Trump: We must deport violent criminals. ICE: Okay. Stephen Miller: I want 3000 undocumented immigrants detained. ICE: Okay. Miller: That’s 3000 detained each day. ICE: Oka…what? Each day? Miller: Each day. ICE: How are we supposed to identify, locate, and detain 3000 violent undocumented criminal immigrants each day? Miller: Use the IRS. ICE: Okay. Miller: Find out who pays them, arrest them where they work. ICE: Okay. Miller: Take them when they’re picking crops. ICE: Okay. Miller: But at the end of the day, let them get the crops in first. ICE: Okay. Miller: Also, order them to appear at immigration offices to support their claims of asylum, arrest them at the courthouse. ICE: Okay. Miller: Might as well detain their families too. They’re probably illegal too. ICE: Okay. Miller: Any questions? ICE: Nope. Arrest the ones who work, the ones who pay taxes, the ones who show up for their hearings. We can do that. Miller: Good. ICE: But what about those violent criminals? Miller: If we do this right, the ones who are left will become violent. Then you can just shoot them. ICE: Okay. Some Random Democrat: We must focus on kitchen table issues.
It’s been a month since I’ve written anything on this blog. A whole month. I used to write something here 2-3 times a week. I’ve never gone this long without writing something for the blog. Never. Why is this happening?
Here’s why: Trump trauma. Ever since the election, I’ve been…I don’t know. I can’t quite find the right word to describe this feeling. And it’s not just Trump (though Trump alone is enough); it’s also the collection of incompetent fascist nitwits he (and a complicit GOP Congress) placed in critically important political offices. That means that ever single day, including weekends, there are at least half dozen things so outrageous that they deserve a scathing blog post. And I just don’t have the energy to do that right now.
I mean, if Russia had done what TrumpCo has done to the United States (and for what it’s worth, you can argue Russia IS responsible), you’d say it was an act of war. In a mere one hundred days, TrumpCo has kneecapped the US. They’ve completely shredded our reputation for intelligence gathering and sharing; they’ve ignored basic operational security; they’ve gutted our ability to respond to climate disasters while simultaneously reducing the resources needed to warn the populace about those disasters; they’ve rolled back food testing, increasing the likelihood of contamination; they’ve made it easier to evade taxes and harder for the IRS to collect taxes and prosecute tax cheaters; they’ve cut spending on both medical research and Medicaid, which will certainly lead to increased childhood and elderly mortality; they’ve made air travel less safe; they’ve not only limited civil rights, they’ve actually rescinded civil rights that had already been established; they’ve sent out masked goon squads to kidnap and secretly detain people legally in the US; they’ve…well, you get the idea. TrumpCo has basically shit all over the US Constitution, and done it openly.
It’s overwhelming.
You know what? That’s the word I couldn’t think of when I began writing this post. That’s exactly why I haven’t written anything here for a month. I’m not just whelmed (from the Middle English hwielfan, meaning “to turn upside down (as a ship); to roll over and over”), I’m totally and completely overwhelmed. I’m whelmed the fuck over.
Stunned, exhausted, bedraggled survivors trying to escape a capsized ship.
I feel like the United States has been capsized, like we’re caught up in some political Poseidon Adventure. It’s as if the ship of state has been hit by a rogue wave and turned completely upside down, and we the people have to crawl and fight our way through the burning, topsy-turvy, almost unrecognizable wreckage of the nation we knew in an attempt to reach what used to be the bottom of the ship, hoping that somebody on the other side of the hull will be able to cut a hole through which we can escape to daylight.
Maybe that sort of rescue only happens in movies. But we have to try, right?
Okay, first off, I admit I’m confused. I mean, I understand that Donald Trump, with the assistance of a cadre of feral Christo-fascist authoritarians and the support of a cartoonist collection of buffoons, is conducting an aggressive frontal assault on the US Constitution. And so far it’s been mostly effective.
Unlike a LOT of folks, I’m inclined to think Trump has a plan. It’s a very simple, very very stupid, and very selfish plan, to be sure. It’s the sort of plan you’d expect from a cartoon villain. But it’s still a plan. As I see it, Donald Trump’s plan is as follows:
Make everybody dependent on the whims and wishes of Donald Trump.
It’s ridiculous, isn’t it. What Trump really wants, of course, is loyalty and respect. Two things he’ll never get. He’ll never get the respect he wants (and thinks he deserves), and I suspect he knows that. Nor will he ever get real loyalty, because loyalty is reciprocal; you earn loyalty by being loyal to others. Trump is loyal to nothing and nobody. Who’s going to respect of be loyal to this guy?
Since he can’t/won’t get the respect and loyalty he truly wants, Trump has to settle for a shabby substitute–unquestioned obedience. The problem for Trump, even as POTUS, is that there are HUGE intentional limits to presidential obedience in a representative democracy.
The president’s actual job is to preside over the government, not to rule it. ‘Preside’ literally means “to sit in front of.” The president is basically like an orchestra leader. In order for Trump to command unquestioned obedience, he has to first weaken or destroy the Constitutional constraints on presidential power.
That’s exactly what he’s doing. In his first term, Trump converted the entire Republican Party to so-called MAGA loyalists (I say ‘so-called’ because many/most of the GOP are just sycophantic cowards or craven opportunists, not actual loyalists). He also stacked the Supreme court with ‘loyalists’. The only check on his authority came from the professionals who occupied the Cabinet posts and the various governmental agencies. Now, in his second term, he’s replaced the Cabinet secretaries and the heads of every government agency with more so-called loyalists. He’s basically removed or degraded almost every federal administrative constraint on his authority (there are still some federal judges who remain independent, though they’re under attack now).
This guy? Powerful politicians and institutions are afraid of this guy? This fucking guy?
There are a few other social constraints that can challenge the president: independent law firms, universities, business interests, and independent news sources. Trump is making every effort to hobble or undermine them, threatening retaliation either in the form of investigations or by removing federal financial aid and federal contracts. In order to avoid this sort of persecution, these social institutions are being required to appeal to Trump personally. To humiliate themselves by publicly kissing his ring. You want to avoid tariffs on products you need? Humbly ask Trump to remove them for YOUR company. You want federal financial aid for teaching or research? Humbly ask Trump to restore the funding he denied. You want to practice law or receive federal contracts? Humbly ask Trump to overlook any earlier opposition and publicly promise to support him. You want access to the Trump administration as a news source? Humbly agree to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. What kind of person or institution would humble themselves before this guy?
But hey, it’s working. Some large law firms and some universities have already compromised themselves; many news agencies have modified their coverage of Trump and are parroting his bullshit; a lot of businesses threatened by Trump’s trade practices are considering personal appeals to Trump and praising his harmful policies. Intimidation works. But c’mon, how could anybody be intimidated by this guy?
I find truly astonishing that so many people and institutions are afraid of this guy. He’s a cartoonish nitwit; he’s more a malignant Elmer Fudd than an evil genius. The sheer mass of his ignorance could bend light. He’s ten pounds of racist bullshit in a five pound bag. He’s a coward and a liar. People are afraid of taking on this guy?
By now, everybody is aware of the colossal fuck-up in which senior Trump national security officials conducted a high level discussion about launching at attack in Yemen using…and it sounds so stupid to write this, but it’s true…using a messaging platform that IS NOT approved for exchanging classified or secret intelligence.
These weren’t low-level aides we’re talking about. This was Trump’s Vice President, his Director of National Intelligence, his National Security Adviser, his Secretary of Defense, his CIA Director and his Chief of Staff. Oh yeah, and the editor of The Atlantic. The fact that these people had this discussion on a commercially available cell phone app is scandal enough. But it’s just ONE OF MANY scandals revealed by this fuck-up.
For example, Trump’s national security team isn’t quite sure if Trump has actually ordered the attack. They were discussing the timing of the attack–when the attack should take place–when Trump’s Chief of Staff says, “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light.” Seriously, this attack took place when it did because Stephen Miller interpreted some comment from Trump as a ‘green light.’ Apparently nothing was signed; apparently no official record exists authorizing an attack on a foreign nation. In any normal administration, that would be unthinkable. But this is Trump.
Another thing. One of the members of Trump’s national security team, Steve Witkoff, was in Moscow at the time (he’s Trump’s Ukraine negotiator) meeting with Putin and his people. Let me just say that again. This guy was part of a group chat discussing highly sensitive information involving the military’s attack capabilities, using an unapproved app on a cell phone while waiting for a meeting with Vlad Putin IN MOSCOW. In any normal administration, that would be unthinkable. But this is Trump.
There’s more. During this astonishingly stupid group chat on a non-secure cell phone, Trump’s Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, used the name of an active intelligence officer. He basically outed a working spy, which is a criminal act. In any normal administration, that would not only be unthinkable, but would lead to criminal charges. But this is Trump. His Attorney General and Director of the FBI will almost certainly refuse to investigate the matter, let alone bring criminal charges.
“I don’t know anything about it.”
And if that’s not scandal enough, when confronted by news media about the incident, Trump said he wasn’t aware of it.
“I don’t know anything about it. You’re telling me about it for the first time.”
This is Trump, so that’s almost certainly a lie. Almost certainly, also because this is Trump. It’s entirely possible his national security team 1) had decided Trump probably intended to order an attack on Yemen and didn’t bother to get the decision confirmed, 2) were too lazy or incompetent to use secure communications systems to organize the attack, 3) and when it became public that they’d not only used wildly inappropriate and insecure tech to discuss the attack BUT ALSO INCLUDED A FUCKING CIVILIAN WHO WAS THE EDITOR OF A GODDAMN NEWS MAGAZINE, they decided NOT to tell POTUS that they’d fucked up. Which would mean Trump can’t trust his own hand-picked national security team to keep him informed or tell him the truth. Which is entirely possible. Although it’s more likely Trump just lied about not knowing, because that’s what he does.
In any normal administration, an incident like this would lead to mass resignations and/or terminations as well as criminal charges. But this is Trump.
Right now, it appears the Trump administration is attempting to put the blame for all this on National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who set up the ‘group chat’ and accidentally included the editor of The Atlantic. But every single person who participated in the discussion should have known the proper protocol; they should have objected to having the discussion outside a sensitive compartmentalized information facility (SCIF); they should have refused to participate.
What will happen? Who knows? Democrats will be outraged, but will they actually DO anything? Who knows? Will anybody be held accountable for such a colossal fuck-up? Who knows? It’s possible that this scandal, like every Trump scandal, will be buried beneath the next cascade of scandal. It’s possible nothing at all will happen; nothing will change.
Because this is Trump. Nothing is ordinary anymore. No rules apply, no norms are maintained, no standards exist. There is only Trump and his cadre of trolls, banging around randomly, ignoring actual governance in their pursuit of performative trolling.
Let’s face it, Donald Trump is well on his way to turning the United States into a mafia state. It’s not just a matter of corrupt officials using governmental power and authority to enrich themselves (and their families and friends) while punishing poor and marginalized people. It’s not just manipulating the system so public services can be turned into private ownership for the profit of the already-wealthy.
It’s also the petty authoritarian mindset, that mobster code that demands unquestioned loyalty and obedience. Any disagreement, any hesitation, any refusal to obey is an offense that can’t be tolerated. Everybody must abase themselves before Trump. Everybody must kiss the Godfather’s ring. Failure to do so leads to punishment.
Back in February, during a conference of Governors, Trump threatened Janet Mills, the Democratic governor of Maine, over her public refusal to issue an unconstitutional ban on transgender athletes competing in school-sponsored sports. She replied, “I’ll see you in court.”
Hours later, the Trump Department of Education opened an investigation into Maine’s educational policies. Within days, there were six different administrative and Congressional investigations of Maine’s policies. Trump’s Department of Education threatened to cut off all federal funding to Maine’s Department of Education.
There are apparently no trans athletes competing at the collegiate level. There are around 45,000 high school students competing in sports competitions in Maine, four of which are trans girls. Only two of them have competed in statewide events. But Trump threw the entire weight of the Federal government against them. There are more federal investigations of this handful of high school girls in sports than there are of the fatal crashes involving Tesla’s ‘self-driving’ system.
Nonetheless, Maine’s universities, facing a massive loss of federal funding, have agreed to comply with Trump’s executive order banning trans athletes. But that’s not enough for Trump. Like a Mafia don, he insists on having his ring kissed. Trump wrote:
While the State of Maine has apologized for their Governor’s strong, but totally incorrect, statement about men playing in women’s sports while at the White House House Governor’s Conference, we have not heard from the Governor herself, and she is the one that matters in such cases. Therefore, we need a full throated apology from the Governor herself, and a statement that she will never make such an unlawful challenge to the Federal Government again, before this case can be settled. I’m sure she will be able to do that quite easily. Thank you for your attention to this matter and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! DJT
Aside from the bullshit lies (the State of Maine didn’t apologize), this display of arrogance and petty vindictiveness is classic mobster behavior. It’s not enough that he successfully bullied Maine’s Department of Education into complying with a spiteful, cruel, unconstitutional executive order. It’s not enough that he used the government of the United States of America to embarrass and punish four trans girl athletes. Trump is now insisting that Gov. Mills must personally grovel to him and humiliate herself before he’ll stop the intimidation. She must kiss the ring so he can feel powerful.
This is what America is now.
EDITORIAL NOTE: It’s no coincidence that the subjects of Trump’s pettiness and vindictiveness are women and girls. It’s baked into the patriarchal system WHICH MUST BE BURNED TO THE FUCKING GROUND. Burn it, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and burn them again. Burn it for generations, just to be sure. Burn it burn it burn it. Then bake cookies
Here’s a terrifying thing that’s almost certainly going to happen. At some point in the not-too-distant future, SCOTUS is going to be forced to decide on the limits (if any) of Comrade Trump’s authority. I don’t know what the issue will be. Maybe it’ll be about marriage equality, maybe about immigration or birthright citizenship, maybe about his authority to dismantle entire federal agencies without Congressional approval.
But at some point, THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN. SCOTUS and POTUS will face off with the Constitution on the line. Maybe SCOTUS will just give up and agree Trump is king/dictator. That’s horrifying, but possible. But they may also rule there are limits to his authority. I like to think that’s more likely (but then I didn’t think it was likely that Trump would be re-elected, so what do I know?).
The question is this: what will happen when Trump ignores SCOTUS? Because he almost certainly will. I’m just going to remind you that SCOTUS has no power to enforce its rulings. In fact, the entire judicial branch of government at every level–municipal, county, state, and federal–depends on the executive branch of government to enforce its decisions. When a judge says, “Do this thing,” it falls to law enforcement agencies (which are part of the executive function of governance) to see that the thing is done.
But what happens if/when the court says, “Do this” and the executive branch says, “Nope”? What happens if/when the Supreme Court of the United States says, “Do this” and the President of the United States says, “Nope”?
Let’s say, for example, that Comrade Trump issues an executive order ending birthright citizenship and further orders people born in the US to immigrant parents be deported. Let’s also say SCOTUS rules those orders are clearly unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” And finally, let’s say Trump says, “Yeah, I’m deporting them anyway” and follows through on that.
What happens?
There aren’t many remedies. The 25th Amendment of the Constitution allows VPOTUS and the Cabinet to remove POTUS if he’s “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” But what if he’s just unwilling to do his duty? And what if the Cabinet agrees with POTUS (which, after all, is exactly why he picked those corrupt fucks)? The 25th Amendment assumes a Cabinet comprised of people with integrity and a firm belief in representative democracy. We don’t have one of those. So what else can be done?
There’s impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, which would remove POTUS from office. But how likely is that? There’s also the 2028 election. But even if there’s a free and fair election, we know Trump is unlikely to willingly leave office.
That’s basically it. Those are essentially the only legal options if POTUS defies SCOTUS. The less-than-legal options? A military coup. Citizen rebellion, insurrection, revolution. Before the 2024 election, these would have been unthinkable. Now…who knows?
Let’s say Trump refuses to follow a decision by SCOTUS. What happens? I can see mass protests by citizens. I can see Trump ordering US troops to help state and local law enforcement to suppress those protests. I can see him ordering them to fire on protesters. I can see some commanders/troops refusing to follow those illegal orders.
Again, such a scenario was unthinkable a few months ago. Now it seems possible. Now it seems almost inevitable. Because Trump IS assaulting the US Constitution. And SCOTUS will eventually have to deal with that. And IF they rule against Trump, it’s exceedingly likely he’ll ignore them and do whatever the fuck he wants.
To folks who are surprised by Comrade Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine, I’d just remind you that he has a history of betraying US allies to the benefit of Russia. Let’s start back in 2019.
After Kurdish forces helped the US to dismantle the ISIS regime, Trump casually betrayed them. Something like 11,000 Kurdish men and women died fighting against ISIS. With ISIS largely destroyed, Turkey, who had their own problems with Kurdish forces, wanted to invade northeast Syria and attack the Kurds. A thousand or so US troops were in the way. Trump decided to withdraw the US troops, saying, “We never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives.”
Hundreds of thousands of Kurdish civilians were displaced; hundreds were killed by Turkish forces. A few days later, Vladimir Putin announced Russia had made a pact with Turkey to take joint control of the Kurdish territory. Russian troops moved in and took command of the abandoned US military bases in Syria. A month later, Trump held a White House reception for Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, thanked him for the job he’d done in Syria and called himself “a big fan” of Erdoğan.
And don’t forget, a year later, in 2020, US intelligence agencies reported that Russia was offering/paying bounties to Taliban-linked militants in Afghanistan for attacking and killing coalition forces—including both US and British troops. Members of both political parties (not quite ALL the GOP had gone full MAGA-brained back then) insisted Trump raise holy hell with Russia and demand the bounties stop.
Trump did…nothing. Wait, not true. Trump 1) invited Putin to visit the US and stay at a Trump-owned property, 2) decided, after a call with Putin, to pull US troops out of NATO partner Germany, 3) suggested Russia should be reinstated in the G7 summit (a suggestion which other G7 nations soundly rejected), 4) refused to implement measures to combat Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election, 5) worked with Putin and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Bin Salman (who, let’s not forget, had a Washington Post reporter kidnapped, killed, and dismembered) to raise oil prices (which benefited US oil companies while raising prices of gasoline for consumers), 6) had his Department of Justice drop criminal charges against the Russian citizens and firms that criminally interfered with the 2016 election, and 7) had his DOJ drop charges against his former National Security Advisor who’d twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his interaction with Russian intelligence services.
Now, of course, he’s betraying Ukraine. Again. Remember, Trump’s first impeachment was grounded in his attempt to lean on President Zelenskyy. He tried to coerce the recently elected Zelenskyy into conjuring up some dirt on Joe Biden’s son by withholding missiles which Congress had already authorized. Trump wasn’t even very subtle about it; it was basically flat out mob-style extortion.
This time he’s betraying Ukraine while claiming to negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. Negotiating, my ass. This is what he expects from Ukraine:
for Zelenskyy to apologize for not being grateful enough to him personally,
to agree that Russia can keep the territory it illegally acquired in the invasion,
to agree never to join NATO,
to accept all that WITHOUT any guarantee of security in case Russia decides to end a cease fire.
This is what Trump expects from Russia:
the US will lift sanctions against the government of Russia
the US will lift sanctions against specific Russian citizens and oligarchs.
That’s it. Essentially, Comrade Trump wants to ‘negotiate’ Russia’s victory. He’s openly serving Russian interests. He has no interest in the welfare of Ukraine, or Europe, or humanity in general. He has no interest in democracy; to be fair, I don’t think he has any real interest in fascism either. Trump’s only real interests are in getting and keeping power, and punishing his detractors.
EDITORIAL NOTE: Trump doesn’t just betray US allies; he betrays everyone. His fellow Republicans, his business partners, his charities, his clients, his wives. In a very real way, I don’t think we can say Trump has betrayed the US, but only because he was never loyal to the US to begin with. He’s never been loyal to anything or anybody.
Name five (5) things you accomplished this week in support of the agenda of President Comrade Donald J. Trump.
Further dismantled the US government’s ability to govern itself by summarily firing several thousand random federal employees.
Played 18 at Trump Doral in Miami and 18 at Trump International in Palm Beach. Scores not reported, but probably best ever.
Abandoned role as global leader in democracy and open aligned the US government with noted Communist dictator Vlad Putin (assisted by that bearded guy who’s always hanging around).
Had a public temper tantrum when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy failed to thank me enough. He also refused to thank my buddy Vlad Putin. Nobody would even know this Zelenskyy guy’s name if not for Vlad. He owes a lot to Vlad.
Attended a presidential cabinet meeting hosted by Elon Musk, who said he fixed that thing where he accidentally stopped preventing ebola for a while. Is that right, ebola? I thought that was the way colored people spoke. I mean the Blacks.
“Look, all I want is for you to thank me, preferably on your knees, like that bearded guy does.”
Extra credit: The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ fell for the second week in a row as tariff threats escalated again and US government bonds fell to their lowest levels in nearly three months.
gregfallis.com 