Bruce Dalleo is a resident of Wilmington.
We are at the exact moment I feared Nov. 5, 2024, upon Donald Trump’s election. His incompetence is on full display, as he repeatedly makes and unmakes incoherent trade policy. Have you checked your retirement account? It’s in tatters due to his unintelligible economic missteps.
In international affairs, he has committed outrageous ineptitude with policies and statements that have confused and alienated our former allies. The most frightening prospect is that his unqualified secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, is in charge when we are faced with the Israel-Iran war. It was only a matter of time before his ill-equipped Cabinet would face serious challenges to the United States, for which they are unprepared.
His cruelty directs domestic policy in audacious directions. Goon squads circle cities, fields and courthouses, trolling for immigrants. He has abandoned his pledge to deport “criminals and drug dealers,” creating chaos for law enforcement. Terrified, innocent noncitizens have fled the jobs that immigrants do and that make our restaurants, farms and hand-labor industries operate. This will ultimately destroy sectors of our economy. The sense of lawlessness is palpable.
His secretaries of justice and homeland security have trashed due process, while sending anyone they sweep up, with little regard for documents, to gulags in El Salvador. People are being “disappeared” by masked, unidentified paramilitary groups, who do not identify themselves to anyone. Wrestling senators to the ground and handcuffing them? Are we to assume this is lawful? This is an America I cannot recognize.
As I watched Trump tweet about questions of war and peace June 18, I was shocked by the casual approach he exhibits to deadly, serious matters. Our foreign policy needs to be made by reasoned debate, carried out by knowledgeable government leaders in the Situation Room. Trump doesn’t have a team that is up to the moment. So, he makes offhand comments and tweets about killing a leader of state in Iran, suggesting Tehran be evacuated at once. “I may or I may not bomb Iran” is an immature taunt by a petty dictator. Trump’s personal corruption and the humiliation of his lies about both large and small matters are a scandal seen by the rest of the democratic world.
We need everyone, from politicians to community leaders, to raise their voices to condemn this reign of terror and ineptitude, and restore Americans to sanity. Congress must step up and curb Trump’s overreach.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
