DJT’s Legacy – Making America Small Again

DJT’s Legacy – Making America Small Again

For a President who seemed to be unstoppable, Donald Trump has not only overplayed his hand, but he is also losing some of his most diehard worshipers in the process. The United States was once a very small, isolated nation trailing the developed world in technology, commerce and influence. In 1789, it was a country of about 4 million people, 95% agricultural, with grit and determination. Over the next two centuries, the nation was flooded by immigrants, mostly European, but joined by racial, religious and ethnic minorities that led us into global technological and financial leadership. That immigrant melting pot, a lettuce bowl to some, is what made America great. We capitalized on that confluence of ideas and passion, ideas exchanged within that blend of people; DIVERSITY is what made America great in the first place. Now, it’s a dirty word, as Donald Trump strips away the leverage that took that population blend to the top: The greatest aggregation of innovation, learning and research within our finest universities.

Even Trump’s signature top-of-mind goal, the results of his autocratic immigration reform, pales in comparison with the accomplishments of late 20th and early 21st century presidents: Ronald Reagan’s successful statutory immigration reform in 1986 (the last major such reform) and Barack Obama’s deportation of double Trump’s numbers without the chaos, cruelty or constitutional lapses. Trump’s underlying political tool, destabilization with intimidation, fear and chaos, has shocked even members of his base but has really turn off support from the vital independent voters needed to elect MAGA candidates in the upcoming midterms. Even as MAGA dominated legislatures are desperately attempting to cull voting rolls of likely Democrats, expanding gerrymandering to marginalize their opponents, there is a rising groundswell against these abusive policies.

Trump is not getting the message. As food rots unharvested in the fields, as small businesses are failing for lack of low cost labor, and social and traditional media abound with stories and images of cruelty – from masked plainclothes ICE raiding undocumented workers at their places of employment (pretty much ignoring the small number of criminals they promised to prioritize in order to meet bizarre quotas), families separated, people shipped to terrifying foreign prisons without any effort to verify their status via due process and the construction of concentration camps like Alligator Alcatraz for even the lowest level undocumented workers they can find – has turned the majority of Americans in opposition to Trump’s secret police immigration enforcement officers and their cruel methodology… and now there is a 79% majority favoring immigration and a clear path to citizenship (July 11th Gallup poll report).

But even with $170 billion added to Trump’s enforcement effort, the remaining pool of potential recruits is drawing sub-par applicants, seeking power over other people, seems likely to anger voters even more. Quality enforcement is not remotely the goal anymore. As Andrea Castillo, writing for the July 20th LA Times notes: “The independent watchdog concluded that to meet the goal of 10,000 new immigration officers, ICE would need more than 500,000 applicants. For CBP to hire 5,000 new agents, it would need 750,000 applicants.

“It doesn’t appear either goal was met. In 2017, ICE hired 371 deportation officers from more than 11,000 applications and took 173 days on average to finalize hires, the news outlet Government Executive reported. And Cronkite News reported that when Trump left office in 2021, Border Patrol had shrunk by more than 1,000 agents… [The last time we went on such a massive immigration officer hiring spree] Josiah Heyman, an anthropology professor who directs the University of Texas at El Paso’s Center of Inter-American and Border Studies, studied the mid-2000s hiring spree. He said smuggling organizations have only gotten more sophisticated since then, as have security measures, so it’s more valuable for smugglers to ‘buy someone off’ instead of attempting to bring in people or drugs undetected.

“Beyond corruption, Heyman said he worries the drive to quickly increase Homeland Security staffing could lead to Americans being deported, as well as an increase of assault and abuse cases and deaths of detainees.” That bullying tendencies are vastly more prevalent in the current state of applicants should worry us all.

And then there’s the economy. As Trump’s cancelation of alternative energy infrastructure, he mistakenly believes that “drill, baby, drill” will spur the production of cheap gasoline, coal and diesel fuel. But global markets, not Donald Trump, set the price for these fuels… and the trend lines are terrible. Losing the predicted 700,000 jobs that were created by this proposed US infrastructure is bad enough, but Americans are losing EV vehicle incentives and charging stations by the thousands. Newsweek, July 16th. China should send the Trump a thank you note, and Detroit automotive workers should be screaming bloody murder. We are tanking in that international marketplace as China’s BVD electrical cars are so hot, that for every US car sold overseas, China is selling four vehicles (the above photo shows one of many BVD models).

Even as Trump once claimed he was first in his undergrad class at Wharton, hard facts say otherwise as Trump will not permit his academic record to be released to the public. Given Wharton’s list of honored graduates in Trump’s year of graduation, it is obvious, Mr Trump was nowhere near a top student. Given his grasp of macroeconomics – necessary to understand trade policies (like what tariffs really do) and the function of the Federal Reserve – virtually all independent economists at established financial institutions are predicting serious increases in interest rates, compounded by new federal loan policies that are likely deny even lending support for graduate students, even in the very necessary growth STEM fields. Trump would prefer to revel in his own power to destroy the American higher educational system than adhere to his pledge of reducing costs for us all.

Our military did not “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear enrichment program; Israeli intelligence tells us that they have stores of such materials, some of their centrifuge processers are already back online and Iranian munitions and money are already being restored to the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. “Mission accomplished!” Only in the uncritical, fact averse minds of MAGA Trumpers.

I could continue with the bungling efforts of a self-congratulatory Trump clown car, but where we are seriously losing the game is in our efforts to contain and compete against China, already a miliary and economic superpower. They are almost on par in the development of AI, are enhancing not tanking their universities, currently have the capacity to disrupt our power grid and internet system… and they have stepped to replace American soft power global influence (our foreign aid is almost gone), letting most the world know that the United States is already a second rate power. We are willing to assume massive debt (as long as people by our treasuries) to prioritize tax cuts for the rich. But how long can the world’s greatest debtor nation remain the superpower most Americans assume we will continue to be. That does not work for most of the rest of the world.

I’m Peter Dekom, and most Americans cling to the belief that we will remain (perhaps grow) as the number one superpower on Earth; don’t hold your breath as we slide in precisely the opposite direction.