LETTER: Anger as Policy

Image: Facial expression of a man having emotions of anger (Wikipedia)

To: The Editor 

Re: Why Is the Trump Thugocracy
So Angry All of the Time? 

From: James C. Johnston Jr. 

Date:
January 16, 2026

During
World War II, Hollywood created the “movie Nazi” and “evil
Japanese” characters in a way that seemed to increase their very
ominous film-personae by making them all very angry. In these films,
the Japanese and Nazi-Germans were always angry, growling, and
yelling even when in almost casual conversation with each other. In
real life, the “Trump People” seem to do the same thing. Anger is
their sine qua non!

F.
B. I. Director Kash Patel, who dumped his wife Ritik, who is the
mother of his children for his girlfriend- twenty-seven year-old
Country Western singer Alexis Wilkins, is: always snarling, outraged,
scowling, and/or down-right nasty when being intervened or questioned
in any way. Of course, Good Old Kash has been asked by pesky
reporters to explain why he always takes a government plane when he
goes to Alexis Wilkins’ Country Music Concerts. I am sure that Kash
Patel looks at this sort of inquiry as invasion of his privacy no
matter how many millions of our tax dollars have been spent
transporting him, and his girlfriend, and their friends around to
various concert venues.

After
all, if Kash and his girlfriend want to fly around on our dime, what
business is it of ours? After all, we are only paying for their
pleasure. What the Hell! Why not cut taxes for billionaires and cut
medical care for the less wealthy citizens of our nation. It should
be a privilege for us to pay for such important expenses as
transporting Director Patel around on his dates with his young
sweetheart. With a snarl curling on his lips, Patel just flies off to
his next concert with Alexis by his side whispering sweet “Nothings”
into her ear. Maybe when they are in flight and way from the
maddening crowd, F.B.I. Director Kash Patel might stop being angry
for a little while and smile until he remembers that his wife is
suing him for alimony and child support.

Trump’s
Homeland Security Director and former Governor of South Dakota,
Kristi Noem, spends a great deal of her time looking angry when she
is not chewing-out the press or shooting a pet puppy or goat. As a
matter of literary fact, shooting her pets is heavily featured in
Noem’s autobiography. Ms. Noem thought that telling people about
this dark-side of her personality might make her more relatable to
South Dakota voters. It didn’t. Noem reported that her fourteen
month old pup chased her neighbor’s hens. Just imajin that. A puppy
chasing hens! Who would have thunk it! Noem reported that the pup
nipped her when she restrained him. How totally unnatural it is for a
puppy following its natural predatory instincts, might nip somebody
because they have been separated from their natural prey! Also,
puppies chase things, because the things they chase tend to run thus
becoming potential prey!

Noem
tells us in her book that she brought the offending pup to a sand pit
and shot him dead. She also said, “I hated that dog.” Now, I
don’t especially care for Noem, but I would not take her to sand
pit and shoot her I am happy to say. Noem’s previous slaying of
farm animals didn’t go very well either as she also reports in her
magnum opus.
She took a goat to a place of execution and shot it as well. But she
is not a very good shot, as she left the bleeding and painfully
wounded animal on the ground where it fell while she meandered back
to her pick-up truck to reload her gun. Then she reports that she
returned and finished the job! Her casual disregard for animal life
seems to be evolving into a casual disregard for human life of late
as evidenced by her reactions to recent shootings of civilians by her
I.C.E. agents who she defends unconditionally.

Now
about people? How does Kristi Noem treat human beings? The answer is
not much better, in terms of “people Skills”, the I.C.E. forces
she commands seem to have adopted her disregard for the human
species. By the way, did you know that I.C.E. has a bigger budget
than any military forces on the planet with the exception of the
United States and China! But getting back to Noem’s “People Skill
Set”, while in California at a news conference, Noem watched with
cold detachment as her I. C. E. thugs threw a Hispanic-American to
the floor for asking a question at a news conference! The nerve of
the man! He had the temerity to think that he had the right to
address the Almighty Noem!. Now the man was guilty of talking to Noem
while being of Hispanic background to be sure, but he was a very
respectable gentleman who also just happened to be United States
Senator Alex Padilla of California who was in quest of information
about her I. C. E. forces then in his state.

Noem
sat with a scowl on her face while her thugs dragged Padilla into the
hall and told him not to question the Homeland Secretary. She is also
a thug and scowling is what she may do best. Like most of the members
of this Trump Administration, Noem shows little respect to or for
elected officials or anyone else who is not Donald Trump. If she ever
comes to your town, be sure to hide your dog, and by all means, hide
your pet goats. Kristi Noem is a very angry woman!

Vice
President Vance is also a very angry man. He is a man of the people,
of course, who overcame the blight of having no father on the scene,
an alcoholic and drugged-out mother, and a saint for a grandmother
who actually raised him. In his book, Hill
Billy Elegy, Vance
told his story of struggle with his background while at the same time
blasting his people for not overcoming their backgrounds as he did
and becoming such a great success. Of course, he sort of confessed to
his little peccadillos like Noem. Vance also told us about those
disturbing romantic episodes which he spent with his favorite sofa.
Maybe he does have reason to be an angry thug after all! I am sure
that a good Freudian Psychologist could explain it. I guess that it
is Hell when you can’t get a date on the weekend!

And
of course Trump himself is very angry. Why can’t those damn
Norwegians just give him the Nobel Peace Prize instead of giving it
to a Venezuelan woman like Maria Corina Machado who has led the
opposition to the illegally installed President of the nation,
Machado, who is now a guest of the United States awaiting trial for
exactly the same thing for which Trump just pardoned former President
of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, namely drug dealing!

Why
can’t the Norwegian Nobel Committee just see that Trump indeed is a
“Trump” and just hand over to Peace Prize for 2026! Ms. Machado
went so far as to gift her Nobel Medal to Trump, and the creep
actually took it! But why shouldn’t “The Donald” get the Damn
Prize? After all such presidential near-do-wells as Teddy Roosevelt
got the prize in 1906, and all he did was end the Russo-Japanese War!
Woodrow Wilson took the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 for winning World
War I and coming up with the concept of The League of Nations! In
2002 Jimmy Carter got the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to end the
mess in the Balkans which was and is the “Historic Powder Keg of
Europe”. In 2009, President Barak Obama got the Nobel Prize and
almost refused it feeling that he had not done enough to earn it.
Thorbjorn Jagland, head of The Nobel Committee, cited Obama’s
successful work in effectively promoting nuclear nonproliferation as
a huge achievement meriting this accolade. Jagland stated, “In the
last year, who has done more [to promote peace than Barak Obama]?

Now
Trump has repeatedly announced that he deserves the award, and a
number of world “leaders” have nominated him. I so not know how
he is qualified after ripping apart the federal government, attacking
Venezuela, threatening to seize Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada,
other sensitive areas of the world, as well as, erecting tariff
barriers of a very punishing nature. This is not the portrait of a
world class peace-maker. Again, the man is a very grumpy thug bent on
conquest. There is also that Greenland business that might overturn
any chances “The Donald” might have to get “The Prize.” To
date Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, and God knows who else
are sending troops to Greenland. Now what does that portend? Peace
Prize anyone?

How
about the constantly angry Attorney General, Pam Bondi? She is a
former personal Trump attorney who has been hired for her present job
because of her loyalty and willingness to continue being Trump’s de
facto personal
attorney. She attacks senators during hearings like a pit bull, and
she has offered a great deal of cover for the president by carefully
redacting the Epstein Papers which the federal courts have ordered
her to make available to Congress. She has only given up less than
one percent of the papers that the courts ordered her to give up a
long time ago. She is almost never a “Happy-Camper” in the
pantheon of Trump Civil Servants. Alas, the angry cast lf characters
composing the Trump Thugocracy is so huge that there is not enough
room here to list them all.

It
is well known that the Trump interests have grown by billions of
dollars during the last eleven months of Trump’s second presidency.
He has grown very, very, very rich in contravention of the
Emoluments Clause contained in the U.S. Constitution. For this alone
he should be impeached and if found guilty in the Senate, removed
from office, and put on trial for this crime. Things could become
very interesting if the Democrats actually get a majority in the
House of Representatives in the mid-term elections not to mention the
Senate, especially if the Republicans discover their lost integrity
somewhere.. So, stick around for the next year and see if the
Trumpsters can get even angrier.

I
know what Trump will say if his recently articulated prediction comes
true. I am sure that you know that on January 9, 2026, Trump said
that if the Democrats take the House in the next election, that he
will be impeached! I think that he is right, and I know with exact
certainty what he will say when it happens, “It’s just so
unfair!” One other thing is for sure. The whole gang is going to be
very, very, very angry.

Yours
respectfully,

James
C. Johnston Jr.

January
16, 2026

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