Another View: Trump is deciding what kind of nation we are

I wonder if nations can be characterized by the same attributes, emotions and traits that we use to describe people. Can a nation grieve or be aggrieved, just as a person can? Can it be welcoming and accommodating as opposed to insular and exclusive? Can a nation be proud? Or prideful? Can it be empathetic or cruel?

In a democracy, one hopes that a country’s national character reflects the aggregate attitudes, emotions and sentiments of its citizens, but I wonder if that is what is happening in the U.S. right now.

I was thinking about this while considering the Trump administration’s deportation policy. I was watching videos of young men in their underwear, shorn and shackled at hands and feet, being frog-marched into crowded and severe prison cells in El Salvador.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration floated the idea of deporting undocumented immigrants to Libya, a country where, according to Amnesty International, prisoners are “systematically subjected to torture, sexual violence, forced labor and other exploitation with total impunity.”

Imagine that you are a Mexican or Venezuelan who finds himself in a Libyan prison that is being paid by the U.S. to keep you there: Your chances of ever getting out are … what? Zero?

I make no particular brief for any terrorists, rapists or murderers who are among these deportees. But NBC News reports that out of 1,200 ICE arrests on a particular day in January, 48% of the detainees had no criminal record. Other reports confirm that a high percentage of deportees have never been accused of a crime.

In fact, the Trump administration famously admits that it deported one detainee — Kilmar Abrego Garcia — by mistake, but it can’t be bothered to fix the problem, despite the Supreme Court’s directive to do so.

In short, the Trump administration is committing considerable cruelty, not just against immigrants, but also in the abrupt and heartless ways it fired thousands of federal employees and eliminated foreign aid programs that had been saving the lives of thousands of children for decades.

A failure of empathy is not identical to cruelty, but it’s worth noting that President Donald Trump is more famous for firing people than he is for empathy. If you listen to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller or so-called border czar Tom Homan, the first impression one gets is probably not empathy.

And recently Elon Musk said, “The fundamental weakness of Western Civilization is empathy.” It’s amazing what you can get away with saying when you’re the world’s richest man and you’ve charmed the world’s most powerful man.

But is this really the way we want our national character to be perceived by the world? A place where human beings can be detained, shackled, stripped and shorn and hustled to distant prisons without due process? The world’s most prosperous nation that constantly whines about being ripped off by every other nation on earth? A supposedly “Christian nation” that always wants to be “first,” entirely ignoring Matthew 20:16, which says, “the last shall be first, and the first last.”

I don’t agree with Trump about much, but he may be right when he says that his first 100 days in office are the most consequential in the history of the United States. Trump has changed our perception of ourselves — and the world’s perception of us, as well.

Post-Jan. 20, 2025 America largely reflects Trump’s personality. Trump always wants to be first. He is perpetually aggrieved and believes that others are constantly trying to rip him off in a zero-sum world of winners and losers.

He seems to be comfortable with Musk’s attitude toward empathy, which makes cruelty inevitable. Trump always believes that he is the smartest person in the room, which doesn’t encourage toleration of speech he disagrees with. He’s a grudge-holder and score-settler. And now this is how much of the world sees us.

What we used to be — the pre-Trump country — seems almost like a different nation. Which one do you prefer to live in?

John M. Crisp, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, lives in Texas and can be reached at jcrispcolumns@gmail.com. ©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC