Stephen Gottlieb

We’re just back from some travel in Ohio to see family, friends and even a couple of doctors. One of our hotels was serviced by porters who were refugees from Afghanistan. I was using a cane because of a problem with one of my legs. So, one of the Afghani porters was trying to do everything he could for us. I figured I needed to keep using my arms and legs but this gentleman, with the best of intentions, was preventing me.

Everybody likes to think that individual enterprises built this country. But that confuses a piece of the story with the whole thing.

Trump keeps trying to rule by executive order, including, most recently, defunding public broadcasting. Someone I know was trying to differentiate what Trump is doing by executive order and what other presidents have done. So let me explain.

Trumps’s government efficiency staff went through Peace Corps offices recently. Trump tried to dismantle the Peace Corps in his first term. And he has already “eliminate[d] key pillars of America's soft power,” including the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Voice of America and attacked the depth of knowledge and experience at the State Department. Let me draw on my Peace Corps experience to explain why I think Trump’s attack on America’s international agencies is very dangerous.

The difference between dictatorship and democracy is us! Are we willing to obey the dictator? It’s easy to pin the blame for dictatorship on a Hitler or a Trump but everything depends on our willingness to obey.

My wife spotted a note in Facebook that Trump’s tariff manipulations were making his billionaire friends much wealthier. The person posting suggested that billionaires had the money to invest when the market goes down and then sell when it goes up.

Why did Trump’s Air Force try to scrub videos and records of the excellent and celebrated Tuskegee Airmen and Navajo Code Talkers in World War II? Many pilots, sailors and troops were happy to get their support.

I’ve been talking a lot about how we get along with each other and with the world. My commentary has embraced teamwork, caring for each other, people who are black, white, brown and yellow, and foreign relations, peoples from different countries.

Teamwork made America great. Everything worthy requires a team.

Mr. Trump and his Republican allies claim his “executive power” means he can do whatever he wants. To put it simply, that’s nuts.