DCUM Weblog

One of the main reasons cited by those who voted for cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump was their belief that he cared about issues important to them. The Trump campaign explicitly encouraged this idea with anti-transgender campaign ads using the tag line, "Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you". Trump and his campaign relentlessly focused on the price of eggs, even when that required lying (J. D. Vance once claimed that eggs were selling for $4.00 while standing in front of an egg display with a sign showing the price was $2.99). Given that Trump is a notorious liar, it is remarkable that anyone believed anything that he had to say. But any voters who did have faith that he would address issues relevant to their lives must surely be disappointed by now. Since taking office, both Trump and his top officials have shown themselves to be out of touch with the vast majority of Americans. An administration that promised prosperity is not only leading the country directly into recession but acting as if Americans should enjoy it.

I've noticed a pattern being followed by the officials in the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. Let's call it "justification by label". The idea is that the officials can attach a label to someone, and that label justifies the administration's actions regarding that person. For instance, Trump signed an executive order regarding antisemitism. As a result, foreign students at U.S. colleges and universities can arbitrarily be labeled as having done something that is “antisemitic," which then automatically justifies their deportation. For instance, Rumeysa Öztürk was caught in this situation simply for coauthoring an op-ed that called on Tufts University to recognize the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Trump administration officials, in this case, Secretary of Deportations Marco Rubio, act as the judge, jury, and executioner. Rubio decides who is an antisemite, he decides that the person deserves to be deported, and he is the one who cancels their visa. In the authoritarian Trump regime, Rubio's decisions are not to be questioned. Rubio has applied the label, and the label justifies his actions.

Last week I mentioned in one of my blog posts that the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump had been holding immigration hearings for migrant children as young as 4 years old who had not been provided legal representation due to Trump's budget cuts. These children, who had no idea what the hearings were about, and could not mount even the most basic of legal defenses, generally ended up being deported. Soon after I published that post, several media outlets published stories about other children, including some who were citizens of the United States and were in the course of medical treatment for serious illnesses, who were also being removed from the country. The Trump administration, a group that consists of an inordinate number of bullies, frequently, like most bullies, targets the marginalized and powerless. As such, going after children, the weakest and least powerful of targets, should probably not be a surprise. Still, some of the stories that have come out really strain the conscience.

Today is another day on which there are multiple possible topics about which I could write. The administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump creates enough subject material on a daily basis — never mind an entire weekend — to provide plenty of potential topics. I had planned to discuss the administration's deportation of migrant and U.S. citizen children. I'll probably do that later, but today I want to focus on the almost guaranteed at this point shortage of imported products that we are likely to face. The potential empty shelves that we may encounter are a result of Trump's tariff policy and, particularly, his trade war with China.

While some bloggers may be experts on every topic, I'm not. In particular, I am not an expert on international shipping. So, what follows is the result of a weekend's worth of reading. Hopefully, however, what I have been reading was authored by folks who are experts. What I have learned is that we may have already crossed the point of no return and that empty shelves — at least for a short period — could well be inevitable. This is due to the nature of shipping to the United States from China. When Trump raised tariffs on China to 145%, many U.S. companies cancelled orders from the country. Chinese manufacturers, in turn, cancelled production and halted shipments. While Trump has signaled a potential backdown from the high tariffs, that has not yet occurred and getting production and shipping back to normal is not as simple as flipping a switch. According to Investor's Business Daily, "Cargo ships sailing from Hong Kong to Los Angeles take on average around two-to-three weeks, between 25 and 30 days to Houston and about 40 days to reach New York City". Many U.S. retailers stocked up on imports before the tariffs took effect, causing a surge of cargo being off-loaded at ports. However, those ports are now seeing cargo traffic from China dry up. A reduction in imports from China will first be noticeable on the U.S. West Coast. Because goods are shipped by rail and trucks from there to the middle of the country, there will be a drop in trucking and train transport, and then shortages in the Midwest. Finally, import shortages will hit the U.S. East Coast.

This is a particularly bad time in the history of the United States. Every day provides more evidence of how far our country has moved from the values that we were taught were fundamental to its existence. America was once portrayed as a land of liberty, free expression, and democracy. Today, it is a country in which universities collaborate with the President to suppress the speech of their students. It is a country in which innocent people are grabbed from sidewalks, homes, and even courthouses by unidentified masked agents and shoved into unmarked vehicles, vanishing into detention centers both within the country and abroad. America has become the type of country that we were once warned about and taught to fear. But, in the midst of all this, I have found one simple reason for joy. One of my favorite bands, the Dropkick Murphys, has unexpectedly — at least to me — gained viral popularity as a voice opposed to cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump and his MAGA cult members.

Part of what cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has done, either intentionally or not, is to flood the zone with steps towards autocracy. He and others in his administration take so many actions that it is almost impossible to keep track of them all. Therefore, today I am going to list a few of the more recent autocratic moves that may otherwise go unnoticed.

First, I want to start with an update on the Kilmar Abrego Garcia situation. Abrego Garcia, as most of you reading this blog are probably aware, is the Maryland father who was removed to El Salvador in error. Federal District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered that discovery begin to determine whether the federal government should be held in contempt for failing to obey a Supreme Court ruling that the government should facilitate Abrego Garcia's release and return to the U.S. The government was also required to provide daily status reports on its efforts. On Tuesday, in a strange occurrence, government lawyers submitted their status update under seal, meaning that it was withheld from both the public and Abrego Garcia’s lawyers. We don't know what was in that report, but yesterday the government submitted a motion to delay both discovery and the status reports for seven days. That motion was also filed under seal, but was apparently shared with Abrego Garcia's legal defense team. Abrego Garcia's attorneys responded also under seal. Then Xinis issued an order granting the seven-day delay and saying that both sides had agreed to it. To be clear, we don't know what occurred here other than that the government asked for a delay, Abrego Garcia's legal team agreed to the delay, and Xinis approved it. My hope and guess is that the government is trying to work a deal for Abrego Garcia's return and is afraid that publicity will upset the negotiations. My further speculation is that these negotiations are not taking place between the U.S. and Salvadoran governments, but rather between various components of the U.S. government. Trump's advisors are probably busy jangling keys in front of his face like parents trying to distract a child having a tantrum and don't want him further upset by comments coming out of Xinis' courtroom. No guarantees, of course — again, this is speculation on my part — but I have some hope that Abrego Garcia could be returning to the U.S. within a week.

For the most part, in these blog posts, my intention is to focus on moves towards autocracy and the attendant corruption that normally accompanies such efforts. But another common characteristic of autocracies is incompetence. In a way, this is counterintuitive because one of the primary justifications for autocratic regimes is that they are effective and can get things done. In reality, this is often not the case. Contrary to popular belief, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini did not make the trains run on time. During his rule, Italian trains were just as likely to be late as during earlier periods. He was, however, successful in creating this myth. Similarly, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has been considered a strong leader on economic issues and good for the economy. Supporters cite his background as a businessman and a very rose-tinted-glasses view of his first term. While I believe that former President Joe Biden did an objectively good job with the economy, inflation that persisted throughout his term (though reaching manageable levels in the latter part) convinced most voters otherwise. Indeed, the price of eggs became one of the major talking points of the Trump campaign. However, as things have turned out, much like Mussolini's railway timetable skills, Trump's alleged economic accumen has turned out to be nothing more than myth.

I have found Molly White's "[citation needed]" newsletter to be an essential source of information about developments in the cryptocurrency industry. Last week, she titled her newsletter, "Trump’s newest grift: Building a cryptocurrency empire while destroying its regulators" and devoted the entire publication to the involvement of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump in various aspects of cryptocurrency. I imagine that few understand exactly how involved Trump is with crypto or the corruption that goes along with it. As such, it is probably worth providing an overview of White's report.

What White documents is essentially a crime spree. On the one hand, Trump has used his authority within the government to remove the few regulations and regulators that existed with regard to cryptocurrency. On the other hand, Trump has exploited nearly every opportunity that the new "wild west" crypto environment provides. As White writes, Trump and his family are "set to profit precisely because Trump is gutting the regulations that would normally constrain it". She then goes on to say:

A common technique of novelists is to begin with what appear to be separate, unrelated, storylines and, as the story develops, merge them into a single drama. To some extent, our current reality is much like this, only based in fact rather than imagination. As such, current events can be explained much like a novel.

It may not have been a dark and stormy night, but in the lobby of the New York City building in which Mahmoud Khalil shares student housing with his American-citizen wife, a group of law enforcement officers surrounds him and takes him into custody, refusing to identify themselves or explain what will happen to him. He eventually surfaces in a detention center in the state of Louisiana. The next week, after leaving work and picking up his son, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is stopped by Department of Homeland Security agents. Three days later, Abrego Garcia is flown to El Salvador, where he is imprisoned in the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). Two days after that, Badar Khan Suri, a researcher at Georgetown University, is arrested at his home in Roselyn, Virginia by masked agents. He is moved to a detainment facility in Texas. Not long after that, masked agents seize Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk off of a Somerville, Massachusetts street, forcing her into an unmarked car. She will eventually surface in another detention center in Louisiana. Days later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stop a car driven by Alfredo Juarez, a labor activist who has worked to organize farm workers, smash his car's window, and drag him out onto the pavement. He ends up in a processing center in Tacoma, Washington.

Because writing daily posts about the authoritarian takeover of America is depressing, I have been hoping to use Fridays for more lighthearted topics. Unfortunately, reality has been intruding on that desire, as it has today. There have been important developments involving the subjects of earlier posts that I think are important enough to put off my plans for a less serious post. Fortunately, not all of those developments are necessarily bad.

I'll start with the good news. Yesterday, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen was able to meet with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was wrongly transferred to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). We now know that Abrego Garcia is alive and appears to be in good health. The photos of the meeting were staged by the Salvadoran government and, as such, things likely look much better than reality. Van Hollen said that he would have a fuller report after he returned to the United States. El Salvador's President, Nayib Bukele, later mocked the meeting as "sipping margaritas" and implied that Abrego Garcia would not be released from prison.