Hugh Mackenzie is on a break from Listen Up this week!
By Sally Barnes
There should be a special place in hell for the way countless millions of kids are trapped in the mindless mission of Donald Trump and the ruthless disciples who do his bidding.
Trump knows what he’s doing. He hears the cries of individuals and agencies at home and around the world about the consequences of the humanitarian disaster and financial and security crisis he has created.
When food, education, and disease control programs are purged at the stroke of his monster pen, the world’s most vulnerable suffer most.
Trump follows the news and sees the same desperate faces as we do—kids who are hungry and sick, whose families have lost their livelihood and support programs, young people robbed of their future and grandparents who thought they had security for their old age but are watching their pensions and savings eaten away daily.
These aren’t just someone else’s kids in some distant part of the world. They include American kids raised to the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner and told they live in the greatest, most prosperous and righteous of all countries in the world.
(Reacting to the financial chaos he has wrought, Trump says, “this is a good time to get rich.” Maybe for your bigshot friends, Donald, but not for mine.)
One can’t help wondering what it’s like when the tyrant leaves the Oval Office and calls it a day after signing away people’s lives and hopes.
Supposedly, he throws off his tailored navy suit, removes his orange makeup, perhaps detaches part of his hair and tries to relax after another tiring day of conjuring chaos, fear, anger and oppression.
Is there a waiting wife to ask, “and how was your day, dear?” Does she ever suggest maybe he should reconsider his tariff obsession? All the job cuts that are turning Washington into one long bread line? The need to appoint at least one sane and moderate advisor and cabinet secretary? Or, is the First Lady on the same Kool-Aid diet as everyone else in Trump’s orbit?
Perhaps before bed they have a reading from Project 2025, the central policy book that produced the road map for Trump’s return to the White House and the cult’s grand scheme to reorder the world—at any cost.
It must be easier when the First Family is at their Florida residence. There, Trump can hop into his golf cart and relax on his private golf course and hobnob with guests selected from the world’s biggest names in sports, entertainment, politics and commerce who come to kiss the ring.
(Hello, Wayne Gretsky. You’re a great guy but your choice of friends stinks.)
Those who displease the master pay a high price. Just ask former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau whose obeisance in his presence apparently came up short.
There are no limits to Trump’s pomposity. It was truly one of those “let them eat cake” moments recently on an especially disastrous day for the stock market. Amid the panic, Trump closed up shop early and strutted off to the first tee.
Several of Trump’s acolytes are truly mind boggling in their arrogance and lack of empathy.
It is especially chilling that leaders like Marco Rubio, the powerful Secretary of State who was once regarded among the moderates of U.S. politics, have morphed into Trump sycophants.
Once a vocal proponent of international aid as a means to world order, humanitarianism, disease control, famine prevention, and security, Rubio now preaches a retreat from internationalism, just as Project 2025 decreed.
(Coincidentally, closer to home, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre pledges on the campaign trail that, if elected, he’ll cut Canada’s foreign aid program.)
Under Rubio’s direction, USAID is dead, its money and workers gone from fighting hunger and oppression, the spread of HIV/AIDS and other public health crises. Children are among those suddenly cut off from food, shelter, security measures and medical aid such as vaccines.
Many hoped Republican members of Congress would listen to the buyers’ remorse of constituents who voted for Trump and now want their elected representatives to stand up to him. But few have done so for fear of retribution that will block their re-election in the months to come.
Cartoonists have had a field day with the Trump team. “Appoint clowns and get a circus” is a popular theme to describe Trump’s choice of cabinet appointments.
That would be funny if the reality isn’t so stark and painful. Few have any experience or expertise in the major positions they now control.
The sledgehammer approach to cutting government spending has been pitiful with little or no consultation and indiscriminate elimination of vital programs and staff and irreparable loss of expertise and experience.
(The reported exodus of scientists, doctors and other skills from the U.S. to Canada to escape Trumpism is at least one benefit we’ll reap from all this.)
Among the “clowns” Trump enlisted to help him create his brave new world is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the eccentric anti-vaxxer who was named U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary.
While Kennedy has finally admitted the vaccine is “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles,” he has resisted mounting a campaign to encourage parents to get their kids vaccinated.
The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine has been used safely for more than 60 years and after two doses is 97 per cent effective against the highly contagious and deadly disease for children.
World-wide, measles had been declared eliminated. But there is currently a resurgence in several countries, including Canada, since vaccination rates started dropping off—partly the result of influence by crusading anti-vaxxers like Kennedy.
The very fact that the measles outbreak has seriously worsened under Kennedy’s watch is a travesty.
Sadly, as measles cases double in the U.S. over cases in 2024, Kennedy was in Gaines County, Texas, where he went to comfort families at the funerals for two young children who died of the complication of measles.
Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house! Now, Secretary Kennedy wants to ban fluoride in drinking water—a move dentists warn will be catastrophic, especially for kids from poor families who can’t afford dental care.
This isn’t a circus, folks. It’s a hideous nightmare with no end in sight.
Sally Barnes has enjoyed a distinguished career as a writer, journalist and author. Her work has been recognized in a number of ways, including receiving a Southam Fellowship in Journalism at Massey College at the University of Toronto. A self-confessed political junkie, she has worked in the back-rooms for several Ontario premiers. In addition to a number of other community contributions, Sally Barnes served a term as president of the Ontario Council on the Status of Women. She is a former business colleague of Doppler’s publisher, Hugh Mackenzie, and lives in Kingston, Ontario. You can find her online at sallybarnesauthor.com.
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The First Lady is supposedly a huge advocate of the next generation (BE BEST and Fostering the Future). Unfortunately she has been MIA lately. I truly hope she steps in to protect the children she is a figurehead for.
Great comments. I suspect the main idea of the tariffs was to take down the markets so the rich could buy stocks and raise them up again. Quick way to get richer.
Why are we focused on Trump? What about the trillions of dollars Trudeau has spent in other countries while Canada is full of hopelessness and dispair. Trudeau broke Canada and increased the cost of everything until we have the most homeless we have ever had. The food banks are growing like crazy because Trudeau has made it unafordable for Canadians to buy houses or keep paying on the house they have. Canadians are lucky to pay their bills and then have none left over for groceries or medicine. You cant afford to rent anymore since Trudeau has been in office. Trudeau built a skating rink for 5 million but no one was allowed to skate on it. Trudeau hasnt helped the veterns that cant afford to live here because of the cost of living is so high or indigenous water or the oil pipeline all which he promised 3 different elections. He printed up a bunch of money which caused our dollar to drop. He has done black face twice but fired others in tje cabinet for having done black face in their teens. There is so much more to list gere that Trudeau has done to the detriment of Canada and Canadians. Focus on Canadians and Canadians problems.
Thankyou, Sally for this very well written description of the horrors occurring in the U.S.
There are also so many more incomprehensibly outrageous, inhumane measures being taken by Trump, as he quickly follows, almost step by step, the dismantling of American government and society as outlined by mostly industrial based billionaires (who started out disliking the annoyance of any government regulations that affected their businesses and profits), in Project 2025, which has been in the works for years.
In Trump, they finally found a person to spearhead the changes to an authoritarian “government” that works only for them.
It’s frightening to think that after his 4 years of wrecking ball “executive orders”, he may not go away, or… the cabal behind Project 2025 will find some other evil person to take his place.
I wonder why these people find that they can’t live well enough on a $billion. They need hundreds of billions, or even a trillion and don’t care who they hurt, or how much they wreck the planet that we all depend on for survival, in their mission of greed.
Thanks for this Ms. Barnes. It’s easy to think that we in Huntsville don’t need this message; surely we all know what a dumpster fire the U.S. is right now? And how we are all in danger of getting burned by it.
And I think that most of us know what an existential threat T is to Canada via tariffs – and by virtue of his USAID trashing – his cruel hurt on the developing world too.
But, we don’t all know/accept it as evidenced by the liberal (pun intended) use of Proud Boy postings and the odd MAGA sign right here in Muskoka/Parry Sound.
Please keep banging the drum; your words are relevant and important.
Well said Sally. The Roman empire collapsed, Marie Antoinette’s reign ended in the French revolution,
Hitler’s time didn’t end well, and this one is destined for the same kind of outcome. Unfortunately, he will take millions of good people down wit him.