Last Updated on January 7, 2025 by BVN
Overview: Donald Trump and his team are pushing for extremist immigration policies, including mass deportation and an end to birthright citizenship, following a terrorist attack in New Orleans. Trump has falsely claimed that the terrorist was an immigrant, despite evidence to the contrary, and insulted federal law enforcement agencies and the United States. The incoming president has also threatened to return to family separation policies and expand private prison contracts. The nation must work collectively to counter these abnormal political realities and ensure better days ahead.
S. E. Williams
In a blinding flash of the obvious, Trump and his team are working aggressively to soften the ground for extremist immigration policies that threaten to include mass deportation and an end to birthright citizenship. This, along with a plethora of other disturbing, immigrant related actions that may include a return to family separation policies, and a rapid expansion of private prison contracts despite their history of deplorable treatment of those entrusted to their care. And, this threatens to be only the beginning of what the incoming president has in store of American.
The once and future president, Donald J. Trump, and his MAGA supporters wasted no time in working to leverage the tragic terrorist attack and the associated loss of lives in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, to their advantage.
Trump was quick to take to social media and raving and blaming the Biden administration for the devastating attack. He suggested without evidence that the suspected terrorist was an immigrant and false data about immigrants and crime. Trump and his supporters carried on with this narrative even after it became apparent that the terrorist was an American, born in Texas and, an honorably discharged Army veteran.
For Trump, just spewing false information is not enough even after the facts show he has lied. All he does in response is double down on the false rhetoric and add more demoralizing and disparaging rhetoric to further fuel fear and distrust among the populace.
“A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good just because it’s accepted by a majority.”
Booker T. Washington
In this case, rather than admit he was wrong in his assessment of the New Orleans attacks and correct the record regarding the false information he’d spewed about immigrants and crime, he pivoted instead to insulting the nation and its institutions over all. He referred to federal law enforcement agencies, state and local prosecutors as “incompetent and corrupt.” He described the United States as “a disaster,” and insisted we are the “laughing stock” of the world.
Despite his maladjusted behavior, the nation prepares to embrace this man as the 47th president of the United States, as if the coming transfer of power on January 20, 2025, should be considered normal—it is not.
Trump won the popular voter in 2024, 77.3 million votes to Kamala Harris’ 75 million votes–the first time in 20 years the Republican party prevailed in this regard. A wise person once said that “Democracy presupposes that the electorate is educated.” Sadly, that is a false assumption regarding many American voters.
Understanding civics is not an educational priority in this country and as a result, few grasp the limits of democracy, how it is supposed to work, or the imperative of the voters’ role in sustaining it.
For me it raises the question, how true to the premise of democracy is the United States of America? In a true democracy, voters should not be immorally stripped from the voting rolls; minorities would not be undercounted in the decennial census thereby limiting their congressional representation; congressional districts are not gerrymandered so the elected choose their voters rather than voters being free to choose their representatives; and the power of one man/woman, one vote, is not superceded by an electoral college designed to put a check on the power of the majority
On Monday, January 20th, four years to the date when disappointed Trump supporters stormed the capitol to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as president, V.P. Harris—with the dignified clasping of her hands—certified the 2024 Elections results, formally securing Trump as the incoming president.
Bullying, lies, dis- and misinformation, coupled with nationalists still fueling the fear of the other, racists celebrating the misguided prejudice of white supremacy, and fundamentalist christians apoplectic, angry and refusing to accept even the possibility of a Black Jesus, came together in November to elect a madman.
As we look to the next four years, we can expect the lies to not only continue, but to expand and accelerate as a convicted felon, his insurrectionists supporers and enablers prepare to take control of the U.S. government. As a result, it is more important than ever that we neither buy into the falsehoods, sit silent while human rights are abused, nor acquiesce to the abnormal political reality of now. We must continue working collectively for better days.
Will members of the Democratic Party live to regret acting as if this week’s peaceful certification of the 2024 Election was the right thing to do? The double standard of this country is galling. A Black or Brown man, who happens to be a felon, may not be able to vote, or find a job, or a place to live in far too many places across this country. And yet, a white man with 34 felony convictions can easilly be elected president while promising to do all he can to run the country into the ground for the benefit of the American oligarchy.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.
