He did not arrive with silence.
He came with noise,
a clamor of certainty
in place of thought.
Walls rose,
not just for borders
but between people,
between truth and spectacle.

Democracy,
once flawed but breathing,
grew brittle
under the weight of mockery.
Institutions bent,
not from outside pressure
but from hands inside
pulling at the seams.

Allies listened,
then looked away.
Europe,cautious,
heard the breaking of promises
in every shrug,
felt the cold retreat
of shared purpose.

He spoke of strength
and left trust in ruins.
He praised tyrants,
but questioned the loyal.
The world,
accustomed to the United States as anchor,
found only drift.

Power,
unmoored from responsibility,
becomes spectacle.
And spectacle,
when mistaken for leadership,
undoes the work
of generations.

He was not a storm from elsewhere.
He was the fracture already forming
--
a mirror held to a nation
unwilling to face its own shadow.