Trump is a Dangerous Menace and He is Showing What He Is: Take Him at His Word
by Luis Torres
The Univision interview was enough to make you nauseous.
In the current media landscape we usually hear or read bits and pieces of the human pendejada that is Donald J. Trump. He seems to be in hiding, to a degree. Mercifully, we can tune out from the latest racist, xenophobic or just plain inane utterance of the Liar- in-Chief. We tend to ignore him (although we do so at our own peril). We pay scant attention when he pops up occasionally, usually on some right-wing media platform or other. But just a few days ago, we got to see and hear the angry, avaricious, unfiltered dangerous rantings of Trump on full display without interruption for a full hour. It was enough to make you nauseous. And it was enough to drive you a bit crazy.
I’m talking about the hour-long so-called “interview” of Trump on Univision. Univision has a large and loyal Spanish-speaking audience. It wasn’t really an interview; it was a nonstop spiel by Trump, full of lies and misrepresentations—all unchallenged by Enrique Acevedo. Acevedo would lob a softball “question” to Trump and then sit back and let the guy pontificate endlessly. If you are a normal, rational person you sat there in disbelief. And you sat there simmering. (In my case, my angry shouts startled the cat.)
Some of the stuff Trump said was a repetition of what he spit out in 2015 when he launched his campaign, coming down that infamous escalator. In the performance on Univision he said that Mexico and other Latin American countries “are not sending their best people” to the United States. They are “sending” rapists, murderers and drug dealers. And he threw out so-called statistics that he clearly pulled out of the air. All unchallenged by Acevedo.
Unbelievably, he told Acevedo—with a straight face—that he did in fact keep his promise to “build the wall and make Mexico pay for it.”
Unbelievably, he told Acevedo—with a straight face—that he did in fact keep his promise to “build the wall and make Mexico pay for it.” That’s nonsense, of course. But Trump clearly lives in some fanciful alternate universe. “Mexico paid for it,” he said, obviously using some sort of magical thinking and magical bookkeeping. Like the magical method he used to manipulate the books of his baloney real estate business.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said it quite succinctly at the time Trump revealed his real character. Sanders said: “The man is just a pathological liar.” Let’s give Sanders points for brevity, clarity and accuracy. In the Univision broadcast it was mentira after mentira. Is that the kind of guy you want for president? ¡Chingao!
At one point in the Univision broadcast Trump went on and on about how he single-handedly “fixed the problem” of violent gang members from Central America who had come to the U.S. In the broadcast he claimed, without any evidence, that “thousands of gang members” were to be deported from the U.S. back to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. But, he said, the presidents of those countries at first were reluctant to accept them. Then Trumps spins his tale as Acevedo sits there quietly.
Trump says, “I had the solution.” He claims he told the leaders of those Central American countries that the United States government would halt any financial aid to those countries, unless they agreed to accept those bad guys from the U.S. Trump says, “almost overnight, I got phone calls from the three presidents.” And, he says, he told them they had to take back the bad guys. “I did it in a phone call—three phone calls.” I think he was gonna imply that the Tooth Fairy was an intermediary.
A verbatim quote: “immigrants are poisoning the blood of America.”
Trump went on to strut his stuff with a growing web of bs. He railed that—and this is a verbatim quote—“immigrants are poisoning the blood of America.” He sang the praises of dictators such as Orban in Hungary. And when it came to current crises in the world, such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Trump proclaimed: “This would never happen if I was still president.” (Hey, I thought you were still president, since you didn’t accept the results of the last election; but that’s a different story.)
That whole performance was a disgrace to any rational viewer. But it served a purpose. If only people took the time to listen to what the guy is saying. It foretells what might come about should—perish the thought—he sit in the Oval Office again. And that’s the big point.
Trump has made no secret of what he intends to do if he gets enough electoral votes in the 2024 election. (Yes, I know, it’s a scary thought.) In the Univision broadcast and in his rantings at sporadic campaign stops as well as his virulent social media posts, he is telling us what he plans to do. Let’s take him at his word. Let’s take what he says seriously, even though they are the ravings of a loon. Don’t say he didn’t warn you.
He has said publicly that certain parts of the Constitution should be ignored when it comes to his actions.
What does he plan to do? He’d wipe his behind with the Constitution. He has said publicly that certain parts of the Constitution should be ignored when it comes to his actions. He would strip thousands of career employees in the federal government of their civil service protection. That way they can be fired so that he can “obliterate the deep state,” as he put it. He would do this by means of an executive order that would allow him to automatically reclassify workers as “corrupt bureaucrats who have weaponized our justice system” and “corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.” Hey, these are verbatim quotes. He’s telling us what he plans to do. We should pay attention. He will use the FBI for his own personal purposes.
Trump wants to re-instate that infamous Muslim travel ban. (With some filigree and rewriting, it was reduced to a travel ban from certain countries, which happen to have Muslim populations.) To-may-to, to-mah-to. This time, he says, the ban will be more explicit and will have teeth.
And regarding the U.S.-Mexio border, he has unashamedly projected that he will re-assign thousands of military personnel stationed around the world to work as guards at the border. Wow.
Hey, but that’s not all—as the Popeil commercials used to tell us. He will pressure Congress to enact a law establishing that “only two genders exist.” I don’t recall when Trump became a scientist, but he wants you to know that he knows best.
He also wants to pass laws that will guarantee that public schools only provide “patriotic education.” None of that irrelevant stuff about slavery and the genocide of indigenous people. Who needs facts? Who needs attention to reality?
He wants to pass laws that will guarantee that public schools only provide “patriotic education.”
Regarding the issue of homelessness and what to do about it, Trump’s got it covered. He wants to sweep up those pesky poor people who are living on big city streets. With one wave of his magical thinking magic wand, he wants to build Tent Cities in deserts and other open lands. That’ll fix the problem, he promises.
Oh, and then there’s the use of Nazi-like language, which reveals something of his character. During a hate-filled Veterans Day speech recently, he sounded more like Adolph Hitler than ever before. He said the following: “In honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible—they’ll do anything—whether legally or illegally to destroy America and destroy the American Dream.” Vermin! What an eloquent speaker! What a tapado! In that mouthful of menace he mentions “fascists.” Clearly, in this context it takes one to know one. That diatribe is quite similar to filmed and recorded rants by Hitler himself. Except he used the word “vermin” to characterize, Jews, homosexuals and the disabled.
He has promised recriminations. “You come after me, I’ll come after you,” Let’s take him at his word.
Trump’s horseshit speech at that Veterans Day event was alarming, in and of itself. But equally alarming is that a big crowd of MAGA hat-wearing men and women cheered their asses off in approval. Their hats were red but the newspaper accounts I read of the event didn’t indicate what color their shirts were. (I can offer a metaphorical guess.)
But, let’s be honest, Trump is scary enough on his own, without comparison to previous authoritarians. He is showing us what he’s all about. You can’t say he didn’t warn you.
He has promised recriminations. “You come after me, I’ll come after you,” he has said. Let’s take him at his word. And as citizens and voters, let’s act appropriately.
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Luis Torres lives in Pasadena, California. He is a veteran journalist. He is the author of a forthcoming biography of politician Gloria Molina. To contact Luis Torres write: Luis.r.torres@charter.net