As he studies the 2026 election, former Senate Majority Leader Bernard "Bernie" Kenny of Hudson County takes everything back to the foundations, President Abe Lincoln's defense of the union, and the principles at the core of the country.

Here is the fundamental issue for Kenny:

"Donald Trump doesn't like America," he said. "He has never liked it. He has never liked us, the United States, and our narrative that goes back to the Revolution, the Civil War, the Second World War, and Civil Rights. He doesn't like it. He has disdain for it. It's remarkable that a person can have such disdain for his country precisely because the country is democratic and diverse and has fostered equality in all walks of life. He's a white supremacist opposed to the very thing that both parties have stood for for the last 100 years. He's opposed to it. This man was elected president and he's using this term to bring the country down. People are scratching their heads but he's doing what he wants to do and he's hell bent on doing it with the power of the Supreme Court behind him. It's about his survival and the survival of his family fortune. Even he knows the future is upon us but it's about his children and grandchildren. He has no affection whatsoever for the American republic.

"It's pretty frightening that he's already achieved part of his purpose, which is to arguably depress the vote by having such chaos," added the senator. "People are afraid to go to the polls. All it takes are a few percentage points in battleground districts to make the difference. That he would wreak havoc to achieve these ends shows he has no respect for the country and never has. None of the things we believe in does he believe."

Senator Kenny said Trump's vision for the country lies closer to the Southern Confederacy, which prior to the United States Civil War concentrated more wealth than anywhere else in the world. As he deregulates industry at a record rate and prioritizes himself and the billionaire class to the detriment of working-class Americans, Trump reasserts an updated version of the Confederate model.

"The confederates' means of preserving their wealth was being jeopardized by the abolition of slavery," said Kenny.

Trump emboldens the new confederacy.

"There was a time when these people - billionaires - bought into the American narrative," said Kenny. "It made them successful. They understood that the middle class is needed in order for the country to be healthy. They understood its preservation was the right thing for moral and nationalistic reasons. Now people are strictly about their wealth. The nation state is no longer something they are loyal to. These billionaires are not loyal to the nation state as a concept. They're egotistical. The nation state is an outdated modality. The political world is some sort of artifice to be replaced. They are given to donate billions of dollars to a nihilist like Trump because they are nihilists also. They don't believe in the United States anymore or in democracy that is pluralistic and egalitarian. Civil rights is irrelevant to them."