For nearly 250 years — since long before these words were written — their significance has formed the foundation of this new, young country:

America was built by generations of honest, decent, hard-working people from every corner of the world who dreamt of making a new life for themselves and their children in America, free of the poverty and oppression of their less fortunate native lands.

But now that dream has been killed. Instead of the annual limit of 125,000 refugees as established by former President Joe Biden, Donald Trump has decreed that no more than 7,500 will be admitted over the next year . . . slashed by 94%, with priority being given to White South Africans.

The same White South Africans whose parents and grandparents were responsible for the horrors of apartheid practiced against their Black neighbors. The same White South Africans, known as Afrikaners, who are descended mostly from the early Dutch and French settlers who, while modernizing and growing the industry, agriculture and economy of their new home, at the same time took control of its government and relegated its native population to a life of poverty and servitude.

And now these White South Africans are claiming to be victims of illegal or unjust discrimination because of the imposition of a new law allowing seizure of portions of the country’s agricultural land by the government without compensation. As it happens, Whites — who comprise just 7.2 percent of the country’s population — own an estimated 72-73 percent of the agricultural land.

The post-apartheid South African government says that its purpose is to return some of the previously confiscated land to its rightful Black owners; the present White owners, of course, say they are being robbed. It is a complex, contentious issue, rightly to be decided by the people of South Africa.

But Donald Trump — in line with his ongoing campaign to turn the United States into his ideal of a White, male, Christian oligarchy — has taken up the cause of the White South African farmers who, whether rightly or wrongly, feel the need to flee. And he is offering them an open door and a fast path to citizenship, while simultaneously barring entry to people of color, and deporting masses of those already here.

*. *. *

All I can think of is this other man’s one-time dream of an “Aryan” nation, populated by a “master race” of people of Northern and Western European descent . . . excluding Jews and Romany people, of course:

We all remember or have learned about what horrors that led to. And I’d like to know what, if any, difference there is between his dream and Trump’s.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/3/25