Paul R. Pillar
The courts, Congress, and the military are unlikely to resist the Trump administration’s tidal wave of illegality.
President Donald Trump, in his second term, is rapidly moving the United States away from liberal democracy and toward authoritarianism capped by unrestricted one-man rule.
He has repeatedly and flagrantly disregarded the law. The disregard has included the gutting and disestablishment of agencies whose existence and budgets are based on acts of Congress. It has included mass firings and targeted dismissals of officials while ignoring legal requirements to show cause and ensure due process.
The law enforcement powers of the government have been blatantly weaponized, politicized, and deployed against anyone Trump considers a political or personal adversary, even in the absence of a prosecutable crime. Despite the president’s duty under Article II of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump has refused to enforce regulatory laws that he does not happen to like.
He has abridged basic freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment. Legal non-citizen residents have been seized on the street and jailed for weeks merely for expressing an opinion. The administration is actively considering a broader policy of revoking visas and deporting foreign students who express their opinions in campus protests.
With some undocumented immigrants being thrown into a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump has talked openly about extending similar treatment to US citizens. US citizens have already been swept up, whether inadvertently or otherwise, in the administration’s mass deportations.
No comments:
Post a Comment