What Is Joke for School Children, Is Death for Crapaud
From U.S. warships in Caribbean waters to billionaires in back rooms, this is not theatre. It is a beating. And the “crapaud” is the people.
In Trinidad and Tobago, we have an old saying: “What is joke for school chile, is death for crapaud.”
It comes from a cruel little game children once played — pelting a frog with sticks and stones, laughing as though it were fun, never grasping the torment they were inflicting. The frog felt everything. The children felt nothing.
That is exactly where America now finds itself.
What looks like a grand spectacle — a gleeful performance of power, distraction, and swagger — is, for the people living under it, a slow and merciless beating. A daily pummeling that strips dignity, agency, health, livelihood, and truth.
The children are playing. The crapaud is dying.
What We Are Not Seeing — Or Refusing to See
This administration behaves as if politics is a carnival game:
Blow up boats in Caribbean waters with little explanation. Shrug at the death toll, which news agencies now place at more than sixty lives across a series of strikes on alleged drug boats from Venezuela and the wider region. Flex warships near Venezuela’s territorial line. Quietly move senior civilian officials — Miller, Hegseth, Noem and others — into fortified U.S. military compounds as if it were all a summer camp upgrade.
Meanwhile, the American public is fed shiny distractions: Elon and DOGE as reality entertainment, a billionaire wandering through federal buildings to “cut excess” while stripping agencies of personnel and autonomy, and an avalanche of Epstein headlines recycled on loop to keep the rage machine humming.
But here is the truth: This is not a joke. This is not theatre. This is not governance.
This is the systematic disassembly of institutions, the grinding down of the public, and the normalization of impunity.
The Leaders Laughing While the Country Burns
Look at the cast:
Pete Hegseth — a former TV personality — now presiding over the machinery of war, committing American troops and assets to Caribbean waters within reach of small islands like Trinidad and Tobago.
RFK Jr. — placed atop Health and Human Services without a medical degree and without a record of being a steward of public health — amplifying his own mythology more than any grounded practice of care and wellness.
Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, and others relocating into military housing, as if settling in for a long siege behind the gates.
Mike Johnson engineering legislative hostage-taking with ruthless indifference.
The financiers of Project 2025 — the Rockbridge entities, the MAGA-aligned billionaires, the JD Vance–style overseer conglomerations — pulling levers behind the curtain.
And then, like ghosts, the Trump dynasty itself: no longer performing the daily outrage cycle, no longer monopolizing headlines — because they are too busy accumulating bounty, domestically and internationally, while the public fights just to keep SNAP benefits, healthcare coverage, and basic stability.
The Caribbean Is Not a Playground
For those of us from Trinidad and Tobago — and the wider Caribbean — this moment is especially chilling.
U.S. military vessels lurk near Venezuela. Strikes destroy “suspected” vessels in Caribbean waters. Regional leaders are nudged and pressured into aligning with operations that have not been fully explained to the people who will live with the consequences.
Trinidad, the nearest island to the Venezuela frontier, sits right at the edge of American ambition. We are more than dots on a map. We are households, harbors, shorelines, lives.
This is not a joke. This is not a drill. This is not for show.
Forty Days of Hostage — Then a Quiet Deal
America endured a forty-day shutdown that jeopardized SNAP, healthcare, federal workers’ livelihoods, and basic economic function — all to ram through a Big Billionaire Bill that rewarded the already powerful and punished the rest.
At the eleventh hour, an eight-person, closed-door Democratic negotiation reopened the government — but at a measurable human cost and with very little public clarity.
The frog survived this round. But the beating never stopped.
America, You Saw the Pattern — And You Sounded the Alarm
Millions marched, voted, and refused to be lulled into silence. Millions recognized the authoritarian drift. Millions said, once and for all: No Kings.
The world echoed the warning.
But vigilance cannot sleep. Not when military leaders are replaced, institutions are gutted, allies are unsettled, and civilian political figures are fortifying themselves inside military compounds, out of reach and out of sight.
So Why Are the Trumps Suddenly Invisible?
Because they have succeeded in shifting the spectacle away from themselves.
Because the billionaires funding this political project prefer the shadows.
Because their operatives — the Millers, the Noems, the Hegseths, the Rubios and others — are the ones carrying the water in public now.
What looks like absence is, in truth, quiet consolidation.
Crapaud Is Speaking Now
America, this is not a party. This is not a prank. This is not mischief.
This is a beating.
A stripping away. A calculated dismantling.
And in the Caribbean — especially Trinidad and Tobago — we feel the tremors directly. We are not bystanders to empire’s games. We are neighbors to its ambitions.
So we raise our voices. We send fresh, bright, vigilant leaders into the halls of power. We insist that governance must be for all of us — not just some of us.
Because what is joke for school children
is death for crapaud.
And the crapaud — the people — are done being beaten.
Sources & Further Reading
Military Housing Moves
- Washington Post — “Kristi Noem living rent-free in Coast Guard Commandant’s residence” Link
- ARLnow — “Stephen Miller’s family relocates to military housing after protests” Link
- The Atlantic — “Top Trump Officials Are Moving Onto Military Bases” Link
Caribbean / Venezuela Strike Operations
- Reuters — “US military kills 11 in strike on alleged drug boat from Venezuela” Link
- Reuters — “US conducted its 20th strike on alleged drug boat; 60+ dead” Link
- Washington Post — “Trump ordered Caribbean strike to ‘send a message’” Link
- AP News — “Questions arise over legality of US strike on vessel returning to shore” Link
Trump Family Wealth & 1789 Capital
- Center for American Progress — “Trump Family Has Pocketed More Than $1.8 Billion Since 2024” Link
- Reuters — “Trump-linked Venture Fund 1789 Capital Tops $1 Billion in Assets” Link
- Bloomberg — “Trump Family Net Worth Surges Past $5 Billion After 2024” Link
Military Posture & Regional Pressure
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