President Nayib Bukele visited the White House and met with Trump. I’m torn about this. I’ve always thought Bukele was the best thing to happen to El Salvador, but the conversations they reportedly had in the Oval Office make me wonder if I’ve been naive.
You have to ask what drives a reporter to leak something like this. Sure, money’s probably a factor, but I bet it’s not the only one. A president telling another he plans to ship American citizens to a Salvadoran prison? That’s the wildest thing I’ve ever heard.
Then there’s Trump ignoring the Supreme Court ruling that clearly ordered him to facilitate the return of the gay barber deported to El Salvador. His administration keeps doubling down on the lie that this innocent man was a gang member, refusing to lift a finger—checks and balances be damned.
Some folks might say I’ve got TDS—Trump Derangement Syndrome, as they call it these days. Honestly, I don’t know how to respond to that. It’s a non-argument.
Are we saying it’s fine to toss out due process? Is that the new vibe? What happened to innocent until proven guilty? What about the Constitution we claim to love? Don’t we get why checks and balances exist? Didn’t we ditch kings for a reason?
Some people are totally fine with a strongman calling the shots. It’s like they want to be infantilized. Is “tell us who to be” the new ethos?
Where I stand, we’re carpet-bombing America’s moral credibility. We’ve got no high ground left, so maybe we should stop lecturing other countries on how to run their affairs.
Trump telling Bukele to build five more “gulags” between smiles and handshakes should freak everyone out. But nope—sycophants and folks asleep at the wheel just shrug. It’s another Tuesday.
MenO