Is the DHS America’s Gestapo?

There are two branches of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS): U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The latter is normally limited within a 100-mile zone adjacent to the American border. Within that 100-mile zone, Border Patrol agents have broad authority to interrogate people and conduct warrantless searches when there’s “reasonable suspicion” of immigration violations. ICE states its agents can “briefly detain” people who have “reasonable suspicion” of being in the country illegally. The agency can also “arrest people they believe are illegal aliens” and may “initiate consensual encounters and speak with people” on the street.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that cleared the way for ICE to use race, accents, and places of work as factors in deciding who to stop and potentially detain. And, under the second Trump administration, those distinctions have become rather murky as both DHS agencies have undergone sweeping changes. As a result, they increasingly work alongside one another to enact the President’s wide-reaching deportation campaign. The distinction between the arrest and deportation of border crossers and long-term residents is lost. Often these long-term residents are actual citizens or applicants for citizenship. Also, since most Americans rarely carry “proof of citizenship” while going to the market, school, or work, ICE agents can and have mugged, handcuffed, and jailed citizens or legal applicants for citizenship.

The ongoing immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota, for example, involves both branches of the DHS. And it uses a much wider net to cast over both current and long-term immigrants. As a result of these changes, the recent arrests, incarcerations, and deportations of these inhabitants of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Indianapolis can be indiscriminately justified as lawless border crossings. But Trump uses the DHS to punish and eradicate those he believes unfit to be citizens-or even residents-of the state. Hitler used the Gestapo in a similar way to rid Germany of those he believed to be enemies of the state to include all Jews and even some of his political rivals. Both Hitler and Trump built holding facilities i.e. concentration camps for Hitler’s scapegoats and converted or hastily constructed storage facilities for Trump’s victims. Whereas Hitler’s victims faced the gas chambers, Trump’s victims face beatings, unsafe holding facilities, and deportations to foreign countries where they may not be welcome or easily assimilated . . . especially after being separated from family, home, and their American jobs and careers. Both of these men assumed power over their alleged scapegoats to justify their personal bigotry and self-assumed right to wield such power.

Whereas Hitler’s Gestapo were sharply uniformed secret police, Trump’s DHS irregulars are often overweight and sloppily dressed masked marauders. If a German citizen were arrested by the Gestapo, he/she would be considered an enemy of the state and face a gruesome imprisonment and possibly death.  Those who fall prey to these DHS irregulars are often treated to a gang style beating before being whisked away to a poorly provisioned holding facility—often in a different state—and then removed to a distant country for imprisonment and/or permanent exile from their family and friends. Hitler’s victims were convicted of being Jews by birth or choice. Trump’s victims are considered guilty of illegal immigration, whether they escaped guards at the borders or entered America lawfully and requested legal citizenship. That legal request can take months or even years to be granted but allows prospective citizens to live and work alongside other American citizens. The visa, green card, and naturalization processes can be overwhelming and confusing. Nevertheless, immigrants seeking citizenship will obtain a green card, an immigrant visa, or a treaty or employment-based visa. During previous administrations, they may be required to report regularly to an immigration court where their progress towards citizenship is evaluated or even assisted. But in Trump’s America, a routine immigration court appearance can be met by DHS border guards who may beat litigants and then transfer them to an ill-equipped temporary facility before being airlifted to another country.

What Americans are witnessing in Los Angeles, Chicago and now Indianapolis only vaguely resembles the original purpose of DHS. Like the morphing of Germany’s Security Services (Sicherheitsdienst, often referred to as SS or SD) into a secret state police, (Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo, for short), the role of DHS in border security has evolved into a masked state police that purports its ability to operate above State law and answer only to the Federal Government and to its leader, the President of the United States. “As early as 1935 the Prussian Supreme Court of Administration, under Nazi pressure, had ruled that the orders and actions of the Gestapo were not subject to judicial review.”¹In like manner, America’s Supreme Court has given its President the freedom to enact the powers of his office without the restraints imposed upon other Americans. Both Hitler and President Trump have acted unconstrained by law or conscience to create, enable and defend an organization that imposes their power over benign citizens in order to eradicate their chosen scapegoats for all that is bad in the society they govern. For Hitler, his scapegoats were Jews. For Trump, it is immigrants.

What motivates such men to exert unlawful and inhuman pain upon fellow or prospective citizens? Well, Hitler explained his motivation in Mein Kampf: “I understand the infamous spiritual terror which this movement exerts . . . it unleashes a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked persons break down . . . This is a tactic based on precise calculation of all human weaknesses . . . I achieved an equal understanding of the importance of physical terror toward the individual and the masses . . . the defeated adversary in most cases despairs of the success of any further resistance.”²

What we Americans have seen in Los Angeles, Chicago, and most especially in Indianapolis is Americans’ response to the Trump DHS’ physical terror tactics. In the face of DHS violence, protestors bring whistles, and cell phones. As DHS breaks car windows in the face of passengers – including children, shoots unarmed civilians, sprays chemicals on non-violent protesters, drags unarmed protestors into a crowd of DHS agents where they are kicked, punched, and sat upon, how do we fellow Americans respond? Do we cringe in terror or simply succumb in despair? Well, neither terror nor despair can or should be an option in a democratic polity. Instead, we believe in hope, as former President Obama reminded us on so many occasions. In fact, we hope and strive to form a more perfect union that assures justice, tranquility, a common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty for all Americans. But the DHS undermines these Constitutional goals, while President Donald Trump advances his power and control over America.

Whereas Hitler secured his reign of terror following the burning of the Reichstag³—a pivotal event that allowed him to eliminate political opposition and centralize authority—Trump failed in his attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021. That uprising against the American capital did not result in his consolidation of power, and his term in office ended. The American system remained resilient against his bid to undermine constitutional governance. But now, in his second term, Trump has utilized the DHS to subject Americans to his will, that is, to accept his forced removal of people he seems to despise as unfit to be in America, to accept his authority to debase and deport them without question, and to believe he is making America better—in his words, “great  again.”

But the DHS role in Indianapolis is just the prelude to Trump’s plan to secure and extend his power over our government and its system of checks and balances. Consider his much-publicized use of tariffs to “restore “America’s global dominance and financial security. After well justified criticism, he stubbornly refuses to admit that tariffs are in fact taxes Americans must pay to buy goods and services imported from other countries. He hints that tariff income can reduce America’s growing debt. But he has not used this income for that purpose. Instead, he spends millions of Americans’ tax dollars to finance the American embargo on Venezuelan oil and America’s attack on Iran which he designed to topple its government.

While he expands the nation’s debt, he has ignored Congress’ authority to authorize government expenditures in lieu of his personal financial whims. He would rather propose to buy or occupy Greenland, pay Argentina 40 billion dollars to salvage the government of his friendly head of state there, or commit 150 planes and a third of America’s sea power to attack and overthrow the government of Venezuela. And now, he has committed America to a war against Iran, once again ignoring Article 1 or the Constitution that grants to Congress the exclusive power “to declare war.” He had also allocated American funds to Israel’s demolition of Gaza which he noted could now become a beautiful resort—which he undoubtedly could and would build as its private developer. He has already proposed to develop resorts in Saigon and several Muslim nations. The later have contributed billions of dollars to Trump’s crypto organization and even added a multi-billion-dollar airplane to his personal wealth. With his influence over tax dollars expenditures at his disposal, Trump has gained financial leverage over both financial, collegial, and legal institutions and even over other governments’ willingness to reward him for his “pay to play” schemes. No mob boss in American history has ever gained this much financial leverage. Remember: before he assumed his second term in office just one year ago, Trump had difficulty borrowing a $100,000 security instrument to pay part of the $500,000 penalty he owed New York State for his 33 fraud convictions. But now, after just one year in office, he is now approaching a net worth of over a trillion dollars. He better warrants the name of “robber baron” than the tycoons at the turn of the 20^th century. These robber barons used the manpower and resources of a vast nation to build new enterprises and create jobs and wealth for a growing nation. Donald Trump, by contrast, builds nothing that he cannot affix with his name and that benefits himself exclusively, if not primarily.

Hitler used the Gestapo to quell any and all opposition to his exercise of unrestrained power and control over the German government–thereby establishing the Third Reich. Trump uses the DHS to suppress opposition to his immigrant purge and justify his control over any citizen resistance, to include Governors and Mayors. He uses the Department of Justice to investigate and arrest anybody he identifies as a political opponent much as Hitler purged all who opposed him in governance. The Third Reich presents a case study on how to overthrow a democracy from within. But America is not yet primed to bow to Trump’s grasp of unhindered power. Nevertheless, he has won the Supreme Courts’ expansion of his authority. And he has won the indiscriminate obeisance of the Republican controlled Congress. At this very moment, he is planning to “federalize” or take control of our national elections. And part of that plan might well be the use of his DHS criminal police force to enforce his control of ballot submissions. After the January 6 insurrection, can there be any doubt of Donald Trump’s intent? Remember he absolved all those convicted of criminal conduct in their attempt to enthrone Trump as their President in an election he did not win. His obeisant enablers were treated as if they were above the law because Trump considers himself the final legal arbiter. Similarly, in the Third Reich “the Gestapo was also above the law and impowered so by Hitler who made himself the law.”⁴

If America follows the same path as Nazi Germany, is it inevitable that it too will create a similar upheaval in world affairs and the alienation of its people from its cultural roots. God help us, if we allow our democracy to crumble in the hands of a narcissistic sociopath.

_______________________________________________________________

1. William L. Shirer, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” p. 271.

2. Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf,” as quoted in “The Rise and Fall of the
   Third Reich,” pp. 22-23.
3. The Reichstag, as the parliament of the former German empire, was still central to government and a formidable obstacle to Hitler’s seizure of all power in Nazi Germany.
4. William L. Shirer, Ibid. pp. 270.

Every American recognizes these words and believes they apply to everyone of us because we are all born equal—regardless of gender, race, or social class. These were the words that Jefferson chose to justify the new world’s separation from the old world of European stratified societies. What followed, in due course, was a war of independence—which Americans just celebrated—and the formation of a new self-government that begins with the words, “we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” 

This statement was a clarion call that transformed the way we humans see, live, and interface with each other. Successive generations of Americans have recognized the need to respecify that transformation. The thirteen Amendment of our Constitution abolished slavery. The fourteenth Amendment asserted the obvious fact that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States . . . are citizens of the United States.” And the nineteenth Amendment assured women the right to vote. These amendments did not change Jefferson’s words or the initial intent of our Constitution. They did, however, clarify their meaning and inspired all the laws enacted to assure their enforcement. But how do they apply to the America of today, or more specifically to those seeking American citizenship? 

Our current Congress can specify how many migrants can be admitted and what is required for them to seek naturalization as American citizens. But neither Congress nor the President can legally deport or imprison anyone seeking naturalization without cause and due legal process. Nor can the children of migrants born in America be deported as unwanted aliens. To do so would violate both Jefferson’s intent and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Moreover, neither Congress nor the President should deny any human being the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for those are the very foundational principles that defined America. The deportation of people not born in this country can be a violation of those core principles unless justified by due process in a court of law. Immigration laws, however, were designed to grant citizenship to migrants who pledged allegiance to these foundational principles. As a matter of fact, America exists as a nation developed by immigrants.  

But the current President is illegally deporting migrants without due process. He has even detained citizens by birthright—usually those who happen to be brown or speak a foreign language—with the intent to deport them as well. And, yes, these migrants can be children who know no other life but what they experienced in America. The justification for this mishandling of migrants is the President’s assertion that they are the “worse of the worse” –that is, killers, thieves, rapists, and so on. But his assertions are without merit and not supported by facts that even remotely match his assertions. Moreover, these assertions are compounded by Congress’s recent passage of President Trump’s appropriations bill that expands the ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement) force to become the largest arresting agent in the country. Like Hitler’s gestapo, ICE now arrests, jails, and deports anyone perceived as a non-citizen without “due process” or any form of legal/judicial procedure. Many so-called “illegals” have applied for citizenship and appear monthly before the Department of Homeland Security. But now, instead of their request to become American citizens being processed, they are forcibly interred in jails like suspected criminals or in hastily developed ICE internment camps for eventual deportation. Then, without any judicial review, they can be deported to a foreign gulag, much like a Nazi concentration camp. Instead of a gas chamber, they may face the rest of their lives in a foreign prison, facing eventual death in obscurity. Not since the Japanese internment camps of World War II has America established such interim encampments, but none as intimidating as the President’s new “Alligator Alcatraz,” located amongst wild animals in the Florida everglades. There is no wartime justification for such inhumane treatment of migrants. Their only “crime” is their intent to become US citizens and be treated as fellow Americans.  

The irony here is that a vast majority of Americans are descendants of migrants. It is not just the welcoming message engraved on the Statue of Liberty that is violated, but the very core of America’s promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as the birthright of every human. There is indeed a defined path to gain American citizenship. Many of America’s illegal migrants have applied for citizenship and demonstrate their allegiance to its ideals. They obey our laws. They work in our homes, in factories, in fields, and pay taxes with only the promise of obtaining the liberties and government services granted with full citizenship. My grandparents came to this country with the same aspiration as many others—to realize the promise of America. Why would we turn away those who now follow in the same path?  

This question belies the title of this blog. In another sense it reprises George Washington’s greatest fear. In “Revolution, Evolution, Devolution,” (published on 7/3/2023) his fears of that fatal tendency to backslide into self-serving factions are reiterated. Washington had warned us about political parties deteriorating into “factions” that would compete for power rather than for the common good and mutual interests. President Trump, for example, has never been invested in the common good or mutual interests. The faction he leads is only vested in the power of wealth and control. And that power he would consider wasted in service of any one or any group other than himself, his self-appointed apparatchiks, and those who benefit and serve his interest. And his interest is in the power of his office and the size of his wealth. What service has he rendered to average working people, to racial minorities, to women’s bodily autonomy in pregnancy and childbirth? Since migrants encompass every one of these people and more, it is understandable—even predictable—that he would order ICE to arrest without warrant, imprison without due process, and deport to foreign prisons without consideration for the families deprived of their love and support. But Donald Trump’s war is not just against migrants, but against the very fabric of American democracy, that is, the assurance of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  

In “American Revolution 2016,” (published on 8/28/2015) there were many suggestions for political campaign reforms designed to focus on universal participation, to include voting and funding guidelines replete with limits on campaign commitments and funding to include both public and private contributions, and the even-handed structuring of government sponsored televised debates. Although it is presumptuous to assume all these suggestions could or would be adopted someday, they were offered to encourage their consideration and debate. For they promoted specific changes, like eliminating large individual campaign contributions to selected Party candidates. Instead, actual campaigns for the selected candidates would receive equal government funding for their campaigns six-months before votes would be cast and counted. Individual campaign contributions would either be not permitted or limited to amounts a low-income citizen could afford. Why would we make such changes? Well, should not Candidates for office be duly elected by an informed voting majority, rather than by how much advertising and extravagant campaign affairs can be bought. Let us level the playing field monetarily to focus on the substance and impact of individual campaigns. For example, Donald Trump’s second election to the Presidency may have reflected disproportionately one man’s contribution of over 200 million dollars to his campaign rather than his qualifications for office. What could a twice impeached former President who was recently convicted of multiple felonies and sexual abuse offer to “to form a more perfect union . . . promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” as demanded by our Constitution and quoted in the above referenced blog? Not even 200 million dollars can or should qualify him for America’s highest office. 

In “American Democracy in a Dangerous World,” (published on 4/2/2016) the structure of America’s democracy is described and related to its place within the context of other nations. Unrepresentative democracies and communist states, for example, can present opposition to American involvement in global affairs or specific economic enterprises. And international tensions can result in tariff wars, competition for resources, the shifting of alliances amongst states, economic hegemony, and confrontations that reflect opposing world views and conflicting self-interests. But America’s most effective opposition is from within where “progress is obstructed by those who use power for their own purposes to the exclusion of the majority’s welfare. They tear apart the fabric of democracy and expose us to the viral infection of power seekers both within and without,” as stated in the above referenced blog. Although Donald Trump had only begun his quest for the Presidency when that blog was published, it unwittingly forecasted the impact a Trump presidency would have in world affairs. For example, as soon as Trump assumed office, he began to associate himself with his fellow power mongers, namely, Kim Jung-un, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping.  

In “The World We Live In,” (published on 7/20/2017), “political validation” was described “as a feeble attempt to project our personal perspective on everything and everyone. In effect, we would either expect others to share our childlike fantasy or, if circumstances permitted, compel them to accept it.” Although Donald Trump is a grown man, he demands that his followers mirror his limited, often adolescent, perspectives and personal beliefs. Otherwise, he will insult, attack, or simply depose you from any position you may hold within or even without his domain. He knows no other way in which to validate himself, his actions, or his office. Considering his two terms in office, how better could one have described the Trump phenomenon other than as the world we now live in?  

As Americans we know how the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution define our shared values and the legal structure of our democratic country. But the immigration practices of the Trump Administration have violated those values and discredited the legal basis of our laws. But, as early as 2015, it became obvious that Donald Trump could not and would not comply with traditional American values and the legal structure of our government. From the start of his first campaign for the highest office in America, he formulated his qualifications in terms of his business acumen and wealth. He spoke and dressed in the same fashion as his character on the Apprentice– ‘the boss,” a man of power and money, who could promote or fire anyone at his own discretion. In 2016, despite his dubious background as a womanizer, charlatan, and fake millionaire, he was elected to his first term as President, but without winning a majority of the vote. Once in office, he proceeded to associate himself with dictators, rather than the democracies of Europe and the NATO alliance’s dedication to honor the territorial boundaries of independent nations. By 2017, he had already transformed the office of the Presidency into his private domain that served only his own interests rather than the welfare of his supporters and the American people at large. If a Rip Van Wrinkle had awakened in 2017, he would not have recognized this Trumpian version of America. For it reflected Trump’s personal political validation rather than the birthright of every American to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” America’s pursuit of justice for all was also redefined to suit the whims and actions of a President who believed and acted as if he was above the law. Or, as Nixon once espoused, “when the President does it, it is not illegal.” 

Today, in 2025, America finds itself witness to a systematic erosion of its principles, including the norms, legal protections, and laws derived from those principles. Some American cities are now “protected” by their own National Guard troops activated by a rogue President to confront alleged—though yet unwitnessed —lawless behavior. And masked ICE agents roam the streets arresting, jailing, and attempting to deport suspected “aliens” who fail to produce papers that might validate their legal migrant or citizenship status. Without the ability to contact family, friends, or a lawyer, these suspected black and brown “aliens” may find themselves delivered to another state’s jail. If not located in time by family or defense lawyers, they may even be airlifted to another country’s prison before those who love them even know they are missed. President Trump has already promised to extend further these roaming ICE agents to Democratic cities in many states, avowedly beginning with those led by black mayors. Is the President skirting the law in support of his bigotry and not-to-obvious racism? 

But the real question is how long it will take before Americans realize the victims of Trump’s reign of terror is not just those deported, but all of us who believe in America’s promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” That promise, if lost, may not ever be restored. 

Does the President believe tariffs are equivalent to a tax paid by consumers?

Answer: No. He is unable to admit that the consumer absorbs the full amount of the tariff paid to the US Government. In effect, the tariff has the same effect as a tax paid by every citizen consumer. By contrast, the citizen who chooses not to pay this consumption tax must forgo purchases of the product. In either case the American citizen suffers from Trump’s ignorance or intentional lie.

Does he believe a worldwide infection like the Spanish Flu and the recent Covid pandemic can be avoided by an early international response, as was once the role of USAID?

Answer: No. Instead, he terminated USAID and fired all its employees. Many children will die for lack of sustenance provided daily by USAID. And a new outbreak of deadly disease is already emerging in Africa.

Does he believe nuclear war can be avoided by international agreements that limit the research and application of nuclear power to peaceful uses?

Answer: No. He has not pursued any such agreement with North Korea or attempted to renew former nuclear agreements with Russia. But he did nullify the nuclear enrichment agreements made by the Obama Administration with Iran. Then he threatened Iran with “all hell” if it does not curtail development of the enriched uranium required for an atomic bomb. His approach shuns diplomacy in pursuit of bombastic rhetoric and threats.

Does he believe in and support the Paris Agreement of 2015 that represents an international effort to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius?

Answer: No. At the beginning of both Presidential terms, he removed America from the Paris international Agreement which had been initiated by former President Obama and renewed by President Biden.

Does he believe in and support research into natural-occurring world-shattering events such as an asteroid impact, or a super volcanic eruption, and funding for Americans suffering from the growing intensity of hurricanes, fires, and major earthquakes?

Answer: No. In fact, he has limited funding for such research, for training fire fighters, and for disaster relief provided by FEMA.

Does he believe in and support a fair income tax that limits tax deductions for the wealthy and provides more deductions for low- and middle-income families?

Answer: No. Instead, he reduced taxes for the top income earners from 35% to 21% during his first term in office. Now he is proposing another cut of this tax from 21% to 15%. Moreover, his personal dealing with the IRS is problematic at best. He has consistently filled personal tax returns that show massive losses, while claiming to be a multimillionaire. Trump reported millions in negative income in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2020, nevertheless he did pay $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. In 2019, Trump and his wife, Melania, reported significant losses of more than $16.4 million and a total income of $5.4 million. Moreover, Trump had numerous foreign bank accounts between 2015 and 2016, in China, the U.K., St. Martin and Ireland, which are all well-known tax havens. How is such personal financial information known? The House Ways and Means Committee and the New York Times are the sources of this information. For example, in 2019, the New York Times obtained partial information from transcripts of Trump’s IRS Form 1040s (the main personal federal tax form) from 1985 to 1994, revealing that during that time Trump claimed he lost $1.17 billion, the most of almost any individual U.S. taxpayer. But, now in his second term as President, he has suddenly become a multibillionaire. He sells bibles, shoes, coins, and guitars while advancing the interest of his Truth Social Company and his crypto coin investments.

Does he acknowledge and support lawful and fair elections?

Answer: No. His support for and instigation of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capital sufficiently confirms this answer. Although he has never ceased claiming the election was rigged, it was only his cohorts that attempted to reduce mail balloting by trashing mail boxes and mail sorting machines, by illegally tampering with a voting machine, by losing 61 court cases after false claims of rigged elections without any evidence, by organizing the submission of fake electors, and by instigating an attack on the capitol to forestall the electoral vote count in favor of an illegal House vote by a Republican majority to elect Donald Trump to the Presidency. Today, by virtue of Project 2025 and his very narrow victory in the vote count,¹ he is already laying the groundwork for a Presidential third term in violation of the 22^nd Amendment. He speaks of “running” for his third term, but it is doubtful that he would or could count on a majority of the vote. His plan might be more nefarious.

These questions reveal what the President does not believe and, therefore, does not support. But what does he believe that motivates him and forms the policy agenda of his Presidency?

Well, he believes gender is determined in the womb. Therefore, transgender children should use school restrooms consistent with their birth gender. He does not consider that these children may face shame and social exclusion.

He believes abortions should be prohibited except when the mother’s life is at risk. Therefore, he appointed three Supreme Court Judges who shared that belief and overturned Roe v. Wade. (These appointees also deftly tried to shun public disdain by delegating abortion rights to the States.²)

He believes, absent any supportive facts, that many who emigrate to America are murderers, rapists, thieves, or violent gang members. Therefore, they should be denied entry at our borders, and, assuming these projections of their character, they will be denied a court hearing and summarily deported to an El Salvador gulag, where they will remain until their deaths. It does not concern him that these migrants are being denied due process in an American court in defiance of our Constitution’s promise “to establish justice, (and) insure domestic Tranquility.” Trump alone is judge, jury, and executioner.

He admires and mimics strong men like Vladimer Putin, Kim Jung Un, or Viktor Orban. In their mold, he intimidates rivals, attacks the press, threatens his Republican legislators, and defies any judicial restraints. Considering the myriad court cases both before, during and between his two Presidencies, his subsequent rise to a second term defies the Constitutional foundations of our government and the legal mandates thence derived. He considers himself above the law and is—in both word and act—a wannabe dictator.

He forms his Administration around sycophants instead of subject experts. Besides supporting his sudden restructuring of world trade policy, his appointees are dismantling the institutional bureaucracy that defines and administers the public services mandated by America’s elected legislature. The former not only upsets the international economic network America once led but diminishes its role for the foreseeable future. And the latter destroys the very promise of Jefferson’s unalienable rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” While bureaucracies, like our institutions of government, provide necessary services, their complexity can defy understanding and thereby appreciation for their public service. But what has been derogatively termed the “deep state” is necessary for the efficient provision of those services. It is the very bureaucratic labyrinth that sustains—and sometimes curbs—the dynasty ‘s power.³

___________________________________________________________________________________________

1 Donald Trump won 49.6% of the votes counted in his recent election, just barely beating his opponent by 1.5% of the vote. (Only 2.3% of voters supported other candidates.)

2 A non-legal/common sense analysis of the Court’s decision is made in “The Supreme Court: A Bulwark of Liberty.”

3 Yuval Noah Harari, “Nexus,” p. 63.

    What if individuals, communities, organizations, or government officials never admitted guilt or acknowledged their faults in actions or intentions? Would—or could—corrective action ever be taken? 

Donald Trump’s Perspective on Government, the Constitution, and his Presidency 

Our President, at this moment, is in the process of shutting down institutions of our government by defunding them and firing or offering severance pay to their personnel. These are institutions created by the duly elected officials of our legislature to benefit the American people and fulfill specific legally mandated services. They exist to serve Americans. Should their enterprises exceed their official directives or anticipated costs, they can be—and should be—audited and redirected to meet their initial expectations and costs. The President has the responsibility to ensure they do so. And Congressionally authorized Inspector Generals are assigned to audit and report on the findings and integrity of their mandated oversite. But no President can lawfully terminate an institution of the American government without cause AND without an act of Congress. Nor should he fire any Inspector General without cause. To do so would be the act of a dictator, not an elected official of a constitutional democracy. But if President Trump did so, would he be held accountable? Well, he has done so, and his Party’s majority in the Legislature has not found him at fault. Instead, it has chosen to ignore his unlawful actions and thereby effectively hold him unaccountable. In whose interest does the Republican majority in Congress act? And how is it possible that President Trump not be considered at fault and held accountable?  

Article II, Section 2 of the American Constitution allows the President to nominate “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate” ambassadors, judges, and other senior officers of the President’s administration. Also, “Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone . . .”  However, Congress has not vested President Trump with the power to appoint an overseer of all government functions with the authority to remove operatives and change congressionally approved and funded programs without congressional approval. By appointing Elon Musk as an overseer of the Federal Government, President Trump has overstepped his constitutional authority, violating the separation of powers and—as a result—his oath of office. If he disagreed with how Congress authorized and funded an institution of government, he could propose changes for Congress to enact or even work with Congress to amend the institution in question. In the past, such amendments have been made by independent commissions set up by Congress with the Administration’s participation. But never has the Presidency assumed the legislative power that the Constitution allocates solely to Congress. How can President Trump not be considered at fault? 

Ironically, the answer to this repeated question can only be an affirmative statement that “he is at fault.” No interpretation of the Constitution could conclude otherwise. But has Trump ever shown any intent to adhere to his Article II oath of office? Even in his recent campaign, he promised retribution for his political “enemies” and the disassembling of what he termed “the deep state.” Whatsoever his followers/supporters might have expected of his candidacy, it apparently was not his conformity to the Presidency as it is defined in our Constitution. From the very start of his candidacy, he presented himself as a power broker who always gets his way in any transaction. There was never any promise to compromise for the common good or to adhere to democratic norms and the separation of powers as defined in our Constitution. He had never portrayed himself in the likeness of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. He did, however, seem to admire President Jackson as the General who won the war of 1812 and took a bullet in a duel that he nevertheless won. He could identify with a President who he considered a fighter—or in his terms, a “winner”—despite who or whatever opposed him. He affected a similar identity when he stated that “only I can” right the ship of state. And he demeaned any who dared to oppose him, often denigrating their names or referring to them as “fat,” “nasty,” or just “horrible people.” He managed the White House as he managed his real estate business, often using a henchman or consigliere to enforce his demands and gain his “wins.” He defined himself as a winner who deduced that any who opposed him must be losers and thereby “terrible” people. But he was, and nevertheless is, completely incapable of finding fault with what he does, whether it be whom he demeans or what he usurps as his sole right. He is, as he constantly reminds us, a “winner” who does and takes whatever he wants. His singular assault on the norms of our American Presidency has reset the thrust of our country’s history away from its grounding in rule by the people and a Constitutionally based law and order. Instead, he is writing his history as a Presidential parody we are all forced to witness. Must we let Trump be Trump, the narcissist who could not and will not ever find fault in himself? 

Is Donald Trump Fit for the Office of President of the United States? 

Why, one may ask, is Donald Trump not “at fault?” Well, it begins with his oath of office. In what way can it be said that President Trump intended “to the best of my (his) Ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Although he took that Constitutional oath of office, has he ever exemplified any awareness of Article II’s prescription for that office? The answer is in every action in which he consistently trashes Article II (note the previous paragraphs). In his own mind, he is guiltless of any wrongdoing. His denunciation of his 2020 campaign loss as the result of a rigged election was demonstrably exposed as a lie by the evidence of many recounts and 60 court cases. He manages the expectations of his supporters by reminding them that he is a “winner” especially gifted with a “great mind” and “common sense.”  But has he ever admitted a mistake? Any man who cannot find fault in himself is uniquely witless or so adverse to a conscience that he must be either pitied or feared or both.  

What Trump lacks is the ability to say, “mea culpa.” He deserves our pity for the darkness he has created for himself. But we dare not fall victim to his hellish condition. Both our democracy and the values expressed in our Constitution demand more of us. If we fail to live those values and demand the same of our representatives, then we—American citizens and voters—are at fault. Though we may have already yielded some moral ground, it is still not too late for the light of repentance. We can collectively say “mea culpa” and repent by the simple act of restoring and supporting our democratic values. But, first, we must resist the lure of a man lost to both reality and a moral consciousness—a man unburdened of a working conscience, as stated above, and of thereby providing the moral leadership required of the office he holds. Nevertheless, we Americans can still follow our American ideals and act decisively and morally. 

He claims his felony convictions were the result of “witch hunts” and the judges, prosecutors, and jurors who convicted him were part of a “deep state” and warrant his retribution. Therefore, he is justified in tearing apart that deep state which he identifies as all the institutions of government, but especially the FBI and the Justice Department that prosecuted his cases. His recent nominees for selected offices were chosen to serve his retribution enterprise and his personal project either to destroy the institutions of our government or bend them to his needs or will. Personnel retribution is his interpretation of his Presidential oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But what that oath succinctly defines is the goals of his office and the preservation of our democracy. His personal self-aggrandizement at the expense of our system of government and his retribution against all who oppose or criticize him are clearly criminal and pathetically adolescent in their self-centeredness. What we citizens/voters expect of our representatives in government is their dedication to our common welfare and their support of the legal system derived from our Constitution—not the foot-stamping petulance of a spoiled child. 

Unfortunately, his are the goals of a dictator, not of a President and protector of a democratic state. If he finds the institutions he governs “criminal” as he claimed in disposing of USAID, then he has the responsibility to investigate and restore it to the purpose assigned it by America’s Legislature. But he provided no evidence of any criminality. Instead, he summarily terminated it without evident cause. If he understood his role to “preserve, protect, and defend,” he would realize his action was against his oath to the Constitution. He broke the law! When he fired Inspector Generals, he hindered Congress’ ability to assure our institutions served their intended purpose and the law. But, instead, he weakened the integrity of our institutions and effectively broke the law! When he authorized his multi-billionaire campaign contributor to access government records of American citizens, he violated his oath of office to secure the Constitutional rights of American citizens, specifically their privacy and personal security—financial and otherwise. Once again, he broke the law! When he volunteered America to remove the residents of Gaza and “develop” their land as an American resort, he was proposing a recognizable international crime as official American foreign policy. His proposal not only violated a universally accepted international law but also denigrated the sacrifice of many American soldiers who have died in its defense both in Europe and the Middle East! 

America’s Future with President Donald Trump 

Is this blog an ad hominem attack on Donald Trump? It would appear so, but not by intent. For Donald Trump is just a fellow human being with gifts and flaws like every one of us. The fact that he is now a two-term President reflects the will of those who voted for him and the Republican Party’s political machinations. His followers believed in him and cast their votes accordingly. But he did not gain a majority of the votes cast (spec. 49.6%) and only 1.5% more than his Democratic rival who only had three and a half months to introduce herself to Americans as a candidate for the Presidency. His overwhelming electoral college win was the result of Republican plotting for decades in State legislatures to suppress the popular vote by means of gerrymandering. His victory, then, reveals not only an almost equally divided country but also a broken electoral system effectively exploited by the Republican Party in State legislatures. Regardless of how Trump was re-elected, what can we expect from his Presidency? 

As intimated above, President Trump has begun his second term by establishing a new imperial presidency. He is redefining our tripartite government, by assuming his authority over the Legislative and Judicial branches of our government. As intimated above, he ignores any legal prescriptions of the Legislature and has recently indicated his unwillingness to adhere to any Court orders restricting his breaches of existing laws. His Vice President, per his interpretation of a recent Supreme Court decision, has mocked the Judicial Branch as unable to curb any official action of the President. As a result, the President’s only restriction may be his personal inability to obtain the results he seeks. But he believes his followers would dutifully support him, regardless of any Supreme Court action. For he thinks he can ignore norms and laws. During his first term, for example, he managed to increase America’s debt by more than any of his predecessors. But his followers were told and believed otherwise. His reduction of the maximum tax paid by wealthy individuals and companies from 35% to 21% was partly responsible for this increase. Since he now plans to reduce this maximum tax further, from 21% to 15%, he is demanding that the House Republicans eliminate the debt ceiling. His attempt to downsize or defund the institutions of government will undoubtedly help fund his tax relief for the wealthiest Americans. In his mind, these are his people. Elon Musk, noted as the richest man in the world, reportedly contributed more than 200 million dollars to Trump’s campaign. And he is also his hatchet man, carelessly hacking away at the institutions of government. And other billionaires have joined his “cause.” Two of them who sat behind him at his inauguration, each contributed a million dollars to his inauguration. But these billionaires do not represent Americans. In fact, their disproportionate share of American wealth is, and has always been, the biggest albatross around the neck of the United States economy. ¹

In addition, he uses tariffs as a cudgel to gain concessions from foreign governments, without any consideration of its cost penalty on American consumers. If he is undeterred, he will likely blame others for any future collapse of the American economy that his actions may create. And his followers may well believe him. Consequently, he acts under a cloak of indestructibility. Perhaps he has foreseen this possibility and feels justified in defunding the institutions established by Congress or firing their personnel. He then would be managing a smaller government payroll but with more financial reserves to manage as he pleases.  He could, as referenced above, fund his proposal to take complete control of Gaza and build a “beautiful resort” by the sea. Afterall, his control of not only all functions of the state, but also of its finances and resources would be total, just like any monarch or dictator in recorded history. With his Republican majority in Congress, he has—and will continue—to rebuff any opposition to his initiatives. And, as his Vice President just announced, he will ignore any judicial court order that may attempt to restrain him.  

Is There a Future without President Donald Trump? 

Given that he had already attempted to stay in power after losing an election, why would he ever allow himself to be term limited after just regaining the Presidency? Is he not now in a much stronger position to assume unlimited and unchecked power?  Well, nobody can predict the future. But President Trump is transforming our government into a nationalist state governed by a single all-powerful leader. He has attempted to punish all who oppose or criticize him and will undoubtedly find ways to critique or destroy the free press. Has he not already taken control of Congress and laid out the groundwork for assuming control of the Supreme Court by way of his appointments? We can only hope that his appointed judges will adhere to the law AND precedent, rather than to his expectation of their indebtedness to him. 

Hopefully, the American judiciary may yet be our bulwark of liberty. Recent court rulings have quelled some of the Administration’s ill-conceived actions. In addition, there will be mid-term elections in 2026. And the twice impeached President appears on the same track toward another impeachment. If the Democratic Party can pull together and lead campaigns based upon our Constitutional values, America could be reborn in the image of those values. But it would still require a two thirds majority of the Senate to impeach President Trump. Will the Republicans finally affirm their loyalty to our Constitution? Or how many impeachments will it take to remove this man from office? 

In the meantime, we must somehow survive Trump’s promise to purge those “who poison the blood of America” much as Hitler in Mein Kampf accused the Jews of “this pestilential adulteration of the blood . . . of our people.” As both men intimated, the road to absolute power can be tread by the hero who eliminates whomever he identifies as a universal threat to the public he wants to govern. Whereas Trump used a largely Hispanic migration at our borders as his justification for winning his electoral victory and the DOGE purge of institutional enablers as his potential coup of our democracy, Hitler used the elimination of Jews as his justification for his rise to power and the burning of the Reichstag as his coup. The German parliament, however, was eventually restored. The only question for us Americans is whether we can restore our democracy after Trump’s unwavering assault.  

Will we remain as a beacon of hope for migrants desperate for a better life, much as America has been from its founding and throughout its history? Can we both welcome families looking for a better life while turning away others not welcome for well-articulated reasons? If we cannot define those reasons, then we are equally unable to define who we are as Americans. In other words, we will never have a rational border policy. Why can we not define who we are as Americans? Nearly every conceivable ethnic group is already represented in our population. If we are not judging admission based on ethnic or cultural grounds, then what are the criteria for admittance? Is it age? Education? Evidence of good citizenship? Family ties to existing Americans? I have been led to believe that there are well thought out criteria, but the problem is both with the numbers of migrants and the availability of migrant court judges. Both those issues are solvable. Have we not had quotas in the past? And can we not create and fund more judges? What is so unsolvable?  

Unfortunately, I can foresee both sides of the forces that will clash to define the soul of America. Perhaps Charles Dickens foretold our situation best in “A Tale of Two Cities,” when he wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . It was the season of light; it was the season of darkness.” Will the light created by our founding fathers in Philadelphia, July 4, 1788, continue to shine amidst the dark shadows of anarchy, chaos, and insurrection inspired by those who seek to destroy the founding principles of our American democracy? ² 

As in past crises, we Americans do have the power to right the course of our democracy. We have the power to vote. As the mid-term elections draw near, we must demand a thorough review of any failures or excesses in government institutions and in the current Trumpian purge of those institutions. The only justification for this “seat of the pants” purge, is the failure of Congressional oversite. For it is not the job of the Executive branch of Government to amend or vacate established law and terminate or curtail the work of government institutions. Our judges must stop the Trump purge of government institutions. For only Congress can pass laws that establish our institutions and monitor/supervise concurrence with those laws. And only Congress can impeach a rogue President who violates the law and misuses the powers of his office. It is well past time for our legislatures to shed political gamesmanship and serve the interests of Americans and Article 1 of our Constitution. 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

1 If I may be excused for referencing one of my blogs, I offer this statement from “American Exceptionalism Revisited”: “In what healthy system does never becoming too big to fail get judged negatively?’ This statement is a quote from a chapter entitled “When is Enough Enough” in Zachary Karabell’s outstanding book “Inside Money.” Karabell was arguing against the relentless pursuit of profit and the imperative of growing a business without consideration of other imperatives, like the fair distribution of wealth to all contributors in an economy—which is more reflective of Adam Smith’s “virtuous cycle.” (If you have the time, you may find the blog referenced here useful in understanding the role of capitalism in our understanding of American exceptionalism.)   

2 A recent article in RNS begins with a straightforward statement, namely, “It is an axiom of life that it is easier to destroy than to build.” It continues with the statement that “these destroyers appear very powerful, but in fact, their destructiveness shows their weakness. They are incapable of creativity.” I recommend this RNS article as an expansion of the thesis I present here.  

The moment lived is history, that is, history in its progress through time. If so, how do we truly “live in the moment” that is irretrievably receding into our past? In truth, we humans are constantly reconstructing our present experience from our past. And that reconstruction determines our future. In other words, each of us exists in a world we partially create from our sensual perception of a world as interpreted through the lens of our past experiences. If this line of reasoning sounds like a circular argument, then you perceive the mystery of human perception at the very moment it is individually experienced. Is it any wonder then, that we can differ so widely between what we perceive as reality or what others may determine as reality?¹ As a result, the preconceived notions of others can hold sway over our lived experience. If confronted with indisputable evidence or scientifically proven facts, we often choose to accept a reality we did not previously identify. Or we might simply accept as reality whatever a trusted person tells us. And therein lies the secret of any dictator’s success over a supplicant society. The dictator might tell us to believe in a reality not proven by either scientific or factual evidence nor personal experience and judgment.  

As a result, Americans at this point in our country’s history are torn between two vastly different perceptions of reality. In the world created by political operatives, the present is too often redefined by preconceptions, that is, a predisposition to displace the reality perceived by an individual’s experience. The individual’s ability to validate and learn from his/her experience is negated by such predispositions. There are many examples of this phenomenon in very recent American history—and a warning as well. 

The first predisposition.  

On January 6, 2021, there was either a peaceful citizen protest against a rigged election or a violent insurrection intended to impede the peaceful transfer of power and the results of a free democratic election. Donald Trump, and his unquestioning followers, claimed that the incident was peaceful and/or justified. But 140 officers were seriously injured and at least one of them died because of this wild melee at our Nation’s capital. The notion of a peaceful assembly is the result of a false narrative deployed to preempt the obvious reality and predispose fellow citizens to accept a lie. Instead of a peaceful demonstration there really was a violent insurrection designed to at least forestall, if not kill, the certification of a national election.  

The second predisposition. 

Hundreds of protestors have since been convicted and sentenced to prison for their participation in this attack on the American capital. And no evidence has ever been presented to justify their claims that the election was rigged. Nevertheless, Donald Trump and his followers have superimposed a false justification for a violent attack on the nation’s capital–reprising the only previous attack by the British in the war of 1812. The British attack is recorded history. And the Trump-inspired attack was seen and recorded in real time—thereby documenting it as an historical event. When Trump sent his followers to the capital with the words “you have to fight like hell, or you will not have a country anymore,” he was not defending our democratic state, but directing its overthrow. His preconceived ambition for America, therefore, was a dictatorship under his sole control, rather than a democracy ruled by its citizens. He was predisposing his followers to demonstrate allegiance to him, rather than to America’s democracy.  

The third predisposition. 

But do his followers realize their support of his fascist ambitions would spell the end of the American democracy? When he states his intent to disband various institutions of government and the very Constitution that defines America’s democracy, should his subjects simply fall in line behind his leadership? How is it that he can claim such power? The answer is quite simple: he cannot, unless we citizens grant him that power. And bequeathing him that power would be a betrayal of the responsibility that every citizen has in a democracy, that is, the power of self-government. Our Constitution not only gives us that power, but it outlines the basis for self-government in values, principles, and laws. ²   Although our world is constantly changing, every American citizen lives within the parameters of the American Constitution and the responsibilities it demands of us. And that demand has perhaps never been more pressing than at this moment in time. For Donald Trump is predisposing Americans to believe our institutions—including a national election and the peaceful turnover of power—are the “enemy within” that represent what he terms the “American carnage.”  

The fourth predisposition. 

In Donald Trump’s bastardization of the capitalist “virtuous cycle,” the rich both control and benefit from a growing economy abetted by their influence over government. But his interpretation of Adam Smith’s logic is perverse and not at all virtuous, for Smith placed the advance of domestic industry not in the hands of the rich and powerful, but in the contributions of every individual led by “an invisible hand.”³ And Jefferson clearly believed it “self-evident . . . that all men (sic) are created equal . . . endowed . . . with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And that pursuit is not just a right guaranteed by the American Constitution but enhanced by Adam Smith’s definition of the virtuous cycle wherein he gives voice to an individual’s pursuit of happiness. Donald Trump, however, believes that not only his wealth but also his narcissistic self-characterization demand he stay in office for the duration of his life. After all, his oft-repeated declaration that “only he can make America great again,” presumes he should never concede his Presidency to impeachment or a plebiscite. 4 

 The fifth predisposition. 

Donald Trump presents himself as a business tycoon and a glorious winner who demolishes his rivals in any competition—whether in the Presidency, in the courts, in business, in golf, or in the wrestling ring. “Make America great again” and “America first” are goals he asserts that only he could attain and realize—assumedly, for the benefit of all citizens. Of course, his wrestling prowess was staged, his golf trophies were rigged at his courses, and in like manner were his other touted successes. After bilking his brothers and sisters out of their inheritance, he squandered his father’s fortune into six bankruptcies. But, in the tabloids, he displayed the lifestyle of a billionaire “playboy.” In truth, his only business success was achieved by his first wife. On his own merits, he ran every one of his enterprises into the ground—including his wife’s achievement—while declaring six bankruptcies. When he refused to pay laborers, he avoided accountability in the courts, by exhausting the resources of his plaintiffs with endless appeals.  As a candidate for the Presidency and as President, his criminal activity did not subside but expanded (reference the footnotes in the previous blog, “The Blessings of Liberty”).  

My fellow Americans, ask yourselves how it is possible to believe Donald Trump:  

• that the January 6 riot at the capital was peaceful and not an insurrection;  

• that we must show allegiance to Donald Trump, the leader and antagonist for that insurrection;  

• that our national institutions, including mandated Federal elections, are the “enemy within”;  

• that Donald Trump is justified in not conceding the Presidency as demanded by the Constitution and a lawfully conducted Federal election (specific reference to Article II and subsequent related Amendments XII, XX, XXII, XXV);  

• and that his continuation in office is in any way beneficial to American citizens?  

In the past 235 years since George Washington became our first President, no American President has attempted to remain in office unless duly elected. Although former President Trump can legally run for a second term, the insurrection he led after losing his bid for a second term should invalidate his credentials as a candidate for reelection. For, clearly, he does not believe in term limits and would attempt to remain in office for the duration of his life. 

For America, this moment in time is as pivotal to our country’s history as Jefferson’s “Declaration of Independence,” the ratification of the American Constitution, Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, and America’s victories in two World Wars. In these moments of American history, the fate of our 248-year-old democracy and of other democracies it has supported was established and/or protected. But now Donald Trump demands to be President, claiming “only he can” make America great again. Even if he loses an election, he will claim the election must have been rigged. His resultant tantrum over losing will witness the violence he promised—what he termed “a bloodbath” –and whatever else political chaos he can muster. He believes he can thereby hold American democracy hostage to his will. And he is predisposing Americans to accept the inevitability of his Presidency-for-life.  

But, in our Constitutional democracy, “we the people” perfect our union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, and provide for a common defense, while relentlessly promoting the general welfare and the blessings of liberty for all Americans. So how do we live in this moment? Well, we either vote for the values of our Constitutional democracy or for their demise in favor of a “fascist of the first order” (as quoted by Mark Milley, the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). 

Just remember that your vote at this moment in time will create a history that you and others must live both now and into the future. Will we secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity?  

If not, then we will elect a twice impeached ex-President who had bilked the electorate into believing he was a great businessman whose qualities mirrored the character he portrayed in a TV series. But that character was simply fictional. The real Trump wasted a billion-dollar inheritance, ran various business ventures into six bankruptcies, and had indulged in sexual abuse, fraud and tax evasion for which he was found guilty after his term in office. Currently, he faces multiple felony indictments for crimes he committed while in office (reference the “generic footnote” in “The Blessings of Liberty”). Does Trump offer a future we Americans should follow? 

We have only this moment in time to create America’s history, set the course for millions of our fellow citizens, and affect the prospects for those Americans not yet born. 5 

_____________________________________ 

1 This paragraph is inspired by Einstein’s theory of relativity that most of us were taught in school but may have struggled to understand.  

2 Reference the previous blog, “The Blessings of Liberty.” 

3 “As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours (sic) to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. . . he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” Adam Smith, in “The Wealth of Nations,” pp. 347-348. 

4 Trump’s refusal to concede his election loss is consistent with the mindset of any dictator. Note the parallelisms here with Putin in “Post Inauguration Thoughts on Power and Government.” 

5 Unfortunately, I have sounded prophetic once before. In December of 2015, shortly after I decided to write a blog, I wrote “The Trump Bump.” The “Donald” had just won his Party’s candidacy for the Presidency. At that time, I could not have known how accurately I was forecasting the demise of the Republican Party. Now I reach an audience nearly 30 times greater than I did in 2015. And I shudder at the prospects that this warning might go unheeded. 

Populo libertatem ut quod velint faciant  (Marcus Tullius Cicero) 

People have liberty when what they will becomes reality. Cicero, as quoted here, was specifically referring to political freedom, which he distinguished from the license (i.e., licentia) or permission to do whatever one pleases. Political freedom implies very specific responsibilities, not laissez faire permissiveness. Our founding fathers did “ordain and establish” the American Constitution wherein they specified our freedom “to form a more perfect Union” as an individual right to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Further, our forefathers defined this liberty in the Ciceronian sense, for they qualified it in the same sentence with the necessity to “establish justice… insure (sic) domestic Tranquility… provide for the common defence (sic)… promote the general Welfare… (and thereby) secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Constitutional liberty then is both specific and universal—both personal and societal. As a result, it must be the shared responsibility of every American citizen. Otherwise, democracy or “rule by the people” would not be viable and Congressional compromise impossible, resulting inevitably in deadlock or worse. Stated bluntly, there might only be chaos.  

Adherence to our Constitution and its stated objectives is the foundation of American citizenship and our legal system. Our government then must reflect and consolidate both our Constitutional values and the people’s will, otherwise any unity of purpose would likely collapse into chaos. And that collapse would spell the end of any democracy. To quote our first President once again, “your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.” ¹ The union that Washington demanded to secure our liberty was—and must still be—the dedication of each and every American to the Constitution and the democratic values it has defined. That union not only secures our liberty but demands compromise of our elected officials. To what other end should our elected officials aspire if not the preservation of our democracy and its blessings of liberty? Without compromise, there is no union. Without our union, neither democracy nor the liberty it provides would or could endure. 

Our founding fathers could not have foreseen the America of succeeding centuries, nor the evolution of our democracy. Certainly, they were aware of the ignominy of slavery but seemed impervious to the implicit misogyny reflected in women’s inability to own a home or to vote. But our democracy has evolved and expanded to grant citizenship to former slaves and to expand the rights of women to own property, to vote, to earn equal pay, and even to run for the highest office in the land. This evolution, however, always comes as a challenge to Americans’ adherence to our Constitutional values. Periodically, we are tasked to reapply—or even redefine—the blessings of liberty. And challenges of this nature often result in legal battles or even physical confrontations between citizens. The Civil War and the women’s suffrage movement, however, were not the only challenges to our democracy, though perhaps the most dramatic confrontations.  

Chaos is always knocking at the door of American democracy for our freedoms are often challenged by unforeseen circumstances, such as foreign wars, natural disasters, or civil unrest. The latter is indicative of a free democratic society where change is often spurred by argument or even by demonstrations. For politics in a free society is nurtured by the struggle of citizens to realize their Constitutional values in changing times. But that struggle can too easily be lost by those who choose to ignore or oppose those values. The irony here is that this opposition can often cloak itself in a false sense of freedom where license is actually intended. Self-interest then dominates over communal benefit. What becomes questionable then may be how we define democracy and whom we deem worthy of its “blessings of liberty.” 

Do immigrants escaping disasters and/or life-threatening poverty deserve the same freedoms guaranteed to American citizens? Should fugitives fleeing oppressive regimes be welcomed into American society? Historically, both immigrants and fugitives have been admitted into America, even welcomed by the words engraved in the Statue of Liberty. ² The key word in this welcome is “free.” Those who seek freedom in America must swear to uphold the Constitutional values that define our freedom as Americans. Citizenship in our democratic republic demands acceptance of and adherence to the Constitution, including the laws and judicial system derived from it.  

America was not born from native inhabitants, but from settlers and migrants from other countries “yearning to breathe free.”² Our founding fathers were students of Europe’s “enlightenment” who sought refuge from competing philosophies, religious wars, and sovereign oppression. While redefining “liberty,” they redefined citizenship and the responsibility of every citizen to support and adhere to the common values expressed in our Constitution. Our freedom has a price that definitively excludes the license to serve oneself at the expense of other’s right to the blessings of liberty. And the American Constitution realizes the promise of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence wherein he recognized our equality at birth and the rights of all Americans to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity.    

Remember when we all used to begin every school day with America’s pledge of allegiance . . . “to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands with liberty and justice for all.” This pledge reiterates the promise of our Constitution, to which every officer of our country must all swear allegiance. Wherein that allegiance do we find ourselves today? And does not that allegiance serve to assure the blessings of liberty for all of us and our posterity?  

But some may not be included in the blessings of liberty. America’s immigration policy, for example, is not fully funded to either refuse ineligible migrant admissions or administer court directed decisions regarding migrants’ requirements for admission to our country AND their requests for citizenship. In addition, the time required to gain citizenship can be years, creating a backlog and family separations for insufferably long periods of time. Does our immigration policy extend the blessings of liberty to today’s immigrants as it once did for many of our ancestors? Or do Americans choose to exclude the blessings of liberty to those not born in America? If this exclusion is what we will then most Americans do not merit the blessings of liberty, for our ancestors entered America as immigrants. Are not most Americans, in fact, descendants of immigrants? And do not the Constitution’s blessings of liberty, therefore, extend to all Americans whether born here or naturalized? 

In like manner, how can voter suppression laws and gerrymandering assure fair elections when they demonstrably invalidate citizens’ voting rights? No democracy can assure the blessings of liberty without fair and untampered elections.  

As a corollary to this liberty principle, no candidate can represent democracy who claims he/she cannot be defeated except by a rigged election. Unless evidence is provided, this mere accusation reveals nothing other than the fear of losing? For example, a child about to play a competitive game could either quit the game for fear of losing or accuse his/her opponent of cheating beforehand. This latter option is dishonest for it reveals the fear—even foreknowledge—of losing. In a democratic election, this accusation is also un-American for it preempts voter consensus (i.e., democracy or “rule by the people”) and the “Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and our Posterity.” Besides being dishonest, it is downright childish, as demonstrated by Donald Trump, a current candidate for the Presidency. 

Yes, America is currently embroiled in a Presidential campaign like no other in its history.  Washington, our first President led us to victory in our war of Independence and validated the peaceful transfer of executive power in our nascent democracy. Lincoln was our sixteenth President. He preserved the principles of unity and freedom inherent to our democracy by his conduct of the Civil War and his Emancipation Proclamation. Roosevelt was our 32nd President. He led us through our worst Depression and a World War.  Donald Trump was our 45th President during the worst pandemic in nearly a hundred years. To his credit, he did endeavor to fund development of the vaccine required to stem the spread of the Covid pandemic. But President Trump never fully rose to the challenge Covid presented to the American people. He never developed an effective plan to deliver the Covid vaccine or address the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people and their rising death toll.³   Certainly, sickness and a rising death toll do not administer the blessings of liberty to the American people. 

As President, Donald Trump ran up the greatest debt of any President in American history by granting massive cuts in taxes for the richest Americans and businesses. The Trump debt will impact future government programs intended to benefit the American people and further the blessings of liberty and our individual pursuit of happiness.  

He did, however, end our costly war in Afghanistan, but only by reaching an agreement with the Taliban that made no mention of power sharing with the existing Afghanistan government. As a result, this agreement freed Americans of a long-term commitment to a Middle Eastern country, but at an unintended cost in lives and the future of a free Afghanistan.4   

Instead of truly noteworthy achievements, Trump’s Presidency offered outlandish episodes of self-aggrandizement where he claimed himself the greatest President “the likes of which have never been seen before.” In truth, Americans never had a President who appointed sycophants to undermine the departments assigned to them (note the previous blog and its references). Nor did Americans expect him to undermine NATO and brag about his relationships with and admiration for dictators like Vladimir Putin or Kim Jung-un. Nor did Americans expect his promise to lower taxes transform into a huge decrease in taxes for the highest earners and richest corporations at the expense of average Americans—and, as a result, the largest increase in the national debt of any preceding Presidential term.   

The current Presidential campaign is like no other for multiple reasons. First, we have the first woman candidate with a record of civil service several times greater than any Presidential candidate in most of our lifetimes.5 And then we have former President Trump, a man who excels at playing the man-in-charge—like his character in the Apprentice. But his showmanship has offered nothing in the form of real achievements. Nevertheless, he is a formidable campaigner, equipped with antidotes that entertain his admirers and with schoolyard insults that belittle or shame an opponent or adversary. He seems unusually defensive around women—meaning he becomes especially obnoxious. For example, he seems to address professional women as adversaries by putting them down as “not my type” or “nasty” if they challenge him with a question. He is especially reactive to black women—perhaps because they trigger both his racism and misogyny. He needs little cause to act like the characteristic schoolyard bully that he so well exemplifies.  

And, finally, there is Project 2025: a blueprint for turning our democracy into a puppet government with just one man holding all the levers of power. And this is the man who seems to believe whatever he imagines as reality. For example, does he not think tariffs are paid by governments that export goods to America? Of course he does. But we pay for the tariffs when we purchase their exports. Does he not think we are freer without public education, the EPA, the CDC, reasonable gun legislation, the Federal Reserve, or the other governmental institutions created by our legislature to serve and protect the American public? Of course he does. Does Donald Trump in any way serve the Constitution he says he would like to replace? Of course he does not! In fact, he only recently discovered Article II and showed no interest in exploring the rest of that document. This man lives solely within his own ego. Why would he concern himself with securing the blessings of liberty for us?

__________________________________________________ 

1 George Washington, “Farewell Address,” 1796. 

2 The poem written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 and inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: 

“Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 

3 Instead, President Trump said “it (Covid) will just go away.” But it did not even begin to diminish until a few months after his term in office, and only after a massive effort was organized by his successor to vaccinate millions of Americans and enhance treatment availability for those already infected. According to CDC estimates the number of Covid-related deaths would be about 1,120,000 (often compared to the Spanish flu epidemic death toll of 675,000 in 1918). Although the infection rate dropped significantly with the advent of the Biden administration and its efforts to deliver the vaccine nation-wide, 470,000 had already died before Biden took office. It would take another two years before the epidemic would be considered only as seasonal a threat as the standard flu. 

4 Trump had committed a withdrawal of all American forces by specified dates. In effect, he had set the stage for the speedy fall of the American supported Afghan government and a hurried withdrawal of all American forces and equipment. In the ensuing chaos, Taliban forces overran Afghan cities, including the capital, and threatened the evacuation of both Americans and Afghans not affiliated with the Taliban. Neither in America’s hasty withdrawal from Vietnam nor in its staged withdrawal from Iraq, has the American military been faced with a greater challenge and within a shorter timeline. Although the Biden Administration managed to extend the timeline for withdrawal, it fell short of evacuating all endangered Afghans before a single explosion killed thirteen American soldiers and hundreds of fleeing Afghans. Neither the Trump nor the Biden Administrations succeeded in planning the end of the Afghan war in concert with an orderly and safe withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

5 Before Kamala Harris became a candidate for the Presidency, she served as a prosecutor, public defender, attorney general, state senator, and Vice President. Her opponent has no public service record before becoming the 45th President of the United States. Instead, he came into office with a history of bankruptcies (6), and indictments for tax evasion and fraud, and accusations of sexual abuse. He had also been convicted in two fraud cases. He was fined 20 million dollars for the Trump University fraud case and ordered to close the Trump foundation which the court found he used as his personal checking account.  

Generic Footnote: 

Currently, he is competing against Ms. Harris to return to the Presidency, even though he has recently been convicted of 34 felonies involving business fraud and held liable for sexual abuse. And he is also under multiple Federal indictments: 

1. for conspiracy to defraud the United States and Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding;
2. for willful retention of National Defense Information (32 counts), for conspiracy to obstruct justice, for withholding a document, for corruptly concealing a document or record, for concealing a document in a Federal Investigation, for a scheme to conceal, for false statements and representations, for altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object, for corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a document record or other object;
3. and for 13 felony counts under Georgia State racketeering laws.

Reference: The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents with Commentary, Introduced, Annotated, and with Supporting Materials by Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissmann. 

In Words, Lies, and Crimes

The law is defined by words understood by means of their contemporary usage, context, and historical evolution. In “The Supreme Court: A Bulwark of Liberty, or Not” (July 4, 2022), I stated that “Justice Alito not only finds Roe v. Wade an egregious error, but the long held legal doctrine of stare decisis no longer relevant.” Precedent, therefore, he can selectively ignore in his judicial opinion. In overturning the Supreme Court precedent of Roe and disregarding Casey, the Justice reclaimed the 19th century condemnation of abortion rather than the 20th and 21st century medical practice that can save lives and future pregnancies. In current usage, “abortion” is defined as a medical practice that empowers women to abort an unwanted—and still unviable fetus—or end an imperiled pregnancy. Most abortions, in fact, are the result of medical decisions involving the unviability of the fetus and the well-being or even survival of the mother. Justice Alito seems unaware of this current context. The definition of the word “abortion,” as a result, can be viewed through different lenses, as either a family planning method and life-saving measure made possible by contemporary science or, in Alito’s view, an infanticidal abomination condemned by long-standing religious beliefs. Our words fail to characterize the magnitude of “abortion’s” historical evolution from a mortal sin into a family planning tool and lifesaving medical practice. Alito ignores this evolution and views abortion of a fetus as the murder of a “potential human being,” rather than “the expulsion of a nonviable fetus,” as currently defined in the dictionary. He made the kind of error that only a textualist could, that is, one rooted in original meaning. A fetus is no more a potential human being than a man’s sperm or a woman’s egg. The building plans and materials required to construct a building are not the finished product we know at 3rd and Main Street. Likewise, Doctors now know when a fetus becomes viable, meaning capable of living outside of the womb as a functioning human being. Alito is just a time-warped revisionist whose words reek with deceit. Harsh? Perhaps so, but he is intelligent enough to know the difference between how abortion was defined in the nineteenth century versus the twenty-first.  

Some so-called “conservatives” on the Supreme Court prefer textualism to define the legal meaning of the words that define our laws and their Constitutional derivatives. I agree with them to the extent that root meanings and initial usage allow us to understand the basis from which the meaning of contemporary words evolve, and laws are derived. But word derivative evolution also reflects society’s evolution—which explains why 20th and 21st century jurisprudence had superseded laws chastising women and their doctors over the abortions of problematic pregnancies. The progress of our science can now define “viability,” that is, when a fetus has become a human and able to live as such outside of the womb. Roe v. Wade affirmed this progress whereby women’s fertility and pregnancies were preserved and made safer. Premature childbirths were facilitated, and many women’s lives were saved. But, since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, women’s prenatal care must now exclude the abortion of an unviable fetus. And the incidences of pregnant women’s deaths have since increased. The word “abortion” no longer refers to a safe 20th and 21st century medical practice to save a woman’s life or prevent an unsecured—even precarious—future of an unwanted and still unviable fetus being taken to term. In Justice Alito’s opinion, the fetus is “a potential human being,” wherein he effectively misconstrues “potential” as “real.” Therefore, he concludes that abortion is not feticide but infanticide. And this misuse of language equates “abortion” with murder. But its real purpose is to preserve the life of a pregnant woman or secure her plans for family and motherhood. Is an unviable fetus more important than the life of the mother or her ability to care for a newborn? In the words of Benjamin Cardozo, “(t)he difference from age to age is not so much in the recognition of the need that law shall conform itself to an end. It is rather in the nature of the end to which there has been need to conform.”¹ So, is abortion prolife or murder? Therein lurks a word deceit that becomes a lie—that can falsely morph into a crime, a phenomenon that now pervades America’s public discourse and politics, including our Supreme Court. 

There are further examples of this phenomenon. For example, an election, properly conducted, reviewed, and validated is termed “rigged,” which is a preposterous lie. “Stop the steal,” “only I can,” “lock her up,” and “make America great again,” are phrases that hide purposeful deceits, that is, persuasive lies. Some politicians, like Trump’s sycophants, employ this ruse to gain campaign funds and win governing power. If successful, their lies can and will serve their own interests rather than the general welfare. But liars cannot be trusted, for their deceit hides self-serving motives. Given the powers of office, any politician can be induced to serve his/her interests rather than those of his/her constituents. Unfortunately, any liar can be more easily induced to cover up his/her malfeasance . . . even to the extent of committing a crime. Confronted with the woman he abused, for example, Donald Trump claimed “I never met that woman” —a lie that would be a felony if spoken under oath. Unfortunately for Trump, a picture of them together had readily evidenced his lie. In like manner, pro-life advocacy claims to save lives while maternal deaths rise across the country. There is no evidence, however, that an unviable fetus can survive a live birth. To believe otherwise is a lie. And Roe never forced women to have an abortion, whereas Dobbs denies women the choice—based upon a religious belief. But not all religions agree with this belief—which is their right as guaranteed in our Constitution. How does Alito’s opinion survive a First Amendment argument that he violates its guarantee of “freedom of religion”? Are the words and lies enumerated here not equivalent to crimes that debase our politics and diminish the freedoms we Americans expect and demand of our democracy?  

At the Federal level, America has several politicians currently indicted for crimes. Two from the Democratic Party are now awaiting trial, as is Donald Trump, the former Republican President who still awaits more trials after recent convictions. He has been accused of 36 felony counts in two Federal indictments involving the handling of top-secret documents and inciting an insurrection to overturn a legal election. He also faces similar election interference charges in the State of Georgia. While awaiting trial for these alleged crimes, he has since been convicted on 34 felony counts because he “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.”²  In addition, he has been held liable for sexual abuse, as referenced above, and for extensive fraud in the conduct of his New York business. These latter convictions carry financial penalties of over half a trillion dollars. In a few days, this former President will once again be nominated to be the Republican candidate for President. How is it possible that Americans would consider voting for a convicted felon who has been held liable for sexual abuse and outlandish business and tax fraud? Even before his rise to the Presidency, he was found liable for fraud in his management of Trump University and the Trump Foundation—which was run as Trump’s “personal checking account,” according to the Court’s judgement. These liable judgements were just the tip of more than 3,000 legal cases the Trump organization had previously entertained. But Trump was elected based upon his unique “charisma” despite his habit of skirting the law. 

Donald Trump once claimed he used “the best words” and had a “great brain.” Recently, before a crowd of his supporters, he explained how he would solve the conundrum of dying by electrocution or by a shark bite. His solution, he argued, would impress “MIT,” that is, he would satisfy the shark with his leg. Then he added, “I want your vote. I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.” These non-sequiturs are just words pouring from his stream of consciousness. They are not relevant to the moment and lack any reference either to his campaign or reality. The words he more carefully uses—such as “revenge,” “fake news,” “deep state,” “Trump haters,” and so on—amplify his warped worldview and provide false justification for all the grievances he suffers, allegedly, for the sake of others. He uses words that paint him as a martyr, which some of his followers now liken to be “Christ-like.” But Trump’s “best words” are not intended to reflect reality. Rather, their purpose is to either entertain or rile up passion for his cause. Often, they do both while condemning, ridiculing, or demeaning his alleged “haters.” They are all lies, except for the fact that he does want your vote and more. Specifically, he says he wants a “bloodbath” if he loses the next election. Moreover, he wants his sycophants to rig the next election, as they tried to do so in his last campaign. He has already committed his “followers” to this end by appointing them to key positions within the Republican Party. He now has a small army to rig his election and effect the intent of all his lies. Should he win, he promises to take no prisoners. His words, then, run the gamut from a stream of consciousness rabble to lies, hateful provocations, and then to more crimes.   

This American deceit is a culmination of misused words, lies, and crimes committed against the electorate in service of political power. In a democracy, “people rule,” but not necessarily in their best interest if ill-informed, told lies, and are victimized by crooks. When Donald Trump became President in 2017, he appointed his White House contingent with the sole purpose of deconstructing American Institutions. In “Competency and the American Presidency” (2/9/2017), I listed his cabinet appointments and summarized their contempt for the institutions they were appointed to manage (to save time, you might start reading from the third paragraph). While Trump was promising to make America great, he was planning its demise. What partially saved America was the utter incompetency of these appointments. Some of them even ran afoul of the law. He also had “advisors” who shared his views and served his interest. Twelve of his Presidential staff were later convicted of crimes while in office. On his last days in office, he pardoned many of these sycophants. But now they are ready to return to the task of subverting American institutions to serve a wannabe dictator. After Trump’s failed coup in 2020, he is now better prepared to reinstate his fellow criminals and take a second attempt at deconstructing America’s Constitutional system of government.  

For Trump and his stooges, “democracy” is just a facade that will hide their rule over a government that serves their craven interests instead of the general welfare of the American people. As President he will sell his great lie that America can progress under his deconstruction of its institutions of government. But, instead, he will introduce into American politics an unprecedented era of criminality and self-enrichment. How is it possible that so many Americans seem ready to bury our democracy under the foot of this craven dictator? 

I may not be a psychologist, but I have encountered two recent studies that may explain how many of us are willing to follow this madman, like the wild buffaloes crafty Indians would herd over a cliff. The first study refers to the “halo effect,”³  namely, “if we like a certain quality in a person, we’re more likely to perceive their unrelated traits positively as well.” Thereby Trump’s clownish behavior, as referenced above, is found entertaining. (In fact, I witnessed people nodding their heads in approval of his unfinished tale about sharks and electrocution.) And his grievances against the “deep state” may well mirror those of his audience. For instance, the border crisis has bedeviled decades of Administrations; and economic instability has routinely destabilized markets and individual family budgets since the founding of America (reference American Exceptionalism Revisited, 9/27/2021). The second study, “affinity bias,”³  depicts how we are attracted to people with similar background or characteristics. Most of us are not college graduates and even fewer of us were educated in the liberal arts. Although Trump is a college graduate, his speech patterns and topics are often undisciplined and/or mundane. His historical references– “the likes of which have never been seen before” –are often vague and unsupported. Although we have had Presidents who were scholars, like Woodrow Wilson or Barack Obama, we all identify with Presidents whose personal traits and character we can admire like FDR and Reagan.  

My fellow Americans, we cannot afford to be deceived by a liar who wants our confirmation that he should not only be our President, but above the law, as well. His record in office is replete with misleading aphorisms, lies, statutory crimes, and political appointees to the Supreme Court. As a fellow senior, I recognize the limitations of both candidates for the Presidency. But only one of these men speaks the language of a patriot and has the wisdom and experience to lead this country. Recently, a consortium of Presidential historians rated the contributions of all our Presidents since America’s founding. Donald Trump was rated dead last, behind Harding, and those who died prematurely in office. Until the Federal Reserve reduces interest rates, inflation will continue to haunt the many achievements of our current President. Nevertheless, the same Presidential historians rate Joe Biden the 14th best President in American history. Our country needs his experience and wisdom at the helm during these challenging times. 

Postscript: His previous running mate was rated the 10th best. 

_________________________________________________________________________________ 

1 Stephen Breyer, “Reading the Constitution, Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism,” p. 109. 

2 The Supreme Court of the State of New York County of New York, “The People of the State of New York against Donald Trump, Defendant,” as quoted in “The Trump Indictments,” p. 320. 

3 “Learning Favoritism: The way we’re built to learn may divide us,” Scientific American,” June 20, 2024. p.15.