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As the political power of Donald Trump diminishes and his public demeanor becomes more erratic, there has been an escalation in hostile rhetoric aimed at women in media and racial minorities, with Somali Americans being the latest target. The impact of these insults stems from the animosity behind them and his position, not any basis in truth. In a parallel manner, his administration's offensive against immigrants are poorly executed and driven by misinformation. The evidence makes it obvious that the goal extends beyond targeting those who have committed crimes. The true target is anyone with brown skin.

From Native Americans carrying tribal IDs to naturalized US citizens, from essential workers in construction and healthcare to those who served, college students, residents asleep in their beds, and very young children: a wide array of the country's inhabitants are being threatened.

"ICE operations are brutal, inhumane and do nothing for public safety," states a prominent New York City official. The spectacle of masked agents breaking car glass and separating parents from children, terrorizing entire communities and disrupting schools and businesses, undermines safety entirely.

These waves of orchestrated bigotry—directed at people from Haiti in the 2024 campaign, Venezuelans this year, and most recently Somali Americans—lean heavily on defamatory falsehoods and insults. This is because: the truthful data about these communities cannot support the animosity.

The Mythical White Nation Versus Actual History

The strategy of frightening and vilifying claims to seek at recreating a homogeneously white America that is a fantasy. Although America had a larger white population in the youth of today's white supremacists, it was never exclusively a "white country". At the nation's founding, the original thirteen colonies contained a substantial percentage of Black and Indigenous peoples—certain states in the South had Black populations exceeding a third.

Following American expansion, taking Texas in the 1840s and seizing Mexico's northern territories in 1848, it incorporated a large community of Hispanic settlers long established in the modern Southwest and California. Historical records show the initial Muslim of African descent in this land arrived with a Spanish expedition nearly a century prior to the Mayflower's Puritan passengers landed in Massachusetts in 1620.

Demographic Realities Versus Forced Dreams

The systematic targeting of huge populations of people of color and attempts at large-scale expulsion cannot fabricate the ethnically pure country of far-right dreams. A city like Los Angeles, for instance, is nearly half Latino, and despite enforcement outrages, detentions and removals, it remains so. Its name itself is Spanish, an ongoing testament of who was there first.

All this hatred and persecution resembles the panic of racists attempting to believe they can stop the coming changes of a country that is ceasing to be majority-white by using pure cruelty.

This is paired with an attack on abortion access that is, sometimes, explicitly designed to prompt Caucasian women to bear more babies. The argument points to a below-replacement birthrate in the US, a phenomenon less impactful than in other countries because of a hard-working population of immigrant laborers that sustains the economy. However, instead of offering the social support that might make raising children easier, the strategy has been punitive and coercive.

An noted writer notes that the policies on childbirth espoused by figures like JD Vance—along with insults toward childless women—constitute a form of pronatalism. This philosophy "typically merges worries about declining birth rates with opposition to immigration and anti-feminist ideas."

Similarly, reporting indicates that "efforts to bolster the birth rate cannot make up for broader policies aimed at slashing federal support programs like healthcare for the poor and children's health insurance. The so-called 'pro-family' focus isn't merely about promoting having children. Rather, it is being weaponized to push a right-wing political program that threatens the health of women, reproductive rights, and labor force involvement."

Incoherent Policies and Widespread Resistance

Together, the anti-immigrant and pronatalist policies constitute an effort to forcibly alter the nation's demographic trajectory. In the end, they represent senseless intimidation by individuals filled with hatred who unintentionally demonstrate that their claims to superiority must be rooted in race and gender; absent these categories, their positions devolve into meaningless idiocy.

Much of the justification offered by the Trump team does not match up with tangible facts and actual outcomes. For example, naval operations in the southern Caribbean frequently focus on tiny boats which are not proven to be carrying narcotics and not able of making it to the United States. Likewise, Venezuela's involvement in the fentanyl trade is minimal, and its involvement with cocaine is far less than that of other South American nations.

The administration's stance extends to environmental policy, with a rejection of "climate change ideology" and "carbon neutrality targets." There is a sentimental commitment to coal and oil, especially coal mining, resulting in measures that compel localities to spend money on obsolete and toxic power sources while undermining affordable, clean alternatives. Concurrently, public health leadership have advanced anti-scientific dietary schemes while eroding general public health safeguards.

The foundational assumption of the anti-immigrant offensive is that non-white individuals born abroad are threatening outsiders. However, across the nation—from Los Angeles to Charlotte, from Chicago to Portland—the government's own forces, immigration enforcement personnel, whom many residents view as the dangerous and hostile interlopers.

No symbol is more powerful of the widespread rejection of these tactics than the countless individuals organizing, protesting, risking safety and arrest to protect their communities. Municipality after municipality has stood up in defense of its residents. All the insults and threats can change that reality.