Forget the Border, Trump's Built a Wall That Divides America
He’s not just dividing us from Mexico. He’s dividing us from each other, using ICE, the Justice Dept. & tariffs to punish anyone who won’t pledge loyalty. It's not political; it's highly personal.
If you ever needed proof that Donald Trump is president for only half of America, or maybe less than half (if you go by his 2024 vote totals and the latest polling), it came this week. I’m not saying this is necessarily how I think; I still believe in the democratic process. But it’s pretty clear it’s how Trump thinks.
He’s building a wall, but it’s not between the U.S. and Mexico. It stands between his Fox News-driven MAGA faithful and the rest of us, the folks who still believe in democratic norms, the millions of protesters who, on Saturday, voiced their fears of authoritarian overreach, and, frankly, anyone who doesn’t pledge blind loyalty to Trump’s cult of power or isn’t among his ultra-wealthy brethren.
On Sunday, Trump took to his social media site to say Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should target America’s largest cities, and stay away from rural areas where, not surprisingly, he has the most political support. He named Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York as the “core of the Democrat Power Center.”
Trump described Democratic officials in those cities, many elected with much higher vote margins than his, as “sick of mind,” adding that they “hate our Country, and … want to destroy our Inner Cities.” In other words, immigrants living in big cities — and particularly Democratic-led cities — will be more aggressively targeted from here on, purely because of who governs those cities.
Meanwhile, rural areas that supported Trump’s election get a free pass.
And when it comes to tariffs, Trump’s other favorite weapon of grievance, he carved out exceptions for agribusiness equipment and commercial construction materials, sectors dominated by Trump-friendly donors and political allies, leaving other industries, along with the consumers they serve, out in the cold.
Then came Tuesday. ICE agents — let’s call them Trump’s shock troops, because that’s clearly what they’ve become — arrested New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a Brooklyn-based candidate for mayor and co-founder of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus, a group that’s pushed for police accountability, housing equity, and strong safeguards for immigrant families. He was walking arm-in-arm with an immigrant who was seeking legal support in court.
ICE grabbed Lander roughly and physically separated the two men. They then pushed Lander against a wall and handcuffed him. You’d think he was the immigrant, right? The son of an attorney, Lander has been a public servant in New York since 2009, when he won a city council seat with 70% of the vote.
That, by the way, is the same year Trump filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the sixth time on one of his companies. It’s pretty amazing where we’re at now, isn’t it?
Someone who can’t run a business without driving it into bankruptcy, who’s been convicted of 34 felony counts, and who was found by a jury to have sexually abused and defamed a woman is now the U.S. president. Meanwhile, a do-gooder with a record of actions that have genuinely helped people, a true populist who has battled the elite over the years to help ordinary folks survive a tough city, is bullied and manhandled.
Could the incident with Lander have been handled differently, with discretion, basic decency, or even a little common sense? Of course, it could have.
They could have warned Lander he was breaking the law, and that they would be referring his actions to the Justice Department for prosecution. They could’ve asked him to contact his attorney, and even given him a phone to do so. Hell, they could’ve just let him and the person he was with walk away, and then picked up their actual target later, easy-peasy.
You might say, “Okay, this guy got manhandled, so what? It happens every day in America.” And if this was an isolated case — a rogue action, poorly timed and sloppily executed — you might have a point.
But it isn’t. Lander’s not alone among Democrats. U.S. senators Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Alex Padilla of California, and the Democratic mayors of Santa Ana, California, and Newark, New Jersey, were all handcuffed by federal agents in separate incidents. Lander now makes five in a row.
How long before Trump’s shock troops show up at Joe Biden’s door to arrest a housekeeper or the person cutting the lawn, and force their way inside, handcuffing him along the way? Trump, you might recall, always insisted Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. How long before someone grabs him?
You might think I’m being ridiculous, and I surely am overstating for effect, but if this is allowed to continue, where does it stop? You tell me.
The manhandling of Lander is yet another action by a law enforcement agency that’s quickly becoming little more than a Trump thug squad. The officers who manhandled Lander — and who knows what their background or qualifications might be — understood exactly what they were doing. They knew cameras would be rolling, headlines would explode, and a local Democratic candidate would be branded a criminal and raked over by Fox News before any charges were substantiated.
The charges have since disappeared, if any charges ever really existed.
That’s how the game operates now. It’s not about justice, it’s about optics. Mussolini had his blackshirts, and Hitler had his brownshirts. And in more modern times, Vladimir Putin has his Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor to the KGB’s internal security arm, and his Special Purpose Mobile Unit, both of which are notable for their violent, sometimes deadly crackdowns on protests and political dissidents.
Authoritarians always seem to create or co-opt some version of a "loyalist enforcement wing" armed with legal authority but unleashed with political purpose. The uniforms, slogans, and whether they feel the need to wear masks or not may differ, but the playbook doesn’t change much. They’re around to instill fear, crush dissent, and blur the line between state power and personal rule.
Under Trump 2.0, ICE agents are filling this role, using the excuse of an immigrant “emergency” as their legal justification.
Rewarding allies and punishing enemies is nothing new in politics. But Trump has turned it into the defining principle of his presidency. He’s using federal law enforcement officials as personal shock troops and social media as a 24/7 grievance machine. These aren’t just political stunts, designed to nudge a political party forward. They’re highly personal attacks, aimed at dehumanizing his opponents and feeding his narcissistic need for domination.
Trump is putting the final bricks into yet another wall, and it’s stretching across the heart and soul of the American experience.
The arrest of Lander obviously troubled both of us, Reg. Grrrrrrrr!!!!! This is madness.