Trump's Latest Declaration Is Beyond Terrifying [View all]

[Celerity]

Trump said, “I have the right to do it. We haven’t gotten there yet. We’ll see what happens.”

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/trumps-latest-declaration-is-beyond



WASHINGTON, DC -- In the past several weeks, we’ve been observing how Donald Trump is aggressively attacking both absentee ballots and the swing states that offer them. It’s well established that he intends to undermine as many state absentee ballot laws as he can get away with, through a well-funded series of legal challenges to the process. Most recently, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit to stop Nevada from offering absentee ballots. So far, the campaign to re-elect our first fascist president has spent more than $20 million in its jihad against voting during a severe pandemic, and there’s no end in sight. We can also count on Trump litigating absentee ballots during and after Election Day, likely targeting too-close-to-call counties that could flip the electoral votes of an entire state, if necessary.

This is real. It’s happening now.

And it’s getting worse.

I hate to add to the horror show -- I really do, but it’s crucial for us to be prepared by knowing exactly where Trump might be headed so we can fight back with equal or greater force. I’m talking about, at the very least, assembling an unstoppable Justice League of lawyers ready to swing into action with a game plan for defending the law -- plus, citizen activists should be prepared on a moment’s notice to surround the White House until Trump concedes, irrespective of whether he sends in his stormtroopers to attack again. You might recall that the Supreme Court ruled five-to-four that Trump’s rescinding of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program was “arbitrary and capricious,” and that the administration had to immediately begin accepting applications from new Dreamers, young immigrants brought to the United States as children. Likewise, the only word from Homeland Security is that Trump officials are considering whether to try again to end the DACA program. In other words, the Trump administration has flagrantly defied the Supreme Court. For nearly four years, we’ve all wondered whether he’s capable of doing it. And now, he’s done it. Since the decision was handed down in June, not a single first time Dreamer application has been approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency. We should absolutely assume that it’s because Trump has ordered the agency not to accept those applications. After all, Trump hasn’t given us any reason to assume otherwise.

Consequently, the door is wide open for Trump to do it again. It’s a chilling preview of what could happen in the event of a series of legal challenges to absentee ballots -- challenges that could end up before the Supreme Court. So, even if the conservative-leaning Bench rules against Trump, it might not matter. Of course, there also might not be any functional outcome to ignoring the Court, beyond simply refusing to concede or vacate the office. In other words, ignoring the Supremes might not win anything for Trump. However, Trump also thinks he can pass his own laws without the participation of Congress. Perhaps you’ve overheard him repeating the line: "The Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to” create laws, a significant expansion of executive authority backed by former Bush administration torture-defender, John Yoo. So far, Trump hasn’t exercised this nonexistent power, but he’s threatened to authorize an alleged law regarding healthcare, which also hasn’t occurred yet. But it still might. Trump, during a recent episode of the Trump Show, live from the White House press room, said he has “the right” to pass a national law that bans the use of absentee ballots. Trump said, “I have the right to do it. We haven’t gotten there yet. We’ll see what happens.” No. He doesn’t have the right to do anything like that, but the law hasn’t really been a robust bulwark against Trump’s maniacal whimsy to date.

The truly scary thing about his declaration is this: by now he’s fully embraced the authority to deploy secret shocktroopers into American cities to enforce his will upon the people, making it quite likely he’ll try to do it again. This could end up being his enforcement mechanism for laws he claims to have passed himself. To be clear: We know he’s already defied the Supreme Court. We know that he’s entertaining the authority to make his own laws, including one that would apparently stop the use of absentee ballots -- state authority to conduct elections be damned. Look, practically speaking, it might all be moot, leading to almost nothing -- toothless executive orders to be overturned by the next administration, hopefully. Or he could be bluffing without any specific plans to even bother. So often, however, the notion that, “He’ll never do that!” quickly evolves into, “I can’t believe he actually did it!” Even if the election goes off without a hitch, there are many other ways he could exploit these powers to stir up all kinds of horrors aimed at other issue areas. Again, the intention here is to proceed with our eyes wide open so that we’re ready for action. Trump is absolutely a dictator with zero personal restraint. He’s capable of anything. Meanwhile, we should all add these Trump-exploited loopholes to the list of things that need to be permanently welded shut forever after Trump is finally airlifted out of the White House at long last. And he will be.