Marble Falls Too many well-meaning mothers have told their children, “Hey, go out and change the world!” I think it’s fair to say that most of them meant “for the better.” In the last couple of months under the Trump-Musk government, we’ve found out that in some families they needed to be much, much clearer about what they were telling their children. In the United States in 2025, we are now waking up to the fact that we don’t simply live under a new administration and a different, bizarre theory of government and its functions, but we now live in what has quickly become a pariah state in the view of much of the rest of the world.
Frankly, this is an old name tag with a new application that we thought just came from the haters. Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and some of the middle eastern gang, who were part of Bush’s “axis of evil” were all seen as pariah states. Now, suddenly, we are that pariah, thanks to Donald Trump. He has set a new standard of reckless and ruthless, world-shaking behavior.
Look north to Canada, and where only weeks ago the conservatives were soaring, suddenly, looking south, Canadians want good ol’ boring, stable leaders for their government. The surging Liberal Democratic, middle of the road party, thought to have been hobbled by the declining popularity of Justin Trudeau, who after many years in office seemed to have come to his “sell-by” date, now seems to be in the driver’s seat for upcoming federal elections. Kurt Stamer, the British prime minister, who had seemed to be on the do-wrong train after a huge election victory for the Labour Party, now sees his popularity on solid ground, simply because he has stood up to Trump. Admittedly, that’s a low bar, but too high for too many American politicians thus far. The governing party in Greenland was ousted for a more moderate-right party who voters thought would stand up to Trump. Throughout mainstream European Union countries, the right is being pushed back in a rejection of radical conservatism as personified by Musk and Trump. Somehow this terrible twosome has unified our allies and friends, but this time it’s against us, not for us. In the new world order, we’re welcomed mainly by other outlier, pariah states like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Serbia, and the like, where their leaders are either autocrats or very different from the norm.
There were always a bunch of other countries that were “failed” states, largely because they were dysfunctional and couldn’t deliver effective services to their people, so that chaos reigned. Think of Myanmar, Sudan, Yemen, and others. Now, the United States seems to be knocking on the door to join that club as well by turning the government upside down and dismantling programs, services, and potentially benefits. The US has gone from quickly from being an aspirational and transformative beacon for the world to a transactional, isolated dark place. Until the American economy is pushed into recession or worse, we are still a notch up for some immigrants from countries where the future is dimmer, but the low numbers at our border indicate that might not last either.
Who knew how quickly we could fall in the eyes of the world? Make America Great must be a slogan for the future, because the Trump-Musk administration likes wearing the hat, but not walking the walk, except when they are moving backwards.