They say the first hundred days of a presidency are about building legacy and enacting tangible, positive change folks can feel — not hyper-fixating on settling the score by the nation’s Commander in Chief. But it seems President Donald Trump’s mission has shifted from governing to good ol’ “get-back,” leaving Black America to wonder when official policy became just another word for retribution.
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The call came from inside the White House. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles admitted in a bombshell Vanity Fair interview how she tried to broker a “loose agreement” to keep Trump’s seemingly innate instinct for revenge contained to a 90-day window. She admitted if there’s an opportunity for Trump to take retribution, “he will go for it.”
And for Black America, his alleged bloodlust is far more than petty.
The country is seemingly witnessing the unveiling of a “vengeance quota,” an unofficial term that defines Trump’s use of the powers that be for revenge against his perceived opponents. It’s a strategy that goes beyond mere spite. His attempts to avenge is calculated and excruciatingly obvious. What might have once been dismissed as a personal grudge has now been institutionalized.
Critics say the Department of Justice is being used as a scalpel to decapitate Black legal power; from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ federal mortgage fraud charges to allegations of mortgage fraud against Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and Trump’s call to fire her, for starters.
Not to mention the Trump administration pursuing criminal charges against New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver, whom the New York Times says is in the “cross hairs of Trump’s Justice Department,” for an alleged assault on federal officers at an immigration facility in May.
The systematic removal of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, labeled a “criminal” who should be “prosecuted and put in jail” by Trump, provided the ultimate proof of concept for the “vengeance quota:” If you can’t defeat a Black leader on merit, disqualify their character. The DOJ audited her office’s use of federal grants and she was permanently disqualified from the Georgia election interference case against Trump. And she’s not alone.
Nearly 500 individuals and instituions have been identified as Trump’s “retribution targets” this year, Reuters reported.
If Black leadership isn’t exempt from Trump’s revenge tour, what does that mean for the rest of us? Trump’s revenge has spilled over onto Black Americans under the guise of “government efficiency,” but it feels anything but.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported 271,000 federal jobs have vanished…and they were not random. The layoffs targeted Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Education, the very agencies where Black professionals have historically built their middle-class stability, the hardest.
The result? A soaring, four-year high in Black unemployment that has hit an eye-watering 8.3% — nearly double the national average. It’s the highest level of unemployment for Black workers since 2021, the Center for Economic and Policy Research reported, impacting minority groups more severely in a disturbing pattern that’s just too sinister to ignore.
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