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As the political power of Donald Trump diminishes and his public demeanor becomes more erratic, he has intensified vitriolic attacks aimed at women in media and racial minorities, with Somali Americans as a recent focal point. The impact of these insults stems from their malice and his platform, not their factual accuracy. Similarly, the government's actions against immigrants are haphazard and founded on falsehoods. The evidence makes it obvious that the goal extends beyond targeting those who have committed crimes. The assault is directed at people of color.

This includes Indigenous peoples with official tribal documentation to naturalized US citizens, from essential workers in construction and healthcare to those who served, university attendees, people in their own homes, and very young children: a broad cross-section of the country's population is under siege.

"ICE operations are brutal, inhumane and do nothing for public safety," asserts a prominent New York City official. Scenes featuring masked agents breaking car glass and dragging parents away from infants, instilling fear and disrupting schools and businesses, achieves the opposite effect.

These waves of orchestrated bigotry—directed at people from Haiti in the 2024 campaign, Venezuelans this year, and now Somalis—lean heavily on libelous lies and insults. The reason is simple: the actual facts about these communities cannot support the animosity.

The Mythical White Nation Versus Actual History

This campaign of terror and demonization purports to aim at rebuilding a uniformly white United States which is a fiction. Although America had a larger white population in the mid-20th century, it was never exclusively a "white country". At the nation's founding, the original thirteen colonies included a significant percentage of Black and Indigenous peoples—some southern states had Black populations exceeding a third.

Following American expansion, annexing Texas in 1844 and seizing Mexico's northern territories in 1848, it absorbed a vast community of Hispanic settlers already living across the modern Southwest and California. Historical records show the first African Muslim in this land arrived with a Spanish exploration party almost one hundred years before the Mayflower Puritan passengers reached the shores of New England in 1620.

Demographic Realities Versus Coercive Fantasies

The systematic targeting of huge populations of people of color and attempts at large-scale expulsion will not manufacture the all-white nation of extremist imagination. A city like Los Angeles, for instance, is close to 50% Hispanic, and despite enforcement outrages, arrests, and deportations, its character persists. The city's very name is Spanish, an ongoing testament of its original inhabitants.

The entirety of this animus and oppression resembles the panic of bigots attempting to believe they can stop the coming changes of a country that is ceasing to be predominantly white by using pure cruelty.

This is paired with an attack on abortion access that is, sometimes, openly intended to prompt Caucasian women to have more children. The argument points to a fertility rate below replacement level in the US, a phenomenon less severe than in some other nations due to a young, industrious immigrant workforce which keeps the economy functioning. However, rather than providing the social support that might make raising children easier, the approach is punitive and coercive.

A prominent journalist observes that the reproductive politics of certain political figures—along with insults toward childless women—constitute a form of pronatalism. This philosophy "usually combines worries about declining birth rates with opposition to immigration and anti-women's rights viewpoints."

In a similar vein, reporting indicates that "efforts to bolster the birth rate cannot make up for wider administrative priorities designed to cut federal support programs like healthcare for the poor and children's health insurance. The so-called 'pro-family' focus is not just for encouraging procreation. Rather, it is being weaponized to advance a conservative agenda that threatens the health of women, bodily autonomy, and labor force involvement."

Contradictory Strategies and Widespread Resistance

Together, the anti-immigration and pro-birth policies represent an attempt to artificially redirect the nation's demographic trajectory. Ultimately, both amount to foolish bullying by individuals filled with hatred who inadvertently reveal that their assertions of being better must be rooted in race and gender; without these constructs, their positions devolve into meaningless idiocy.

Much of the justification put forward by the administration fails to align with observable realities and real-world results. For example, maritime attacks in the southern Caribbean often target small vessels not confirmed to be carrying narcotics and incapable of making it to the United States. Likewise, Venezuela's role in fentanyl trafficking is negligible, and its role in cocaine trafficking is much smaller than that of neighboring countries on the continent.

The government's position extends to environmental policy, with a rejection of "the science of climate change" and "Net Zero goals." There is a sentimental attachment to fossil fuels, particularly coal, leading to policies that compel localities to spend money on outdated and polluting power sources while sabotaging cheaper, cleaner renewables. Concurrently, public health leadership have promoted unscientific nutritional plans while eroding broader health protections.

The core premise of the anti-immigrant offensive is that people of color born abroad are dangerous intruders. Yet, from coast to coast—from Los Angeles to Charlotte, Chicago to Portland—the government's own forces, immigration enforcement personnel, whom many residents perceive as the dangerous and hostile interlopers.

There is no clearer sign of the broad repudiation of these tactics than the countless individuals mobilizing, demonstrating, facing danger and detention to defend their neighbors. City after city has risen up in protection of its people. No amount of derogatory language and threats can alter this fundamental truth.