According to US government statistics, there have been approximately 1,200,000 military deaths in United States history. We should know that number today, and we should wonder if we, and the country we have brought about, is worthy of the their sacrifices, and those of their families. We should wonder because our government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” seems to quickly have become a government “of the person, by the person and for the person”. The person, of course, is Donald John Trump.

While the list could be interminable, let’s look at some of things things that this Donald John Trump can effectuate all on his own:

(1) He can have people, non-citizens and citizens, picked up off the street and whisked away to prisons far from their homes, both in this country and abroad, without giving them any opportunity to contest their arrest, and he can do this to people who have not been accused of any criminal activity.

(2) He can disrupt the world’s commerce (yes, the world’s) by putting tariffs, high and low, on goods coming into the country from other nations, and can raise or lower, collect or postpone or threaten tariffs at his will, with the privilege to change his mind whenever he wants.

(3) He can attempt to destroy major law firms by denying their attorneys security clearances needed to represent certain clients in disputes with the government, and bribe them into doing pro-bono work that he approves, as a condition of their being allowed to continue their normal practice.

(4) He can attempt to destroy major universities by taking away federal funding of all types (including scientific and medical research funding), by threatening their tax exempt status, and by threatening their ability to enroll foreign students.

(5) He can politicize and direct the Department of Justice (and offices of United States Attorneys across the country) to attack his perceived enemies, and to dismiss litigation against his perceived friends.

(6) He can apparently fire at will members of independent agencies, who have been nominated for terms of a set number of years

(7) He can attempt to eliminate Congressionally established departments and, if he is unable to do that, believes he can simply eliminate all of their personnel and take away all of their responsibilities.

(8) He can dismiss agency heads without cause and assign their jobs to his cronies who already have other jobs, in effect eliminating the positions

(9) He can authorize the wealthiest man in the world to have access, with a select but unvetted group of techies, to all government agencies and allow them to announce the closing of specific offices and the firing of specific personnel on a whim

(10) He can eliminate the country’s soft power by cancelling the programs of USAID, without regard to the effects of such actions on the recipients of USAID programs world-wide, or the thousands of employees of USAID.

(11) He can change government policy, and Constitutional interpretation, by stating that all programs to support minorities in effect discriminate against the White majority and are therefore unconstitutional, and he can eliminate all such programs.

(12) He can deny climate change and cancel any and all programs he deems to be green energy programs.

(13) He can rail against all judges that rule in ways that meet his disapproval, and can threaten them with prosecution.

(14) He can decide that hundreds of thousands of individuals and families from troubled countries (such as Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Afghanistan) who are living in the United States under temporary approval should lose that temporary approval and go back to the countries from which they came, irrespective of whether or not they face prosecution or other dangers in those countries.

(15) He can enrich himself and his family by building hotels and golf resorts in various places around the world and adjusting American foreign policy to benefit those countries.

(16) He can enrich himself and his family by creating and selling cryptocurrency to the highest bidders and permit them access to lobby for their own interests directly with the president.

(17) He can accept an airplane from Qatar which will be given to him (okay, his foundation) after his term ends, even though it will cost up to $1,000,000,000 of taxpayer money to refurbish it.

(18) He can undermine the Congress of the United States by threatening the political future of any Republican Senator of member of the House of Representatives who votes against him on any measure.

(19) He can threaten Canada, Panama, and Greenland by saying that, if necessary, the United States will take them by force.

(20) He can cancel the visas of anyone in this country on a student or work visa at will, forcing them to leave the country.

(21) He can ignore the orders of the courts, including the orders of the Supreme Court, while saying his is obeying them.

(22) He can permit his Secretary of Health and Human Services to act in opposition to all medical science, threatening the health of the nation.

(23) He can propose legislation that will have the effect of eliminating health insurance for up to 8 million Americans.

(24) He can destroy our most important alliances, including our NATO alliances.

(25) He can order a military parade on his birthday that will cost the country more than $50,000,000.

Of course, this list only scratches the surface of what Donald John I seems to be able to do, all on his own. Oh, yes, he does have his entire MAGA movement behind him, or so he says. But, guess what? MAGA is not a movement, it’s a cult, and there is a big difference.

We have no idea where this will all end up. I understand that. But we are just four months into a presumed 48 month presidential term. I say presumed because Donald John I is 78 years old, and there is a chance that he will not live out the term, just as there is a chance that his confused mind will grow more and more confused as the months go on, leading to an inability to continue to govern. We will see how this plays out.

In the meantime, as I have said, this is Memorial Day, and we should remember those who died in the service of the country, and ask what we should be doing to honor their sacrifice.

But then again, what is Memorial Day? How much observance of this day is there? It is day off of work for many, it is a day of mega-sales for many more, but is it truly a day of remembrance?

Before writing this post, I did go through this morning’s New York Times. There is one op-ed by former Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust on page A-19, speaking of those who died during the Civil War. That is the only mention of Memorial Day anywhere in the paper that I saw. Certainly nothing on the front page (where there should certainly be something), which talks only of Trump’s graft, increases of police killings of blacks, how law firms are choosing pro-bono work when under agreements with Trump, Israeli strikes in Gaza, questions surrounding Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, and an article about that excruciatingly important subject that is on everyone’s mind (or if it isn’t, it should be), table tennis in Qatar.