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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Thank you Sally for your interesting take on US politics…I really enjoyed it.
I am however embarrassed to say I read the horrible rant published from Rob Adams. What a poorly informed piece of drivel expounded by this contributor. Yes…they walk among us. Very disturbing.
Oh what a lot of tripe. Here’s a thought, why don’t you stop obsessing about Trump and write about the mess Canada is in? If you think Trump is bad, wait and see how bad things will get here if Carney is elected – it will be a disaster.
Trump is an easy target for people like Sally Barnes because his personality doesn’t win him any friends and she uses that to promote her biases. She fails to mention that Trump is putting Americans first – I wish this Liberal government of ours would put Canadians first rather than give our tax money away to foreign interests. She fails to mention that Trump has cut support for the WEF -an unelected organization that controlled Trudeau and controls Carney and Freeland, and doesn’t work for US or Canadian interests. She fails to mention that Trump has cut support for the WHO, another unelected body, headed up by a terrorist and whose vaccine policies and health policies are strongly influenced by the crackpot Bill Gates. Canada has tried desperately to cede our sovereignty to the WHO through the pandemic treaty – a total scam – which s tantamount to treason. She fails to mention that Trump has taken the US out of the Paris Accord because he recognizes climate change is another scam – unlike our Liberals that use it as another way to syphon off our tax money for their globalist friends. She fails to mention that Trump is fully aware of how Canada is compromised by Chinese interference and is taking steps to stop that. She fails to mention that Trump is the only world leader making an effort to bring peace to Ukraine.
As for Kennedy, if Sally Barnes paid attention, she would know that he is not an anti-vaxxer, he’s not stopping vaccine programs but he does not believe they should be mandatory, and he feels the vaccine company should have liability for their products – what’s wrong with that? With respect to the recent measles deaths, she should check her facts. At least one of those deaths was caused by the vaccine itself – proven. Kennedy has also said we will know the cause of autism by September this year. Autism has reached pandemic proportions yet Canada has made no attempt to do this for years. As for the safety of fluoride, the world has turned since it was first introduced and there are serious doubts as to it’s long term safety despite it having dental benefits. The ‘safe and effective’ rhetoric preached by our government and drug companies is not believable anymore – that should be obvious to everyone at this point. Kennedy is not buying into that rhetoric and putting the health of Americans before the profits of the drug companies. Another thing happening since Trump took office is that the majority of States have now banned geoengineering and spraying of our skies with chemicals. Canada’s Liberal government still endorse this which is another thing not good for our health of the environment.
Sally Barnes should do her homework before she commits words to paper. She’s using her position of influence for propaganda and Liberal support, something much of our media is doing, which is a big reason we’re in the mess we’re in. .