What is happening in America? A few days ago , I woke up to the shocking news that President Donald Trump attributed the recent air collision in Washington, D.C., to “diversity.” The implication of his statement is as clear as it is disturbing: only white Americans, in his view, are competent to manage air traffic control.
This is not just an offhand remark; it is a statement from the President of a nation that houses some of the world’s best universities, a country that has historically led the free world. To hear such a divisive and reckless assertion from the leader of the United States is a moment of reckoning, a sign of how far America has fallen from the ideals that once defined it.
When asked if he would visit the site of the tragic accident, his response was callous, almost absurd: “You want me to go swimming?” It was a remark so flippant, so devoid of empathy, that one could mistake it for something said by a dictator from a failing state, not the President of the United States. One wonders: has Idi Amin Dada resurrected in America, just with a different skin color? In Trump, compassion seems to have died, and in its place, a new, harsher America has emerged.
The Death of Compassion
Yesterday, I spoke with a Nigerian immigrant—a family friend and mother of four American-born children. For an entire week, she had not stepped outside her apartment, paralyzed by fear of ICE raids. The roundups are relentless , she said. Immigrants, including long-time residents, are being captured on the streets, handcuffed like criminals, and forcibly deported on military aircraft.
This is not the America the world once knew—the land of refuge for the persecuted, the dream of the oppressed. America, the country that once prided itself on its empathy and humanity, has become a place of dread, a land where people flee in fear rather than run toward in hope. The words engraved on the Statue of Liberty—“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—now ring hollow. Lady Liberty, it seems, has turned her back on those she once welcomed.
Freedom of Speech, If You Dare
America has long prided itself as a bastion of free speech. Yet today, speaking one’s mind comes with a cost. Consider the case of Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington. She had the audacity to plead with the President to have mercy—to show compassion for immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and other vulnerable groups.
“We were all once strangers in this land,” she reminded him in a homily at the Washington National Cathedral. But rather than listening, Trump, ever eager to retaliate, lashed out, calling her speech “nasty in tone, not compelling, or smart.” It was a familiar playbook—the same one he has used to silence and humiliate any woman who dares to challenge him.
Democracy on Life Support
All the fundamental pillars of democracy seem to be crumbling. Aid to the vulnerable has been frozen. Institutions meant to hold the powerful accountable are being dismantled or politicized. The rule of law—once a cornerstone of American governance—is now conditional, favoring the President’s allies while punishing his critics.
Perhaps the most ominous sign of America’s democratic decline is the chilling reality that investigators of a crime broadcast live to the world on January 6 are now the ones being threatened with punishment. This is not happening in Latin America, nor in some autocratic regime in Africa , it is not ABACHA’s regime I. Nigeria, this is not DRC Congo or Asia—it is happening in America. The same America that once stood as a beacon of justice, a model for emerging democracies. The same America I , a journalist haunted in Nigeria ran to for refuge has suddenly become where law abiding citizens are running away from.
The consequences of this shift extend beyond the U.S. borders. Those of us from the so-called “Third World” have long looked to America as a reference point—a place where democracy, justice, and human rights were upheld. But now, even our leaders, once restrained by the fear of international scrutiny, are watching closely. If America can erode its institutions with impunity, what is to stop them from doing the same?
Mr. Trump, Tear Down This Wall
The time is coming when someone, somewhere, will need to stand up and, in the spirit of Ronald Reagan’s famous words at the Berlin Wall, declare: “Mr. Trump, tear down this wall.” Not a physical wall, but the wall of fear, division, and authoritarianism that is slowly suffocating the very essence of what America used to stand for.
The United States was once a nation of hope, a country where democracy thrived and where the world could turn for moral leadership. That America is slipping away. The question is: will it be reclaimed, or will it continue its descent from First World to Third World?
