It’s been building since the first day of his Presidency. Over a million women marched and demonstrated against this President and his policies, we didn’t know although it was predictable that we would reach a point where the nation would be in turmoil. All while a pandemic was taking over 100,000 lives, partially due to Trump’s feeble response and rejection of data and science. The divider-in-chief has responded to the nation’s woes by doing what he always does, lying, and placing the blame on others.
That this President has governed with concern for only one part of America has been true throughout his Presidency. His base is largely white, mostly male, and includes most of the small percentage of the very rich, the segment of the society that has benefited most from his actions. One of his first accomplishments was the rewrite of the tax code with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Even before COVID-19 and the shutdown of the economy, jobs were being added at 11,000 per month less than during the previous four years. The tax cut was touted as benefitting the middle-class, Trump promised the average household would see a $4,000 increase. In reality, those gains, assuming they were 100% attributable to the tax cut, were a mere $400. It was millionaires, billionaires, and corporations that benefitted from the tax cuts, as most of us knew would happen when they were enacted.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was only the beginning of Trump’s devotion to the rich. He steadfastly attacked the regulations that protected the water we drink and the air we breathe. Placing Scott Pruitt in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was the start of Trump implementing a plan to eliminate most of the requirements that protected the environment. For decades to come, Americans will suffer and die because Trump chose profits over people as he always has.
In almost every Cabinet-level position he placed either those from the industries that they were supposed to regulate or cronies with no background or experience for the job, (I see you Ben Carson), loyalty to Trump being sufficient for the position. Wilbur Ross at Commerce is most noted for his role as Vice-Chairman of the Bank of Cyprus which laundered money for Russia and others. He cut his personal ties with the bank when joining the Trump administration but the private equity firm bearing his name did not. Steve Mnuchin got rich foreclosing on people during the recession prior to the one we’re currently in, throwing people out of their homes using questionable procedures for which his bank, OneWest Bank was sued multiple times.
While Trump, Ross, Munchen, et. al. were serving the rich. Trump’s succession of Attorney Generals went after people of color. Jeff Sessions immediately began undoing the federal government oversight of local police departments. When Trump took office, more than two dozen consent decrees were in place where police departments in Ferguson, MO, Baltimore, MD, Cleveland, OH, and others were monitored by Federal judges for compliance and implementation of changes they’d agreed to with the feds. Sessions eliminated most of those consent decrees though he failed in some cases like Chicago, IL where it wasn’t allowed. One of his last acts before being ousted from the Trump administration was to make it near impossible for any more consent decrees to be implemented.
The next move was related to voting rights, the Justice Department literally switched sides in multiple cases where they once supported voting rights, now allowing states to purge voter rolls and gerrymander and redistrict at will. Even during the pandemic, rather than support voting by mail, Trump has Tweeted multiple times that voting by mail is fraudulent, though he himself last voted in that manner.
Trump isn’t alone in his efforts to curtail voting, the Republican Party of this era uses voter suppression as one of its major focuses to retain power in states and in the US Senate. As their numbers decrease with demographics working against them. They see voter suppression as their only hope. While they can they’re trying to stuff the Federal Courts and Supreme Court with like-minded judges that approve their methods.
Trump’s, Make America Great Again campaign might as well just be called Make America White Again as some of their interests are the only ones he represents. Certainly, all white people don’t side with Trump just as Trump only pretends to side with all white people. He talked about all he would do for coal miners and those who lost their jobs in manufacturing when they were sent overseas by the rich people Trump loves the best. Just as Trump doesn’t care for people from “shithole countries,” or immigrants from anywhere other than Europe, he doesn’t give a damn about poor white people either any more than what’s required to get their votes. Some of those white poor people incredibly believe Trump is honest, he thinks they’re morons.
My entire life, I’ve watched politicians bragging about how poor they are, how they came from nothing, how poor their parents and grandparents were. And I said to myself, if they can stay so poor for so many generations, maybe this isn’t the kind of person we want to be electing to higher office. How smart can they be? They’re morons.
The white people Trump can’t bring himself to forcefully reject are white supremacists which are part of the reason the nation is where it is today. To Trump, Black people are thugs, a term he was using against the Minneapolis protesters until he realized most of them were white. While Trump was ramping up mass incarceration of people of color and advocating the return of Stop & Frisk in minority neighborhoods, he was simultaneously making rationalizations for Neo-Nazi’s and white supremacists as he did after the Charlottesville incident.
He brought white nationalists into the White House including Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller who created most of his immigration policies. Bannon eventually departed for Europe where he’s telling white people there to wear claims of being racist, “like a badge of honor.” Miller remains looking for new ways to put brown people in cages, permanently separate families, and deport those darker than he.
As I write this, dark approaches and there will be more protests and likely more violence all over the nation. In Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz said in a press conference that there’s evidence that some of the rioters represented, “white supremacists and drug cartels.” Ever protective of his people (not the drug cartels), Trump Tweeted:
It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!
Trump just announced he will use some non-existent authority to declare a left-wing domestic protest group, Antifa, a terrorist organization, a designation heretofore only given to groups from outside America. Trump has never considered labeling groups like the Klan, the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Boys (who were seen participating in the Minneapolis violence), nor any of the hundreds of violent right-wing domestic groups acting in this country terrorists, he agrees with them.
Those people get a free pass, indeed they are encouraged to bring their guns to the Michigan statehouse and threaten legislators. Trump is calling for a MAGANight rally outside the White House where they will no doubt clash with the protesters who for days have been calling Trump out and attempting to scale the walls. Trump wants special charges to be levied against Antifa members, white supremacists will likely get a free round of golf at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump has pitted American against American. Go to any social media forum and read the comments section. There are mechanisms to remove a President that has gone this far astray. He was Impeached by the House of Representatives but the Republican-controlled Senate refused to hear from the witnesses that would testify to Trump’s crimes. The Cabinet and Vice-President lack the courage or morals to invoke the 25th Amendment.
The Supreme Court appears on the verge to allow Trump to hide his finances and evidence of money laundering and evidence of bribes. Such a ruling would effectively kill Congressional oversight which used to be what the Constitution imagined. The battle for Democracy, civil rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment right that “no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” has been taken to the streets. In Trump’s America, citizens have no rights except what Trump grants, and should someone have their life taken by the state, particularly if they are Black or of color, the federal government will look the other way.
In Trump’s America, he cannot fairly lose an election. He’s laid the groundwork for contesting any result in which he’s not the winner by claiming non-existent fraudulent votes whether by mail or in person. He’s even suggested that should he win a second term, he won’t leave after that, though he wouldn’t be eligible to run a third time. His comrades Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China have changed laws to make themselves eligible to be President-for-life, is Trump incapable of attempting the same?
We are living, and dying in Trump’s America. We are at great risk of dying from a deadly disease that Trump didn’t create, he just ignored it and inadequately responded to it, making our death toll by far the greatest in the world. Black Americans and others of color are at risk from our police forces, now freed from even the possibility of federal oversight that might curtail them.
The rich are getting richer while starvation has become more real within our borders. Voters, especially in urban areas likely to vote against Trump, must ignore social distancing and literally risk their lives to go to the polls if Trump has his way. There’s little or no oversight and the portion of the media that reports his transgressions is negated by the portion of the media that covers for his lies.
The courts have been stacked in favor of the rich and corporations who apparently are now people too, able to use their “speech” to contribute unlimited anonymous contributions to political candidates. The police are far more concerned with protecting property than lives and some lives not at all. Federal oversight has disappeared and the Ku Klux Klan and all of their ilk have free rein.
Welcome to Trump’s America!
Writer, poet, wannabe philosopher. I write about politics, race and social justice. Support me at https://ko-fi.com/williamfspivey0680
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Previously Published on Medium
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Image: Brett Weinstein