A View from My Porch: On Surrendering the Mantle of ‘Leader of the Free World,’ Part I

Epigraph: “Annus Horribilis”
In a Nov. 24, 1992 speech marking the fortieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, Queen Elizabeth II described 1992 as her “annus horribilis” – “horrible year” – a phrase used to convey the nearly chaotic events that affected the British royal family that year.  The marriages of three of her four children had ended badly; a devastating fire at Windsor Castle caused extensive damage; an explicit book and leaked phone conversations from Princess Diana and Prince Charles with their significant others were published; and her subjects had begun questioning the cost of sustaining the royal family and its 20 sizeable residences scattered across the United Kingdom. 

This is my first “View” of 2026, an account of many of the events and actions that captured my attention in the thirteen-plus months since Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025. It reflects my observations on what this president and his erratic administration have done to our “land of the free and home of the brave.”

I have not yet warmed to this president; and I am not alone. According to the Economic Times, “surveys now ‘paint a picture’ of an electorate increasingly doubtful about his priorities and uneasy about the direction of the country.” Americans’ opinions have turned on this president across demographics and among young voters in particular. Immigration stands out as an issue on which Americans have increasingly lost faith in this president’s actions.

I usually fall back on one of the extracurricular maxims I learned years ago as a newly commissioned Naval officer at Officer Indoctrination School (OIS) in Newport R.I.: “You salute the rank, not the man.” Respect should be given to the position or rank of an individual, rather than the individual themselves, regardless of one’s personal feelings toward the person holding the position. 

That maxim can be extended to “honor and respect the Office of President, if not the man holding the office.”

Nonetheless, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who held that role from 1933 to 1945, believed that everyone’s “rules for living” should include: “do one thing every day that scares you.”— i.e., step out of your “comfort zone” at least once every day. 

Reading this column can be the “one thing that scares you” today. Researching and assembling this information should cover me for a few weeks of things that scare me.

I feel we have already endured America’s “annus horribilis.” Yet with three more years of this volatile president’s second term, historians could regard his full two-term tenure as “anni horribiles” – horrible years.

The Public’s Health

Measles was officially eliminated in the United States in 2000, which means that there was no ongoing transmission of the disease within the country. Regrettably, America is now experiencing its largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years, and in 2025 the CDC documented well over 2,000 confirmed cases, surging in areas where vaccination rates had dropped.

CT DPH announced that it has confirmed a case of measles in an unvaccinated Fairfield County child under the age of 10, the first state case in more than four years. 

Digging out of this mess should rely on good science and best medical practices that include childhood vaccinations. 

Notably, and despite all the noise, Connecticut had the highest 2024-25 kindergarten MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination rate in the nation at 98.2%. The state only allows for medical exemptions to vaccinations for school-age children after eliminating religious exemptions in 2021 and does not allow personal exemptions.

However, the healthcare community is worried about Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.’s response to this highly contagious and deadly measles outbreak. Kennedy, who is an outspoken vaccine critic with a long history of promoting discredited theories that link vaccines to autism, now has the power to upset federal childhood vaccine recommendations and future research. 

To illustrate, in a Trump Cabinet meeting last October, Kennedy stated that “while this is not proof,” Danish studies show that children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism and it’s “highly likely because they’re given Tylenol.” 

What he failed to mention was that the study authors acknowledged numerous limitations, including the fact they had no data on whether acetaminophen was actually administered for the circumcisions. 

Trump and Kennedy have also suggested that Tylenol may contribute to autism risk when used by pregnant women. 

A coalition of healthcare organizations and a coalition of 15 blue states, which includes Connecticut, are suing Kennedy and federal health agencies over changes to the national childhood immunization schedule. The lawsuit alleges the Trump administration’s actions constitute an unprecedented attack on evidence-based vaccine recommendations.

The DOJ Under Trump

This ostensibly unprincipled president remains consumed by revenge and retribution, supported by a cowed “look the other way” Republican Congress and a Justice Department reshaped and redirected by Attorney General Pam Bondi to best support his bitter agenda.

It appears that both the Republican Congress and the AG have ceded unrestricted power to the Trump White House. 

This past December, the New Yorker asserted that “no matter how low one’s expectations were for 2025, the most striking thing about the year when Donald Trump became president again is how much worse it turned out to be.”

Ruth Marcus, a respected journalist with four decades at the pre-Bezos Washington Post maintains that “Bondi has presided over the most convulsive transition of power in the DOJ since the Watergate era” and perhaps since its founding in 1870.

Nearly 5,500 employees have left the DOJ since Trump took office in January via buyouts, resignations, or terminations, many complaining of a “toxic work environment” in their exit messages. One former official declared that “Bondi is turning the Justice Department into a pure and unfiltered tool of politics and revenge.” 

At the same time, FBI Director Kash Patel carried out a series of wholesale purges of senior agents, directors, experienced field agents, and top field officials with any connection to past investigations of Donald Trump – “a revenge crusade on behalf of the President,” according to the New Republic. Note that the FBI operates within the DOJ and reports to the Attorney General.

Bondi’s actions have raised concerns, even among Republicans, regarding the Department’s integrity and independence and whether it can still fulfill its role in upholding justice and constitutional principles. 

Incredibly, Trump appeared to endorse concerns about Bondi’s actions and the DOJ’s independence when he hung a massive banner of his own face outside the Department of Justice’s D.C. headquarters on Feb. 19 – seemingly emphasizing his control over a law enforcement branch that had long prided itself on separating politics from prosecutions, including past investigations into him.

You may recall that Saddam Hussein also had giant pictures and statues of himself displayed throughout Iraq. Hussein was dictator of Iraq from 1979 until his overthrow in April, 2003, and was known for his brutal authoritarian rule, suppression of dissent, and human rights violations. 

The Clown Show

The breadth and scope of the Trump/Bondi retribution campaign is staggering. Incredibly, it includes late-night TV personalities whose comments had evidently provoked the regulatory interest of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, and almost certainly contributed to CBS’s decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! since 2003.

This past Christmas Eve, Trump threatened to terminate the broadcast licenses of major networks that cover him and his political allies unfavorably. He wrote on Truth Social that “If Network NEWSCASTS, and their LateNight Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES!”

Trump also threatened to sue comedian Trevor Noah, the six-time host of the Grammy Awards, after Noah joked about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at the Feb. 1 Grammys. “Noah, a total loser, better get his facts straight, and get them straight fast. It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C., and suing him for plenty$.”

These attacks on comedians set the stage for more public provocation.

Near midnight on Thursday, Feb. 5, Trump posted a racist video on “Truth Social,” showing former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama’s faces transposed on gorilla-like figures. 

The first part of the video absurdly contained discredited claims about fraud in voting machines in the 2020 election. 

When asked for comment the following morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt provided her predictable obnoxious and divisive response: “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”

It turns out that the racist video really mattered to Americans and their elected officials, and at about the same time, the administration began to attempt to distance Trump from the post, stating that the video was an oversight by an unnamed staffer. The video was deleted Friday afternoon. 

That evening, while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he only saw the first part of the video. “I guess during the end of it, there was some kind of picture people don’t like,” he said. “I wouldn’t like it either, but I didn’t see it.”

Trump said that he won’t apologize for the post: “I didn’t make the mistake.”

Republicans should be ashamed. 

Former President Barack Obama responded several days later in an interview with journalist Brian Tyler Cohen: “The majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling. It’s true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction. As I’m traveling around the country, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people. They still believe in decency, courtesy, and kindness.

“There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television, and what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office. So that’s been lost,” Obama said. 

These thoughts should remain in our consciousness as we approach the midterm elections, scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 3, which are critical for reshaping the House of Representatives and the Senate and redefining the political landscape of the country. 

And so, this is another of my “lest we Americans ever forget” columns, which are so important now as this administration continues in its efforts to rewrite or erase our history. 

In the next View From My Porch, I will examine how misinformation, election denial and political maneuvers threaten the integrity of our voting system—and why Americans must remain vigilant.

About the author: Tom Gotowka spent his career in healthcare. He will sit on the Navy side at the Army/Navy football game. He always sit on the crimson side at any Harvard/Yale contest. He enjoys reading historic speeches and considers himself a scholar of the period from FDR through JFK. A child of AM Radio, he probably knows the lyrics of every rock and roll or folk song published since 1960.