President Donald Trump holds his granddaughter Carolina Trump as he speaks at a campaign event. "Trump is dismantling institutions that people–families–depend on," says Jennifer Claywood.
Yesterday morning I dropped my adult son off at the airport to head back to the United States.
Back to a country that I hardly recognise anymore. I shouldn’t be as afraid as a mother sending her child to Palestine or Ukraine, or another place already shattered by war, but perhaps I am. Given what’s happening right now, how far off is the US from becoming just as unstable?
As a parent, you spend your life learning to care for someone other than yourself, to protect them, and to prepare them for the world. But what happens when the world you’re sending them into feels more dangerous than ever?
Trump seems determined to dismantle US democracy.
With every executive order he signs, I feel my fear deepen. The most helpless people – the disabled, the mentally ill, the elderly, those who rely on social programmes, those who live paycheck to paycheck, who were recently dubbed “the parasite class” by Elon Musk, are already feeling the weight of his decisions. Not only those groups, but also women, immigrants, people of colour, LGBTQ individuals, and people of other minorities.
My mother, who relies on food stamps, social security, Medicare and Medicaid, is more vulnerable than she’s ever been. My son, technically homeless, struggles to afford rent in a country where being poor is criminalised. He tries to live simply, but even renting a tiny home sets him back $600 a month. Buying a house for young people is next to impossible and even renting is becoming that way. The American Dream has never felt like more of a fantasy.
Meanwhile, Trump–who is also a parent–seems to have never learned what that really means. Being a parent is about responsibility. About understanding that your actions affect more than just yourself. Perhaps you need to be held accountable for your actions before you can teach someone else what that means. His legacy isn’t one of care but of destruction.
He’s dismantling institutions that people–families–depend on.
Trump is following the playbook so many authoritarian leaders followed before him. He’s wielding executive orders like weapons. Consolidating power, gutting the government, and punishing his enemies. And yet, he still has supporters who believe in him. People who see his bluster as strength. His power grab feels more and more like history repeating itself.
My father, a life-long Republican and conservative, has never been a die-hard MAGA believer, but he likes Trump. He thought that the presidency would mature him and that he would give the impression of strength. But he’s even admitted to me recently that he’s worried. He sees what’s happening and knows, deep-down, this isn’t leadership–this is something else.
I want my son to be returning to a country that is better than this. I want to believe that the nation I grew up in still has a future. That my mother will be cared for. That my son will have a chance to thrive. But under Trump, I don’t know if that’s possible. And that uncertainty, that fear, is the hardest thing of all. The future looks like the past–the worst parts of it. If we don’t pay attention, we won’t have a democracy left to fight for.
By the time we realise what we’ve lost, it will already be too late. I hope we have yet to reach that point.
This is an opinion piece and the writer's views are their own