Distress
On Wednesday, President Trump was acquitted by the Senate of the charges for which he has been impeached, after a trial with no witnesses, with a defense team led by someone who may have been in on the scheme.
Republicans argue that the President did nothing wrong; that if he did do what he is accused of, those acts are not impeachable; that even if those acts are impeachable, impeachment is too divisive. That second argument—that the acts were not impeachable—is so out there that, instead an actual constitutional scholar, Republicans wheeled out a law professor with a particularly sketchy history.
Now the President has seen that he is beyond accountability, that the Senate will not step in to curb his excesses. What might he do now, knowing that he can get away with this? Knowing that he can continue a blanket rejection of oversight?
He will feel emboldened. He will continue to attack American ideals, institutions, and traditions. His autocratic impulses will be on full display. This escalation has already begun.
During the trial: the ban
During his trial, Trump expanded his travel ban to cover six more countries, including Nigeria, the most populous African nation. These restrictions cover immigrants, not tourists. This means that (for four of the six new countries), a US citizen could not sponsor their foreign-born spouse for immigration to the US, but a hypothetical terrorist could still gain entry via a tourist visa.
Even for those two countries singled out as “doing better” by the administration’s claimed standard (Tanzania and Sudan), Diversity Visa applications are no longer accepted. Given how unreliable obtaining a Diversity Visa is (it’s called “the visa lottery” for a reason), and that other immigrant visas are permitted, it strains credulity to assert that this is a security measure.
With its focus on Africa, it’s hard not to recall the reported comments of Trump slurring Haiti and African countries as “shithole countries”. It also another example in his long history of animosity towards the Diversity Visa program:
“And you pick people out of the lottery,” Trump said Thursday night, gesturing as if he were picking names out of a hat. “Well let’s see, this one is a murderer, this one robbed four banks, this one I better not say, this one another murderer, ladies and gentlemen, another murderer.”
According to government officials, the Nigerian government had no warning that it had been considered for inclusion in the travel ban, and had not been given a reason for such an inclusion.
This has real human costs. Without warning, your life can be destroyed by seemingly random decree:
The newlyweds had already been apart for half their yearlong marriage. Miriam Nwegbe was in Nigeria. Her husband was in Baltimore, and until she could join him, everything was on hold: finding a home together, trying for their first baby, becoming an American family.
Then, on Friday, their lives were thrown into disarray by the expansion of President Trump’s ban on immigration to include six new countries, including four in Africa. Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, was one of them.
“America has killed me,” Ms. Nwegbe’s husband, Ikenna, an optometrist, texted her when he heard. “We are finished.”
It’s easy, if the travel ban does not affect you directly, to see it as something merely affecting countries. But its negative consequences fall on individuals—many of whom are US citizens—and these people are at the mercy of sudden, and seemingly random, changes in policy.
Demonizing immigrants is nothing new to this administration, but in its continued arbitrariness, the expanded ban reeks of authoritarianism.
Miklos Harastzi, a Hungarian, wrote this of his country as a warning to the US in December 2016:
Populists govern by swapping issues, as opposed to resolving them. Purposeful randomness, constant ambush, relentless slaloming and red herrings dropped all around are the new normal. Their favorite means of communication is provoking conflict. They do not mind being hated. Their two basic postures of "defending" and "triumphing" are impossible to perform without picking enemies.
Who might those enemies be? It appears that Trump has been composing a list.
Tuesday: the State of the Union
In his State of the Union Speech, he carried out the theatre many authoritarian leaders are known for.
It began with bombast and pomposity. He boasted about false achievement, noting successes that are not even superficially true. He casted himself as some savior of America, who wrested the nation from decline into greatness—a rather messianic, self-inflating, and inaccurate framing. He said that America is “highly respected again”, and that the “days of [it] being used, taken advantage of, and even scorned by other nations are long behind us.” He speaks as if the world views him favorably, which it overwhelmingly does not, even from the start of his first term. He has overseen a decline in America’s global standing beyond any I can remember.
He continued with more claims of success: some true, some questionable, some blatantly false. In a bizarre moment, he claimed that “freedom unifies the soul”, which rings more of some fascistic catchphrase than any true understanding of freedom.
But there was also the handouts.
An opportunity scholarship announced for fourth-grader Janiyah Davis. Rush Limbaugh awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Pledging justice for Rocky Jones, killed by a criminal who happened to be undocumented, to his brother Jody. Surprising a military wife, Amy Williams, with the return of their serving husband from Afghanistan.
Putin does this too. On his Direct Line annual show, Russian citizens call in and ask him questions. Often, they will complain about real problems that need fixing. Putin may then react in an outraged fashion, “angry” at local officials for allowing such problems, leaping to solve the problem for the grateful caller.
This is clearly staged. How much easier is it for Putin to arrange for one road to be repaired, or one person’s home heating to be fixed, than it is to fix the problems that Putin’s kleptocracy has created? But Putin casts himself as a solution to the country’s ills, rather than being an ill himself.
So too Trump. Reuniting a military family is hardly a bad thing, but in its arbitrariness, and the arbitrariness of his other handouts, Trump can portray himself as the benevolent leader, without the hard work of fixing the problems at scale, which is his actual responsibility. This massaging of his image also helps cover his flaws.
Wednesday: acquittal and response
On the day of the vote, Mitt Romney stood and explained why he was voting to convict the President of abuse of power.
I have to admit, I was pretty pumped watching Romney speak. You don’t have to forgive him his private equity days to appreciate some moral character. That it is so rare these days in our public servants, especially on the Republican side of Congress, makes it remarkable.
Trump responded in a characteristically petty fashion, posting a bizarre video that called Romney a “Democrat Secret Asset”, gloating at his failed 2012 presidential race, and boasting about Trump’s own win in 2016.
The video is clearly batshit crazy, but it’s important to consider it as an example of how far the window of what is “acceptable” has shifted. The President of the United States is spreading a baseless conspiracy theory that the last presidential nominee from his party was a plant from a rival party. He almost certainly doesn’t believe this, of course—it is likely a continuation of his long-standing shitposting habit—but this makes it only marginally better.
Thursday: prayer breakfast and beyond
Trump continued his petty displays during Thursday’s prayer breakfast, waving a copy of USA Today with the headline “ACQUITTED”, and attacked his enemies. He included the vague threat “So many people have been hurt, and we can’t let that go on. And I’ll be discussing that a little bit later, at the White House”.
When asked what he would say, his communication director Stephanie Grisham had this to say:
Pelosi responded:
At the White House, Trump again mocked Romney, called those who pursued impeachment “evil” and the leadership of the FBI “scum”, spent a large amount of time graphically retelling the shooting of Steve Scalise, called his primary challengers “non-persons”, called Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi “horrible [people]”, mocked Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand, and tried to contrast It was an unscripted and unhinged rant, naming enemies and boasting about “strength”.
It was not as focused on vengeance as Grisham had previewed, which was a small mercy, but the undercurrent of cruelty remained.
What vision of America has this as acceptable behavior by its leader?
Unequal
The administration and its allies are wasting little time in pursuing these enemies, and the institutions of power are falling into line. Treasury has rapidly handed over IRS documents related to Hunter Biden to Republican lawmakers, without a subpoena, after refusing to honor a House subpoena for Trump’s returns. That subpoena has still not been honored, 9 months after being issued.
This selective behavior of the institution is unjust, and yet another hallmark of authoritarianism, to go along with the selective investigations of political rivals. This includes not just Biden but also Alexandra Chalupa, still scapegoated for telling Americans about Paul Manafort’s dodgy dealings in Ukraine.
The cage
To think that because we are white, or Christian, or American-born; rich, or poor, or somewhere in-between; or any other descriptor; we are safe, is a dangerous madness. We are all unsafe, subject to the whims of those with power in such systems. Where one of us is subject to injustice, and that injustice is accepted, we accept too our own chains, and we are all bound.
The America described by such people is one that hides behind walls, apparently afraid of engaging with the outside world. That sees itself as strong because it is finally standing up for itself. And against who? Refugees, the free world in Europe and elsewhere, immigrants (even those of us who come here through the official processes), and military allies. Instead, it stands with dictators, charlatans, racists, and straight-up Nazis.
This is not the America I believe in. An America in retreat, full of fear and hatred. It is an America that has some way always been with us, through slavery and segregation, through the Chinese Exclusion Act, through Japanese-American internment camps, through the German American Bund, and ironically the America First Committee.
A Dr. Seuss cartoon from 1941
An America that embraces the ideas that led such things is not worth a damn. It is for cowards and tyrants, for petty men with small ideas and smaller hearts, for those that love power more than integrity.
On Tuesday morning, my wife and I spoke with an immigration attorney to help further protect our rights. Although the Irish are not likely to be targeted by any ban, and we are comfortable enough financially to pass any likely changes in “public charge” laws, can anyone tell me honestly that we are not right to fear for our life here?
And even if our material life was safe—if we could relax on our couch, watch TV, read our books, have cookouts with our neighbors—if we did all this, and did nothing against the encroachment of authoritarianism on America, then we would already be dead.
Wajahat Ali had this to say:
I believe in America. As I wrote earlier:
So what do I believe about America?
I believe that the founders of this country based it on ideals that burn bright, that these ideals exceeded their ability to comprehend, and that America is at its best when it advances towards a fuller realization of those ideals.
And I believe that a country incorporated (albeit unintentionally) around the realization of human rights, rather than a particular ethnic group, is worth a damn, and worth defending.
I leave the closing to a verse from a poem of Langston Hughes’:
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!