How to Punish a President?

: Jamie Stiehm on Jan 21, 2026

High noon: And I dream of President Donald Trump's punishment for 2026 acts alone. Minnesota suffers ugly violence on its streets while NATO faces his threat of seizing Greenland. Throw in a military raid on Venezuela, and there you have it.

Seeing the flower-strewn dancing streets in San Francisco for the late great-ful dead muse Bobby Weir versus icy masked federal agents in Minneapolis seemed a cruel injustice. Weir was 78 to Trump's 79, like light and night.

Shrewd and cunning, there's nothing Trump wouldn't do to further the conquests under his thumb. It's time to wake up and admit pundits, professors and politicians scorned his raw appeal as we approached this peril, this moment in time.

Trump himself asserted that nothing and nobody can stop him.

Make no mistake, we're in a deep crisis of democracy now. Of course, the Senate is away. Congress and the Supreme Court are in rogue Republican hands.

The House Democrats, however, are close to a majority. They had best start being heard all over this land. Impeachment must begin not a moment too soon. They are our last best hope.

Trump well knows impeachment is coming if Republicans lose the House in the midterms. That's why he's openly flirting with the Insurrection Act and imposing martial law.

But Trump never jokes. He must always be taken literally, every word that comes out of that ceaseless, carping mouth.

Proving the nation and the world have much to fear from our president in the next three years, Trump ushered in the era of using lethal force in our elections on Jan. 6, 2021.

Abroad, the American president preposterously claims he's made peace in eight wars. He's obsessed with the Nobel Peace Prize and actually texted Norway's prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, that his failure to win the laurel was why he felt free to take Greenland away from Denmark.

"I have done more for NATO than any other person," Trump said, demanding "Complete and Total Control of Greenland."

How mortifying.

Europe, get ready. Trump stays up late and gets up early plotting his Machiavellian means and ends. Higher tariffs are a weapon he'll wield against our friends and allies.

Breaking apart the long NATO alliance is an unwise and unscrupulous act, after Trump's 2025 merciless assault on the federal government. This shows Trump has regressed from a case of "schadenfreude" (enjoying inflicting pain on others).

Do I dare say he's either becoming a sadomasochist or even criminally insane? We know he's a convicted felon. Remember? Trump faced sentencing on July 11, 2024, but ducked the law -- again.

We know he can't extend sympathy for most grievous losses. Quite the contrary. He berated the late Rob Reiner, and Renee Good, an unarmed woman shot dead in the face by a masked federal agent in Minneapolis.

We know Trump's contempt for women is contagious. Misogyny is a beast unbottled. So is white nationalism, his MAGA base.

And 77 million of us voted for him. What a scarlet letter branded on our soul. America is going the wrong way down a crossroads at age 250.

To those 77 million: Try telling Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton about your vote. They'll ask where we went astray. What will be your answer?

They'll say Trump exceeds the danger of a faraway English king, which they drew up the Declaration and Constitution to guard against. They'll tell you Trump is a pretender or a traitor. They never foresaw a villain within quite like him.

To redeem or repent your vote, get to Minneapolis and help defend the city within the walls, using nonviolent resistance. Thousands of the president's armed agents are at war there.

My perfect punishment goes far back in our history too. The Boston Puritans could publicly shame you real good.

So to the stocks Trump must go, humiliating head- and hand-holes constructed just for him. Put it by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (which he also defaced).

His sentence would allow parades of people to pass by the terrace square. The wind would mess up his hair. The McDonald's feedings would be short and rare.

A cleansing of our collective conscience would do us good.

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The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

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