Given the rate of recent disruptions to our democracy, I hardly know where to start in this Viewpoint–perhaps with my dream last night. It lasted for hours—the kind where you wake up, know you are dreaming, and then reluctantly slide back into it.
A nuclear war had erupted. Sarah and I were trying to escape a nuclear cloud rolling in from the west.
In the morning, I reflected on my dreams and researched the restraints on a President launching a nuclear attack. There are none. The President can push the button, and it’s over.
If you haven’t watched Dr. Strangelove, you should. Brigadier General Jack Ripper, convinced that fluoridating water is a communist plot to destroy our precious body fluids (sound familiar?), launches a nuclear attack on Russia.
Like General Ripper, President Trump is a megalomaniac with his finger on the nuclear trigger. Megalomaniacs believe they are never wrong (TRUMP IS ALWAYS RIGHT hats); lack empathy (see Musk, Vance; soldiers are losers; splitting families; assaults on immigrants); and believe they have unlimited power.
Trump’s claim of unlimited power was first on display when he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters (Iowa campaign, 2016). More lately, he said in a New York Times interview (1/8/26) the only limit to his global power was “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
If you track from his claim that he “. . . can do anything. Grab ‘em by the p*****” (Access Hollywood) to his infamous relationship with Epstein, his morality is nil. Other than increasing his wealth, the only thing that currently seems to concern him are those pesky Epstein files. To bury any public concern about the ninety-nine percent that despite a court order are still unreleased, Trump has pulled the plug on unhinged diversionary tactics: threatening to invade Greenland, kidnapping the President of another country, and most recently, blaming Renee Good for getting herself killed.
President Trump and his flock of megalomaniacs immediately went on the attack, claiming Ms. Good got what she deserved—a bullet in the head. Without a trace of sympathy, Trump and his flock said Agent Ross was acting in self-defense against a paid professional agitator who “violently, willfully, viciously ran over” Ross (Trump, Truth Social). The preferred meme was that Ms. Good had “weaponized her car.”
Here we should note a repressed 2014 report by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection documenting CBP agents frequently stepping in front of cars to justify shooting the drivers. Eric Ericson in DNR (1.13.25) with no sense of irony made the same case: “Confronted by federal agents, Good accelerated with an agent in front of her car. He pulled his gun, she accelerated and struck him, he opened fire and shot her. She died. Case closed.”
I am not going to relitigate the physical situation other than to direct readers to the New York Times video analysis (1/15/26) and ask whether they believe themselves or their lying eyes (Groucho Marx). They should also contrast Ericson’s perspective with Jeff Robbins’ detailed narrative in DNR (1/15/25). If he bothered to look carefully at the multiple videos of the killing, I don’t know how Mr. Ericson sleeps at night.
At least President Trump slept better, realizing immediately the benefit of another news frenzy that would push the Epstein files off front page. I realize it’s uber-Machiavellian to suggest that President Trump was delighted that Ms. Good was killed, but I doubt that I’m far off. After Ross killed Ms. Good, any mention of the 99% of Epstein files that the Department of Justice has failed to release, despite a court order, was likely buried on page 237 of local papers.
The Department of Justice has literally worked overtime to mark and redact incriminating evidence of Trump in the Epstein files. Trump knows that even his base will turn on him when they see photos of topless teenagers on his suggestively stained lap (Michael Wolf, interview). Given his previous history with women (barging into the dressing rooms of Miss Teen USA contestants; intercourse with a porn star while Melania was recovering from giving birth to Barron; sexual assault of Jean Carrol for starters), how can anyone doubt that along with Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, Trump was not a participant in Epstein’s sex trafficking of young women?
As with Nixon’s 18.5 minutes of erased tape,Trump knows that his game will be over when the incriminating photos and emails are published unredacted. He’s seventy-nine, suspected of having had a stroke, famously overweight, suffering the onslaught of dementia. At best, he has two or three years of infamy left. What do you think he’ll do when the jig is up? Thus, my dream. Rather than allow the Epstein files to be published unredacted, I think he’ll push the button.
Irvin Peckham 