Most of us knew it was going to be bad when Trump got back into the White House, but few could have anticipated the speed at which he is destroying everything. From international alliances to the actual US Federal Government, he is slashing and burning it all down. The hippy takes a look at a country in distress.
In less than 100 days, Donald Trump and his regime have done more damage to America than I thought possible. In that brief time, Trump has managed to show the world that the USA has become unreliable, unstable, nasty, dictatorial, and imperialistic. And let’s not forget what his batshit tariff plan is doing to the international economy.
Trump says the most beautiful word in the English language is “tariff”. The rest of the world has a growing preference for the word “boycott” instead.
America is no longer your friend, ally, or partner. America is now a transactional actor. What’s in it for them? And beyond that, they want to dictate laws in other countries as well, and they will make any treaties or trade deals contingent on their weird whims.
America is now unapologetically an evil empire, and Luke Skywalker ain’t coming to the rescue. America is lost, and it won’t be coming back any time soon. The faster the world accepts this new reality, the easier it will be for everyone.
Sicko-fants
Trump is not doing anything he didn’t promise to do if re-elected. None of it should be a surprise, except for the speed and intensity of it all. He has surrounded himself with sycophants and ass-kissers who encourage and applaud his every move, as if the idiot were a genius.
Trump makes several heavily curated media appearances daily. He loves a good photo-op while surrounded by his cabinet, who all praise him mercilessly.
I don’t recommend playing a game where you take a shot of whiskey every time one of them says “Thanks to President Trump’s strong leadership…”. If you do, you’ll be hammered before the photo-op ends.
An unnamed administration official told the media not long after the inauguration that Trump looks at each day as an episode of an ongoing TV series. And every day he has to vanquish his enemies. He needs to create the illusion of winning constantly.
Trump is ruling by decree via “executive orders”, rather than the actual way of governing which includes the House and the Senate playing some sort of role. Instead, Donald has cut them out of nearly everything. And in some cases, he is even overriding them by withdrawing funding that already has congressional approval. That’s not meant to ever happen.
Trump is gutting the federal government, and he’s given Elon Musk a free hand to destroy as many agencies as possible, especially if they have oversight over any of Trump’s or Musk’s businesses. They’ve also been treating loyal, long serving federal workers abysmally. Classy.
Trump’s cabinet of crazies aren’t just his Greek chorus of approval. They also enable him, and carry out his instructions, and further his evil agenda thoughtlessly. Loyalty, and fealty are the chief requirements to be in this administration. Plus looking good on TV. Naturally.
Trump lies constantly, and then they all parrot his lies. It’s a continuing, non-stop firehose of falsehoods. Critical thinking, truth telling, and standing up for what’s right and best for the country, won’t ever happen with this bunch of fascists.
Full Fat Fascism
Yep, I went there. The American government is full of full-on fascists, enacting full-on fascist policies. The entire world should be concerned.
Even if you’ve seen this list of early warning signs of fascism before, it’s well worth revisiting now. A copy of this is displayed in US Holocaust Museum.
Here’s the list again, annotated with links to examples of each item on the list, all from Trump’s first term. The Trump Regime Mark II is already so much worse.
EARLY WARNING SIGNS OF FASCISM
- Powerful and continuing nationalism
- Disdain for human rights
- Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
- Rampant sexism
- Controlled mass media
- Obsession with national security
- Religion and government intertwined
- Corporate power protected
- Labor power suppressed
- Disdain for intellectual and the arts
- Obsession with crime and punishment
- Rampant cronyism and corruption
(Source: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/01/31/the-12-early-warning-signs-of-fascism/)
Unbridled Imperialism
I didn’t have imperialist ambitions on my bingo card for the second Trump administration.
Trump has threatened to take over the Panama Canal, to annex Greenland and take it away from America’s NATO ally, Denmark, and he wants to force Canada to become the 51st state. Even weirder, he won’t rule out accomplishing those goals via military force. He wants to invade, and take over sovereign countries, and territories. He claims it’s all needed to keep America secure. Sure thing, Donald.
At first people assumed he was joking, but Trump doesn’t joke. He doesn’t even laugh, except at the expense of others he deems lesser. No, Trump is deadly serious about being a conquerer.
Donald sent his unpleasant Vice President to Greenland to make an embarrassing and unwanted visit, after dispatching his slow-witted son there before the inauguration. Both trips were about welcome as a wet fart on a church pew in the middle of Sunday service.
Trump’s sent his deeply unqualified Secretary of Defence, Greasy Pete Hegseth to Panama to spread disinformation about the Chinese, while unsubtly threatening Panama with invasion. Nice.
North of the border, Trump’s threats and insults have actually helped Mark Carney and his Liberal Party. They have gone up in the polls in the lead-up to their general election. Trump is unwittingly assisting them towards victory.
And I didn’t even mention Trump’s lust over Ukraine’s natural resources.
Snatch Squads
Plain-clothed immigration cops are acting like “snatch squads”, kidnapping both legal and undocumented immigrants, as well as legal residents right off the street. It doesn’t seem to matter who gets swept up in these raids.
America then traffics these abductees across state lines, and to foreign countries. There is no due process, it’s just pretty much just this: “These are bad hombres. Trust us bro”.
They’re trying to justify these clearly unconstitutional actions by citing an archaic law from 1798, called the Alien Enemies Act. It’s quite a legal stretch, not that laws matter any more.
The Trump regime even admitted that they made a mistake by sending a man legally in America to an El Salvadorian mega-prison. It’s a terrible story, and Trump and his buddies are revelling in the cruelty of it all.
The Supreme Court has instructed the White House to “facilitate” his return, but they have refused, as has the Salvadorian government. The US Attorney General said he is never coming back. They say the only way anyone leaves CECOT is in a box.
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to “deport US citizens”, You can’t deport citizens, whether born on US soil, or naturalised. If the US government really did this, then we need to call it out. It’s kidnapping, or trafficking, but not deportation.
Crisis? What Crisis?
You’ve probably heard the words “constitutional crisis” nervously thrown around recently. The Atlantic says that “The Constitutional Crisis is Here”. They’re right.
We are in uncharted territory now. No one seems to know what will happen once the White House unquestionably defies Supreme Court rulings. Who can enforce the laws, when the government breaks them?
The one Supreme Court ruling Trump does respect is that he has “absolute immunity”, so laws don’t really matter to him now that he’s president again. The actual ruling is slightly more nuanced than that, but Trump doesn’t do nuance.
America has never been perfect, but it feels like Trump and his winged monkeys want to diminish it. Destroy it. And take the rest of the world down with them. So far, they’re succeeding.
The worst person in the world has been elected the President of the United States, again. The sooner the rest of the world accepts it, and reacts accordingly, the better.
America is lost. And it’s not coming back any time soon. Say it out loud. RIP USA.
After a 30 year career as a journalist, working for some of the largest news organisations in the world, including Associated Press and Reuters, and 15 years as a duty news editor for BBC News, Doug – the northlondonhippy is now a full time hippy, and writer. And for the last few years, he’s been #EpilepsyHippy. His life was a whole lot more fun before gaining that new title. For real.
Doug is also the author of “Personal Use by the northlondonhippy.” “Personal Use” chronicles Doug’s years of experience with mind altering substances, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read. You will laugh, you will cry, and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!
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