5-year-old Liam caught in Trumpian Nightmare
My generation envied and admired the USA for many reasons—Florida vacations, Hollywood and Disneyworld magic, icons like Martin Luther King and Babe Ruth, nail biting elections that put the first Roman Catholic and Black presidents in the White House, first man on the moon, Johnny Carson’s mirth and the great broadcaster Walter Cronkite.
The USA was the most generous country in the world—whether it was fighting foreign dictators or responding to natural disasters, the U.S. Marines and aid workers were ready to roll. Immigrants from around the world were welcomed to help build this powerful and rich democracy.
Now? Not so much.
Today, our neighbour to the south is pitied, feared and scorned for having re- elected a president who is governing like a narcissistic fascist, giving his finger to democratic institutions and lawmakers and condoning masked government agents who bully, attack and murder citizens daring to stand up for their hard-earned rights and the rights of others.
U.S. generosity of yesteryear has dried up for everyone and everything that does not conform to the rigid, right-wing agenda of Donald Trump and the shady cast of cowering characters who advise, serve and protect him.
Many are getting rich from Trump’s America—legally and otherwise. Many more are suffering and dying, and sadly, there is no end in sight to the violation of constitutional and civil rights protections and the gutting of institutional oversight.
Trump collects gold while kids go hungry.
Increasingly, the trajectory of Trumpism is compared to that of Germany in the 1930s, and there are warnings that Canada must hope for the best but prepare for the worst. In dealing with Trump, yesterday’s worst fear can become today’s shocking reality.
The recent arrest by federal agents of four journalists doing their job covering a protest at a Minnesota church struck a blow for the vital freedom of the press. Was it revenge because one of the journos is a high-profile critic of Trump? Or a warning to all the media whom Trump disparages and despises.
Increasingly, in the wake of growing nationwide public protest, pundits debate whether a civil war is possible. Could the day come when Americans sell their properties and hundreds of thousands flee north? Many will remember when Canada took in upwards to 100,000 Americans opposed to the Vietnam War.
Trump’s radicalization of the American state has cast a wide net and there’s no indication of remorse or willingness to make any significant change of course. The courts provide a ray of hope but his cronies are embedded there as well.
On the big stage, his regime has caused a rupture in world order, threatening national economies and the future of sovereign nations like Greenland and Canada. The core of his support---the Make America Great Again (MAGA)movement--- demands loyalty to their cause at any cost.
Victims of Trumpism include the most innocent and vulnerable—like the thousands of kids suffering from measles because the measles vaccine has been undermined for so long by Trump’s loony U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Federal funding for food, research and health programs has been cut or eliminated across the U.S. and for international aid.
Whereas the Statue of Liberty and Old Glory being hoisted on Iwo Jimo were once symbols of American freedom, liberty and valour, images of recent Trump government-inspired brutality and murder on U.S. streets have become etched into the conscience of Americans and people around the world.
Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos of Minnesota had the bad luck to be born to a brown skinned family who came to the U.S. from Ecuador seeking opportunity and safety. Recently, his Dad, Adrian, was bringing Liam home from preschool when Trump’s dreaded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gang of masked thugs grabbed them from their driveway while the rest of the family locked themselves inside and watched in horror.
Media photos of Liam being captured in his knitted blue hat with the bunny ears and his Spider Man backpack and taken 1,300 miles away to a federal immigration centre in Texas quickly went viral.
With the help of a U.S. congressman who got access to Liam and his Dad, public protest and a lawyer, they are now back home after a week in confinement. Their lawyer says there is no indication that Liam’s father has a criminal record in either Ecuador or the U.S.
The federal judge who ordered Liam and his father released delivered a scathing opinion, slamming the Trump administration’s disregard for Constitutional rights and the “ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”
All of this happened within weeks of two other Minnesotans—mother of three Renee Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti, both 37---being shot to death by ICE agents as they participated in protests against the brutality of the deportation policy. In some cases, kids have been used as decoys to lure their parents into capture.
Americans support the arrest and deportation of dangerous, illegal immigrants but they didn’t bargain for the chaos and tragedies that have ensued.
As public support for Trump drops, he struggles to appease his own supporters, including the red meat MAGA gang. Radical anti-immigrant forces demand that arrest and deportation quotas are met at any price while business owners and donors argue they need immigrants to run their factories and farms.
Donald Trump promised to rid his country of the “worst of the worst” of illegal immigrants. It seemed like a good idea at the time and helped him get re-elected.
Tens of thousands have been locked up and/or deported, two people are dead and wee Liam will probably remember always the day the U.S. government took him into custody and took away his bunny hat and backpack.
As neighbours, all we can do is hope and pray there can be a peaceful way to end this Trumpian nightmare---and soon before many more innocent people needlessly suffer and die.
