The Age of Trump
Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States of America. Trump's Inaugural Address in January 20, 2017, outlined not only economic nationalism and imperialist militarism. He was not veiled in its advocacy of the reactionary "law and order" plans. He wants to be make America First policies. He has scapegoated human beings who happen to be of a different nationality. He blames many immigrants for the economic troubles in American society. The truth is that immigrants are not responsible for all of our economic problems spanning decades. We reject building walls of hatred and isolation. We want to build bridges of racial, economic, gender, and social justice. American and other Western capitalists have seized wealth from the poor and the working class to be sent to the super wealthy. That is why many multinational corporations have record profits. Trump's cabinet is made up of billionaires, multimillionaires, and other reactionaries. His advocacy of jingoistic nationalism, and the minimization of the plight of others in other nations. His speech advances the evil view that imperialist powers must lust for raw materials, cheap labor, and giving some people key strategic positions without adequately responding to the masses of the people. His speech has fascist overtones and we are clear to oppose his nefarious agenda.
I can't be silent on this issue. I'm a political person. Trump's first refugee ban and the ban of immigrants from 7 majority Muslim countries (for 90 days) are not only xenophobic and racist. It's disgraceful. Those nations included in the ban are Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. This totals more than 134 million people. There is already a strong vetting proves for any refugee and immigrant who desires to come into America from those nations. The January 27, 2017 executive order (entitled, “Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals”) bans refugees from coming into America for 120 days and bans refugees from the Syrian territory indefinitely. To punish innocent human beings from overseas is wrong. His ban doesn't cover Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and other nations, since those nations have business ties explicitly to U.S. corporations, which shows Trump’s hypocrisy. Courageous protests have occurred nationwide in airports in Chicago, New York City, Northern Virginia, Seattle, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Charlotte, Boston, and throughout the country. Protesters were found in Portland, Detroit, Bloomington, St. Louis, Wichita, Rochester, Pittsburgh, etc. Trump has expressed preference to Christian refugees coming into America, but that policy is a religious test (as Trump has a preference to allow Christian refugees to come into America not Muslim refugees from the banned countries), which is illegal. The 1965 Naturalization Act forbids discrimination on immigration status based on national origin. It is illegal under international law (from the Geneva Convention) as it relates to refugees too. Both Christian and Muslim people are victims of terrorism in the world not just Christians.
This anti-immigrant ban solves nothing and it violates civil liberties and promotes discrimination against Muslims. There are many stories of many people having trouble going into America. There is a 60 year old person with a visa. She had a signed letter from a surgeon to immigration officials telling them that Algonaimi needed to take care of her sick 76 year old mother. U.S. Customs officials didn’t view this as enough. Samira Asgari, an Iranian scientist coming to Harvard Medical School to work on a cure for tuberculosis. She said in a tweet: "I was pretty excited to join @soumya_boston's lab but denied boarding due to my Iranian nationality. Feeling safer?" The Taxi Workers Alliance called a one-hour boycott of JFK airport pickups in expressing opposition to the executive order. It is anti-freedom of religion. Trump is an overt authoritarian and a fascist and I don't use the term fascist lightly. To ban innocent Muslims from certain nations from coming into America is evil. I am not a Muslim, but we have to stand with our Muslim Brothers and Sisters from those nations who have an immigrant ban. There should be no religious test in America or anywhere for that matter. Trump has suspended Syrian refugees from coming into America when they are the victims of ISIS. So, Trump has shown his hand as being antithetical to freedom and hostile to equality. Now, Google has turned back many people who are from certain nations. This male Trump should be impeached in my opinion. I'm an American and I oppose Trump's agenda 100 percent. Many refugees have been detained in America without dub process of law.
Today, many innocent Iranians can’t come to America. Iran has banned Americans from traveling into America too. Now, Steve Bannon is now on the National Security Council and Bannon is a blatant alt right white nationalist. This is an alarming violation of civil liberties (green card holders have been once included in the ban too, which is blatantly wrong). This policy impacts all Americans too as an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It is illegal in violating the 1965 Naturalization Act since it discriminates against people on the basis of national origin and it is a violation of a religious test too. The executive order is plain morally wrong. Many people nationwide and worldwide are standing up for freedom and opposing that evil, fascist executive order too. Donald Trump has created a second, revised travel ban in March of 2017.
Trumpcare is not only reactionary and repugnant. It is based on hypocrisy. The reason is that Trump claims that his plan will help the sick, but the plan will cut services like Medicaid expansion (which will cause turmoil and suffering to low income Americans). The Medicaid expansion has been a great success in many states. Income based subsidies being eliminated as part of his plan is again very cruel. Obviously, Trump ignores actual solutions that can improve the ACA and led into truly universal health care (which many industrialized nations have and are working to help people).
Real solutions would be to: establish a public option in health care services, more government intervention to control the prices of medicines, increase the insurance subsidies for individuals and families, and many heroes want a Medicare for all system. From Carson's evil statement that slaves were immigrants to Attorney General Jeff Sessions' support of the voter suppression laws (plus he agreed with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act), these facts show that Trump stands for extremism and for the interests of the wealthy oligarchy. We are in favor of the power of the people and true, universal health care.
#Not my President.
Extremist Executive Orders
One major part of the Presidency of Donald Trump is his early signing of numerous executive orders quickly. On January 23, 2017, Trump signed three executive orders. The first one withdraws the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (as part of economic nationalist reasons). The second one reinstated the Mexico City Policy dealing with NGOs and abortion access. The third one freezes federal workforce hiring. This is wrong and harms employment opportunities for millions of Americans. Trump wants to massively end regulations with his meetings with many large corporations. Trump has spoken about the lie that millions of people illegally voted against him. One the next day, he signed 2 executive orders to reverse the Obama administration's halt on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, the latter of which has been the subject of tense protests by the Standing Rock tribe. It is a known fact that such pipeline risk environmental harm, damage water supplies, and many oil pipelines have exploded. Trump has signed another executive order in January 25 to begin the construction of a wall on the Mexico-United States border which is extremist and impossible because of geographic reasons. He increased border patrol and immigration officers. He has cruelly reduced grant funding to sanctuary cities and changed deportation standards. Like usual, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agrees with a border wall in the southern U.S. border, because the far right in America is allied with the far right in Israel. It is what it is. Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced on January 26, 2017 that the border wall might be funded by a 20% tax on imports from Mexico, which may cause a trade war between America and Mexico. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto canceled a proposed meeting with Trump due to the controversy of whether Mexico would pay for the wall and after Trump suggested that Peña Nieto cancel the meeting.
In the first week of the Trump administration alone, we have seen a pro-war and a pro-social reactionary agenda. Trump has one of the most reactionary administrations in American history. The secretary of defense is retired general James Mattis. Rex Tillerson desires to bar Chinese access to islets in the South China Sea. Trump wants more “safe zones” in Syria. Trump wants to steal Iraqi oil in order to fund America, which is against international law. Trump agrees with using waterboarding which is torture. A draft memorandum is circulating in the White House that would reopen secret CIA prisons and torture centers overseas. This existed in just the first week of the Trump administration. The age of Trump existed as a product of war, a parasitic financial oligarchy, the growth of social inequality, and the total exposure of the fallibility of the capitalist system. Donald Trump is not a populist. He is a capitalist who had promoted failing casinos, corrupt universities, and failed businesses, which is a symbol of the state of American capitalism. Solidarity and alliance among many progressive people can defeat the agenda of Trump. Yet, we have to fight. We have to resist. We will use our voices.
Cabinet Members
Today, the extremist Donald Trump has much of his cabinet confirmed. His cabinet confirmed to us that he is an extremist. The Vice President is Mike Pence. Rex Tillerson is the Secretary of State. The Secretary of Defense is James Mattis. Mattis threatened North Korea with overwhelming force if North Korea attacked America and its allies. Elaine Chao is the Secretary of Transportation. The Secretary of Homeland Security is John F. Kelly. Nikki Haley is the Ambassador to the United Nations. The RNC Chairman is Reince Preibus. Other people have yet to be confirmed yet. Trump use an executive order to get rid of many of the regulations on banks and financial institutions which came from the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. This shows how the Trump regime is in league with Wall Street interests. He signed these measures after having a meeting with his business council. The council is chaired by Stephen A. Schwarzman, the multi-billionaire chief executive of the private equity giant Blackstone Group. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Visa have benefited from this bad policy. Senate Republicans were voting to repeal a rule linked to Dodd-Frank that requires oil companies to publicly disclose payments they make to governments in connection with their business operations around the world. Among those who lobbied against the Securities and Exchange rule was the new secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, in his capacity as CEO of Exxon Mobil. This is similar to amnesty for corporate exploitation.
I have seen a lot of despicable comments. Ben Carson's comments are some of the most disrespectful comments about our black ancestors that I have heard in this decade. Slaves were not immigrants who voluntarily came into American soil. Slaves were victims of kidnapping from Africa and they were stripped of their human rights and experienced indescribable anguish and turmoil. Slaves were branded, whipped, forced to wear torture devices, raped, assaulted, and murdered by racist terrorists. The Maafa and the Middle Passage were crimes against humanity and still some folks want to minimize or ignore the brutality of slavery. Ben Carson (who said that the ACA is the worse thing since slavery which is a lie) is a far right extremist who believes in cutting regulations involving housing and he makes outlandish, historical revisionist comments about American slavery. He is opposed to many legitimate social programs that has helped the poor and the working class for generations. Carson isn't the only one who has disrespected our black ancestors. He comes in a long list of extremists.
DeVos' comments are not only disrespectful, but they are based on something that has no basis in history. A large number of HBCUs existed from the Reconstruction era in order to give black people opportunities when many non-black institutions refused to respect racial justice. HBCUs back then and today give black people camaraderie, cultural growth, and many means to grow success from business to STEM fields. Her comments don't happen by happenstance. They are calculated in order to promote the lie that the privatization of all resources in society can somehow end injustice. We know that isn't true since the elimination of all public resources will cripple millions of Americans' opportunities. I believe in the general welfare and I believe in social justice. DeVos is totally unqualified to be the Department of Education since she never taught in any public school and she didn't answer questions succinctly on basic issues of educational concepts. Like usual, we will set the record straight and not let right wing extremists deter us from the mission. The mission is justice. Her father-in-law Rich DeVos, Sr., was the co-founder of the Amway Corporation. Rich DeVos Sr. was a member of the CNP or the Council on National Policy (which supports extremist causes). The corporate oligarchy funds the Trump regime and his allies. We know that her younger brother, Erik Prince, is a known militarist. So, many of the same ones who slander black people give passes to DeVos. Our eyes are on the prize.
Dissent and Resistance
We live in historic times and the Women’s March has great historical significance. This is part of history. It was the first major international protest in America of 2017 of so many people in America and in the world. There were over 500,000 people protesting in Washington D.C. There were about 750,000 people in Los Angeles, 250,000 people in New York City, from 150,000-250,000 people in Chicago, about 150,000 people in Denver, about 130,000 human beings in Seattle. Over 130,000 people were in Boston. There were about 100,000 human beings in London and in Portland. About 60,000 human beings were protesting and rallying in Atlanta and in Oakland. Over 50,000 people were in Toronto, Canada. 50,000 were in Philadelphia. 100,000 human beings were in Madison, WI, 20,000 people were in Pittsburgh, 20,000 people were in Nashville, TN, and 60,000 human beings were in St. Paul, MN. There were about 40,000 people standing up in Austin, Texas. Over 10,000 people were in St. Louis. People were rallying in Mexico City, Prague, and Sydney, Australia. There were 7,000 people in Palm Beach, Florida. Protesters were in Rome, Antarctica, St. Paul, Minnesota, and in other places of the world too. Demonstrations have been found in Tokyo, Dublin, Capetown, Paris, Vienna, Yangon, etc. The protesters were more than disagreeing with a demagogic new President named Trump. It was about standing up for the rights of women, black people, other people of color, immigrants, and other minorities. This is real. Trump and his crew are overt in their xenophobic, bigoted extremism and we have the right to disagree with Trump. The women there and others made history to voice their views. They opposed injustice and girls were protesting too. There were as much as 3 times as many people in the rally in Washington, D.C. on Saturday than the people at the Trump Inauguration. The rally showed that women’s rights are human rights.
The Saturday Women’s March is the largest one day inaugural protest in American history as almost 3 million people protested throughout America. Women have been leaders of movements for social change since the beginning of human history. Many women of color wanted their voice heard since a majority of white women voted for Donald Trump. About 52% of white women voted for Trump and black women have every right to outraged about this. There is nothing wrong with intersectional womanism and true feminism. It is a fact that women of color’s voices have been omitted by the powers that be for a long time.
That is why Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez, and Linda Sarsour have been leaders of this movement. Women deserve equality and justice period. Women give birth, take care of families, work hard, and do unsung things throughout human history. Days ago, we have witnessed an inauguration of an extremist who not only spews overtly fascist words, but is unashamed of his racism, sexism, and xenophobia. On this day, tons of women worldwide are protesting, speaking, and standing up for their human rights. We can't be free unless women are free. When a man makes more than a woman on average, when we see record misogyny and misogynoir. When we see oppression against women continuously today, then we must fight. We fight for women. We do this, because it is right and our views stand the test of time. Many people spoke in the rallies like Tamika Mallory, Janelle Monae, Scarlett Johansson, America Ferrera, Ashley Judd, Rep. Maxine Waters (she has been woke on many issues), and others. They are protesting discrimination, racism, xenophobia, white privilege, police brutality, imperialism, sexism, Islamophobia, and other evils. We want universal health care, we want women's rights to be protected and respected, and we want black liberation. We want immigrants to have their rights honored, and we want humanity in general to have their voices heard.
I'm opposed to imperialism and empire. We a'int backing down either. We believe in studying the functions of government, so society can change. So, we should vote, organize, join in great organizations, work in our communities, and express solidarity with women worldwide. We value education and environmental justice. The truth is clear and our ancestors sacrificed for us. We stand with women and men who desire equality, justice, tolerance, and courage. The Women’s March proves that the struggle isn’t over, there is hope in the world, and love always trumps hate. When we honor women, we honor ourselves as human beings. Don't get it twisted: Black Lives will always Matter.
Still, we rise.
Trumpcare fails (A Victory)
The Trump administration dropped the proposal to repeal and replace the ACA. Trump has wanted the Republicans in the House to agree with his nefarious proposal. He wants to repeal the ACA and replace it with his proposal. On Thursday, he didn’t have the votes to secure passage. On Thursday morning, he met with members of the far right Freedom Caucus in wanting more concessions or making the bill more reactionary and punitive. He failed to get the Freedom Caucus’ support. Many Republicans don’t support the bill, because even some of them believe that it is too harsh (which it is). House Democrats oppose the bill. There are dozens of Republican who plan to oppose the measure. Trumpcare is known as the American Health Care Act or the AHCA. Paul Ryan is desperate to support the bill too. The Trump administration is in disarray to promote the disgraceful proposal. The AHCA or Trumpcare is an attack on health care for retired human beings and all Americans. It is worse than the ACA (and the ACA has imperfections too). It or Trumpcare strips Medicaid on the federal level (which has helped the poor), it will strip millions of people of health care coverage, it removes restraints on profit gouging in insurance monopolies, and it proves massive tax cuts for wealthy people plus medical firms.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that “Trump care” will leave 14 million more people uninsured in its first year and 24 million over a decade. Like the ACA, many multinational corporations will benefit from Trumpcare. The Trump bill escalates the health care counterrevolution begun under the previous President. Since the bill was first released on March 6, it has been made progressively more brutal as negotiations within the Republican caucus have been held in an attempt to win over the most diehard opponents of health care for poor and moderate-income people plus seniors. Earlier this week, the White House agreed to amend its initial bill to allow states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients and receive federal funding in the form of a block grant, rather than on the basis of a cap on outlays per recipient.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Seema Verna, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, sent a letter to state governments last week saying they were open to granting waivers to allow states not only to add work requirements, but also to require recipients to pay premiums and co-pays for Medicaid care. Both per-capita spending caps and block grants effectively end Medicaid, which currently covers 74 million people, as an open-ended federal entitlement program, but the block grant scheme will hasten the dismantling of the program. Trumpcare cuts health care subsidies for low income people and for the elderly who are not yet eligible for Medicare. It is bad. On Wednesday, in a further attempt to win over the Freedom Caucus holdouts, the White House offered to strip its bill of an Obamacare mandate requiring insurance firms to provide essential benefits in ten areas: doctor’s visits, emergency services (such as ambulances), hospitalization, maternity care, pediatric care, mental health and substance abuse treatment, prescription drugs, lab tests, rehabilitation, and preventive services.
Trump's proposal is anti-human. “I’m afraid if they get rid of the essential benefits,” commented Dr. John S. Meigs, Jr., president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, “you’ll have meaningless insurance.” This is still not enough for the Tea Party crowd, which shows how evil and despicable the Tea Party crowd is. They are reportedly demanding even further windfalls for the insurance companies, including the elimination of language that bars companies from setting insurance rates based on a person’s sex, medical condition, genetic condition or other factors. They are also demanding caps on the amount of money insurers have to pay out on health claims, limits on the number of years a beneficiary can be covered, and drug testing of beneficiaries. We are in a battle for our health care in this generation. Both parties are infiltrated by U.S. corporate financial elites who want to cut health care (as shown by Trump’s evil proposal, which can reduce the life expectancies of many Americans). This is real.
So, Donald Trump dropped the bill altogether. The Freedom Caucus, Trump, and the Tea Party are enemies of universal health care. The dropping of the bill is great news.
I read about the budget of Donald Trump. That budget proposal is one of the most extremely reactionary budgets since the days of Ronald Reagan. Trump's massive proposal to cut tons of social programs is total evil and has no merit. Many people (especially the poor and the elderly) will suffer more hardships as a product of this evil budget. The budget will try to cut: HUD, the Department of Transpiration (including cuts to Amtrak), cuts to the PBS channel, cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes cuts to medical research), cuts to the Department of Education, cuts to the EPA (when we need a stronger environment), and other programs. He wants to eliminate needed programs as well. Trump is a total extremist. Trump ally Steve King has said racist, anti-immigrant comments. We know that Trump has respect for Andrew Jackson (who was a racist, a slave owner, and an abuser of the rights of Native Americans). Andrew Jackson is a person of bad character who almost ruined the economy of America. We must speak up and show our voices to oppose Trumpism. The biggest impact of the budget cuts will be on the urban and rural poor. Trump proposes to abolish the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides $3 billion a year to heat homes in the winter; the Community Development Block Grant program, which spends $3 billion on community development, affordable housing and aid to the homeless; the Appalachian Regional Commission, which promotes economic development and community infrastructure in that region; and the Delta Regional Authority, which does the same in the majority-black delta region of the state of Mississippi. The budget proposal is an attack on the poor and working class outright.
So, Trump's budget proposal is a total representation of countererevolution. It exposes Trump as a fraud and a person who has shown cruelty towards the elderly and the poor. It exposes the lie that Trump is a populist. It also should make any Trump voter feel shame for voting for such an extremist. Trump is a person who said that he doesn't believe that all people aren't created equal, yet, people in many cases voted for him. Trump voters should be ashamed of themselves. The budget massively increases the military budget while cutting social programs in a draconian fashion. It advocates ending many desperately needed programs outright. The document deals only with discretionary spending, funds that must be appropriated each year by Congress, accounting for about one-quarter of the $4 trillion that the US government will spend in the fiscal year that begins October 1. The budget leaves open the fate of the remaining $3 trillion in federal spending, which includes payments under entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and food stamps, as well as other legally required payments, such as interest on the national debt. The Pentagon’s budget increases to $639 billion under Trump's proposal.
Military spending will comprise 2/3 of the overall budget. There is also a proposed $2.6 billion in funding for building a wall along the southwest US border—only a fraction of the estimated $25 billion cost of this mad and inhuman project. The Trump budget proposes the outright elimination of 19 government agencies, most of them long targeted for destruction by ultra-right ideologues and Christian fundamentalists. These include the National Endowment for the Arts; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Legal Services Corporation, which provides legal services for the poor; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; AmeriCorps; and the Chemical Safety Board, which investigates industrial disasters in chemical production and transport, including oil-well blowouts like the 2010 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The budget hurts lives and promotes evil. The biggest single cut is a $5.8 billion reduction in the budget for the National Institutes of Health, which funds a vast array of biomedical research by tens of thousands of health scientists. The biggest percentage cut, 31 percent, is in the Environmental Protection Agency, where 3,200 jobs and 50 programs would be eliminated, including all pollution cleanup operations in the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay. Half of the EPA’s budget for research and development is eliminated..
We Shall Overcome
The Trump regime has ironically enough grown a progressive movement. In just one week after his inauguration, millions of people worldwide protested against him in the Women’s March. They or the activists abhorred Trump’s agenda of immigrant bashing, misogyny, bigotry, and his reactionary agenda. The antiwar movement is still in existence. The Black Lives Matter movement has been forthright in opposing racist police violence. Black Lives Matter is a historic movement that has expanded and caused more people to address racism, economic injustice, and police terror never seen since the 1960’s & the 1970’s. There have been protests in London, Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt to oppose fascism including injustice too. Neo-fascists like Richard Spencer will be defeated of their agenda in the end. Steve Bannon being a chief strategist and senior counselor of the White House is a disgrace. Crowds of courageous, progressive people have been in meetings to stand up for health care and to oppose evil policies. The Republican dominated Congress is clear on what they want. They believe in privatizing health care, cutting taxes for the super wealthy, removing and ending environmental regulations, depriving voting rights, and using other repugnant policies. Also, the leadership of both major parties have funded more military spending and an aggressive, imperialist foreign policy.
This is not new. Lee Atwater admitted that Republicans used race baiting and other bigoted tactics under the guise of talking about “forced busing, states’ rights, tax cuts, etc.” We reject the myths that the wealthy alone create jobs or that rural towns alone represent the only component of America. Rural, urban, suburban, and other peoples represent America. While deportations are in existence now, many people are resisting such policies. Trump deserves no conciliatory tone. He deserves our opposition. A ban on refugees, a scapegoating of Muslims, a proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, and support of stop and frisk by Trump is totally wrong. Also, it is important to support the rights of the Black working class and the black poor. There is no total human freedom without addressing the social and economic needs of black people. Political independence is a necessary too. We won’t ally with a party of racism, xenophobia, and bigotry. Also, many people are tired of another party that focuses on neoliberalism and compromises to please GOP extremists. There is something wrong with capitalism with record income inequality and massive poverty. There is something wrong with that. That is why race and class must be viewed together in forming solutions. You can’t defeat racism without ending economic inequality and you can’t end economic inequality without ending racism. Unity, collaboration, and coalitions must be instituted in order for us to see the Dream of justice and equality to be made real.
We shall overcome.
By Timothy
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