Trump's America in 2026: Things are bad – and they may be about to get a whole lot worse

Our Hot Press ‘Hot for 2026 Special’ is supposed to be about all the good things that are coming up in the year ahead. Or that was certainly the theory, when we first dreamt up the concept a few years ago. The good news is that, if you open the pages and dig in, you will indeed be alerted to lots of wondrous works that are on the way in the cultural sphere – in music, movies, books and so on. Starting, of course, with Hot Press’ History In The Making: The Concert, kicking off our 50th Anniversary activities at 3Arena, on February 6th.

We have Florence Road (appearing on the night) on the front cover – they are destined to be among the bands of the year, and not just in Ireland; and “Wuthering Heights”, the film, on the back. It’s a movie that we’ll still be talking excitedly about when it comes to voting for Films of the Year in December 2026. Of that we can, I imagine, be more or less certain.

But, to enter a small caveat, only if there is a planet for us to live – and to talk excitedly – on. And on that subject, the way the world has been turning over the past few weeks, you really couldn’t be sure right now. Things are bad. And they may be about to get a whole lot worse.

I remember feeling genuinely queasy – fuck it, positively nauseous – when Donald Trump won the US Presidential election in 2016. In a way, it seemed impossible to understand. How could Americans have voted this monster – with his appallingly grubby history, blatant misogyny, and track record of dishonesty, greed and a complete inability to tell the truth – to the highest office in the land?

I also remember that, if you expressed that reservation – that revulsion – there was a queue of cynics waiting to talk down to you as if you were a fool. You’re just a spoilt liberal who can’t take being beaten. Trump was elected and that’s that. It’s all going to be fine. Trump is a showman. He isn’t half as bad as you might think. It’s all just a front, it’s for effect. The adults in the room will keep him on a tight leash. Piss off moaning and get used to it.

All of which was characteristically accompanied by a supercilious grin. There were adults in the room alright. Very childish adults.

They still thought it was fine when we started to hear about “fake news” and “alternative facts.” They sniggered when Trump insisted that the crowd at his inauguration was the biggest ever – way to go! When he made the easily disprovable claim that he had been in Scotland on the day of the Brexit referendum and predicted the result. And so on, and on. The Washington Post counted the lies, all 30,573 of them during his four years in office.

“Deception, misdirection, gaslighting, revisionism, absurd boasts, and in some cases provable lies, are core to his politics,” the Washington Post Factchecker Newsletter concluded.

And then when he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, he deliberately and knowingly lied about election fraud and, on January 6, 2021, fomented an attempted coup which resulted in an armed mob storming the Capitol Building in Washington, leading to the deaths of five people and injuries to hundreds, including 174 police officers. Maybe that was okay too. For the adults among us.

You might have imagined that there’d be no way back from that level of depravity. But that was to miss two key factors. The first is that social media has given a small number of corporate entities the power to repeat lies so often and to amplify them so widely that they can be – and are – believed by hundreds of millions; the second is that if you can get enough billionaires on board and you promise them policies that will make them billions more, then buying social media, and amplifying disinformation, is a breeze. All the more so if tech billionaires are already on the inside, pissing out on... well, on the American people for a start.

This is how it was done. Threaten people that if they don’t support you now, and give you a fuck-load of cash into the bargain, in advance of the election, you’ll monster them if and when you become president. All the brave, visionary, genius tech bros caved. Trump had them in his pocket. With their craven, immoral, self-serving support, the presidency was his.

ANNEXING GREENLAND

And so here we are. With billions at his disposal, a collusive social media behind him, the tech algorithms cranking madly in his favour, and a willingness to lie, lie and lie again, Donald Trump took both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as the presidency. All constraints were off. He would dress himself in the garb of a dictator, and he would act as one. It was the ultimate narcissist’s dream.

Those of us who had felt nauseous first time around were now feeling sick to the marrow. What appalling shit was he about to unleash? How bad was the bullying, the intimidation, the extortion and the corruption going to get? We braced ourselves.

And wondered where the adults were now?

In fairness, Trump Mark II has surpassed even our worst expectations, by a country mile. I could smell it when Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to the White House to be bullied, berated and betrayed by Trump, and his rotten, arrogant vice-presidential henchman JD Vance, and others in the pro-Putin camp in Washington. The logical response was to think: he’s done a deal with Russia.

The lies came pouring out. Zelenskyy and Ukraine had started the war. Zelenskyy had an approval rating of 4% (in fact it was 57%). He had talked the US into spending $350 billion in an unwinnable war (the US’ contribution was in fact approximately $120 billion). He had admitted that HALF (Trump’s caps) of the money sent to Ukraine by the US had gone missing (a blatant misrepresentation)...

There was only one possible explanation for this. It suited his agenda to lay the blame for the war on Ukraine at the door of Zelenskyy – and of the EU.

Photo: Daniel Torok

We’ve said it before, but it is worth saying again. Trump and Putin have in common that they hate the EU. For all its failings, the EU still represents a better, more enlightened way of looking at the world and of managing society. But this is exactly what dictators – and would-be dictators like Trump – are opposed to. An enlightened view of the world is a threat. From the start, I knew it: Trump would join forces with Putin.

I didn’t want to be right, but...

Why would Trump claim that Ukraine was at fault when it was invaded by Russia? Why would he suggest that the best solution was for Ukraine to hand vast swathes of its land over to Russia, to secure a ceasefire? Why would he send his envoys skulking off to meet the Russian negotiating team separately from either Ukraine or Europe? Why would he choose to do a solo run, inviting Putin to Alaska for a summit conference, when no deal could – or should, rather – ever be done without Ukraine’s involvement and approval?

The penny was dropping everywhere.

‘I will stop,” Trump’s ghost said, “supplying arms to and supporting Ukraine if you, Vladimir Putin, agree to me annexing Greenland. And maybe Canada, Mexico and Panama while I’m at it. The Americas are my sphere of influence. You can have as much of Ukraine as you can get your hands on. Estonia too? Who cares? I’m running Venezuela. Okaaaaaay?”

BIGGER THAN CANADA

So this is what’s going down.

The US National Security Strategy, released in December, makes it clear that the ambition of this US administration is to dominate the Western Hemisphere. It is dismissive of Europe announcing that it is facing “civilisational erasure.” It openly declares that the US will support the ethno-nationalist parties in European states, of the kind that engineered Brexit in the UK – and whose long-standing goal it is to split the European Union, thereby weakening all European countries.

In most respects, the document could have been written by Vladimir Putin, with Russia substituted for the United States and the relevant tweaks to spheres of influence.

Since then, we have had what is effectively martial law being enforced in cities that vote Democrat in the US. The illegal murder of the crews of Venezuelan ships on the high seas, and the kidnapping of the Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro (not a lovely man, but that is a whole different argument). The United States effectively pulling out of virtually every form of global co-operation and attempting to set up its own international organisation, the absurdly named Board of Peace. And openly discussing again the idea of redeveloping Gaza as a tourist resort, run by the Sultan himself, King Donald Trump.

We have also heard Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff and ideologue-in-chief, Stephen Miller, spelling out the US’ right to take Greenland, by force if necessary: “We live in the real world,” he told Jake Tapper in an interview on CNN, “that is governed by strength… force… power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

So, yes, the message was: Denmark had better roll over, take the money and run. Why? Because if they don’t the United States can just take it. Who is going to stop them? Trumps covets the rare earths. He wants to mine. He wants more money. In Russian newspapers, they applaud the idea and goad Trump on. They want him to annex Greenland. He will, they say, be remembered as a hero in 100 years’ time if he makes the United States bigger than Canada.

Just as Vladimir Putin will be, they whisper, if he succeeds in taking Ukraine. We’re back to the deal.

We also know that Europe has switched from too high a dependency on Russian energy sources to a similar dependence on US Liquid Natural Gas, giving the tariff-mad Trump a way of significantly increasing energy costs for citizens across Europe (and the UK) – and a means of stirring up discontent, and political unrest.

And finally, it has been laid bare for us very clearly that the US controls European security, and military capability, to an extent which involves a very direct threat, if the US administration goes rogue.

Which, as this is being written, is exactly what is happening.

NO HIDING PLACE

The stakes could hardly be higher. We have an utterly amoral monster in control, backed by a bunch of ultra-far right Christian ethno-nationalist billionaires and advisers – who believe that the US has the right to do as it pleases in the international arena, with no restraints at all. And the entire US tech industry – which sucks the blood of populations across the world and makes trillions doing it – doing the dirty work of spreading their lies, propaganda, disinformation and poison.

No matter how you look at it, the next few months may be absolutely crucial, if we are to avoid a return to the madness of the 1940s, with jackboots across the world and authoritarians shooting and incarcerating people at will.

To resist, we need a united front between the EU and other European nations; Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Mexico, Brazil and other friendly South and Central American countries; South Africa and potential allies on the African continent; Japan, South Korea and other Asian countries – and anyone else who opposes the idea of a world divided into so-called spheres of influence, with the United States exerting overall dominance.

We also need the good citizens of the United States to take to the streets in sufficient numbers to bring the US economy grinding to a halt. This is the one thing that Trump understands. If markets start to collapse, then all bets are off. And we need European leaders to stand tall and tell Donald Trump: we’ve had enough...

Hot for 2026? You betcha. You might feel like running away. But the reality is that there may well be no hiding place...