by James E. Garcia, Arizona Mirror
April 9, 2025
If there’s a through line to the first months of Trump 2.0 it’s the president’s penchant for trying to disappear his critics, enemies and the fast-multiplying targets of his disdain.
It’s classic authoritarian behavior.
Donald Trump is a dictator at heart, and like all “good” dictators, he relishes the idea that he can banish anyone he thinks could get in his way.
Don’t like brown immigrants? Snatch them off the streets, deport them and do all you can to keep them from coming here in the first place.
Don’t like a free press? Claim, without evidence, that it’s fake, do all you can to muzzle it, and prop up pliant members of the news media — like Fox, Newsmax and One America.
Don’t like the fact that women and minorities have had greater access to job opportunities in recent decades? Attack labor and civil rights laws under the guise that you’re dismantling DEI programs.
Don’t like that historically disenfranchised communities are allowed to vote? Suppress, or block outright, their access to the polls — and if they win elections anyway, falsely claim they cheated and the system can’t be trusted.
