You’re next
On Tuesday, the convicted felon and unconstitutionally elected “president” of the United States once again mooted the idea of deporting American citizens. “They’re not new to our country. They’re old to our country. Many of them were born in our country,” Trump proclaimed. “I think we ought to get them the hell out of here, too.”
Trump was referring to people who “knife you when you’re walking down the street” or who kill people from behind with a baseball bat. The latter might remind you of the time, in March of 2023, when Trump posted an image of himself on “Truth” Social, about to violently swing a baseball bat next to a photo of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Baseball bat murders do happen in the United States, but they are not an everyday weapon of choice. Trump’s image is clearly an instance of projection, one that occupies his constantly enraged, sick mind. Trump relishes the thought of killing people he doesn’t like with a baseball bat.
In other words, since Trump can’t murder people he hates with a baseball bat, not yet, anyway, maybe he can deport them. You don’t need to be a psychoanalyst to see the twisted connections between people he hates and the violence he wants to inflict on them.
So for now he’ll settle for deporting people he doesn’t like. But it’s another short step in Trump’s mind between people who are violent murderers and politicians, newscasters and prominent Democrats, whom Trump often characterises as “criminals.”
Trump’s deportations are, in fact, criminal acts in and of themselves. They have degenerated from deportations of people to their countries of origin without due process to deportations of American citizens to countries with which they have no personal connection. He is testing the waters to see how far he will be allowed to go, and Republicans have been just fine with it so far.
In just six months in office Trump has received MAGA Republican imprimatur on virtually every evil he has committed or intends to commit. He did receive some push back on his so-called “big beautiful bill” from the likes of Republican Senators Josh Hawley, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, but they meekly got in line when the showdown vote came. Only Thom Tillis remained steadfast against it, at the cost of his political career and permanent ejection from the MAGA cult.
But if Republican senators can sign into law a bill that will result in the deaths of tens of thousands American citizens, what’s a little deportation of American citizens? You know, among friends? Especially if those Americans are, ahem, “criminals.” And who is a criminal? Anyone Trump says, that’s who.
So what does it all mean? It means if Trump can go this far down the rabbit hole of depravity in six months, imagine how far he can go in a couple of years. It means nobody is safe. It means, if you don’t watch your step, you could be next.
If Republicans own the House, the Senate, the Executive and the Supreme Court, there is no one left to speak for us. We must speak for ourselves. We must come out in the millions every week until this madness is stopped. Because the alternative is coming. And like the steam locomotives of a bygone era, you can see that alternative coming from a long way off.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.