Tag Archives: Trump

Where We Are

Donald Trump opposes the “invasion” of immigrants.

Well, not all immigrants–just Brown or Black ones. Perhaps you have somehow missed the administration’s daily efforts to reverse the progress of women and people of color, but there’s no way to miss the racism of his recent exemption of (properly pale) folks from his otherwise unremitting war on immigration–his grant of refugee status to “persecuted” White folks from South Africa. According to our racist and demented Chief Executive,  White South Africans should be welcomed while dark-skinned people escaping actual persecution–and dark-skinned people already living in the U.S.–should be excluded.

Per the linked New York Times report:

Mr. Trump has halted virtually all refugee admissions for people fleeing famine and war from places like Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But he has created an expedited path into the country for Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority that created and led the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa.

The refugee process often takes years. But only three months have passed from the time Mr. Trump signed an executive order establishing refugee status for Afrikaners to the first cohort making its way to America.

As I have often written, and as any sentient American knows, Trump’s appeal to his MAGA base is rooted in racism. Some wealthy Americans probably voted for further tax breaks and the ability to evade government oversight, but the devotion of his MAGA voters was and is firmly based upon his none-too-veiled promises to put “those people” in their place.

Unfortunately, people who embrace racist tropes are also likely to misinterpret–or entirely miss– numerous other aspects of the world they inhabit. It’s doubtful whether most of the fearful and angry folks who cast their ballots for an ignorant buffoon understood that they would get a demented puppet controlled by the authors of Project 2025, or that his profound ignorance would destroy the robust economy left by his predecessor.

But here we are.

In a recent newsletter, Robert Hubbell described our current civic/governmental landscape. He began by reporting on the most recent violation of the Emoluments Clause–the fancy airplane being gifted to Trump by Qatar (a country that has supported Hamas to the tune of 1.8 billion dollars and for whom Pam Bondi, our current Attorney General, once lobbied, for a hefty $115,000 a month.)

He then turned to the recurring question that arises as evidence of corruption mounts: how does he get away with it?

The short answer is that Trump has neutralized the guardrails of democracy that would prevent behavior violating US criminal laws and constitutional provisions.

First, the US Supreme Court has immunized Trump from the criminal laws of the US (in Trump v. US). In the normal course, the DOJ would investigate and prosecute Trump under the the US criminal code.

Second, Trump has immunized himself from impeachment and conviction by engineering a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. In the normal course, Congress would impeach, convict, and remove Trump from office.

Third, Trump has neutered Congress, which could stop his corruption through legislation, oversight, and investigations.

Finally, Trump has corrupted, compromised, or destroyed the DOJ, FBI, and the system of inspector generals and independent agencies.

All in one hundred days! But as Hubbell notes, Trump didn’t do all those things alone. He had help weakening the guardrails of democracy–the damage he’s done has been “enabled and assisted by a corps of cultural war shock troops who believe in white supremacy, Christian nationalism, and antisemitism.”

Trump remains in control of about one-third of the electorate–the segment of the population that has embraced White supremacy and Christian nationalism. But as Hubbell reminds us, a third is not a majority. It is not enough—or should not be enough–to turn America into a country governed by a White Christian Taliban. 

The outcome of this very fraught time in our national story depends on the rest of us.

I wish there were a better, easier answer than saying that years of protesting in the streets and showing up at town halls and ballot boxes will be needed to get us out of this mess. But here we are. The only question is, “What are we going to do about it?” For me, the answer is, “Exactly what we have been doing, only louder, more frequently, and in greater numbers.”

No new leader will emerge who can miraculously save us. We cannot hope for a “deus ex machina” end to our current national story.

It’s up to us.

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The Brazen Corruption…

One thing about life under an autocracy: it spawns a particular kind of black humor. Among the various telling memes and cartoons making the rounds, one especially has captured (at least in my mind) the essence of our current situation. The cartoon shows Nixon and Trump; Nixon is famously saying “I am not a crook.” Trump is saying “I am a crook. So what?”

I think that sums up how far we’ve traveled–and in what direction.

I’m willing to believe that some of our former Presidents have been less than honest. But those who failed to meet social expectations of honor and virtue did work to hide their bad behaviors–to deny dishonesty or venality, to appear to be the sort of leaders Americans had the right to expect. Trump doesn’t bother.

Most of us who find this administration horrifying have focused upon the damage being done to the federal government and  Constitution, and on the out-and-proud racism and misogyny motivating so much of that damage. Only recently has the media turned to what has been the elephant in the room: the immense corruption that Trump makes no effort to hide.

In the Contrarian, Norm Eisen recently addressed the enormity of that corruption.

As a former White House Ethics Czar, I have been stunned by the sheer number of ethics issues afflicting Donald Trump’s first 100 Days. But Trump and his cronies’ ethics violations have been overshadowed by his other frequent and flagrant transgressions. For example, in his first term, there was heavy mainstream media attention from day one of his selling hotel rooms to foreign governments and the like. This time around, not so much–although they have been a steady theme here on The Contrarian and for the Democracy Movement.

This should be a national scandal, which is why I co-authored this major report on Trump’s crypto corruption. It is the single most profound Presidential conflict of the modern era: a POTUS who has almost 40% of his net worth in his crypto ventures, at the same time as he is regulating the digital currency industry–and, for good measure, has substantial foreign government cash pouring into those ventures!

Eisen is not alone in highlighting the unprecedented corruption. Senator Mark Kelly–among others–recently blasted what he called Trump’s “corruption in broad daylight.”

Kelly is one of the sponsors of what is called the “End Crypto Corruption Act,” which would prohibit the president, vice president, senior executive branch officials, members of Congress and their immediate families from issuing, endorsing or sponsoring crypto assets, such as meme coins and stablecoins.

As Kelly put it in a news release, “Trump is cashing in on his presidency and making millions from his own crypto coins — this is corruption in broad daylight. I’m supporting this bill to make it illegal for the President and other government officials to make a profit from crypto assets. It’s time to put a stop to this.”

A number of other lawmakers and media outlets have reported on what can only be called Trump’s open invitation to bribe him. The most egregious example: he has invited the 220 largest holders of his personal $TRUMP “memecoin” to a dinner at which the top 25 will get “exclusive access” to the president.

As the official in charge of crypto policy for the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden administration put it, “This is really incredible. They are making the pay-to-play deal explicit.”  The executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics was even more blunt.

“I’m not sure we ever saw anything as blatant as this meme coin dinner. This is over the top — even for Trump — because while the practice of putting money in his pocket and subsequently gaining access to the presidency is far from new, it is more shameless than it has ever been.”

The entire Trump crime family is participating in the grift. Several media outlets have reported that an Abu Dhabi state-backed investment firm is making a $2 billion investment in the Trump family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial– the latest example of a foreign entity making a major investment in a Trump family business. Anyone who thinks that such an “investment” doesn’t give that foreign entity leverage with the administration is smoking something strong.

As the extent of the Trump corruption becomes more widely known, the question will be whether it matters to the MAGA cultists. After all, they are getting exactly what they voted for: an administration promoting White Christian nationalism.

Thus far, there’s no evidence that they care about the honesty or competence of those they’ve elected, or about the America the Founders bequeathed us.

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A Constitutional Convention?

During the past couple of weeks, the subject of a Constitutional Convention has been raised twice: once during a question-and-answer session following a speech, and once via an email from a good friend. So it would seem reasonable to revisit the subject, and explain why I find that prospect–as proposed currently– horrifying.

Would it be possible to improve upon our centuries-old charter? Sure. We now see flaws that have emerged over the years, (If nothing else, there’s the Electoral College–a system used by no other country, for reasons that have become increasingly apparent…). If the idea of a reasonable review seems innocuous, however, we can be disabused of that conclusion simply by looking at the people pushing for a redo. The most prominent are ALEC (the far-Right American Legislative Exchange Council) and the Heritage Foundation. (Yes, the same Heritage Foundation that produced Project 2025.)

The goals of these and the other ideologues advocating such a convention are entirely inconsistent with the values of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Back in 2017, members of Indiana’s legislature were calling for such a convention, and I explained my opposition. As I wrote then, proponents clamoring for shortcuts to major change—revolution, a new constitution—always assume that the changes that ultimately emerge will reflect their own preferences and worldviews. History suggests that’s a naive assumption.

Indiana’s proponents wanted the state to join the calls for a Constitutional Convention. They claimed that a convention could be limited to budgetary matters–to devising “a framework for reigning in overspending, overtaxing and over-regulating by the federal government and moving toward a less centralized federal government.”

Constitutional scholars disagree with the assertion that such a convention could be limited to specified goals, but even if it could be, the specified matters would open a Pandora’s box. Think about it.

Wall Street bankers could argue that financial laws are “over-regulation.” One definition of “overspending” might be the massive subsidies enjoyed by (very profitable) U.S. oil companies; others might be Medicare or farm subsidies. Many Americans think we spend too much on the military; others target foreign aid. “Less centralization” could justify virtually any limitation of federal government authority, from FDA regulation of food and drug quality to laws against discrimination.

But the risk isn’t simply that a convention could rather easily be hijacked by people who disagree with the conveners about the nature and extent of needed changes. It isn’t even the likely influence of well-heeled special interests. The real danger is in calling together a presumably representative group of Americans and asking them to amend a document that few of them understand.

At the Center for Civic Literacy I founded at IUPUI (now IU Indy), we focused on the causes and consequences of what we’ve come to call America’s civic deficit. The data we accumulated was depressing. The last time I looked at survey results, only 36 percent of Americans could name the three branches of government, and only 21% of high school seniors could list two privileges that United States citizens have that noncitizens don’t. Etc. Even bright graduate students came into my classes with little or no knowledge of American history, episodic or intellectual. Most had never heard of the Enlightenment or John Locke. They certainly hadn’t read Adam Smith. A truly depressing percentage of undergraduates couldn’t explain what a government is, and they had no idea how ours operates. Separation of powers? Checks and balances? The counter-majoritarian purpose of the Bill of Rights? Blank stares.

Given the Trump administration’s current attacks on the Constitution and media attention to those attacks, those percentages have undoubtedly improved, but civic ignorance is still obviously widespread. Do we really want to turn over the task of rewriting our Constitution to people who don’t understand the one we have?

Common Cause has looked at the unanswered questions implicit in these calls for a convention–questions that lay bare the dangers involved: How will delegates be chosen? Will there be any limits placed on the role of well-funded special interests in influencing the selection of delegates? How will votes be allocated amongst delegates? One person one vote? One vote per state? Something else? What kinds of changes would the convention consider? Will the Convention start with the U.S. Constitution or write an entirely new document?

The civically-ignorant and clinically-insane megalomaniac who occupies the Oval Office is currently being restrained only by the existing U.S. Constitution, which he has clearly neither read nor understood. The likely result of a constitutional convention would be to empower him.

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Consequences…

As the evidence of Trump’s mental illness gets stronger and more difficult to hide, and the resistance gets stronger, it’s possible to envision an end to MAGA’s horrific assault on America’s philosophy, norms and institutions and to engage in speculation about what comes next. Just how much of the damage being done is irrevocable? What can be fixed, and what harms lie beyond repair?

There is no denying the amount of damage done in just the first hundred days. It isn’t simply the “I’m king (or Pope) delusions–Trump and Musk have mostly resembled toddlers who somehow got control of the family’s technology, not understanding how it works or what the intended uses are–and are just gleefully smashing mechanisms they don’t begin to understand.

The rest of the world has looked on with a mix of horror and schadenfreude. (Our anguish has actually prompted some sanity elsewhere–both Canada and Australia have repudiated Trump-lite candidates in the past couple of weeks.) The Guardian recently reported that the United States has been added to the watchlist maintained by an international organization monitoring democratic progress and regression.

Civicus, an international non-profit organization dedicated to “strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world”, announced the inclusion of the US on the non-profit’s first watchlist of 2025 on Monday, alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia.

The watchlist is part of the Civicus Monitor, which tracks developments in civic freedoms across 198 countries. Other countries that have previously been featured on the watchlist in recent years include Zimbabwe, Argentina, El Salvador and the United Arab Emirates.

Not exactly the company we’re used to keeping….

The decision to add the US to the first 2025 watchlist was made in response to what the group described as the “Trump administration’s assault on democratic norms and global cooperation.”

In the news release announcing the US’s addition, the organization cited recent actions taken by the Trump administration that they argue will likely “severely impact constitutional freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression, and association.”

It’s instructive that the organization cited assaults in two separate domains: democratic norms that affect our internal governing behaviors, and the attacks targeting international cooperation, because my own reading of the daily damage being done reflects a similar division.

Assuming the success of what I have been calling the resistance, We the People will face the formidable–but ultimately “do-able”– task of reconstructing our federal governing apparatus. It won’t be easy, and a lot of Americans will be badly hurt before repairs can be made. Much like the occupants of a house destroyed by a hurricane, ordinary citizens will have lost a great deal–but they can also (to use Biden’s terminology) “build back better.” (Perhaps the threatened drastic cuts to Medicaid and other social welfare programs will finally prompt us to emulate the other Western countries where citizens have access to national health care systems. Etc.)

In other words, given sufficient time, Americans can repair the domestic damage. That is very unlikely to be the case with our international stature. Trump has demonstrated–vividly–that America cannot be trusted, that we are always just one election away from irrationality and chaos. We are already seeing the EU step up to fill the leadership gap in NATO. (We are also seeing China and Russia savor the moment–a more troubling development.)

America is in the process of learning an important lesson: it’s much too late to retreat from the global economy. Trump’s insane tariffs will hurt us badly, but the fallout will also demonstrate the folly of trying to retreat from an increasingly integrated world ecosystem. We can re-enter the global marketplace and economic reality, but I am convinced that the days of America’s overwhelming global dominance are over. Permanently.

And pardon me for my arguably unpatriotic reaction to that reality: it’s probably for the best. Our efforts to control the international order have too frequently been Machiavellian rather than noble. We have certainly done a great deal of good–which is why the assault on USAID is so horrific–but we’ve also flexed our international muscle in ways that were unwise and even shameful.

A global order in which we actively participate but don’t dominate–an international order in which no one country is able to call the shots–would be a step forward.

And while we’re not telling everyone else what to do and how to do it, we’ll have a civic house to rebuild.

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The War On Women Continues

One of the constants of Trumpism has been its war on women. Trump himself sees women only as sexual objects; the Christian Nationalists who support him see us as “feeders and breeders”– designed by God to submit to men and produce babies.

I was reminded of MAGA’s war on women when I read that Trump’s “big, beautiful budget” will defund Planned Parenthood, among other obscenities that will differentially hurt women.

During the first Trump  administration, Trump blocked women’s access to health care through legislation, regulations, judicial appointments, and legal action, slashing funding for family planning, rolling back rules requiring employers to offer no-cost birth control coverage, and revoking multiple protections against sexual harassment, sexual assault and discrimination.

Trump II has been more of the same–and then some.

Trump has decimated boards that administer workplace anti-discrimination laws, rescinded prior Executive Orders against discrimination, reduced enforcement of the Pregnant Workers Act, and undercut civil rights and anti-discrimination laws across the government, with anti-DEI efforts front and center. The administration has cut funding for research on women’s health, erased vital information from federal websites, and eliminated the Gender Policy Council. It proposes huge cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other programs disproportionately depended upon by women and children. (There’s much more at the link.)

All of these measures are part of the Right’s hysterical resistance to culture change.

A significant minority of Americans feel existentially threatened by the progress of women and minorities. That progress challenges their worldviews, their beliefs about the “proper” order of the world. Trump was elected by those hysterical people. Even those who recognized his personal repulsiveness supported him because he promised to reverse what most of us consider social progress– to turn back the cultural changes that so frighten and infuriate them.

I wondered what research tells us about whether government can reverse cultural changes, so I looked into it.  

Studies tell us that such efforts face significant structural, social, and generational resistance. It turns out that entrenched social changes are really difficult to reverse. Shifts of attitudes about race, gender roles, sexuality, and religion occured over generations, and as a result, contemporary perspectives on individual autonomy and diversity are unlikely to be reversed.

 
 
 
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