# The current second Trump administration: a compendium of horrors **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [November 6, 2024, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774 "2024-11-06T09:17:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 160
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2026, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3186 "2026-03-17T15:12:34Z")
> # Trump’s cancellation of licenses for immigrant truckers takes effect > > _Around 200,000 people will start losing commercial licenses under a federal rule that takes effect Monday, a move that could mean higher prices for consumers._ > > [https://wapo.st/4bMlYl4](https://wapo.st/4bMlYl4) > Some 200,000 immigrant truck drivers will begin to lose their commercial driver’s licenses as they expire under a new Trump administration rule that takes effect Monday. > > … > > The rule bars immigrants who are asylum seekers, refugees or recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, from obtaining commercial driver’s licenses. And it’s part of the Trump administration’s widening campaign against immigrant truck drivers following several high-profile accidents last summer. > > Those with valid commercial driver’s licenses will lose their driving privileges as their licenses expire, not immediately. > > … > > About 200,000 immigrants in the United States hold about 5 percent of all commercial driver’s licenses, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. > > … > > Under the rule announced on Feb. 11, immigrants with a variety of temporary protections would no longer be able to obtain commercial driver’s licenses regardless of whether they’re authorized to work in the United States. “For far too long, **America has allowed dangerous foreign drivers to abuse our truck licensing systems — wreaking havoc on our roadways,”** Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said in a statement announcing the rule last month. > … My bold. Yet another one of the “very best people” shoots off his mouth. I don’t understand the rationale (excuse the expression) behind this. I guess it’s just to punish people for not being born in the US. That’s all I can think of. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2026, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3187 "2026-03-17T15:19:38Z")
Of course. It’s entirely about forcing the non-whites to self-deport after you take away their ability to earn a living. Now what that does to their US-born minor citizen children is another matter. As one of our posters is fond of saying, _the cruelty is the point_. Makes these small losers feel bigger. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3188 "2026-03-18T04:00:58Z")
Submitted for your consideration: a long, detailed, savage evisceration of this administration, its malignant overlord, and the unfolding disaster he impulsively unleashed upon a horrified and disgusted world. > **[Trump’s War, Everyone Else’s Problem](https://marygeddry.com/p/trumps-war-everyone-elses-problem)** > > How a swaggering “victory” turned into a panicked demand for NATO, a crisis in Hormuz, and an economic clock that will not stop ticking ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3189 "2026-03-18T04:13:26Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I don’t understand the rationale (excuse the expression) behind this. I guess it’s just to punish people for not being born in the US. That’s all I can think of. Everyone knows that brown-skinned furriners can’t drive! Whereas MAGAts coal-rolling in their giant jacked-up diesel pickups drive great, especially when drunk! /s > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Of course. It’s entirely about forcing the non-whites to self-deport after you take away their ability to earn a living. Quite so. And if they turn to crime in desperation, that will be taken as proof of the Wisdom of the Great Orange One. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3190 "2026-03-18T04:27:54Z")
Good article, thanks for posting it. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3191 "2026-03-18T04:30:44Z")
It was a real pleasure to read it. I actually came across it on Facebook but tracked it to the above link for posting here. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3192 "2026-03-18T05:27:43Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > Submitted for your consideration > Tankers do not reopen sea lanes because he growled at Keir Starmer. Commodity traders do not take comfort from the fact that Karoline Leavitt can explain a disaster with the poise of a malfunctioning Roomba. Welcome to reality, Mr. Trump. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3193 "2026-03-18T12:20:31Z")
Everyone should read that. It’s fantastic. “Commodity traders do not take comfort from the fact that Karoline Leavitt can explain a disaster with the poise of a malfunctioning Roomba” :snort: Oh, @DesertDog beat me to it, but I just love that line. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3194 "2026-03-18T12:29:19Z")
I read the article last night and it has some excellent phrases explaining the situation. From the above referenced article - this is one of my favorites: _“They want to claim complete control while betraying something very close to panic, and to declare the war a triumph and then explain away every consequence of that triumph as a reason why more nations must join in. It is the foreign policy equivalent of driving your car into a lake and then blaming the passengers for not rowing.”_ ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3195 "2026-03-18T13:09:52Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Everyone knows that brown-skinned furriners can’t drive! As indicated in the article, this is about nativism. Plenty of white people will be out of a job, and know why. Many Americans, of varying races, will be out of a good job because their career is partially funded by the purchases of the former truck drivers. Those mostly U.S. citizen victims of nativism will mostly never know the underlying cause. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3196 "2026-03-18T13:18:26Z")
Herbert Hoover (R) is rightly blamed for causing much of the Depression and definitely for being unable to manage back out of it because the orthodoxy of his party’s doctrine prohibited doing what needed to be done. Funny how history is repeating itself almost exactly 100 years later. How soon we collectively forget the dangers of economically illiterate political orthodoxy. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3197 "2026-03-18T13:54:42Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Herbert Hoover (R) is rightly blamed for causing much of the Depression and definitely for being unable to manage back out of it because the orthodoxy of his party’s doctrine prohibited doing what needed to be done. Nevertheless, as Richard Shenkman points out in _Legends, Lies, and cherished Myths of American History,_ Hoover was not inactive after the stock market crash. One historian said that he deserves credit as “the real Father of the New Deal’, although I’;ll grant that his party orthodoxy probably prevented him from going as far as FDR did > After the stock market crash, President Hoover sought to prevent panic from spreading throughout the economy. In November, he summoned business leaders to the White House and secured promises from them to maintain wages. According to Hoover’s economic theory, financial losses should affect profits, not employment, thus maintaining consumer spending and shortening the downturn. Hoover received commitments from private industry to spend $1.8 billion for new construction and repairs to be started in 1930, to stimulate employment. > > The President ordered federal departments to speed up their construction projects and asked all governors to expand public works projects in their states. He asked Congress for a $160 million tax cut while doubling spending for public buildings, dams, highways, and harbors. > > Praise for the President’s intervention was widespread; the _New York Times_ commented, “No one in his place could have done more. Very few of his predecessors could have done as much.” Together, government and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the entire previous year. Hoover wasn’t economically illiterate, by any means. He’d been Secretary of Commerce under two presidents, and was unofficially called “Under-Secretary of all other departments.” The guy translated Agricola’s _De Re Metallica_ into English, fer cryin’ out loud. Trump, on the other hand…. > **[The Great Depression | The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum](https://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/great-depression)** ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3198 "2026-03-18T15:22:45Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > It was a real pleasure to read it. I actually came across it on Facebook but tracked it to the above link for posting here.. Some great writing in it. I liked this bit, about Trump swinging from bragging about “winning” the war to begging for help: > This is the part where the contradictions stop being mere hypocrisy and become a form of performance art. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3199 "2026-03-18T15:31:44Z")
And this: > Another [admin. official] sounds as though the location of the Strait of Hormuz came as startling new information, like discovering halfway through a burglary that the house has walls. And: > NATO is a defensive alliance, not a concierge service And finally: > Even if all of them [UK, Japan, etc.] are acting partly out of caution, self-interest, or exhaustion, that still counts as a form of sanity. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3200 "2026-03-18T15:38:40Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Hoover wasn’t economically illiterate, by any means. Hoover didn’t cause the Depression and is often unfairly tarred by the economic conditions he inherited which led to the crash early in his presidency. That said, Smoot-Hawley backfired spectacularly and his “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” attitude was definitely the wrong message at the wrong time. The violent clearance of the veteran’s “bonus” camp in 1932 didn’t do him any favors either. Whereas Trump inherited a healthy and growing economy and has done everything possible to cripple it, all for the stupidest of reasons. And he’s also sent out troops to violently clear the streets. Really, he’s making Hoover look pretty good by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3201 "2026-03-18T16:09:38Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Oh, @DesertDog beat me to it, but I just love that line. It bears repeating. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2026, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3202 "2026-03-19T00:30:39Z")
> [@Ellecram](#): > > I read the article last night and it has some excellent phrases explaining the situation. Here’s another excellent article I came across today: > **[Trump’s DOGE Cuts Slashed Staff That Handled Middle Eastern Oil and Gas Crises](https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/trump-doge-cuts-middle-eastern-oil-gas-crises?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email)** > > Six months before going to war in Iran, the U.S. government cut staff that would have been central to the current situation. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2026, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3203 "2026-03-19T00:33:58Z")
And a third jeremiad about Trump. although this one’s a Facebook post, so I don’t know if it will be readable for non-FB Dopers. > **[James Roy Daley](https://www.facebook.com/jamesroy.daley.5/posts/pfbid02dVMSUC8hjYjooX4VDCvzemNExsEMg5EiqpczvPcyjMQt1oU5rebEt558C9Xssjxrl)** > > 🚨 BREAKING: Iran has just ordered Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE to evacuate their energy facilities. The missiles are coming. They named the fucking targets on live television. > > This is what 5D... ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2026, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3204 "2026-03-19T01:11:25Z")
From BBC: [‘Extensive damage’ at Qatar industrial site as Iran retaliates for gas field attack](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93j37egjdeo) > Qatar has reported “extensive damage” at a major energy industry site, the UAE said operations at a gas facility had been halted and Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted drones and ballistic missiles as Iran retaliated for a strike on a key gas field. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2026, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/3205 "2026-03-19T01:21:15Z")
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