After Trump expressed anger at Putin's attitudes toward Ukraine in his war against it, something went missing. For after Trump threatened additional tariffs against Russia, no additional tariffs came even after Trump declared a trade war with the world and Putin's persistence in attacking civilian targets and slaughtering children. Tariffs against America's now former allies were put into place; but, again, no new tariffs for Russia could note even be seen on the horizon (click here).
What does the above mean? It should be quite clear by now. We have been witnessing a geopolitical shift. America is no longer a reliable ally of the NATO nations. It is even no longer an ally of its dearest and closest friend, Canada. Canada and the rest of NATO are all now America's exes. Perhaps now is the time for those exes to write a tell all book about what it is like to have America as a partner.
But where is America heading? The way Trump is acting as President, it should be abundantly clear. Trump is acting like America's CEO and Americans are his employees. He is reserving the right to fire any of his employees (a.k.a., even deporting those who have legal green card status) which is a right he will most probably assume when he deports American natural-born citizens whose parents were American citizens.
Another way to look at where America is going is to look at Russia. Why? One reason is because we just don't know how much Trump owes Putin for his election; but we have seen signs of how much Trump admires him. We know that Russia was using disinformation during Trump's previous two Presidential campaigns to help Trump. My own experiences on the internet says to me that I ran into Russian interference during this most recent election. I saw Russian meddling on those who were on the Left and the Right. The goal of the Russian internet ventures during the last Presidential race was to make Trump look preferable to Biden first and then Harris second regardless of Trump's faults. Evidence for this claim is in the efforts of a self-allegedly conservative Christian website writing at least one article justifying Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
In addition, because of both Russia's help in electing Trump and the words of some fellow believers in Christ, I had predicted that if Trump was elected, that Russia would be our future. I predicted that Russia would be our future because it is an oligarchy while granting the Russian Orthodox Church just enough privileges and considerations to keep it in the fold. And indeed we are on the way there.
Trump's lack of additional tariffs on Russia despite their conduct in their War against Ukraine should at least indicate, if not imply, that Trump is moving the U.S. closer and closer to Russia both in terms of being its ally and in terms of becoming more and more like it.
In other instances, the Trump Administration has failed to act on Federal judicial rulings. The most infamous one concerns a man who was mistakenly sent to a maximum security complex in El Salvador. Though the Trump Administration admitted that sending the man there was an error, with the bigger error being that they sent even one person to a prison in another nation without due process of any level, it argued that it has no right to demand that El Salvador has to return the prisoner. In fact, though admitting the error, the Trump Administration has made no voluntary effort to have the man returned. Instead, it argued that the man had ties to MS-13. The man's lawyer denied the claims as well as claimed that the man in question had no criminal record.
Think about the implications here. The Trump Administration can can send anyone to an El Salvador maximum security prison or a prison in any other nation and then wash their hands of the mistake regardless that it was a mistake. That isn't just an ominous position for legal migrants, it applies to American citizens as well. That means any of us could be arrested and sent away with no legal recourse to have the mistake corrected.
And so is the Trump Administration putting America first here? Perhaps the question should be this: Is the Trump Administration putting Americans first? Regardless of the claims made by the Trump Administration, it isn't just actions that speak louder than words, it is inaction as well.
Now that we have pointed out the sins of others, what does our own inaction say about what we really believe? As we reflect on how we have sometimes been inactive in the presence of injustice, especially when we were unjust to others, in addition to urging people to become active in ways that speak out against injustice, we need to have empathy with those who don't. That is because we've done what they are doing now.
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