Jesse Ventura, the former Governor of Minnesota (still sometimes feels strange to say that) and former WWF Wrestling star, is kind of a strange figure. There are times when I hear something that he has said, and it sounds crazy. Then there are other times when he makes certain arguments with an irrefutable logic, and I find myself almost astonished to agree with everything that he is saying.
Recently, Ventura leveled some serious criticisms of President Donald Trump, although he made a point never to outright name him. In those criticisms, he dismissed Trump himself as a "draft dodging coward" and suggests that he has turned the United States into a Third World country.
Here, specifically, is what he said about how he views what has happened here as effectively turning the United States into a Third World nation:
"You wanna know something? I'll give you a quote. We're a Third World country now. You want to know why? I'm an expert. I've been to one. I spent 17 months in Southeast Asia while the draft dodger was playing golf. Right? You know how I know we're a Third World country? Because in Third World countries, they have the military doing their police work in the cities while you walk around."
Indeed, Ventura has a point. Witness the recent shooting of an unarmed and seemingly harmless woman in his home state of Minnesota just days ago. It is bizarre to think of how many Americans seem to accept how the United States now is a country with a secret police, with masked agents with no badge numbers showing or any other kind of identification simply hunting and arresting people and, let's face it, "disappearing" people. As if we were some tinpot dictatorship in Latin America back in the 1970's and 1980's.
We have all seen angry people defending the lethal actions of those ICE agents in Minnesota over the past few days on social media. It is astonishing to me how few of these people seem alarmed at some of the frankly horrific indications that the United States has become a pseudo-fascist, or perhaps fascist-light, nation as of late. The secret police, a president threatening to push back or outright cancel the upcoming elections (and it's not the first time that this particular president has threatened this kind of a thing), invading countries and taking them over on the thinnest of pretexts and then seemingly getting ready to do this with numerous more nations (Trump suggested as much regarding Colombia and Cuba, and also seemed to be preparing for military action to take over Greenland).
Why aren't Trump supporters, many of whom wanted Trump specifically to keep the United States out of foreign wars, not criticizing these things more loudly and clearly?
It's more than a little depressing. This is what people mean when they suggest that we are losing - or perhaps have lost - our country.
At the very least, it feels like we have passed a point of no return in some ways. Certainly, nobody will have any illusions anymore that there is not a strong - an alarmingly very strong - presence of fascists, most of whom are not even aware that they hold fascist beliefs. That is not something that you can simply forget or drop, even when Trump is finally gone.
Another belief that many Trump supporters hold which, frankly, always puzzled me is how many seem to think of him as a model of a "real man" or some tough guy. In fact, his entire history reveals him to be a blatant coward, a spoiled, overly privileged prick with a false sense of entitlement. When he doesn't get his way, he whines and cries relentlessly to anyone who dares to listen. His notoriously thin orange skin cannot seem to let anything go, quite literally. Anytime anyone with even a bit of clout criticizes him, he launches one of his infamous mean-spirited social media postings, which sound and feel childish and immature.
This is your tough guy?
Seriously?
Ventura is not fooled into thinking Trump is some kind of real man or a tough guy. In fact, he calls out his cowardice for what it is, and illustrates it with a very specific example:
He replied, "Who is that? You mean, the draft dodging coward? I don't call him by name. He's the draft dodging coward who, when it was his time to serve his country, did what all rich white boys did. I wasn't a rich white boy. I grew up in South Minneapolis. Most of me and my friends are Vietnam veterans, we had to go, but the rich white boys never had to go, did they? And he didn't have to go, did he? And he's gonna tell me what courage is?"
This is something that I have felt for a long time. Many conservatives who support Trump now were critical of Bill Clinton for being a "draft dodger," as they called him. Yet rich boy Trump getting out of serving in Vietnam because of bone spurs - multiple times - is somehow overlooked? To say nothing of how disrespectfully he speaks of veterans and towards Gold Star families.
No, I just don't get all of that, frankly.
Which is why I am glad to see Governor Ventura speak out frankly about all of this. I applaud him and hope that more and more people like him begin to speak out clearly and forcefully. Let the world come to understand what a total coward and loser Trump is.
Wake up, people!
Jesse Ventura's personal message for Donald Trump is going viral by BuzzFeed, January 9, 2026:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/jesse-ventura-s-personal-message-for-donald-trump-is-going-viral/ar-AA1TUoXo?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=6961c08952d7428c837985cc5628760f&ei=27
Jesse Ventura's personal message for Donald Trump is going viral
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