Hello Darkness, My New Friend

 

5 bullets from an assassin’s AR-15,                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

One Cut Trump above the ear

Hello Darkness, My New Friend

It’s a Constitutional Crisis, Don’t Pretend

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

It was a hot July day in Butler, Pennsylvania, at a Trump rally, where an assassin lay in wait on a nearby rooftop. He squeezed the trigger five times, killing one member of the audience, seriously injuring two other spectators and grazing the campaigning Donald Trump just above his right ear. Government snipers killed the assassin, but Donald Trump rose and defiantly held his clenched fist in the air. Some believe that his survival was a sign from God that he was kept alive to rule America with complete authority. Others believe it was the moment when Trump began to think of himself as Christ-like savior sent by God that no man could stop. He began to believe what he had previously only mouthed: that he was the anointed one who could set the rules, hold the power of life or death over any individual he chose and that there was no force on earth that had the power to stop or contain him. Was it in that moment that the Constitutional crisis we face today was born… that initiation of a direction that would inevitably challenge the power of the United States Supreme Court itself?

Andrew Jackson had tested defying the Court in 1832 as the Cherokee Nation challenged Jackson’s right, unilaterally, to force march that tribe and other Native Americans in what became known as the “Trail of Tears,” from their homes in the eastern part of the United States to the Western plains. In a case involving the Cherokee Indian tribe, Worcester vs Georgia (1832), Supreme Court Chief Justice Marshall infuriated Jackson by insisting that Georgia laws that purported to seize Cherokee lands on which gold had been found violated federal treaties. Jackson is famous for having responded: "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." The sole act of presidential defiance against the Court, until today. The nation was still young then, and the supremacy of state laws vs federal laws was still a hot debate. Besides, the issue was never framed as a constitutional interpretation. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Native Americans died on that march.

Today’s challenges from the Trump administration present a sequentially increasing level of defiance to constitutionally based judicial rulings that addressed thorny issues about whether 18th and early 19th century statutes, passed to grant the president powers, in times of invasion or existential emergency, to suspend due process and remove perceived enemies outside the United States, even to foreign concentration camps, for permanent incarceration. Sensing this impending challenge, lower courts tiptoed around language that was abruptly clear, mandating that the Trump administration take immediate steps to undo detention and/or incarceration of otherwise non-criminal visa holders (mostly student visas) imposed because the Trump administration not like what they said or believed… even for those who merely embraced Palestinian rights without endorsing any US-terrorist group.

Secretary of State, Marco Rubio wrote on Fox News that "The US Supreme Court has made clear for decades that visa holders or other aliens cannot use the First Amendment to shield otherwise impermissible actions taken to support designated foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hizballah, or the Houthis, or violate other US laws. They will continue to face consequences - including visa denial, revocation, or deportation." But individuals detained did not endorse groups labeled as terrorists by the Department of State; they simply and peacefully advocated for the protection of Palestinian rights. There was talk that Trump could apply the same deportation rules to offending US citizens.

But the real defiance by the Trump administration, following a unanimous Supreme Court ruling directing the Trump administration to facilitate the return of admittedly wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia into a Salvadoran concentration camp prison, came on April 14th. The President, El Salvador’s leader, visiting the White House, and members of Trump’s top team including Pam Bondi, Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio insisted there were no plans to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. You’d think that there would be a strong backlash against such defiance… but MAGA ranks not only closed to support that defiance, but the MAGA ranks, as is often the case of a rising strongman, have only expanded.

According to polling by NBC News, reported by Ben Kamisar on April 14th, “As President Donald Trump nears the 100-day mark of his second term, recent polling from NBC News shows how he has consolidated the Republican Party not just around himself, but also around his broader ‘Make America Great Again’ movement… Thirty-six percent of registered voters identified themselves as MAGA supporters in the March NBC News poll. It’s a significant increase from past NBC polling — up from 23% of respondents in a merged sample of all of NBC’s polling across 2023 and 27% of respondents in a merged sample of NBC’s 2024 polling.

“The overall share is powered by the 71% of Republicans who now call themselves MAGA supporters… NBC News’ polling already showed signs of a shift afoot between the beginning of the 2024 presidential primary and the final weeks before Election Day, as the GOP consolidated around Trump. In January 2024, days after Trump won nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, just 20% of registered voters said they aligned with the MAGA movement. But in NBC News’ combined polling in October and early November 2024, that number had ticked up to 29%.

“A shift among Republicans moving more into Trump’s camp is primarily driving this movement, with a 16-point increase in GOPers identifying with the MAGA movement between the two polls right before the 2024 election (55%) and March this year (71%). There’s also been a similar shift among college-educated men, from 21% in 2024 to 37% in March — also a 16 point increase… It’s the kind of pro-Trump consolidation that led to him matching his best-ever approval rating (47%) in NBC News' March poll, though a majority of registered voters, 51%, still disapproved of his job performance.” Apparently, retribution is a good plank to run on!

Trump’s out-of-control rage at two former Trump administration officials, who refused to embrace the President’s insistence that the 2020 election was stolen, should, according to his executive order, be investigated by the DOJ and perhaps even prosecuted for treason. But make no mistake, with the 2026 election looming, Trump is already taking steps to ensure that voters likely leaning Dem be culled from voter rolls by any reason possible. With MAGA getting stronger, and Trump seeming to revel in defying even a unanimous decision by the US Supreme Court, could April 2025 be the month when the United States officially ended democracy?

I’m Peter Dekom, and it seems sadly clear that a severely anti-democracy MAGA movement is growing again… and that our Constitution may be, as former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia once said, “dead, dead, dead.”