Mike McCready

Author: Mike McCready

  • No One Believes Trump Anymore—And the World’s Acting Like It

    No One Believes Trump Anymore—And the World’s Acting Like It

    Last night, Israel struck deep into Iran—over the quiet objections of the White House. Think about that for a second.

    It was a direct rejection of Donald Trump’s promise to negotiate a new peace framework with Iran. Netanyahu didn’t just doubt Trump’s ability to get it done—he didn’t even think it was worth pretending anymore. He moved without permission, and without Trump.

    This is what it looks like when the world stops believing the U.S. president has any real pull.

    Europe’s Not Waiting Either

    Across the Atlantic, European leaders have authorized Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons inside Russian territory. That’s a massive policy shift—one that would normally require careful alignment with Washington.

    But there’s no alignment. Because there’s no trust. Trump said he alone could end the war in Ukraine. NATO waited a while for that offer to play out and decided they’d rather take their chances without him.

    Putin Is Publicly Mocking Him—and He Doesn’t Even Notice

    Russian state television aired nude photos of Melania Trump as part of a grotesque propaganda stunt. A few years ago, that would’ve triggered diplomatic retaliation. Under Trump 2.0? Crickets.

    Either he doesn’t realize he’s being mocked, or he doesn’t care. Maybe he still thinks Putin respects him. Maybe he’s just afraid to break up with his last remaining bromance. Whatever the case, the message from Moscow couldn’t be clearer: we don’t respect you.

    Markets Are Screaming It, Too

    Gold is on a rocket ride—not because the economy is overheating, but because confidence in Trump’s economic leadership is melting like a popsicle in Mar-a-Lago. His trade policies shift by the hour. His tariffs are threats without timelines. His “art of the deal” these days seems to be: promise big, deliver nothing, move on.

    He said he’d sign 90 trade deals in 90 days. We’re on day 70-something. So far, we’ve got two vague “frameworks.” That’s political lingo for: everyone smiled politely and agreed to get back to each other. Someday.

    DOGE Was Supposed to Be the Fix—It’s a Punchline Now

    The Department of Government Efficiency was Trump’s shiny new hammer to smash waste and fraud. Musk was going to run it. Budgets were going to shrink. Swamps were going to drain.

    Instead, the whole thing is collapsing under its own irony. Cuts that were supposed to save money are actually costing money. Programs got slashed only to be reinstated under lawsuits or emergency exceptions. And Musk? He’s out. He quit DOGE, slammed the spending bill, and said he’s done being a political shield for broken promises.

    The Musk Breakup Says It All

    Trump once claimed Elon Musk would be a key partner in reshaping government. Now he’s threatening to revoke Tesla and SpaceX contracts, and Musk is saying—on record—that Trump can’t be trusted to manage a budget, let alone a country.

    It’s one thing to lose your enemies. But when you start losing your allies, your enablers, and your billionaire yes-men? That’s when the walls start closing in.

    The Big Picture: Nobody Thinks He Can Do the Job

    Israel ignored him. Europe bypassed him. Putin humiliates him. Musk walked. Gold’s spiking. Trade deals are MIA. And the big-budget reforms that were supposed to show “Trump means business” have turned into another bloated mess.

    This isn’t strength. This isn’t strategy. This is what weak leadership looks like on a global stage. It’s not that the world is in chaos despite Trump—it’s that the world no longer sees him as someone worth coordinating with at all.

    He promised to bring peace, prosperity, and power back to America. What we’ve got instead is confusion, rejection, and gold at $3,400.

  • I Tried to Stay Quiet. But Apparently We’re Doing Tanks Now.

    I Tried to Stay Quiet. But Apparently We’re Doing Tanks Now.

    (originally posted on my Facebook page)

    I’ve been taking a break from posting on here. You’re welcome.

    It’s been nice, honestly. Less doomscrolling, fewer arguments with people I went to high school with, and a brief, beautiful window where I could pretend that maybe things were just… normal. But then I saw the day getting closer: Trump is throwing himself a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue this weekend.

    Yes. Tanks. Planes. Flags. The whole third-world-dictator aesthetic. And I figured, alright—time to crawl out of the bunker and say a thing.

    The excuse is that it’s the Army’s 250th birthday, which is technically true. But it also happens to be Trump’s 79th birthday. So… yeah. It’s less “honoring the troops” and more “celebrating Dear Leader with flyovers and a cake shaped like Trump Tower.”

    But hey, if you’ve ever looked at D.C. and thought, “What this place really needs is a little more North Korea,” your moment has arrived.

    And just to make the timing extra bleak, this is happening one week after Trump sent the National Guard into Los Angeles—over the objections of California’s governor. First time that’s happened in sixty years. Back then, it was LBJ sending troops to protect civil rights marchers. This time, it’s Trump sending troops to protect… his reputation. From protesters.

    You know, real freedom-loving stuff.

    And the executive order he used to do it? Doesn’t even name LA. Doesn’t have to. It’s written vaguely enough to let him send troops anywhere that doesn’t clap on the one and three.

    So no, this isn’t just about Los Angeles. This is a test balloon. See how far he can go, how many people shrug, and how many cameras he can get pointed at himself while the Constitution quietly wheezes in the background.

    And I know how this sounds. I really do. If you had told me ten years ago I’d be writing about a U.S. president using the military to intimidate his own population, I’d have assumed I’d finally lost the plot and was living in an asylum somewhere yelling at soup cans. But here we are.

    ICE is already ramping up raids. The deportation push is real. The mass roundups? They’re not a scare tactic. They’re part of the plan. Trump’s asking for $185 billion for immigration enforcement—which is more than the UK and France spend on their entire militaries. That’s not border security. That’s infrastructure for authoritarianism.

    Stephen Miller—who still looks like he was carved out of cold deli meat—is already talking about deporting 3,000 people a day.

    The thing that makes this moment so dangerous is how normal it all feels now. A few years ago, something like this would’ve sparked national outrage. Now it’s just another Tuesday. Another broken norm. Another test to see what we’ll tolerate. And spoiler: it’s a lot.

    Democrats are out here debating whether it’s too “alarmist” to use the word fascism, while Republicans are busy making sure they’re not the next ones to get publicly humiliated by Trump’s Truth Social posts. At this point, he could replace the Lincoln Memorial with a sculpture of his meme coin and they’d all show up to applaud.

    Anyway. I didn’t want to break my non-posting streak for this. I was trying to keep the blood pressure in a manageable range and pretend the world was just weird, not dark. But the tanks are coming. The flags are flying. The script is writing itself. And if we’re not careful, we’ll look up four days from now and realize we just watched the next chapter of American decline roll down the street while we argued about gas prices.

    Happy almost-birthday, Mr. President. Hope your little party goes great. I’ll be over here, quietly panic-Googling “how to spot the early signs of soft authoritarianism” like a normal person.

  • When to Walk Away: A Business Lesson from the Trading Terminal

    When to Walk Away: A Business Lesson from the Trading Terminal

    There’s a moment in business—just like in trading—when your thinking brain quietly exits the building. It doesn’t slam the door or send a calendar invite. It just disappears. And suddenly your emotional brain lights a cigarette, rolls up its sleeves, and says, “Relax—I’ve got this.”

    Spoiler: it does not have this.

    This week, that moment cost me $895 in trading—one bad trade across multiple accounts for a total of an $11,635 loss. But this isn’t about trading. It’s about the universal impulse to stay in the deal too long.

    Read the full post on my Substack here.

  • Defending Democracy: Our Moment to Act

    Defending Democracy: Our Moment to Act

    It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in the face of what is nothing less than a coup against the Constitution—but we must not falter. Every generation faces a defining moment, a call to defend the great American experiment. We don’t get to choose when, but we do choose how we rise. Now is our time.

    These are dark days. Neighbors, friends, and loved ones have been swept up in a movement that thrives on resentment, division, and cruelty. We see bigotry not just tolerated but celebrated. This has always been part of America’s struggle, but we once shamed it into the shadows and called upon the better angels of our nature. Now, with permission from Trump and his politics of grievance, it flies proudly in the open. The Republican Party has been hijacked—not by conservatives of principle, but by those who seek to dismantle democracy itself. Their goal is clear: autocratic breakthrough. The moment they overcome our democratic guardrails, the point of no return will be crossed.

    We are witnessing firsthand just how important it was to vote. This crisis exists because not enough of us turned out. Not enough of us took this threat seriously. We allowed it to be sane-washed—a tactic where extremism is repackaged as reasonable, where authoritarianism is softened with careful language, making it easier for people to dismiss the danger. They even twist logic to justify abhorrent behavior. But the consequences of that mistake are now undeniable.

    Our job is simple: we cannot let this continue. We must stand firm, push back, and force hatred back into the margins of history where it belongs.

    But resistance alone is not enough. We must engage. It starts with showing up—joining protests in person and online, flooding Congress with calls and emails, demanding that they rein in this administration. Call: (202) 224-3121 and follow the instructions. We must be prepared to stand up for what’s right and, crucially, to welcome traditional Republicans into our fold as we unite for the common cause of saving our Constitution.

    America has never fully lived up to its ideals, but we have always moved forward. A more perfect union is built not by ignoring our failures, but by striving to correct them. Progress has never been easy, but history proves it is always possible.

    This fight will not be won overnight, but it will be won. If we stand together, if we refuse to yield to despair, if we meet this moment with courage and conviction—we will prevail.

  • How the Wealthy Control Assets and Impact the Economy

    How the Wealthy Control Assets and Impact the Economy

    When the wealthy have money, they don’t just let it sit in a bank account collecting dust. They use it to buy real assets—houses, office buildings, stocks, businesses, art, yachts, and even sports teams. The more they buy, the more the prices of those assets rise, making it harder for middle and working-class people to afford them. Instead of owning, more and more people end up renting these things back from the wealthy, which just makes the rich even richer.

    This is how wealth keeps getting concentrated at the top and the way trickle-down economics failed us. The U.S. and much of the Western world haven’t seen this level of wealth inequality since the 1920s. Back then, the wealth gap was a major factor that led to the Great Depression. We’re seeing the same trend today, and if we don’t do something about it, most Americans will experience lower living standards in the future. That’s why so many younger people have lost faith in the American Dream—they just don’t see a realistic path to financial security, homeownership, or upward mobility.

    The only reasonable way to fix this is by taxing the wealthy and using that money to invest in our country’s future. We need better public education, greater access to healthcare, and major investments in infrastructure. These things would directly improve people’s lives and address the growing frustration of those who feel left behind by globalization and the extreme concentration of wealth. Right now, the top 1% controls about 31% of the total wealth in the U.S., while the bottom 50% has just 2.6%. That’s not a functioning economy—it’s a system rigged to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

    Trump’s budget proposal does absolutely nothing to address these problems. Instead, it doubles down on the same failed trickle-down policies we’ve seen before: cutting spending on social programs, borrowing even more money to run up the national debt, and handing out massive tax breaks to the ultra-rich and corporations. Nothing in this plan lowers the cost of housing. Nothing makes groceries more affordable. Nothing helps raise wages or improve the standard of living for working Americans.

    If we keep going down this road, we’re only going to see more of the same—an economy where the wealthy hoard more and more, while everyone else struggles to get by. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can choose policies that actually invest in people and create opportunities for everyone, not just the privileged few. The question is whether we have the political will to do it.

  • Hey MAGA: Let’s talk about Hamas and Israel—and then about what’s happening right here in the U.S.

    Hey MAGA: Let’s talk about Hamas and Israel—and then about what’s happening right here in the U.S.

    In Hamas-run schools, kids are taught to hate Jews from the time they can walk. It’s not subtle. It’s in the textbooks, in the songs they sing, in the lessons drilled into them every single day. It’s the foundation of their education. And that has always been a roadblock to peace.

    During negotiations, Israel has repeatedly asked Hamas for a simple first step: stop teaching children to hate Jews. Just stop making it part of the curriculum. Hamas never agreed. Because when you spend decades shaping entire generations to believe the other side is their mortal enemy, peace isn’t really on the table.

    Now, let’s talk about America.

    I’ve noticed a disturbing parallel. Increasingly, the right sees the left not as the other half of a shared country—not as people they argue with but ultimately respect—but as the enemy within. Not political opponents, but traitors. And sure, people can go back and point fingers about who started it—just like they do in the Middle East—but at some point, we have to decide to break the cycle.

    I’ve seen people on the left contribute to this toxic divide too. But the glee, the joy that comes from “owning the libs”? That’s overwhelmingly pushed from the right. And it comes straight from the top.

    Just the other day, Trump sent out an email hawking t-shirts with insults about the left, saying something along the lines of:

    “Imagine how fun it will be to walk down the street in this shirt while loony liberals give you nasty looks.”

    This isn’t leadership. This is a guy whose entire strategy is division. He does it during national disasters—hurricanes, wildfires, plane crashes. He does it every single day.

    We have to come together. We have to start somewhere. And I believe a lot of people on the right are waking up. They didn’t vote for a dictator. They didn’t vote to align America with Russia and North Korea. They didn’t vote to throw democracy out the window.

    But that’s exactly where this road leads.

    It’s time to decide: Do we keep playing into the divide? Or do we step back and ask what kind of future we actually want?

  • To MAGA: Was Voting For Trump the Lesser of Two Evils? Let’s apply some critical thinking together and find out.

    To MAGA: Was Voting For Trump the Lesser of Two Evils? Let’s apply some critical thinking together and find out.

    I keep hearing from some MAGA friends that they’d consider voting for a Democrat if they’d just run a “halfway decent candidate.” That they don’t love Trump, but he’s still the lesser of two evils.

    Let’s take a step back. The lesser evil? Trump?!

    We’re not talking about a normal politician here. We’re talking about someone who:

    • Fired 17 independent inspectors general in his first week back, gutting the people responsible for keeping government corruption in check.

    • Gutted the federal workforce by imposing a hiring freeze and replacing career officials with political loyalists, dismantling expertise across agencies.

    • Abandoning Europe to Russia, signaling that NATO allies should fend for themselves, emboldening Putin’s expansionist ambitions.

    • Allowed China to strengthen its dominance in the Pacific while stripping U.S. influence abroad.

    • Tried to freeze $3 trillion in federal funding, threatening the economy until a judge had to step in and stop him.

    This is not the lesser evil. This is reckless, vindictive, and dangerous.

    The Socialism Scare Tactic

    One of the most common defenses I hear for Trump is that Democrats—Biden, Harris, all of them—are taking America toward socialism or communism. But let’s be real: we already have elements of socialism in our country, and they aren’t the problem.

    • Social Security, created under FDR and strengthened by Republican presidents, is one of the most popular programs in U.S. history.

    • Medicare, signed into law under Democratic leadership but expanded under Republican administrations, ensures seniors don’t go bankrupt from healthcare costs.

    • The G.I. Bill, passed under a Democratic president but championed by conservative lawmakers, helped millions of veterans buy homes and get an education.

    • Interstate highways, police departments, fire departments, public schools—all forms of government-funded programs that people rely on daily, and no one is calling them communism.

    In reality, the U.S. has always been a mixed economy—capitalist at its core, but with government programs that provide a safety net where the free market fails. That’s not socialism; that’s smart policy.

    And if the fear is that Biden or Harris are secretly planning to turn the U.S. into Venezuela, let’s look at actual policies:

    • The stock market rose under Biden. That doesn’t happen in socialist economies.

    • Corporate profits grew under Biden. That doesn’t happen in socialist economies.

    • The private sector added millions of jobs under Biden. Again, not socialism.

    If we’re being honest, the real economic disaster right now isn’t creeping socialism—it’s Trump’s reckless spending, debt ballooning policies, and economic chaos.

    Would Kamala Harris Really Have Been Worse?

    Let’s assume, for a moment, that you don’t like Harris. Maybe you think she’s ineffective, uninspiring, or not the right choice for president. Fine. But would she have been worse than Trump?

    Would she have:

    • Put American democracy in jeopardy?

    • Tried to block government funding to score political points?

    • Torn down U.S. alliances while cozying up to authoritarian regimes?

    • Handed over federal agencies to unqualified cronies?

    No, she wouldn’t have. We may not agree on policies, but we can agree that basic government functioning shouldn’t be at risk every day.

    This Is Bigger Than Policy Disagreements

    This isn’t about loving the Democratic Party. It’s not about being thrilled with Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. This is about the fact that our country is being deliberately weakened—economically, diplomatically, and institutionally—by someone who is putting his own interests above everything else.

    And the worst part? He’s not even hiding it.

    So when I hear people say they’d consider voting for a Democrat but just can’t stomach it, I have to ask—how bad does it have to get? How much more damage do we have to see before we stop pretending that Trump is just another politician?

    This isn’t about left vs. right anymore. It’s about whether or not we still have a functioning democracy when all of this is over.

  • How To Know If You Are (Or Anyone Is) An Intellectually Honest Person

    How To Know If You Are (Or Anyone Is) An Intellectually Honest Person

    I’ve always believed that, regardless of our differences, most people value truth. Yet, it’s disheartening to see individuals in my social media circles persistently sharing misinformation, even after being corrected. This behavior challenges the notion of intellectual honesty.​

    I’m not talking about differing opinions based on the same facts. I’m talking about those “alternative facts” that misshape our opinions.

    The Media Landscape and Misinformation

    It’s perplexing that while many distrust mainstream media, they place unwavering trust in right-leaning outlets that have been caught spreading falsehoods.​

    · Fox News settled a $787.5 million lawsuit after admitting to knowingly disseminating false election claims.​

    ·Tucker Carlson even after leaving Fox, continues to push narratives that he knows are misleading or completely false—whether it’s the Jan. 6 insurrection, Putin’s intentions, or manufactured culture war nonsense.

    · Some right-wing influencers turned out to have been literally on the payroll of Russian propaganda operations, pushing Kremlin narratives under the guise of “alternative media.”

    While MSM isn’t without fault, they typically issue corrections and uphold accountability. Conversely, certain right-leaning outlets have faced legal repercussions for deliberate misinformation.​

    Concerning Settlements and Their Implications

    Recent developments have added to the confusion. For instance, Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Trump after the company suspended his accounts post-January 6. Similarly, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit by agreeing to contribute $15 million to Trump’s presidential library. ​

    These settlements, driven by fears of backlash or potential violence from certain groups, inadvertently suggest equivalence between MSM and outlets known for misinformation. This false equivalence fuels narratives like “they’re all the same,” undermining genuine journalistic efforts.​

    The Chilling Effect of Threats and Intimidation

    Alarmingly, some Republican members of Congress have expressed fears for their physical safety, influencing their political stances. Representative Eric Swalwell highlighted that threats to them and their families deter GOP officials from criticizing the president. Such intimidation tactics are reminiscent of strategies used by autocrats to consolidate power, stifling dissent and eroding democratic principles.​

    Reflecting on Intellectual Honesty

    A few years ago, if asked how many times a news source could mislead before losing credibility, many would likely say, “Not many.” Yet, today, some continue to trust sources with documented histories of deception.

    So, I pose these questions:

    Are you an intellectually honest person?

    Do you genuinely care about the truth?

    Or do you only seek information that confirms your existing beliefs, which you must allow, may be shaped by misinformation if you consume conservative media these days.

    It is unfortunate, because honest conservative voices are needed and I find them at The Bulwark, The Warning by Steve Schmidt, David Frum, and Rick Wilson at The Lincoln Project. If you’re looking for an honest conservative perspective on the Ukraine War I suggest Ryan McBeth or Professor Darin Gerdes. They can all be found on YouTube.

    If you correct yourself and allow your opinions to be changed upon realizing you’re wrong, that’s commendable. But if you persist in spreading falsehoods after being presented with facts, the issue may not be misinformation—it might be you.

    In these challenging times, upholding truth and intellectual honesty is more crucial than ever. Let’s strive to be better, for the sake of our discourse and our democracy.

  • Why MAGA Doesn’t Resemble Yesteryear’s GOP

    Why MAGA Doesn’t Resemble Yesteryear’s GOP

    The Republican Party of 20 years ago? Pro-democracy, pro-international alliances, and definitely NOT an outlier among Western conservatives. Fast forward to today, and the MAGA movement is rewriting the script—big time.

    1️⃣ A New Tribe: MAGA Republicans aren’t just breaking with the left—they’re breaking with the entire Western conservative tradition. Their mindset aligns closer to Russia’s Putin and Turkey’s Erdoğan than to Britain’s Tories or Germany’s CDU.

    2️⃣ Goodbye Global Cooperation: The old GOP was about strong alliances (think Bush and Blair “shoulder to shoulder”). MAGA? Not so much. From pulling military support from allies to shrugging at international norms, Trump’s America plays by different rules.

    3️⃣ Autocracy Over Democracy? The Republican Party once championed democracy. Now, MAGA’s values—authoritarian tendencies, distrust of institutions, and nationalism—are pulling them into a different ideological orbit.

    4️⃣ Economics as a Weapon: Trade wars, economic self-harm, and an “America First” approach that even conservative economists are scratching their heads over—this isn’t Reaganomics.

    5️⃣ Shock & Awe Politics: Trump, JD Vance, and their crew operate on a different frequency. What seems disastrous or erratic to traditional Western leaders is just another Tuesday in MAGA-world.

    Bottom line? MAGA isn’t just a more extreme version of the old GOP—it’s something entirely different. If Western democracies don’t recognize this shift, they’ll keep getting blindsided.

    Inspired by: Financial Times article by John Burn-Murdoch

  • When We Accidentally Decided That Authoritarianism Is Okay

    When We Accidentally Decided That Authoritarianism Is Okay

    As a Gen X American, I grew up believing that authoritarian regimes—communism, dictatorships—were the enemies of everything we stood for. The Soviet Union, East Germany, Cuba—those were the cautionary tales. We learned that democracy meant something special: a government of the people, by the people, for the people. That was America’s promise, our core value.

    But today, it feels like that lesson has been forgotten by a worrying number of Americans. Some have become convinced that Democrats have gone so far off track that the only solution is to embrace a different flavor of authoritarianism—a right-wing strongman who promises to restore order by force rather than consensus.

    How did we get here?

    I think it all traces back to when our news media stopped being accountable to truth. The pivotal moment came in 1987, when the FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine, a rule that required broadcasters to present controversial issues of public importance in an honest, balanced way. Suddenly, news outlets could openly pick sides, prioritize profits, and turn journalism into entertainment or partisan propaganda.

    Fast forward a few decades, and we have a polarized America, divided not by reality but by the media each side consumes. Many of us no longer agree on basic facts. Once truth is lost, authoritarianism starts looking tempting—especially if it promises to silence the “other side.”

    But history has warned us again and again that authoritarianism never ends well. Not in East Germany. Not in Cuba. Not in the Soviet Union. And certainly not here.

    We need to wake up and remember what we once knew instinctively: democracy isn’t perfect, but it’s infinitely better than the alternative. We have to reclaim the idea that government of the people, by the people, and for the people is still worth fighting for—even if we have to fight for it within our own borders.