Burke: Trump’s flooded the zone; keep you head above it
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 11, 2026
By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist
So, yeah, there’s some stuff going on here, as well as across our northern and southern borders, across the oceans, and in the halls of Congress, commerce, and in our courts.
And a lot of it isn’t good.
So, are you following any (all? some? none?) of it?
You should be.
After all, it’s your money being spent ($1 billion a day for the war in Iran, for instance); the lives of your friends and neighbors and relatives on the line here and in Iran. Your vote in November will determine how the next three years go; and your freedom and our hard-won-and-preserved democracy are at stake.
But it isn’t easy to follow because there’s just so much of it.
Such as – a regional war with Iran and across the Mideast with seven U.S. troops already dead and a whole lot of Iranians (including some 165 schoolgirls from an apparent U.S. missile strike) killed. American military boots-on-the-ground in Ecuador. The Epstein coverup, missing files, and lies by Attorney General Pam Bondi. Murder on the high seas. Trump identified in FBI files as raping a 13-year old girl in the 1980s. Department of Homeland Security buying and building warehouse-sized concentration camps. Illegal tariffs. Invading Venezuela and kidnapping Nicolas Maduro with no legal predicate. Terrorizing the city of Minneapolis (plus Los Angles, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C.) Firing FBI agents who specialize in Iran and cyber security and, and, and …
Whew!
But it’s just the beginning.
Because there’s also a new feud with Spain (it didn’t allow us to stage warplanes there); the renaming (and now closing) of the Kennedy Center; a $400 million ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to stand; firing doctors and nurses from Veterans Administration hospitals (just as we’re starting a war); three dead Americans killed by ICE agents; Trump bullying major law firms; Russia targeting Americans in the Gulf so Iran can kill them; high beef prices; and the 250-foot high Trump triumphal Arch planned to obstruct the view of Arlington National Cemetery.
Can you handle all that?
Sure hope so. There’s more.
How do you like 92,000 jobs lost in February (and 1,000 jobs a month lost ever since Trump illegally imposed his tariffs); rising oil prices (up to between $90 and $120 a barrel); rising gasoline prices (up 48 cents a gallon since Trump started his war); the administration cutting subsidies for electric vehicles; Trump targeting Cuba as “next;” rising inflation; court orders being ignored; and the Trump administration telling the courts it can’t (won’t?) pay back all the illegal tariff money it took from American businesses and consumers?
OK. I get it, it’s overwhelming. And it’s tough to discriminate between what one should know about and what isn’t all that “important.”
Sorry, wrong. It’s all important.
I mean there’s Trump’s demand that Iran “unconditionally surrender,” except Iran says, NO!” There’s no one to surrender to (how do you surrender to an F-16 flying at Mach 2?), and no explanation about what happens with 93 million angry Iranians after surrender. (Note: Trump has not ruled out putting “boots on the ground” in Iran [those would be American boots to be sure].)
Then there’s Trump trying to gerrymander in red states to put more Republicans in Congress; the FBI raid on Georgia’s Fulton County based on Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election there was “rigged” (after at least four recounts and all Georgia officials saying the vote was honest); the stock market seriously dropping since Trump started shooting in Iran; the $10 billion lifeline Trump extended to Putin and Russia through an oil deal with India (the same Putin and Russia targeting Americans for death); the Pentagon’s war with the AI firm Anthropic (because Anthropic wouldn’t let Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth use its technology to surreptitiously surveil American citizens); Hegseth’s break with Ivy League colleges to cut funding for American military personnel to study at them; Trump’s plan to dictate how U.S. colleges administer their sports programs; leaving 80 U.S. ambassador posts vacant; and the Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. assault on vaccines, medical science, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Enough? Enough!
No. There’s more.
There’s Trump’s crypto-grifting; Washington state Air National Guard being sent to Iran; Trump’s repeal of a 2-year old business tax rule that means a $10 billion to $20 billion loss to the U.S. Treasury; staff cuts at the National Park Service; cheer-leading “Clean Coal” (it ain’t) and mandating the Defense Department buy coal-produced electricity instead of green energy; repeal of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding, essentially negating all environmental oversight by the agency (this is a big deal); protecting a dangerous chemical weed-killer; firing most of the Voice of America; and (now get this!) firing most of the experts in national security who really know Iran, just before we start a war with Iran.
Gentle reader, I know it’s hard to keep up with all this. Really hard, because you also want to stay abreast with what’s happening at the state level; the county level, and in your town, school district, and neighborhood.
And watch over your kids, grandkids, friends, neighbors, and extended families.
And work.
Yeah, it’s deliberate Trump flood-the-zone overload.
But you have to pay attention to it all as this isn’t about tribal politics or Trump Derangement Syndrome or being a Democrat.
It’s about your life and your future.
It’s about what the United States is and what it does here and around the world for a long, long time to come.
And it’s about our duty as citizens.
As the patriot and pamphleteer Thomas Paine warned, “Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.”
Slava Ukraini.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
