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OPINION

The 1960s and 1970s were turbulent…often crazy times. I lived it…voting for the first time, protesting for the first time…and living in another country for the first time. With assassinations of Sen. Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Vietnam, Watergate, Women’s Liberation, Civil Rights, First Man on the Moon…there was no shortage of events and causes.

Even so, as tumultuous as American politics and culture were…it was the dictatorships and military juntas in South America that made life insufferable for more people…millions of people…for decades.

Augusto Pinochet in Chile…Juan Perón in Argentina…Manuel Noriega in Panama, among others, prospered…doing what they had to do to stay in power…and punishing those who were disloyal.

The U.S. had a heavy hand in meting out injustices in South America…instigating a coup against democratically elected Salvador Allende and supporting Pinochet for 17 years…a dictator who killed more than 28,000 of his countrymen.

Likewise, the U.S. supported Noriega…who with Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, smuggled cocaine, and helped the U.S. get weapons to Nicaraguan Contra death squads…before finally outliving his usefulness to America and being arrested for crimes he committed that once benefitted the U.S.

(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

As Yogi Berra once noted, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” Well, sort of…it’s just that the autocratic rule and retribution against enemies has moved north to what I once knew as the land of the free and home the brave.

Just one month into the Second Coming of Donald Trump…the U.S. is already reeling from social and political sucker punches from the Trump and his Republican henchmen.

For the most part, the administration’s actions have been vengeful retaliations against those Trump views as disloyal, acts that harm the safety and welfare of Americans and ultimately could prove unconstitutional and illegal, and, well, some things are simply stupid. They are page for page out of the Project 2025 playbook.

He pardoned 1,600 members of the Jan. 6 mob that stormed the Capitol, including those convicted of nonviolent offences and those who committed violence. He ended Secret Service protection for those he considered his enemies, like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

He ended asylum for anyone entering the U.S. through the Mexico-U.S. border. He rescinded security clearances of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, both of whom have brought cases against him.

He renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. He froze all foreign aid. He imposed tariffs…then delayed them for Canada and Mexico. He reinstated the Federal death penalty if convicted of murdering a law enforcement officer or an undocumented migrant convicted of crimes otherwise eligible for the death penalty. Apparently, Jan. 6 rioters who killed officers are excepted.

Also, he moved to end American birthright citizenship. He rescinded 78 of President Joseph Biden’s executive orders. He pledged to re-take the Panama Canal…and claimed U.S. ships would no longer have to pay for passage. He ended all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

He illegally fired 18 inspectors general, as well as the chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

Less than 36 hours after his confirmation as head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought - an author of Project 2025 - closed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which regulated mortgages, credit cards, student loans and other areas affecting Americans’ financial lives.

He compromised every member of the CIA hired in the past two years by ordering the release of first names and last name initials. He gave Elon Musk free reign to use Treasury files as he sees fit. He forced thousands of U.S.A.I.D. Employees to go on leave.

Of course, Trump continues to lie…it’s what he does best…claiming U.S.A.I.D. spent 50 million taxpayer dollars sending condoms to Gaza for Hamas. Just for the record, the U.S. spent $8.2 million on male and females condoms mostly to African nations…to curb the spread of disease and prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Oh, and Trump said the U.S. would take over Gaza…you know, Gaza, the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

I could go on…there are literally scores more inane actions and lies…but this is only a 1,000- word column. You can easily discern which of the above actions are vengeful retaliations, threats to U.S. security, illegal and unconstitutional acts…and stupid things. There are plenty that overlap.

By the time you read this, there will be more Trump nonsense…you can’t keep up with his idiocy…which is by design. Blow everything up…all at once. Trump is a dictator wannabe…and there’s not a decent Republican in Congress who’ll stand up to him. I dare you…name one.

If you look at what happened in South America nearly 50 years ago…you’ll see that it started mostly with what we’re seeing from Trump and the MAGA Republicans.

Donald Trump is a dangerous man. But he’s in way over his head…and the people he has surrounded himself with…quite frankly, aren’t very smart and they’re ass-kissers…really dangerous combination. These MAGA types remind me of Germans in the 1930s and 1940s. Most Germans claimed they were just following orders.

I’ve said this before…I’ve known Donald Trump for 45 years. He’s a fraud…then and now. He’s a racist…then and now. He suffers from god-knows-what mental illnesses. The first thing I heard him say when we met in 1980, was that the best thing about business was “getting even.” Nothing has changed. He’s the same low life…then and now. Try as you might, you can’t polish a turd.

Americans aren’t going to let this insanity rule. The protests will continue…they’ll get bigger and more frequent. And unlike, South American dictators…Trump simply can’t kill thousands of citizens he doesn’t like.

America is far from perfect, but until Americans stand up to this perverse wannabe dictator it has no chance to once again claim to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. The wheels of progress forever grind slowly and, yes, the wait is excruciatingly painful.

Hold on America, you’re in a life-and-death struggle.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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