It’s bad enough that the flames of racism have been fanned by Donald Trump for most of his life, but he seems to side with the “all lives matter” crowd, for whom “black lives matter” has no meaning at all.

Neither the president, nor his cult and lots of others, including many national and lesser politicians, have any understanding of the history of their country and the vital meaning of “black lives matter,” which is the cry of a large percentage of Americans, black and white, who want to see an end to the bias, discrimination, and hatred of people only because of the color of their skin.

Even so, if they really believed that “all lives matter,” they would be concerned about the existential threat to the American people, all of the peoples of the Earth, and to all life on the planet. They are not concerned and plenty of them have applauded President Trump’s plan to open the Atlantic marine sanctuary to commercial fishing. The sanctuary is a 5,000-square-mile area off the coast of New England and it was created in 2016 during the Obama Administration, so, right away, we can see a pattern here: Anything that President Obama did, Trump will undo. Anything Obama did to protect the Earth and its creatures will be undone.

Trump is not just a racist, he is a destroyer and he can’t stand that Obama did anything that he cannot wipe out of the history books. Opening the Atlantic sanctuary to commercial fishing is just one of the things that he’s done to eliminate regulations that play a small part in saving the planet for humans and other creatures. He has moved to reduce the size of national monuments, so they can be used for drilling, mining, logging, and grazing. Now, he has proposed to open some 2.3 million acres of 100 wildlife refuges to hunting and fishing, disregarding the warnings of scientists and biologists about the extinction of species and the desecration of lands that should be regarded as sacred. For Trump, anything that smacks of potential profit is fair game, so to speak.

The president’s response to the demonstrations, mostly peaceful, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, was to “dominate” the people involved in the demonstrations, which sprang up in hundreds of cities and villages across the country. He was calling on the authorities in each jurisdiction to “be tough,” as he would be tough. None of this introspection about the structural racism that has torn the country apart and the part he has played to make an ugly and murderous situation worse, possibly the worst that the U.S. has seen since the beginning, when African slaves were property and had no rights that needed to be respected by the white hierarchy seems to have any effect on him. Already at that time, the indigenous peoples of North America did not count for anything and they were treated that way, right up until this day. Trump will never address these unspeakable problems nor have a plan to resolve them. He really doesn’t want to resolve them and, in ignoring them, he is doing the bidding of the ruling class, of which he is a part.

In oppressing black Americans and keeping million of American workers in their place, he is fulfilling the dream of filling the coffers of the rich and Corporate America to overflowing, while the people, black and white, suffer the indignities of not being able to put good food on the table, keeping their families in decent homes, educating their children. If Trump is not of the ruling class, he is a beneficiary of its policies and has become richer as a result of his Electoral College win to the presidency.

It’s possible that he will be held accountable for his having enriched himself at the expense of the people after he leaves office, but given the experience of past presidents and their administrations, it may never come to pass. He may skate away with no accounting for his crimes.

The U.S. has a habit of giving past presidents and their top lieutenants a pass for any crime they might have committed, whether the party in power that follows them is Democrat or Republican. For decades, the two parties have allowed people who have committed crimes against humanity and who have gone to war that is clearly in violation of the international norms, conventions, and rules, all of which they have been a part in formulating, to escape their time in the dock, so to speak. The rules don’t apply to them, nor do they apply to the U.S., in general.

The current president epitomizes this principle that the rules do not apply. Trump has not paid any attention to the laws of the land or the U.S. Constitution, which he swore to uphold. Rather than try to heal the nearly mortal wounds of the nation, he has tried his best to keep those wounds open. It’s all a part of his showing the people how tough he is. This is the only way he has to show how tough he is, because he is, as always, punching down, always attacking those who are not able to reply in kind. He wants the world to know that he is rich and he is powerful. Today, he is showing that in his disregard for the demonstrations against police brutality and police impunity in assaulting and, often, killing those who are not powerful, and it’s especially an epidemic among our black brothers and sisters.

Trump is blinded by his lust for money and power. For money, he will do or say almost anything and he knows that his lust for power will result in his gaining more wealth. It’s why he is willing to destroy any institution of government that has been a job-creating mainstay of minority citizens: The U.S. Postal Service, the U.S. Military, government at all levels. He has set his sights on privatizing every institution he can because he knows that private companies can exploit workers by keeping their wages low to cut production costs, thereby reducing their standard of living. Lowering production costs puts more money into the pockets of the 1 percent and Corporate America, the true rulers of Trump’s kingdom. If you don’t think he sees the U.S.A. as his kingdom, have a look at what he has bragged about since his Republican sheep majority in the U.S. Senate let him slip away without a single witness being called in his impeachment “trial.”

In recent decades, environmental racism finally has been recognized as a threat to the poor and, especially, to minorities. Where have giant industries put their most polluting factories? In the black communities of any city you’d want to name. Where have they put their waste materials that fill the air with noxious fumes? In or near the black neighborhoods. In Flint, Mich., the municipal water leaves the taps of black citizens as a distinctly brown liquid. It has been years since it was discovered and the problem still exists. It’s as if state and federal governments haven’t heard of the problem or heard that young black children have been drinking water laced with high levels of lead, which stunts their development and growth.

The president really does not know how to respond to the deaths of unarmed black citizens at the hands of the police. He does not have the capacity for empathy, so his ability to express healing words simply does not exist. Instead, he has threatened American citizens with force and encouraged governors and local officials to crush the demonstrations that have been happening across the country, with untold thousands of participants. In the past week, he has been the subject of scorn and derision by a number of generals, some from his own administration, for his threat to use the U.S. Military to quell the riots and looting in some cities, failing to mention that these things have been the smallest part of the largely peaceful marches and demonstrations.

The reason that he is so emphatic about the show of force and the “domination” of the people is that he is afraid of the people, which he showed when he went into the White House protective bunker for about an hour during a White House demonstration. He said he was only “inspecting” it, but he may be the only president to “inspect” the bunker in a long time, if ever. Since then, he has made the entire White House a kind of bunker. A second fence and concrete barriers have been put up around the people’s house, so the demonstrators can’t reach him. Richard Nixon felt the same way, it has been speculated, but he didn’t build a “Fort White House.” The orange bully is scared.

Oppression of minorities, especially black citizens, in the U.S. could be described as in-house neocolonialism and it has a long history in the country. It’s why the average white family has about 10 times as much accumulated wealth as the average black family. If he thought American workers were paid too much (and, he said they are) during his campaign for the GOP nomination for president, what must he have in store for black and other minority citizens?

The U.S. president is a danger to the nation, as he has no connection to the real world and never will be able to hold his cruelty in check. When that is tied to his ignorance, he becomes a danger to the world. He has said many times that the free press is the “enemy of the people,” but if there is an enemy of the people, it would be Donald Trump. This time of chaos, with the COVID-19 pandemic and the demonstrations against police abuse of power, is a time of opportunity, a time when real change can be made. That’s why the fight for racial equality and justice for all must be combined with the environmental movement and all other movements for equal justice and against oppression in all its forms.

Scientists and biologists have determined that we humans have taken 90 percent of the large fish in Earth’s oceans. It is part of the existential threat to all life on the planet and Trump’s opening of the Atlantic sanctuary (Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument) to commercial fishing shows his disdain for science and that he lacks any sense of decency for all life, unless he can profit from it (electoral or monetary).

When saying “black lives matter” brings a response that “all lives matter,” it merely shows that the person who utters it doesn’t know a shred of history of his or her own country. But, right now we are faced with environmental destruction, ecocide, and we all have to fight against the greediest instincts of those in power in the U.S. and beyond. But that fight has to be together with all other people of good will and that means solidarity across the board. The evil facing the people can be defeated.