A Mean and Ugly Presidency

by Pa Rock

Homegrown Public Nuisance

(Note:  Today is the 94th day of Donald Trump's second term in the White House, and next Wednesday, April 30th will mark his 100th day in office, the traditional day on which journalists, politicians, and other public nuisances formally assess the start of a presidency.  Being a professional public nuisance myself with time on my hands today, I wanted to get a jump on the others and offer my assessment early.  It follows.)

Donald Trump entered office for the second time with four primary goals:  

1. Destroying government from the inside by cutting hundreds of thousands of federal jobs and eliminating any programs that did not appear to be of direct benefit to Trump or his wealthy friends - and settling as many personal scores as he could in the process;
2. Cutting taxes - again - for the wealthiest Americans - with an extension of the tax cuts for the rich that Congress enacted during Trump's first term; 
3. Increasing US dominance in the world by claiming new territories, and imposing a global tariff structure to pay for his massive tax cuts for the rich;  and
4. Terrorizing brown-and-black-skinned immigrants to keep his political base slobbering its approval.

During his first 94 days in office, Trump's staff has been laser-focused on achieving those goals as rapidly and forcefully as possible, with many missteps along the way.  (Trump himself has been busy golfing and banging out threats and insults on Truth Social.)

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has cut jobs, programs, and funding so quickly that it has been forced in many instances to quickly rehire individuals for programs that were actually critical to the operation of the government or the general health and safety of the American people.  To the surprise of many in Trump's administration, Americans by-and-large did not want the world's richest man and his band of merry adolescents sniffing around in their tax records, social security records, underwear drawers, or any other aspect of their personal lives, and a great many of us actually appreciate a government that serves the public.

Trump and his GOP foot-soldiers in Congress continue to misrepresent his tax cut for the rich as being about tax relief for the middle class - with a wink and a nod - when the truth is that it's about benefiting them, not us.  The Biden administration agreed to the hiring of 87,000  new IRS agents by 2031 with the goal of finally getting the rich to pay their fair share of taxes, but very few of those new agents had actually been hired by the time Trump took office, and many of the ones that had been hired were used to replace workers who had left the agency or retired.   The Trump administration quit hiring new IRS agents employees and began firing others with claims that the purpose of hiring more employees had been to fleece the "middle class."  With Trump, it's always about protecting privilege - and especially his own advantages

This presidential administration has coughed up a modern version of "manifest destiny," arguing that we have to acquire new lands as a defense measure.  Instead of taking care of the territories we already control - places like Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Washington, DC - and make them proper parts of the nation with statehood and full rights of citizenship, Trump wants to grow the land mass with the additions of Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal, and now even the Gaza Strip - as well as to change the name of the "Gulf of Mexico," which it has been for over four centuries, to the "Gulf of America," something he has no authority to do.  

In his quest for an empire, Trump has harmed our relationship with all of the areas he would like to annex, as well as the country of Denmark.  Trump's on-again/off-again tariff policies have also frayed many of our former close international alliances.  The new prime minister of Canada, our closest and staunchest ally, has gone so far as to state that the United States is no longer a reliable partner.   

But it is in the area of immigration where the Trump administration has been its most vile and repugnant.  Illegal immigration was Trump's strongest campaign issue with his team managing to convince a large swath of the country that many in the immigrant community who came from south of our national border were dangerous, tattooed, drug-dealing criminals who routinely raped and murdered Americans and ate their cats and dogs.  One member of the Trump administration set a goal of quickly deporting one million of these supposedly "dangerous" and usually imaginary immigrants.  When Trump was sworn in, his gestapo hit the ground running and began terrifying and rounding up frightened immigrants, many of whom were in the country legally with no criminal records whatsoever - and they quickly started deporting those individuals without proof that they were criminals or were in the country illegally.

The deportees were denied "due process," their constitutionally guaranteed right to respond to the charges against them.  That denial of the right to know what they are being accused of and having an opportunity to tell their side of the story is a serious threat to the safety and freedom of all immigrants - legal and illegal - and also to every American.  If immigrants can be picked up off American streets, or in their places of work or worship, or in their schools, and shipped to foreign gulags without ever having a chance to rebut the charges against them, or speak with a lawyer, or even tell their families "good-bye," sooner or later masked government thugs agents may jump out of black SUVs with darkened windows and cart us off as well.

Attention Walmart shoppers:   that includes you, too.

Trump is already saying that he would like to begin sending naturalized Americans to those same foreign prisons, and he was overheard telling the president of El Salvador to begin building more prisons because he would soon start sending the "homegrowns."  Everyone in the United States has a right to "due process," including those of us who were born here, our friends and neighbors who received citizenship through "naturalization," and all immigrants to our shores including those who came here legally as well as those who arrived illegally.

(Presumably "good" immigrants, those who purchase a $5 million golden "Trump Card" for entry into the United States, will not be hassled.)

If Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or anyone claiming to be an agent of law enforcement or the government picks you up on the streets of America, or in your American residence, or place of work, or worship, or in the hallways of your school, you have a right to an attorney and a right to be heard - whether you are a fifth-generation American or arrived yesterday.

So far Donald Trump's first ninety-four days in office have been excessively mean and ugly, just the way he intended them to be.

Grade:  "F"