One of the defining characteristics of despots (Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Vladimir Putin, Mao Zedong) is cruelty. How does our current President stack up?
Trump has constructed a gulag of ICE concentration camps, warehousing overwhelmingly brown and black immigrants for deportation. Trump no longer pretends that these are violent criminals; often they are law-abiding, tax-paying individuals who perform essential jobs in our economy. And sometimes even tourists! Masked, unidentified ICE thugs summon images of the SS rounding up Jews.
Trump has turned a blind eye to war crimes and genocide in Gaza, in anticipation of displacing Palestinians to create a Gaza Riviera. Meanwhile, civilians in Ukraine are being killed daily by drone and missile attacks, while Trump drags his feet about sending promised arms. The virtual elimination of USAID funding for health services and disease prevention will likely cause 14 million deaths (4.5 children under 5) by 2030.
Here at home, the most vulnerable among us have had their health care and food assistance cut to give tax breaks to the wealthy. Our children and grandchildren have been handed more crushing debt, have watched the Education Department being dismantled, and cannot expect any help to ease their anxiety about science-confirmed climate change. FEMA assistance after disasters? Not so much. Nonpartisan federal workers are being fired sometimes arbitrarily. Trump continues to persecute and punish perceived enemies.
Is this America being Great Again?
Allan MacDonald
New London