wearing MAGA hats. The courts have certainly turned against him. Obviously, the Democratic party. More and more Independents and more (if not more, and more) Republicans are backing away from him.

We know that the Arab royal families are playing him (the Qatari palace in the sky being one big example). We know that the Chinese think they are winning the tariff battle. We know that Putin is not moving towards leaving Ukraine. And it looks like Iran thinks that they can use him to their advantage as well. We will have to see how all of this works out, but so far it does seem that MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell has it right: Trump will bark and threaten and rage………and then he will back off. So if he is not only a bully, but a scaredy-cat bully, why should anyone fear him.

Anyone, that is, except those who are subject to his whims. Such as everyone in this country, no matter how they got in or what rights they have been given by the Constitution, the laws, presidential proclamations or otherwise, any of whom can (it appears) be picked up off the streets and shipped to foreign countries like El Salvador, Libya or Lousiana. Or institutions which are dependent on federal funding, which includes every university in the country, every research institution, every state and local government, and every hospital. Their defenses are very limited. It doesn’t matter that the courts will rule for them (or, rather, it doesn’t matter for the most part) because court rulings take a long time and a tremendous amount of resources and by the time they win and Trump loses, they are out of money, out of business and maybe out of the country.

Strong action by Congress (and that means some Republicans are going to have to back away from lockstep backing him) and continued court rulings will have to carry the day until the Congressional elections of 2026. And then it is up to the American people. They will have to realize that, again as I said a few days ago, that Make America Great Again is not a slogan that should be taken literally as a goal of Trump, but rather a slogan that is meant to bamboozle the American population to think that they are his goal, whereas they are simply a means to create the Royal Trump Family, led by the one Great Leader, Donald the Immortal.

That’s it. You may think that everything that I wrote down today is trite or repetitive. But I think it is true. Robert Reich (you know who he is, right?) has been putting out his thoughts on line even more often than I have (he also has about 1000 readers for each of mine) and he answered the question the other day of why he is writing so much, not only every day, but often more than one time a day, and isn’t he just being annoying. He response was simple. Things are so fraught, he said, that he just feels compelled to try to give his readers some context, even if it means repeating things over and over. (I am not quoting him, or even paraphrasing him, and I don’t even remember what exactly he said, but this is close enough. And if this is not what he said (and it might be or it might be not), all I can say is: shame on him. Because this is what he should have said.)