Numerous times over these last six months, I have said something like, “All Trump knows how to do is blow up things.”
But I was wrong.
Yes, he does know how to destroy things, such as:
partnerships with Canada and Mexico,
Civil Service competency and morale,
federal research into cancer cures,
Federal civil rights enforcement, and
climate change and renewable energy policies.
In general, Trump is destroying the role of the federal government in protecting consumers, caring for the poor, promoting renewable energy, and predicting the weather. Last week, we saw the first of many disasters triggered by the refusal of Trump and his minions to staff adequately the national weather service.
“He knows how to tear down but he has no clue how to build up.” That is a sentiment I have expressed many times.
But I was wrong, and I am wrong. Now we know that Trump has the desire and the capacity of a great builder. He has in mind blowing up agencies that help the people of the United States, but he also has plans to be a great builder … of prisons.
Prisons. Jails. Detention Centers. Concentration Camps.
The United States already has the highest percentage of incarcerated people of any nation on earth. An odd distinction for a country that claims to be the “land of the free.”
In the days and years ahead, even more of us will be behind bars. Some of us will be incarcerated here in the United States, but many will be jailed in other countries, such as Libya, El Salvador, and other authoritarian countries. I fully expect Russia, Venezuela, and North Korea to be added to this list.
In all of these places, here and abroad, the incarceration of people will be funded by the American taxpayer. In other words, billions of dollars that have been earmarked for governmental services to people are being stripped away to pay for prisons and prisoners. It is the chief domestic agenda of the Trump Regime: fewer services, more prisons.
As we know, much of this manacle mania derives from Trump’s racist rejection of immigrants. Here again a disturbing reality looms: hard-working, tax-paying people are being rounded up and herded into cages, and the expense of this needless enterprise is born by other hard-working, tax-paying people. How in the world is this sound fiscal policy?
But “sound fiscal policy” is not high on Trump’s agenda. He wants prisons, jails, cages, and concentration camps. He intends to detain anybody and everybody who is not a US citizen to his liking, and he will need a lot of bars and chains to make it happen.
Apparently, this will please a lot of people, especially white Evangelicals and the Catholic Supreme Court (but more about that on SUNDAY IN THIS HOUSE).
I don’t understand how it will sit with Jesus, who famously launched his own call to kingdom living by announcing this: “The Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to declare good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to proclaim freedom to the captive and recovery of sight to the blind. The Lord has sent me to free the oppressed and announce the year of the Lord’s favor.”
But I guess that is some other year. This is the year of Alligator Alcatraz.
Dwight A Moody
Numerous times over these last six months, I have said something like, “All Trump knows how to do is blow up things.”
But I was wrong.
Yes, he does know how to destroy things, such as:
partnerships with Canada and Mexico,
Civil Service competency and morale,
federal research into cancer cures,
Federal civil rights enforcement, and
climate change and renewable energy policies.
In general, Trump is destroying the role of the federal government in protecting consumers, caring for the poor, promoting renewable energy, and predicting the weather. Last week, we saw the first of many disasters triggered by the refusal of Trump and his minions to staff adequately the national weather service.
“He knows how to tear down but he has no clue how to build up.” That is a sentiment I have expressed many times.
But I was wrong, and I am wrong. Now we know that Trump has the desire and the capacity of a great builder. He has in mind blowing up agencies that help the people of the United States, but he also has plans to be a great builder … of prisons.
Prisons. Jails. Detention Centers. Concentration Camps.
The United States already has the highest percentage of incarcerated people of any nation on earth. An odd distinction for a country that claims to be the “land of the free.”
In the days and years ahead, even more of us will be behind bars. Some of us will be incarcerated here in the United States, but many will be jailed in other countries, such as Libya, El Salvador, and other authoritarian countries. I fully expect Russia, Venezuela, and North Korea to be added to this list.
In all of these places, here and abroad, the incarceration of people will be funded by the American taxpayer. In other words, billions of dollars that have been earmarked for governmental services to people are being stripped away to pay for prisons and prisoners. It is the chief domestic agenda of the Trump Regime: fewer services, more prisons.
As we know, much of this manacle mania derives from Trump’s racist rejection of immigrants. Here again a disturbing reality looms: hard-working, tax-paying people are being rounded up and herded into cages, and the expense of this needless enterprise is born by other hard-working, tax-paying people. How in the world is this sound fiscal policy?
But “sound fiscal policy” is not high on Trump’s agenda. He wants prisons, jails, cages, and concentration camps. He intends to detain anybody and everybody who is not a US citizen to his liking, and he will need a lot of bars and chains to make it happen.
Apparently, this will please a lot of people, especially white Evangelicals and the Catholic Supreme Court (but more about that on SUNDAY IN THIS HOUSE).
I don’t understand how it will sit with Jesus, who famously launched his own call to kingdom living by announcing this: “The Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to declare good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to proclaim freedom to the captive and recovery of sight to the blind. The Lord has sent me to free the oppressed and announce the year of the Lord’s favor.”
But I guess that is some other year. This is the year of Alligator Alcatraz.
Dwight A Moody
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