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.
The concept of due process is getting a lot of attention right now, and rightly so. It’s at the heart of the Trump administration’s attempt to destroy democracy. Due process–the adherence to the laws that balance the power of the State against the civil rights and liberties of the individual–is the primary defense against the US becoming a police state.
Most folks can grasp that concept in theory, but a LOT of people have trouble with the practice itself.
I spent seven years or so as a private investigator specializing in criminal defense; I had a contract with a Public Defender program. For the most part, the lawyers I worked for represented people charged with major crimes…robbery, rape, murder, etc. I rarely told strangers what I did for a living, because it would almost always result in some variation of this conversation:
“Do you ever have a guilty client?” “Almost all of my clients are guilty.” “How can you defend a person you KNOW to be guilty?” “Because I believe in civil rights and liberties.” “But if you KNOW they’re guilty?” “They still have rights.” “But if you KNOW they’re GUILTY?” “The only way to protect the rights of the innocent is to force the State to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt every single time.” “Sure, you have to protect the innocent, but if YOU KNOW THEY”RE GUILTY?”
The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution tells us No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. It’s really that simple. It doesn’t say ‘No citizen.’ It doesn’t say, “No white person.’ It doesn’t say, “No rich person.’ It says NO PERSON. Period. Every person who is at risk of losing their life, their liberty, or their property MUST be allowed the full protection of the law BEFORE any penalty can be applied.
“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day. “No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first–verdict afterwards.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who probably paid a higher proportion of his income in taxes than Donald Trump, has the right to expect the same due process of law as Donald Trump. Not because he’s been illegally detained and imprisoned (although he has), but because EVERYBODY in the US is–or should be–protected by due process. Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people in an act of terrorism 30 years ago yesterday, received more due process than Garcia.
I’ll also say this. As somebody who spent years helping defend the guilty, there is nothing more terrifying than an innocent client. There is so much at stake with an innocent client. Seeing an innocent person go to prison feels a hundred times worse than seeing a guilty person go free. And the ONLY way to protect the rights of an innocent person is to require the State to follow the law EVERY SINGLE TIME, even with the guilty.
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
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.
You know that song, right? The Star Spangled Banner? It’s sung at the beginning of almost every sports event in the United States. Yeah, that song. It looks like we’re going to have to change the lyrics. There are four verses to the song, though folks generally only sing the first verse. But each of those verses ends with a variation of the same line.
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Turns out the answer to that question is a firm “Nope.” Doesn’t matter if the banner is waving or not, because the US is no longer the land of the free or the home of the brave. Evidence? I got your evidence right here. Vanity Fair just published an article with the title
“They’re scared shitless”: The Threat or Political Violence Informing Trump’s Grip on Congress.
Over the last month we’ve seen Republicans in Congress cower before Trump, confirming Cabinet members they know…they fucking know…are unfit and unqualified. We’ve got a drunk misogynist wife-beater who mismanaged a couple of charities for veterans in charge of the Department of Defense. Pete Hegseth wouldn’t be considered qualified to drive a goddamn school bus. We’ve got a Director of National Intelligence who is a Russian apologist, an ongoing distributor of Russian disinformation, and who has refused to acknowledge that the Syrian dictator Assad used chemical weapons against his own citizens. We’ve got a Secretary of Health and Human Services who has a 14-year history of heroin abuse, who is an anti-vaccine nut, who is a Covid conspiracy nut, who claimed in a divorce proceeding that “a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died” which accounted for his…ah, fuck, you get the idea. RFK Jr. is a quack. These are NOT serious Cabinet candidates.
So why have Republicans in Congress supported them? Because, as reported by Vanity Fair (and others), they’re fucking cowards. They’re afraid for 1) their careers and 2) their safety.
Look, I’ve been legit afraid for my life and safety. I understand what it feels like when you’ve been told if you do X, then Y will happen to you. I was threatened several times during my years as a criminal defense investigator. I’ve been threatened by a burglary gang; I’ve been threatened by the guy who actually committed the bow and arrow murder my client was accused of (this was a guy who’d already done time for murdering another person by stabbing him multiple times with a bayonet); I’ve even been threatened by the police for outing an officer who’d slept with a witness. It’s scary to know that there are people out there who seriously want to harm you and are capable of following through with it.
But you know what? I still did my job, because it was important. Because there were principles involved. Because civil liberties matter. Don’t get me wrong; I was scared and I took every precaution I could. There were situations I avoided because I was so fucking nervous. But I did my job.
MAGA Republicans are right to be scared. There are a LOT of MAGA lunatics out there eager to prove their loyalty to Trump by engaging in violence. Many of the Republicans in Congress were potential victims in the January 6th Insurrection. They know what Trump supporters are capable of doing. What they’re willing to do.
But they have a job to do. And they’re…not doing it. Their job is a LOT more important than my job was. There’s a LOT more riding on their job than there was on mine. And they’re too afraid to do it. Oh, a few of them may actually agree with Trump, but many/most of them know better. They’re just too scared to stand up.
Home of the free? Land of the Brave? I’m not convinced the US has ever truly been the land of the free, though I like to think there have been periods in which we’ve tried to be. But we have, in the past, been the land of the brave. When fascism threatened Europe in the 1930s and 40s, the US…okay, we dodged around as much as we could, but eventually we stood up and fought to support Europe. We haven’t always been consistent in opposing totalitarian regimes, but we’ve always at least voiced the notion of freedom and representative democracy.
Now? Not so much. Now we have a POTUS who is openly pro-totalitarian. We have a POTUS who openly spreads Russian lies and disinformation, who openly undermines the very foundations of representative democracy, who is openly corrupt, who openly dismisses the legitimacy of the Constitution.
The Republican Party is fully aware of what he’s doing. And they’re unwilling to oppose him. Because they’re afraid. They’re willing to allow democracy to die in the US because they can’t find the courage to say ‘no’. Hell, they’re not just willing to let it die; they’ll volunteer to help bury the body.
Bless Pearl Cleage. Because of her, I can’t listen to Miles Davis anymore. One of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, and I can’t listen to him. Why? Because Pearl Cleage told me:
[H]e is guilty of self-confessed violence against women such that we should break his albums, burn his tapes and scratch up his CDs until he acknowledges and apologizes and agrees to rethink his position on The Woman Question.
Back in 1990, a woman gave me a book of essays by Cleage: Mad at Miles; A Black Woman’s Guide to Truth and told me I needed to read it. I asked why a white guy like me needed to read a Black woman’s guide to truth. She gave me that look…the look women can give to guys that basically says, ‘I can’t even believe you’re asking me that question, are you actually that oblivious?‘ Of course, I was that oblivious, but I didn’t want to be. So I read the book.
I mean, sure, I could still listen to Miles Davis. But if I even get the impulse to listen to him, I remember Cleage quoting a scene from Miles Davis’ autobiography in which he described slapping the shit out of Cicely Tyson because she spoke to a friend that Miles didn’t like. Tyson called the police and hid in the basement until they arrived. The police spoke with her in the basement, noted that she didn’t appear to be badly injured, and the spoke to Miles, who told them, “She ain’t hurt bad; I just slapped her once.” He and the police had a laugh, they left, and according to his autobiography:
Before I knew it, I had slapped her again. So she never did pull that kind of shit on me again.
If I even think of listening to Miles Davis, I get a vision of Cicely Tyson–one of the best actors in the modern world–cowering in a basement while police have a laugh with her abuser. And nope…no Miles Davis for me. Just can’t do it.
Now it’s Neil Gaiman’s turn. Like a lot of folks, I loved Gaiman’s writing. I really liked him on Bluesky, where he was incredibly kind and thoughtful and accessible to everybody. He seemed like the nicest guy.
But he wasn’t. Back in August of last year, I wrote about the early accusations against Gaiman. I wrote that I believed the women who accused him of cruel behavior. I wrote,
[A] pattern of behavior is what defines an abuser. It’s necessary to distinguish between a person who commits a bad act and a person who’s a bad actor. Neil Gaiman, it appears, is a bad actor.
In fact, it appears he’s more than just a bad actor. I just finished reading the most awful report, There Is No Safe Word about Gaiman’s long, sordid, horrifying history of sexually abusing vulnerable women. I was somewhat reluctant to read the article. As a fan of his work, I knew it would be painful to read; I knew reading it would leave me disappointed, disheartened.
I was wrong. It left me furious.
Sure, it seems clear from the reporting that Gaiman is massively fucked up personally. And as a Buddhist, I know I should feel compassion for him. But what I feel most at this moment is rage. Fuck Neil Gaiman, fuck Miles Davis, fuck them both in the neck. Fuck every guy in a position of power who’s used that power to abuse women. Fuck the entire patriarchal system in the neck.
Some days I find it hard to understand why women aren’t arming themselves and climbing to the tops of water towers in every community and picking off men at random.
So nope, no Miles Davis and no Neil Gaiman for me. Just can’t do it.
EDITORIAL NOTE: I’ve been using variations of this same editorial note since sometime in 2023. I’m sadly confident I’ll have to keep using for as long as I write this blog. It’s still true. We must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations.
gregfallis.com 