United States President Donald Trump reminds me of my younger brother as a boy on the farm.
We used to play the Monopoly board game a lot in the winter. My brother was lucky throwing the dice. He almost always won the game.
After a two- to three-hour game, he would own everything except for a few properties other players still hung onto. It was time to quit and declare my brother the winner.
That upset him. He wanted it all, to own the whole board.
That seems to be Trump's plan — own and control all the world from Canada to Gaza.
In just days his multitude of executive orders has shaken and confused America and the globe.
The U.S. court system is about all that stands between Trump and total domination.
At his inauguration, forced indoors by weather, the spouses of congressional reps and senators were excluded while the billionaires who own/control the major online media platforms sat behind Trump — Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly Twitter; Mark Zuckerberg, controlling Facebook and Instagram; the CEO of TikTok; Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and owner of the influential Washington Post, among other tech giants.
Musk’s X no longer seems to do fact-checking and it looks like he spews right-wing propaganda.
Trump has given TikTok time to Americanize this media which served him well in the election.
Bezos who bought the Post to preserve an independent media, has backed off, not allowing the newspaper to back any candidate in the 2024 election.
Zuckerberg seems to also no longer fact-check posts on Facebook in the United States.
Two moves last week seemed to show how Trump wants to control the media and control (censor) what information is made public.
The White House briefing room has changed.
Gaming real estate billionaire and Trump supporter Steve Wynn has asked the Supreme Court to throw out a 1964 decision that set the standard for press freedom and investigative reporting.
Now we learn Musk wants to buy the non-profit online Wikipedia — an encyclopedia free to users.
Trump can’t limit his influence to the United States, opting to try and force Canada to become the 51st state, wanting to take back the Panama Canal, trying to buy Greenland and now in Gaza.
Where will his empire end?
Ron Walter can be reached at [email protected]
