Trump’s America: From Cages to Hurricanes, with a Side of Trolls

ICE hunts kids at school, Trump grabs at DC police, Hurricane Erin boils the Atlantic and Gavin Newsom roasts him with maps and memes.

Good morning! Donald Trump’s America is a place where an 18-year-old high school senior walking his dog in Van Nuys can be dragged off the street by federal agents while his pet is tied to a tree and set loose in traffic. Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz was supposed to start his senior year at Reseda Charter High this week, maybe play a little soccer, maybe babysit his five-month-old twin brothers. Instead, he’s sitting in a crowded cell with 40 grown men, rationed water once a day, with nowhere to sit or lie down. ICE calls him an “illegal alien.” His teammates call him “rock solid.” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho calls him what he is: a kid. But in Trump’s America, kids are targets, classrooms are hunting grounds, and traumatizing students is just another feature, not a bug.

Terrorizing teenagers isn’t enough. Trump and his enablers are busy trying to redraw the map of American democracy itself. Governor Gavin Newsom, to his credit, isn’t treating Trump’s mid-decade gerrymander scheme as some inside baseball political squabble. He’s calling it what it is: a coup by cartography. With Greg Abbott as his wingman, Trump is trying to rig the scoreboard before a single vote is cast in 2026. Newsom’s campaign to block it is more than just a California fight; it’s a constitutional one. And judging by his new online persona, Newsom has decided that the best way to meet a troll is to become one.

This week, the California governor went full parody, adopting Trump’s all-caps derangement style and hurling it right back at him. “TRUMP JUST FLED THE PODIUM WITH PUTIN. LOW ENERGY. LOOKED LIKE HE ATE THREE BUCKETS OF KFC WITH VLAD.” Newsom declared himself America’s favorite governor, the proud father of perfect maps, and even faked a Time magazine cover crowning himself king. Fox News melted down, calling him “childish,” which is rich coming from the network that treats Trump’s 3 a.m. Taylor Swift rage-posts as statesmanlike decrees. The truth is that Trump can dish it out but can’t take it. Newsom has stolen the cameras, and Trump is left with the baby stairs.

In DC, Trump’s authoritarian flex, not content with terrorizing teens and caging kids, met genuine resistance. Judge Ana Reyes delivered the blow: the Biden-appointed federal judge ordered the Justice Department to stand down. No, you can’t install a DEA official to run Metropolitan Police like a thuggish imperial overlord. Pamela Smith, appointed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, must remain in command of MPD. The DOJ relented, rebranding the previously announced “commissioner” role into a liaison at best, affirming the local chain of command. That’s not just legal pushback, that’s institutional resistance showing that checks still exist when one man tries to do everything “because I said so.”

And while judges deliberate and governors troll, the machinery of cruelty grinds on. A leaked video from a Manhattan detention center shows men crammed on the floor, forced to share one toilet, treated “like dogs.” This is the same system now warehousing Guerrero-Cruz, the same system ICE promises will keep us safe by turning teenagers into detainees and families into cautionary tales. We’ve seen this movie before, and Trump is running the director’s cut.

As if human cruelty weren’t enough, nature decided to remind us who’s really boss. Hurricane Erin has muscled up into a rare Category 5 monster, its winds doubling in speed in a single day. Forecasters warn it could double or even triple in size next week, sending dangerous surf from the Bahamas to Atlantic Canada. For now it’s wobbling north, but hurricanes don’t take requests, one shift in the track and the East Coast could be staring down a catastrophe. Erin is the Atlantic’s first major hurricane of the season, powered by oceans made hotter than a MAGA rally by the very fossil fuel addiction Trump and his donors call “energy dominance.” Drill, baby, drill and then watch the seas boil over.

So here we are, in Trump’s America: kids in cages, schools turned into ICE trapdoors, democracy redrawn with Sharpies, and DC’s cops treated like his private militia. And overhead, the planet itself is raging in 160-mile-per-hour winds. But hey, at least Gavin Newsom is trolling the troll-in-chief into a sputtering meltdown. Maybe ridicule won’t save us from authoritarianism or climate collapse but it sure feels good to watch Trump lose the one fight he thought he’d already won: the fight for attention.

And on a more personal note, while Trump is busy tearing at the fabric of the republic and Hurricane Erin spins fury in the Atlantic, my own storm at home has four paws and an inflatable collar around his head. Marz, my Cane Corso sidekick, is recovering from a cherry eye surgery that started as a minor prolapse is now a full blown disaster, red and inflamed, covering half his eye. While I thought I was being proactive with his health care, my decision to move ahead with the vet’s recommendation made things worse. They’re are talking about another surgery, maybe with a specialist this time.

Vet costs are up over 60% in the last decade, significantly outpacing general inflation, meaning too many pets and people get priced out when they need help most. So if you’re keeping your fingers crossed, please send one for Marz, and another for every pet whose health shouldn’t depend on how deep its human’s pockets are. He’s a trooper, still wagging and eating, but the sight of him is enough to remind me that cruelty and chaos don’t just come from Washington or the weather, sometimes they land right in your living room. Send a kind thought his way; he could use it.