Five lawless days that could change the world
Trump's first week is an attack on America beyond anything our worst enemies could hope for. Every fear of those who campaigned to keep him from the White House has been amply justified.
In five lawless, reckless, greedy days, Donald Trump and the Republicans have done more damage to our nation, our way of life, our future prosperity, than any foreign enemy could ever dream to do. Every fear of those who campaigned to keep him from the White House has been amply justified. We are in an existential fight with an entrenched power that is hostile to much of America and willing, no, eager to sell out our future for their own present gain.
Friday night, the Republicans made Pete Hegseth the Secretary of Defense. Even before he got there, the administration took steps to remove women from the armed forces. No matter how talented, female fliers are no longer welcome to apply to the elite Top Gun program. One commander posted rules that limit women on his base to participation in genteel sports like badminton. The Air Force removed from from their training programs any information about Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots. Hegseth himself is hostile to women in the service. He lied during his confirmation hearing to claim that standards had been lowered and quotas set to bring women into the service. There are no such orders.
No doubt black pilots are next. The Air Force stripped all reference to the Tuskegee Airmen from Air Force training and history classes claiming their mention violates anti-DEI principals.
Hegseth’s hostility to women, and his lies, are not his only disqualification. He has refused to rule out ordering the military to attack American citizens, to occupy American cities, to impose martial law even if illegally ordered by his boss. Those are not unanswerable hypothetical questions. Mr. Trump has threatened to do all these things.
The Star Spangled Banner flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the “Battle of Baltimore” in 1814. This is the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner national anthem.
Over at the Justice Department, even before his private attorney gets confirmed as our Attorney General, Trump has filled staff leadership positions. Already, justice has been corrupted. The Department ordered a federal judge to revoke judicial order. This particular order required the seditious insurrectionist Stuart Rhodes to get permission from the court to travel to the Capitol. Whatever you think about that order, and I think it more than reasonable, it is not up to the President in a democracy with an independent judiciary to order a judge to rescind a judicial order. But Trump is rapidly tearing up the Constitution he swore to defend.
In five days, he has rolled back 60 years of civil rights protections. Back in World War II, FDR banned discrimination in private military suppliers, arguing that the protection of our nation required the help of all Americans. Trump ripped up that order, and many others that did nothing more than demand we treat everyone fairly.
The Justice Department ended federal enforcement of environmental and discrimination laws by shutting down all litigation and reassigning the attorneys leading that work. This is, of course, illegal. No President is entitled to ignore laws passed by Congress. But Trump does not care. When he is sued, and he will be, I wonder whether he will comply with the court orders to restart enforcement. That’s just one more constitutional crisis this lawless despot has created in his first week.
Where were those lawyers reassigned? They were sent to the newly created Sanctuary City Working Group. That group is tasked with finding ways to criminally prosecute state and local authorities who do not cooperate with the federal effort to deport eleven million people. So much for federalism. In Trumpland, the power of the presidency shall have no limits. Resistance means prison. And the Republican Party is all in on it.
Already, ICE agents are stopping cars on the highway demanding to see people’s papers. In Arizona, they are rounding up Navajo men, and claiming they are somehow not citizens entitled to vote and locking them up. They are entitled to vote. But even if they weren’t, arresting them? Threatening to deport them? To where? This is their home.
Nor is the damage limited to Defense and Justice. Imagine a world where the internet, AI, quantum computing, advanced logistics, new biomedical devices, are all invented somewhere else. Apple, Amazon, Meta, and all the other creators of vast American wealth would not be. Instead, American consumers would be buying these products and services from China or Europe. The wealthiest amongst us would be traveling out of the country for advanced medical care. All of us would all be poorer and more dependent on the rest of the world.
That is where we are headed now. Donald Trump has declared war on higher education, the engine of all that innovation. He has cut research funding. Ended ongoing cancer studies. Shut off funds that keep research centers open. That means a generation of young scientists, Ph.D. students and post-docs working in labs across the country, are being laid off. They will change careers, and we will lose an entire generation of innovation- just at the time AI and quantum computing will change the world. This is the terrifying stuff our enemies dream of.
I know these things because we still have a free press, we still have sources. That will not last. Trump has already fired at least 17 Inspectors General. Inspectors general are there to find waste, fraud, and abuse in government departments. Their reports become public, and are vitally important to government accountability. Trump does not want their oversight.
We can still fight back because our electoral system still works. If Trump gets his way, that too will not last. In North Carolina a partisan Republican state supreme court is poised to throw out 60,000 vote to steal an election and put another Republican on the court. Their aim is to ensure there are enough partisans on the court to jam through gerrymandered maps after the next census. Meanwhile, Trump himself has conditioned aid to California still reeling from wildfires. What was Trump’s condition? That the state change voting laws to make it harder for people to vote.
We are one week in, and Trump is going for it all. He will be our dear leader and we his obedient children. Unless, of course, you are female or black, or just disagree with him.
As for me, I will resist. I will bear witness. I will fight. The idea of America is not some candle to be snuffed out by a cunning fascist- even one elected to the presidency. It is not a candle at all, but a supernova. It is mankind’s highest expression of human dignity and value. And those that think they can bring it down will always find themselves contemplating their own demise in the courtyards of their bunkers.