Two things became clearer this week, according to a new opinion column by veteran editor Terry H. Schwadron published on Alternet: the nature of President Donald Trump's personal vendettas, and what Schwadron describes as the official policy Trump is forcing on the United States toward those he holds in contempt.

Rather than heed the message of an angry American electorate that anti-democratic use of government for personal gain has gone too far, the columnist argues, Trump is doubling down. On successive days, Team Trump has acknowledged it is seeking to investigate Federal Reserve board member Lisa A. Cooke, despite court findings stopping him, and is considering criminal charges against former aide Cassidy Hutchinson for allegedly lying to Congress in testimony about Jan. 6 behaviors.

The column also points to the administration's response to a shooting by immigration agents. The Trump government refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing after agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — the Department of Homeland Security agency that carries out immigration enforcement inside the United States — fired seven rifle bullets to wound a migrant suspect in a car that contained a five-year-old child, on a crowded residential street at school pickup time on Thursday. Instead, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin cited the criminal record of the migrant and criticized New York City's "sanctuary" policies for migrants — and, per Schwadron, never acknowledged the public dangers involved in ICE tactics.

Then, the columnist writes, Trump and the State Department set sanctions against "any companies doing business" with the International Criminal Court, the permanent tribunal in The Hague that prosecutes genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The timing of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a former judge on the court and a former United Nations high commissioner for human rights, for her role in declaring Israeli responses in Gaza to be "genocidal," made clear that the sanctions were a Trump-directed personal response to Pillay's selection for the international honor.

Amid a barrage of declarations ranging from the silly — anyone using the term "AI" rather than "Superintelligence" is now a Trump "enemy" — to the serious, including outright pay-for-access schemes detailed by The Wall Street Journal and others involving U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Gilfoyle, Trump declared in a plain social media post: "I can do whatever I want," regardless of law,ety, fairness, ethics, or simple humanitarian concern.

A Next Phase

Schwadron contends the country has entered the next phase of the Trump presidency, in which a cornered egotist weighed down with untenable policies of his own making is spreading misery so far and so fast that even traditionally Republican strongholds are fortifying themselves for possible losses in elections only a few weeks away.

If the previous phase was marked by authoritarian pushes against federal employees and trust in institutions — acting less than openly and favoring personal loyalty over the power of Congress and the courts — this new era, in his telling, is a Trump free-for-all attack on anything that annoys him in the moment or over decades.

Unsheathing the prosecutorial sword now, before the elections, should tell observers why Trump seems not to care about plummeting polls or even minor revolt by candidates he has selected or endorsed, the column argues. An untethered Trump who cares so little about court orders that he continues to bar selected reporters and news organizations from the Oval Office or Air Force One despite legal bars against doing so is, in Schwadron's view, far more likely to unleash havoc at a level not yet witnessed against voting, vote counts, and certifications.

There is already prediction market betting on insurrection attempts for Jan. 3, 2027, the date Congress will have to certify the results of 50 state elections, he notes. Prediction markets, where traders stake real money on the outcomes of future events, drew heavy trading volumes during the 2024 election cycle.

The Cooke and Hutchinson Cases

The case against Cooke, now taking the form of a nonjudicial "committee of inquiry" of Trump's choosing, will consider mortgage fraud charges that went nowhere before grand juries that heard the complaints and found no evidence. She could be fired as a result, or perhaps referred anew for prosecution — all, the author writes, because she has voted as a Fed board member against lowering borrowing rates. Federal Reserve governors serve staggered 14-year terms, a structure intended to insulate interest-rate decisions from short-term political pressure.

Wide numbers of legal analysts say the potential case against Hutchinson is weak at best and uncertain as to how to show her testimony was "lying," given that multiple court trials resulted in 160 convictions on Jan. 6 charges — all thrown out in a single order by Trump, who, Schwadron writes, wants to rewrite history. Hutchinson, who served as an aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, gave televised testimony before the House committee that investigated the events of January 6, 2021. However it proceeds, the case will result in harassment and expense for someone who stood up to report the events of the day, largely as they were told to her.

Likewise, the international court sanctions announced have little force of law; the court has no independent enforcement arm and depends on its member states to carry out its warrants. "Having the evidence is not the point for Trump, of course, it is having the power to act as if he has the evidence," the column states.

Election Timing

What makes these developments remarkable, the columnist stresses, is the timing — just as early voting has gotten underway in several states and a few weeks before Election Day. Trump's rally tours, an invented party convention, and his strange handling of campaign money have not moved any political needles, say his own chosen candidates.

Trump has demanded that people pretend he is on the ballot, out of what Schwadron calls the misguided belief that millions of fans will enroll anew in the unthinking loyalty campaign he demands. Poll after poll — a guide, he cautions, that never accounts for turnout — shows the opposite. Multiple leaks of Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton talking with his donors instead suggest that, from the candidate viewpoint, it is Trump's policies — the tariffs, the war with Iran, and an openness to what the columnist calls corruption — that are bringing his race, and others', to a screeching halt short of victory.

Schwadron asserts that Trump has neutered Congress, ignored the courts, and eschewed military and intelligence advice about war and economics; that he has lied about the effects of his policies; and that he has spent his time on personal glorification projects, money-making off the Oval Office, and rebuilding history to cast himself in a sainted light.

Meanwhile, the column observes, there is active planning for new strikes in Iran toward the same unachievable goals against the same uncooperative set of enemies; Trump is "playing footsie" with Russia and has even offered to sell China some of America's top fighter aircraft; and there is open speculation about the president's mental health.

The label that comes to mind for this new chapter, Schwadron concludes, is Desperation — a lawless, egotistical, armed, and dangerous leader who holds his own people in contempt and needs to show his power in the expectation that the public will quake and fear. His parting line to readers: "Get a better mirror."

About the Author

Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times and as Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times, and held leadership positions at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team was part of several Pulitzer wins in New York.

This column originally appeared on Alternet.