President Donald Trump is running headlong into his radical reimagining of America — one in which freedom of speech, basic civil liberties and equal protection under the law are privileges to be bestowed by the state, rather than inalienable rights for everyone. At the same time, he’s also made the country less safe and the government less accountable to the people.
Trump does not believe he is constrained by the law, and the Supreme Court seems to agree, having granted the president immunity for almost any official action.
In less than three months, the president and his administration have fired inspectors general, used the threat of government sanctions to compel law firms and universities into making payoffs and curricula changes, launched speech-chilling investigations into media companies, equated protests against a foreign government’s war (a war that’s unpopular even among that government’s own citizens) with support for terrorism, and deported, without due process, innocent people present in the U.S. legally. And that’s hardly a comprehensive summary.
It seems like a lifetime ago, but it has been barely more than two months since Trump pardoned nearly every Jan. 6 rioter — including those who attacked police and threatened to murder the vice president, and the leaders of neo-fascist militant groups who argued in court that Trump incited the assault on the Capitol.
Trump might be obsessed with projecting what he views as “strength,” but in an incredibly short period of time, he’s made America increasingly vulnerable to terror and cyber attacks, viruses that could launch another pandemic and tanked millions of people’s retirement funds.
Beginning in the summer of 2015, when it was clear that Trump’s candidacy was not a fluke and that he could win the 2016 Republican nomination, I anxiously wondered for years what Trump would do in a “Black Swan” situation, like a major terror attack. I don’t really wonder anymore — because he’s already doing it.
The New York Times and The Handbasket reported this week that Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a cable to diplomats ordering them to scrutinize visa applicants’ social media for any criticism of the U.S. and Israel. “This may be evident in conduct that bears a hostile attitude toward U.S. citizens or U.S. culture (including government, institutions, or founding principles). Or it may be evident in advocacy or sympathy for foreign terrorist organizations. All of these matters may open lines of inquiry regarding the applicant’s credibility and purpose of travel,” the cable reportedly reads.
We’re only weeks removed from the Trump administration using a very loose definition of “support for Hamas” as a pretext for deportations of legal immigrants. But does the administration also view “sympathy” for Gazan civilians — suffering in unspeakable conditions as a result of the Israel-Hamas war — or criticism of the Israeli government to be “advocacy or sympathy for foreign terrorist organizations”? The answer is almost certainly: yes.
How about a legal permanent resident, not a pro-Palestinian activist, expressing criticism of Trump and his administration? Would that constitute “a hostile attitude toward U.S. citizens or U.S. culture (including government, institutions, or founding principles)”? Again, almost certainly: yes.
Presumably, Trump supporters critical of the so-called Deep State — composed of U.S. government and institutions — would receive a pass. The same likely goes for MAGA thought leaders who reject some of America’s founding principles — like its opposition to monarchy.
We have plenty of reason for concern that a Trump-led government might exploit the trauma and chaos of a crisis to deny American citizens their rights.
Trump’s deputy chief of policy, Stephen Miller, defended the administration’s position on denying due process to immigrants on Fox News earlier this week: “They have the temerity to say that every single invader should get their own individual judicial trial before they are deported. One at a time, each one gets a one million-dollar trial in front of a communist judge to decide whether or not we can send them home. How about, ‘Hell no.’”
But due process doesn’t necessarily mean the accused stands trial. It does mean the government has to at least give you the opportunity to say something like, “I’m not a violent gang member! I’m a law-abiding, tax-paying, legal resident with a family here.” And it means agents of the state have to actually check out that claim before they deprive you of your civil rights.
Trump — a convicted felon whose lawyers used his rights to due process to drag out legal proceedings long enough for the indictments to become moot by his re-election — leads an administration that conducts arrests and deportations without due process and ignores court orders. His administration is already claiming war powers under the Alien Enemies Act, even though we are not at war.
But if this country were hit by a major attack, we have no reason to expect the Trump administration will consider itself restrained by the Constitution, or that “suspects” will be afforded due process. We do, however, have plenty of reason for concern that a Trump-led government might exploit the trauma and chaos of a crisis to deny American citizens their rights, if they’re deemed “the enemy” by this rogue administration.
Trump does not believe he is constrained by the law, and the Supreme Court seems to agree, having granted the president immunity for almost any official action. He and his allies are already musing about ignoring the Constitution and pursuing a third term in the White House. Think about that kind of unchecked power being used after a terror attack. A grieving, frightened populace could be frightened into surrendering whatever civil liberties they have left. And even if they don’t, Trump could potentially suspend them anyway — just as he is now, when we’re not at war.
As unsettling as the Trump administration’s actions have been, it has provided a helpful reminder that civil liberties, due process and free speech are meant to apply to all Americans — and everyone else here legally.
It’s equally instructive to watch a reactionary administration — whose members absurdly cosplay as “free speech warriors” — mimic the same excesses of left-wing activists and politicians who advocated for the government and other authorities to be the arbiters of “hate speech” and “disinformation.” You can replace those words with “terrorist sympathies,” but the impulse is the same. The censor is certain they possess the absolute truth.
To be very clear, the left-wing campus “cancel culture” of roughly the past decade cannot remotely be conflated with what the Trump administration is doing. While many expressions of recent progressive campus activism have been counterproductive, illiberal and hypocritical, left-wing cancel culture never sent masked federal agents in plainclothes to abduct a grad student off a city street in broad daylight over an op-ed protesting a foreign government.
Authentic free speech and civil liberties advocates have consistently tried to remind Americans that the right to express what some people might consider to be truly horrible things is the entire point of free speech. Popular speech needs no protections. Unpopular speech does. And right now, the government has a frighteningly overbroad view of what speech it deems unacceptable. It also doesn’t believe it’s constrained by the law or the courts or distinctions between war and peacetime.
Imagining what this administration would do in the event of an actual act of war should chill the blood of anyone paying attention. The Trump administration is cancel culture with a secret police force and unlimited power.
