Believe Trump When He Tells You Who He Is

Respected media sources such as NBC and the right leaning Washington Post have recently reported disturbing plans that show Donald Trump and groups supporting him, especially the Heritage Foundation, marching further into right-wing authoritarianism. What’s more frightening is how positively Republican voters have reacted to his plans and pronouncements.

Trump hasn’t even been subtle about his desire to turn the Department of Justice into a retribution organization that he’d unleash on his “enemies” including his own former Attorney General William Barr, and Chief of Staff John Kelly. Trump is miffed by their harsh criticism of him since he left office in 2021. That’s in addition to Trump threatening to tap a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.

The Heritage Foundation is working on a guide for use by the next Republican administration which they’ve named Project 2025. The guide envisions changing federal service rules that would allow Trump to cut tens of thousands of civil service workers and replace them with ones deemed loyal to Trump’s agenda. The guide also calls for invoking the 1871 Insurrection Act on the first day in office in order to use military forces against protestors.

CNN reports that according to a source familiar with it Trump’s anti-immigrant plan involves rounding up undocumented immigrants already in the US and placing them in detention camps to await deportation. This sort of thing has been done before and often ends up with U.S. citizens being deported because they have brown skin and no one believes them when they claim citizenship even when documentation is provided.

Trump has said he would require local law enforcement agencies to use the widely disparaged stop-and-frisk tactic in order to receive some Justice Department funding. He’s also suggested he would deploy the National Guard to cities dealing with high levels of crime.

In a policy aimed at combating homelessness Trump calls for the building “tent cities” on “inexpensive land” staffed by health care workers, then giving homeless people a choice between relocating to the tent city or facing jail time. That’s not a solution, that’s hiding the problem and past experience with other attempts to hide problems like orphanages and homes for pregnant girls shows the residents are often abused, sometimes fatally.

In his speech at a Veteran’s day rally Trump said that “we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” The “vermin” comment wasn’t an off the cuff remark, it was contained in the written remarks provided to the press. Trump is using the same kind of language as previous genocidal leaders. Nazis characterized Jews as “rats” infecting their pure Aryan society, in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge described their enemies as “worms” and “leeches” and in Rwanda, Hutu leaders called Tutsi “cockroaches”.

The poem on the Statue of Liberty says; “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Apparently welcoming and openness is no longer appreciated by Trump and the vast majority of Republicans.

All this ugliness has been revealed by Trump and his team yet he is gaining support among Republican voters. Both Trump and his supporters are telling us who they really are, we should believe them and act accordingly.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 29, 2023