It’s Not Normal, But It’s No Accident

Deporting U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Carlos Ruiz

 ICE agents beating cuffed man

It’s Not Normal, But It’s No Accident

"I think they [ICE agents][ haven't gone far enough [, because my deportation agenda has been] held back by the judges, by the liberal judges, that were put in by [former President Joe] Biden and by [former President Barack] Obama.”

Donald Trump in a Norah O’Donnell on “60 Minutes” interview, November 2nd.

“Remember, Republicans, regardless of the Schumer Shutdown, the Democrats will terminate the Filibuster the first chance they get. They will Pack the Supreme Court, pick up two States, and add at least 8 Electoral Votes. Their two objectors are gone!!! Don’t be WEAK AND STUPID. FIGHT,FIGHT, FIGHT! WIN, WIN, WIN! We will immediately END the Extortionist Shutdown, get ALL of our agenda passed, and make life so good for Americans that these DERANGED DEMOCRAT politicians will never again have the chance to DESTROY AMERICA! Republicans, you will rue the day that you didn’t TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!!! BE TOUGH, BE SMART, AND WIN!!! This is much bigger than the Shutdown, this is the survival of our Country!” 

Trump on Truth Social, November 1st.

Money matters, and with all the immigration cruelty, tariff insanity and the regulatory or tariff exemptions given personally by Donald Trump to his billionaire cronies who have poured money into his campaign and the construction fund for the totally unneeded White House Versailles-like ballroom, it is good place to begin. Small businesses are hurting, especially those that depend on undocumented workers (from farms to restaurants to construction companies) or basic highly tariffed raw materials, like the tariffs on steel and aluminum intended to protect American jobs in that sector, which cost 75 jobs for each protected worker in the manufacture of those metals.

Why are we so obsessed with protecting or reshoring “manufacturing” to the United States, where most of the work is profoundly automated? According to our own Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May 2025, manufacturing jobs made up a bit more than 8% of the US workforce. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs the figure close to 12.6 million people out of about 158 million nonfarm jobs, down from 25% in the 1970s. We’ve prospered from developing cutting-edge technology, financial services and information-based platforms… not making stuff. Farmworkers account for slightly over 1% of that total workforce. Hmm? Looking for excuses?

We know from that Donald Trump likes strongmen and “winners,” and anyone who isn’t mega-rich/powerful or who opposes his policies is a “loser.” And losers are viewed as irrelevant and unworthy of government support. Don’t believe me? Take a good look at the 900+ page Project 2025 agenda and those architects and believers in that agenda (like OMB head Russell Vought or Senior White House Advisor Stephen Miller) who are the guiding forces in the Trump administration. Let’s also look at this very measurable reality: the massive expansion of the income/wealth gap under Donald Trump’s policies (as reported by the very reputable Oxfam group, a British-founded confederation of 21 independent non-governmental organizations), as reported by the November 3rd Newsbreak:

“The collective wealth of America’s top 10 richest people ballooned by $698 billion in the past year, supercharged by President Donald Trump’s tax giveaways to his fellow billionaires… An Oxfam America report published Monday [11/3] warns that Trump’s economic agenda is ‘driving inequality to new heights’ and ushering in what it calls ‘the rise of a new American oligarchy.’

“At the center of the boom is Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ passed by Congress in May—legislation Oxfam describes as ‘one of the single largest transfers of wealth upwards in decades.’ The law slashes corporate tax rates and dramatically cuts the tax bills of the wealthiest Americans… According to the report, the top 0.1 percent of earners will see their annual tax bills shrink by an estimated $311,000 by 2027, while low-income households—those making under $15,000 a year—are projected to see their taxes rise… ‘Inequality is a policy choice,’ said Rebecca Riddell, senior policy lead for economic justice at Oxfam America. ‘These comparisons show us that we can make very different choices when it comes to poverty and inequality in our society.’

“The report, which tracks billionaire wealth from September 2024 to September 2025, includes several months under President Joe Biden before Trump returned to office in January. Riddell added that both parties share responsibility. ‘Policymakers have been choosing inequality, and those choices have had bipartisan support,” she said. ‘Policy reforms over the last 40 years—from cuts to taxes and the social safety net to labor issues and beyond—really had the backing of both parties.’”

With 67% of Americans (heavily weighted by Democrats and Independents) believing the country is going in the wrong direction, and well over half of Americans polled placing the blame on the budget shutdown on Republicans… leaving that diehard, unquestioningly loyal MAGA base (roughly a third of the electorate)… you have to wonder how we got here. Let me be clear (read Project 2025 if you doubt me): this was the grand strategic plan for Trump 2.0 all along.

Political thinker, David Pakman, speaks of the “paperwork coup” in his November 2nd blog: This isn’t a coup with tanks in the streets. It’s a paperwork coup. Bureaucratic. Almost boring—until you realize the rule of law has quietly left the building. A norm breaks, people adjust, and pretty soon the abnormal feels routine: ‘That’s weird, but I guess this is how politics works now.’… We’ve had ten years of that. We now have an administration denying due process and brushing aside authorization for military action. The list is long. We’ve gone from ‘unprecedented’ to ‘normal,’ even though it’s not.

“How a Paperwork Coup Works:

• Ignore or sidestep authorizations that normally require Congres
• Purge the nonpartisan civil service through fear and ‘loyalty,’ not merit.
• Reroute money with executive actions while the purse-holders are sidelined.
• Announce ‘emergencies’ that never quite end.
• Make it all look boring so most people tune out.

“How Democracies Actually Die

“When democracies stop being democratic, it’s rarely one dramatic moment where everyone agrees, ‘Well, that’s it.’ It’s a death by a thousand cuts—small technical violations that grow larger, then larger still. Hungary didn’t collapse overnight. Erdoğan didn’t seize Turkey in a day. Systems were chipped away until nothing remained to protect.”

With a dramatically neutered GOP majority in Congress and a Supreme Court unwilling to relinquish its absurd right wing theory of “originalism,” which has effectively neutered the Constitution into a rigidity never contemplated by our Founding Fathers, the MAGA-led redistricting effort is aimed at fulfilling Trump’s goals as quoted above: disenfranchising all but MAGA voters in all elections hereafter… for as long as we even have elections. Anyone opposing Trump is an obvious radical leftist denying Trump’s “patriotic vision” for America.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am afraid that Donald Trump’s plan appears to be working as his extreme and exaggerated agenda is now simply tolerated as the new American normal… yawn.