On April 11, Donald Trump met with oil, gas, and other industry guests he had invited to his Mar-a-Lago estate. He asked for their support in the coming presidential election with donation of $1 billion. Yes, a billion dollars.

And yes, he can do this because the Supreme Court, in one of its many bad decisions, ruled 5-4 to secure money an equal player in deciding elections. The 2010 Citizens United decision, reversing 100 years of rules, allows corporations and other groups to spend an unlimited amount of money on elections — for promised legislation that will benefit them.

The court ruled that limiting their spending violated the First Amendment right of corporations to speak — their “freedom to speak with money.” Five justices argued this would have been the Founders’ intent — to make corporations the same as people. The wealthy use this ruling to organize political donations to candidates who will help them increase their wealth, all of which makes the rest of us relatively poorer.

When he was in office, Donald Trump promised to reduce taxes, and his administration did so, but only for corporations and the wealthy. In case you didn’t notice, the first adjustment the IRS made was to take away the $4,000 deduction from taxable income to which we had long been entitled.

On the international front, the contrast between our competing presidential candidates is stark. In office, Trump broke decades of U.S. resistance by allowing our embassy to be moved to Jerusalem. With the establishment of Israel in 1948, Jerusalem was to be a city shared with Palestinians, a capital city for both parties. In fact, Palestinian residents there have been steadily driven from their homes.

Subsequently exposed has been that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew Hamas was about to stage an attack. When it savagely did so, his vaunted military was held back. We know his strategies well. Aggression by Hamas once again permits new and devastating war to cleanse Gaza. This is their 15th.

Immense Palestinian casualties would occur. All the better for the Israeli far right, currently in power. The purpose of years of settlements in occupied Palestinian space has always been to get rid of Palestinians. They were savagely driven from their farm and homes in 1948. Where are they to go?

President Joe Biden could have seized on the October Hamas invasion as a measure of Palestinian frustration at 56 years of occupation and abuse — the need to finally establish a self-governing Palestinian state. He has enraged U.S. college youth by instead only providing financial and military support to Netanyahu. A Trump presidency would totally darken the prospects for Palestinian freedom.

Years ago, both former President Jimmy Carter and the government of South Africa appropriately labeled Israel an apartheid state. South Africans know the full meaning of such a designation.

A great many Israelis resent Netanyahu and his policies and have strongly and steadily demonstrated against him. He persists in office in order to stay out of jail on corruption charges.

This week, the governments of Ireland, Norway, and Spain announced recognition of a Palestinian state, a unique sort of landless entity that could exchange ambassadors. The deceitful Netanyahu, who has vowed to never allow a Palestinian state, criticized the move as “a reward for Hamas terror.”

While reelection of Biden and a Democratic Congress would demonstrably strengthen Ukrainian resistance, MAGA Republicans, led by Putin-friendly Trump, would turn Ukraine into a place of immense chaos, greater suffering, and loss.

A friendly Congress would allow a reelected Biden to address immigration as a humanitarian issue, not the political one MAGA Republicans make it now. Sufficient congressional margins would allow measures against gun violence, preserving abortion, and for voting rights.

Meanwhile, Trump has declared war on immigrants with as yet no limit how many years they have been living, working, or studying here. Like the Japanese during World War II, they would be rounded up and held in concentration camps, before being deported.

Unless a Trump dictatorship is established in 2025, those Republicans currently deluded by the slogan “make America great again” are in for a surprise. That takes me back to the racist, narrow-minded 1950s train that left the station years ago.

Deportation is one of Trump’s many un-American promises, and the question is whether or not we allow it to be realized. After all, we must be aware that first, we are nearly all the descendants of immigrants; and second, when roundups start, as they did not long ago in Germany, no one knows which undesirables will be done in next.

Charlemont resident Carl Doerner is an author and historian, currently editing his new work, “Breaking the Silence: Revisioning the American Narrative.”