From Autocracy to Global Crises: A Sobering Look at Today’s Political Landscape

Commentary by: Salim Muwakkil, host of the "Salim Muwakkil Show" on WVON 1690 AM, journalist, and community activist.

 Greeting folks. Well, if any of you harbored hopes that the current President had plans other than ushering us toward an authoritarian autocracy, THEN you must banish those hopes immediately. The man is brazen in his assault on democratic sensibilities and uses the tools of the federal government to settle his own personal gripes and manifest his sinister political proclivities.  

For example,  he imposed sanctions on  Brazilian Supreme Court justice, Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the case against Jair Bolsonaro, a former Brazilian president who’s a Trump friend and ideological ally. Bolsonaro is accused of seeking to overturn the 2022 vote that ousted him, dismantle courts, and hand special powers to the military. After Bolsonaro was turned out of office, thousands of his supporters ransacked government buildings in Brazil’s capital, emulating Trump’s Jan,. 6 rioters.  He and Bolsonaro have a deep, anti-democratic affinity, and not only is Trump using his executive powers to sanction the Brazilian judge trying his friend, he’s also imposing a 50% tariff on Brazil, essentially because the courts are attempting to hold Bolsonaro accountable for his transgressions.

 Then he went after Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, for not lowering interest rates,  subjecting him to withering criticism and insults.  Thankfully, Powell resisted Trump's bullying.

 But while he was in his bullying mood, he then fired Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) who angered him by releasing statistics that he said were massaged to make him look bad. The BLS head was confirmed by a bipartisan vote in 2024, but Trump accused her of a long pattern of rigging the job  numbers to hurt him. This rash move even motivated a few  Republicans to express some alarm at his autocratic actions, verging on despotic, some warned. 

 That alarm increased with the president’s uncharacteristically harsh response to Russia’s increasing attacks on Ukraine and his announcement he was repositioning nuclear submarines in “appropriate regions” because of remarks made by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. This petulant response, interpreting Medvedev's statements as a personal affront, prompts concern that Trump's emotional insecurities could trigger rash actions. 

 But Russia didn’t seem worried; at least 31 people were killed Wednesday night as Russia’s military launched a massive drone and missile attack on Kyiv.  Among the dead were five children and at least 159 other people were wounded. Trump called the attack “disgusting” and said he would impose additional sanctions on Russia. Although many may have been happy to see Trump get on the Ukraine train, they were nonetheless worried about his undisciplined behavior. Tensions with Ukraine are one thing, but tensions with Russia are of another order altogether.  The primary worry is Trump’s volatility and lack of discipline.

 ICE is launching a major recruitment campaign to hire officers, lawyers, and investigators by offering $50,000 signing bonuses and student loan forgiveness.  ICE is flush with funds after Trump’s tax and spending bill granted the agency $76.5 billion, 30 billion of which would be used for hiring thousands of staffers to meet the Trump administration’s goal of 1 million deportations annually.  Until the hirees arrive, however, the Trump administration has authorized the deployment of the National Guard to immigration detention centers in 20 states.

 Other stuff:  We’ve been focusing on the horrors in Gaza for the last year --and conditions there are indeed horrible -- but medics in Sudan’s East Darfur state say the situation there may even be more dire. In the last few days alone, more than a dozen children have starved to death in the Lagawa refugee camp amid a cholera outbreak, heat waves and flooding in the region.  The UN says that more than 15 million people have been displaced since the start of Sudan’s Civil war in April 2023, making it the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. 

 This week, the Sudanese paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) formally announced it had established a rival government headquartered in the city of Nyala. The African Union has condemned the move. The civil war between the RSF (remnants of the Arabized Janjaweed group, created to surprise a 2003 rebellion ) and Sudanese regular forces is the cause of the humanitarian crisis, and tribalism (or xenophobia) is the cause of that as well.

 Tribalism is also the root of the conflict in the  Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  The Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have plagued the DRC government for years in a struggle for territory the vast “rare earth” resources in the region. Recently, a UN agency told Reuters news that M23 rebels attacked civilians in eastern DRC in early July, killing 169 people. This  struggle, a remnant of the 1994 tribal conflict in Rwanda that resulted in the Hutu genocide of Tutsi, has been amplified by the extraordinary prevalence of highly-coveted, rare earth minerals in the region.  These minerals are necessary to  power the proliferation of  high-tech economies. 

 In news about other xenophobic carnage, Palestinian officials in Gaza report Israeli attacks have killed at least 17 people on Friday, including seven people seeking aid near a distribution point south of Khan Younis.  By the way, this news is courtesy of the Democracy Now website, which features Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales.

 The Gaza attacks came as medics said at least two more Palestinians have died of starvation over the past 24 hours, as the trickle of aid entering Gaza fails to meet the needs of more than 2 million people. Hungry Palestinians who searched for a meal Thursday at a community kitchen in Gaza City said they came away empty-handed.   But as Gaza’s starvation deaths continue to mount, the world finally seems to be taking note.  Several European nations have expressed alarm and taken political steps (like recognizing a Palestinian state) to draw attention to the tragedy taking place in Gaza. 

 Meanwhile, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee toured an aid distribution site in Gaza run by the shadowy, US-and Israeli-backed so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.  According to the UN, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access food since Israel barred the UN and NGO’s from distributing aid in Gaza. The majority of those killed were at GHF sites, according to Democracy Now.  Witkoff’s trip to Gaza comes one day after he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

 By the way, in addition to Gaza and the West Bank, Israel continues its bombing attacks in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen with absolute impunity -- the wet dream of all imperialists. 

 Biden was in Chicago, talking to the National Bar Association, and warning about the dark days ahead with this authoritarian president (without mentioning names) although his remarks were relatively brief and offered little advice on ways to counter the Trumpian threat.  Among other things, he said, quote: “We are, in my view, at such a moment in American history, reflected in every cruel executive outreach, every rollback of basic freedoms, every erosion of long-standing established precedent,” he said.  He said the Trump administration is out “to erase history, rather than making it. To erase fairness, equality, to erase justice itself.  And that’s not hyperbole.  That’s a fact.”

 Speaking of facts … the Smithsonian National Museum of American History has removed explicit reference to President Trump’s impeachment from an exhibit last month.  A person familiar with the exhibit told the Washington Post that the change occurred during a content review done under pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director.  A spokesperson said that a future exhibit would include all impeachments. Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order calling for “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” to be removed from the Smithsonian. Of course, by that means anything even vaguely attached to “critical race theory” or Diversity Equity and Inclusion, or any artifacts recalling the systematic depravities of past oppressions.  

 These actions are strongly reminiscent of the era we know as the “counter Reconstruction” era --from 1877 to the early 1900s --  when the racial reconciliation efforts of “Reconstruction” were abandoned and reversed.  

 Well … Chicago Public Schools will be operating with  considerably fewer hands thanks to a massive budget deficit.  But the demographic realities of the city reveal that our student population is going down, down, down.  About 325,000 students enrolled this year, a drop of more than 70,000 from a decade back.  District officials project that three school years from now, there could be as few as 3000,000 or, in a best-case scenario, as many as 334,000.  Those estimates are based in part on the city’s sharply falling birth rates.  Citywide, from 2011 to 2021, the number of births dropped by more than 43%. Now. … That's a fascinating issue.  What’s up with birth rates?  Why are they dropping?  You know that drop in birthrates is inspiring a lot of demographic anxiety, if not paranoia, among whites in a bit of a panic about the so-called “replacement theory.” But Black people are also experiencing a rather sharp birth dearth as well.  What’s up with that?  I’m sure y'all got some theories.