The Perils of a President Who Knows No BOUNDARIES
On Feb. 19, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker drew attention to the indecency of President Donald Trump’s second term, stating “We don’t have kings in America and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one.”
Pritzker’s assertion voices a warning against what has been an insidious pattern of authoritarian behaviors from the Trump administration. The speech shined a light on all of Trump’s attempts to pour all power into his careless hands.
The administration has undoubtedly demonstrated behavior that erodes civil liberties, most notably in their immigration policies. In recent news, 30 year old Russian scientist, Kseniia Petrova, who made a groundbreaking discovery of a microscope in cancer detection at Harvard Medical school was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After landing in a Boston airport mid-Feb., two Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers inspected Petrova’s phone and luggage. A sample of frog embryos were discovered in her suitcase, which is a customs violation. CBP is supposed to give two penalties for this type of violation which usually include a $500 fine and forfeiture of an item. Instead, her visa got canceled. According to the Immigration and Nationality Act Section 212, several reasons can be given for denying entry into the U.S, so CBP can cancel visas, but they need a warrant for it and in Petrova's case, there wasn’t one.
“I would call it a grinding machine,” Petrova told NBC. “We are in this machine and it doesn’t care if you have a visa, a green card, or any particular story. ... It just keeps going.” .
Petrovas detainment and the detainment of other academic US figures, such as permanent citizen Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia graduate and organizer of protests for Gaza, should have right to inquiry and safe education. This unlawfulness has impaired universities in the United States ability to take on and keep valuable contributors to important research and discoveries.
In a tragic new proposal, elected health secretary RFK Jr., has also announced a new prerogative to gather as much data as possible about autistic Americans in order to “prove” the predetermined conclusion that vaccines cause autism. It’s not clear yet if people have the choice to opt-out of having their medical records used for this research. Since there is already a lot of evidence that autism could be caused by genetics and older parent age during conception, collecting all the information possible about an oppressed group is starting to sound wildly familiar. The plan of the health secretary is to determine the cause of autism, which he promises to do by Sept. Considering the fact that autistic individuals are already oppressed and misrepresented in our society, trying to dissect how to cure or prevent a disability that was discovered to be genetic and incurable is alarming. It signals towards shifts in research funding and further stigmatization of neurodivergent people even more. A competent, well-informed health secretary would have kept this in mind before pursuing such a non-issue.
A good leader wants his people heard and informed, the issue with Trump is, that seems to be something he is actively working against. Trump's attitude towards the Paris agreement reeks of ignorance. The next steps in contributing to tackling climate change, which is a critical issue, should be carefully assessed and addressed. The undemocratic regimes could’ve at least been limited to America, but now it’s contributing to a global crisis. Inaccurate information about the future of our planet, and America's part in it, is going to cause long term consequences for our environment. The president graces his panicking nation with this comment during an interview with Piers Morgan.
“Er, there is a cooling, there’s a heating. Look it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming, right?” Trump said.
During the same interview, Trump assures the public that the polar ice caps are not melting and are at “record levels”. Checking into reality, it appears the opposite is true. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, the Arctic sea ice extent on Jan. 28 was at its lowest level for this time of year since satellite measurements began in 1979.
The biggest point of concern is shockingly, not Trump’s and his posses agenda. It’s the dangerous fact that there is nobody in power that should serve as checks and balances resisting against him. When people refuse to challenge the rhetoric and authoritarian regimes being pushed, it continues to erode the standards of our democracy. A government lacking logic, humility and care is not a government, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. If those with an official say don’t act, it is up to us to speak out and hold our leaders accountable.
“The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight,” Pritzker said. “It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.”