Nuts in Newark

Trump’s ass-backwards priorities are on full display in the Garden State

Don’t ever say the Trump administration can’t get any dumber. They seem to take it as a dare.

That’s what ran through our heads Friday afternoon as we saw competing headlines emerging out of Newark, New Jersey. The first was a terrifying story about yet another telecommunications blackout at the major airport’s air traffic control. The second story was about Trump goons arresting the city’s mayor.

And that, friends, is the Trump administration in a nutshell. They won’t keep the planes in the air, but they’ll sure as hell drag your mayor off to a jail cell. Are we great again or what?

Yeah, while Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (R-MTV) has been busy playing on social media, doing Fox hits and kissing orange ass in cabinet meetings, air travel in America has started to get pretty fucking scary. We’re not losing planes in the ocean yet, but that’s only because the Navy seems to have a monopoly there.

The Newark airport has been a disaster for days. CNN reports that 121 flights have been canceled and 292 have been delayed. Trump has tried to blame former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttiegieg, as if Pete is the dumb sonofabitch who gutted the FAA within days of taking office.

And this is Trump. He does not care about the Americans stranded. He does not care about the Americans scared to fly. And he would not care if the unthinkable happened. Again. He cares about revenge. He cares about power. And he cares about making America white again.

That’s why his administration prioritized arresting Mayor Ras Baraka instead of fixing the goddamn airport. Trump even had is old personal attorney, Alina Habba, announce the arrest on twitter, hypocritically declaring that “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.”

Baraka’s crime was to visit and protest outside an ICE detention center in his city. Habba said he “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon.”

“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law,” she wrote. “This will not stand in this state.”

Really? Just a reminder that she works for a convicted felon who is currently defying a U.S. Supreme Court order and Baraka would be in line for a government settlement if he had attacked the United States Capitol and beat some cops with the American flag instead of going to bat for some migrants.

What we saw in Newark on Friday is what Trumpism is all about. Nothing will get better, and no services will be improved. In fact, a lot of basic stuff is going to get worse. But we will devote vast amounts of money and every ounce of our national soul to punishing people with brown skin and those who want to help them. Newark is what America is going to experience from the federal government for the next few years — lots of hate and not a lot of help.

We are likely days or weeks away from empty shelves. Veterans care has already been devastated. Medicaid appears to be on the chopping block. Trump is stuffing his pockets while kids in Africa die from Elon’s cuts. And on Friday, chief thug Stephen Miller said the administration is looking at possibly suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Air travel barely made the list.

Their priorities aren’t just backwards. They are terrifying.

We can hope that even the staunchest Republicans will start to see the degradation of everyday life in America under Trump and connect the dots, pining for competent governance over jack-booted behavior. But we know that’s really why they voted Trump in the first place.

So it’s on the rest of us to remind Americans that it’s not supposed to be this way. And we’ll keep reminding them until we’re arrested or die in a plane crash.