Overturn This!

DRAGUIGNAN, France — America is suddenly looking like itself again from across an ocean that over the past 16 months has widened into a forbidding moat. Different now, in a different world, but alive and kicking in a new coat of primary colors.

Earlier this summer my TV was at grave risk from flying objects. Each new day a plundering crime family, coldblooded profiteers and blind ideologues took another little piece of America's heart. A once-great nation was a loathed pariah.

But then World Cup fans from everywhere joined in the 250th birthday bash. They saw workaday Americans — as in, We, the People — take back celebrations from a mafia-don despot who tried to make it all about him.

Foreigners braved grilling at the borders and harsh security at the games. Yet crowds across the nation welcomed them like long-lost family. They ate barbeque with their hands, drank free beer, partied late and made lasting friendships.

Can-do ingenuity dazzled. Visitors were oddly smitten with ranch dressing, but TSA plucked bottles of it from their carry-on. Kraft swiftly came up with miniatures for them to take home where they spread the word about a big-hearted America.

They feted the Fourth under a blaze of pyrotechnics with joyous MAGA-averse music from Mill Valley to Valley Forge. The Boston Pops orchestra played backup to funk and jive near the harbor where colonials had dumped tea.

Trump struck a low note heard round the world. He strong-armed the games' organizers to reverse a penalty red card that would have kept America's star player from playing Belgium. Still, the Belgians won 4-1.

At the end, players did an awkward bump and grind to mock the little dance Trump does at rallies. In Brussels, team officials flipped a middle finger on social media: "Overturn this!"

Countless Americans who have shrugged off Trump's depredations, which by now amount to millions of needless deaths and incalculable human suffering, see their president for who he is. Whatever else, you don't fuck with football.

People saw backwaters like Cape Verde were hardly what Trump calls shitholes. France is favored to win with stars named Mbappé, Dembélé or Tchouaméni. Many now realize that he, not a hostile world, is making their own lives miserable.

Trump demands an end to birthright citizenship, the law in most of North and South America. Folarin Balogun, the star his phone call put back on the field, is American because his Nigerian parents were visiting New York.

The momentum can energize the apathetic and ill-informed to seek hard facts for a clear sense of what awaits under a Trump-Vance regime. Without drastic common global action, hapless Homo sapiens are toast.

That is no simple figure of speech. The crisis is climate, not weather. Here in Provence, the mercury skirts 100 degrees (37.8 Celsius). As I write, forecasts warn of 111 degrees (43.9 C) in southern Arizona.

The climate crisis Trump denies foiled his grand plan in Washington. Heat and storm clouds sent crowds home. When the threat passed, die-hard cultists returned to hear 40 minutes of rambling, self-glorifying asides and claims of credit for others' successes.

He brought World War II heroes to the stage to evoke past grandeur. At one point, he said U.S. troops beat back godless communism. The enemies they helped allies defeat were a white-supremacist Nazi führer and a fascist Italian dictator.

Falling in the polls, he made a ridiculous hail-Mary assertion: Americans who reject his smash-and-grab policies are communists intent on a Soviet-style nation. Malarky, as his principled predecessor might say. He and his billionaire backers are the red menace.

Days later, he told NATO partners in Turkey he only bothered to attend because of his friend, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose name he mispronounced. Either his advisers neglected to tell him the "g" is silent — it's Erdowan — or he paid no attention.

Turkey is at NATO's southeastern edge from where American aircraft create Mideast mayhem as Israel goads Trump deeper into a senseless Iran war. Erdogan, a two-faced authoritarian, wants U.S. F-35 stealth jets along with his Russian missile interceptors.

At the outset, Trump harangued NATO partners for not joining his war-of-choice Iran folly. He didn't need their help, he said, but he was testing their willingness to rally behind America after all the money it had spent on them.

NATO acts to protect its members. It did that only once, in Afghanistan after 9/11. Since then, more Danes have died per capita than Americans. Trump again demanded Greenland. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Denmark would defend every inch.

Weeks ago, he declared victory after a vague "memorandum of understanding" acceded to most of Iran's demands. He praised Iranians as good people with the right to defend themselves.

But then Iran attacked tankers in the Hormuz strait, U.S. aircraft responded with a punishing riposte. Iran targeted American installations in Kuwait and other Gulf states. Hostilities resumed.

"I don't want to deal with them, they're scum...sick, evil people," Trump said at the summit. "There's something wrong with them, they're cuckoo," he added, pointing to his own cuckoo head. Oil prices rose and stock prices dropped.

The 2015 Iran accord he rejected curbed plans for a nuclear weapon, with outside monitors to keep watch. It also brought a hardline theocracy back into the wider world, helping its wealth of decent people moderate the mullahs.

His attempt to one-up Barack Obama created a debacle with consequences that could last for years, if not decades.

NATO partners are fast increasing contributions, but Trump wants more. Tension was palpable. Yet in a final press briefing, mostly a fact-free soliloquy, he said the summit was a lovefest of allies who laud his wise leadership.

Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister active in global affairs, called that wildly exaggerated. Sweden and others, he said, spend more on defense because of Vladimir Putin, not Trump.

Secretary-General Mark Rutte, NATO's Trump whisperer, once called the president "daddy" and still piles on praise. The French and Germans, among others, see that as counterproductive ass-kissing.

Trump's support for Israeli assaults on Lebanon stymies a deal with Iran. His past slights to NATO while praising Putin led to the Ukraine invasion. He sells arms to Europe at a markup so Ukraine can defend itself.

In that humiliation of Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last year, he said, "You have no cards." But he likes winners, and Ukrainians have a better hand. He authorized them to build Patriot missiles, which will take several years to be ready.

Meantime, Russian ballistic missiles drop from the sky without warning to destroy power grids and infrastructure, the heaviest barrages in the war. No more winter lulls for both sides to regroup. Putin intends to leave Ukraine dark and freezing.

Biden stood up to Putin and fortified NATO. Trump threatens to withdraw if members don't meet his 5 percent of GDP regardless of their circumstances.

He blasted Spain, far from the frontline. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez lets in migrants to help expand the economy. He raised dues from 1.2 percent to 2.1 in 2025, more than France and half the others, but resists straining his tight budget much beyond that.

“I don't want anything to do with them," Trump said. "Don't even talk to them. They’re hopeless, bad people. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits."

As we failed to learn in Vietnam and Iraq, ancient cultures react badly to saviors with a shopping list. No one wins a war with bombs and bluster. Global politics come down to individuals. Leaders with no regard for human life eventually face comeuppance.

Abroad, like at home, people gain favor with blatant bribes and empty flattery to a man who flouts law and convention at whim, down to meddling in sports events meant to celebrate diverse humanity.

Africa's most respected referee arrived at the border only to be sent home. He was Somali, an ethnicity Trump targets because of Rep. Ilhan Omar. She escaped refugee hell to enrich Congress with her lived experience and grasp of the "global south."

No country can be defined collectively, especially those in which people have no say about who governs them.

Iran's team was supposed to base in Tucson, my multicultural hometown. Instead, they were banished to Tijuana, Mexico, herded onto buses still sweating after each match only to return exhausted and dispirited for the next.

After a long lifetime of reporting on how the world's other 95 percent live, I am convinced there is a fix. But it will take damned hard work.

Only months remain before November elections, but these days change can happen fast.

Graham Platner, a Maine lobsterman, was a bright new hope to replace Sen. Susan Collins. A New York Times team found he was abusive, suffering from PTSD after four Marine combat tours. Jake Tapper pushed two women on CNN for details.

Did he rape a girlfriend? Only she knows. After couples counseling, he and his wife explained together how he had changed. The choice was up to Mainers. But national Democrats want candidates to be squeaky clean. You know, like Donald Trump.

With a world on the boil, the president obsesses on minutia. Take the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. His no-bid contractor screwed up big. David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist passed by. Curious, he picked up a piece of lining that floated to the top.

Police handcuffed him. Jeanine Pirro, an almost comically unhinged U.S. attorney, charged him with a felony that could mean 10 years in prison. Other Trump-smitten authorities said he must have been linked to miscreants who sabotaged the project.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, ex-governor of North Dakota who was shortlisted for the vice presidency, said no one is above of the law, however famous or important. Why not the President?

A large, noisy crowd chanted Hearns' name as he was hauled into court. It was a stirring example of growing resistance to overbearing law enforcement and selective, weaponized justice.

Nicolle Wallace's MS Now interview with Jack Smith was among the scariest things I've ever come across. In his measured tone, devoid of personal rancor, he might have been Paul Revere on that midnight ride: The despots are coming!

“I think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything I’ve seen in my lifetime,” he said. Later, he added: “I’m very concerned of what’s going to happen in the next election, absolutely.”

Smith said mass dismissals, often cruelly vindicative, taint justice. In one case he cited, FBI Director Kash Patel abruptly fired a career agent just after his wife died of painful cancer. He told Wallace:

"If you go to court and the judges don’t trust you, you can’t do the basic things that you need to do to represent the American people in court...and that has such a cascading effect. They’re just not effective at doing their job anymore. They’ve jettisoned expertise."

In late 2022, Smith was appointed independent special counsel to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump's purloined classified files at Mar-a-Lago. He rushed back from The Hague where he was prosecuting war crimes.

No one needs a replay of the Capitol assault. But consider the gravity of the Mar-a-Lago cache. Trump refused for months to return files to the National Archives. Finally, FBI agents finally raided with a warrant. Filmed evidence leaves no doubt of guilt.

Ex-presidents often take home low-level classified papers for their memoirs. Biden's small bundles amount to a parking ticket compared to the Trump's high crimes for what he left laying around his private club, accessible to foreign operatives.

Stacks of boxes included "Five-Eyes" documents meant only for America's closest allies. One among 40 charges was for willfully keeping a top-secret document "concerning military activity in a foreign country.” CNN reported that was Iran.

CNN also uncovered a two-minute audio of Trump joking about Hillary Clinton's emails as he showed around what he called "highly confidential" documents.

A Trump-appointed District Court judge in southern Florida ruled Smith had no jurisdiction because he was unlawfully appointed. In February this year, she denied release of final report because the case had been thrown out.

Smith said Covington & Burling took his case when Trump threatened retribution, and the firm stayed with him after the Justice Department began targeting it to deprive him of defense.

He ended on an up note. He said career prosecutors at federal and state levels are ready to stand up, and so are private law firms that refuse to be coopted. But protecting justice needs staunch public support.

That is no easy challenge when so much is done out of public view by a government with zero credibility.

Todd Blanche, a former Trump lawyer, makes his leanings clear. When named acting attorney general, he declared: "If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, 'Thank you very much. I love you, sir.'"

In the end, it comes down to deep-digging reporters and their editors. A New York Times team was subpoenaed after their account of how the Secret Service had Trump return from Turkey on the old Air Force One, not the billion-dollar gift from Qatar.

Its price was $400 million. But making it spy-proof and up to Trump's luxurious specifications cost more than that. It cannot be refueled in midair. The America-first president scrapped a different new Air Force One that Boeing was building in Seattle.

Trump's rage was more about noblesse-oblige — how dare the citizens he works for question him? — than the outrageous impropriety of accepting an airborne command center from any country, let alone an emirate with policies that diverge from America's.

David McCraw, the Times' senior counsel, made the point: "The appearance of Federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects."

Holding a president to account is protected speech, firmly rooted in the First Amendment. For Trump, anything that is not slavish praise, however credible the source, falls into a single catchall: "the fake news."

For anyone who fails to see the man is unfit for the job, if not stark-raving mad, here is an excerpt from his latest blasts of social media "truths":

"Instead of writing inaccurate, false articles, for over 10 years now, shouldn’t it be time that they say, 'We give up, we can’t beat him, there seems nothing we can do.' Isn’t it time they say, 'TRUMP IS THE BEST POLITICAL ATHLETE OF ALL TIME! CONGRATULATIONS, MR. PRESIDENT. YOU HAVE BEATEN US FOR 10 YEARS, AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO WASTE OUR TIME FIGHTING YOU ANY LONGER. WE CAN’T WIN. DO A GREAT JOB, SIR, RUNNING OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!'"

That defines the man. But his latest message to Iran, modern-day Ancient Persia with a population of 92 million, reflects the president who is America's face to the world.

His late-night July 4 crowd numbered in the thousands. Millions in Iran spent six days mourning their supreme leader, along with thousands of dead family members. Young men carried banners in English reading, "Hey Trump we will kill you."

In a "truth," he said that if they succeeded, or even tried, he has left orders for U.S. forces "to completely decimate or destroy all areas of Iran. PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!" The incendiary threat alone is a war crime that defies description.

Come November, America can begin saving itself with landslides that overwhelm voter suppression and dirty tricks. A solid majority in Congress and state houses would deliver a message to Trump and his rogue Republicans: Overturn this!