Slices ov da Trumpocalypse, #2

… Trump just three months ago, “I love farmers. I won 80%, 85% of the farmers, and I love them. And I’m never gonna do anything to hurt our farmers.”

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): 12/6/23 ; (R): $1.66 on 5/18/25

Unsustainable Toasts — Sep 30, 2025.

Since we’re well into America’s Golden Age, as bestowed, unleashed and unfurled by the greatest American ever, Donald Trump, this bit of fake news must be undoubtedly pushed by pathologically lying liberals, Socialists, Communists and cross-dressing freaks, “A growing crisis is silently unfolding in agriculture. Farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. With mounting financial stress, that number could be on the rise this year.” So what if it’s published in Farm Journal Magazine on 9/17/25? Kenya-born Obama, Lying Hillary or Jimmy Kimmel probably paid them.

With brown illegals mauled on American streets, white folks are doing fine, so this whiny bitch must be AI, “I just took out a loan for basic needs and food. I have never in my life had to take out a loan for the things that my home needs. I had to make the decision of gas or food, or somehow budget it and split that and get a little bit of gas and get a little bit of food until I get paid again.” Get a fourth job, you Antifa asshole!

“I was like, fuck it. Let’s just take out a loan for our basic needs. I feel like it, This is not OK.” It’s not OK because you spend all your fuckin’ paychecks on booze, drugs and taking your black boyfriends to dinner. Next time, go to that Chink run place with bullet proof plexiglass instead of KFC! A family meal of Young Chow Fly Lice is still under five bucks!

“Tell me why a diet of rice and beans plus some grocery bags just cost me $80!” Stop lying, bitch! What about all those 50-count packs of condoms?! Take those three buses to Planned Parenthood, mudshark! Granted, they ain’t LifeStyles Ultra Sensitive, not that your Tyrones will put them on anyway.

“I know what y’all are thinking. I must have impulse purchased something. You’re right, I did. Brussels sprouts and hummus. How dare I?! Furthermore, my greatest sin was running out of butter.” Ever heard of margarine, bitch? Just a tad will go a long way.

“Why was the cheapest loaf of bread three bucks? Three! As someone who starts every single morning with toast, this is simply not sustainable. I can’t go any cheaper than toast in the morning! What’s cheaper than toast in the morning?”

To start, you can stop toasting your bread, moron. Electricity must be saved for trillion dollar AI centers. You must also learn to enjoy seasoned mud, like Haitians, or savor long dead carcasses of dogs, cats and rats, like the Vietnamese. Don’t you know anything?

Why does YouTube allow so many slanderous spreaders of fake news to go on and on? Pam Bondi or Kash Patel must do something about this. Bitching about inflation isn’t some gateway to hate speech, it is hate speech! With your memory water boarded by television, endless music, social media and Jewjabs, of course you don’t remember that such PC terms were only used by the American left until yesterday. You can’t remember what knocked you down just seconds ago.

Vung Tau: (L): $3.05 on 8/12/25 ; (R): breakfast before school on 2/19/24

For years in Vung Tau, I’ve posted photos of my grocery hauls, complete with prices. Nearly always, I buy from this couple on General Uprising. Rarely do I spend more than $3. Today, I’ll probably buy tomatoes, cucumbers and ten eggs.

Just now, Mrs. Seven’s two dogs went berserk because a regular arrived with tiny sausages for them. He does it nearly every day. Since they cost just 38 cents for five, you can imagine what’s in them. Nọng and Milk Cow get real food from Mrs. Seven, of course, plus leftover from the retired school teacher.

At Morning Star Kindergarten, parents are standing pressing their faces against the gate to watch their kids half dancing and half exercising to recorded music. This ritual occurs daily across Vietnam.

Behind her counter, Mrs. Seven is still mesmerized by Lisa. This Thai K-pop star can certainly dance. No longer able to break out moves, Mrs. Seven is merely staring at her idealized or mythical self. Like most, this wound down person is transfixed by perfect youth. She watches Lisa while sinking into sleep around 2AM, but no later than 3:30AM, she must get up because I’m already sitting outside, typing. The first in her household to greet me daily is Nọng, but Milk Cow, too, is demanding to be scratched increasingly often.

As a smirking snob, I must get my spaghetti, spaghetti sauces, cheeses and olive oil, etc., from Lotte Supermarket, but listen, man, after spending four years in Europe, I’m not going eat crappy pasta, cheeses, butter or sausages. Knowing quality food, Vietnamese now swarm Lotte Supermarket, to the dismay, probably, of the expats. As I’ve already pointed out, Laos, among the poorest in Asia, enjoy a much better beer than most Americans. They’re also much more serene.

In Philly, I had to settle for Yuengling or, even worse, Rolling Rock. My rent until 2018 was $950 a month, a huge bargain. I snuck in there by impressing my Calabrese landlord with my knowledge of il bel paese. I gave him the Italian translation of my Blood and Soap with a dedication in Italian. I can’t imagine my modest apartment going for less than $2,000 in 2025, but don’t worry, inflation is defeated, according to Trump, and Americans are so rich, they don’t know what to do.

Trump just three months ago, “I love farmers. I won 80%, 85% of the farmers, and I love them. And I’m never gonna do anything to hurt our farmers.” Trump in 2024, “I love the Hispanics. I love them. I love Hispanics.” Same year, “I love Vietnamese food, but I love the people more.” He’s declared love to just about everybody over and over. It’s what cads and hustlers do. It’s a time tested tactic before you drive your dick, knife or ballistic missile into them.

I just ordered my third coffee, so it’s $1.14 today! I’m a big spender. Vietnamese of all classes eat and drink out all the time, however, because the food here is so good and cheap. Most importantly, they need to be among others as often as possible.

Opening before 4AM, Mrs. Seven closes from 11AM to 3PM to rest, nap or watch Lisa, then she opens again until 9PM.

“Almost no one comes in the afternoon,” she just said. She keeps her place open to see people walking or riding by, and to hear their voices, often laughing. Unlike expats, Vietnamese prefer to swim nearly constantly in that river. It’s what we’re here for, they actually believe.

Once, Mrs. Seven could perform Cambodian, Champa and even Cuban dance numbers. Sleeping on the floor, her dogs have their own fan. From a wall, her late husband and father stare down. Jesus, too. Lisa’s joints, bones and muscles are unbelievably pliant, but that comet, too, will soon enough turn stiffly back and forth as remorses and regrets tease, spray, lap and tinkle her tired skull. You missed your boat, honey.

What the fuck was that? Where’s a BeerLao when you need it? Please, somebody, anybody, save this raving retard from himself!

Soldiers on Civilians — Oct 01, 2025.

Trump had 800 generals and admirals rush back to DC from all over the world to hear him and Pete Hegseth. Though these rambling and often farcical addresses could have been staged in the Pentagon, a place familiar to all these brass, Trump had them come to Quantico. Many had already spent an entire day in transit. When not hostile or unctuously pandering, Trump is passive aggressive.

His entrance into the auditorium was not well received. Trump, “I’ve never walked into a room so silent before. This is very interesting. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh. You’re not allowed to do that. You know what? Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want. And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future. But you just feel nice and loose, OK, because we’re all on the same team.” They’re obviously not on the same team.

Expecting applause, Trump got none until the very end, and it was only half assed. These serious military men were relieved it was finally over. Babbling for over an hour, Trump repeated lines everyone had heard many times, “They said, one year ago, you were a dead country, and now you’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. We are. We’re the hottest country in the world right now. The absolute hottest country in the world. We have—there’s nobody even close. Putin said that to me. We met in Alaska. We had a good meeting. Then he went back and started sending drones into Kiev.”

I doubt the generals were impressed by Putin’s agreement with Trump that America is the hottest country right now, but such a slang, “hot,” would not have been used by any non-native speaker, much less a sober and dignified statesman like Putin. Plus, America is only hot because it’s boiling and imploding. Weird, also, Trump’s glancing mention of Putin sending drones into Kiev. Donald confessed he’s a joke.

No world leader talks like Trump. Actually, no man who isn’t developmentally arrested. Queers who do so are camping it up, but Trump is too stupid and self-absorbed for irony or humor. With his “sleazeball,” “slimeball,” “scumbag,” “total loser,” “total waste of time,” “wacko,” “scum” and “nasty,” Trump sounds like the bitchiest girl no one liked in the 8^th grade. They also wear similar makeup.

As the generals stifled yawns, glared and seethed, Trump finally ejaculated, “Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won’t get out of control.”

This enemy won’t be Antifa, pink haired transsexuals or illegal immigrants so much as ordinary Americans, including many MAGA types, who are rendered jobless, homeless, farmless or simply enraged because they can’t feed their children due to outrageous inflation caused by Trump’s tariffs and trade war against the entire world.

Having purposely caused incipient riots, Trump is prepping his military to intimidate, chase and shoot at American civilians. Having seen real wars, those generals must have cringed at Trump’s hysteria, “How about Portland? Portland, Oregon, where it looks like a war zone. And I get a call from the liberal governor. ‘Sir, please don’t come in. We don’t need you.’ I said, ‘Well, unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down.’” Victorian doctors used to “pelvis massage” female patients to calm them down. Melania must jerk much harder and more often, like 24 hours a day. I doubt even that would help, though. America is doomed.

After Trump came his pomaded jester, so those seasoned soldiers had to sit still, like scolded children, to hear more bullshit from another preening pussy. Pete Hegseth, “Since waging war is so costly in blood and treasure, we owe our republic a military that will win any war we choose or any war that is thrust upon us. Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision and ferocity of the War Department. In other words, to our enemies, FAFO.”

Vung Tau, 9/30/25

Cool, man! Fuck around and find out. America’s primary enemies are now Americans! Scammed by the “You’re fired” conman, America will become even hotter, with all its cities, red or blue, ready to be crushed with extreme violence, precision and ferocity. Your enemy is within.

Though well-armed, Trump’s private army, ICE, is clearly poorly trained, with many goons not even in shape. They’re only good at gang tackling senior citizens. More professionalism is needed, and many more soldiers, too. That’s why these Quantico pep talks and dressing downs. Disobey and you’ll lose your job and pension.

Fighting for Jews, American soldiers are essentially mercenaries. Commanded by their Jewjerked leaders to fire at fellow Americans, how many will realize, at last, they’ve been Jewscrewed all along?

Linh at Ông Bầu Coffee on 10/1/25

Village Explainer With Boarding Pass — Oct 01, 2025.

My stepmother has been deeply unhappy and angry for decades. Even before she had to marry my father, she was a borderline psycho. In the US, she had a tiny restaurant in the Tenderloin, but her main racket was taking sport bets. An ethnic Chinese, she was a Chinese bookie. As much as I love John Cassavetes as director, I can’t remember anything about his The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. It’s a miracle I didn’t make a documentary, starting me, called The Killing of a Chinese Bookie in the Tenderloin.

Displaced, she changed her name from Hà to Amy. You wouldn’t want to place NBA bets with some always pissed off Chinese bookie named Ha Ha, would you? Though she couldn’t tell a threepointer from a slam dunk, Ha Ha was always on the phone, rattling off names of teams and odds. “Lakers plus 5 at over 110 over Trailblazers!” she would shout, her pimply face ready to explode. All that rage had to erupt volcanically all over. If prone to exaggerations, I’d even claim small flames shot out from every third pore of hers rhythmically. It’s exactly like that Mirage Volcano in Vegas. Should have taken photos to prove it.

Anyway, I only thought of my beloved Ha Ha because I was thinking about customer service. With every Vietnamese city filled with cafes and eateries, any place can quickly lose customers with the slightest dip in quality or quantity of food, or the smallest deterioration in service. As Ha Ha took bets in San Francisco, my father ran his Japanese restaurant, Kobe, in Santa Clara. As his health declined, Ha Ha took over. Though I wasn’t around to witness all that she did wrong, I caught her telling employees to give customers slightly less miso soup with each meal. Since nothing is cheaper than miso soup, the few pennies she saved was more than offset by many thousands of dollars of lost income, caused by customers, especially regulars, who drifted away.

Trump’s belligerence towards all of America’s customers is causing his sinking and clueless nation trillions of dollars, though MAGA diehards will continue to swoon over their flaccid, yet tough talking, daddy. It’s the gayest orgy ever.

Over three years in Vung Tau, I frequented, and wrote about, Ca Dao, Cóc Cóc and the café on General Uprising, all of which I’ve soured on. For a while, I also stopped going to Ông Bầu. Two days ago, I discovered it’s very tranquil in the afternoon, so perfect for writing. I’m there right now. Conversations I got plenty of this dawn at Coffee Seven. Nearby Salt Water or Củi Warehouse is too loud.

Yesterday, I was also the only customer. Returning from his afternoon swim, BlueTooth saw me, so dropped in. With his dizzy spells, he can’t drink coffee. Without being asked, the barista gave him a free glass of iced tea. That’s good customer service!

In a previous life, I taught writing at UPenn, Bard College, Muhlenberg, Montana and the University of Leipzig, all without applying for those jobs. If I didn’t need to eat and pay rents, I wouldn’t have taught at all. Still, I wasn’t a bad teacher. I do have those instincts. A week ago, I told BlueTooth he should read Hồ Biểu Chánh and Sơn Nam, two Mekong Delta writers. Their dictions and focus on ordinary people would be instantly relatable to him. I knew BlueTooth was already reading Nhất Hạnh, that celebrity monk. He also needed to graduate from listening to Eminem and “dance music” endlessly.

To my surprise yesterday, BlueTooth produced a Hồ Biểu Chánh novel he just bought, used. He also had a collection of Sơn Nam stories at home. He was getting into these masters. With his knowledge of literature so weak, BlueTooth was eager for a mini lecture, so I interrupted my writing, to give him one.

The French with their Spanish allies attacked Vietnam in 1859. Four years later, they had conquered Saigon, but Hanoi, the capital, only fell in 1885. Just two years later, the first Vietnamese novel, Truyện thầy Lazaro Phiền, was published in Saigon. Its author, Nguyễn Trọng Quản, was born in Bà Rịa, a city abutting Vũng Tàu.

“Don’t bother reading him,” I said. “His prose is very goofy, but still, we must be proud of Nguyễn Trọng Quản, because he led the way! And he’s a local, man! I’ve been meaning to visit his grave. Must do it soon.”

Before encountering the West, Vietnam had no prose fiction to speak of. There’s a 14^th century collection of weird or freakish tales, Lĩnh Nam Chích Quái, but these are merely folk stories written down. Of course, that required creativity, but there’s no conscious tradition.

“With Vietnam defeated, our intellectuals could see we were inferior, we lost, so there was a lot of catching up to do. In Hanoi and Saigon, all these guys were trying their best to become Western. Look at this photo, for example.” I pulled up an image of Nhất Linh with his two kids. They couldn’t have been more French. “What Hồ Biểu Chánh did, though, was different. Instead of hanging out in Saigon, he returned to Vĩnh Long and immersed himself in his home province. Though he knew French as well as all these other guys, he did work as an interpreter, he didn’t try to become Western. In his dress, too, he remained Vietnamese.”

Tripoli: The Scent of History

I also told BlueTooth about poet Nguyễn Đình Chiểu (1822-1888). Nutcase refused to use French built roads, or even soap, because it was French, “Xà phòng is derived from savon. We didn’t have soaps, man, before the French came. I’m not suggesting you go that far, though I myself don’t use soaps.”

Pity those who must sit next to me on buses or airplanes. In two weeks, I’ll have to board one for another visa run. Just two hours ago, I didn’t even know where I was going. Instead of Laos or Cambodia again, I decided on Kathmandu. Why? Because I love you, and because I’m a gleeful hypocrite. Always stressing being grounded or provincial, I keep bouncing to the most unlikely places. Actually, I do have a concrete reason. US orchestrated “revolutions” have caused chaos in Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal. Being there must yield insights.

Tori Branum, MAGA congressional candidate

Rapists in Power, Citizens Mauled, Tourists Chased, Bodies Out Back — Oct 02, 2025.

Al Jazeera on 9/29/25, “Hundreds of migrants have vanished from official records after being held at Florida’s so-called ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ leaving families and lawyers in the dark. With reports of abuse, secretive contracts, and mounting legal challenges, the state-run detention center has become a symbol of Donald Trump’s aggressive mass deportation agenda.” MAGA types would say, “So what! Let them be disappeared!” The name itself, “Alligator Alcatraz,” is sadistic.

Newsweek on 8/27/25, “John Shin, who has performed with ensembles including the Salt Lake Symphony, Utah Symphony, and Ballet West, was taken into custody while on a work trip on August 20 […] Shin’s wife, Danae Snow, told ABC 4 that she received a brief phone call from him during the arrest. “That morning he was texting me, ‘Happy birthday, I love you so much’ and then by that afternoon, I got the phone call, Honey, I’ve been detained by ICE, I love you and the kids and they’re sending me to a detainment center,” Snow told the outlet. “I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know how this can happen.’” […] Shin’s attorney, Adam Crayk, told ABC4 that the detainment stems from a 2020 impaired driving conviction. Shin completed probation and fulfilled all court requirements, but the sentence makes him a priority for immigration enforcement.”

When this story broke out, I was surprised by all the hostile online comments. Most demanded Shin be deported. I suspect images of his crying wife, who happens to be white, made these commenters even more angry. Kept in a cell with 70 others, Shin slept on a thin mat and was pressured to sign dubious forms, which he refused. KLS on 9/25/25, “‘I did not want to give up because I have my family here,’ said Shin, a violinist with a master’s degree in music performance from the University of Utah. Ultimately, after 17 days inside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Denver Contract Detention facility in Aurora, he got out.”

USA Today on 9/30/25:

Rebecca Shouhed watched the surveillance video in horror, as one immigration agent knocked her 79-year-old, U.S. citizen father to the ground inside his car wash business. When he got back up and went outside, two others tackled him to the pavement.

An agent can be seen barreling into her father, Rafie Ollah Shouhed, she said, “bulldozing down the hallways like a linebacker.”

[…]

The increasingly violent arrest encounters have resulted in multiple multimillion-dollar tort claims by people—including American citizens—who say they were severely harmed or wrongfully detained during Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

Suffering broken ribs, chest trauma, elbow injuries and showing symptoms of brain injury, Shouhed is suing for $50 million. His only crime was being born in Iran. I don’t doubt many MAGA faithfuls are screaming for Souhed to be deported also. Those masked goons who assaulted this old man were driven by the same racial hatred. Let’s not pretend it’s anything else.

On 9/4/25, ICE raided a Huyndai plant in Georgia. Among the roughly 475 workers detained, over 300 were South Koreans. None was illegal. They were only in the US to train Americans. Detained for a week, they were finally allowed to fly home on a chartered Korean Airlines flight. Understandably, this caused outrage in Seoul and across Asia. Americans barely noticed. Most remarkably, neither the governor of Georgia nor Trump intervened or apologized. To insult South Korea further, Trump then demanded a $350 billion payment just to do business with his Nuclear Armed Soybean Republic. Of course, this was rejected. Twenty-two South Korean projects in the US have been put on hold. Most South Korean tourists have stopped coming.

A MAGA congressional candidate claims responsibility. Daily Beast on 10/10/25, “Tori Branum, 47, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and firearms instructor, said in social media posts and in interviews that she had reported the battery plant, which is under construction near Savannah, to ICE several months before officials conducted the largest work-site immigration raid in Department of Homeland Security history there.”

She hasn’t backed down, “I just want to say for all the haters, just wait until the rest of the story comes out.” Branum is only speaking out against human trafficking, slave labor and even murders, with bodies disappeared, and no, she ain’t talking about Alligator Alcatraz, “Probably there are dead bodies buried at some of these places because they didn’t want to call the police and let them know that they were hiring illegal labor […] I don’t have anything to do with the Korean aspect of it, but I don’t like modern day slavery […] I’m sorry, but the people that align with me agree with me. That’s what matters. Everything that’s going on is what I voted for. This country needs to be cleaned up.”

In Vietnam, too, there are people this stupid, but they’re not malignant, nor are they capable of triggering a massive illegal operation by their government. Tori Branum mirrors Trump.

This morning at Coffee Seven, Mummy Face conflated Cao Daism with Hòa Hảo Buddhism. He thought the extinct Champa Kingdom belonged to the Khmer. Days ago, he said Jews were Muslim. This guy’s just goofy.

(L): Vung Tau, 10/2/25 ; (R): Brisbane, 6/20/24

Liệt the retired teacher knows what’s going on. We talked about all those Vietnamese, and Chinese too, who had flown to Columbia, then traveled by land through seven countries to reach the Promised Land. Now, many aren’t even deported, but held in Alligator Alcatraz and other ICE zero-star resorts. Should they make it back here, we mused, they may even be reeducated, perhaps in those infamous Tiger Cages of Côn Sơn Island? Live bodies instead of wax figures will attract more tourists.

“For propaganda purposes, they should be put on TV to recount their horrific experiences in the USA,” I suggested.

Liệt wasn’t so sure.

By this point, Sơn, NaLi’s Beach’s security guard, was gone. His dad was a warden at a reeducation camp for ARVN soldiers. His pension is higher than Sơn’s salary. Crawling over a Khmer Rouge mine, Sơn was lucky to not be killed. Except for those under 35 or so, every Vietnamese has horror stories.

Derived from 烈, Liệt means strong, by the way. There’s another, much more common liệt, 劣, which means paralyzed. Liệt dương, or paralyzed yang, means erectile dysfunction. Since the teacher’s dad only had a 3^rd grade education and his mom was illiterate, I’m not sure they knew the difference.

This dawn, I cracked an even worse joke, “When I was a kid, we would buy sugarcane to feed elephants at the Saigon Zoo. Remember that? Perhaps tourists can buy crackers to feed those guys in the Tiger Cages?” Having survived the Darien Gap then Alligator Alcatraz, that may not sound so horrible, but first, they must get back here.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

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