It can’t just be me who is wondering: What is going on right now? America’s politics are all over the place, allegations of censorship are growing more prominent, rumors of WW III beginning are circulating, and to the public, good or bad, it all generally ties back to one man: Trump.
When Donald Trump was first elected for president in 2016, my peers were around nine years old, therefore not that attentive to politics. But as he is re-elected, it becomes more and more apparent that every year Trump’s followers grow more and more adamant to defend and stand by him, no matter what he does. America has even seen an influx of Latino/a support for Trump — according to U.S. News and World Report, 42% of this community voted for him in this past election — even though he wants most of them deported.
So who is Trump? Why is he eligible to lead the United States, and, most importantly, what does the future hold for America if he gets his way?
Trump was born in Queens, New York, in the year of 1946. Ironically, his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, was an immigrant who came from Scotland, his father a son of two immigrants. He was never reported to be truly close to his parents, and unlike other presidents before him, never really publicly spoke of his mother, and when he did, the comments were general and vague. As a child, the pair’s relationship was shaky.
According to Trump biographer Marc Fisher, co-author of Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power, “When you ask [Trump] about how she showed her love, he has nothing to say.” As for his father Fred Trump, their relationship was known to be very business-oriented.
Friends of the Trump family described the father-son pair as friendly, but not familiar. “The two of them together in the same room was very strange,” one of them said. “They were both talking, supposedly to each other, but I was sure neither heard what the other was saying. They talked right past each other.”
Donald Trump was reported to be a difficult child, taught from the beginning that people either won or lost in life — and the Trumps always won.
According to Frontline, when Donald was 13, Fred Trump made the decision to send him to military school to straighten him out, where he reportedly thrived as a leader among his classmates. “He pushed [his peers] around. … He ruled dormitory life with an iron fist,” Marc Fisher noted. Trump graduated after five years with a reformed mindset on how to treat people, and it’s evident that he emulates this approach in his life to this day. And, as The New York Times Amanda Taub reported, “Mr. Trump’s words and actions seem to revolve around a central idea: The world is a zero-sum game. Whoever pays the most into the pot is the loser; whoever gets the most is the winner.”
While his parents, especially his father, told him that he needed to be a winner, neither of them showed him exactly how.
So who did?
Ray Cohn was a controversial lawyer who had a reputation for being aggressive on the court and charismatic out of it. He often threw lush parties that held guests including people like celebrities and politicians.
According to The Washington Post’s article on Cohn (“The man who showed Donald Trump how to exploit power and instill fear”), the two met when Trump was 27, Cohn 46, and remained friends up to Cohn’s death. At this time, Cohn was in his prime while Trump was just beginning his career. A polarizing Cohn was loved and hated throughout New York City — described as “charming” and “a great source of evil in this society” all at once.
To this day Trump claims that their relationship was only professional, many attest against this — including Cohn. “[I am] not only Donald’s lawyer but also one of his close friends,” he once said. It got to the point where Cohn became a personal mentor for Trump — even outsiders looking in went as far to describe Cohn as his “constant advisor”.
Cohn taught Trump to be an attack dog — almost literally — teaching him a phrase that we can tell still rings in Trump’s ears. The Washington Post reported on Cohn’s advice to Trump in a 2016 article: “Attack, counterattack and never apologise.”
We see Trump enacting this guiding principle today, as he insults minorities, demeans others, and uplifts rich white men openly by putting others down without apology.
It’s disturbing that our president repeatedly sees something that he wants and takes it without thinking of the repercussions for other people. For example, earlier this year Trump posted a video on Gaza, using AI to depict his plans for the future of Gaza’s land, renaming it “TRUMP GAZA”. The video includes a golden Trump statue, Elon Musk back-lit as money rains from the sky, and a giant skyscraper with his name in big yellow letters. This video came out a couple weeks after Trump proposed taking over Gaza and relocating Palestinians.
Here’s the thing with greedy people (greed by definition being insatiable): They can be rich beyond belief, but it will never be enough. Their net worth can be 6.4 billion, they can own multiple businesses, they can be the president of the United States of America, yet they will never be content with their lives.
Trump has displayed this behavior for everyone to see by suggesting the U.S. conquer occupied land such as Greenland (wanting to rename it Red, White and Blue Land) and the Gulf of Mexico (renaming it the Gulf of America). He also is proposing tax cuts for the rich whilst firing thousands of federal employees and leaving them without a way to provide. But he isn’t doing this alone.
Elon Musk is an immigrant billionaire from South Africa who has been taking a large role in government as Trump’s senior advisor and de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) despite not being elected by any American citizens. Recently, Musk has been implicating himself into politics, including making an appearance at an Inauguration event and gesturing the Nazi salute twice at the crowd, and in the White House answering questions for Trump.
So are there any repercussions? For right now: No. His sudden political power is unchecked, and even Trump seems to be taking a backseat to him…despite how loud Trump is known to be. The speed and chaos of this “bromance” careened to its inevitable crash site, the U.S. economy, this week, as the billionaires split ways, spitting insults and threats while Americans blink at their screens awaiting the next episode.
In other billionaire circles, Trump also openly cajoles Russian president Vladimir Putin and continues to switch sides when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war. The Internet still loves the much memed Trump and Vice President, J.D. Vance conference with Ukrainian president Zelensky deal for minerals. The meeting went as bad as it could’ve possibly gone.
Their discussions ended up with Trump telling Zelensky to get out of the White House after telling him that he was ungrateful for the American help. Before he left, though, Trump told Zelensky that he didn’t “hold the right cards” in order to even talk with him.
This behavior is nothing new, though. Many predict that Trump will make it harder for people to vote, especially people of color, voters with limited English proficiency, voters with disabilities, older voters, and other marginalized voters, due to the Trump administration wanting to renew efforts to erode constitutional foundations of our democracy.
Trump has made an alarming amount of “jokes” about being the king and even told his followers that they “didn’t have to vote” because he didn’t need it. He openly wants to keep the rich people rich and keep the poor people poor – observe the Big Beautiful Bill that the U.S. House of Representatives has just voted to approve as well as his willingness to cut research funding , clean energy projects, education, and food assistance programs. According to Evergreen Action, pulling these funds would rob Americans of trillions of federal funding dollars. These funds keep drinking water clean, lights on, and aid people whose community underwent devastating natural disasters.
Trump has been announcing, delaying, and threatening tariffs on most goods even from longstanding trade partners like Mexico and Canada. Tariffs on China have ranged from 10% to in excess of 100%. As of the publication of this article, Trump has threatened or instituted tariffs on every country.
Trump’s goal, he says, is to stop undocumented immigrants and fentanyl from coming into the country, but a chorus of economists and Wall Street consistently assess that tariffs will raise prices for American citizens and cost other countries more to trade leading to recession. The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said in a post on Twitter/X that “If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”
Trump’s ways of addressing the issue of undocumented immigrants are…interesting. Not to mention highly harmful for millions of families throughout America.
The concept of immigration is a tricky situation to try and solve. How can you, in good faith, split up families? And many immigrants work low-paying jobs that help the economy. But then again, we can’t have millions of undocumented immigrants within our country’s borders, because then when do we draw the line? Politicians have been grappling with this issue for decades.
Trump’s way of solving it? Deport everyone, all at once. Oh, and get rid of birthright citizenship, AND freeze funding for refugee resettlement and migrant legal organizations. Sure, he hasn’t gone through with most of these yet, but his threats are enough to put Americans in a panic, especially his mass deportation ones, since he has started to proceed with deportation cases.
There have been reports of ICE trucks spotted in various states, communities and even schools.
Yes, schools.
So what have we learned?
Trump is an audacious, rich, white man. A corrupt type of person.
The worst part? Many people, in general, are followers. So when he makes claims, people want to believe it so badly, follow his path so badly, that they blindly nod their head and vote for someone that would even hurt them if it came down to it. If you voted for Trump and all the sudden you lost your job or were deported, don’t go on social media claiming “This isn’t the Trump I voted for!” Because it most definitely is.
If nobody stands up, the only way to go from here is down. So make sure to come together in your communities and not separate at times like this, because people like Trump thrive on isolation and hopelessness. Despite our current representation, we can be a united people, so acting like it is integral to the survival of our democracy right now.
Stay educated.
What I’m reading:
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/bios/donald-j-trump
https://millercenter.org/president/trump/life-presidency
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/world/trump-doctrine-zero-sum-game.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/world/middleeast/trump-gaza-ai-video.html
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/donald-trump-tax-plan-2024/
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/26/nx-s1-5309695/trump-gaza-video
https://www.aclu.org/trump-on-voting-rights
