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THE MADNESS OF TRUMP’S VISION FOR AMERICA  
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Linda Pentz Gunter

Morning Star
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_ From terrifying the children of immigrants to pepper-spraying
frogs, the US under Trump is rapidly descending into mayhem. _

, A protester dressed in a costume watches as Department of Homeland
Security officers detain a protester outside a US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Oregon, October 2, 2025.

 

AN INFLATABLE frog has been pepper-sprayed, spawning (sorry) an army
of affinity frogs and other creatures real and fictional, protesting
at the often violent arrests of immigrants. A clarinettist in a brass
band has been assaulted and arrested, abbreviations have been outlawed
and naked bicycle riders are swarming our streets.

If it looks like the United States has gone mad, that’s because it
probably has.

All of this happened in just one US city — Portland, Oregon — the
hotbed of antifa, according to the Trump administration, which is
trying to proscribe the “group” even though these days
“antifa,” an abbreviation of “anti-fascist,” pretty much
defines anyone who opposes Trump, and was never an
actual organisation.

Also this week, the US Secretary of Defence, who, in the interests of
achieving peace says he has renamed his purview the Department of War
although no-one actually calls it that, announced this week that the
United States had given the Qataris their own air force base
in Idaho.

DoD Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bizarre declaration was quickly
retracted after President Trump’s own “America First” base
reacted with shock that a foreign power was being gifted its own
military base on American soil. What Hegseth apparently meant, or what
he now says he meant it to mean, is that the US will be hosting the
Qatari military on a US base for training purposes, a not
uncommon practice.

In another ominous move by the DoD, this time to shut down free
speech, the department has ordered media outlets that cover the
Pentagon to sign onto a new press policy that forbids defence
reporters from soliciting, obtaining or using any information not
already authorised by the DoD. All but one have refused to do so.

Meanwhile, as the Gaza ceasefire agreement was finally announced,
Jared Kushner, the reprehensible son-in-law of the even more repulsive
US president, floating in some parallel universe and with visions of
beachfront real estate still dancing in his head, publicly pronounced
Israel “exceptional” for refusing to replicate “the barbarism of
the enemy.”

Kushner seems not only to have missed the two-year genocide in Gaza
but also Israel’s cruel and inhumane treatment of Palestinians for
the many decades prior.

He is not alone, of course. The US mainstream media has been awash in
happy reunion stories of the returned Israeli hostages, which would be
entirely understandable if they did not at the same time largely
ignore the grimmer realties surrounding the simultaneous release of
the Palestinian hostages (for such they are, not “prisoners,”
since most have never committed a crime).

Some of the Palestinians just released were never reunited with their
families at all but were instead immediately deported to Egypt. Others
were left in the West Bank where the hostile and violent takeover of
Palestinian lands and homes by illegal Israeli
“settlers” continues.

Even those who could joyously reunite with their loved ones, in some
cases after decades of separation, were not allowed to savour that
moment without the spectre of the Israeli menace still literally
hanging over their heads.

Instead of bombs falling from the skies, the Israelis rained down
threats in the form of paper messages warning Palestinians that “We
are watching you everywhere. If you show any support for a terrorist
group, you will expose yourself to arrest and punishment.”

No-one should believe that this ceasefire signals any intent
whatsoever by Israel to relinquish its control over the lives
of Palestinians.

The obvious response to all this? Give Trump the Nobel Peace Prize!
The past weeks have seen a non-stop sycophantic advocacy campaign by
legions of leaders and political commentators who advocated for Trump
with almost unprecedented zeal. That was before last Friday’s
announcement of the decidedly problematic choice of Venezuelan
opposition leader and “iron lady” Maria Corina Machado instead.

That is the paradigm we are now in: the belief that the Nobel Peace
Prize should be awarded to those who enabled, funded, armed and
participated in a genocide, once they themselves decided to halt their
own war crimes.

Trump could have ended Israel’s genocide in Gaza on day one of his
presidency with a single phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. He chose not to. Like us, he watched the killings,
bombings, and forced starvation along with the targeted assassinations
of 1,700 doctors and more than 200 journalists, live-streamed on our
screens for two years. We’ve been horrified. He did nothing. Worse
still, at times he egged on Netanyahu to “finish the job.”

Back home, Trump continues with his quiet coup. Denied for now the
possibility of sending troops into major US cities, he will continue
testing this, with an eye to deploying them during the 2026 midterm
elections that could see both the US House and Senate swing to
the Democrats.

Federal agencies are being purged of dissenters and stacked with
“yes men.” The Elon Chainsaw Massacre may be over now that
billionaire Elon Musk, who ordered the early rounds of dismissals
through the entity he invented — the Department of Government
Efficiency — has fled the scene. But the maiming continues, as
critical workers are fired, public institutions defunded and
non-profits viewed as progressive or “woke” are blacklisted.

The barbarity of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
activities has prompted citizen protests and sometimes even
interventions in cities across the US. Portland has become the
epicentre of street theatre protest.

The resistance began, as it often does, with a single individual, a
man in an inflatable frog costume who goes by the name of Apollo Toad,
staring down ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) agents. Pretty
soon, others rallied to his side, dressed as a variety of animals and
cartoon characters, at once mocking the proceedings, but at the same
time driving home the absurdity of Trump’s attempt to label
them terrorists.

The Portland clarinettist, Oriana Korol, had been playing music with
the Unpresidented Brass Band before she was knocked down according to
eyewitnesses, then grabbed and taken to a jail in the neighbouring
state of Washington to face charges of assaulting a federal agent,
accusations her bandmates say are trump(et)ed up.

In Florida, far-right Governor and Trump acolyte Ron DeSantis is
trying to get a Bill passed in his state’s legislature, HB 119, also
known as the “No Sharia Act,” a fear-mongering attempt to
“stigmatise Muslims by pretending that US courts could be
‘overruled’ by foreign or religious law,” the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, a grassroots civil rights and advocacy
group, said in a statement.

“In reality, American courts are already bound by the US
Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, making HB 119 completely
unnecessary and clearly unconstitutional,” the group said.

Black Hawk helicopters have descended on Chicago, frightening children
out of their beds in the middle of the night, dragged naked and
handcuffed with their families Gestapo-style out onto the street
before being driven away in unmarked cars.

Ironically, one of the most banned books in America right now is A
Clockwork Orange that features a dystopian, violence-filled future.
It’s a black comedy, but the censors miss that. In the meantime,
there were 44,000 gun deaths in the US in 2024, equivalent to wiping
out an entire British town the size of Salisbury
or Ashton-under-Lyne.

The Trump administration has banned or cautioned against using at
least 350 words or phrases, including “climate change” (with and
without a hyphen), “evidence-based,” “chest-feed + person”
(don’t ask), “wind power” and yes, even “women.”

On the international front, Trump is bombing boats out of Venezuelan
waters without a care as to who might be on them, leading to concerns
of a war against Venezuela. He has announced he may send long-range
Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, a clear provocation to Russia.

At home, renewable energy projects have been all but killed off. Trump
has threatened 100 per cent tariffs against China. The price of eggs
has become the least of our problems.

There are still 190 active lawsuits challenging Trump administration
actions, down from more than 300 since Trump took office in January
which already seems like a lifetime ago.

We are still clinging to the hope that our legal system will save us
from autocracy and a descent into fascism, even though the US Supreme
Court is stacked in Trump’s favour. Three of the nine justices were
placed there by him alongside three other arch-conservatives. It was
that court that declared last year that the president has widespread
immunity from prosecution while in office.

The government is still shut down. Trump says he won’t go to heaven
(in case anyone cares), for achieving the Gaza ceasefire. But he is
determined to plunge the country he is supposed to be leading into a
living hell.

_Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland._

* Dystopia
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* Trump Administration
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* ICE Raids
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* Gaza
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* Venezuela
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* frogs
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