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Theoharis and Hartung, Turning the Tide

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Honestly, for at least some of us, it’s hard to imagine that Donald Trump is once again president — yes, president! — of the United States, no less that he was sworn into office the second time on — can you believe it? — Martin Luther King Jr. Day. That gives irony a bad name. Tell me it doesn’t feel like someone’s bizarre fantasy or the ad for a truly bad (or do I mean weirdly dark and grimly comic?) TV show. But reality itself? It’s still difficult to believe. And yet it happened. And it’s already old news that Donald Trump is indeed back in the Mar-a-White House, preparing for his all-American MAGA version of — yes! — manifest destiny, whether in relation to Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada, or the rest of us.

Once upon a time, had you told me that such a thing was going to happen (twice!), I would have thought you mad. Donald Trump of The Apprentice, Donald Trump of all those bankruptcies, reelected president of the United States? Not so very long ago, that would have been the most ludicrous, unbelievable version of fiction imaginable. And yet, as significant parts of Los Angeles have been burning and 2024 was just declared the hottest year in recorded history, here we are in a hell on Earth the second time around with a climate-change-denying president back in the White House, thanks to 49.9% of American voters and the coffers of all too many billionaires.

In such a world, it’s easy, if you don’t happen to be one of those billionaires, to imagine only the worst and feel all too hopeless, which is why TomDispatch is launching the latest season of You Know Who with a piece by two TD authors, Liz Theoharis and William Hartung, who suggest that all is not — is, in fact, anything but — lost, that it’s still possible to imagine building a better world.

That may feel like a long shot to many of you reading this piece today, but just remember that, a decade ago, Donald Trump as president a first (no less second) time would have felt even more improbable. With that in mind, let Theoharis and Hartung take you on a little ride into a (future) America where things may be distinctly less grim. Tom

Toward a Better World

Building a Movement for Social Justice in a Time of Peril

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With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, advocates for peace, social justice, racial and economic equality, fair immigration policies, climate renewal, trans rights, and other movements for change are bracing for hard times. The new administration will be doggedly opposed to so many of the values we hold dear, as well as programs that have helped keep millions of Americans above the poverty line.

Only recently, newly reelected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson reaffirmed his commitment to an “America First” agenda, which distills the most harmful aspirations of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 into 10 priority areas, including slashing social welfare, healthcare programs, and public education; supporting increased military spending to promote “peace through strength”; unleashing a nightmarish version of immigration enforcement; and restricting voting rights.

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Juan Cole, Trumpocalypse

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Consider it no happenstance that Donald and dystopia both begin with a “d.” Sadly enough, they have all too much in common. Right now, the big D is clearly intent on creating a little d globally. After all, before he was even sworn in as president again he had already launched a dystopian imperial version of foreign policy that seemed to tie the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland (“MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”) in a knot. And count on this: that’s only the beginning of what he’s planning to try to do that could, in the end, leave this planet heading for an almost literal hell on Earth.

In fact, if you’re in a dystopian mood, think of those record-breaking burning lands around Los Angeles of recent weeks as an introduction to the future Donaldtopian world of the president who doesn’t believe climate change is anything but a “hoax” and “one of the greatest scams of all time.” He’s already eager on his first day in office, in fact, to reverse Joe Biden’s latest climate gesture of banning offshore oil drilling along much of the U.S. coastline. It’s going to be, he insists, another of his many promised “day one” acts, while he dreams of launching the most massive oil and gas drilling program imaginable. Honestly, if this were fiction, I don’t think you’d believe it.

Given our world, were this indeed a novel and not the life we’re all now leading, you would undoubtedly consider it the wildest sci-fi imaginable. Only 40 years after George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, no such luck, of course. So, let TomDispatch regular Juan Cole, who runs the must-read Informed Comment website, take you on a little journey into what indeed might be “our” future in — no, not 2084 but 2048, thanks to — yes! — The Donald. Tom

A Time Capsule from 2048

What Turbocharged Carbon Will Do to Our Children

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My name isn’t important, only what I have to say. I’m writing with a pencil because I need to conserve my batteries tonight. It’s Year 24 of Our Trump (though he himself, of course, is no longer with us, just his kids who are running things). I feel like I should try to explain our era to whoever opens this time capsule a century from now, though you may need scuba gear to get at it. A lot of records could be lost by then. The Chinese climate hoax was less of a hoax than we thought at the time. Forgive me, Donald, but despite what the New Evangelical Church says, you were anything but infallible -- even if I still can’t say so publicly.

I’d like to move away from the coast, maybe even go north. But real estate in the interior is too pricey, especially at higher elevations away from the flood plains. Looking on the bright side, though, my bunker has held up alright so far, even during the usual Cat 7 hurricanes, and I’ve stocked plenty of canned soup. I do worry, though, about being submerged by a storm surge. No one wants to end up like those poor people in Galveston.

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Andrea Mazzarino, Donald Trump’s War on Migrants

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From its very first moments, this country was a nation of immigrants. In fact, Native Americans aside, what could the first settlers in North America, no less the “first” Americans, have been but immigrants?  And who in this country can’t trace his or her roots somewhere in the past, recent or distant, to immigrants? My own grandfather was born in what’s now Ukraine and, after many adventures, arrived in this country from Germany in the early 1890s with the equivalent of 50 cents in his pocket. Donald Trump’s grandfather, “a 16-year-old German barber, bought a one-way ticket for America, escaping three years of compulsory German military service. He had been a sickly child, unsuited to hard labor, and feared the effects of the draft. It might have been illegal, but America didn’t care about this law-breaking — at that time, Germans were seen as highly desirable migrants — and Trump was welcomed with open arms.”

Had Donald Trump been president back then, it seems that he would, in essence, have tossed his own grandfather out of the country. Of course, this is the man who, running for office in 2024, threatened to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” This is the man who, once again president, has labeled the present immigration situation “an invasion of our country” and has threatened to declare a national emergency, using the National Guard and the military to handle mass deportations of “illegal” immigrants and — before he’s done — who knows who else. “On Day One,” as he put it, “I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out.” (Of course, Defense Department officials have already privately called such a program “unrealistic and unserious,” or simply “insanity,” but who cares about their opinions?  Not Donald Trump, that’s for sure.)

But here’s something that neither our next president nor anyone else I know of has even suggested: that our military forces are, in their own strange way, migrants (and, if you think about it, given this country’s grim Global War on Terror, in much of the world distinctly illegal ones at that). With that in mind, let TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino who, as a military spouse, has seen the migrant life of American forces in an up-close-and-personal fashion, introduce you to the other “migrants” in America. Tom

American Troops as Migrants

Or Launching a War on America Itself

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This country, once a haven for immigrants, is now on the verge of turning into a first-class nightmare for them. President Donald Trump often speaks of his plan to deport some 11.7 million undocumented immigrants from the United States as “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” Depending on how closely he follows the Project 2025 policy blueprint of his allies, his administration may also begin deporting the family members of migrants and asylum seekers in vast numbers.

Among the possible ways such planning may not work out, here's one thing Donald Trump and the rest of the MAGA crowd don’t recognize: the troops they plan to rely on to carry out the deportations of potentially millions of people are, in their own way, also migrants. After all, on average, they move from place to place every two and a half years -- more if you count the rapid post-9/11 deployments and the Global War on Terror that followed, often separating families multiple times during each soldier's tour of duty.

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