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From his reactionary cabinet appointments to threats towards immigrant Americans and allied countries, President Trump has returned to Washington with a vengeance. What might seem like an overwhelming torrent of outrageous news over the past week will likely continue unabated.
This country is so vicious—and unfortunately, stupid—that it is cutting off its own nose to spite its proverbial face.
While I tend to prefer writing long-form analysis, I’m trying a somewhat different format in this post. Each of the sections below would ideally be its own article, but working multiple jobs has limited how much time I have available to research and write.
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Immigration
As an immigrant, watching Democrats in Congress join Republicans [ [link removed] ] to demonize immigrants, and allow arrests based on suspicion—without any proof of wrongdoing—felt revolting. Anyone pretending that Democrats offer a better alternative to the GOP should be ashamed for enabling that ruse to continue.
Beyond the Laken Riley Act (which Trump reportedly [ [link removed] ] plans to sign into law today), Trump also issued a series of nearly a dozen executive orders inviting further restrictions on immigrants. We still haven’t unwound the impacts from his previous attacks [ [link removed] ] on immigrants.
Expect family separations to return.
All this would be bad enough even if America didn’t rely on undocumented immigrants for a variety of roles, including hospitality, construction, and particularly, rebuilding in the wake of natural disasters [ [link removed] ] like the recent catastrophic floods in North Carolina or the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles.
This country is so vicious—and unfortunately, stupid—that it is cutting off its own nose to spite its proverbial face.
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The origins of COVID, proof of alien life, and why we can’t trust the CIA
After dismissing people who criticized the military’s role in developing the COVID-19 virus and the apparent incompetence of its leak from a supposedly secure lab into the world (where it went on to kill at least 3 million people [ [link removed] ]), the CIA recently reversed course.
Announcing the results of an investigation started under Biden, the CIA this week concluded [ [link removed] ] that the COVID-19 virus most likely escaped from a lab. Recall that the “lab leak” hypothesis was, for years, officially discredited and treated as disinformation before that hypothesis more recently became an object of consensus.
The arc traces the same pattern as “conspiracies” about the existence of extraterrestrial life, which were derided for decades before a series of recent congressional hearings [ [link removed] ] explored the topic transparently for the first time.
It’s the same pattern visible in the Agency’s false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which led to an illegitimate invasion and the death of at least a million people [ [link removed] ].
Why does anyone believe anything the CIA says? Not many institutions can plausibly claim a death count numbering in the millions.
Someone tell Netanyahu he agreed to a ceasefire
Earlier this month, I was as excited as anyone upon learning that a ceasefire had finally been reached [ [link removed] ] between Israel and Hamas. Informed by the preceding pattern, I predicted [ [link removed] ] that the ceasefire would unfortunately prove ineffective, and that the genocide would continue.
I hate being proven right [ [link removed] ].
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Insider trading and corruption
A bipartisan block of policymakers recently introduced [ [link removed] ] a bill to curtail insider trading by members of Congress.
While important, their proposal could appear in a dictionary next to the phrase “too little too late.”
Where were these figures when their outrage could have made a difference? When I ran for Congress against the literal poster child of this problem and proposed a solution [ [link removed] ] years ago, they were doing things like appearing on the covers [ [link removed] ] of magazines like Vanity Fair and praising the queen of insider trading even while she dragged [ [link removed] ] them publicly and marginalized [ [link removed] ] them within Congress.
When it mattered, the figures now [ [link removed] ] calling to ban congressional insider trading chose to hold their fire and place their careers before issues that are sadly nothing new.
I hope Congress passes this bill. And I hope voters see through the political theater orchestrated by careerists who lacked the courage to speak out when it mattered.
Democrats, gerontocracy, and hypocrisy
Democrats say they want new leaders [ [link removed] ], but they act like a rabid cult dedicated to building careers and dynasties for corrupt oligarchs. Mine wasn’t the only voice [ [link removed] ] neutralized by the Democratic Party’s strategic employment of racism to politically insulate the party’s commitment to militarism and economic predation.
I’ve written recently about how the Democratic Party can’t learn [ [link removed] ] lessons from its electoral defeat, particularly because [ [link removed] ] its most powerful voices have different incentives than the rest of us.
At the same time, describing the party’s problem as rooted in gerontocracy is inaccurate, and also charitable [ [link removed] ] since it downplays the extent to which its corruption is institutional, rather than only rooted in the careers of particular individuals.
As long as they defer to the corruption of those party elites, grassroots voices calling for change in the party will remain frustrated.
Tik tok and free expression
When the Supreme Court upheld Congress’ expression-killing law to require the sale of TikTok, Americans predictably flocked to other platforms.
While establishment voices claim the TikTok presents national security concerns, the reality is that it was among the few social media platforms to resist government pressure to diminish the visibility of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Americans are a lot less free than most of us seem to think. Rarely has that been proven more visibly. At least our supposed adversaries understand: “Chinese people always feel like they live in the only country that has really restricted internet spaces….Now, Americans are experiencing the same with [the TikTok ban], so now we can all relate, we all have the same struggles and problems [ [link removed] ].”
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