I didn’t assume Trump’s second act could be that unhealthy. Oh, how fallacious I used to be | Arwa Mahdawi

The day after Donald Trump gained the election, everybody in my liberal nook of Philadelphia appeared shell-shocked. At preschool drop-off, a mother burst into tears. On the playground, a homosexual dad or mum I do know advised me that they have been aggressively downsizing in case they needed to flee the nation. In the meantime, I felt oddly sanguine and thought individuals have been being a tad dramatic. I rolled my eyes about Ellen DeGeneres relocating to England. I used to be optimistic that Trump 2.0, whereas horrific, wouldn’t truly be the tip of US democracy.

This was an uncommon perspective for me, as a result of catastrophising is considered one of my important pastimes. I spent about 10 minutes this morning gazing a pink dot that has appeared on my nostril, questioning if it meant I used to be dying. However when Trump gained the election, I used to be already too emotionally drained from a yr of watching Joe Biden assist flip Gaza into an unliveable hellscape to fret about issues getting even worse.

Some individuals consider that in the event you assume optimistic ideas you’ll manifest them into actuality. Sadly, this didn’t work for me. Trump has solely been president for a few weeks and issues are already far worse than I had imagined they could possibly be. I really feel genuinely scared in a approach I didn’t count on to. Trump and his partner-in-crime, Elon Musk, are in the method of smashing the nation to bits with a sledgehammer to allow them to promote it off for scrap and rebuild it to their liking. Even in the event you’re privileged sufficient to not be straight affected by that sledgehammer, you may nonetheless really feel the reverberations.

Virtually no one within the US has escaped the chaos that Trump and Musk have already unleashed in such an extremely brief time. My spouse works in worldwide growth and has mates who’ve already misplaced their jobs due to Trump dismantling USAid and throwing all its contractors into disarray. I’ve mates within the training sector who’ve been scrambling to cope with the panic attributable to Trump’s plans to freeze federal loans and grants: college students have been freaking out that they may not be capable to get monetary support, some daycare centres reliant on federal funding have been compelled to quickly shut down, and researchers are anxious about their initiatives shedding funding. (From a egocentric standpoint, I’m anxious a undertaking of my very own will lose funding.) That freeze has been quickly blocked however who is aware of what’s going to occur subsequent?

In the meantime, individuals are being rounded up and deported. It’s not as if that is the primary time that mass deportations have occurred within the US (Obama was generally known as the “deporter in chief”), however Trump’s raids are designed to trigger most panic. He has allowed immigration authorities to enter delicate locations comparable to faculties, church buildings and hospitals. Rumours about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) brokers being noticed close to faculties are throughout social media and dad or mum teams. Individuals are terrified – which, after all, is the purpose. And it’s not simply immigrants who’re scared: the raids additionally appear to be scooping up US residents, together with Native Individuals.

Trump has loads of volunteers lining as much as assist the deportations. The president appears intent on outlawing all help for Palestinians and has been suggesting kicking out international college students who protest in opposition to Israel’s actions; a lot of pro-Israel teams are eager to make that occur. One group known as Betar has compiled a listing of scholars and lecturers it thinks ought to be expelled from the US and given this record to the Trump administration. Betar additionally just lately tweeted that it could crash a vigil in New York for Hind Rajab – the five-year-old lady killed along with her household as they tried to flee Israeli forces – to doc all attenders and help Ice in “deportation efforts”. The Biden administration additionally brutally cracked down on pro-Palestinian speech, after all, however Trump is taking issues to a brand new degree. I’m on a inexperienced card that must be renewed very quickly; if I write a column saying Israel is responsible of genocide, may I get deported?

If I do must flee the US with my spouse and child, then do any Cotswolds-based readers occur to know Ellen? Please inform her I’m sorry for having been imply about her prior to now. Please, Ellen, open up your damp mansion to some refugees from Philadelphia.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist