I am Furious (Yellow)*

 

 

King D------d  issued a threat yesterday in a conversation with another fascistic American President (Bukele of El Salvador), that "home-grown" US citizens would be captured and sent to Bukele's house of horrors prison there, with no recourse, as the Drumpfenreich has done with the asylum-seeking Maryland resident, the native Salvadorean Kilmar Abrego Garcia.  Just label his opponents as "terrorists", with or without any evidence, and make them disappear.

Do I find this threat credible?  No, in the sense that one cannot simply believe that anything Trump says is a) serious; or b) not a lie.  I have no doubt that he would like to be able to do it, if he felt that he could, but he's lacking the means to do such a thing to natural-born citizens, whose status and ability to block illegal arrest is different from those we are hosting as asylum-seekers or those foreigners who have no legal immigration documentation or have overstayed their visas.  If he continues to get his way with the Supreme Court, which so far seems to want to play ball with Trump in a mistaken belief he will abide by constraints they put upon him, the next step would be to try this stunt with naturalized citizens, or those whose citizenship comes from first-generation birthright within the nation's territory.  Creeping totalitarianism from the asshole contingent.

Still, a threat is a threat, and this is one of existential proportions, and in response all US citizens should consider their responses, and "nothing is off the table", as Trump himself likes to say.  Though I may be slightly optimistic in thinking this would not happen to me, I am laying down two red lines as regards myself and my dear ones.  The first is arbitrary application of the famous "no fly list" from the government  upon us, which would take away a fundamental liberty, and the second is his half-serious suggestion that he would seek a constitutionally-prohibited third term.  Sure, he could do the latter legally if he were to get a constitutional amendment--go for it!  Otherwise, rebellion in defense of our constitution is something I would be compelled to seek.  

The View from Italy

I'm in the second month of a long vacation from the US political maelstrom, my physical presence in which is intolerable to this person, at this time.  I wanted to be gone from the get-go of Drumpfenreich 2.0, but I was convinced to delay the trip a bit longer to get some of the beautiful spring weather springing out all over here.  It's about quality of life, and the 90-day limit of my visa.

Of course, one can't get away completely from it, and here it is all over the news:  the talk of the "dazi" (tariffs) and mention of "Tramp" (or, sometimes "Trampa")--Italians don't really have the short "u" vowel sound, and don't usually end words with a hard consonant, either.  There is something appropriate about calling our fraudster a tramp, or suggesting (in my mind) how he is "trampa-ling" over our republic.

Italy's current coalition government is in a unique position within the European Union, which is providing it certain advantages in the ongoing war--of words, more than actual economic warfare--between the US government and the EU.  The three parties that make up the government range from center-right (Forza Italia, the former Silvio Berlusconi party), xenophobic right (the Lega, which has successfully pivoted from a Northern Italian party hostile to Southern Italians--the Northern League-- to a nationalistic one hostile to all other nations not headed by authoritarians), to the hard-right Fratelli d'Italia (Fd'I in the local shorthand), headed by Giorgia Meloni, the head of the national government (the Council of Ministers, the parliamentary head, as opposed to the titular head of state, the non-partisan President of Italy).  The three parties are not aligned on everything:  a key example is with regard to Ukraine.  Forza Italia is very pro-Ukraine, the Lega's head, Salvini, is pro-Putin, while Meloni takes a moderate view, respecting the EU's support for Ukraine but opposed to any direct involvement of the Italian military.  They are pretty much aligned on hostility to illegal immigrants coming across the Mediterranean from Africa, and expecting the EU to back them up on preventing their assimilation into Italian society, which is probably the most important domestic issue apart from the economy.   They aren't having much trouble so far in beating down the disunited center-left and left nationally, or in several of the larger, more centrist regional and local governments.

In a lineup of the heads of European governments, or of the G7, Meloni is by far the shortest person in stature, but she is not short at all on ability.  She speaks well and has shown some agility in policy and in minimizing the obvious historical lineage of her party to the postwar neo-fascists and their nostalgia for Mussolini. She, among all the heads of European governments, has the best direct relationship with Trump, and thus she is more able to reason with the US (to the extent anyone can reason with these idiots) than the official EU representatives, whom Trump disparages and mistreats.  She can't really toe a separate line from the EU on trade, but her influence probably helped the EU getting the proposed 25% tariffs down to a more survivable 10%. Of course, the tariff rate is not reciprocal (yet), as the EU had very low tariffs with their ally and trading partner, the US, pre-Drumpf. (I am considering advising my non-governmental Italian friends to refer to him as that, which would be a good, insulting name-calling for him--it sounds, and is, German, and, though the Germans have come a long way forward, there is still some residual resentment among Italians.)

One last Italian-Trump note:  in Italian, there is a phrase called "prendere in giro" which is used very frequently.  The usage means joking, or teasing, and is only slightly aggressive.  It literally means "to take (someone) for a ride".  It applies perfectly to the Trump/Bukele disingenuity (is that a word?) about who can return poor, abducted Abrego Garcia and why neither one of them will do it.  Also, they literally took him for a ride, but not the circular one the phrase implies.

* I am quite serious about my fury, but I couldn't resist the Dad-like reference to the Swedish porno film of the '60's, "I am Curious (Yellow)".   Trump's administration is pornographic, in the worst sense of the word, but I admit to being somewhat physically a coward when it comes to frontal confrontation to it at this time.