What’s really behind Trump’s autocratic bombast?

Over just a few days this month, President Trump declared that CNN and MSNBC weren’t just biased — no, that would be too pedestrian — but actually illegal.

He posted that former President Biden’s pardons are “hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT,” shouting in an all-caps post on Truth Social.

He declared that a federal judge should be impeached, not for breaking the law or for gross misconduct, but for issuing a ruling Trump didn’t like.

And yet, to his base, this is just another week in the wonderful world of Trump.

No, Trump isn’t the first politician to play fast and loose with the truth, and he won’t be the last. And yes, most Americans don’t exactly trust the mainstream media. CNN and MSNBC have been carrying water for Democrats for years. If they were any further in the tank, they’d need scuba gear.

So when Trump says “they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal, what do they do is illegal,” you have to wonder what he might have in mind — especially since he took aim at the news networks in a speech at the Department of Justice. Is this a big deal? Not to his supporters, who don’t fret about silly stuff like the First Amendment; they laugh, nod and move on.

Same with the pardons Biden made as he was walking out of the Oval Office for the last time. They weren’t for low-level drug offenders who got a raw deal; they were for family and political friends. Trump knows that hammering those pardons resonates — and not only with the MAGA faithful.

And that judge’s ruling? The one that said Trump couldn’t simply deport criminal aliens without due process? Well, most Americans hear that and wonder, What’s the problem? If you’re in the country illegally and you’re committing crimes, why should you get a drawn-out legal battle? Again, Trump’s tapping into a real frustration.

But then we come to the bigger question: Is this just Trump firing up the base, or is there something more going on?

Nobody is confusing Trump with Aristotle — that would be unfair ... to both of them. Still, he’s not a small thinker. He didn’t simply want to win the election; he wanted everyone to know how big his victory (supposedly) was. That’s why he told a joint session of Congress that he won the popular vote “by big numbers.”

He didn’t. He beat former Vice President Kamala Harris by 1.5 percentage points in the popular vote. He claimed he won “a mandate like [one] not seen in decades.” As the kids say — whatever.

Trump doesn’t want to be just one more American president. He wants to be the one future generations talk about like a historical force of nature. If he could add his own image to Mount Rushmore, good chance he would.

And this is where things get more interesting.

When Trump floated the idea of making Canada our 51state, maybe he was joking, maybe not. For what it's worth, I think he was serious. But whichever it was, it was classic Trump — turning up the volume to 11 just to dominate another news cycle.

And renaming the Gulf of Mexico? That’s straight out of the Trump branding playbook. This is a man who plasters his name on everything from skyscrapers to steaks. If he could slap a giant gold “TRUMP” logo on the Grand Canyon, he probably would do that too.

So, does Trump want to rename the country the “United States of Donald Trump”? Maybe not literally. But does he want a country that is shaped in his image, where institutions bend to his will, where every conversation revolves around … him? Yeah, I think that’s it.

Because for Trump, just about everything really is about him. His world is binary: You’re either with him, or you’re against him. And if you’re against him, you’re not just wrong — you’re corrupt, possibly criminal — you’re the enemy.

That’s not a small mindset shift; that’s a fundamental reshaping of how power is supposed to work in a democracy.

And please, my friends, don’t take anything you’ve just read as an endorsement of the Democratic Party. You can think Trump is ruled by his massive ego without believing Biden was a great president. That ... would be crazy!

Maybe Trump really believes all the stuff he says. Maybe he thinks he can convince Canadians to give up their sovereignty and become our 51st state. Maybe he really believes CNN is illegal and that a federal judge should be impeached for his decision.

If that’s the case, then our president is detached from reality. Or maybe, as I say, this is about firing up the base. This much I know with certainty: When a president starts throwing around words like “illegal” every time he’s unhappy, it’s not simply noise — it erodes trust in our institutions, it fuels paranoia and it encourages the idea that political opponents aren’t just wrong, they’re outlaws who somehow need to be punished.

So, no, I don’t think Trump is literally trying to rename the country. But is he trying to create a system where the U.S. bends to his will, where institutions exist not as independent checks and balances, but as tools of his own power?

That is a question worth asking — and the answer, worth more than a passing thought.

Bernard Goldberg is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Substack page. Follow him @BernardGoldberg.

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