At some point , looking at all the damage, it becomes hard to dismiss Trump as merely unintelligent and incapable. The other possibility is that the destruction deliberate, and the goal to end US hegemony. Would things proceed any differently if it were?
Much of the self-destruction flowed from the pages of Project 2025. You can't just blame Trump: you have to include the Heritage Foundation and the entire Republican party.
This is not a problem that goes away when Trump ultimately leaves office.
I'm willing to give his base some benefit of the doubt, given how heavily propagandized they are via Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, Sinclair Broadcast Group, etc.
On the campaign trail, Trump disavowed any connection to Project 2025 when it was leaked, and I suspect most of his base took him at his word. To anyone not trapped inside the right-wing media bubble, that is somewhere between naive and insane, of course, but people inside the bubble don't live in the same reality as the rest of us.
However, your response does remind me of an important point: two other rather large, looming threats which need addressing are media consolidation and money in politics.
