Ok, I must give credit where credit is due; just a week ago I posted angrily about how the Donald Trump administration was planning to live stream an execution by firing squad. But recently, after initially supporting it, Trump has decided against it, reportedly because the prisoner who was going to be executed, Nidal Malik Hasan, is in a wheelchair. Yes even a psychopath like Trump knows that the image of a man in a wheelchair being shot isn't something that should be streamed into millions of homes. I'm glad he backed off on this.
But that good decision has already been overwhelmed by two terrible things that his administration has done recently. First, the home of Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia, has been raided by Homeland Security agents with less than a month to go before the election. While the raid is ostensibly to look for possible evidence that years ago she applied for citizenship as a minor when she was actually eighteen, the real reason is that Trump wants her deported. Although in interviews Trump has tried to imply that the decision for the raid was made by the justice department independently, it is clear that from the moment he took office in his second term that he intended to use that department to punish his political enemies like Omar. And Trump's openly bigoted and disgusting hatred of Somali immigrants has been one of his obsessions in his second term; on Truth Social he recently posted that the “once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. Fight back Minnesota, fight back! If you need, the Federal Government will come to your rescue.” While he may stop short of openly supporting violence, his message is clear. Add to this a recent Axios report that said that ninety nine point nine percent of all refugees allowed into the US in 2026 were white South Africans fleeing the so called "white genocide" going on in that country, even though numerous news outlets have debunked that so called genocide, and you can see where Trump's hatred of the Somali people is coming from. Clearly he wants to put a huge White's Only sign on the country when it comes to refugees or immigrants.
The second terrible thing that Trump has done is his decision to break the sanctions against Russia and purchase billions of dollars worth of diesel fuel from that country, even as it continues its brutal and disastrous invasion of the Ukraine. The reason for this is that Trump's failed war on Iran has sent the price of diesel fuel skyrocketing in this country and Trump is trying to look like he's doing something about it before the mid term elections next month. But the amount of fuel the administration wants to buy would only amount to a fraction of a typical day's usage in the US. So it's an empty gesture that won't make a real difference here. What it will do is give billions of dollars to Russia to help fund their war machine. Or as Vitaly Sych, the editor in chief of the Ukrainian news outlet NV, texted to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently, Trump "is openly siding with Russia, pushing for Ukraine’s capitulation and calling it a peace deal. If Ukraine hits an oil refinery in Russia, there is always an outraged post from the U.S. president on Truth Social. Is he now the Kremlin’s spokesperson?” For years now there have been rumors that Trump is somehow a Russian agent or asset; personally, I have a skeptical nature about conspiracies, and I don't think that's the case. What I do think is happening is that Trump is jealous of Vladimir Putin because he has an iron clad control of Russian media, and has even had reporters who he dislikes killed, while Trump has to put up with a media that, despite his best efforts, still is allowed to tell the truth about his policies and even make jokes at his expense. Yes, the man who for years spread lies about Barack Obama not being an American citizen on right wing media when Obama was president is now saying that anyone who criticizes Trump is treasonous. This explains why Trump has also repeatedly shown a fondness for King Jong Un, the Communist Dictator of North Korea, who also controls his country with an iron fist. Where most people see brutal, undemocratic dictators, Trump sees strong leaders who can have people jailed or killed at their whim, the way he wishes he could rule in this country.
Normally, a president who wants to limit people allowed to become US citizens to whites only and openly admires authoritarian leaders like Putin would be scandalous, but, as always in the past ten years, Trump will glide through this mostly unscathed, as we go on to the next corrupt or outrageous thing that he does. The only to keep him in check is for the Democrats to retake congress next year, which is looking likely thanks to Trump's declining approval ratings outside of his MAGA base. Hopefully the last two years of Trump's term will see him besieged by investigations of his various corruptions and in full retreat. For a man that I think should have gone to jail years ago on any number of offenses, that's just what he will deserve.
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