# Trump is giving us an opportunity we can’t afford to waste
Date: 2026-05-06

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### Trump is giving us an opportunity we can’t afford to waste

Some Democrats want an FDR compromise. That’s not an option.

![Ways in which Roosevelt’s policies were watered down at the expense of women and non-whites](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/trump-is-giving-us-an-opportunity-we-can-t-afford-to-waste-25c6611940.png)
*Ways in which Roosevelt’s policies were watered down at the expense of women and non-whites*

![FDR’s had four terms (1933–1945)](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/trump-is-giving-us-an-opportunity-we-can-t-afford-to-waste-b359c3bc92.png)
*FDR’s had four terms (1933–1945)*

So too today we see some Democrats still lauding the power of compromise with people that want to dominate others.

Unfortunately compromise is an enormous risk because next time America could elect a Putin or Xi type instead of a doddering 79 year old.

We cannot afford to keep the promise of domination as part of the American dream. This American acceptance of suppression of others comes in two forms — monetary and anti-intellectual.

Monetary domination is anyone with over a [Limitarianism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN3A08pbKK0&t=329) amount of wealth and that number is roughly baked into federal tax system also for inheritance — $30 million for married couples.

Any wealth over $30 million is an attempt to dominate others — materially, politically, and, with fraudulent meritocracy, even spiritually.

Anti-intellectual domination is high school like cliques and bullies — bending reality to prop yourself up at others expense. Logic and reason are a contract that puts humans on more equal terms — so reject reason in favor of racism, misogyny, sexual preference prejudice, and xenophobia.

Monetary plus anti-intellectual domination is how you get a coalition that includes both Elon Musk, Trump, and the many working class MAGA.

Allowing either form of domination in our culture is too unstable and risky. America does not need to offer monetary or anti-intellectual domination as a perk for living here. We have plenty else going for us.

We have to start teaching our own and other’s history properly. Slavery was a failure. Communism failed because it allowed domination. The Nazis failed because they allowed domination and anti-intellectualism.

The British Empire failed because it was based on domination. You can wreck things with domination and anti-intellectualism but you can’t build anything long term stable with them. Netanyahu will long term fail also.

Oh but what about the Romans? The Romans built cities, bathhouses, theaters, roads, and arenas in conquered areas to encourage a Roman lifestyle. Local elites were encouraged to adopt Roman culture to gain citizenship, enter the army, or join the Senate.

And yes the Roman treated the Jews with extreme violence but how did that work out? All the Roman gods gone and replaced with Jewish ones.

![Sack of Rome 410 AD](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/trump-is-giving-us-an-opportunity-we-can-t-afford-to-waste-1a18ee7efd.jpg)
*Sack of Rome 410 AD*

The path forward for stopping monetary domination is relatively straight forward and FDR did accomplish this:

![Gabriel Zucman tends to underestimate monetary domination and that was 2021 so this might be much worse](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/trump-is-giving-us-an-opportunity-we-can-t-afford-to-waste-55facaa1b0.jpeg)
*Gabriel Zucman tends to underestimate monetary domination and that was 2021 so this might be much worse*

But how do you stop anti-intellectual domination?

**Step one** — stop compromising. Compromise with anti-intellectuals isn’t just morally wrong; it’s also a political fail.

**Step two** — double down on logic and reason ourselves. Admit the existence of the [automation apocalypse](https://medium.com/the-polis/the-automation-apocalypse-is-the-existential-event-not-trump-0dd188f899be) and stop just repeating that Americans can train their way out of it.

**Step three** — admit that America cannot [form a society with anti-intellectuals](https://medium.com/the-polis/can-decent-people-and-anti-intellectuals-form-a-society-together-af2fa0519c20). So far almost all of our institutions, including the Constitution, are too corruptible by people that believe in domination.

For instance, the 13th amendment to the constitution:

> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

To which domination has a thousand replies including convicting millions:

> United States has among the highest incarceration rates in the world, with roughly 1.7 to 1.8 million people behind bars as of 2025 data.

As of late 2024, Japan’s total prison population was approximately 40,544 people despite having 36% as many people as the US.

We are going to have create and enforce laws that are highly intolerant of people’s desire to dominate others.

**Step four**— for the Democratic Party’s politicians and pundits purity tests are on. We encourage everyone to help unrelentingly fighting for human equality, but if you refuse we don’t need you.

**Step five** — give up on growth agendas; the idea that if you can just make the American economy strong enough then you can avoid confronting anti-intellectual bullying. American school bullying was reduced differently:

> Bullying in American schools has been reduced through comprehensive, evidence-based anti-bullying programs, stronger state-level legislation, and a shift toward proactive, whole-school interventions rather than just reactive punishment. These efforts often focus on improving school climate and social-emotional learning, showing a reduction in bullying incidents by up to 25%. [[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bullying), [2](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/02/anti-bullying), [3](https://www.stopbullying.gov/taxonomy/term/1434), [4](https://study.com/blog/is-school-bullying-really-declining-a-recent-study-shows-it-is.html), [5](https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/anti-bullying-policies-in-school-and-lgbtq-young-people/)]

Evidence wise growth agendas have failed. America is many, many times monetarily richer than in the 1920s, but intellectually we are still a powder keg waiting to explode.

That explosion can still be avoided but we have to go further than FDR did.