The Life in My Years

47 – America’s Nightmare: MAGA By The Numbers

Paul

June 4, 2025

The 47-America’s Nightmare series of posts is winding down. There will be one more post to follow this one that will be focused on my own personal thoughts (Okay, possibly two). Parting Thoughts and Parting Shots is the title I have in mind.
I’m bringing these posts to a close for a number of reasons, the two most important being:
Writing about Donald Trump has taken the joy out of writing.
I’ve become more involved with the resistance movement and I feel my time is better spent doing that work, rather than preaching to the dwindling choir that reads these posts.

One million.
It’s the number that must be keeping Donald J. Trump awake at night. One million is the number of undocumented immigrants that Trump promised he would deport per year.

Why one million?

It’s round, easy to remember, sounds very big and is a figure that a rash, unconsidered narcissist would pull out of thin air. One has to doubt that there was any real thought or analysis given to the number one million. Thought, analysis, and Donald J. Trump rarely cross paths.

One could reasonably assume that the only thought that went into Trump’s deportation goal is that it has to be greater than 438421.

Why?

Because in 2013 it was President Obama who set the deportation record, having shown the exit door to 438421 undocumented immigrants. Not only does Trump always want to be the biggest and the best and the greatest, but he most definitely does not want to be in second place behind another president – and a Black one to boot.

Trump most certainly pulled the quixotic seemingly unachievable one million from his ass and now he owns it.

Twenty
is the number of years that Carol Hui has lived in the United States. And now Carol is soon going to be leaving for Hong Kong; but it isn’t for business or pleasure. Carol, who until a few days ago lived in Trumpy, Kennett, Missouri, has now taken up temporary residence in the Greene County Jail in Springfield, MO.

A church going, hard working (two jobs), soccer mom of two children, beloved by most of the town’s citizens, Carol is by no means the hardened criminal that Trump promised to deport. And yet there she is

in the Greene County Jail.

A large number of Kennett’s citizens, including those who voted for Trump, are upset about Hui’s pending deportation. That’s not what they voted for, they’ll tell you. They’ll say that it was all about getting rid of the bad seeds.

One resident said, “no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves.” The fact is, the resident didn’t have the foggiest idea of what she was voting for. How could she when her candidate is a pathological liar?

Who would deport a soccer mom? The same people who would deport high school students.

Twenty
is the age of Dylan, a student at Ellis Prep High School in New York. He entered the United States from Venezuela, seeking asylum and is in the United States legally under policies in effect under the Biden administration. He has no criminal record.

Dylan was playing the immigration game by the rules when he showed up for a court hearing regarding his asylum status. Unfortunately for Dylan, ICE now plays by a different set of rules, rules that are apparently made up as circumstances, and Trump’s one million deportation fever dream number dictate.

The old rules don’t matter and what was legal a year ago has been arbitrarily deemed immaterial. So when Dylan showed up at the courthouse, ICE agents, like vipers laying in wait for prey, were waiting to ambush the young man. Dylan is now slated for

“immediate removal.”

That’s the term they use. It’s like

taking out the trash.

I-751
is the form number that Danish citizen and U.S. green card holder, Kasper Eriksen failed to fill out ten years ago around the time that his American citizen wife suffered a stillbirth. Seems like a reasonable excuse.

Since then Eriksen, who is a welder by trade, has done everything right, even down to the point of showing up at his immigration hearing in April. Well, that was a mistake, because ICE was waiting for him and hauled him off to the LaSalle Detention Center, in Jena, Louisiana.

For ten years Eriksen did everything right in his relationship with immigration officials. The only glitch was that Eriksen and immigration apparently had overlooked the missing I-751. It was a clerical error that could easily have been corrected with a ‘you’ve been a bad boy’ admonishment and a completion of the form.

But no, Eriksen is now sitting in the calaboose with other “detainees” (a nice word for prisoners).

Eriksen’s case is somewhat unique in that he’s white and while he’s not an American citizen he’s a sympathetic citizen of MAGA world; a Trump supporting, anti-vaxxer.

I could be smug and say that he’s being fed his just deserts. Just like many of his fellow Trumpers, Eriksen probably thought that Trump was talking about deporting gangsters, murderers and rapists of white women. Probably never occurred to him, or the immigration officials he was dealing with, that he would be a target of ICE.

Of his fellow prisoners, Eriksen said, “ I would say that some of these people (are victims) of miscommunication.”

It will be interesting to see if Eriksen gets special dispensation due to his political leanings. However his case turns out, I hope that his perspective has gone through an adjustment.

Two and a half
is the number of months in Trump’s term that he’s had fewer deportations than Biden did in a similar period. Well, being behind “Sleepy Joe,” must’ve been embarrassing.

Biden notwithstanding, the administration is well behind the pace to achieve Trump’s magic million, and the prez is not happy. And everyone knows what they say about shit.

rolls

down

hill.

Now it’s all hands on deck, and do whatever you can to speed up the pace because the Don is ramping up the pressure, and to not hit the one million mark would signify another defeat for Trump. And his defeats are

multiplying like rabbits.

Do whatever you can means, well, just what it implies. Damn the Constitution, damn the law, damn the courts, damn it all. Just

get it the fuck done.

After all, if someone goes beyond the law, who’s going to press charges?

Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi, who acts more as Trump’s personal lawyer than an independent AG?

And if by some mistake, someone does get arrested and jailed for all of this goonery, there’s always Trump and his

pardons.

ICE agents are getting crafty. They’re not pounding the pavement looking for gangsters, murderers and rapists of white women. You know, the dregs that Trump said would be the first to go. That takes too much time.

Agents are cruising more bountiful fishing grounds, like courthouses, where immigrants who are trying to abide by the law show up to their immigration status hearings. People like Dylan and Carol Hui, and Kasper Eriksen; high schoolers, soccer moms, welders, restaurant workers, mechanics and roofers. It’s kind of an immigration form of gill netting to snatch innocent people who thought they had an agreement with the government. Certainly there are no gangsters, murderers and rapists of white women voluntarily showing up at a courthouse. They’re all still out on the streets.

Trumpy America is shocked that soccer moms and high school kids are being shown the door for having committed minor infractions (and paid their debt), or failed to fill out a form. They all heard the part about gangsters, and murderers and rapists of white women. They must’ve stopped listening when Trump said he would deport one million immigrants in one year. And they certainly didn’t stop to think that deporting one million immigrants in a year would be a logistical

Mount Everest.

Trumpy Americans had the same racist wet dream as Trump. They envisioned dirty, American job stealing, brown scofflaws getting their just deserts. They never stopped to realize that the face of the deportee might be that of the kind waitress that served them biscuits and gravy every Saturday morning, pausing to ask how the kids were doing in school (and my, she asked it in that cute little accent); or the face (with just a little fuzz of a mustache starting to appear) of the star running back for the local high school; or the grease smudged face of the man at the local garage who changes the oil and rotates the tires every 6,000 miles. And most certainly they didn’t imagine that a white MAGA guy from Denmark and living in Louisiana would get arrested.

The administration isn’t hiding the fact that it’s all a numbers game. “I’m not satisfied with the numbers,” said Tom Homan, America’s version of a Stazi goon. “We need to increase.”

Stephen Miller, our very own ferret faced Heinrich Himmler, said, “We are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day, and President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day.

Let’s put the notion of gangsters, murderers and rapists of white women to bed. There’s a number that the boss wants hit and everyone is (un)fair game.

Even citizens.

47 – America’s Nightmare: White House Inc.

Paul

4 comments

May 17, 2025

Paging James Comer. Paging Jim Jordan. Paging Byron Donalds. Paging all of the Republicans who spent four exhausting years and boxcars full of taxpayer dollars trying to prove that Joe Biden was the infamous “capo di tutti capi” (“boss of all bosses”).

James Comer. The name should sound familiar. Comer is the Republican Congressman and chairman of the powerful Oversight Committee who took a blowtorch to taxpayer money trying, fruitlessly one might add, to prove that the president who they characterized as a drooling idiot who couldn’t remember his wife’s name, was at the same time, the scheming evil mastermind behind a mob style criminal conspiracy. In June 2024 Comer referred to Biden as “the Big Guy,” as if he was Al Capone.

Investigation after investigation after investigation ended at a dead end. It was a four years long loop of slapstick comedy as each inquiry fizzled and Comer ended up with an embarrassing metaphorical pie in his face. All that was missing after each allegation collapsed like a foundationless house was the comedic trumpet – “waa-waa-waa-waa.”

Where’s Jim Jordan? Over the course of four years you couldn’t turn on the news without seeing the obnoxious weasel faced Congressman from Ohio wearing his trademark blue shirt and urine yellow tie; red faced, indignant and blustering nonsense.

If James or Jim or Byron would care to resurface and perhaps get in the win column there’s some juicy stuff going on in the White House. The time is now, because a first year law student, and a bad one at that, could indubitably make a corruption case against the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Paging Marjorie Taylor Greene. Not here? Oh, that’s right, she’s busy Photoshopping fake gang tattoos on a photo of a guy we wrongfully sent to a gulag in El Salvador.

Paging Nancy Mace. Oh, wait, she’s too busy bullying trans people and having personal meltdowns.

Where are those Republicans? They don’t want to miss this opportunity.

Check that. They do want to miss it and they’re being brazen in their dereliction of duty.

Where’s Attorney General Pam Bondi? Oh, wait, she’s busy with her Sharpie drawing strikethroughs on entire clauses of the Constitution.

FBI Director Kash Patel? Don’t look in his office. You’ll have better luck finding him at a sports event in Vegas with the nutty Mel Gibson.

And where is the mainstream media (or any media)? Shouldn’t they be grilling all of these now co conspirators over their silence?

What are all of these Republicans purposefully ignoring? Where to start?

47-America’s Nightmare: Trump’s Director of Human Resources

Paul

12 comments

May 12, 2025

“Loomered.” A new adjective in the lexicon, loomered means that you got yourself fired on the word of a lunatic. Laura Loomer apparently has become Donald J. Trump’s new unofficial head of human resources (and when it comes to this administration, “human” is a word used quite loosely).

By most accounts Laura Loomer was the individual who got Mike Waltz, of Signalgate fame, removed from his position as National Security Adviser to the President. Walz’s deputy, Alex Wong was also fired, meaning, I guess, that Loomer can’t claim that she “did not shoot the deputy.”

Just as any terrorist worth his or her salt would claim responsibility for an act, Loomer posted a one word message to Politico, “Loomered,” even as Waltz’s head was not yet done rolling. Shortly after Wong was dispatched, Loomer texted,“SCALP.”

Other heads on Loomer’s wall include the director of the National Security Agency, General Timothy Haugh, and General Haugh’s deputy, Wendy Noble (shot another deputy).

Adam Schleifer, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, was given his walking papers in an email from the White House which was launched one hour after Loomer had gone on social media to complain that Scheifer, a Democrat, had made comments critical of Trump during a run for a New York congressional seat.

Loomer recently derailed the nomination of Janette Nesheiwat for Surgeon General. Trump removed the nomination after Loomer criticized Nesheiwat for being too pro-vaccine. Trump subsequently has nominated Dr. Casey Means for the position, on the recommendation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which, by that very endorsement, means Means is, well, problematic. Call it guilt by association.

Means, who specialized in otolaryngology — ear, nose and throat medicine, left her residency because she was disillusioned with the medical establishment – not a qualification one would want in the nation’s top physician. Unfortunately for Means, she’s found herself on Loomer’s radar.

In a post on X, Loomer wrote, “PRESIDENT TRUMP’S PICK FOR US SURGEON GENERAL CASEY MEANS SAID SHE PRAYS TO INANIMATE OBJECTS, COMMUNICATES WITH SPIRIT MEDIUMS, USES SHROOMS AS “PLANT MEDICINE” AND TALKS TO TREES! SHE ALSO DOESN’T EVEN HAVE AN ACTIVE MEDICAL LICENSE
THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM!” (caps, Loomer’s)

In the same tweet, Loomer wrote, “I guess there isn’t a single conservative doctor in America who doesn’t have a history being a Marxist tree hugger?
We are so doomed. Aren’t we?”

47 – America’s Nightmare: Thoughts on Cinco de Mayo

Paul

9 comments

May 5, 2025

May 5, 2025
It ‘s Cinco de Mayo and I suspect that, unlike St. Patrick’s Day, when many people, Irish or not, hoist a mug of green beer and proclaim that “today everyone’s Irish,” there are more than a few white American folk who, after downing a few tequila shots, stop well short of proclaiming “today everyone’s Mexican.”

When it comes to the celebration of Mexico’s victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla, it’s fun and it’s lively and a good excuse for tequila in excess, but in the end, let’s be real, it’s still, you know, Mexico; cartels, illegals, drug dealers and gangs. They really need to go back to where they came from because like the man said, “they’re not sending their best.”

I suspect that next year at this time if all things tariff haven’t changed, Patron, Mexican beer and guacamole will be painfully expensive. And Donald J. Trump will blame it all on Mexico (or Biden) and say something like, instead of five shots of Patron, maybe they’ll have to make do with just two. Or if you want three just get the well stuff.

Cinco de Mayo 2025, in America, was different this year than in years past. In cities and towns celebrations were muted. In South Philadelphia and Chicago the annual Cinco de Mayo parades were canceled outright. The reason? La Migra, which translated literally means immigration but in slang refers to ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol, has been on a rampage. It was feared that the large gatherings might provide too much of a target rich environment for La Migra.

So while white America celebrated victory at Puebla, brown America found itself threatened, uneasy, and in many cases, hunkered down.

Yesterday, there was a large Cinco de Mayo celebration in nearby Richmond, California which is home to a vibrant Latin community (along with Asian, and Asian-Pacific Islander). I considered going in order to support the community but by the time I was ready to go I figured that parking would be problematic and so I passed. It was gratifying to learn later that the celebration was a success and apparently, and thankfully, La Migra also passed.

poem where no one is deported

By José Olivarez
now i like to imagine la migra running
into the sock factory where my mom
& her friends worked. it was all women

who worked there. women who braided
each other’s hair during breaks.
women who wore rosaries, & never

had a hair out of place. women who were ready
for cameras or for God, who ended all their sentences
with si dios quiere. as in: the day before

the immigration raid when the rumor
of a raid was passed around like bread
& the women made plans, si dios quiere.

so when the immigration officers arrived
they found boxes of socks & all the women absent.
safe at home. those officers thought

no one was working. they were wrong.
the women would say it was god working.
& it was god, but the god

my mom taught us to fear
was vengeful. he might have wet his thumb
& wiped la migra out of this world like a smudge

on a mirror. this god was the god that woke me up
at 7am every day for school to let me know
there was food in the fridge for me & my brothers.

i never asked my mom where the food came from,
but she told me anyway: gracias a dios.
gracias a dios del chisme, who heard all la migra’s plans

& whispered them into the right ears
to keep our families safe.

47-America’s Nightmare: Mayday on May Day. A Pictorial

Paul

7 comments

May 2, 2025

“Mayday” is an internationally recognized distress call used by pilots and maritime crews over radio communications in cases of extreme emergency where life or the aircraft or vessel is in immediate danger. When repeated three times in succession it is a call for urgent assistance.

May Day (also known as International Workers Day), the annual holiday recognizing the international working class, is celebrated around the world on May 1. It commemorates the struggle for workers’ rights and honors the lives’ lost during the fight to ensure the 8-hour workday we are now accustomed to.
Source: The American Postal Workers Union. Link: here.

47-America’s Nightmare: Two Presidents at 100 Days

Paul

7 comments

May 1, 2025

America has reached the momentous, yet really meaningless milestone that occurs every four years; the completion of the president’s first 100 days in office. It’s an unofficial-official anniversary demanded by nothing more than tradition. Neither required by law or mandated by the Constitution, the hundredth day is when the pollsters poll, the press reports (in varying degrees) and the pundits analyze, harrumph or huzzah, and then issue their report cards.

An article (link here) published by the think tank Brookings, provides a thumbnail history and explanation of the first 100 days and its importance; as if there actually is any importance to it.

The marking of a president’s first 100 days began with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first term. There’s a sad irony when one compares the two men on each end of the timeline; the one who received the very first 100 day report card with the man who received the latest. The differences are stark and revealing and shows just how far the dignity of the office can tumble.

47-America’s Nightmare: Just Another Day at the Oval Office

Paul

4 comments

April 27, 2025

April 27, 2025
I was at a protest yesterday and one of the speakers asked the assembled crowd, “How many of you are afraid to look at the news in the morning?” The show of hundreds of hands was almost unanimous, and I imagine that those who didn’t raise their hands had them full.

Almost as if it was predetermined, I woke up at four in the morning, shook off the cobwebs and picked up my phone to read; ‘Smithsonian begins removing exhibits, artifacts from African American History Museum.’ Well, with the idea of another hour of sleep dashed by exalted leader, I got up, set the coffee to brew, and read the bad news.

Bad news?

Well of course it is. It’s what happens in Trump’s America.

47 – America’s Nightmare: Hunkered Down in Trump’s America

Paul

10 comments

April 23, 2025

April 2025

“We were heading onto the ferry leaving France to England. The French border officer asked if I had applied for entry when I first arrived last week. I told him I believed the ETIAS was not required until October. He said I needed to pay the penalty within 3 days. Then when entering the UK border, the immigration officer held me for a couple of minutes to check how many days I had already been in the UK to verify I was not overstaying. I honestly believe they were harassing me simply for being American. I’m disappointed that a U.S. passport is no longer respected. I was not expecting the questions.”

That was the unfortunate experience of an American acquaintance of mine who was traveling in Europe this month, and who, for years has been traveling to Europe extensively for the past few years. My wife Cora, and I discussed this briefly. I have a hard time blaming the agents who took those unexpected extra steps. “Human nature,” I said. “Our country has become so hostile and unwelcoming that I guess this is their chance, on a personal level, for a little payback.”

If they were putting a little squeeze, just a little one, on an American, over the mistreatment being meted out by the Trump regime, I don’t blame them.

It used to be that for Americans traveling abroad, the biggest issues were; understanding the local language, the currency, local customs, figuring out the transportation systems, and the most confounding one, when it’s customary to tip or not to tip. There’s always been the jitters at passport control but I’ve never seen an American detained.

I had a moment of pause at passport control in Vienna before the 2024 elections, when the officer thumbed through my passport and asked about a previous stay in Italy. Apparently the Italian official had stamped my passport incorrectly. After a few questions, some raised eyebrows, and a few moments of shifting her glance from my passport to my face, she waved me through.

My wife and I are in our seventies and trying to squeeze in a few years of travel before the creaks and aches of age leave us bound to local road trips. Last December I began planning a trip to Vietnam and then put it on hold when my wife confessed that Vietnam was not her dream vacation. We agreed that if I wanted, I could plan a trip by myself.

We’ve since talked about Istanbul, and Greece, Portugal and Morocco. We’ve discussed a trip to Singapore and the Philippines, my wife’s native country. I would like to take a solo trip to Italy, the land of my mother’s birth, the land that I love dearly and consider my heart’s home. I’ve thought about Sweden, the country of my paternal family’s origin.

Those plans are all on lockdown now. Part of the reason is that I’m wary of the reception we would get while abroad. The other reason, the more worrisome, is that I’m wary of the reception I would get when clearing U.S. Customs.

47 – America’s Nightmare: Feeling Hungary

Paul

6 comments

April 19, 2025

“Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model. Americans, Brits, Spaniards, Australians—everyone—can and should learn from it.” Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, The Hungarian Conservative, December 2022.

With his engaging kindly smile, the shortish, stocky fellow with his silver/white hair parted down the middle could be any child’s doting grandpa. Wife Anikó Lévai describes her husband Viktor as tender at home, a characterization that’s likely meant as a deflection from the persona of the man who’s been described as “choleric,” “unstable and impulsive,” a “hot tempered” moody man who is “quite aggressive in conflicts.

And while the stout man might be a doting father to his five children, the aggressive, “choleric” side of the man is the autocrat’s imperative, one who has ruled Hungary for 15 years while exhausting his nation’s potential and bleeding his once relatively rich country dry. While the moody Viktor Orban has made himself a pariah within the European Union, he’s become the darling of America’s morally wrecked Republican Party.

If Project 2025 couldn’t serve as an auger for what America under Trump 2.0 could be (it was literally in writing that anyone could download), then anyone paying attention could have looked to Orban’s Hungary for a sneak peek of a Trumpian America. But the GOP’s love affair with Orban didn’t have anything to do with the price at the pump, so who cared?

If Orban didn’t show up on the radar of an American electorate that could’ve seen incoming trouble, he was on blast when it came to Trump, the GOP and all of the usual right wing mouthpieces who had discovered a role model. And for a party that has become a dishonorable vestige of its former self that blast was a positive.

In May of last year, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held a convention in Budapest (that’s in Hungary, for those who are still dim on matters international), it’s third such event in Hungary.

When it came to Orban, name brand Republicans were over the moon. So smitten were they that they made your stereotypical teenage girl with a crush seem like a restrained, disciplined monk.

After meeting Orban, Kari Lake, the Arizona woman whose hobby is election denial gushed, “he changed my life (one wonders if Lake has washed her hand since it shook Orban’s). Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland called Hungary “one of the most successful models as a leader for conservative principles and governance.” Steve Bannon described Orban as “one of my heroes in the world today, in addition to President Trump.”

After hosting Orban for a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in March of last year, Donald Trump said of the autocrat, “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic.”

Sean Hannity, the commentator whose deer in the headlights facial expression is a mask of perpetual confusion, said of Orban, in a statement that, after a quarter of a year of Trump would be hilarious if America’s current situation wasn’t so tragic, “He is defending democracy against the unaccountable billionaires, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and certain western governments. He is fighting for democracy against those forces which would like to bury it.”

47 – America’s Nightmare: You Don’t Get to Have an Opinion

Paul

5 comments

April 17, 2025

The second of two parts about the Trump Administration’s assault on the First Amendment.

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ~ Alexander Butcher, 2016 winner of the Orwell Youth Prize.

It’s a mostly innocuous op-ed, but it got flagged as being anti-Semitic and posing a threat to American interests. If that’s the case, then the standard for either offense is a chasm so broad that it can gobble millions of people, citizen or immigrant. The breadth of that standard can only be defined as a rationale to help the administration reach the deportation goal that it set early on (which by some reports is lagging and making Trump furious), to get rid of people it considers to be undesirable or subversive, and to strike terror and subsequent silence into people who would have the temerity to speak out against the policies of the Trump regime. Or maybe it’s just as simple as retaliation. Because retaliation and vengeance are hallmarks of the Trump regime.

The “controversial” opinion piece with the unwieldy title, “Try again, President Kumar: Renewing calls for Tufts to adopt March 4 TCU Senate resolutions,” was co-authored by Tufts PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk, and was published on March 26, 2024 in The Tufts Daily. Link to op-ed – here.

The piece is almost solely concerned with the Tufts University policies towards the Gaza War and Tufts University President’s rejection of resolutions passed by the student Senate regarding Israel and the Gaza War. Of four resolutions that were taken up by the Senate the three that passed called for:
The university to stop the sale of Sabra products because its co-owners, the Strauss Group, have materially supported the Israeli military’s Golani Brigade.
The university president, deans and provost to acknowledge the Palestinian genocide, and to apologize for (Tufts President) Kumar’s previous statements.
The Tufts Investment Office to disclose all of the university’s investments and then divest from companies tied directly and indirectly to Israel.

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