Trump, who 4 years ago pushed an exasperated mob on Capitol Hill to maintain power by violence, now announces that he will hold the Biden administration accountable for its attempts to disrupt the democratic process. The obscenity of this gesture is meant to make those disloyal to the leader realize the scale of their defeat: they have lost not only the election, but the fight for any objectivity and truth.
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
"Blood will be shed," wrote Daniel Rodriguez on January 5, 2021 in a group chat on the PATRIOTS 45 MAGA Gang Telegram. A few hours later, he and his colleagues headed for the Capitol.
The camera next to the uniform of police officer Michael Fanone recorded the course of events. The attackers dragged Fanone down the stairs, sprayed gas in his face and beat him with metal pipes, threatening to kill him with his own gun; Fanone begged for mercy, saying he had children. Rodriguez repeatedly hit the policeman with a stun gun until he lost consciousness. "I stabbed the blue man with a taser!" (Tased the fuck out of the blue)," Rodriguez wrote in the chat room.
Michael Fanone suffered a heart attack and concussion; his injuries prevented him from fully returning to duty. The officer testified against his abusers, causing him and his family to begin receiving threats.
Rodriguez was sentenced to twelve and a half years in prison. Now, thanks to Trump's pardon, he has been released. On the day of Trump's swearing-in, Fanone filed for judicial protection from the men who attacked him on Capitol Hill. The freed criminals have vowed revenge on their victims. Sentenced to 41 months' imprisonment, the notorious QAnon Shaman communicated joyfully: "I have been pardoned! Thank you, President Trump. Now I'm going to buy some fucking guns! I love this country!"
The complete and unconditional pardon for all those convicted of crimes related to the storming of the Capitol sent a clear message to Trump supporters. Political journalist Chris Hayes aptly commented:
"[Trump] could have said he was ordering the attorney general to review all 1,500 cases and separate the most violent criminals from the rest. Instead, he pardoned everyone as he went. He pardoned the guy who almost killed a police officer with a stun gun, he pardoned all those convicted of conspiring against the United States. One of them, Stewart Rhodes, appeared on stage at his rally. This is not an oversight or laziness, it's a clear message that violence in Trump's name is welcome and will be rewarded."
The aforementioned Rhodes, founder of the paramilitary militia Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for plotting against the United States. He was pardoned by Trump, stood right behind him at a rally in Las Vegas.
In his first week in office, Trump signed more than 50 executive orders. Much of it is a spectacle for the govt - some of the decrees are unconstitutional, some simply absurd, like the beautifully simple order to reduce prices and the cost of living for Americans. Instead, some of it provides a glimpse of how grotesque and dangerous at the same time the next years of Trump's reign could be.
An executive order entitled Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government at the outset accuses the Biden administration of persecuting political opponents. Democrats have "unprecedentedly, in the style of Third World countries, used the prosecution to undermine the democratic process." Trump intends to hold Democrats accountable for this persecution by exposing the allegedly biased decisions of their predecessors and implementing "appropriate corrective actions." What are those actions? It's unclear.
What strikes most is the attribution to the Democrats of the sins of Trump himself. Trump, who, in front of everyone's eyes, attempted to illegally seize power after losing the 2020 election, who so far persistently and deceitfully maintains that this election was stolen from him, who, after unsuccessfully trying to pressure officials, unleashed an enraged mob on Capitol Hill to violently disrupt the democratic process, now announces that he will hold the Biden administration accountable for its attempts to disrupt the democratic process.
The obscenity of this gesture is intended to make it clear to those disloyal to the leader the scale of their defeat - they have lost not only the election, but the fight for any objectivity and truth. Facts are meaningless, and what people saw with their own eyes never happened. The exact opposite happened, and this version of reality was approved a week ago with Trump's signature. "Conservatism has one basis: there must be internal groups that the law protects but does not apply to them, and external groups that the law applies to but does not protect," this quote from Frank Wilhoit not coincidentally resounded repeatedly last week.
There was a lot of enthusiasm among Trumpists for the ordinances on the biggest hit of the campaign - the promise of mass deportations of immigrants who came to the US illegally. They began immediately - the arrest of five hundred people was announced and planes were shown ready to take immigrants out of the country. The thing is, flights deporting immigrants happen all the time, and the five hundred arrested is roughly the daily average of last year during Biden's term. The only novelty is the use of military aircraft for this procedure.
This is another of Trump's typical ploys, i.e., crediting long-established solutions to give the impression that his revolutionary leadership is producing spectacular results from day one.
This does not mean, however, that truly mass deportations will not occur. Even in his first week in office, Trump expressed dissatisfaction that the deportation campaign was going too slowly - and imposed quotas . The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in charge of it is now required to arrest between 1,200 and 1,500 people a day. It is unclear what scale Trump ultimately wants to achieve. If he doesn't get tired of the idea, he will have to wait for Congress to allocate funds for such a large-scale operation to catch, detain and deport millions of people.
Meanwhile, Trump has signed another blatantly unconstitutional executive order directing officials to stop issuing citizenship papers to children born to immigrant women. It has already been blocked by federal Judge John Coughenour (who was still appointed by Reagan, as is often pointed out in this context). "I've been on the bench for more than four decades, and I can't remember a case that was as clear-cut," said Coughenour.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution makes it clear: anyone born in the United States becomes a citizen subject to the country's jurisdiction. This was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1898 in the case of United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, where the court ruled that the amendment also applies to the children of migrants who do not themselves qualify for naturalization. Thus, Trump is arbitrarily ordering federal officials to ignore the law as determined by the Supreme Court.
"In your opinion, is this regulation constitutional?" - asked Judge Coughenour to Brett Shumate, the Justice Department lawyer sent on Trump's behalf.
"Absolutely yes," - Shumate replied.
"We sometimes look back at certain moments in history and ask, where were the judges then, where were the lawyers? Frankly, I find it difficult to understand how a member of the bar can unequivocally say that this is a constitutional regulation," Coughenour declared. "It just doesn't fit in my head."
American lawyers take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Shumate also had to take it, and he knew full well that the regulation was incompatible with the Basic Law. He also knew that it would be blocked by a federal judge. So why the nativity scene? First of all, for spectacle. Trump wants to flex his muscles in front of the cameras and give the impression that he is rapidly and effectively fulfilling his election promises. And in the process show how easy it is for him to break the backs of his subordinate officials and what kind of loyalty he expects from them.
Second, some of the regulations are so blatantly unconstitutional that they will not hold up in court. Such a judicial blockade could be used by Trump in two ways, especially if the most absurd ordinances come before a Supreme Court staffed with Trump appointees. If the court acts in accordance with the sense of decency of most Americans, Trump can use this either as evidence of the court's impartiality or as evidence of the uselessness of the corrupt judiciary and thus the need to dismantle it. Either way, Trump will come out on top.
try , with which Trump will inevitably be blocked by the courts will lend credence to their supposed impartiality - especially if the regulation goes before the court most likely as well, and then use this decision as evidence of his impartiality.
Officials have the right to refuse to carry out an illegal order, and judges can block it. Staffing every possible level of government with his own people is therefore crucial for Trump, and has been planned in advance - after all, it was through Republicans who were "disloyal" to him (including his own vice president) who refused to rig the election results in his favor that he failed to illegally seize power in 2020.
The disloyalty of state officials is to be remedied by another regulation, colloquially known as Schedule F. As a rule, it is not easy to dismiss a federal employee - the reasons for doing so must be really serious, and the employee can appeal the decision. The regulations also provide protection for whistleblowers. Both of these fuses are intended to ensure job stability in government agencies and limit political pressure from the presidential administration.
Schedule F removes these protections from tens of thousands of such officials, meaning they will be able to be fired and replaced by employees loyal to Trump. At this point, the scale of the threat is unknown: it is not known how many people Trump plans to fire, or how effectively he will circumvent the legal roadblocks set up by Biden to prevent such a purge.
It is also unclear to what extent Trump will succeed in using and abusing the tools of his executive orders. Most of them will probably be challenged, but some may go before the (Trump-friendly and largely appointed by him) Supreme Court.
What is important, however, is the sheer theatrical, showy momentum of the sheer avalanche of presidential executive orders. Using the "shock and awe" method, Trump is ushering in a new order, if only at the expense of breaking the law and denying reality. Whatever the courts ultimately decide, this new order has already settled in the minds of the people - Trump's supporters and enemies.
If associations with tyranny come to anyone's mind, consolation is offered by the person concerned himself: "I will be a dictator, but only on the first day," Trump promised with a filthy smile during the campaign. Can that smile lie?
