The Grand Illusion
Donald Trump appears to be out to undo one of the philosophical and legal bases of the United States – the idea that the United States is based on the rule of law and that our representative democratic republic is a government based on laws, and not on men. He’s also served notice – again – that he’s above the law.
This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, at least if they think about it. Trump declares that any law he dislikes is aimed at him personally, and he’s apparently willing to pardon anyone convicted of breaking a law he or his followers don’t like.
He’s already attempted to undo the birthright section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and pardoned every single person convicted of anything to do with the January 6th insurrection, as well as pardoning anti-abortion activists who were convicted of using violence against abortion clinics and against those attempting to use such facilities.
He’s immediately fired eighteen federal inspectors general (whose job is to monitor federal agencies for misfeasance, malfeasance and/or corruption) without notice, even though the law requires him to notify Congress thirty days in advance of any planned removal.
Under Trump’s orders, acting Attorney General James McHenry has fired twelve Department of Justice attorneys not because they didn’t do their jobs, but because they cannot be “trusted” to “faithfully” implement Trump’s agenda. The actual language of the dismissal letters reads:
“You played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump. The proper functioning of government critically depends on the trust superior officials place in their subordinates… Given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”
Attorneys and officials at the Department of Justice are tasked with enforcing the laws of the land, not with implementing the agenda of the President.
Trump’s also removed Secret Service protection from two Republicans who served in his first administration where they carried out Trump’s orders and policies. Because they did, both have become targets for Islamic extremists, yet because both have been critical of him, Trump has removed their protection.
And for all the talk about illegal immigration, one of Trump’s first acts was to freeze and nullify the legal immigration process for people who’ve completely followed the legal procedures and were nearly through the process.
And all this has come to light in just one week. What else is in the works… and what other laws will Trump attempt to trash or flout?
As the old radio/TV slogan says, “Stay tuned!”
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
H.L.Mencken
Yes and ?soon?: “War is a good thing, because it is honest; it admits the central fact of human nature… A nation too long at peace becomes a sort of gigantic old maid.”
It will be intriguing which allies we will have.
My brother can’t stand Trump and will go on extended rants about everything wrong with him and what he stands for.
So I was somewhat surprised the other day when my brother actually argued against birthright citizenship, for once siding with Trump on an issue.
Personally I think you should be guaranteed citizenship in the place that you are born whilst also being eligible for citizenship in the place your parents are citizens of (assuming they are originally citizens of another location).
It turns out being automatically made a citizen in the place you are born is something of a rarity. My country – Australia – does not practice birthright citizenship. I had never given it much thought as I have been an Australian citizen since birth due to my parents being Australian.
To the best of my recollection we were never taught about how one becomes a citizen in school and I never researched it so most of my notions about it are from snippets of information I picked up here and there. I’d always assumed if you were born in Australia you would be an Australian citizen. It turns out that’s not the case and isn’t the case in many parts of the world.
In a democracy there usually is no need to be concerned about your citizenship (unless you want to vote).
It appears that some or maybe many US citizens want to live somewhere else (poor mutts; they will find the US Government suddenly takes a great interest in their lives – at least financially).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360558595/recruitment-agencies-say-more-americans-wanting-move-new-zealand
Over the years I have enjoyed the occasional dystopian novel. However, I’ve never wanted to live in one.
And the signs have been there for a long, long time. “I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it” – or words to that effect.
Such a narcissist. And, sadly, such an unthinking one, too.
Oh well. At least I know who to blame. (That would be 49.76% of the electorate, thank you very much.)
Trump is at least partially responsible for more than 1 million deaths in the US due to his policies and lack of policies regarding COVID. Why would he, at this point, shy away from anything at all?
You often mention university troubles. The Democrats’ belief in DEI destroyed CU’s meritocracy, as described by this WSJ article https://archive.is/rdFRE and this evidence https://nitter.poast.org/JohnDSailer/status/1883648993974169641#m I would have thought that the entire Democrat program of encouraging racial profiling violated the law.
Similarly providing weapons to a country with nukes that hasn’t signed the non-proliferation treaty and is actively committing what the ICC calls a likely genocide violates the law, but Biden will never grace the halls of the Hague.
It’s also pretty corrupt to pardon your family members and Fauci preemptively, just in case they happen to have violated the law. Banana republic corrupt.
As someone who hates hypocrisy, I’m asking you to please criticize both sides for their faults, not just the team you don’t like.
The right to birthright citizenship is falling throughout the West. In Europe, it is now hard to integrate these new “citizens”, when the school is only 10-20% indigenous people. It was very different when I lived in foreign countries, and I was the only kid with a different culture — it was very clear I had to integrate, and so I did, many times, in many different cultures. But had I been in the majority of my class, it is the native kids who would have had to adapt to me. So Europeans, who are not having as many children, are turning away from birthright citizenship, as they see it eroding their cultures.
I’ve always criticized those who need criticizing, especially when they endanger long-held freedoms. As for Biden pardoning his family, were I in his shoes, I’d likely have done the same thing, not because I’ve seen any actual hard evidence that Biden did anything criminal, but because Trump is a narcissistic mean bastard.
Yes, I just love how Biden pardoning his son for being a dumbass when he bought a gun is somehow perceived as equivalent to pardoning people that were trying to overturn the government, and assaulting police officers during the process.
Yes, what Biden did was a bit over the line, but saying he as just as worthy of criticism as Trump is like saying a shoplifter is just as bad as someone running a Nazi death camp. It’s absurd on it’s face, and it’s damn hard to have a productive conversation with someone that would even entertain the notion.
While we must stay tuned, the Donald really wants us to be overwhelmed. While some items may not be approved, many will fall through the cracks because we can’t check on everything. The inspectors being fired shows that he’s okay with government corruption as long as it’s benefitting him and his folks.
I believe that people are mistaken to think that Biden’s pardons were because Fauci et al might have broken the law. The reason for the pardons, in my opinion, was to prevent the “Bully” bullying people who were doing their jobs. Meritocracy-wise Fauci was the best person in the US for the job he had to do at that time: according to his peers. The fact that President Trump is specifically inviting his “patriots” to do ill to Fauci and others like him confirms that Biden was right in his pardoning.
The reference offered is biased and hypocritical because after stating the obvious it attacks study content which is a separate problem (except to the views of the Manhattan Institute and City Journal and probably Stephen Miller and his libertarians). The reference in fact attacks so-called “woke” politics. I think DEI is a simplification response: another example of progressives allowing the tail to wave the dog. The problem with DEI has nothing to do with “merit” and everything to do with a political response to US population statistics: yes, it did indeed do harm to the concept of meritocracy (which itself has problems that refer back to our society as a whole). ‘Critical race studies perspectives’ is a separate stupidity and one which a scholar should not touch as it has nothing to do with scholarship and everything to do with politics.
Politics seems to be zero-sum even when cooperation appears to be used; that seems to be why we have additional ‘legislation’ in place of new and corrected (to be consistent with the times) legislation passed constantly. What is the primary impediment: too short a time for US Representatives in office or just human egos creating the resulting stupidity of some legislative actions?