It’s a time for courage. A time for outrage. Who dares to speak out against the “great and mighty” King Donald? (Where is Toto when we need someone to pull away the curtain?)

Not the Republicans in Congress. Not Republican governors. Not Amazon. Not Mark Zuckerberg. Not ABC. CBS? We will see.

But not everyone is afraid.

The Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun Sentinel editorial boards wrote the following chilling editorial:

Trump’s terrifying reign, at home and abroad

Donald Trump has erased any doubt that he’s a dictator.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he posted on X.

It’s perfectly clear that he intends to let no law, court or even the Constitution restrain him. And certainly not Congress, which he treats as a confederacy of dunces.

Trump’s quote, ostensibly first uttered by Napoleon, also brought to mind the remark attributed to an earlier tyrant, King Louis XIV: “L’État, c’est moi” — I am the state.

Louis was an absolute monarch. The United States was to have no kings, nor anyone acting like one. Our founding document, the Constitution, made that clear.

That didn’t stop Trump from declaring “Long live the King,” with a crown superimposed atop his head on a Time magazine knockoff, for supposedly stopping New York City’s congestion pricing plan.

Far from saving our country, Trump is on a path to destroying it.

He and his billionaire hatchet man, Elon Musk, devoid of any accountability, are sabotaging every function and agency of government to an extent unseen in our history. It’s senseless, savage, sadistic, self-serving and subversive.

Following the Kremlin

Listen carefully. You might hear Vladimir Putin applauding. Nothing Putin could do alone could so weaken us at home and abroad, or so undermine the NATO alliance that has kept first the Soviet Union, and now Russia, in check.

This week, Trump fed the suspicion that he’s the Kremlin’s puppet, echoing Putin’s lie that Ukraine started his war of aggression. Trump actually called Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator.” A psychologist might call that projection.

Musk and Vice President JD Vance have also followed precisely the Kremlin’s line by lauding the rise of far-right parties in western Europe and demanding that the governments there make nice toward them.

The pillaging of our government persists — a coup against Congress, courts and the Constitution.

Consult Congress? Never

Congress did not consent to slashing the air traffic control system as if the loss of 67 lives near the White House on Jan. 29 did not prove the need for more personnel.

Congress would not consent to decimating and idling agencies responsible to restore communities ravaged by fire and flood, to cripple those needed to defend the nation against a bird flu pandemic, or to allow Musk to see your tax returns.

Congress would not consent to destroying the U.S. Agency for International Development and cutting off its lifesaving aid to children around the world.

Congress has not been asked about annexing Canada, threatening to break the Senate-ratified Panama Canal treaty, or claiming sovereignty over Gaza and ethnically cleansing it of some 2 million Palestinians, which would be a war crime.

Congress has not voted to bleach the government and the nation’s universities and public schools of anything suggesting multiracial and gender equity. Trump arbitrarily threatens to withhold funds from any that don’t bow to his white power agenda.

Congress has not voted to deny federal funds, as Trump is threatening, to cities and counties that don’t implement his racist deportations. Nor has it voted to destroy the civil service.

Congress has not voted to surrender to Trump the independence of the Federal Trade Commission or other agencies, nor to neuter their authority over Musk’s vast conflicts of interest.

Trump’s grasp to control everything extends even to the arts, to sacking the Kennedy Center leadership and making himself its president. It’s what dictators do.

Terrifying much of Europe

For all of its ingenious attributes, the Constitution is dangerously silent in one respect. It gives the president nearly a free hand in foreign affairs, subject only to Senate approval of treaties.

Every other president has made it his common-sense duty to consult Congress before leading the nation in dangerous directions. But Trump has already sold out Ukraine to Putin without consulting Ukraine, NATO or Congress.

Ever since World War II, which cost more than 400,000 American lives, it has been bipartisan U.S. policy to protect our nation by supporting democracy in Europe and opposing dictatorships there. No longer.

Congress has not been consulted on any of this because Trump considers it a nuisance.
Louis XIV corralled troublemakers at the Palace of Versailles.

Trump keeps Congress in a political straitjacket, striking fear into Republican members of the precarious majority by threatening to “primary” them from the right. So Congress capitulates. It’s brutally effective.

Saving his country? Under Trump 2.0, America has never been in greater danger.


The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.
© 2025 Orlando Sentinel